First a wudd, and syne a sea: postglacial coastal change of Scotland recalled in ancient stories

Abstract

The question of whether culturally-grounded stories (myths and legends) have any value in understanding past environmental changes is uncertain. Focused on stories that plausibly recall movements of the land-sea interface in Scotland in postglacial times, this paper summarises details of 11 stories that refer to submergence and 7 stories that refer to emergence. Most submergence stories are confined to the Outer Hebrides and include those recalling when it was possible to walk between places that are now islands. Emergence stories come from around the Scottish coast and include some from the Inner Hebrides. The agreement in direction of movement (submergence or emergence) with models of postglacial landscape change is almost perfect. By comparing submergence/emergence magnitudes to histories of relative sea-level change from glacial-isostatic adjustment models, it is possible to estimate ages for all the submergence stories to at least 2107­-8695 years BP and all the emergence stories to 674-7120 years BP. Land-uplift rates calculated from emergence stories agree with those from palaeo-shoreline analysis. As is becoming increasingly clear for other places to which ancient culturally-grounded stories about environmental change refer, these Scottish stories likely represent residues of millennia-old observations of coastal change. This study should encourage further investigations of ancient Scottish narratives.