Myths and legends at Highland Wildlife Park

As October’s chill settles over the Cairngorms, Highland Wildlife Park takes on an air of mystery. Shadows lengthen, dusk creeps in early and the skeletal outlines of trees cast a haunting backdrop - the perfect stage for tales of wild creatures, ancient legends and dark nights. While our mission is rooted in conservation, many of the animals who call the park home are steeped in stories that blur the line between natural history and folklore, sending a shiver down the spine.

From red deer, Scottish wildcats and bison tied to Scotland’s own landscape, to snow leopards, Amur tigers and polar bears from distant lands, the park brings together an extraordinary collection of species. Yet it’s the myths and legends woven around them that give an added sense of wonder in the autumn dusk.

Take the Scottish wildcat. Elusive in the wild, it has long prowled the imagination as well as the forests, inspiring stories of ghostly felines that stalk in twilight. Nicknamed the ‘Highland tiger’, it shares its folklore with the cat-sìth, a spectral black cat said to haunt the Highlands. Legend says that the cat-sìth could steal souls before burial, prowling like a shadow through moonlit nights. Some say it was a fairy in feline form, while others claimed it was a witch transformed into a cat for the ninth, and final, time.

Wolves, too, once roamed Scotland in great numbers, their howls echoing through the glens until they were hunted to extinction in the 18th century. In Highland lore, they carried a dual reputation, feared as hunters yet revered as guardians of the wild. A wolf’s cry was said to foretell death or misfortune, but it could also stand for resilience, cunning and the untamed spirit of the land. Today, our pack at Highland Wildlife Park brings those legends to life once more, reminding visitors not only of the wolf’s ecological role but of the myths and fears it stirred for generations.

Even goats, less fearsome than wolves, find a place in folklore. In Scotland they were often linked with witches, either kept as familiars or even taken as a witch’s chosen form. Their wild horns and unpredictable nature lent them an air of the uncanny. And when Norse mythology swept across these lands with the Vikings, the goat gained even greater symbolic weight, Thor’s thunderous chariot was drawn by two mighty goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr, who could be eaten and yet return to life the next day. Watching our markhor and other goat species perched on rocky slopes, it’s not hard to see why these animals were thought of as guardians of mountain secrets, straddling the line between wilderness and ancient myth.

In Scotland, wildness and mystery have always walked hand in hand. This Halloween, Highland Wildlife Park offers a rare chance to explore both. Stroll through Wolf Wood and listen for the howl of the pack, picture the spectral cat-sìth slipping through the shadows and gaze up at goats silhouetted against the crags like creatures from another world. There’s even more to learn about Scottish myths and legends inside the Gateway building, or you can come along to the Conservation Film Festival and hear stories that are very real - the challenges facing wildlife worldwide and the solutions that are already making a difference.

Every species carries echoes of a tale, living reminders that truth, myth and nature are forever entwined.

Jess Wise

Discovery and Learning Programme Manager