Did you know that you can listen to many of your favourite podcasts first on BBC Sounds?

Like Desert Island Discs, where you can hear castaways like Cher, Gareth Southgate and Nick Cave,

and enjoy longer versions of the music they've picked. Good things come to those who don't wait.

Listen to your favourite podcasts first on BBC Sounds.

This Scotland Outdoors podcast from BBC Radio Scotland.

Hello and thanks very much for choosing to listen to this podcast. I'm Helen Needham.

2020 is the year of stories here in Scotland, so the perfect excuse to immerse ourselves in the ancient tales of our past,

which still have powerful resonances to this day. Duncan Williamson was a Scottish traveller who was born on the shores of Lochfine in

1998. He spent his life travelling around Scotland, working on the land, telling stories and singing

ballads which he had learnt from his father and others in the community. His stories were recorded

by various folklorists in the 1970s, including

Linda Williamson, who later became his wife, which resulted in them reaching a wider audience.

He died in 2007, but a new collection of his work, edited by Linda, has just been published, Silver Unicorns and Golden

Birds, Scottish Traveller Tales for Children. The artist John Slavin has interpreted some of these

stories and turned them into paintings which are currently hanging in the Land of the Ravens

exhibition at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh,

alongside a new animation by John McGeach.

I went there to meet John Slavin and Linda just before the opening night

and found myself completely transported into a wild and wonderful world of the imagination, very much rooted in the natural world.

Well, Duncan, I had a skill set that you don't often find in the modern push-button world.

He lived and built his own accommodation in nature,

and he knew the seasons, he knew the animals,

...