I've always enjoyed listening to stories. I was brought up on the classic tales collected in Germany by the Grimm Brothers during the first half of the 19th century - Rapunzel, Hansel & Gretel, Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin: a strange world full of witches and talking animals, high towers, locked doors and deep, dark woods.

Later on, living in the Scottish Highlands, I became aware that there were people close by still telling old stories, not from books, but as they had heard them around the fire when they were children. They were the Travelling People, folk like Alec John Williamson and Essie Stewart, who had spent their early years journeying around Ross-shire and Sutherland with horse-drawn carts (not caravans), living in bow tents, horse-dealing, pearl-fishing, tin-smithing and bringing news and services to the remote crofting communities.

In 1996, Mairi MacArthur and I organised The Secret Highlands, a day in Alness celebrating some of the more obscure aspects of Highland popular and folk culture, including the lives and traditions of the Travellers. This developed into an annual storytelling festival, Tales at Martinmas, and eventually became The Merry Dancers Storytelling Project. Over the last five years The Merry Dancers has encouraged Highland storytelling by promoting gatherings, house ceilidhs, storywalks and the Martinmas festival, organised projects which have brought together storytelling with other art forms - including felting, sound recording, songwriting, drama and prize-winning animation - and, in May 2005, brought together for the first time all the major Scottish Traveller entertainers in Alness for an attendance-busting day: Sheila Stewart, Elizabeth Stewart, Stanley Robertson, Essie Stewart, Alec Williamson, and Jess Smith (Duncan Williamson was poorly at the time). The project ended in December 2007, with the unveiling of a series of wall-hangings in Fortrose library. The hangings are based on tales and legends collected in the early 19th century by Hugh Miller of Cromarty. They were made by children from the Black Isle schools in Easter Ross, working with me as storyteller, and with artist Jane Bregazzi.

The directness and earthiness of the Scottish Travellers have been a great inspiration for my own storytelling. Music and song are an integral part of my performances, and the tales are interwoven with many of the instruments described on the Roots and Flutes page. Scotland is very supportive of storytellers, and we have our own Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh, so there are plenty of opportunities for diverse kinds of work in schools, libraries, festivals and community events. I've been able, among other things, to do woodland and seashore walks for Scottish Natural Heritage and for Highland Healthways; gigs at the Edinburgh Book Festival, and the Edinburgh International, Aberdeen, Orkney, Banchory and Skye Storytelling Festivals; a stint in an Iron Age hut in Abriachan; and storytelling for Historic Scotland in Elgin Cathedral and Urquhart Castle, at the Bonawe iron works in Argyll, and at Corrimony Bronze Age cairns.

Particular highlights over the last few years have included the launch of my canis lupus show, The Last Wolf, in Bleddfa (the Place of the Wolf) on the Welsh Borders (see the website www.lastwolf.net), an invitation to the Borgarnes Festival in Iceland in 2004 and, the following year, the award of a Scottish Arts Council Storytelling Bursary to study Norse traditions and their locations in the Highlands. One culmination of this project was an interpretation of the old Viking story How the Sea became Salt in St Magnus' Cathedral, Kirkwall, with children from Papdale Primary School.

In 2006 I began to work on an oral history/storytelling project with Timespan Museum in Helmsdale to produce soundtracks for animations based on local stories, and during a busy summer worked on Historic Scotland sites and for Kilmartin House museum in Kilmartin Glen, as well as visiting the islands of Muck and Luing. I did two school projects in South Uist, and was invited to be Storyteller in Residence in Huntly during the George MacDonald celebrations. This culminated in the chapbook publication in 2007 of Secret Doorways, Strange Worlds, a guided storywalk around the town. Apart from lots of work in schools and communities as part of the Highland Year of Culture, 2007 also threw up a particularly fascinating project to devise a Riddling Storywalk for the Highland Folk Museum in Kingussie. In the same year I visited Shetland for the first time to tell stories, and began a rolling community project with Artsplay Highland, A Tale Gathering. In November a CD of stories and music, Between Two Worlds was released by the Forestry Commission to coincide with a spectacular night-time walk through Glenmore in the Cairngorms.

During 2008 I've been working on an NHS-funded project to record the lives of people with Parkinson's Disease. And I'll be touring the Orkney Islands in the Autumn with a story and music show, along with storyteller Tom Muir and harper Bill Taylor, to celebrate the 850th anniversary of the death of St Ronald, Earl of Orkney. The show will be based upon the pilgrimage/crusade to the Holy Land which Ronald undertook in the late 12th century - a real Boy's Own adventure! We're also taking it to the International Storytelling Festival in Edinburgh at the end of October.

I'm eligible for subsidy as a storyteller from the Scottish Book Trust Live Literature scheme.

Below is a story I like a lot. The splendid illustration is by Kate Mellor.