‘The Bull’
(symbol of the Pictish Royal family)

The Bull insignia is our sign of quality, stamped on many of our handcrafted products, including bags, tankards and belts.

Why The Bull?

Protected on one side from the river Forth and on the other from the river Tay, Fife has always been important in Scottish politics and a strategic royal stronghold,

In Dunfermline we have the magnificent Abbey adorned with King Robert Bruce’s name and seeped in the history of Malcolm and Margaret Canmore’s reign. Moving along and up the coast we see the story of trade and defence in the fortifications at Ravenscraig castle.

If from Kirkcaldy we head out the Standing Stanes road towards Leven then we’re heading into the mysterious Kingdom of the Picts, sadly not a single standing stone remains to line Standing Stanes road, the canny Fifers must have used them to build their homes but their artwork can be seen at Wemyss caves and on numerous standing stones throughout Scotland.

A shortage of written history and material remains leaves plenty room in the imagination for folklore and supposition. I like to think of the picts as a matriarchal society of wise women and cure wives living at one with nature and choosing their husbands from the cream of the other tribal peoples in these Islands, in my historical supposition they were never conquered but gradually took on the beliefs of the Celts (many a standing stone has a Celtic cross on one side and ancient Pictish symbols on the other) and amalgamated with the other tribes to create the Scots we have become. Who knows but I like to think a wee bit of the Pict still exists in my leather craft today.

Margaret J Dick