The stories behind the models

Every piece we print has a wee story. Some are real Scottish folklore, some are real Scottish wildlife, and some we made up entirely. Pick a creature below, or scroll and read the lot.

Wee Creatures

Highland Coo Calf

Can't see a thing. Doesn't mind.

Highland calves are born into the worst weather Scotland has, and they do not care. The double coat, long outer and soft under, keeps them warm through blizzards that would finish other breeds, and the fringe, called the dossan, keeps the rain and the flies out of their eyes.

This calf has sat down in the heather, which is where Highland cattle do most of their thinking. The fringe covers her eyes completely. She is aware of you only as a shape and a smell, and has decided you are probably fine.

She is the centre of the whole Wee Creatures range, and a cousin of every other coo in it.

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Wee Wild Haggis

Haggis scoticus, lesser-spotted.

The wild haggis is a small, round, furry creature native to the Scottish Highlands, where it lives on steep hillsides. Its legs are longer on one side than the other, so it can only run round the hill in one direction, and the two sub-species, clockwise and anticlockwise, cannot interbreed because they can never face each other.

This is all nonsense told to tourists, and every Scot will tell it with a perfectly straight face.

This haggis is the standard Highland variety: a ball of shaggy fur with tiny horns, enormous happy eyes, and a tartan bonnet it acquired from a passing hiker. Nobody has ever found out what it eats. Nobody has asked.

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Axolotl in a Scarf

A long way from Mexico, waving anyway.

Axolotls come from one lake in Mexico and nowhere else, so how one ended up in the Wee Creatures range wearing a tartan scarf is a fair question. The answer, as far as anyone can tell, is that it arrived in Dundee as a classroom pet, decided the climate suited it, and was adopted by the local creatures as an honorary Scot.

The scarf was a gift from the Wee Wild Haggis, who felt sorry for anything that cold-blooded in a Scottish November. The axolotl has never taken it off.

She waves at everyone. Axolotls look permanently delighted anyway, and this one has the scarf to be delighted about.

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Baby Scottish Unicorn

Scotland's national animal, newly hatched.

It surprises people that Scotland's national animal is the unicorn, but it has been on the royal arms since the 1300s, usually in chains, because a free unicorn was thought too dangerous to leave loose. The Scots chose it as the only beast proud enough to face the English lion.

This one is a foal. Her horn is a short spiral nub, her mane is curly, and she already wears the small gold collar that marks her as royal, though she has not yet grown into the attitude. She is sitting with her tail round her feet, looking out at a world that has no idea she exists.

Nobody has put a chain on her. Nobody is going to.

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Frog in a Tam o’ Shanter

Sitting cross-legged, pleased with the hat.

The tam o' shanter is the flat Scottish bonnet with a pom-pom on top, named after the hero of Robert Burns's poem who rode home drunk from Ayr and outran a coven of witches with the loss of only his horse's tail.

This frog has one. Nobody knows where he got it. He is sitting cross-legged on a lily pad with the bonnet pulled down over his eyes and the broadest smile a frog can manage, which is very broad indeed.

He is the Wee Creature most often described by customers as 'looking exactly like my uncle', and he takes that as a compliment.

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Piper Mouse

Small piper. Big noise.

In the walls of every old Highland inn there lives, according to the staff, a mouse who learned the pipes from listening to the ceilidhs through the skirting board. He has a kilt made from a scrap of the landlady's tartan and a sporran that is almost certainly a thimble.

This is him. He is in full flow on a set of pipes about the size of his own body, cheeks puffed, eyes closed, playing what he believes to be 'Scotland the Brave' and what everyone else believes to be a kettle in distress.

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Grey Seal Pup

Born on the beach in a white coat.

Grey seal pups are born on Scottish beaches in late autumn with a thick white coat that cannot swim, so for three weeks they lie on the sand while their mothers feed them and the North Sea storms rattle past. By the time the white coat moults they have tripled in weight and are ready for the water.

This pup is from the colony at the Isle of May, where thousands are born every November. He is lying on his belly, flippers tucked in, big dark eyes watching the tide for his mother's return.

The Wee Creatures version keeps him exactly at that age: plump, patient and not yet aware that the sea is going to be his whole life.

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Wee Otter

Floating along with his supper.

Shetland has more otters per mile of coast than anywhere in Europe, and they are out in daylight there, fishing the kelp beds and sunning themselves on the voes. Otters float on their backs to eat, holding the catch on their chest like a dinner tray.

This one has found a seashell he likes better than his dinner. He has been floating with it for some time now, turning it over, smiling at it. His mother is somewhere behind him doing the actual fishing.

He floats on a small wave-shaped base, which is the only Wee Creature base that isn't a plain disc, because an otter on dry land is not really an otter at all.

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Celtic Snail

Slow and steady wins the knotwork.

Nobody is quite sure how a garden snail ended up with a Celtic knot on its shell. One theory is that it spent a very long time crawling over the Pictish stones at Aberlemno and the pattern rubbed off. Another is that it was always there and the Picts copied the snail.

Whatever the truth, this snail is the only one in Scotland with a triple spiral on its back, and it is extremely proud of it. It moves at the usual snail speed, smiles the usual snail smile, and holds its short eye stalks up as if posing for a photo.

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Mountain Hare

White in winter, brown in summer, fast all year.

The mountain hare is Scotland's only native hare and the only British mammal that turns white for winter. Up on the Cairngorm plateau they sit out blizzards in a scraped hollow in the snow, ears folded flat, invisible until they move.

This one is in full winter coat, sitting upright with her ears laid back, which is what a hare does when it has decided you are not worth running from yet. Her coat is fluffed out against the wind, and she is watching you with one dark eye.

She is a good deal rounder than a real mountain hare, which is the Wee Creatures way, but the stillness is accurate.

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Pine Marten

Chocolate coat, cream bib, berry in paw.

Pine martens were hunted almost out of Scotland by Victorian gamekeepers and have come back slowly through the pine forests of the north and west. They are the size of a cat, chocolate brown with a creamy yellow bib, and they are the only predator that eats grey squirrels fast enough to help the reds.

This one is in a Perthshire wood with a rowan berry, which pine martens are unexpectedly fond of in autumn. She is sitting up, tail fluffed out behind her, looking at the berry with great seriousness.

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Pocket Dragon

Small enough to carry, warm enough to matter.

Highland dragons are born the size of a hen's egg and spend their first year asleep, which is why so few people have ever seen one. The crofters who did find them tucked the hatchlings into a coat pocket, where the warmth kept the wee beast dozing and the wee beast, in turn, kept the pocket warm.

A pocket dragon will not breathe fire for years yet. What it does instead is hum very softly in its sleep, a sound like a kettle far away, and anyone carrying one finds their worries ease a little without knowing why.

This one has curled its tail right round, tucked its wings in and gone fully to sleep. It is meant for a desk, a windowsill or a pocket, and it is happiest wherever someone needs a bit of quiet company.

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Red Squirrel

Guardian of the pine cone.

The red squirrel is Scotland's native squirrel, and the Highlands are the last place in Britain where it still outnumbers the grey. In the Caledonian pine forests of Abernethy and Rothiemurchus they are everywhere, chattering from the Scots pines with their ear tufts standing up like a Victorian gentleman's whiskers.

This one has a pine cone bigger than her head and is holding it in both paws, tail curled up her back for balance. She has not yet worked out how she is going to carry it anywhere.

She is red all over except the cream chest, and she looks at you with the particular suspicion of an animal that has had food stolen before.

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Scottish Wildcat Kitten

The Highland tiger, pint-sized.

There are fewer than a few hundred true Scottish wildcats left in the pine forests of the Cairngorms, and they are the only wild cat Britain has. The Highlanders called them 'the Highland tiger' for the broad striped face and the thick, blunt, ringed tail that never tapers.

This kitten is from a litter born in a hollow log near Loch Garten. She has not yet learned to hiss at humans, which real wildcats do from the day they open their eyes, and sits instead with her tail wrapped round her paws, deciding whether you are worth the bother.

She is the first of the Wee Creatures and the one that set the rules for the rest: big head, small body, round base, and a face you want to pick up.

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Shetland Pony Foal

Small, shaggy, and stronger than you'd think.

Shetland ponies are the smallest of the British native breeds and, pound for pound, the strongest horse in the world. They were bred to haul peat and seaweed across islands with no trees and a lot of wind, and the thick mane and fringe are not decoration; they are weatherproofing.

This foal is a few weeks old and already shaggier than most adult horses. She stands square on short legs, fringe over her eyes, looking as if she has been asked to do something and is deciding whether to.

Shetlanders will tell you the ponies are cleverer than the people. The ponies do not disagree.

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Lamps & Nightlights

Highland Coo Nightlight

The calf who kept the dark away.

On the high crofts above Glen Clova, the winter nights come in at four o'clock and don't leave until breakfast. The crofters there tell of a Highland calf born on the longest night of the year, with a fringe so thick she could never see the dark that frightened the other beasts, and so she was never afraid of it.

Where she lay down in the byre, the other animals gathered close, and the old folk swore the straw around her glowed faintly, like peat embers under ash. Children who couldn't sleep were carried out to sit beside her until their eyes grew heavy.

The thistle arch over her head is the crofters' sign for a safe place to rest. Today she sits by the bedside, doing the same job she always did: a warm light, a calm presence, and no fear of the dark at all.

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Nessie Nightlight

A lantern for the loch after dark.

Fishermen on Loch Ness say the monster has never once been photographed properly because she only surfaces when the light is kind: at dusk, in mist, or when a lamp is lit on the shore. She is not hiding. She is simply shy of bright things.

The story goes that a girl from Drumnadrochit left a lantern on the jetty every night for a whole winter so her father could find his way home from the far shore. On the last night of the winter, Nessie rose beside the lantern, looked at it for a long moment, and gently nudged it back from the edge where it had been about to fall in.

This nightlight is that lantern and that moment: Nessie rising from the waves, the lamp held safe, and a soft glow for anyone who needs to find their way back to sleep.

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Celtic Wedding Lantern

Two hearts, one endless knot.

In the old Celtic tradition a knot with no beginning and no end stood for a promise that could not be broken. The interlocking hearts on this lantern are drawn in that style: each heart passes through the other and neither can be lifted away without the whole pattern coming undone.

The lantern itself follows a Highland wedding custom. On the night of the handfasting a single candle was lit in a pierced lantern and carried from the bride's house to the couple's new door, so the first light in their home was one they had walked towards together.

The name band on the front is left plain so each couple's names can be set into it, and the knotwork casts its pattern across the walls when the tea-light is lit. It is made to be the first light in a new home, and the one brought out every anniversary after.

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Dundee Skyline Lamp

The city of discovery, lit from within.

Dundee has always looked outward. Its whalers sailed for the Arctic, its jute went to every corner of the world, and the RRS Discovery was built on its slipways to carry Scott to Antarctica. The Law hill watches over all of it, with the war memorial on top lit every year on Armistice Day.

This lamp catches the waterfront as it stands today: the Law and its memorial, the three masts of Discovery, the stacked angles of the V&A on the river's edge, and the long sweep of the Tay Bridge heading for Fife.

Light it in the evening and the skyline stands out against the glow the way the real city does from the Fife shore on a clear night, when the whole waterfront reflects in the Tay. Made in Dundee, about Dundee.

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Edinburgh Skyline Lamp

The Old Town at lamp-lighting time.

Edinburgh was built on a volcano, and it has never quite forgotten. The castle sits on the plug of the old crater, the Royal Mile runs down its tail, and Arthur's Seat rises across the valley like a sleeping lion.

The city's lamplighters once walked that skyline every dusk, lighting the gas lamps from the Castle Esplanade down to Holyrood. This lamp follows the same route left to right: the castle on its rock, the Gothic needle of the Scott Monument, the Balmoral clock (famously kept three minutes fast so no one misses a train), the Old Town tenements, and the hill at the end.

Lit from behind, the silhouette is the view from Princes Street Gardens on a winter evening, when the castle floodlights come on and the whole ridge looks like a ship on a dark sea.

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Glasgow Skyline Lamp

Dear green place, bright at night.

Glasgow's name comes from the old Cumbric for 'dear green place', and the city has spent the last century turning its old shipbuilding riverside back into exactly that. The Finnieston Crane, which once lifted locomotives onto ships bound for India, now stands as a monument beside concert halls and museums.

This lamp runs along the Clyde: the red sandstone towers of Kelvingrove, the great cantilever crane, the silver shell of the Armadillo, and the curve of the Squiggly Bridge over the water. The Clyde itself runs along the base in teal.

Glaswegians will tell you theirs is the friendliest city in the world, and that the best view of it is from the south bank at night when the river doubles every light. That is the view this lamp is built to give.

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Stocking Fillers

Highland Coo Keyring

Face of the Highlands, on your keys.

The Highland cow is the most photographed animal in Scotland by a comfortable margin. Coaches stop for them. Hikers detour for them. Grown adults have been known to make a noise when one looks up through its fringe.

This keyring is that moment: a chibi coo face, fringe over the eyes, cream horns, pink nose, looking straight at you. The ring sits on top of the head so the face hangs the right way up.

It was the first thing MacLean's ever designed for the gift range, and it is still the one that gets the noise.

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Nessie Keyring

Never lose your keys in the loch again.

Every family on Loch Ness has a Nessie story. Most of them involve a grandparent, a boat, and something seen just before the camera ran out of film.

The keyring Nessie is the friendly version of the legend, the one on the postcards rather than the one in the grainy photographs. She is swimming along happily, humps and tail breaking the surface, and the ring is fixed to her tail so she tows your keys behind her wherever you go.

She was made so that anyone who has stood on the shore at Urquhart Castle and squinted at a suspicious ripple can take a bit of the loch home in their pocket.

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Scottie Dog Keyring

The wee black dog with the big opinions.

The Scottish terrier was bred in the Highlands to go down a badger hole and come back out again, which explains the short legs, the stubborn jaw, and the firm belief that it is the largest animal in any room.

This Scottie is in profile, square-bodied and proud, with the eyebrows and beard that give the breed its permanent air of disapproval, and a tartan scarf because it is a Scottish dog and standards must be kept.

The ring sits on his back. He will guard your keys with the same dedication his ancestors gave to the badger hole: completely, and with no sense of proportion.

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Thistle Fridge Magnet

The flower that saved a kingdom.

The legend has it that a Norse raiding party crept towards a sleeping Scots camp one night, barefoot for silence, and one of them stepped on a thistle. His cry woke the camp, the raid was beaten off, and the prickly flower became the emblem of Scotland and the motto 'Nemo me impune lacessit': no one provokes me with impunity.

Nobody can say which battle it was, or whether it happened at all, but the thistle has been on Scottish coins, coats of arms and rugby shirts ever since.

This one is sculpted in bold relief, purple head and spiky green leaves, with a flat back for a magnet. It holds the shopping list to the fridge with the same stubbornness its ancestor showed the Vikings.

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Celtic Worry Stone

Rub the knot, loosen the worry.

Worry stones go back to the ancient Greeks and the Highland shepherds alike: a smooth palm stone with a thumb hollow, carried in the pocket and rubbed when the mind would not settle. The Highlanders chose theirs from the burns and lochs where the water had done the polishing.

The triquetra around the hollow is the three-cornered knot found on Pictish stones across Scotland, a single line looping back on itself with no end. In the old understanding it stood for things that come in threes and hold each other up: land, sea and sky; past, present and future.

Hold this one in your palm, rest your thumb in the hollow, and trace the knot. It was made to be used, not displayed.

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Highland Coo Pencil Topper

Homework supervisor, with fringe.

No Highland cow has ever been in a hurry. They stand in the rain, chew slowly, and look at the world through a fringe that has not been trimmed since the Bronze Age.

This one has found a job on the end of a pencil, where she takes the same approach to schoolwork: unhurried, unbothered, and vaguely encouraging. The collar underneath pushes onto a standard pencil, and the fringe, horns and big pink nose are chunky enough to survive a school bag.

Teachers report that spelling tests go slightly better with a coo on the pencil. This has not been scientifically verified.

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Puffin Mini Figure

The clown of the sea, standing on his rock.

Puffins come ashore to Scotland for only a few months a year, nesting on the cliffs of the Isle of May, St Kilda and Fair Isle, and the rest of the time they are far out on the open Atlantic where nobody sees them. Fishermen called them 'sea parrots' and 'clowns of the sea' for the bright beak and the solemn way they stand about.

This one has planted his orange feet on a rock and is looking at you as if you owe him a sand eel. Puffins can carry a dozen fish crosswise in that beak at once, and they mate for life, returning to the same burrow every spring.

He is sized to sit in a palm or on a windowsill, a small reminder that summer always comes back to the cliffs.

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