Dunnichen
Dunnichen is a small village in Angus, a few miles east of Forfar, set among the rolling low hills and mosses of the old Pictish heartland. The name itself reaches back to the early medieval period — Dùn Nechtain, “Nechtan’s Fort.”
On 20 May 685 the land around Dunnichen became the stage for one of the most decisive battles in the history of northern Britain. King Ecgfrith of Northumbria led an army north in an attempt to reassert dominance over the Picts. He was met by the forces of King Bridei mac Beli. The Northumbrians were drawn into difficult ground, trapped, and destroyed. Ecgfrith himself was killed, along with the greater part of his army.
The victory ended Northumbrian ambitions north of the Forth for generations. Many historians regard the Battle of Dunnichen (also known as Dun Nechtain or Nechtansmere) as a turning point that helped secure the independence of the peoples who would eventually form the kingdom of Scotland. The exact site of the fighting is still debated — some scholars have argued for a more northerly location — but the traditional association with the ground near the present village of Dunnichen remains strong. A commemorative cairn stands in the area, and the surrounding landscape still carries the quiet weight of that day.
In the Nechtan Cameron Chronicles this same ground holds a deeper and more personal significance. It is the birthplace of Nechtan himself, born here in 1056. The land that once decided the fate of kingdoms later became the place where a far older seal was struck between the Druids and the sithichean — a binding meant to help keep the veil intact. That seal was tested and reinforced in the events of Cage of the Pawn. In Return of the Arch-Druid, Cam and Callum return to Dunnichen once more, walking the same hills where the long war first touched Nechtan’s life and where the balance between worlds has been defended across centuries.
To most people today Dunnichen is a quiet Angus village. To those who know the older stories, it remains a place where the land itself remembers both the clash of armies and the quieter, more dangerous workings that have shaped the fate of the circle.
Ayr
Ayr sits on the west coast of Scotland where the River Ayr meets the sea, a long-established town of stone streets, harbour walls, and open sky. King William the Lion made it a royal burgh in the early thirteenth century, laying out a market town that grew into an important port. For centuries ships came and went from its harbour, and the town held the practical, busy life of trade, law, and everyday survival.
Ayr’s greatest claim on the wider imagination comes through Robert Burns. The poet was born a short distance south in Alloway in 1759. The thatched cottage of his birth, the Auld Kirk, the Brig o’ Doon, and the surrounding countryside are woven through his work — most famously in the wild ride of Tam o’ Shanter. Burns gave the town a voice that still echoes, full of humour, sharp observation, and a deep affection for ordinary life.
In the Nechtan Cameron Chronicles, Ayr is not a place of ancient seals or final battles. It is something quieter and, in its own way, just as necessary. In the days before Christmas the circle comes here for a short stop-over on the way back to Edinburgh — a handful of ordinary days of shopping, walking by the sea, sharing meals, and letting the weight of the work ease for a little while. Even Brandubh, ancient and usually spare with his ease, found himself drawn into the simple pleasure of the company. For Cam and the others it was a brief breathing space: lights in the windows, the smell of the sea, the chance to be a found family without the constant press of the Hollowing.
Caoimhe, already looking ahead to Hogmanay in Edinburgh, carried the quiet hope that the pause in Ayr might last just a little longer. It did not, of course. The work waited. But the memory of those few days by the water remained — proof that even in a long war there can still be room for ordinary joy.