About Us

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About Mystical Isle Gems

Hello and welcome to Mystical Isle Gems. We are a small company based on the

Isle of Skye in Scotland. A year ago, while staying on my friends’ farm on Skye I

was shown wood that came from their peatbogs. The farm owner then told me

that there once was an ancient forest that used to cover Scotland during the

bronze age, and that the piece of wood I was holding  was around 3-5

thousand years old. As a lover of history, this blew my mind, this piece of

preserved wood was a part of Scotland’s past. It was history that I could hold

and touch, not just words written in a book. My mind was swirled with 

thoughts as I touched the bark of that scotch pine that once stood thousands of years ago.

 I closed my eyes, and I could picture it tall and majestic.

 The tree soaking up rain from a passing cloud, while the wind

swirled around it making the making the branches sway and dance. I could

almost hear the wind as it rustled through the green needles, lifting the

wonderous smell of pine onto the breeze that was whipping around me. As I

opened my eyes and looked at the piece of wood in my hand it made me

wonder, what did this tree witness in its lifetime. Might a wondering Scotsman or

woman have a sat down under its watchful eye of the land, and what was that

person’s life like in the bronze age. Had they touched this very tree that I was

touching right now. 

That amazing experience stayed with me throughout my trip. All I could think of

is that I wanted others to be able to feel what I felt, when holding a piece of

Scotland’s history in their own hands. Then it hit me, I am an artist, let’s put that

to use and make something out of that wood. I could then further preserve this

bronze age tree buried in the peat for thousands of years and give someone the

chance to have a piece of Scotland’s history of their very own. I decided I would

make wooden jewelry. Each piece created would be a treasured gem for its

owner. Fitting, when you think that the wood was buried like a hidden treasure.

I wanted to bring an element of mystical magic that is so much a part of what

makes Scotland so incredible. I looked at many of the different Celtic symbols

found throughout the history of the people including back to the Picts and the

markings they left behind on stones. There are a few knot works that have strong

symbolic meanings. When I put the engravings into the wood, it is like installing

this symbolism and bringing out the magic of the wood . It gives the jewelry a

mystical energy you can feel when  you are wearing it, and that energy gives us a

silent strength.