The Cult of Mary Magdalene in Scotland: Fons Sancte Marie Magdalene.

In November 2023, while staying in the East Neuk of Fife, I paid a visit to the fishing village of Pittenweem, a Pictish and Gaelic place name that means “place of the cave”. I picked up the key from the café on the High Street and headed down the wynd toward the sea. The charm of Pittenweem with its steep streets, old houses, and calming sea air, has not faded over the years, and as with a few of the East Neuk villages it is a popular tourist attraction in the summer months. But that day as I entered the cave, it was a typically over-cast and chilly November morning. Immediately on entering the cave I saw to the right of me instructions, and light switches to illuminate different parts of the cave. I preferred to venture slowly into the darkness, allowing my eyes to adjust and to feel the place without the buzz and artificial light of electricity.

Something stirred in me that day. It was a feeling that had been growing for some time, a calling, a desire to explore an area that had meant so much to me as a child, that haunted me still, even after many years.

At the age of 17, I could hardly wait to leave my hometown of Kirkcaldy and venture to the nearest city. Though I loved summer days on the beaches of the East Neuk, as a young woman the town of Kirkcaldy felt small and hard- even at times hostile. Eager to begin my life elsewhere, I got a job in the city of Edinburgh, where I lived until 2001, when I moved to the Outer Hebridean island of North Uist. Life on Uist was inspired and magical and soothed my soul weary from years of chaotic and sometimes wild living. I adored the beauty, the peace, and the creative community of the Hebrides and yet I knew I had a lot of life to live before I settled in a remote land (little did I know there would be no settling for me on my life’s path). I left Scotland for what was to become an eighteen-year sojourn, except for a couple of long stays in Findhorn, North Berwick, and Rosslyn. There were of course family visits.

I had never visited the cave at Pittenweem which is known as St Fillan’s Cave. As a child I had visited the Wemyss Caves, a bit further down the coast. In those days it was possible to wander into the caves without needing to make any prior arrangement- the caves were one of my favourite places and I always wanted to go there. In the years that I was away from Scotland, I visited many caves in England and Europe. In the dark, deep earth, I always felt a close connection with the womb of the Mother.

But on that day in November in 2023, entirely alone in the darkness of St Fillan’s cave, something stirred in my own inner cave, a repository of dormant memories and lived experiences from a distant past. For a few years I had a growing desire to connect with my homeland; through a series of dreams over many years, and from discoveries that my dad was making about our family’s genealogy, I was beginning to realise that my connection with Fife ran much deeper than I had known.

Curiously, in 2018 while on a training course to learn to mentor girls through rites of passage, I met a Russian woman who told me that she was going to Anstruther, Fife for a course on early imprinting. The course was set over one weekend and allowed a maximum of 6 participants to attend. The objective of the weekend was to facilitate a tenderly held space for each person to re-experience their birth. Each one in turn regressed back through the timelines of their life to relive their earliest memories, first impressions, and touch into a sense of who they were upon entering their current lives. I had not expected that a course of this profundity could take place just a few miles from where I’d grown up (I’d travelled the world trying to discover who I was). I attended the course. The overall and underlying sense was that I was being called back to Fife for a reason and though part of me dreaded it on account of the still unresolved ancestral trauma of my family line, I knew it was meant to be.

Though my immediate family, my mum, dad, and brother moved to Kirkcaldy from Glasgow in 1976, my dad who had been researching our family tree sent me files in 2023, in which I discovered that our family had roots in Fife spanning back to the early 16^th century. We had lived in the East Neuk, Dunfermline, Falkland, Ceres, and Collessie- there is a strong “witch” connection, particularly in Collessie, that I will investigate at some point.

In St Fillan’s cave in November 2023, having just read about the graves of women that were excavated in Largo in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, I was getting the distinct impression that this area had been one in which the sacred feminine had been present. Largo is not far from Pittenweem and is near the Lundin Links stones. At least one of the women who had been buried at the Largo site had been placed in an upright position indicating that she was a person of great importance- possibly a Queen. I knew there was something for me to do, that I was being called to engage with my past in a much bigger way than my individual history. I did something I had never done before and have not done since; I recorded myself and put up a YouTube video. The name of my video is “Saints, Priestesses, and Witches in the East Neuk of Fife”. It wasn’t very slick, and I don’t think many people saw it…which I was secretly thankful for.

Now, 18 months later, I am back in Fife and the desire to research is calling me more strongly. I haven’t entirely worked out what it is I am doing but I know that it has something to do with connecting with the land and my inner world- the relationship with inner and outer landscapes past and present to resurrect aspects of the feminine that have been suppressed. I have renamed my YouTube channel “The Feminine Grail: Holy Women, Holy Land”. I am writing, photographing, journalling, dreaming, documenting, and remembering. I hope to make more videos.

Right now, I am in Saint Andrews where I have been connecting with the cathedral and an early chapel dedicated to Mary Magdalene which once stood about 70 feet south of St Rule’s church. There are no remains, and very little written is about the Chapel. I have also been visiting Monk’s Well in the eastern cemetery, which relates to saint Cainnech. In their book, (Scottish Healing Wells’, 1981, p. 107) Ruth & Frank Morris claim that St Cainnech, or St Kenneth is associated with the early history of St Andrews- some believe that it was in fact St Cainnech and not St Rule who established the monastic community at St Andrews.

Upon my first visit to Monk’s Well, I cheekily wrote, “This is not ‘Monk’s Well’, this is a far more ancient spirit, and She calls me. The sites are calling many of us. I am responding.” But this is not as cheeky as it appears: I have just discovered that what is known as Fillan’s Cave in Pittenweem was originally a sacred place dedicated to Mary Magdalene and was known as fons Sancte Marie Magdalene (spring of St Mary Magdalene). In fact, no firm evidence has been found that links St Fillan to the cave. Pittenweem was apparently one of the main centres of Magdalene devotion in Scotland (there was at one time a spring in the cave).

Much of the history about the Christian origins of Scotland is confusing and contradictory. It seems there is a suppressed and altered history, one in which women have been written out. Intuitively I feel that the holy women, priestesses, the so-called witches, and further back the Druidesses, and Pictish women of power played a significant role in the spiritual and cultural landscape of ancient and medieval Scotland. Magical women who channelled Sophia or the Holy Spirit through their bodies, at sacred groves, at holy wells, and through the healing art of their medicines and wise women ways.

My search encompasses the early Christian saints; the Culdees, who had connections with the Druids; the holy wells; the ancient chapels; the holy women who were buried on this land; devotion to Mary Magdalene in Scotland; pre-reformation sites that included and honoured the feminine (some of which have disappeared with barely a trace); the grail lands of Scotland; and further back through the layers of time to the Picts, the Celts, and the Druids.

Any researcher engaged in this kind of quest will know that it does not come only from the head, not only from reason, or from scholarly books alone, it is an internal unfurling where the lines between the past and present, inner and outer, become very fluid. A guiding gnosis that some may know as their daimon, or the holy ghost, intervenes and gifts us information from non-ordinary ways of knowing.

This kind of questing exists not only within the realm of the imagination-or even the imaginal. Time after time we experience inner revelations that lead to tangible discoveries in the physical world, and discoveries in the physical world that unlock inner images. This way of “working” offers insights far beyond what any textbook can offer. It is knowledge gained from direct experience. It is a kind of gnosis, and while it no doubt benefits the quester it also provides alternative information and fills in some of the missing gaps of history. At best, it can lead to a powerful revision of histories that have been created in the interest of a select few individuals and that are prohibitive to a full and balanced spiritual heritage.

Many of us are heeding the call to resurrect our spiritual heritage, to claim our birthrights, and live richer, more ensouled lives. And although it has now become a somewhat trite saying, I’d like to finish this little vignette with words generally ascribed to Christ in the Gospel of John, “The truth will set you free”.

• Information about Mary Magdalen’s Cave in Scotland can be found in: The Cult of Mary Magdalene in medieval Scotland (Mary Magdalene, Pittenweem and St Fillan’s Cave) by

1. Anthony Lodge

• If you would like to watch the short video I made at the time of visiting the cave in 2023-