For the Love of a Princess” is a track on the Braveheart score. The track includes a softer, more melodic version of the main theme. When you listen to it, you can’t help but daydream about warriors and princesses and the Scotland of lore.

Braveheart is just one of many epic love stories to use Scotland as a setting. Romance novels have used places in the Highlands and islands as the basis of their stories for decades.

Dunvegan Castle is one such place. When you visit the keep, you can see why. The oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland and stronghold of the chiefs of MacLeod for more than 800 years, Dunvegan is full of legends and stories. The keep itself, massive and majestic, sprouts up out of a forest on the edge of the Isle of Skye. The visuals add to the history and legends, forming a perfect setting for love stories.

And maybe the most famous Dunvegan love story involves a long-ago era when fairies and men coexisted on this beautiful island. Back then, a MacLeod chieftain fell in love with a fairy woman and married her. Unfortunately for the two new lovers, the woman was summoned to return to her people – but not before she gave birth to a baby boy, the next great chief of the MacLeods.

Legend has it that one cold night after she left, the baby cried out. His cry tore at the fairy’s heart, and so she returned to wrap him in her shawl. That shawl became the famous Fairy Flag, which can still be found at Dunvegan behind layers of protective glass. The flag – according to fables – can increase fertility, bring herring into the loch, cure a plague on cattle and much more.

But back in the long-ago era, it simply comforted a sad newborn boy. The shawl was a symbol of the fairy’s love. A princess’s love saved the boy. So my favorite track from the Braveheart theme is a fitting song to listen to if ever you visit the castle.