When You Give a Woman a Sword
The wind pulled at my skirts and made a nest of my hair as I looked out over the rolling hills. Standing on that crag, the winds off the Firth of Forth tearing up Blackford Hill and the sun warming my skin, something shifted inside of me. It was a shift that felt familiar, inevitable. A shift that Scotland had been teasing out of me for years.
Or maybe it was just the broadsword in my hand.
Later, Claire would tell me: “One of my greatest pleasures in life is giving women a sword. It unleashes something.”
The sword was heavy in my hand, but in a way that felt like gravity, like possibility. The sun glinted off of the silver; a warped reflection of myself smiled back. That woman was bright and windblown, an image of the writer I was trying to be.
The photos from Main Character Club (MCC), the company that Claire Young shoots for, had been scattered across my Instagram feed for years. Women in different period costumes, looking powerful and regal, feminine and magical, taken in locations across Scotland. Having fallen in love with the country over a decade ago, I wasn’t surprised that the photos found me. The images of these women looked the way Scotland feels: wild, brave, and ancient.
It’s no coincidence that so many women have found themselves donning elaborate outfits for photoshoots in these heaths and castles. The country is filled with artisans, musicians, storytellers, and others that keep rich creative traditions alive and inspire that exploration in others.
Claire was one of these women once. After working with horses most of her adult life, she treated herself to a photoshoot with MCC for her 40th birthday. Over the next year, she returned to Edinburgh for various events hosted by the company, including a workshop on photography.
“That was the first time I had ever put my camera in manual mode,” she laughs, remembering that day. Taking what she learned, she started as an equine photographer - a natural outgrowth of her career with horses at that time. But after doing a photo shoot with humans for a company she was working for, she found herself in her car in tears. “I just thought ‘this is what I want to do.’” So when the founder of MCC invited her to move to Edinburgh and work for the company, she didn’t hesitate.
Since then, her interest in folklore and craft exploded. She takes classes and follows her muse with creative partners who join the adventure. Speaking of her friend, who owns The Knight’s Vault, Claire notes that “to find someone else that is so creative that you gel with, that just says ‘I’m in’ to your crazy ideas - it’s a gift.”
Her story echoes so many that I’ve heard in recent years: women who spent decades building careers and realized, in their forties, that they wanted to come back to a creative calling. It echoes my own experience, as I endeavor to put my own writing into the world after two decades in arts management. It’s this call to create that brings me back to Scotland year after year, where the land and myths never stop inspiring new generations of artists.
2026 was going to be my year of making bold decisions, so after years of staring jealously at Claire’s photos, I finally signed up.
Six months later, in the middle of a sabbatical during which I was trying to truly be a writer, I found myself frolicking in a field, reading on a fallen tree, and wielding a sword on a rocky crag with Claire cheering me on. We laughed and played like I hadn’t done since I was a child. It was clear to me that this was a calling for her and it made me feel like I would be able to pursue my calling, too.
When I asked Claire why women sign up for these shoots, she answered simply: “they want to see another side of themselves.” For Claire, that experience led her on the path to becoming the photographer she is today. For me, it’s helped me to say, without hesitation, “I am a writer!”
What might this experience help you uncover?
All images by Claire Young, https://www.instagram.com/fabledvisions/. To book your own photoshoot, visit https://www.maincharacterclubscotland.com/main-character-photoshoots.
