Ye Olde Queer Tartan Museum
Coming soon to Forres High Street!
A strange folk museum created around the story “The Ballad of Queer Tartan.” It is a tale of Madeleine, a runaway mouse, and how she escapes an octopus, a psychotic clown, a giant spider and finds love and friendship with chosen family. Everything in the museum helps to bring the story to life with hand-made sculpture, small dioramas and characters. The museum is based in a building that dates from 1668. There are three rooms with two more in the pipeline - for the sequels to the tale.
Online booking will be available soon.
Hear the story here. It’s about 1 hour 20 mins long.
This is all, as Madeleine would say, “total flocking bubbles.” Narratives are being bent and twisted all over the place right now so I thought it would be fun to invent a fake origin story too, just like He Who Should Not Be Named has about Lewis in the Outer Hebrides and She Who Should Not Be Named, who lives in Edinburgh, my home town, has about trans-inclusive policies making women and girls less safe.
In actuality Queer Tartan was started by me, Fritha Lewin, in 2024. I took it a little personally that Scotland should be being used to promote a narrative I entirely disagree with. Not on my watch. I don’t want to live in a Scotland that feels like growing up gay did in the 80s and 90s with open hostility, gay bashing and almost total lesbian invisibility. Flock that.
The Thursday night get togethers - the research, experiments, discussions, were actually carried out by me over the last 20 or so years. Queer Tartan is a genuine invention. Please use it before it is dragged into heteronormative culture.
These stories are inspired by the Liberty store legend that when the last light has been extinguished in the store at night, the wooden carved animals around the shop awaken to make merriment and cause mischief.
Many more stories are in the pipeline.
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Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Characters, events, institutions and organisations depicted in the story are fictional or have been fictionalised for artistic purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events is coincidental unless explicitly stated otherwise. References to public figures, places, brands and cultural events are used as part of the fictional and satirical context of the work and do not imply endorsement, association or approval.
Copyright © 2026 Fritha Lewin. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, adapted or published in any form without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law.
Queer Tartan and associated original characters, stories, artworks and designs are the intellectual property of Fritha Lewin, except where otherwise credited.
A note on the animals:
Despite appearances, the abundance of people dressed as mice, rabbits, bears and assorted wildlife is purely a plot device. This work has no intended affiliation with or commentary on furry, puppy-play or kink communities. No shade on anyone’s thing whatsoever. Please just don’t invite me to a kink puppy party. The animals are metaphorical.