But now the world of fairies has been brought to life in a new children's book by unlikely local author Willie Barclay.

These days, Willie, a retired merchant sailor with 30 years at sea behind him, divides his time between Edinburgh and the Borders – but spends most of the year deep in the Ettrick Valley where he lives alone in a caravan next to the river.

Each day he spends hours walking through the woods and across the marshes in a part of the country he has fallen in love with since moving down nine years ago – and where he dreams of seeing out his days in a log cabin on the river bank.

"When I've been in Edinburgh for a while I can't get down here fast enough," he said. "Just look around here – it's absolutely magic.

"When you see this place covered in snow, it's amazing and a walk along the marshes after a week's heavy snow just blows you away."

Now the magical woodland landscape has become the setting for Willie's first book, The Fairies of Ettrick Marshes, a collection of tales about a group of mystical winged spirits who look after the land and wildlife in the area, and get caught up in a series of adventures. It's the first real venture into writing for the former seaman who had occasionally dabbled in poetry, but hadn't written anything for 15 years until a conversation with a friend reignited his imagination.

The book is dedicated to Harry Mitchell, who used to run the shop at the Honey Cottage Caravan Park and was the inspiration behind the tales.

"A couple of years ago Harry told me about a story that he'd told his granddaughter," the author explained. "It was about how he found a fairy in the marshes called Arabella who had broken her wing and how he helped fix it.

"That winter, I was sitting here in the caravan and the TV was garbage, so I thought I'd try writing and that's where it all began.

"I don't know where the ideas came from – they just popped into my head.

"There's a spruce tree up in the woods that's fallen over with the roots showing, all covered in moss, and I sometimes would sit there writing ideas in a notebook I keep. I'd get lots of ideas for things up there – it's such a magical world."

It's a world very much brought to life through Willie's colourful characters such as Ag-knees, who looks after the bees; Itchy-pants, who looks after the ants; and Scalyish, who looks after, yes, you guessed it, the fish, to name just a few.

All the stories are illustrated by local artist Cath Rutherford, whose husband James has also been involved in the printing of the full-colour book.

The Fairies of Ettrick Marshes is expected to be available in shops soon, but for now Willie is planning his next set of fairy adventures – and looking forward to more sleepy winters spent wandering the woods and occasionally conversing with his favourite trees in the valley.