Trouble brews over ancient Outlander stone circle as US witch is told she’ll be cursed for removing pebble and tree branch from ancient Scottish burial site and spiriting them away across the Atlantic

Trouble is brewing on both sides of the Atlantic after an American ‘witch’ removed a pebble and part of a fallen tree branch from an ancient Pictish cemetery near Inverness, featured in the TV series Outlander.

An online TikTok community called Witchtok has seen angry videos from followers in Scotland attacking Florida-based self-proclaimed witch Brenda Spears, who calls herself ‘Brewitched’ on the platform and accuses her of ‘theft’ and ‘looting’.

Ms Spears, who describes herself as a ‘practitioner of traditional witchcraft’, admitted taking a small stone from the path she said her guide had handed her to the 4,000-year-old standing stone site.

She also removed a pine cone and part of a tree branch, which she said she was allowed to do by a worker who felled the trees on site, and took them home along with the pebble.

Brenda Spears (pictured), who calls herself a ‘practitioner of traditional witchcraft’, claims a workman allowed her to retrieve the pebble and small branch from Clava Cairns

Clava Cairns in Inverness is popular with tourists after the television show Outlander was filmed there (pictured is Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser and Caitriona Balfe as Claire Fraser in the fictional Craige na Dun)

But other TikTokers with handles like Thistlewitches and Punk Rock Witch say every stone at the site is sacred and should not be removed.

The Scottish Government agrees, with a spokesperson for Historic Environment Scotland telling MailOnline: ‘Whilst we appreciate that individuals may be enthusiastic about visiting a particular historic site, Clava Cairns is a protected site and as such should nothing will be removed.’

University of Chester archeology professor Howard Williams said in a TikTok post: ‘The problems with this are many. Not just taking those things, taking them abroad, then bragging about them on social media and potentially promoting those kinds of activities.

‘This is already a problem at ancient monuments in Scotland and the rest of Britain, with tourists of all kinds taking things and vandalizing sites, but it seems particularly damaging in the spiritual community.’

Professor Williams pointed out that the tour guide and tree cutter had ‘not been given permission to give you permission’ and urged Ms Spears to ‘take a good look at yourself’.

He added: ‘It’s not about taking a lot ourselves, but if everyone did that, thousands and thousands of objects would be removed, disturbed or moved.

“The stone itself may have come from the path, but it was put there to help manage the old monument… and it’s still out of order.

‘At Clava Cairns it’s been a long-standing problem of spiritual communities going there and messing with the landscape and thinking they’re entitled to that because they’re special.

The 4,000-year-old Pictish site is sacred and the Scottish Government states that no objects should be removed from the site

Other TikTok critics also pointed out that Ms. Spears should not have removed the items due to the cross-contamination and other biomatter they could bring into the US.

Ms. Spears showed her followers the pine cone and the piece of fallen branch, which appeared to have lichen on it. Critics point out that we should not leave Britain because lichen and other biomaterials could cause cross-contamination in the US.

It is a federal offense to import most types of plant and fungal material into the US without a permit.

A fan of Clava Cairns and its mysteries told MailOnline that, in addition to the legal protections, ‘there is a lore of curses attached to people who remove stones from Clava Cairns.’

In the highly successful TV series Outlander, broadcast on the Starz channel in the US, star Caitriona Balfe plays a nurse who is transported from 1945 to the Jacobite risings of 1743 after touching the ancient monument.

Critics of Ms Spears have united under the hashtag #returnthestone and have even offered to send her a stone from elsewhere in Scotland if she agrees to return the Clava Cairns stone.

In her TikTok video, Ms. Spears appears unfazed by the calls, telling her 29,000 followers, “It was never my intention to offend, steal or desecrate, and I did not do so.”

She adds: ‘I will not tolerate hatred, bullying or threats.’

She signs off to her followers: ‘Keep witchin’!’

A Clava Cairns fan revealed that removing rocks and other objects from the site could lead to swearing (Photo: Brenda Spears)

Despite the uproar, Brenda remains unfazed and jokes that she won’t tolerate “bullying or threats.”