The Fairy Pools occupy a mile-long ribbon of Glen Brittle's Allt Coir' a' Mhadaidh burn, where meltwater from the Black Cuillins descends through a staircase of seventeen distinct falls and pools between 150 and 60 metres above sea level. The site entered popular consciousness in the early 2000s following a series of landscape photographs shared online, yet its geology predates human settlement by sixty million years. The basalt bedrock, formed during the Paleogene lava flows that shaped much of Skye's western plateau, erodes unevenly under the burn's relentless flow, carving turquoise bowls where mineral suspension refracts light into shades that shift hourly with sun angle and cloud cover. No formal infrastructure marks the site. Visitors park at the glen's unpaved lot and follow a rough track maintained by erosion rather than construction, crossing wet heath and peat bog for 2.4 kilometres to reach the lowest cascade. The path gained notoriety in 2015 when visitor numbers spiked from an estimated twelve thousand annually to over sixty thousand, prompting the local graziers' trust to install a car park payment station and reinforce sections of track with imported gravel. The pools themselves remain unguarded and unsigned, their access dependent on weather and the walker's willingness to navigate exposed stone and cold water. The Black Cuillins rise directly south of the burn, their gabbro ridges forming the most technically demanding scrambles in the British Isles. The contrast between the peaks' jagged silhouette and the pools' smooth-walled basins draws landscape photographers year-round, particularly in late spring when snowmelt maximizes flow and water clarity peaks. The site's name derives not from Celtic folklore but from twentieth-century marketing, yet the label has ossified through repetition into the glen's dominant identifier. Local residents continue to use the Gaelic Allt Coir' a' Mhadaidh, meaning burn of the corrie of the fox, a reference to the mammals that once denned in the scree slopes above the waterline. An isle of skye fairy pools tour from inverness typically departs early to accommodate the three-hour drive via the A82 and Skye Bridge, with operators scheduling glen arrival between nine and ten to secure parking before midday crowds. Most itineraries pair the pools with Eilean Donan Castle or the Quiraing, extending total journey time to twelve hours. The highland landscape between Inverness and Glenbrittle transitions through Beauly Firth, Glen Shiel, and Loch Duich, offering layered topography that mirrors the pools' own geological narrative of erosion and uplift.