Association for Scottish Literature

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Educational charity promoting the reading, writing, teaching & study of Scotland's literature & languages, past & present. https://asls.org.uk

At the Peats Alasdair Maclean In March we start our harvesting. We dig ourselves down out of sight in a peat bog, continuing perhaps all summer when the weather lets us, till the job is done. My father and myself. We work in harmony at first, he cutting and I spreading, backwards and forwards, up and down, the rhythm of the cradle. Then in May the sun comes north, thawing out the silence, and the tourists sprout. They prod us with their cameras, making us aware of what we do, and once we appeared in the Scottish Field in a photograph so clear you could count the midges. Highland peasants cutting peat. The abundance of free fuel is an important factor in the crofting economy. One of my father's rare grim smiles, like a lull in the east wind, broke out when I read that to him.
George Mackay Brown Peat Cutting And we left our beds in the dark And we drove a cart to the hill And we buried the jar of ale in the bog And our small blades glittered in the dayspring And we tore dark squares, thick pages From the Book of Fire And we spread them wet on the heather And horseflies, poisonous hooks, Stuck in our arms And we laid off our coats And our blades sank deep into water And the lord of the bog, the kestrel Paced round the sun And at noon we leaned on our tuskars – The cold unburied jar Touched, like a girl, a circle of burning mouths And the boy found a wild bees’ comb And his mouth was a sudden brightness And the kestrel fell And a lark flashed a needle across the west And we spread a thousand peats Between one summer star And the black chaos of fire at the earth’s centre.
I excused this on the ground that she had interpreted my movement as a gesture of aggression. The next time I used my arms rather than my hands to cover my eyes, and Kiko lost balance and fell to the floor. She seemed to me to be making angry feints at my legs, but I was unaware of any actual contact before I noticed, with something very like panic, that I was standing in a large and rapidly widening puddle of blood. I knew that nothing but an artery could have produced that astonishing volume; I got out of the room somehow, and made for the bathroom, leaving behind me a trail of blood that appeared appropriate to a slaughterhouse. There I found that my tibial artery was sticking out of my calf like a black cigarette end, and spouting blood to a distance of more than a foot. I soaked a handkerchief and tried to apply a tourniquet, but my knowledge had deserted me; I could not remember the pressure point. At the end of several minutes trying here and there I estimated that I had by now lost something like two pints of blood, and I wasted several more seconds trying to calculate how soon I should lose consciousness, for I was already beginning to feel weak and shaky. I made out that at the present rate of loss I had a little over five minutes, and I was searching wildly for some thread to tie the artery when I suddenly had a perfect mental picture of a huge wall chart showing the venous system in red and the arterial in blue. The tibial artery, of course, only surfaced at the groin. I got the tourniquet on and a cigarette lit and began to think about Kiko. The psychoanalysis of a lemur, I realized, would present insuperable problems.
Cover: John Chalmers Sandra Marrs Wilomina The Land of Dreams and Nightmares A Graphic Novel "Truly fantastic" – Carlos Sánchez, award-winning creator of RUNE Cover image: A gothic mansion rises into the sky. Two creepy bat-winged green goblins fly around its towers and huge green tentacles wave on either side. In front of the mansion is a young girl with green eyes, purple hair, and an orange top, with a white cartoon skull on her chest. She's carrying a wide-eyed baby on her back, who peeps over one shoulder. A green-and-white-striped cartoon cat with a pink scarf stands behind her on the other side. She's holding a short, forked stick in one hand. The stick seems to quiver with magical energy.
Mirri Glasson-Darling INTO EVELINE Angela and I sit next to an alpine lake shaped like a wishbone. We do not look at each other. This is a part of the game. She pretends she doesn’t care about me, and I pretend not to be in love with her. Which I might not be. There will be no way to tell until she leaves, because that’s how she works, and how I work too. I am the kind of girlfriend with an expiration date. Angela plans on leaving me […]
Maurice Lindsay On Hearin a Merle Singan (Arbroath Day, April 6th, 1946) Your carolan’s blythe, bricht bird i the blackthorn bou, this braw Voar morn, wi trill eftir spirlan trill, tho you only ken the warld as it liggs the nou, an nocht but a glisk concerns your chatteran bill. You feel the warm sun kissan your sparklan breist, sea-green it glints as you dirl your feathered thrapple, naithin mindit o things afore or neist wi whilk, on this day o days, I try tae grapple. Tae you, the Simmer’s come, sin the blue-gers glitters, an spinnan-Maggies stoiter aboot the lawn. It micht be sae, sin for days there’s no been a spitter o rain tae sloke the drouth o the yird’s dry pawn. Yet, fegs, the sun’s made you luik gey gilliegawky! Gin ye only kennt, there’s snaw i the heich hills yet. Ye’re no faur-seean, bird, lik the leathern baukie wha although he’s blin’s nae perturbed by the cauld or the het. As I hear you singan, merle, aa the thwartit flames o my luve for Scotland loup i my waefu hert, an six-hunnert-years-auld bluid reenges roun my veins till my stangit heid’s agley wi an orra smert ... But maist folk in Scotland noo hae the baukie’s een, caran for nocht that isnae smoorit in derk: an tho they wad praise your sang for its happy shein, at the thocht o the snaw i the hills their sauls aye lerk!
Speaking of Scotland Maurice Lindsay What do you mean when you speak of Scotland? The grey defeats that are dead and gone behind the legends each generation savours afresh, yet can’t live on? Lowland farms with their broad acres peopling crops? The colder earth of the North East? Or Highland mountains shouldering up their rocky dearth? Inheritance of guilt that our country has never stood where we feel she should? A nagging threat of unfinished struggle somehow forever lost in the blood? Scotland’s a sense of change, an endless becoming for which there was never a kind of wholeness or ultimate category. Scotland’s an attitude of mind.
A Bard’s Epitaph Robert Burns Is there a whim-inspired fool, Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule, Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool, Let him draw near; And owre this grassy heap sing dool, And drap a tear. Is there a bard of rustic song, Who, noteless, steals the crowds among, That weekly this area throng, O, pass not by! But, with a frater-feeling strong, Here, heave a sigh. Is there a man, whose judgment clear Can others teach the course to steer, Yet runs, himself, life’s mad career, Wild as the wave, Here pause—and, thro’ the starting tear, Survey this grave. The poor inhabitant below Was quick to learn the wise to know, And keenly felt the friendly glow, And softer flame; But thoughtless follies laid him low, And stain’d his name! Reader, attend! whether thy soul Soars fancy’s flights beyond the pole, Or darkling grubs this earthly hole, In low pursuit: Know, prudent, cautious, self-control Is wisdom’s root.
The Chess Player by Iain Crichton Smith When the badness came he was playing chess again. ‘Someone most dear to you,’ they said, ‘has died.’ He scouted round the board and picked the queen. (What use are bishops, knights?) ‘We found,’ they cried, ‘your brother dead. His wounds were in the side.’ ‘Not in the head?’ he said, not looking up. ‘In the head and heart as well,’ they answered. He moved the tall queen delicately as in hope but the king escaped again. ‘Did he say of me anything hopeful?’ he asked savagely, moving a pawn, his head carved to the wood the king was carved from. ‘No,’ they said. ‘“Please tell my brother this. Tell him I’ve understood a very little.” That’s what he told us.’ ‘Well, the chessboard tells me what of heaven or hell I need to know and that’s too much,’ he cried, shifting the queen. (The king escaped again.) He smiled a little with the jaunty pride one sometimes notices in desperate men. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘when you came in just then I had a vision of that very board. They do not know, you see, none of them knows. They’re all quite evidently so far apart. What do they know of each other? I dispose – but each is wooden, in archaic pose.’ And then they saw (each one standing beside the terrible trivial wrestler) with a start that someone most dear to him indeed had died, and stared at him grappling with his mental art, and carefully made ready to depart.
Alasdair Gray – an elderly Scottish pedestrian – is facing us, leaning on a table on both elbows. His hands are supporting his forehead. He has grey hair, a white beard, and spectacles. He is pondering a game of chess, being played on a red-and-white chequered chessboard. The board is circular and the squares have been distorted to fit.
A Home in Space Edwin Morgan Laid-back in orbit, they found their minds. They found their minds were very clean and clear. Clear crystals in swarms outside were their fireflies and larks. Larks they were in lift-off, swallows in soaring. Soaring metal is flight and nest together. Together they must hatch. Hatches let the welders out. Out went the whitesuit riggers with frames as light as air. Air was millions under lock and key. Key-ins had computers wild on Saturday nights. Nights, days, months, years they lived in space. Space shone black in their eyes. Eyes, hands, food-tubes, screens, lenses, keys were one. One night – or day – or month – or year – they all – all gathered at the panel and agreed – agreed to cut communication with – with the earth base – and it must be said they were – were cool and clear as they dismantled the station and – and gave their capsule such power that – that they launched themselves outwards – outwards in an impeccable trajectory, that band – that band of tranquil defiers, not to plant any – any home with roots but to keep a – a voyaging generation voyaging, and as far – as far as there would ever be a home in space – space that needs time and time that needs life.
Vivien Jones BJ 581 in Birka or Androcentrism in Archaeology Scandinavia 1880s In the grave a warrior with generous grave goods, shields, an axe, a spear, a sword, a bow with weighty arrows, a stallion, a mare, some game pieces a strategist then. 1970s Osteological analysis identifies the bones are female. Was she then a lover, a wife, a sister, cousin, aunt? Was she laid there in jest, as a punishment, as an example? Was she in receipt of inherited wealth? 2017 American Journal of Physical Anthropology after intensive DNA Analysis ‘The results call for caution against generalizations regarding social orders in past societies,’ lead researcher, Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson In my heart and mind today Let her have been a sturdy woman, scarred, broken-nosed, gap-toothed, breasts bound for comfort in a fight, no blonde plaits, no horned helmet, a great belcher and farter, a screamer in sex, childbirth and battle, with thighs to grip a horse rather than a man. Let the warrior describe the woman.
The Freedom Come-All-Ye Hamish Henderson Roch the wind in the clear day’s dawin Blaws the cloods heelster-gowdie ow’r the bay, But there’s mair nor a roch wind blawin Through the great glen o’ the warld the day. It’s a thocht that will gar oor rottans – A’ they rogues that gang gallus, fresh and gay – Tak the road, and seek ither loanins For their ill ploys, tae sport and play Nae mair will the bonnie callants Mairch tae war when oor braggarts crousely craw, Nor wee weans frae pit-heid and clachan Mourn the ships sailin’ doon the Broomielaw. Broken faimlies in lands we’ve herriet, Will curse Scotland the Brave nae mair, nae mair; Black and white, ane til ither mairriet, Mak the vile barracks o’ their maisters bare. So come all ye at hame wi’ Freedom, Never heed whit the hoodies croak for doom. In your hoose a’ the bairns o’ Adam Can find breid, barley-bree and painted room. When MacLean meets wi’s freens in Springburn A’ the roses and geans will turn tae bloom, And a black boy frae yont Nyanga Dings the fell gallows o’ the burghers doon.
To a Louse, On Seeing one on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church Robert Burns Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlan ferlie! Your impudence protects you sairly: I canna say but ye strunt rarely, Owre gawze and lace; Tho’ faith, I fear ye dine but sparely, On sic a place. Ye ugly, creepan, blastet wonner, Detested, shunn’d, by saunt an’ sinner, How daur ye set your fit upon her, Sae fine a Lady! Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner, On some poor body. Swith, in some beggar’s haffet squattle; There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle, Wi’ ither kindred, jumping cattle, In shoals and nations; Whare horn nor bane ne’er daur unsettle, Your thick plantations.
A crude woodcut showing two figures against a background of hills and trees. On the left, a man with shoulder-length hair and a bald crown bows, doffing his top hat and extending his hand to greet the figure on the right – a tall, striding pirate with a tricorn hat on his head and a cutlass at his hip.
"And I hope, Mary, you will take care and not get into the daadlin' handless ways of the English women," said Miss Nicky; "I wouldn't give a pin for an Englishwoman." "And I hope you will never look at an Englishman, Mary," said Miss Grizzy, with equal earnestness; "take my word for it they are a very dissipated unprincipled set. They all drink, and game, and keep race-horses; and many of them, I'm told, even keep play-actresses—So you may think what it would be for all of us, if you was to marry any of them,"—and tears streamed from the good spinster's eyes, at the bare supposition of such a calamity.
There now remained but one course to pursue; and that was to seek refuge at his father's, in the Highlands of Scotland. At the first mention of it, Lady Juliana was transported with joy; and begged that a letter might be instantly despatched, containing the offer of a visit; she had heard the Duchess of M. declare nothing could be so delightful as the style of living in Scotland; the people were so frank and gay, and the manners so easy and engaging: Oh! it was delightful! And then Lady Jane G. and Lady Mary L. and a thousand other Lords and Ladies she knew, were all so charmed with the country, and all so sorry to leave it. Then dear Henry's family must be so charming: an old castle, too, was her delight: she would feel quite at home while wandering through its long galleries; and she quite loved old pictures, and armour, and tapestry; and then her thoughts reverted to her father's magnificent mansion in D——shire.
ON another occasion also, when the blessed man was living for some days in the province of the Picts, he was obliged to cross the river Nesa; & when he reached the bank of the river, he saw some of the inhabitants burying an unfortunate man, who, according to the account of those who were burying him, was a short time before seized, as he was swimming, & bitten most severely by a monster that lived in the water; his wretched body was, though too late, taken out with a hook, by those who came to his assistance in a boat. The blessed man, on hearing this, was so far from being dismayed, that he directed one of his companions to swim over & row across the coble that was moored at the farther bank. & Lugne Mocumin hearing the command of the excellent man, obeyed without the least delay, taking off all his clothes, except his tunic, & leaping into the water. But the monster, which, so far from being satiated, was only roused for more prey, was lying at the bottom of the stream, & when it felt the water disturbed above by the man swimming, suddenly rushed out, &, giving an awful roar, darted after him, with its mouth wide open, as the man swam in the middle of the stream. Then the blessed man observing this, raised his holy hand, while all the rest, brethren as well as strangers, were stupefied with terror, &, invoking the name of God, formed the saving sign of the cross in the air, & commanded the ferocious monster, saying, "Thou shalt go no further, nor touch the man; go back with all speed." Then at the voice of the saint, the monster was terrified, & fled more quickly than if it had been pulled back with ropes, though it had just got so near to Lugne, as he swam, that there was not more than the length of a spear-staff between the man & the beast. Then the brethren seeing that the monster had gone back, & that their comrade Lugne returned to them in the boat safe & sound, were struck with admiration, & gave glory to God in the blessed man.
jack an jill went up thi hull “tay huv a wee refreshmint” guess whut
A late 19th-century postcard. The printed text reads: Mottoes for those going “Doon the Watter” If it's losing the boat, or losing your drink— lose the boat. The image shows a colour illustration of a moustachio'd young man, standing at a bar, wearing a boater hat at a rakish angle, a dark green jacket, a yellow-and-white striped waistcoat and a red bow tie. He has one hand in his pocket as he looks over his shoulder, out of the door of the bar to see, in the distance, a steamship leaving the harbour. He raises a full pint mug to toast its departure.
Glesga Fair Sheila Templeton She’s goat her legs oot – her foldin plastic chair oan the gress at Glesga Green – an her airms an enough creamy dimpled bosom tae please Renoir; bra straps oan show, frock lirkit richt up ower her knees sittin lik a mannie legs weel splayed as if tae accommodate magnificent baws – but it’s no that. It’s tae mak room mak a space for her belly, lovely big roon wumman’s belly growthie in the sun.
An extract from John Galt’s 1832 novel THE MEMBER: 'In a sense, Sir John,' said I, 'nothing can be more plausible; but they cannot reduce the establishments without making so many people poorer and obliging them to reduce their establishments, thereby spreading distress and privation wider. It is not a time to reduce public appointments when there is national distress; the proper season is when all is green and flourishing.' 'Very true,' replied Sir John; 'it would seem that the best time of providing for those who must be discharged when governments reduce their appointments, is when new employments are easy to be had; but things at present look not very comfortable in that way, and therefore I am grieved to hear that the distemper of making saving to the general state at the expense of casting individuals into poverty, has infected the Government. In truth, Mr. Jobbry, this intelligence has distressed me quite as much as a change of administration would; for a change of administration does not make actual distress, inasmuch as the new ministers always create, in redeeming their pledges, a certain number of new places, and commonly indemnify for those they abolish; but a mere system of economising – of lessening expenditure during a period of general hardship – is paving the way to revolution; and accordingly, as I am too old now to take a part in so busy a scene, I intend to retire at the close of the present Parliament.'
The "Pictish Beast": a strange, aquatic-looking creature with flipper-like limbs and a long, up-curved snout. Its head is tucked down against what looks like its forelimbs. it has one large visible eye and the line of its mouth follows the curve of its snout, giving it a dolphin-like smile. It seems to have a short tail, and a whip-like crest curls from the top of its head back down along its spine.
A Burghead Bull: one of a group of Pictish carvings that were found at Burghead Fort in Moray. The bull as depicted is heavy and muscular, with a massive hump at its shoulders and its head lowered. There's a sizeable pair of testicles visible between its back legs.
A side-on illustration of an Atlantic salmon from the National Digital Library of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The fish is brownish-silver in colour, with brown spots abd a thin line running horizontally from its gills to its tail. It has five fins: on top there is a large dorsal fin, with a much smaller fin near the tail. The underside has a large fin near the base of the tail, one of a pair of pelvic fins in the middle of its body, and a pectoral fin just behind the gills.
The Adder of Quinag Olive Fraser The grey roots circle thee, who never knew At any hour within thy travels lone A human shape but mine. Thou com’st to view, Wild, unafraid, what stands beside thy stone And gazes on thee in thy wilderness Of fifty miles. What thinkst thou of me, For I am of a race thou could’st not guess Would murder all thy hapless innocency? O mountain, take thy small heart back again And keep him in thy care when I shall go, Unvisited by all things but the rain, The hurtless sunbeams, and the winds that blow For ever in his moors. O let him hold No intricate memory of that being who stood Just once by his wild beauty, and did fold Him with a blessing alien to my blood.
Edwin Morgan Siesta of a Hungarian Snake s sz sz SZ sz SZ sz ZS zs ZS zs zs z
A Coorse Day Rhoda Bulter Da spindrift hings across da soond, An da sea braks right up ower da Taen; Da reek is flannin ta da flür, An da ben laft’s runnin in again. Da dockens tresh da barn door Laek tirn fok at’s lockit oot, An da kael seed doon atti da yerd Ill be strippit ta da rüt, I doot. Dere goes da hens’ pot birlin by, Doon ower da toons, clean oota sight. I hoop da dess is no med wye, An he aeses oota dis ere night.
Da Clearance Rhoda Bulter I can see da rüfs aa taekit, an da hens aroond da door; Fok kerryin twartree paets hame, an rigs delled every voar. Aa da lums ir reekin, an I hear da happy soonds O peerie bairns skirlin, as dey play dem ower da toons. I see eens sittin roond da fire, an twartree mair oot by; Sookin infants at da breest, an weemen gjaan ta cry. Da tochtfil, tried faces o dem at’s lived ower lang; Fractious bairns feytin sleep, an sensin somethin wrang. I hear a lood, lood knockin, an da crump o monny feet; Men's voices raised in anger, an da bairns start to greet. I see da fok aa girded oot afore da laandloard’s men; An aa da bits a things dey hed, fired ower da briggy-stane. I see da bare waas staandin, an aa da laand lie green; Lang syne da fire wis slokkit, an monny a year is geen. Noo dey aa hae equal portions o aert ta tak dir sleep. Tell me, wis it wirt it aa for twartree extry sheep?
Abkhaz 1. 'the devils are getting married' (Zihni Sener) Amharic 1. djib y9w9ldal 'the hyena is giving birth' Arabic 1. firan biyidjawazo 'the rats are getting married' (Syria and Lebanon) Aramaic 1. de:we go:ri:lu 'the wolves are marrying' (Estiphan Panoussi-Sena:ya dialect of Iranian Kurdistan, spoken in the Sanandagh area) Armenian 1. djindjuxvon harsnike 'bird's wedding' (Ko"pru"cu", northeastern Turkey) 2. ku"lashagh 'wolf shower' (Amatuni, Hayots' Barr u Ban (1912:69)) 3a. gel9 tghay e berum 'the wolf is bearing a son' (Tiflis--Ter Aghekhsandrean 1886:83) 3b. 'the wolf is having a baby' (Vank', Karabagh-Artashes Petrosyan) 3c. geltsnknuk 'wolf birth' (Ararat, Margari--Malxaseanc' 1944.1.410) 3d. gelts'rrt'el, gelts'9rel, gel9 ts'rrt'um 'wolf birth' (Alashkert and Archesh--Amatuni, Hayots' Barr u Ban (1912:69), Malxaseanc' 1944.1.410) 4. gilu harsanik' or gayli harsanik' 'wolf's wedding' (Edjmiatsin region) 5. gel9 sar9 kts'nkni 'the wolf is giving birth on the mountain' 6. eghnik9 sar9 cni k9 'the little hind is giving birth on the mountain' 7. arevmagh 'sun shower' (Kars--Amatuni, Hayots' Barr u Ban (1912:69)) 8. arewts'ogh (Mush--Amatuni, Hayots' Barr u Ban (1912:69)) 9. kot'ashagh [kot' '?' + shagh 'shower'] (Ghazax, Kot')
Why Should We Idly Waste Our Prime attributed to Robert Burns Text taken from THE POETRY OF ROBERT BURNS, edited by W.E. Henley and T.F. Henderson (T.C. & E.C. Jack, Edinburgh, 1897) I Why should we idly waste our prime Repeating our oppressions? Come rouse to arms! ’Tis now the time To punish past transgressions. ’Tis said that Kings can do no wrong— Their murderous deeds deny it, And, since from us their power is sprung, We have a right to try it. Now each true patriot’s song shall be:— “Welcome Death or Libertie!” II Proud Priests and Bishops we’ll translate And canonize as Martyrs; The guillotine on Peers shall wait; And Knights shall hang in garters. Those Despots long have trode us down, And Judges are their engines: Such wretched minions of a Crown Demand the people’s vengeance! To-day ’tis theirs. To-morrow we Shall don the Cap of Libertie! III The Golden Age we’ll then revive: Each man will be a brother; In harmony we all shall live, And share the earth together; In Virtue train’d, enlighten’d Youth Will love each fellow-creature; And future years shall prove the truth That Man is good by nature: Then let us toast with three times three The reign of Peace and Libertie!
Paul Cinquevalli, by London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company, published by Rotary Photographic Co Ltd. Bromide postcard print, circa 1912. National Portrait Gallery. A sepia photograph of Paul Cinquevalli (1859–1918). He has short, curly hair and a thick moustache, and is wearing an elaborate acrobat's leotard covered in tassels, braid, and frogging. He has a thick neck and stands half-facing us, his head turned to look directly at the camera. His left arm is cocked on his hip; his left elbow rests against a cannonball which sits on top of a stone plinth beside him.
Radical Attribution: Robert Burns and 'The Liberty Tree' Corey E. Andrews, Youngstown State University Abstract Discusses the political symbolism of liberty trees in the American and French revolutions, and in Scotland in Burns's period, as background to reconsidering the song "The Liberty Tree," first printed among Burns's work by Robert Chambers in 1838, the authorship of which has remained a subject for debate among Burnsians; examines the song closely in terms of phrasing to argue that it is unlikely to be by Burns; and draws a distinction between attributing the song to Burns and its evident reliance on his iconic standing both in his own time and among later Scottish radicals.
The Tree of Liberty attributed to Robert Burns Heard ye o’ the tree o’ France, I watna what’s the name o’t; Around it a’ the patriots dance, Weel Europe kens the fame o’t. It stands where ance the Bastile stood, A prison built by kings, man, When Superstition’s hellish brood Kept France in leading-strings, man. Upo’ this tree there grows sic fruit, Its virtues a’ can tell, man; It raises man aboon the brute, It mak’s him ken himsel, man. Gif ance the peasant taste a bit, He ’s greater than a lord, man, An’ wi’ the beggar shares a mite O’ a’ he can afford, man. This fruit is worth a’ Afric’s wealth: To comfort us ’twas sent, man: To gie the sweetest blush o’ health, An’ mak us a’ content, man. It clears the een, it cheers the heart, Maks high and low gude friends, man; And he wha acts the traitor’s part, It to perdition sends, man. My blessings aye attend the chiel Wha pitied Gallia’s slaves, man, And staw a branch, spite o’ the deil, Frae yont the western waves, man. Fair Virtue water’d it wi’ care, And now she sees wi’ pride, man, How weel it buds and blossoms there, Its branches spreading wide, man. But vicious folk aye hate to see The works o’ Virtue thrive, man; The courtly vermin’s bann’d the tree, And grat to see it thrive, man; King Loui’ thought to cut it down, When it was unco sma’, man; For this the watchman crack’d his crown, Cut aff his head and a’, man. A wicked crew syne, on a time, Did tak a solemn aith, man, It ne’er should flourish to its prime, I wat they pledged their faith, man. Awa’ they gaed wi’ mock parade, Like beagles hunting game, man, But soon grew weary o’ the trade And wished they’d been at hame, man. For Freedom, standing by the tree, Her sons did loudly ca’, man. She sang a sang o’ liberty, Which pleased them ane and a’, man.
Swallows Kathleen Jamie I wish my whole battened heart were a property like this, with swallows in every room – so at ease they twitter and preen from the picture frames like an audience in the gods before an opera and in the mornings wheel above my bed in a mockery of pity before winging it up the stairwell to stream out into light
Mark Russell Tabula Rasa The room has been emptied for decorating. White paint, wooden floor and window frames, sun bursting through summer’s open doors, a single chair for me to sit and read. Next door takes the chance to mow the lawn; rose and salvia stretch and yawn, posturing; a buzz of far-off traffic settles beneath birdcall in the ripe mountain’s steep slumber. Just when I think there’s nothing, nothing floods the space, pregnant, brisk, swarming.
Donald S. Murray How the Loch Ness Monster Stole My Husband He had been for decades on her trail, determining the drop-zones where she dived, her size and scale, the encumbrance of her head, the length of tail, and there were times he stepped into our bedroom wearing her scent – a faint, unfathomable perfume – and hummed the song he said was the mating tune that must have drawn him one dark night not far from Arbriachan when she swirled towards his side and pulled him close against her – neat, spiralling and tight, how she must have coiled against another of her kind centuries before that. Oh, I know they’ll never find him. It’ll be a case of out of sight, out of mind in a different way from how my sister claims I’m long out of mine. They’ll argue that he never came home one night, our life on Millburn Road too tame for him, that he preferred the thrash and thrust of another’s limbs, a different kind of current, rhythm than those murky depths I know he slipped within.
[…] metals and chemicals ... bye-bye fishies. Of course, it might be that the fish were for the crow road anyway: nitrates and phosphates from sewage, plus agricultural fertilisers … all drained into the seas. Rebus felt worse than ever, tossed the flyers into the bin. One of them didn't make it, and he picked it up. It told him […]
Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Note to Heather Ale” – published in BALLADS (Chatto & Windus, 1895) Among the curiosities of human nature, this legend claims a high place. It is needless to remind the reader that the Picts were never exterminated, and form to this day a large proportion of the folk of Scotland: occupying the eastern and the central parts, from the Firth of Forth, or perhaps the Lammermoors, upon the south, to the Ord of Caithness on the north. That the blundering guess of a dull chronicler should have inspired men with imaginary loathing for their own ancestors is already strange: that it should have begotten this wild legend seems incredible. Is it possible the chronicler’s error was merely nominal? that what he told, and what the people proved themselves so ready to receive, about the Picts, was true or partly true of some anterior and perhaps Lappish savages, small of stature, black of hue, dwelling underground—possibly also the distillers of some forgotten spirit? See Mr. Campbell’s Tales of the West Highlands.
Iain Crichton Smith Girl with orange sunshade An orange sunshade wheels about her head. The sunshade shading sun is yet a sun mimicked by colour, halo of the red and mild attendant of the coloured bone. Yet it is mimic as if the other sun should not attack her, being saved by this paper not passion which she learns to spin as if herself were Fortune, pert-faced miss. And this cool wheel about her ordered hair is like the art we nourish in our rooms on little water and a jar of air. It holds us steady from the searing flames. We mimic fire to shield us from the fire and shade our heads with bright and paper poems.
The Wishing Tree by Kathleen Jamie I stand neither in the wilderness nor fairyland but in the fold of a green hill the tilt from one parish into another. To look at me through a smirr of rain is to taste the iron in your own blood because I hoard the common currency of longing: each wish each secret assignation. My limbs lift, scabbed with greenish coins I draw into my slow wood fleur-de-lys, the enthroned Brittania. Behind me, the land reaches towards the Atlantic. And though I’m poisoned choking on the small change of human hope, daily beaten into me look: I am still alive – in fact, in bud.
LORNA MOON BORN STRICHEN 1886, DIED NEW MEXICO 1930 BY KAY CLIVE Lorna Moon, she liked the ring of it, transformed from Nora Helen Wilson Low. Names need to have a resonance, a fit and this could take her where she yearned to go. “Shameless”, they called her in the staid wee town, between the Buchan farmland and the sea, writing about the folk she’d always known probing pretence, revealing oddity. The library refused to stock her book - the quine whose scripts had dazzled Hollywood was shunned in Strichen. They could not overlook that searing light that showed more than it should. She planned a journey home when gravely ill, her ashes in a “trochie”, back to Mormond Hill.
Lobby card for the 1930 film Min and Bill. A downwards-pointing triangular cut frames a photograph of "Min and Bill", played by Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery. "Min" is a middle-aged woman with short dark hair. She is cradling the head of "Bill", a middle-aged man. "Min" looks steely and determined; "Bill" looks dazed and confused, and is draped in a fishing net. Text reads: A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ALL TALKING picture Marie Dressler Wallace Beery in MIN and BILL A George Hill production Suggested from the book "Dark Star" by Lorna Moon Scenario and dialogue by Frances Marion and Marion Jackson – Directed by George Hill
Cover of the first edition of Lorna Moon’s novel DARK STAR (1929) A striking red cover, with large, bold black lettering across the top, reading DARK STAR The bottom third of the cover is dominated by a single, high, curling white wave. On top of that, along the base of the cover, are three smaller black wakes. Written on top of the black waves, in white, is the author's name: LORNA MOON
MGM publicity portrait of Lorna Moon (1926) Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences / Academy Film Archive A black-and-white photograph of a dark-haired, dark-eyed young woman, wearing a sleeveless dress which leaves here arms and shoulders bare. Her hair is cut in a 1920s bob. She has her left side turned towards us, and she is looking over her shoulder at the camera.
Alan Spence GLASGOW ZEN On the oneness of self and universe IT'S AW WAN TAE ME
Book cover Stevenson and Pleasure Edited by Julie Gay, Lesley Graham and Nathalie Jaëck Cover image: Robert Louis Stevenson, 1887. Painting by John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), oil on canvas. The painting shows Robert Louis Stevenson sitting relaxed in an orange wicker armchair, one long leg crossed over the other. Stevenson is wearing a dark velvet smoking jacket and grey, baggy trousers. One thin hand rests on his thigh and the other golds a cigarette up near his mouth. He has a drooping moustache and a pale face, and he looks out at us with an amused expression. The chair sits on a wildly furry light brown rug in front of a piece of dark wooden Victorian furniture.
The Last Man to Speak Ubykh John Burnside The linguist Ole Stig Andersen was keen to seek out the remaining traces of a West Caucasian language called Ubykh. Having heard that there was one remaining speaker he set out to find the man and arrived in his village on 8 October 1992. The man had died a few hours earlier. At times, in those last few months, he would think of a word and he had to remember the tree, or the species of frog, the sound denoted: the tree itself, or the frog, or the state of mind and not the equivalent word in another language, the speech that had taken his sons and the mountain light; the graves he swept and raked; the wedding songs. While years of silence gathered in the heat, he stood in his yard and whispered the name of a bird in his mother tongue, while memories of snow and market days, his father’s hands, the smell of tamarind, inklings of milk and blood on a sunlit floor receded in the names no longer used: the blue of childhood folded like a sheet and tucked away. Nothing he said was remembered; nothing he did was fact or legend in the village square, yet later they would memorise the word he spoke that morning, just before he died: the word for death, perhaps, or meadow grass, or swimming to the surface of his mind, that other word they used, when he was young, for all they knew that nobody remembered.
Histories of Desire Ron Butlin At Carsethorn, Solway Coast That was when I threw the stone and then ran after; splashing into Smallholm burn I made the colours of a summer’s day cascade around me. That was when the water stilled to rowanberries, clouds and dark green leaves I could never reach before. I tried to pick one up – that was when the earth and sky first slipped between my finders. All histories are histories of desire, they tell me how my life begins and ends: a stretch of water, a stone a child sends skimming to the other side.
Small boy by Norman MacCaig He picked up a pebble and threw it into the sea. And another, and another. He couldn't stop. He wasn't trying to fill the sea. He wasn't trying to empty the beach. He was just throwing away, nothing else but. Like a kitten playing he was practising for the future when there'll be so many things he'll want to throw away if only his fingers will unclench and let them go.
Saving the Planet Tessa Ransford Something to die for To die: to give up life for to die for means to live for would we want to die for what we would not live for? We cannot die for ourselves since death is the end of us we cannot live for ourselves since that is absurdity we die for what we can give and abandon generously Here is what we die for: our family name and honour our children and children’s children the principle of beauty in truth a working mind and heart humans who live with the planet who thrive on thrift who love to share and build more life, life to die for.
Abstract: Annie S. Swan has become recognised as one of the most significant Scottish women authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. However, her twentieth-century works remain largely understudied and dismissed due to their critical perception as simply 'slushy women's romances' (Sutherland). Such a view overlooks the potential importance of Swan's writing in this period for the development of the Scottish popular romance novel. A subgenre that has enjoyed increasing attention and success in recent years, the origins of the modern Scottish romance novel are generally traced to Gabaldon's Outlander (1991) and imitators in the 1990s and 2000s by authors like Terri Brisbin, Julie Garwood, and Lyndsay Sands. However, as I will argue in this article, Swan's twentieth-century works display several of the structures and motifs that are definitional for what we now term Scottish popular romance fiction. The article traces the shifting structures of Swan's twentieth-century writings, as well as her representation of Scotland as primitive, magical, and romantic, showing similarities between 1990s and 2000s Scottish romance and selected works of Swan from the 1910s to 1940s. Ultimately, the article argues that Swan's twentieth-century works can be classified as part of a longer tradition of Scottish popular romance fiction and that, rather than dismissing her 'slushy women's romances', we reposition her as an early writer of Scottish popular romance fiction.
Book cover: a plain, dark green, cloth-bound book, blocked in gold. PORTO BELLO GOLD ARTHUR D. HOWDEN SMITH Between the title and the author's name, in the centre of the page, is a skull and crossbones.
Title page to a 1901 printing of Young. E. Allison’s “On Board the Derelict: A Reminiscence of Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’” A black-and-white illustration of a sailing ship on a stormy sea. The ship is flying a black banner with what might be a skull-and-crossbones on it. Below the image, the text reads: FIFTEEN men on the Dead Man's chest— Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest— Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! —(Cap'n Billy Bones his song.)
A ‘Peanuts” comic strip, by Charles M. Schulz. Panel 1: Snoopy – a cartoon beagle – sits blindfolded on top of his kennel, typing on a typewriter. Four pink lovehearts hover over the typewriter. Panel 2: Lucy – a young girl in a blue dress – looks to the right, towards the words "type type type type". Panel 3: Snoopy types: Toodle-oo, Caribou! A Tale of the Frozen North Panel 4: Snoopy types: The stall was empty! “Someone has stolen my polar cow!” shouted Joe Eskimo. Panel 5: Snoopy types: “This is the work of Joe Jacket, who hates me!” Panel 6: Lucy asks, “May I see how your new novel is coming along?”. Snoopy thinks “Be my guest” and hands her the sheet of paper from his typewriter. Panel 7: Lucy reads: Joe Eskimo and Koe Jacket were rivals for the heart of Sally Snow who lives south of the iceberg … Joe Eskimo thought back to the night he first shook her hand. Panel 8: Lucy reads: “I thunk you are very nice”, he had told her, and the shook hands. Panel 9: Lucy looks up at Snoopy, and asks “They shook hands?” Panel 10: Lucy, leaving, says “I think your ;ove scene needs a little something.” Snoopy sits bashfully on top of his kennel, and thinks, “I always get so embarrassed …”
A photo at dusk at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea. A plaza extends to a low, white, stone fence of lots of short, fat pillars. To the right there is a small domed bandstand with a Union Jack flying from a pole further in the distance. In the centre of the image is a framework against a pale bluish-purple sky; the framework holds an array of illuminated capital letters, reading THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE BECOME GHOSTS INSIDE OF YOU AND LIKE THIS YOU KEEP THEM ALIVE
A man in Assynt (extract) Norman MacCaig Glaciers, grinding West, gouged out these valleys, rasping the brown sandstone, and left, on the hard rock below – the ruffled foreland – this frieze of mountains, filed on the blue air – Stac Polly, Cul Beag, Cul Mor, Suilven, Canisp – a frieze and a litany. Who owns this landscape? Has owning anything to do with love? For it and I have a love-affair, so nearly human we even have quarrels. – When I intrude too confidently it rebuffs me with a wind like a hand or puts in my way a quaking bog or a loch where no loch should be. Or I turn stonily away, refusing to notice the rouged rocks, the mascara under a dripping ledge, even the tossed, the stony limbs waiting. I can’t pretend it gets sick for me in my absence, though I get sick for it. Yet I love it with special gratitude, since it sends me no letters, is never jealous and, expecting nothing from me, gets nothing but cigarette packets and footprints. Who owns this landscape? – The millionaire who bought it or the poacher staggering downhill in the early morning with a deer on his back? Who possesses this landscape? – The man who bought it or I who am possessed by it?
The Picnic by Edwin Morgan In a little rainy mist of white and grey we sat under an old tree, drank tea toasts to the powdery mountain, undrunk got merry, played catch with the empty flask, on the pine needles came down to where it rolled stealthily away – you lay with one arm in the rain, laughing shaking only your wet hair loose against the grass, in that enchanted place of tea, with curtains of a summer rain dropped round us, for a rainy day.
Fourth of July Fireworks by Liz Lochhead The guests are gathered. Boston-Irish Nancy, half in huff says, Better help yourselves, you all know Mister's timing well enough.' Aside at me she mutters. 'Millionaires can afford to let things wait. Honest-to-God Mister would be late for his own funeral.' Cigarstore Indian, I hide behind my apron, wait and drink in all I can. (We don't exist. They pick our trays, Tom Collinses, Martinis and canapés.) Oh horror, new England night, when I fetched the ice down and that snake looped my feet in the kitchen garden! I still shake. 'Harmless,' says Nancy. I hear her hiss, 'Some host! That beggar'll only get here when he's sure he's last.' Fourth of July. Cape Cod. Dead on cue, last-man Mister comes running to his barbecue. Arms flailing like a cricketer's across the lawn from his 'so English' house with a flame red shirt on. It's the cocktail hour. The air is still. Mister gets busy on the charcoal grill. Social-kissing women, backslapping men has failed to break the ice. But then Missiz appears like magic from the dusk. Cool, ten years his junior, she smells of musk
[…] heroes, unfairly armed with flame-resisting armour and unpleasant lances, were encouraged by certain underground elements and against the wishes and interests of the bulk of the population, to interfere between princess and dragon. Occasionally this resulted in tragedies, as in the case of the good dragon who was killed by the man George, or of the dragon so cruelly done to death by Perseus when about to make the acquaintance of Andromeda. It could be verified that no princess was ever asked whether she wanted to be rescued and carried off by a dragon-slayer to a fate (no doubt) worse than death. Sometimes, too, a dragon was murdered in cold blood, as happened quite recently to the dragon Fafnir, an uncle of Gauk's and a Master Dragon, who was rudely awakened and brutally stabbed by a young man called Siegfried, who, however, came to no good end himself.