Summer Reading

I have recently been reading stories set in Scotland.

The Island Harp by Jeanne Williams (1991, St. Martin’s Press) is an historical romance. Set in the 1840s, it is the love story of Mairi MacLeod and Lewis, her ancestral island home. Mairi won’t leave the island after her township is burned by the laird’s factor. Mairi has a vision of rebuilding her family’s life. With stubbornness, determination, and pride, not to mention hard work, she manages to stay on the island.

Like the industrious women in her story, Jeanne Williams is a skillful weaver, blending real people, places, events, songs and traditions of the island with the fictional lives of the Clanna folk. The Gaelic words helped set the atmosphere of the story, as well as the descriptions of native flora, fauna, and landscape. The traditional foods played an important role, so much so that I want to make athol brose. Knitting and weaving were another prominent part of the story. I could appreciate this work being a knitter myself, albeit a hobbyist. I did not expect to learn so much about the traditional farming and fishing methods used by the people on Lewis. A good life had to literally be scraped out of the rock.

I don’t think many real young women in the mid-19th century would have made the headstrong decisions Mairi did, especially going against society and church morals. She seems more late-20th century. Overall, the story was entertaining, and kept me reading until the wee hours of the morning. Like a fairy tale, everything turns out satisfactorily for everyone in the story. I finished the book believing that Mairi and her family lived happily ever and forever. This tale of Scottish crofters is somewhat romanticized, but it does make me want to visit Lewis!

Corrag by Susan Fletcher (2010, W. W. Norton & Company) is another historical novel set in Scotland about 150 years earlier. A clergy man visits a woman who is being held in a cell, accused of being a witch and sentenced to burn at the stake. He wants to hear her account of a massacre. She agrees to tell what she witnessed, but starts with her own story, from the beginning, so that someone will remember her. At the end of her story, which unfolds over several days, the clergy man’s opinion of her has changed and so has he.

Corrag, a young English woman, flees north and west after her single mother, Cora, has a vision of her own death by hanging for witchcraft. Corrag takes her mother’s bag of herbs and an old gray mare with her. She eventually finds herself in a valley called Glencoe.

She keeps to herself at first, but she is discovered and asked to help the MacDonald clan chief, The MacIain, who has suffered a terrible head wound in a raid. Though small and child-like, Corrag is knows the ways of herbs and heals The MacIain. The MacDonalds are thankful and allow her to stay.

As time passes, Corrag breaks her promise to her mother, and falls in love with one of MacIain’s sons. He promises to keep her safe. Corrag tries to keep the MacDonalds safe by warning them of a planned attack by the English soldiers who have been staying with the clan. Not everyone lives happily ever after in this story. The Massacre at Glencoe took place on February 13, 1692. The fictional Corrag had no last name, but if she did, it would be MacDonald.

Gaelic Ghosts by Sorche Nic Leodhas (1963, Holt, Rinehart, & Winston) is a fun book I found in the children’s section of the library. The ghost stories are the kind you’d hear at a family gathering; the kind my grandpa or dad would tell.

Looking Out My Back Door

When I arrived home this evening, I heard chickadees calling. I haven't seen or heard them since this spring, when they repeatedly visited my yard. I went through the house onto the deck and heard them in my neighbor's yard. Then one perched in my elderberry. I spoke to the chickadees as I filled the bird feeders, telling them how glad I was to see them again.

Chickadees are not very common in my neighborhood because we don't have many mature trees. One of the first things I did after moving into our new house 10 years ago was plant trees and shrubs. I wanted to create wildlife habitat in suburbia. Previously, the land our neighborhood is built on was farmland. While there are some mature trees remaining from the farm, mostly at the edges of our addition, almost all the houses have just two flowering pear trees and a few shrubs installed by the builder.

I have quite a number of various trees and shrubs in the front, side and back yards. Much to my husband and neighbors ire, I don't prune them into uniform, round balls. I let them grow into their natural shape and size, which some consider wild and unkempt looking. But that is how I like it, and so does the wildlife.

After filling the bird feeders, I watered a few plants that looked wilted. Normally, I wouldn't waste precious tap water on plants in the yard, but we haven't had rain in a month and the last two weeks have been in the upper 90s. While watering near the pond I noticed a bit of movement among the plants. At first, I thought it was a preying mantis, but when I looked more closely, I saw the shiny black eye of a garter snake. The funny thing is, I was just wondering about the snake yesterday. I don't know if this was the same one that lived in our yard last year, but I said hello and told it I was glad to see it.

Besides the garter snake and the birds, we have one other critter that has taken up residence in our yard. Actually, I believe it lives under the deck, and has for some time. We just haven't seen it.

I took the lid off our metal compost bin the other day, to add some fresh kitchen scraps, and there, looking just as surprised as me, was a lovely golden brown rat. I was excited, but my husband wasn't. As long as the rat stays outside, it is welcome to live in our wildlife habitat, too.