Level 2
How has the character changed? Has your opinion of them altered? Are there aspects of their character you aspire to? or hope never to be? What are their strengths and faults? Do you find them believable? If not, how could they have been molded so? Would you want to meet them?

Norna is a sort of prophetess/white witch of a character and as such she is held in high esteem by the inhabitants of the isles of Shetland, who also have a healthy fear of her because of her seemingly magical qualities. You can’t help but admire a woman who makes a good living by selling fair winds to sailors and anyone else who needs help. I suppose she’s a bit of a con woman really but there’s no real nastiness about her. She has just had to acquire her reputation as a way of surviving in a male dominated and harsh environment. I would have been quite happy to meet her.

She has had to put a lot of work into exploring the islands so that she knows all of the hiding places which were used by previous generations when Viking marauders came raiding, and she knows all of the short cuts, which means that the other islanders think she uses supernatural means of getting about as they don’t think she could possibly travel around so quickly otherwise.

At the beginning of the book Norna is living in a tower on a cliff, with a dwarf who is her servant, far away from anyone else.

Towards the end of the book we discover that as a young woman Norna had been an unmarried mother and her kinswomen had given her son to his father who had sailed away with him to Spain. She also believed that she had been the cause of her father’s death and the guilt had caused her to withdraw from normal life.

Years later Norna mistakes another young man for her son and her actions end up putting her real son in danger. When she discovers her mistake the shock changes her character completely. She refuses to answer to the name Norna which she had adopted and reverts to her real name Ulla Troil.

From the book:

“From that time Norna appeared to assume a different character. Her dress was changed to a simpler and less imposing appearance. Her dwarf was dismissed with ample provision for his future comfort. She showed no desire of resuming her erratic life; and directed her observatory, as it might be called, on Fitful-head to be dismantled. She refused the name of Norna and would only answer to the appellation of Ulla Troil. But the most important change remained behind. Formerly, from the dreadful dictates of spiritual despair, arising from the circumstances of her father’s death, she seemed to consider herself an outcast from divine grace; besides that, enveloped in the vain occult sciences which she pretended to practise, her study, like that of Chaucer’s physician, had been “but little in the Bible.” Now the sacred volume was seldom laid aside; and to the poor ignorant people who came as before to invoke her power over the elements, she only replied – ” The winds are in the hollow of His hand.”

I must admit I preferred the character of Norna but as The Pirate was first published in 1822 it probably wouldn’t have gone down very well with readers if Norna/Ulla didn’t have some sort of experience which caused her to become a good Christian woman again.

You can read my review of The Pirate here.

You can’t go to South Queensferry and not take some photos of the Forth Bridge, so here they are!

The Hawes Inn appears in Robert Louis Stevenson’s book Kidnapped. As you can see the approach to the bridge is more or less straight above the inn but of course the bridge wasn’t there at the time that Robert Louis Stevenson was writing about.

The photo below is of the main street in South Queensferry, I think it’s quite unusual to have a two tiered street with a pavement and houses being situated over the top of the shops.

This vintage car came tootling along just as I was taking the photos, it was like something that Toad out of The Wind in the Willows might have driven. They must have been freezing! I wouldn’t mind going for a drive in it on a hot day though.

As you can see, they have some olde worlde streetlamps in South Queensferry which fit in nicely with the age of the buildings. Even although it was a cold day it was still busy with locals and day trippers, there are quite a few eateries in the town and I think it’s a favourite place for people living in Edinburgh to visit.

Some of the buildings are really quite ancient, as you can see the date on this pub is 1683.

This photo below is of Jack (husband) eyeing up one of the boats which has been lifted out of the harbour but I don’t think he’ll be taking up sailing.

This is one end of the town from the harbour. It’s a nice wee place to have a bit of a stroll around.

It was reading Margaret of Books Please review of a Catriona McPherson book which is set there which made me think it was about time we had another look at South Queensferry. The last time we were there was during the summer when we took a trip on one of the boats which sails regularly to the island of Inchcolm. It’s a good day out, when the weather’s fair. You really wouldn’t want to be stuck out on an island in the middle of the Forth if there was the chance of a howling gale and rain blowing up. You can have a look at my Inchcolm post here.

I read The Pirate as part of the November’s Autumn classic challenge.
All the nice girls love a sailor, so THEY say – but what sort of girls like a pirate? My sort of course, I’ve always had a bit of a yen for the pirate type, in fiction anyway, which is why I opted to read this book. I can’t even read the word pirate without saying – aarrr Jim lad to myself, that’s Long John Silver of Treasure Island fame of course.

As I said previously this book was a very slow starter and I kept wondering when there would ever be some pirate action. It didn’t come until about two thirds of the way through the book. I was reminded of a heart monitor because The Pirate is very wordy and Scott does quite a lot of rambling for no good reason really, so it sort of flatlines and then there’s the odd spike of interest or excitement. But those bits are good and in the end I was glad that I hadn’t given up on it.

The action is set on Zetland, which is what we call Shetland nowadays, a group of islands off the north coast of Scotland. Mordaunt Mertoun is a young man who has never known his mother and has been brought up by a very cold and unloving father. When Mordaunt sees a ship being wrecked on the rocks near his home he has to save a sailor who is in danger of drowning, despite the fact that the Zetlanders don’t approve of such actions. In a harsh landscape where scavenging for goods from wrecked ships helps the islanders to survive, so they don’t want the complications which shipwreck survivors bring.

The survivor is a young man called Clement Cleveland and as predicted by the Zetlanders he brings no good to Mordaunt, in fact Cleveland turns Mordaunt’s friends and neighbours against him, particularly the sisters Brenda and Minna.

It’s a long book and I’m not going to say much more about the storyline but I have to say that although it dragged along slowly at times I did enjoy the atmosphere and descriptions of Shetland and later Orkney. The story is set not all that long after Shetland became part of Scotland, you might not know that up until the 15th century Shetland was part of Norway but it was given to Scotland as part of a dowry payment from King Christian of Norway on his daughter’s marriage. So there was a big Scandinavian influence and at the time The Pirate is set the islanders see the Scots as foreigners.

Walter Scott has woven Norse mythological tales into the storyline with the result that I want to read more about them, so that’s a plus point I think. I especially liked the character of Norna of Fitful Head who is a sort of white witch/soothsayer and makes a good living selling fair winds to fishermen and sailors, what a great idea! The population is generally wary of her and wants to keep in her good books.

Fitful Head is an actual place and you can see some wonderful images of it here and here.

So as I said before, reading The Pirate was a bit like wading through porridge at times, without the benefit of sugar or syrup but on balance it was worth it, if only to find out about Fitful Head, it might be added to our places to visit list!

The story is mainly set in the small fictional Scottish town of Barbie which is supposed to be somewhere in the east of Scotland, but not Fife – Lothian-ish I think. The town is aptly named as just about all of the words that come out of the townsfolks’ mouths are barbed comments. There’s one kind character in the whole town, the baker.

John Gourlay is a local businessman who has cornered the market in deliveries at a time when everything had to go by horse and cart. He had cut all his competitors out by delivering goods for nothing until they had to give up their businesses. So you can see he was not a nice chap, he was a real cut throat businessman and his only interest in life seems to have been spending money on his house and making it stand out as the best house in the town.

Gourlay’s favourite pastime was to put other people down at the same time as puffing himself up and he never had a kind word for anyone. As you can imagine he was the most disliked man in town because of his nasty personality, but to be fair the other inhabitants of Barbie weren’t far behind Gourlay in the charmless stakes.

That’s the main problem with the book as it’s difficult to really enjoy a book when it’s full of miserably mean characters. It’s also slow to get going and it wasn’t until about page 70 that I really started getting into it. Although I’m a Scot the fact that it’s written in broad and fairly archaic Scots didn’t help, it takes a while to get into the way of the dialogue.

Eventually I was glad that I had read the book. George Douglas Brown seems to have been doing for small town Scotland much the same as Thomas Hardy did for rural England, in other words captured the essence of the time and place, an honest portrayal, warts and all. As with Hardy, it’s a doom laden read. The moral is pride comes before a fall.

Apparently The House with the Green Shutters was the first book by a Scottish author which was a realistic picture of the times. Previous books had been all sentiment and cosiness and nothing like reality at all, they were known as Kailyard books. It was reading this book which pushed Lewis Grassic Gibbon to write his Sunset Song trilogy, set in the harsh landscape of Aberdeenshire. Anyone reading Green Shutters can’t help but notice that all the women characters are kept very much in the background and I’m sure that must have been an inspiration to Gibbon to write his books with stronger women characters.

There is only one good female character in Green Shutters and she’s only there for a couple of pages – if that. Mrs. Wilson comes from the west of Scotland and has a completely different temperament from the population of Barbie. Ahem – I’m saying nothing!

It’s great that the window shutters are still in working order too, most of the houses seem to have internal shutters. It must make it nice and cosy, especially when there’s a howling gale. They would also be handy for keeping the early sunlight out in the summer, it’s no fun trying to get to sleep when there’s bright daylight outside at about 3 or 4 in the morning.

The house next door to Carlyle’s has quite an unusual fanlight (the window above the door). It would make a good pattern for a patchwork quilt, if you’re of that band of crafters.

Carlyle lived in Kirkcaldy for a couple of years when he was teaching here but the powers that be pulled the place down years ago. You can see the street that it was in in a previous post here.

So what were we doing in Stockbridge? It wasn’t my fault (it wisnae me). Jack wanted to go to buy a book he had seen there a few weeks ago and hadn’t bought because he thought he already had it, he was wrong, luckily it was still there. He bought Space Chantey by R.A. Lafferty and The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke.

I ended up buying Mary Stewart’s The Ivy Tree and a 1934 copy of Priorsford by O. Douglas. Neither of them had been there a couple of weeks ago. That particular shop must have some turnover of books because they all seemed to be different this time.

Why was I at Waitrose? Buying more scone ingredients of course. Fingers crossed and ever hopeful that I can produce something good enough to photograph next time!

We were halfway to Edinburgh so decided to park at the Botanic Gardens and walk into town via Stockbridge. The National Gallery was having its annual Turner in January watercolour exhibition. The paintings were donated to Scotland by a collector who stipulated that they must only be on show during the month of January to stop them from being damaged by strong light. He needn’t have worried because there’s no sunlight at all where they are being hung, in fact it’s very dimly lit but if you’re in Edinburgh you should make time to have a look at them. They’re beautifully delicate looking, I think watercolour painting is far more difficult than painting with oils but for some reason people tend not to be so impressed by them.

This chap was just beginning to play his bagpipes so there was that usual caterwauling until he won the fight and managed to squeeze a recognisable tune out of them. The Walter Scott monument is in the background and the big wheel which was there over the Christmas/Hogmanay period is half-way through being dismantled. I once saw a Japanese man playing his pipes in Princes Street, in full highland regalia. I think he must have been fulfilling a lifetime’s ambition – well either that or he was trying to collect his fare back to Japan!

Anyway, after that we had a swift look around Marks and Spencer, there was nothing worth buying as the sale things are now only in size 8 or 20 and thankfully I am neither. To George Street and Waterstones where I didn’t find any books I wanted to buy. I know, I’m not supposed to be buying any. Then back on down to Stockbridge again on our way to the car.

You know I can’t resist those bookshops but it was extremely slim pickings this time, just as well really as I have so many to read. Spookily though I did find a copy of The House with the Green Shutters which Peggy has just downloaded from Project Gutenberg. So I bought it, it’s just a paperback but it’s a nice big one with very clear print, published by James Thin of Edinburgh in 1986 but in perfect condition. It may well jump my reading queue.

I also bought a McCalls Needlework book, it’s sort of nostalgic really and I didn’t realise that it was published in 1963 until I looked at it at home. It’s nearly 50 years old but looks like new and it cost me all of 50 pence! The only other book I couldn’t say no to is a very old copy of Brand by Ibsen. I thought it was a play, I like his plays but it’s actually a poem, so I’m not sure about that. It’s an Everyman’s Library edition from 1917 though and has never been read by the looks of it. It still may not be! It was another 50p buy in a charity shop. So that was a very cheap but tiring day out in Edinburgh, not at all what we expected to be doing that day but we both need to whittle a few pounds off after the festivities so the long walk will have done us some good – I hope!

Anna Buchan was John Buchan’s sister but she didn’t write thrillers. I think she would be best described as a romance writer and Penny Plain comes under that category ‘kailyard’ which was so popular in the early years of the 20th century.

The novel was first published in 1920. My edition was published in 1922 and it is the 12th edition which gives you an idea of how popular the book was in its day.

It’s set in the Scottish border country in a small town called Priorsford and is the story of Jean Jardine whose parents have died and she has to bring up her two younger brothers and a very small boy who is no blood relation at all, but as he is an orphan she feels obliged to look after him. They all live in a small cottage by the banks of the River Tweed which they rent from a man who lives in London, and Mrs McCosh from Glasgow helps with the housework.

The next-door neighbour, Bella Bathgate, takes in lodgers and Pamela Reston who is an ‘honourable’, a lord’s daughter from London, takes up residence as her guest and becomes great friends with the Jardines, which leads to big changes for all concerned.

There are times when the book gets just a wee bit too religious and Presbyterian, but I suppose that was to be expected from the daughter of a Wee Free minister. The Free Church of Scotland is the strictest form of Presbyterianism, no singing, no music, no dancing, do nothing on a Sunday except go to church and read the bible, don’t even cook a meal!! But then again her brother John never felt the need to bring it into his books.

Having said that the book is full of great characters who all ring true to me as typical Scots, especially Mrs McCosh the Glaswegian and even the dog Peter is a ‘card’. There’s plenty of humour as well as sentimentality.

If you do take a look at this book you might like to know that the wee boy is nicknamed ‘the Mhor’ which is Gaelic for ‘the great one’ and in Gaelic ‘mh’ together is pronounced as a v.

Uncle Bernac originally belonged to my Great-Uncle Robert and it’s a 1912 copy. This is the front plate. It has been in our house for years now but I just realised recently that it is by Conan Doyle and that is why I decided to put it on Katrina’s 2011 Reading List.

It’s a story told by Louis de Laval of how when he was a child his French aristocratic parents had fled from the Revolution and ended up living in England. After Louis’ father dies he receives a letter from his Uncle Bernac asking him to return to France. However the words ‘Don’t Come’ have been faintly scribbled on the outside of the envelope, and Louis is in a quandary.

As he has always been a Republican and had a secret admiration for Napoleon he decides to go and try to present himself to the emperor in the hope that he will be able to make himself useful to him. The alternative is to stay on in England and a life of penury.

Getting to France is no easy task and Louis’ adventures begin sooner than he wishes. It’s set in 1803 with Napoleon’s army camped out along the coast of France preparing to invade Sussex and Kent. If you enjoy books set in that time and place then you’ll probably like this one, as I did.

Although it’s a long time since I went out to a real Burns Supper we always have the traditional haggis, neeps and tatties on the 25th of January, the anniversary of Robert Burns‘s birth. We’re having vegetarian haggis this year as it’s my favourite. It really tastes very similar to the traditional kind because the same spices are used but instead of being made with a lot of unappetising bits of a sheep’s inside it’s made with pulses, oatmeal and kidney beans and such so there’s no danger of feeling squeamish.

Apart from writing poetry Robert Burns also collected a lot of traditional tunes and wrote words for them, saving lots of music which would otherwise have been lost in the mists of time. This is one of the tunes which he saved and wrote words for.

It’s sung here by Kenneth McKellar who died recently. There doesn’t seem to be a video of him singing it, it was his wife’s favourite song and after she died he didn’t sing it again. He had a lovely voice but he always looked like he came straight off a shortbread tin – kilt, velvet jacket, lacy stock (cravat) and all. He was a one man Scottish cliche and that wasn’t always too popular with fellow Scots. Anyway, it’s a lovely song, have a listen to it if you have time and you’re not averse to a bit of romance now and again!

A Red, Red Rose written in 1794

O, My luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June.
O, my luve’s like the melodie,
That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair thou art, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my Dear
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun!
O, I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare the weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!

The story is set in London and Mr Leithen (I don’t think we ever find out his first name) is a Member of Parliament. He was elected in a by-election in which he was supposed to be a forlorn hope and he is still working as a criminal lawyer part-time. Leithen discovers that one of his old friends, Pitt-Heron who happens to be very wealthy, has got mixed up with a lot of strange foreign people and what had been the billiard room in his house has been turned into a laboratory.

When Pitt-Heron bolts suddenly with a large amount of gold which he has taken from his bank, his wife Ethel is at her wits’ end and Leithen and his friend Tommy try to track her husband down for her.

Buchan obviously had a thing about being hunted down because so far every book of his which I’ve read has involved a man-hunt. This one has Leithen being chased across London with people at every turn intent on grabbing him with a view to ‘doing him in’.

This book wasn’t nearly as good as Greenmantle or even The Thirty-Nine Steps, Huntingtower, or Salute to Adventurers but it’s still worthwhile reading if you’re into classic thrillers.

John Buchan was yet another local lad, having been brought up in Kirkcaldy where his father was a minister in a church near where I live. After leaving school he went to The University of Glasgow to study Classics and went from there to Oxford.

He had a very distinguished career and became Governor General of Canada in 1935. Topically, considering that the film The King’s Speech is just about to be released, John Buchan told the British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and Buckingham Palace that the people of Canada would be outraged if Edward VIII married Wallis Simpson.

He was given a baronetcy in 1935 and became Lord Tweedsmuir.

I’m running out of Buchan books to read, the only one I have unread is Witch Wood.