Portrait Of Orkney

Portrait of Orkney is a personal account of a people, their history and their way of life, and of a landscape that has shaped them, and been shaped by them.

The Orkney Islands are a place of mystery and magic, where the past and the present meet, ancient standing stones walk and burial mounds are the home of the trows. Orkney Folk Tales walks the reader across invisible islands that are home to fin folk and mermaids, and seals that are often far more than they appear to be. Here Orkney witches raise storms and predict the outcome of battles, ghosts seek revenge and the Devil sits in the rafters of St Magnus Cathedral, taking notes! Using ancient tales told by the firesides of the Picts and Vikings, storyteller Tom Muir takes the reader on a magical journey where he reveals how the islands were created from the teeth of a monster, how a giant built lochs and hills in his greed for fertile land, and how the waves are controlled by the hand of a goddess.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING Wishing to leave behind the isolation of her Orkney life, Amy Liptrot books a one-way flight to Berlin. She rents a loftbed in a shared flat and starts to look for work – and for love – through the screen of her phone. The Instant tells of the momentous year that follows, encountering the city’s wildlife in the most unexpected places, tracing the cycles of the moon, the flight paths of migratory birds and surrendering to the addictive power of love and lust.

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE 2016 WAINWRIGHT PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 ONDAATJE PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 WELLCOME PRIZE At the age of thirty, Amy Liptrot finds herself washed up back home on Orkney. Standing unstable on the island, she tries to come to terms with the addiction that has swallowed the last decade of her life. As she spends her mornings swimming in the bracingly cold sea, her days tracking Orkney's wildlife, and her nights searching the sky for the Merry Dancers, Amy discovers how the wild can restore life and renew hope.

George Mackay Brown's first book of poems, reprinted with illustrations from Orkney.

From runic inscriptions to sagas, this book introduces readers to the colourful world of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. An introduction to the colourful world of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. Covers mythology and family sagas, as well as less well-known areas, such as oral story-telling, Eddaic verse and skaldic verse. An introduction helps readers to appreciate the language and culture of the first settlers in Iceland. Looks at the reception of Old-Norse-Icelandic literature over the ages, as views of the vikings have changed. Shows how a whole range of authors from Shakespeare to Seamus Heaney have been influenced by Old Norse-Icelandic literature.

The Mainstream Companion to Scottish Literature is the most comprehensive reference guide to Scotland's literature, covering a period from the earliest times to the early 1990s. It includes over 600 essays on the lives and works of the principal poets, novelists, dramatists critics and men and women of letters who have written in English, Scots or Gaelic. Thus, as well as such major writers as Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas, Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and Hugh MacDiarmid, the Companion also lists many minor writers whose work might otherwise have been overlooked in any survey of Scottish literature. Also included here are entries on the lives of other more peripheral writers such as historians, philosophers, diarists and divines whose work has made a contribution to Scottish letters. Other essays range over such general subjects as the principal work of major writers, literary movements, historical events, the world of printing and publishing, folklore, journalism, drama and Gaelic. A feature of the book is the inclusion of the bibliography of each writer and reference to the major critical works. This comprehensive guide is an essential tool for the serious student of Scottish literature as well as being an ideal guide and companion for the general reader.