Download or read book The History of Orkney Literature written by Simon Hall and published by John Donald Publishers. This book was released on 2010 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the middle ages, Orkney has proved remarkable for the volume and the quality of its literary output. From the skalds and sagamen of the Viking age, through to the colourful folklorists, polemicists and translators of the Victorian era, and the internationally acclaimed poets and novelists of the twentieth century, Orkney has continually and self-consciously developed a unique literary culture of its own. This clearly defined artistic territory resembles a sub-nation at times, and is characterised not by insularity, but by what might be termed a positive 'insularism' - defining, reinventing and presenting itself to the world. "The History of Orkney Literature" is the first full survey of literary writing from and about the Orkney Islands. The book presents readings of uncomplicatedly Orcadian writers such as Walter Traill Dennison, Edwin Muir, Eric Linklater, Robert Rendall and George Mackay Brown. It also considers major texts written by 'outside' authors which are nevertheless demonstrably Orcadian in terms of their setting, style and influence. "The History of Orkney Literature" charts the development of this distinctly Orcadian strand within Scottish Literature, and shows how the archipelago, rather than the nation, can indeed be the defining locus of a compact and vibrant literary tradition.
Download or read book Orkneyinga Saga written by and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1981-07-30 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written around AD 1200 by an unnamed Icelandic author, the Orkneyinga Saga is an intriguing fusion of myth, legend and history. The only medieval chronicle to have Orkney as the central place of action, it tells of an era when the islands were still part of the Viking world, beginning with their conquest by the kings of Norway in the ninth century. The saga describes the subsequent history of the Earldom of Orkney and the adventures of great Norsemen such as Sigurd the Powerful, St Magnus the Martyr and Hrolf, the conqueror of Normandy. Savagely powerful and poetic, this is a fascinating depiction of an age of brutal battles, murder, sorcery and bitter family feuds. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Download or read book Orkney written by Amy Sackville and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A haunting novel” about sex and obsession, set off the coast of Scotland and “full of otherworldly emotion and strange impulses” (Marie Claire). A professor marries his prize student, a woman forty years his junior, and at her request, he takes her to the sea for their honeymoon. His life’s work is a book about enchantment–narratives in literature, most of them involving strange girls and women—but soon he finds himself distracted by his own enchantment with his new white–haired young wife. They travel to the Orkney Islands, the ancient Mesolithic and Neolithic site north of the Scottish coast, a barren place of extraordinary beauty known as “the Seal Islands.” And as the days of their honeymoon pass, his desire and his constant, yearning contemplation become his normality. His mysterious bride becomes his entire universe. He is consumed . . . From the author of The Still Point, a winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, this is a novel that “will appeal to literature aficionados: a Lolita–esque love, a romance born out of academia, and folklore come to life” (Booklist). “What begins as a familiar, almost fairytale–like narrative ends as something more fragmented, unsettling, and odd . . . Providing a brooding, bruised, ever–changing backdrop to all this is Orkney, the book’s most compelling character of all. In a tribute to Virginia Woolf’s experimental masterpiece, The Waves, the sea in Orkney functions as a kind of rhythmic talisman, its ebb and flow mirrored in the actions, ideas, and themes of the book. More than anything, Sackville’s Orkney is a breathtaking place in the most literal of senses.” —The Scotsman
Download or read book The Boy with the Bronze Axe written by Kathleen Fidler and published by Floris Books. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kathleen Fidler's classic story is set in the ancient Stone Age village of Skara Brae on Orkney. This is a fascinating and vividly portrayed story of life nearly 3,000 years ago. Kali and Brockan are in trouble. They have been using their stone axes to chip limpets off the rocks, but they've gone too far out and find themselves trapped by the tides. Then, an unexpected rescuer appears, a strange boy in a strange boat, carrying a strangely sharp axe of a type they have never seen before. Conflict arises as the village of Skara must decide what to do with the new ideas and practices that the boy brings. As a deadly storm threatens, the very survival of the village is in doubt. Step back into the Stone Age and learn about the daily life and rituals of the ancient village of Skara Brae in this compelling, fictional account of the famous Orkney settlement. Vivid descriptions and accurate historical details bring the village to life and make this an ideal choice for those studying the Stone Age curriculum.
Download or read book An Orkney Tapestry written by George Mackay Brown and published by Polygon. This book was released on 2021-06-03 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1969, An Orkney Tapestry, George Mackay Brown's seminal work, is a unique look at Orkney through the eye of a poet. Originally commissioned by his publisher as an introduction to the Orkney Islands, Brown approached the writing from a unique perspective and went on to produce a rich fusion of ballad, folk tale, short story, drama and environmental writing. The book, written at an early stage in the author's career, explores themes that appear in his later work and was a landmark in Brown's development as a writer. Above all, it is a celebration of Orkney's people, language and history. This edition reproduces Sylvia Wishart's beautiful illustrations, commissioned for the original hardback.Made available again for the first time in over 40 years, this new edition sits alongside Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain as an important precursor of environmental writing by the likes of Kathleen Jamie, Robert Macfarlane, Malachy Tallack and, most recently, Amy Liptrot.
Download or read book The Orkney Scroll written by Lyn Hamilton and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 2007 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When one of her clients falls victim to a scam and becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation, Toronto antiques dealer and amateur sleuth Lara McClintoch follows a trail leading to Scotland's remote Orkney Islands and into the middle of a centuries-old Viking mystery. Reprint.
Download or read book Vinland written by George Mackay Brown and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2014-03-27 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his fourth novel, George Mackay Brown takes us to an Orkney torn between its Viking past and its Christian future. Set in the early 11th Century, it tells the story of Ranald Sigmundson, who turns his back on a successful life of political intrigues and battles to design a ship to take him on a journey even greater than the first great voyage of his life, the one to Vinland.
Download or read book An Orkney Anthology written by Ernest W. Marwick and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Orkney's history, folklore, language and way of life are skilfully recreated in this outstanding collection. The Anthology draws together a wealth of fascinating material from journals, newspaper articles and broadcast strips, and includes much previously unpublished writing. It forms a major new contribution to the story of Orkney. The first of two volumes, this book focuses on Orkney's folklore and history. The articles range from unique collections of domestic, farming and sea superstitions to the remarkable ABC of Orkney Food, Fifty Years of Scapa Flow and Northern Witches, an account of witchcraft in Orkney. Ernest Marwick combined research into archives and oral tradition in a blend of styles. Both the serious analytical articles, and the more anecdotal light-hearted pieces, will reward the student and the interested layman alike
Download or read book Beside the Ocean of Time written by George Mackay Brown and published by Calgary : Bayeux Arts. This book was released on 1994 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1994 Booker Prize short-listed story of Thorfinn Ragnarson's dreams re-living his birthplace.
Download or read book Foot prints of the Creator Or The Asterolepis of Stromness written by Hugh Miller and published by . This book was released on 1861 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book An Orkney Murder written by Alanna Knight and published by Allison & Busby. This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Taut with tension and an air of authority that stems from Knight's expertise in Scottish History' -- Irish Times
Download or read book The Invention of Scotland written by Hugh Trevor-Roper and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-16 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that while Anglo-Saxon culture has given rise to virtually no myths at all, myth has played a central role in the historical development of Scottish identity. Hugh Trevor-Roper explores three myths across 400 years of Scottish history: the political myth of the "ancient constitution" of Scotland; the literary myth, including Walter Scott as well as Ossian and ancient poetry; and the sartorial myth of tartan and the kilt, invented--ironically, by Englishmen--in quite modern times. Trevor-Roper reveals myth as an often deliberate cultural construction used to enshrine a people's identity. While his treatment of Scottish myth is highly critical, indeed debunking, he shows how the ritualization and domestication of Scotland's myths as local color diverted the Scottish intelligentsia from the path that led German intellectuals to a dangerous myth of racial supremacy. This compelling manuscript was left unpublished on Trevor-Roper's death in 2003 and is now made available for the first time. Written with characteristic elegance, lucidity, and wit, and containing defiant and challenging opinions, it will absorb and provoke Scottish readers while intriguing many others. "I believe that the whole history of Scotland has been coloured by myth; and that myth, in Scotland, is never driven out by reality, or by reason, but lingers on until another myth has been discovered, or elaborated, to replace it."-Hugh Trevor-Roper
Download or read book Orkney Twilight written by Clare Carson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-12-01 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All families have secrets. But some have more secrets than others. Jim is a brilliant raconteur whose stories get taller with each glass of whisky. His daughter Sam thinks it's time she found out the truth about her dad. On holiday in Orkney, Sam spies on Jim as he travels across the island. What has he hidden in the abandoned watchtower? Who is he meeting in the stone circle at dusk? And why is he suddenly obsessed with Norse myths? As Sam is drawn into Jim's shadowy world, she begins to realise that pursuing the truth is not as simple as it seems... Set against the harsh beauty of the remote Scottish islands of Orkney, inspired by the author's own childhood, this is a gripping first novel from an astonishing new talent.
Download or read book An Autobiography written by Edwin Muir and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-08-01 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "An Autobiography" by Edwin Muir. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.
Download or read book The Folklore of Orkney and Shetland written by Ernest Marwick and published by Birlinn Ltd. This book was released on 2020-05-07 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two island groups of Orkney and Shetland have much in common. In each the grey stone houses and treeless landscapes are scoured in winter by stinging gales, and in summer lie under the endless days of the 'simmer din'. Originally Norwegian, they have been part of Scotland for five hundred years, but their many and varied legends, folk tales and customs are still saturated with Norse influences. While this book tells tales and discusses beliefs that are known throughout the northern isles, it also outlines those elements which are unique to each island group. The Folklore of Orkney and Shetland is the standard account of what to this day is one of the richest repositories of lore and custom in Britain. Ernest Marwick not only recounts countless tales which have been transmitted aurally and by writing, but also places these tales within geographical and historical contexts, thus enabling a deeper appreciation of this wonderful material. A bibliography is also included, together with an index of tale types and motifs.
Download or read book The Stromness Dinner written by Peter Benson and published by Seren. This book was released on 2020-10-28 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ed Beech is one half of Beech Building Services. He's based in Bermondsey but no job's too small, no distance too great. So when he's asked to do some work on a house in Orkney, he loads the van with paint, tools and sandwiches, and takes off. He gets nervous around farm animals and large ships, and he's never been so far north, but when he's joined by Claire, his client's city banker sister, he discovers that in Stromness, anything is possible.Peter Benson's compelling new novel continues his exploration of unlikely relationships, and paints a vivid picture of a place where all is not what it seems, but might be."What's on the menu at The Stromness Dinner? Small plates, big flavours. Peter Benson has the miniaturist's eye for the tiny details that bring grand themes alive: the love of food, the love of island life, and a love of love itself. His novel is humorous, humane and horrible good (as we say in Stromness.)" – Duncan McLean"Benson's snappy novel rattles along with irresistible pace and panache... his story will captivate and entertain and the happy ending is a great treat during the current pandemic nightmare." – Val Hennessy
Download or read book Chrissie s Bodle written by Ragnhild Ljosland and published by Anchor Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Dr. Ragnhild Ljosland, from the Centre for Nordic Studies, University of the Highlands and Islands, Orkney, explores the life and writing of this remarkable Orkneywoman who has been overlooked compared to her friends and fellow writers George Mackay Brown and Robert Rendall. Christina Costie often uses Orkney's oral storytelling culture as her vantage point and her writing is a treasure trove for those interested in folklore, old customs and beliefs. At the same time, Christina Costie's strong compassion allowed her to write truly moving poems and stories about Orkney life. Writing mainly in the 1940s and 50s, she embraced the idea of writing in the Norn and Scots amalgam which makes the Orkney dialect unique.
