Lone places of the deer, Corrie, and Loch, and Ben, Fount that wells in the cave, Voice of the burn and the wave…*

by chuckofish

What with moving office, making a quick trip to Burlington, VT, and starting the last two days of my digital history workshop, I’ve had a busy week. Despite the activity, I don’t have much to report. Although the Vermont countryside was lovely, Burlington was way too crowded and built up. The heavy traffic did not make me feel adventurous, but I did manage to visit a couple of antique stores, and at one called (fittingly) Rusty Relics I found a little trinket tray that matches the heart-shaped box my Aunt Susanne gave me decades ago.

When I needed a break from heaving books around and driving across the state, I started re-reading a young adult novel from 1959 called Master of Morgana that I gave to one of my sons years ago.

The book is set on the Isle of Skye and involves a sixteen year old boy’s efforts to find out what caused his sure-footed brother to fall into a gorge. As the brother languishes in a coma, our hero takes over his job among the fishermen, at least one of whom must be to blame for the ‘accident’. Perilous adventures ensue. No one writes this type of book anymore. The protagonist is intelligent, resourceful and upright, but not superhuman, and although the villains are bad, they are not psychotic or perverted. High-tech gadgetry and physics-defying stunts do not figure at all; coastal salmon fishing and smuggling do. The story unfolds at a reasonable pace and all the characters and events seem plausible and real. I’m enjoying the book so much that I ordered Storm over Skye by the same author, and I am really looking forward to its arrival.

a real storm over Skye

Not bad for a busy week…

*Andrew Lang, “Lone Places of the Deer”