William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Rob Roy (not to mention the Loch Ness Monster): Sir Walter Scott certainly knew a country that bred brave, bigger-than-life heroes when he saw it. It’s no wonder that the lush mountain scenery of the Scottish Highlands, and the majestic sweep of 790 islands (!), is the perfect backdrop for epic romance. And although the highlands are no longer peopled by the fabled, chivalrous, unruly Highlander clans of old – those fierce Scottish outlaws, martyrs, traitors and deadly warriors who seemed to get under the skin of the bloodless English with increasing regularity – their fame lives on in the accounts of their deeds (and even in the discredited, but no less brilliant, Ossian poems of James MacPherson).
Any self-respecting Scot knows that a good tartan is the solution to everything: it tells you what you are, where you belong, who your friends and family are. Forget the Vikings: those guys just can’t hold a candle to a delicious battle-weary warrior whose fighting skills and wicked sex appeal have spawned a thousand Scottish heartthrobs. From the gothic castles and over the windswept moors, with the broadsword, the claymore, the dirk, the flai, and the Lochaber axe, one of the most time-tested, evocative and romantic superheroes known the world over in video games, comic books and romance novels hails from nowhere other than Scotland.
And from the fierce battle-torn highlands we move to the magic steeped lowlands, where the ley lines meet and the most powerful witches lie in wait, mystical energy flowing as swiftly as the River Tweed. Where glaistigs snatch unfortunate souls straight from their beds, and carry them into the night on headless horses, and bean shìth moan and wail in dark woods. Make sure to leave an empty place at the dinner table for the dead on Samhain for you just might find yourself breaking bread with a ghostly lady in white, or a horseman with no head, or a demon, a dark fairy, a bristling loch monster, or a haunting phantom from the other side of the grave. The Scottish hills are alive with the sound of supernatural slithering.
So, although the ell, the stone, the boll and the firlot are no more, and I have been many times a witness to the sorry sight of café owners in London refusing Scottish pound notes as if they were monopoly money, do not despair. The stories in this collection are rowdy, wild, irresistible examples of the kind of history, magic and sex you’re sure to encounter if you ever find yourself on a dark, lonely road in the middle of the Scottish wilderness, face to face with a half-naked man in a tartan. It’s always best to be prepared.
Trisha Telep