Tales Of Galloway

In this collection of fifty-one tales from the land of galloway, Alan Temperley pays tribute to the great Scottish tradition of storytelling. The tales are wide-ranging: heros, ghosts and solway smugglers; witches, martyrs, mermaids and fairies; reivers, monsters and colourful rogues. Here are Billy Marshall, King of the tinklers; Sawney Bean, the murderous cannibal; young Robert the Brube on the run in the heather; Trost, last of the Picts, who kept the secret of heather ale; the legend of Mons Meg; Claverhouse and Lagg, persecutors of the Covenanters; the famous poterguist of Rerrick; and many more. Simply told and unadorned, the stories bear the flavour of the region mountain and forest, silver rivers and lochs, the wild Solway Firth, and some of the most beautiful rolling countryside in Britain. Originally these traditional tales ranging from rustic comedy to horrific murder were told in crofts and rural cottages. They grew naturally out of the rich past and the land and the lives of the people wonderful stories. And they are still as alive today as when they were first told.