He travels back in time to Viking adventures at the court of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople. Part of the 1995 Scottish Book Fortnight promotion.

    Much of the rich store of material comes from the great legacy of medieval Gaelic manuscripts. In more recent times, papers of medical societies have shown how traditional methods and cures are still of value to modern medicine. In addition to a general historical background, which traces the story of Highland folk tradition from earliest times, Mary Beith describes a whole variety of traditional remedies, cures and practices, from the healing properties of stone and metal, animals and insects, to rituals, charms and incantations. Her book also includes a list of the most commonly used herbs. Clearly written with extensive source notes, Healing Threads is a unique introduction to a subject that has fascinated generation after generation.

    And in the midst of this magnificent struggle for power, two strangers born to be enemies discovered a passion as savage as the wild Scottish moors.Jonet Maxwell...a fiery green-eyed girl and a much sought after bride with a dowry of rich lands., she would become a pawn in a deadly game of vengeance and desire...and her heart would be ignited by the dashing spy who was her captor.Alexander Hepburn...the baron of Durham had a handsome face and a ruined name; his blood enemy was Robert Mure, Jonet's uncle. To exact an exquisite revenge, he would spirit away an innocent girl and hold her hostage, only to lose himself to the smoldering passion in her eyes.He was sworn to clear his father's name. She was fighting to save her beloved uncle's life. They were enemies in a battle of blood ties and birthright, allies in a dangerous truce.

    Leaving home and school in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia aged 16, she crossed to Scotland to spend a year at school near Glasgow. It was there that her love for Scotland was born. After studying music in New York and Paris, she returned to live for six years with two sisters in South Uist. Life on the island had changed little from previous centuries, and material comforts were few. But the island was rich in music and tradition, and Margaret Fay Shaw's collection of Gaelic lore and song are amongst the most important made this century, whilst her photography evocatively captures the aura of a vanished world.Her autobiography is the remarkable testament of a remarkable woman as well as a powerful plea in defense of a Gaelic culture and world under threat. It is written with a sharpness of observation, directness of humor and zest for life which make it a marvelous record of the twentieth century.

    

    

    A creature with a very nasty habit.So says the editor of the local newspaper. But neither he, nor anyone else knows what is behind the spate of brutal killings which sent a shockwave through the town.They don’t know that a séance was held one dark and stormy night. A séance that went disastrously wrong. Something evil had been summoned from a dark place. For those around the table, the clock is ticking..And for the whole town, the nightmare is just beginning.The only clue to its real identity, and its purpose, comes in the terrifying visions of a psychic girl….but who can believe she can see the killings before they actually happen.It is only when the victims bodies are found impaled in steep, high places that detective Jack Fallon realises the visions are real. And that something evil, and hungry, is stalking the night.Something that must be stopped and stopped fast.Because Lorna Breck’s latest vision makes it clear that the beast is coming for Jack Fallon, and the people he loves most.Together, they will have to face it…in the dark.

    An exhilarating dance. A dance, one visitor reports, which ''the emigration from Skye has occasioned''. The visitor asks for the dance's name. ''They call it America,'' he is told. Now James Hunter provides the first comprehensive account of what happened to the thousands of people who, over the last two hundred years, left Skye and other parts of the Scottish Highlands to make new lives in the United States and Canada.

    In this personal portfolio of photographs, Colin Baxter shares some of the best moments he has captured during nearly twenty years of photographing Scotland's ever-changing panoramas.

    This biography traces his life from his earliest days in Galloway, through school and army service, and on to his career as a writer.

    As their lives touch, new alliances are formed – some doomed to failure and bitter despair, others that will endure against the odds to bring lasting happiness.Jessie Macpherson, newly appointed cook, daily dreams up sumptuous menus and dazzles the Lennoxes and their guests with her skill. But even at this time of triumph, Jessie realises there has to be more to life. Sholto Hamilton, a poor but ambitious lawyer and highly successful ladies’ man, offers her a glimpse of other delights, and before long Jessie is trapped in the sensual web he has woven. But what future together can there be for a gentleman and a servant? Will Sholto wish to burden himself with a wife such as Jessie when he still has his way to make in the world?The future seems far more assured for Celia Lennox, the daughter of the house, and Sholto’s friend Ralph Erskine. Heir of an Edinburgh steel magnate, and a passionate admirer of Celia’s wild, fey beauty, there could not be a more eligible candidate than Ralph for her hand. But, eligible or not, another man has caught Celia Lennox’s eye – and perhaps her heart.Meanwhile Ralph’s sister Alix despairs of ever fitting the rigid mould of society wife and mother. Surely a woman’s sphere of influence need not be confined purely to the drawing room and marital bed? Alix overcomes parental opposition and society’s disapproval to win herself an education and against all expectations finds a man who shares her views, a match made in heaven – until a shocking stroke of fate robs her of happiness and turns all her passion and commitment on to the fearsome path of martyrdom for the cause of women’s suffrage.A sweeping, panoramic survey of turn-of-the-century Scottish society – from country house to industrial slums, bohemian free-thinking to High Tory Politics - Green Grow the Rushes is peopled with a cast of memorable and vividly realised characters.

    It is the author's expression of the seven years she lived in Shetland, during which she explored Shetland by land and sea, discovered the sagas while working in Shetland Library, learned to watch birds on Fair Isle, Noss and other islands, and spent several summers as a volunteer on a dig at Da Biggings, Papa Stour, excavating a Norse farm.The novel was re-written in the early 1990s, partly in the National Library of Scotland, partly in Shetland, and partly (thanks to a Scottish Arts Council travel grant) in Iceland. Islanders was first published in 1994. It is now (2008) nearly thirty years since the first draft was written; since then Margaret Elphinstone has lived in other places and written other books. But it was Shetland, and Islanders, that first inspired and formed her as a writer.'From the opening pages with their map of the islands which turns north and south upside down to reflect the orientation of the island worldview, the reader's conventional perspectives on peripheral cultures is destabilised, and resettled in a view from a rock perched far in the Atlantic, looking at Europe, Britain, and even Orkney and Shetland from a very different value-centre.'Douglas Gifford, A History of Scottish Women's Writing.

    It explores the nature of the impact of the Norman Settlement on monastic life, how Britain responded to new, European ideas, and also to the needs of religious women. Every aspect of the life and work of the religious orders is covered, from their daily life to their contribution to intellectual developments. Particular attention is paid to the relationships between religious houses and their founders and patrons, showing the degree of dependence on local patrons and the tension between the religious life and the pressures of the world.

    It is also a portrait of the author’s mother and aunt, idealistic and emotional women both.

    Keyed to the Revised Common Lectionary, it includes a variety of services, including Holy Baptism and Communion, Marriage, and occasional services, as well as daily devotions.

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    A new, revised edition of this invaluable guide to the background to and causes of the Union of 1707 which, outside Parliament, was deeply unpopular in Scotland.

    `[The author takes] the Celtic world to include both the European continent and the more recent settlements in the British Isles. The entries, admirably broad in scope, conceive religion and culture as including not only the usual gods and myths but shamanic practices and totems. Maier also provides entries for important scholars of Celtic culture.' CHOICE

    The author calls for a more considered and caring attitude towards these landscapes, their wildlife tribes, and the human communities which inhabit them.

    What emerges is a story of a warrior who fought for his clan, his Catholic religion and his Highland world - against the supremacy of Clan Campbell, The Lowlands and England.

    In this collection of 28 stories you will find Scots in a great variety depicting life, and a great variety of life depicted in Scots.From the traditional story-telling of Stanley Robertson, to the unflinching urban brutality of Irvine Welsh's A Soft Touch; from the fine portraits of rural life by David Toulmin and Sheena Blackhall to the fierce urgency of Matthew Fitt's Stervin or Janet Paisley's Vices; from Billy Kay's moving reconstruction of a 1920s mining disaster to the surreal humour of Brent Hodgson's interview with King Lear - Scots is here in all its forms, in dialects ranging from Shetland to the Borders and from Ayrshire to Leith.

    This edition of the sixteenth-century Protestant reformer's most significant political writings includes all of his writings on the theme of rebellion, including his notorious First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.