Marbh & Uisge Beatha

Jacksonville's piper Bill Stewart conducted our first Scottish Whisky tasting session on Friday, February 6th. Several fine single malts were sampled with guidance from Mr. Stewart and Michael Jackson's book, Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch which is available at The Jacksonville Public Library. The malts were sampled after each round of a Murder Mystery game along with dinner and dessert.
The diversity of malt sampled during the evening:
Speyside-12 year old
The lowland Auchentoshan Select
The Islay Bowmore-12 year old
The Highland Glenmorangie/Quinta Ruban-port cask non chill- filtered

Do murder & Scotch go together? The Bookwraith says, "Yes." The Bookwraith also won the game.

Murder

Sir Walter Scott received Sharpe' s permission to include "The Murder of Caerlaverock" in his effort to preserve those ballads surviving through oral tradition. It was also printed as "The Murder of the King of Scott's" by Percy and collected by Childe as "Earl Bothwell." Murder is a literary gift that keeps on giving and is found throughout Scott's works indicating Scots were a somewhat less than peaceful people.
Read Scott's works to learn from history. Read my next entry which provides an account of the first meeting of Jacksonville's "Marbh & Uisge Beatha." Do murder and whisky go together. The bookwraith says, "Yes."

Sir Walter Scott

In 1814, Jane Austen remarked, "Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones, -it is not fair-He has Fame and Profit enough as a Poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths, -I do not like him and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it-but I fear I must."
There are others like Mark Twain who apparently did not want to like the works of Scott, but their correspondence indicates they read his works avidly. His works obviously could not maintain the enormous popularity they enjoyed when Scott was alive, but new editions continue to find printers and critical works continue to have Scott as their focus. Next year will be the 200th anniversary of the first printing of "Lady of the Lake."
Should we read his works or allow them to fade into the mists of time?

Jessie Kesson

Jessie Kesson wrote for the Scots Magazine with the assistance of Neil Gunn and she also produced Women’s Hour on BBC radio. Her writing reflects the hardship of her own life, but the Daily Telegraph wrote, “Miss Kesson writes beautifully, her strong, delicate prose full of poetry and humour.

She wrote The White Bird Passes in 1958. Even though this novel has been adapted for television and Scottish poet has encouraged all to “beg, borrow or steal this book,” it gathers dust on library shelves.

Read this fine piece of literature before the bookwraith claims another victim.

The Lament of Flora McDonald

The Lament of Flora McDonald is one of Hogg’s most popular Jacobite songs and is featured on the University of Stirling’s research site studying James Hogg. This song was “first produced as a song sheet and later included in the Second Series of his Jacobite Relics in 1821. The tune and its accompaniment were written by Niel Gow junior, who apparently told Hogg that the melody was an ‘ancient Skye air’. Hogg is said to have written new lyrics for it, even though Gow provided original Gaelic verses, and Hogg was very proud of this song, noting in 1831: ‘I could hardly believe my senses that I had made so good a song without knowing it’. Its popularity is evident in a number of independent song sheets throughout the 1820s and ’30s. It also appeared in George Thomson’s Select Melodies of Scotland (1822), in The Border Garland (1828) and in Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd in 1831 where he calls it ‘Flora Macdonald’s Farewell’”. This quote is from the University site at http://www.jameshogg.stir.ac.uk/cd.php

and has MP3 files available for free download.

Can you find this song elsewhere? Your local library? Can you find it on Amazon.com? Will this song only be heard while this study of James Hogg endures then fade into the mist of time? Listen to this song and share it with your friends or the bookwraith will claim another victim.

The Songs of James Hogg

In 2005 Professor Emeritus Douglas Mack, at the University of Stirling and Dr Kirsteen McCue of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow were awarded a major research grant of just over £150,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This grant is allowing Dr McCue, and Dr Janette Currie also of the University of Stirling, to undertake a major project on the songs of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd.

This is alot of money to preserve the Jacobite songs of Hogg. Will this preserve them for generations to come? Have you seen any results from this grant? Some of the songs of Hogg's contemporary, Sir Walter Scott, are a part of our daily lives but we are not aware of his influence. Can you hum a tune of Hogg's?

James Hogg

James Hogg was born near Ettrick, Scotland in 1770. In 1824, he wrote The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner which Ian Crichton Smith considers, “a towering Scottish novel, one of the very greatest of all Scottish books.” This metaphysical thriller is the first psychological novel written a century before the genre became popular. It is a terrifying account of a psychopathic killer who abuses the Calvinist doctrine of predestination wherein God’s elect can do no wrong. Are God’s elect to live as they please as this character does?
Read the book if you can find it. Is it in your public library? It’s not in mine (I have my own copy, however). This is what happens to books when no one reads them. The Scottish literature and Scottish culture fades into the mist. One more book for the BookWraith.