Literary Scotland

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4 Highlands and MorayIt is one of the mostimportant poems of thetwentieth century andvisiting the place can helpyou understand its qualitiesof haunting, loss andaffirmation: ‘the deadhave been seen alive.’1014ISLE OF RAASAYSorley MacLean’s poem ‘Hallaig’ evokes the cleared township of that name and is engravedon a monument overlooking this spot. It is one of the most important poems of the twentiethcentury and visiting the place can help you understand its qualities of haunting, loss andaffirmation: ‘the dead have been seen alive.’Above Looking over to Raasay and Skye from the Pass of the Cattle.
15ISLE OF SKYE, BRAESThe home of Sorley MacLean and his wifeRené was at 6 Penniechorrain, Braes, and onthe hill to the right of the road on the wayto the small cluster of houses there, there isa monument to the Battle of the Braes, withwords by MacLean, commemorating theconfrontation in the 1880s, that began thereclaiming of land rights for the crofters inthe face of absentee landowners. The greatpoet of the crofters’ battle for land rightswas Mary Macpherson, known as MairiMhor nan Oran, Big Mary of the Songs,partly because of the magnitude of her voice,vision and moral authority, partly becauseof her girth. The great mountain range ofSkye is the Cuillins: Hugh MacDiarmiddescribes himself in his poem ‘DireadhIII’ (published in his 1943 autobiography,Lucky Poet) sitting on the summit of one ofthem, Sgurr Alasdair, lighting his pipe andHighlands and Morayconcluding that the Inaccessible Pinnacle –among the highest points of the range – ‘isnot inaccessible’: in other words, the highestambition needs to be encouraged if Scotlandand the people of Scotland are to fulfil theirpotential. In his long poem-sequence, ‘TheCuillin’ (1939), Sorley MacLean evokes themountains as a physical reality he climbedand knew intimately, but also as a permanentsymbol of hope and aspiration, rising abovethe European threat of Fascism he felt whenhe wrote the poem, but also, beyond theinnumerable tragedies and human failures ofhistory, including the Highland Clearances,rising ‘on the other side of sorrow’. JamesHunter’s book, On the Other Side of Sorrow(1995) takes a broad survey of poets andwriters on the Highland Clearances, writingin Gaelic, Scots and English.16 strathnaver looking around as if over all of Scotland, and4This is one of the most beautiful and saddestvalleys in the world. Its emptiness is ladenwith the sense of missing people, morethan a century after their evictions. DonaldMacLeod describes what happened inhis memoir of the Highland Clearances,Gloomy Memories (1857), the title an ironicreference to the American author HarrietBeecher Stowe’s Sunny Memories of ForeignLands (1854), MacLeod contrasting theconditions Stowe enjoyed as a guest of theDuke and Duchess of Sutherland at thelavish Dunrobin Castle which can be seennearby. The landowners’ factor Patrick Sellaris vilified in memory for his brutality andhypocrisy. The Clearances are central in thenovels Butcher’s Broom (1934) by Neil Gunn,And the Cock Crew (1945) by Fionn MacColla and Consider the Lilies (1968) by IainCrichton Smith and in Crichton Smith’spoem ‘Clearances’, in Norman MacCaig’spoems ‘A Man in Assynt’ and ‘Two Thieves’,and in John McGrath and the 7:84 TheatreCompany’s play, The Cheviot, the Stag and theBlack, Black Oil (1973).11
Page 3 and 4: Left Looking over to the statue of
Page 5 and 6: AcknowledgementsThanks to James Ali
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Page 15 and 16: 19Aberdeen and Aberdeenshireslains
Page 17 and 18: Perthshire, Angus and Dundee622 MON
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Page 21 and 22: 30Argyll, the Isles, Loch Lomond,St
Page 23 and 24: Argyll, the Isles, Loch Lomond,Stir
Page 25 and 26: The Kingdom of Fife837 the universi
Page 27 and 28: Edinburgh and the Lothians9Perhaps
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Page 33 and 34: 46The Clyde Valley and GlasgowPAISL
Page 35 and 36: The Clyde Valley and Glasgow10tensi
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Page 39 and 40: Dumfries and Galloway 1253 dumfries
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Page 43 and 44: Scottish Borders13Hogg in his phast
Page 45 and 46: The WritersA S before an author’s
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Page 49 and 50: The WritersEdward Gaitens(1897-1966
Page 51 and 52: The WritersS Robin Jenkins(1912-200
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Page 55 and 56: Stephen Mulrine(b.1937), poet, teac
Page 57 and 58: The WritersTobias Smollett(1721-71)
Page 60 and 61: Top The wooden footbridge at Aberla

Literary Scotland

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