ECOS 34(1) 2013 ECOS 34(1) 2013
on wild work which covers themes like I wrote this review sitting in Stornoway working dogs, and, enticingly, "Creatures library, and as I worked a local Gaelic of the Mind". As Pullar says in her ,i< tivist came up. He wished to remain introduction, this is a study that aims to iinonymous and said "Just call me Will-o approach animals not just physically and il K■ Wisp". He said what impressed him economically, but also "at the level of .ibout this book was that it gives names feeling, imagination and belief." in English, Latin, Scots and Gaelic, and that while the English and Latin usually For example, the two pages devoted to have just one name, the more vernacular the mountain hare describe its ecology, languages have many. For example, the provide an insight into the lore of hare (Blue) mountain hare, Lepus timidus, in shooting (no longer an enterprise to be Scots can be whiddie baudrons, bawtie, encouraged), and a concise summary cutty, donie, fuddie, lang lugs, maukin or of the hare's meaning in Scots folklore. pussy, and in Gaelic, maigheach bhan or bocaire fasaich. If one goes to the Gaelic In 1662 when Isobel Gowdie confessed dictionaries, further names can be found to changing into a hare as part of her including regional variations for the hare alleged witchcraft, the spell by which at different stages of development. she claimed to restore herself to human form was: This is a book that honours not just the Hare, hare, God send thee care! animals, with a splendour of photography lamina hare's likeness just now, that would grace any coffee table, but facing woodland management today. FAUNA SCOTICA But I shall be a woman even now - also their human connections. I long for So far, so good; but there the writing Animals and people in Scotland Hare, hare, God send thee care. more wildlife writing and praise Polly departs from any other woodland book Polly Pullar & Mary Low Pullar, Mary Low, and Birlinn Limited on you have (probably) ever read. Coupled Birlinn Limited, 2012, 290 pages Similarly thought-provoking is the their achievement. with visits to 12 very different woodlands Hbk £30, ISBN 978 1 84158 561 1 section on the sacred goose. Does the across the UK, Sara Maitland has skilfully notion that the wild goose is a Celtic Alastair Mclntosh re-told many of the Grimm's fairy tales, This book is more than just a study of symbol of the Holy Spirit authentically one at the end of every chapter, linked with the issues discussed. She has taken natural nature. It also looks at the human come from tradition, or has it been the care to see them from different relationship to nature. It sets nature wild invented by the likes of Lord George GOSSIP FROM THE FOREST perspectives, and to include the detail and free alongside human nature and Macleod of the lona Community? The tangled roots of our forests and magic of the natural world - the thereby explores the fauna of Scotland Well, I once put that question to Ron and fairytales British natural world - in each one. through the lens of human ecology; Fergusson, Macleod's biographer, who Sara Maitland indeed, a very humanised ecology, had in turn once posed it to old George. Granta, 2012, 256 pages because Mary Low's acclaimed Celtic "Where did you get it from?" Ron had Hbk, £20, ISBN 1847084293 Maitland's re-telling of the stories is brave. scholarship, her skill in folklore, richly asked. "I've no idea!" said George. "I Many storytellers are content to leave it complements the flowing narrative and probably invented it!" Fauna Scotica This is an important book. It re-connects to the listener to fill in the detail around hints, however, that George's intuition vivid images of Polly Pullar and other the very practical matter of the UK's archetype and human activity in stories. may have been sourced from deeper photographic contributors. forests with our own emotional heritage But here, Rumpelstiltskin looks like hazel wellheads of the traditions in which he of story and fairy tales. And it's a book coppice and like juniper trees - all spiky; was culturally immersed; and recently, in The work is divided into 10 sections with real heart, a book to savour. a grown up Hansel goes back into the reading the Chinese poetry of Wu Wei, organised according to habitats. It forest to reconnect with his wild side and I was struck by the translator's comment his twin sister, Gretel; and the big bad lone includes the expected with chapters on Themes of forestry and amenity, nature in the Penguin Classics edition (p. 92) wolf, isolated in a conifer plantation and mountain, bog and moor, lochs and and raw material, local industry and that "there was a myth that wild geese thoroughly disgusted by Little Red Riding rivers, the sea, islands and skerries, farm personal sense of place are all explored, - and fish - could carry messages." Hood, has a very modern guise. and croft, about town; but also chapters in an effective synthesis of the challenges
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