A Scot's Quair & The Flight of the Heron

[Orionson]

I have read with interest the recent posts regarding the new TV series of the Outlander novels. I haven't read the books primarily because as I recall when the books first came out I read several interviews with the author wherein she confirmed that at the time of the writing of the books she herself had never actually ever been to Scotland. This fact put me off entirely, both then and now. However, I will likely watch the series when it hits my screen.

Another reason I avoided Outlander is because I am such a fan of the Scot's Quair Trilogy by Lewis Grassic Gibbon which is set in rural Aberdeenshire in the run up to WW1. The Author grew up and lived in the area and it's authenticity was stunning. Sunset Song, Cloud Howe and Grey Granite are classics of modern 20th century Scottish Literature which are still studies in schools today. Sunset Song was also adapted for TV by both Scottish Television and the BBC.

Another popular classic written in 1925 by DK Broster is The Flight of the Heron which is set in the Highlands during the '45. I discovered this classic, which is also part of a trilogy along with The Dark Mile and The Gleam in the North, when I was 7 and they sparked my lifelong love and interest in the Highlands and the Jacobite Rebellions. Like many others, I thought Broster was a man and was surprised to learn many years later that he was a she - and from Liverpool, to boot. Her Jacobite Trilogy, however was meticulously researched for historical accuracy (she was Assistant to a Regius Professor of History at Oxford and read over 80 scholarly research works of the period and spent significant time on the ground in Lochaber, Glenfinnan and Culloden before she put pen to paper.

My first edition set of the works are well read and precious to me.

If you like Outlander, or perhaps, more appropriately - if you don't like Outlander - then by all means seek out these works. They are all available on Amazon/Kindle and still in print today here in Scotland. You will not regret the effort.