The Outlandish Companion

by Diana Gabaldon

  The origins of this particular sept are somewhat obscure. Jacob MacKenzie, who is thought to have been related to the MacKenzies of Torridon, seized Castle Leoch by force in 1690, while the previous Lord of that Castle, Donald MacKenzie of Leoch, was absent from home. Donald died under mysterious circumstances before he could return to defend his property, and Jacob married Donald’s widow, Anne Grant, the daughter of Malcolm Grant of Glenmoriston, by whom he had issue:

  A1 Colum (see below)

  A2 Dougal, who married Maura Grant, daughter of William Grant, younger brother of Malcolm Grant of Glenmoriston and had issue by her, four daughters: Eleanor, Margaret, Molly, and Tabitha

  a1. Ellen, who eloped with Brian Fraser, bastard of Simon, 11th Lord Lovat. She bore him three children: William, Janet, and James.

  a2. Janet, who married Alexander Hay of Crimond, and died without issue, age 24

  a3. Flora, who died in infancy

  a4. Jocasta, who married first John Cameron of Torcastle, married secondly Hugh Cameron (“Black Hugh”) of Aberfeldy, and thirdly Hector Cameron of Arkaig, with whom she emigrated to America. Jocasta bore one daughter to each of her three husbands: to John Cameron, Seonag, to Hugh Cameron, Clementina, and to Hector Cameron, Morna

  Colum MacKenzie married Letitia Chisholm, daughter of Andrew Chisholm of Erchless and had issue:

  A1 Hamish, who emigrated to Nova Scotia following the Rising of 1745 and the subsequent razing of Castle Leoch4

  The petition of Colum MacKenzie for a matriculation of arms was disputed by the heirs of Donald MacKenzie of Leoch, and was the subject of a prolonged legal process. The petition was not granted before the Rising of 1745, and after the Rising (in which the heir of Donald MacKenzie, his son and grandson, were all killed), the emigration of the only heir and the loss of his lands left the matter of the title undecided; the property of the estate reverted to a distant heir of Donald MacKenzie: Jeremiah MacKenzie.

  1URL: www.baronage.co.uk

  2From the records of The Baronage Press, ca. 1936.

  3From the records of The Baronage Press, ca. 1940.

  4It is thought that various family documents in the possession of Hamish MacKenzie and his heirs may have been preserved, which cast further light upon the antecedents of Jacob MacKenzie. As these documents are presently unavailable, however, nothing further can be adduced at this time.

  A GENEALOGICAL, NOTE

  NOTE ON THE GENEALOGY OF ROGER MACKENZIE (WAKEFIELD)

  ow, I don’t know whether I haven’t explained adequately, or whether perhaps some readers were simply too caught up in the story to notice the details, but I have had letters and questions from a number of people who are confused over the parentage of Roger (MacKenzie) Wakefield.

  The questions are most often phrased as follows:

  If Roger is the son of Geilie Duncan and Dougal MacKenzie, how did he get into the future? (signed) Confused.

  P.S. What’s all that stuff about Jeremiah?

  This is pretty simple to answer—he isn’t the son of Geilie Duncan and Dougal MacKenzie, and it beats me how anyone could possibly have concluded that he is, though any number of people evidently have. I can only assume that some readers, in their haste to find out what happens next, overlooked the explanations of Roger’s family tree that occur in every single one of the books, (sound of author ripping hair out by the roots) or somehow failed to grasp the distinction between “descendant” and “son.” (A son is a descendant, all right, but a descendant is not necessarily a son. Got it?)

  Roger is in fact the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Geilie and Dougal—a fact that he explains in some detail to Brianna on their wedding night. (I know, I know, you were busy laughing over “Jug-butt,” or you were caught up in the … er … less intellectual aspects of that particular interlude, but pay attention now, and I will explain it to you. Again.)

  In Outlander, where we first meet Roger, the Reverend Wakefield explains to Claire and Frank that Roger is his great-nephew; the son of his (the Reverend’s) niece, who was killed in the Blitz. The Reverend also explains that though he has given Roger his own name (Wakefield), he has drawn up Roger’s genealogy—hanging on the corkboard—in order that Roger will not forget his true name (which happens to be MacKenzie) or lineage.

  In Dragonfly in Amber, Claire uses this same genealogy (still hanging in the Reverend’s office) to explain to Roger exactly what happened to the child Geillis Dun can bore to Dougal MacKenzie—and thus why it is a matter of personal concern to Roger whether they find Geilie Duncan in time to prevent her disappearance into the past.

  Okay, about that son. Geillis Duncan gets pregnant (accidentally) by Dougal MacKenzie [Outlander]. She’s condemned to burn as a witch, but allowed to live until the child is born. Dougal takes the newborn child and gives it to one of the MacKenzie clansmen to raise as his own (this sort of fostering was common in the Highlands at the time).

  As Claire explains to Roger in Dragonfly, Dougal gave the boy to a family who had recently lost a new baby to smallpox. This would have been the reasonable thing to do, since the mother of the dead child would be able to feed the adopted child (no formula in the eighteenth century). And, as per the common custom of the times, the family gave the adopted child the same name as that of the child they had lost—William Buccleigh MacKenzie. Claire didn’t know this from her own experience, since she had left Leoch before Geillis was (presumably) burned. She did, however, later learn the names of the parents to whom Dougal gave the child (when Dougal visits her in Paris)—and in the process of checking out Roger’s family tree [Dragonfly], would have been able to confirm the dead child/adopted child replacement by means of baptismal records, as these would show both baptisms in the same parish, with the same parents, no more than a few months apart.

  Allllll right. Now, look at the relevant part of the genealogy that the Reverend wrote out for Roger. See William Buccleigh? He’s the changeling. That is, he is not the son of William John MacKenzie and Sarah Innes; he is the illegitimate son of Geillis Duncan and Dougal MacKenzie, who was given to William and Sarah to raise. Since the Reverend Wakefield naturally wouldn’t have known this (he may have known—from the baptismal records—that the child must be adopted, but would have had no way of knowing who the true parents were), William simply appears in the family tree as William and Sarah’s son.

  Notice also the name of the woman whom William marries—Morag Gunn. Now, you, the reader, have not seen this name before, but Claire certainly has— and remembers it. In Dragonfly, she prepares for her quest in part by having Roger’s family tree researched. Owing to circumstances, she will have paid particular attention to the changeling and whatever can be found out about him, so it’s not surprising that when Roger asks her much later [Drums], she recalls Morag’s name.

  The important point here is that William Buccleigh is Roger’s direct ancestor. Likewise, Geillis Duncan is Roger’s direct ancestor (as is Dougal MacKenzie). If one of these people (or anyone else in this family tree) were to die without having children, that would naturally eliminate all the descendants below them on the chart—including Roger. Hence Claire’s concern [Dragonfly]; if Geillis doesn’t go back and get burned at the stake, she doesn’t produce William Buccleigh either—so does Roger cease to exist?

  OKAY. NOW, in Voyager, we don’t deal directly with the questions concerning Geillis, but she and her connections with Roger are mentioned, just to keep events in mind for her surprise appearance toward the end of that book. Look. See? There’s that genealogy chart again, still tacked to the corkboard in the Reverend’s study.

  Then we reach Drums of Autumn. Now we make a Big Hairy Deal out of Roger’s antecedents, in several different places. We mention Geilie and her son (William Buccleigh, remember?), and Roger takes down the genealogical chart with a fair amount of ceremony, as the final act in clearing out his (adopted) father’s study. Later, when he takes Brianna to the Celtic Festival, he reminisces about the Reverend, and about h
is family tree, telling the anecdote about his great-grandmother Oliphant and her “bonny lad,” Jeremiah—in the process, getting it across (or so one would think), that a) Jeremiah is an old family name, recurring several times in the family tree, b) Roger’s father was named Jeremiah (called Jerry for short), c) Roger’s own middle name is Jeremiah, and d) his mother called him “Jemmy” for short, as a child.

  Now, the point of all this is to make the readers more or less pay attention when they later see the names Jeremiah or Jemmy, and I gather most did—they just didn’t all make the expected leap: “Jeremiah/Jemmy … say, I wonder whether this person has anything to do with Roger’s family?”

  So. Now we come to the chapter of Drums where Roger finds himself aboard the Gloriana, trying to get to the Colonies. He sees an unknown young woman on the dock who attracts him—he envies the closeness between her and her husband, and observes that they have a child (watch that baby). Later, in casual conversation, he learns that her name is Morag MacKenzie (notice the woman who suggests that they might be related [“Perhaps your man is kin to him”]? This is a Clue, awright?).

  All right. Some of the passengers—several of them children—contract smallpox. In an effort to keep the contagion from spreading, the crew throw the affected persons overboard (this scene was directly inspired by the story of just such an occurrence, told by an eyewitness). Fearing that her child’s rash will be mistaken for pox, and the baby put over the side, Morag MacKenzie hides in the hold, her escape covered by her husband, who attacks Roger on deck during the melee.

  You still watching the baby? Okay. Notice, then, that his mother calls him “Jemmy,” hmm? Jemmy MacKenzie. Are we beginning to suspect anything here? Well, that’s okay, Roger didn’t notice, either. However, moved by compassion, he saves mother and child, risking his own life in the process.

  A good deal later, contemplating names for his own son, the name “Jeremiah” is mentioned once again. Roger (finally) makes the connections that have been brewing in his subconscious for lo, these many months (he’s seen his own family tree often enough, after all). To confirm his realizations, he asks Claire if she, too, recalls the name of William Buccleigh’s wife, which she does—Morag.

  A fair-haired man with green eyes, named MacKenzie, with a wife named Morag and a son named Jeremiah. Don’t look now; you (and Roger) have just met Geilie and Dougal’s son, William Buccleigh, in the process of emigrating to America—and Roger has just saved his great-great-great-great-grandfather Jeremiah from a watery grave (incidentally saving himself from presumed extinction in the process, and giving those readers so inclined food for thought as to why some people time travel, the circular nature of things, and whether history can be changed).

  And that’s why all the fuss about Jeremiah (if you want to observe that Jeremiah was also the name of a rather well-known Biblical prophet with a penchant for unpopular predictions, and make speculations regarding Roger and the oncoming Revolution, that’s fine with me, too, but it won’t be on the test).

  PART FOUR

  COMPREHENSIVE GLOSSARY AND PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

  hen my agent, Perry Knowlton, first read the draft manuscript of Voyager, he wrote to tell me that he thought it was a wonderful, adventurous book—noting, however, that there was a small error in one of the French phrases, for which he helpfully gave me the correct usage. I replied with thanks, adding, “One of these days, I will stop writing books involving places I’ve never been and languages I don’t speak—and then where will we all be?”

  Why should one use foreign phrases in the first place? Well, for assorted reasons: to give “flavor” to a character or setting, to convey something of the multilingual aspects of European society in the eighteenth century, to add to the atmosphere of unfamiliarity that must afflict a person thrust suddenly into such strange circumstance—and now and then, for humor or suspense.

  People occasionally write to me asking how this or that Gaelic phrase is pronounced, or if I can direct them to good courses of study in Gaelic. One or two bold souls have gone so far as to request that I teach them Gaelic—by mail, presumably.1

  Alas, I don’t speak Gaelic. Or French. Or German. Or Swedish. Or Mandarin. Or Yoruba. Or Kahnyen’kehaka (Mohawk).

  Now, I do speak English (and fairly well, if I do say so myself). I can also make myself understood in Spanish, but not with any real finesse (my Spanish-speaking housekeeper and I have a system of communication involving arm-waving and facial grimaces, which seems to cover any grammatical lapses nicely). I grew up in the Catholic church during the 1950s and 1960s, before the switch of Catholic liturgy to the vernacular, and I sang at the daily 7:30 A.M. Mass for several years in elementary school. Consequently, I have a lot of Latin vocabulary, but no grammar at all. So I’m afraid I have no eclectic linguistic background, in spite of the assorted bits and pieces that appear in the books. What I do have is a nice collection of dictionaries and a lot of obliging bilingual friends.

  While the average well-educated reader has no particular trouble with “Merci beaucoup, “and similar bits of French, German, Spanish, etc., thrown in for flavor, Gaelic-speakers are thin on the ground in most parts of the world—especially Arizona. I therefore originally intended to include a glossary and pronunciation guide in Outlander, to provide background on the Scots and Gaelic terms, but was dissuaded by the publisher. So, along came Dragonfly in Amber, and I once again suggested a collective glossary that would cover the Scots and Gaelic terms in both books—pointing out that I was getting quite a few letters from people asking how these words were pronounced. The publisher’s reaction? “This book is already so huge, we can’t possibly squeeze another word into it.”

  So when Voyager came along—some thirty-five thousand words longer than Dragonfly (they printed it on special thin paper, to make it look shorter and avoid scaring the paying customers)—I didn’t try again. I merely began scheming; the final result of which is this book.

  So, with great thanks to Iain and Hamish Taylor (Gaelic), Barbara Schnell (German), Karl Hagen and Susan Martin (Latin and Greek), William Cross, Paul Block, and Chrystine Wu (Mandarin), a great many helpful French-speakers (all with conflicting opinions on idiom), and with deep obligation to the compilers of my multilingual dictionaries … here it is. I’ve provided pronunciations where possible; I’m afraid I didn’t have personal sources for all the terms. However, a general guide to Gaelic grammar is included.2

  A VERY BRIEF GUIDE TO GAELIC3 GRAMMAR

  by Iain MacKinnon Taylor4

  Some of the simpler, general rules for Gaidhlic reading and writing

  This aid to Gaidhlic is a very brief sample of some of the nuances inherent in the language; it is far from complete. The intent in writing it is not to try teaching anyone to read and write Gaidhlic, but to give the reader a small measure of understanding of the challenge facing students of the language in their attempt to learn it. Some do indeed succeed in reading and writing and a few even graduate to speaking Gaidhlic quite creditably.

  Proper pronunciation is by no means easy. There are sounds in the language that defy description in English. In the glossary which follows this grammar aid, I have tried to approximate sounds with the letter used in English that seems to be closest. For some readers this may work reasonably well, but for others it will not. For example, “Gh” at the beginning or end of a word, I wrote simply as “G.” The real sound is more like a very young baby’s gurgle.5 That’s about the only way I can explain it. For “Ch” at the beginning or end of a word, I used the letter “K.” The sound is really like in the Hebrew toast, “L’chaim.” You will find an attempt at descriptions of the other “Gaidhlic” sounds is made as you read on. Also, in the glossary I have used a hyphen between vowels that should be pronounced separately.

  —Iain M. Taylor

  The Gaidhlic Alphabet

  A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,L,M,N,O,P,R,S,T, U (letter count: 18) Not Used (From English Alphabet)

  J,K,Q,V,W,X,Y,Z

  In w
ords where the vowels A,0, or U precede a consonant, any vowel following the consonant must also be A,0, or U.

  In words where the vowels E or I precede a consonant, any vowel following the consonant must also be E or I.

  The only exception to this rule is the word “Esan” (him).

  Aspirated consonants. There are many instances where the letter “H” follows the first letter in a word. This condition is called “aspirated.”

  Aspirated B, Bh, pronounced as “V.” Aspirated C, Ch, pronounced as the

  “Ch” in “L’chaim.” Aspirated D, Dh,

  Aspirated G, Gh, both of these have no equivalent sound in the English language. Try to imitate a baby gurgling. (However, Gh followed by I is pronounced as “Y.”) Aspirated M, Mh, pronounced as “V” Aspirated P, Ph, pronounced as “F” Aspirated S, Sh, the “S” is silent. Pronounce the “H” only. Aspirated T, Th, the “T” is silent. Pronounce the “H” only.

  Grammar

  Gender. Gaidhlic words have a gender, though this does not necessarily correspond with the gender of the person a given word describes. For example, duine (man) is masculine. Boireanach (woman) is also masculine. Bean (wife), however, is feminine. The easy way to find gender in reading is to see whether the associated adjective is aspirated. Adjectives describing feminine nouns are aspirated, adjectives describing masculine nouns are not. Example: Boireanach Math (Good woman). Bean Mhath (Good Wife).

  The adjective always follows the noun. Duine math Man good (Good man) Latha math Day good (Good day) Madain mhath Morning good (Good morning)

  Oidhche mhath Night good (Good night) The adjective follows the adverb. Tha e gle mhath. It is quite good. The noun or pronoun follows the verb. Ruinn mi. Did I. Ruinn thu. Did you. Ruinn e. Did he.