by Jane Yolen
In his last few days in Scotland, Bonnie Prince Charlie did indeed journey from “Cluny’s Cage” to Loch Lochy by way of Glen Roy. The adventure Duncan shares with the prince is mostly fictitious—though we have borrowed a number of incidents from Prince Charlie’s actual five months in hiding, such as the prince peering out of the bothy and surprising a visitor, and the “privy council” conversation, among others. Of course, the time in the Gloaming Pool is made up whole cloth. However, it is typical of the hairs-breadth escapes the prince experienced during his flight through the heathery hills. Angus Ban MacDonald did accompany Charles on some of these travels, but we have inserted him into this part of the adventure in the place of John Roy Stuart, and hope that the Stuart clan will forgive us that small change.
Alas, once back on the continent, Charles led an unremarkable and even dissolute life until his death in 1788, drifting from place to place with no prospect of ever recapturing the glory that was once briefly, his. It can honestly be said that he left the best part of himself in the Highlands.
A note about Highland dress: In the eighteenth century, poor Highland men like the Glenroy MacDonalds would have worn a sark, or long linen shirt, and a kilt made up of a single piece of woven woolen cloth that could be gathered together and held up with a leather belt, a length thrown over the shoulder. Though often barefoot during the spring, summer, and fall months, on a march they would have worn either shoes of untanned hide or—when expecting to go long distances—cuarans, which were like boots that reached almost to the knees, shaped to the leg and kept in position by leather thongs. Knee-high stockings often supported a sken dhu, a knife. The bonnet or woolen hat was where the clan badge would be pinned.
The tartans at this time for the poorer folk would have been simple checks of two or three colors, not the more defined clan tartans we know today, though they were often distinctive by districts. So the MacDonalds in a particular location might have similar recognizable patterns, but certainly never as elaborate as the ones we see today. The wools would have been colored by natural dyes from plants, roots, berries. But since they would have been worn every day, after a while the colors would be faded.
There really was a proscription against the wearing of kilts and tartans, the playing of bagpipes, and the speaking of Gaelic, all to break the spirit of the Scots and the clan system. The men really were forced to wear the hated trousers instead of their kilts. This all happened through the Disarming Act of 1746, half a year later than we have it in our story. The Act was rescinded in 1782 and to some extent, kilts came back into regular use in the Highlands after that. However, the fancy tartans with the clear clan affiliations we see today are really a nineteenth-century reconstruction. The beginning of the “tartan revival” was in 1822, when King George IV, visiting Edinburgh, brought it back into fashion.
A note about the speech: Highlanders generally spoke Gaelic. Their chiefs would have also spoken Scots (a form of English) as well as some French and Latin, because they were educated. The Lowland Scots would have spoken Scots-English. The English spoken by the English was close enough to Scots-English for them to understand one another. We have distinguished all the Scots—both chiefs and Highlanders—with a more archaic form of language: dinna, couldna, wouldna, ye, yer, etc. The English in our story speak without these archaisms. It is a literary shorthand only.
Some of the Scottish words used in this book:
bairn—young child
bannock—a round, flat cake or roll
blether—to talk nonsense
bloody—a word often used as a curse
bothy—a rough hut
breeks—trousers
byre—barn
claymore—the old Scottish two-handed sword
craw—crow
cuaran—a boot reaching almost to the knee
cushie doo—pigeon, dove
daft/daftie—crazy, a crazy person
dirk—a knife used in battle
dyke—stone wall, boundary marker in fields
fash—to bother, worry, distress
greeting—weeping
havers, haverings—dreamy nonsense
laird—the lord or leader of the clan
loch—a Highland lake
neeps—turnips
pibroch—particular kind of bagpipe tune
porridge—oatmeal
sark—long shirt
shieling—summer pasture for cows and sheep
skelp—slap or smack with palm of hand
sken dhu—knife carried in a man’s stocking top
targe—shield
wee—small, little
Scotland has a very rich tradition of folktales and we are pleased to be able to include some of them in our story. The tale Granda tells to Duncan can be found in slightly different form in Folk Tales of the Highlands by Gregor Ian Smith. The tale Duncan tells the prince is adapted from the version in A Kist O’ Whistles by Moira Miller.
Finally, the Keppoch branch of the MacDonalds generally spell their name “MacDonell.” We have used the more familiar spelling to emphasize their kinship with the other branches of Clan Donald, which was the most powerful of all the Highland clans.
Bonnie Charlie’s now awa’,
Safely owre the friendly main;
Mony a heart will break in twa,
Should he no’ come back again.
Will ye no come back again?
Will ye no come back again?
Better lo’ed ye canna be,
Will ye no come back again?
—Scots song by Lady Nairne
A Personal History by Jane Yolen
I was born in New York City on February 11, 1939. Because February 11 is also Thomas Edison’s birthday, my parents used to say I brought light into their world. But my parents were both writers and prone to exaggeration. My father was a journalist; my mother wrote short stories and created crossword puzzles and double acrostics. My younger brother, Steve, eventually became a newspaperman. We were a family of an awful lot of words!
We lived in the city for most of my childhood, with two brief moves: to California for a year while my father worked as a publicity agent for Warner Bros. films, and then to Newport News, Virginia, during the World War II years, when my mother moved my baby brother and me in with her parents while my father was stationed in London running the Army’s secret radio.
When I was thirteen, we moved to Connecticut. After college I worked in book publishing in New York for five years, married, and after a year traveling around Europe and the Middle East with my husband in a Volkswagen camper, returned to the States. We bought a house in Massachusetts, where we lived almost happily ever after, raising three wonderful children.
I say “almost,” because in 2006, my wonderful husband of forty-four years—Professor David Stemple, the original Pa in my Caldecott Award–winning picture book, Owl Moon—died. I still live in the same house in Massachusetts.
And I am still writing.
I have often been called the “Hans Christian Andersen of America,” something first noted in Newsweek close to forty years ago because I was writing a lot of my own fairy tales at the time.
The sum of my books—including some eighty-five fairy tales in a variety of collections and anthologies—is now well over 335. Probably the most famous are Owl Moon, The Devil’s Arithmetic, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? My work ranges from rhymed picture books and baby board books, through middle grade fiction, poetry collections, and nonfiction, to novels and story collections for young adults and adults. I’ve also written lyrics for folk and rock groups, scripted several animated shorts, and done voiceover work for animated short movies. And I do a monthly radio show called Once Upon a Time.
These days, my work includes writing books with each of my three children, now grown up and with families of their own. With Heidi, I have written mostly picture books, including Not All Princesses Dress in Pink and the nonfiction series Unsolved Mysteries from History. With my son Adam, I have
written a series of Rock and Roll Fairy Tales for middle grades, among other fantasy novels. With my son Jason, who is an award-winning nature photographer, I have written poems to accompany his photographs for books like Wild Wings and Color Me a Rhyme.
And I am still writing.
Oh—along the way, I have won a lot of awards: two Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott Medal, the Golden Kite Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, two Christopher Awards, the Jewish Book Award, and a nomination for the National Book Award, among many accolades. I have also won (for my full body of work) the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Grand Master Award, the Catholic Library Association’s Regina Medal, the University of Minnesota’s Kerlan Award, the University of Southern Mississippi and de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection’s Southern Miss Medallion, and the Smith College Medal. Six colleges and universities have given me honorary doctorate degrees. One of my awards, the Skylark, given by the New England Science Fiction Association, set my good coat on fire when the top part of it (a large magnifying glass) caught the sunlight. So I always give this warning: Be careful with awards and put them where the sun don’t shine!
Also of note—in case you find yourself in a children’s book trivia contest—I lost my fencing foil in Grand Central Station during a date, fell overboard while whitewater rafting in the Colorado River, and rode in a dog sled in Alaska one March day.
And yes—I am still writing.
At a Yolen cousins reunion as a child, holding up a photograph of myself. In the photo, I am about one year old, maybe two.
Sitting on the statue of Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park in New York in 1961, when I was twenty-two. (Photo by David Stemple.)
Enjoying Dirleton Castle in Scotland in 2010.
Signing my Caldecott Medal–winning book Owl Moon in 2011.
Reading for an audience at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2012.
Visiting Andrew Lang’s gravesite at the Cathedral of Saint Andrew in Scotland in 2011.
A Personal History by Robert J. Harris
I was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1955. From a young age, I was writing stories, drawing comics, and making my own board games. It was while at university in St. Andrews that I met my wife, Debby, who had grown up in Florida and had come to Scotland to further her studies in English.
Shortly after we married and settled in St. Andrews, Debby had her first fantasy novel published, and I created my board game Talisman, which was based upon a game I had originally created in high school. Thirty years later, Talisman is still produced and is being played all over the world. In one television episode of CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, the characters are playing Talisman.
It was a few years after I created Talisman that our friend Jane Yolen prodded me into doing some serious writing. I have written eight novels with Jane: the four Young Heroes books and the Scottish Quartet. I have written novels of my own concerning the boyhood adventures of Leonardo da Vinci and Will Shakespeare, which have been published widely across Europe. I have also written comedy scripts for BBC radio. I have a new novel, a comic fantasy, being published in Scotland later this year.
In the course of an interesting life I have worked as a nurse, a bartender, a salesman, and an actor. I have traveled to the United States several times, and have made epic journeys across Europe, ending up in Greece, where I have visited many of the sites featured in the Young Heroes adventures.
My wife and I have three sons: One is training to be a health worker, one now lives in Michigan with his American wife, and the third is an aspiring writer and a musician. We also have a dog named Kyra who loves to eat cheese and chase sticks.
To learn even more about my life and my books, visit my website: www.harris-authors.com.
With the boys from my class at Clepington Primary School in Dundee, Scotland, in 1966. I’m in the front row, seated second from the right.
Playing my homemade version of Talisman in London, England, in 1982, with the guys from Games Workshop, who turned the game into a global phenomenon. I’m in the upper left.
Playing on a beach in Florida in 1988 with my son Matthew, who was one year old.
With my wife, Debby, and our sons Matthew, Robert, and Jamie in Prestonpans, Scotland, in 2000.
At the Morgan Academy High School Reunion in Dundee, Scotland, in 2002.
At the 2005 World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in Glasgow, Scotland, with my wife, Debby, and my friend and co-author Jane Yolen. They don’t seem to care that I’m being attacked by a fake parrot. (Photo courtesy of Stella Paskins.)
Surrounded by the games, books, and CDs of radio shows that I have created, in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 2006.
Holding a copy of my game Mythgardia in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 2008. Some friends and I produced a limited run of these games, illustrated by my wife, which we sold as special collector’s items.
Our dog Kyra, who is around six years old, in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 2013.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2004 by Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris
Cover design by Jesse Hayes
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2155-5
This edition published 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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