Published in Great Britain in 2016 by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2016 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Amy Liptrot 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 422 9
eISBN 978 1 78211 549 6
Typeset in Bembo Std by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire
CONTENTS
GLOSSARY
bonxie: great skua
burn: stream
byre: barn
caddie lamb: orphan lamb, reared by bottle
clapshot: mashed mixed neeps and tatties
dyke: drystone wall
geo: narrow inlet of sea in cliffs
grimlins: midsummer night sky
haar: sea fog
hillyans: mythical hill folk
holm (pr. ‘home’): offshore islet
kirk: church
kye: cattle
lum: chimney
lum reekin: chimney smoke
Merry Dancers: Northern Lights
midden: muck heap
muckle: big
neep: turnip
noust: hollow for storing small boats
peedie: small
selkie: seal
spoot: razor clam
steamer: ferry boat steamin’/blazin’/guttered: drunk
steeves: stone structures for building stooks
stooks: stacks of grain
swappin’ for auks: hunting seabirds
tangles: seaweed
tattie: potato
trows/trowies: trolls
teeicks: lapwings
tystie: black guillemot
whaups: curlews
yole: simple boat
PROLOGUE
UNDER WHIRRING HELICOPTER BLADES, a young woman holds her newborn baby as she is pushed in a wheelchair along the runway of the island airport to meet a man in a straitjacket being pushed in a wheelchair from the other direction.
That