The Works of "Fiona Macleod", Volume IV

I see now what madness it was, as so often happened, to despise the body. But one mystery has become clear to me through this strange quest of ours--though when I say "I," or "o...

"From the arrows of the slim fairy women." And I--do I believe in that? At least it will be admitted that it is worth a belief; it is a pleasant dream; it is a gate into a lovel...

"It is a garden called Gethsemane," answered the other--though I know not how he knew--I--we--as we walked onward in silence through the dusk of moon and star, and saw the gossa...

The dawn had flushed into a wilderness of rose as we left the bridge by the stream. Long shafts of light, plumed with pale gold, were flung up out of the east: everywhere was th...

I knew now what was that passing of the trouble in the face of Seumas Dhu, what that sudden light was, that calming of the sea, that ineffable quietude. It was the Smoothing of...

It was in vain he had sought everywhere for some tidings of this mysterious dweller in those upland solitudes. At times he believed that there was indeed some one upon the islan...

"His body is the body of Angus, the son of Torcall of the race of Odrum, for all that a seal he is to the seeming; but the soul of him is Judas."

In Mingulay, the "harper" who broke his "harp" for a woman's love was a young man, a fiddler. For three years he wandered out of the west into the east, and when he had made eno...

With a swift movement, Alan sprang forward; but as he leaped, his foot caught in a spray of heather, and he stumbled and fell. When he rose, he looked in vain for the man who ha...

[9] It is probably in the isles only that the pretty word _Lunn-Bata_ is used for _cr[=a]-all (creathall)_, a cradle. It might best be rendered as boat-on-a-billow, _lunn_ being...

I do not know the name of the obscure minstrel who sang this song, as he passed from village to village, by the coasts, along the heath-lands of Brittany. But there are poets wh...

When we left the lane, where we saw a glow-worm emitting a pale fire as he moved through the green dusk in the shadow of the hedge, we came upon a white devious road. A young ma...

With that he bade his vikings break up the birlinn, and drive the planks into the ground and shore them up with logs. When this was done he crucified each culdee. With nails and...

After the dim purple bloom of a suspended Spring, a green rhythm ran from larch to thorn, from lime to sycamore: spread from meadow to meadow, from copse to copse, from hedgerow...

By the Black Stone of Iona! One may hear that in Icolmkill or anywhere in the west. It used to be the most binding oath in the Highlands, and even now is held as an indisputable...

How great a man was the Irish monk Crimthan, called Colum, the Dove: Columcille, the Dove of the Church. One may read all that has been written of him since the sixth century, a...

And when he reminded them that for these many years he had not seen the old woman, his sister Giorsal; and spoke of her, and of their long separation, and of his wish to see her...

I was on a vast, an illimitable plain, where the dark blue horizons were sharp as the edges of hills. It was the world, but there was nothing in the world. There was not a blade...

+------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Notes: | | | | Words surrounded by _ are italicized. | | | | Due to the restriction of the l...

It was not in Barra, but in Iona, that, while yet a child, I set out one evening to find the Divine Forges. A Gaelic sermon, preached on the shoreside by an earnest man, who, go...

_Page 225. The Culdees._ Though I have alluded in the text to the probable meaning of a word that has perplexed many people, I add this note as I have just come upon another the...