WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.660 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.660 --> 00:00:03.840 align:middle line:84%
I've been amusing myself
over the past five or six

00:00:03.840 --> 00:00:09.900 align:middle line:84%
years writing a series
of invented Scottish folk

00:00:09.900 --> 00:00:11.610 align:middle line:90%
narratives.

00:00:11.610 --> 00:00:15.420 align:middle line:84%
And these share some
common thematic ground

00:00:15.420 --> 00:00:18.000 align:middle line:90%
with the Celtic folk tradition.

00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.960 align:middle line:84%
Which is to say that they're
everyday stories of murder,

00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:28.800 align:middle line:84%
rape, madness, congenital
malformation, and monsters.

00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:33.510 align:middle line:84%
And the favorite monster
I have, many of you

00:00:33.510 --> 00:00:36.930 align:middle line:84%
will know the story of the
selkie, this mythical creature

00:00:36.930 --> 00:00:39.810 align:middle line:84%
who, in the ocean
is a seal, but is

00:00:39.810 --> 00:00:44.580 align:middle line:84%
able to walk up onto the
beach, shed its skin,

00:00:44.580 --> 00:00:46.380 align:middle line:90%
and become human.

00:00:46.380 --> 00:00:48.300 align:middle line:84%
And then later
reverse that process.

00:00:48.300 --> 00:00:53.150 align:middle line:90%


00:00:53.150 --> 00:00:56.062 align:middle line:84%
Anyway, this is the first
of a couple of these

00:00:56.062 --> 00:00:57.020 align:middle line:90%
that I'll read tonight.

00:00:57.020 --> 00:01:00.500 align:middle line:90%
This is "By Clachan Bridge."

00:01:00.500 --> 00:01:05.810 align:middle line:90%


00:01:05.810 --> 00:01:08.570 align:middle line:84%
"I remember the girl
with the hare lip

00:01:08.570 --> 00:01:15.050 align:middle line:84%
down by Clachan Bridge, cutting
up fish to see how they worked.

00:01:15.050 --> 00:01:18.770 align:middle line:84%
By morning's end, her
nails were black red,

00:01:18.770 --> 00:01:23.120 align:middle line:90%
her hands all sequined silver.

00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:26.060 align:middle line:84%
She unpuzzled
rabbits to a rickle

00:01:26.060 --> 00:01:32.330 align:middle line:84%
of bones, dipped into a dormouse
for the pip of its heart.

00:01:32.330 --> 00:01:35.690 align:middle line:84%
She'd open
everything, that girl.

00:01:35.690 --> 00:01:39.110 align:middle line:84%
They say they found
wax dolls in her wall,

00:01:39.110 --> 00:01:41.360 align:middle line:90%
poppets full of human hair.

00:01:41.360 --> 00:01:43.910 align:middle line:90%
But I'd say they're wrong.

00:01:43.910 --> 00:01:46.460 align:middle line:84%
What's true is that
the blacksmith's son,

00:01:46.460 --> 00:01:49.010 align:middle line:84%
the simpleton,
came down here once

00:01:49.010 --> 00:01:53.465 align:middle line:84%
and fathomed her, claimed she
licked him clean as a whistle.

00:01:53.465 --> 00:01:56.230 align:middle line:90%


00:01:56.230 --> 00:01:58.750 align:middle line:84%
I remember the tiny
stars of her hands

00:01:58.750 --> 00:02:04.330 align:middle line:84%
around her belly as it grew
and grew and how after a year,

00:02:04.330 --> 00:02:06.880 align:middle line:90%
nothing came.

00:02:06.880 --> 00:02:12.670 align:middle line:84%
How she said it was still
there inside her, a stone baby.

00:02:12.670 --> 00:02:18.340 align:middle line:84%
And how I saw her wrists bangled
with scars and those hands

00:02:18.340 --> 00:02:22.040 align:middle line:84%
fluttering at her throat
to the plectrum of bone

00:02:22.040 --> 00:02:24.810 align:middle line:90%
she'd hung there.

00:02:24.810 --> 00:02:27.420 align:middle line:84%
As to what happened to
the blacksmith's boy,

00:02:27.420 --> 00:02:32.120 align:middle line:84%
no one knows, and
I'll keep my tongue.

00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:34.730 align:middle line:84%
Last thing I heard
the starlings had

00:02:34.730 --> 00:02:41.230 align:middle line:84%
started to mimic her crying,
and she'd found how to fly."

00:02:41.230 --> 00:02:42.000 align:middle line:90%