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asls.org.uk
Association for Scottish Literature
@asls.org.uk
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Educational charity promoting the reading, writing, teaching & study of Scotland's literature & languages, past & present.

https://asls.org.uk
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asls.org.uk
Look now, look quick – a shooting star!
Make your wish! It’s very far
From here to where the active light
Set out and streaked across a night
In Glasgow’s greatly dark November…

—Edwin Morgan, “Leonids”
in the @lrb.co.uk, June 2000
#poem #astronomy #leonids #meteors 🌠
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v2...
Leonids by Edwin Morgan Look now, look quick – a shooting star! Make your wish! It’s very far From here to where the active light Set out and streaked across a night In Glasgow’s greatly dark November To die there, a supernal ember. What was your wish? You wanted more? It’s granted! Up there is a store Of light. It’s breaking now in showers Not of stars but meteors, Spark after spark, scattering, dying, You could send your wishes flying In thousands, born, reborn, delighting To be part of that bright sighting Which disappears and yet appears Again in our unlonely years.
November 17, 2025 at 5:02 PM
asls.org.uk
As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play…

—Robert Louis Stevenson, “To Any Reader”
The final poem in A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES (1885)
#poetry
To Any Reader Robert Louis Stevenson As from the house your mother sees You playing round the garden trees, So you may see, if you will look Through the windows of this book, Another child, far, far away, And in another garden, play. But do not think you can at all, By knocking on the window, call That child to hear you. He intent Is all on his play-business bent. He does not hear; he will not look, Nor yet be lured out of this book. For, long ago, the truth to say, He has grown up and gone away, And it is but a child of air That lingers in the garden there.
November 17, 2025 at 3:06 PM
asls.org.uk
Take out his heart,
lungs, one arm, the whole
belly, and the belt strap
that holds it all in place.
Let the lighthouse beacon
throw its false light
through him…

—Marjorie Lotfi, “Refuge”
in THE WRONG PERSON TO ASK, @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social 2023
#poem #poetry
www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/...
Refuge Marjorie Lotfi — after “Les Voyageurs”, sculptures with huge portions of their bodies missing, by Frances Bruno Catalano Take out his heart, lungs, one arm, the whole belly, and the belt strap that holds it all in place. Let the lighthouse beacon throw its false light through him, promise safe passage. Take out his thighs, but leave his knees to buckle at kindness, and the lack of it. Don’t loosen his grip on the suitcase; it holds all he owns. Instead, nail his feet to the planks of the pier and let him try to take another step. A life-size sculpture of a young man, standing on wooden platform on a rocky shore. He has dark skin, a beard, and untidy hair, and is wearing a blue jacket and a yellow t-shirt. He holds a bag in his right hand. The photo is taken from below, looking up; the sculpture is missing a huge section across the man's body, separating him entirely from his left leg. The sculpture is hollow. A blue sky with white clouds can be seen behind, and through, the man's body.
November 16, 2025 at 3:38 PM
asls.org.uk
The broken remains of James Macpherson’s fiddle are held in the Clan Macpherson Museum, Newtonmore. They also have the original Banff town clock, reputedly set forward by 45 minutes to ensure that Macpherson was executed before an expected reprieve could arrive.
7/7
www.clanmacphersonmuseum.org.uk
James MacPherson's broken fiddle, as exhibited in the Clan MacPherson Museum, Newtonmore. An open, flat wooden box. Propped up inside it is an old, broken, stringless fiddle. Parts of the smashed body of the instrument are collected at one end of the box. The fiddle's bow is held inside the lid by two leather straps.
November 16, 2025 at 2:08 PM
asls.org.uk
Mac/McPherson’s Rant/Lament/Farewell etc. persisted as a folk song in various forms. Robert Burns produced a version “written for this work” for the SCOTS MUSICAL MUSEUM vol.2 (1788). It diverges from the traditional lyrics but keeps the same tune.
3/7
digital.nls.uk/special-coll...
Page 117 of THE SCOTS MUSICAL MUSEUM (1788) The first verse and the chorus are given on a musical stave; the text of the verses are grouped underneath. McPherson’s Farewell Written for this Work by Robert Burns Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong, The wretch’s destinie! McPherson’s time will not be long, On yonder gallows-tree. Chorus Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, Sae dauntingly gaed he; He play’d a spring, and danc’d it round, Below the gallows-tree. O what is death but parting breath? On many a bloody plain I’ve dar’d his face, and in this place I scorn him yet again! Sae rantingly, &c. Untie these bands from off my hands, And bring me to my sword; And there’s no a man in all Scotland, But I’ll brave him at a word. Sae rantingly, &c. I’ve liv’d a life of sturt and strife; I die by treacherie: It burns my heart I must depart, And not avenged be. Sae rantingly, &c. Now farewell light, thou sunshine bright, And all beneath the sky! May coward shame distain his name, The wretch that dares not die! Sae rantingly, &c.
November 16, 2025 at 2:08 PM
asls.org.uk
Kathleen Jamie’s poem “The Republic of Fife” (published in The Queen of Sheba, @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social 1994) mentions

The very woods where my friend Isabel
once saw a fairy, blue as a gas flame
dancing on trees…
The Republic of Fife by Kathleen Jamie Higher than the craw-stepped gables of our institutes – chess-clubs, fanciers, reels & Strathspeys – the old kingdom of lum, with crowns agley. All birds will be citizens: banners of starlings; Jacobin crows – also: Sonny Jim Aitken, Special P.C. whose red face closed in polis cars utters terrible, ridiculous at his brother and sister citizens but we’re no feart, not of anyone with a tartan nameplate screwed to his door. Citizen also: the tall fellow I watched lash his yurt to the leafy earth, who lifted his chin to my greeting, roared AYE! as in YES! FOREVER! MYSELF! The very woods where my friend Isabel once saw a fairy, blue as a gas flame dancing on trees. All this close to the motorway where a citizen has dangled, maybe with a friend clutching his/her ankles to spray PAY NO POLL TAX on a flyover near to Abernethy, in whose tea rooms old Scots kings and bishops in mitres supped wi a lang spoon. Citizens: our spires and doocoots institutes and tinkies’ benders, old Scots kings and dancing fairies give strength to my house on whose roof we can balance, carefully stand and see clear to the far off mountains, cities, rigs and gardens, Europe, Africa, the Forth and Tay bridges, even dare let go, lift our hands and wave to the waving citizens of all those other countries.
November 15, 2025 at 3:22 PM
asls.org.uk
“Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!”

Hobyahs are not to be trifled with, as “The Hobyahs: a Scotch Nursery Tale” (Journal of American Folklore, 1891) shows…
2/3
www.storytellingresearchlois.com/2018/10/jaco...
THE HOBYAHS: A SCOTCH NURSERY TALE Once there was an old man and woman and a little girl, and they all lived in a house made of hempstalks. Now the old man had a little dog named Turpie; and one night the Hobyahs came and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" But little dog Turpie barked so that the Hobyahs ran off; and the old man said, "Little dog Turpie barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live till morning I will cut off his tail." So in the morning the old man cut off little dog Turpie's tail. The next night the Hobyahs came again, and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" But little dog Turpie barked so that the Hobyahs ran off; and the old man said, "Little dog Turpie barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live till morning I will cut off one of his legs." So in the morning the old man cut off one of little dog Turpie's legs. The next night the Hobyahs came again, and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" But little dog Turpie barked so that the Hobyahs ran off; and the old man said, "Little dog Turpie barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live till morning I will cut off another of his legs." So in the morning the old man cut off another of little dog Turpie's legs. The next night the Hobyahs came again and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl." But little dog Turpie barked so that the Hobyahs ran off; and the old man said, "Little dog Turpie barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live till morning I will cut off another of his legs." So in the morning the old man cut off another of little dog Turpie's legs. The next night the Hobyahs came again and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" But little dog Turpie barked so that the Hobyahs ran off; and the old man said, "Little dog Turpie barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live till morning I will cut off another of his legs." So in the morning the old man cut off another of little dog Turpie's legs. The next night the Hobyahs came again and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" But little dog Turpie barked so that the Hobyahs ran off; and the old man said, " Little dog Turpie barks so that I cannot sleep nor slumber, and if I live till morning I will cut off little dog Turpie's head." So in the morning the old man cut off little dog Turpie's head. The next night the Hobyahs came and said, "Hobyah! Hobyah! Hobyah! Tear down the hempstalks, eat up the old man and woman, and carry off the little girl!" And when the Hobyahs found that little dog Turpie's head was off they tore down the hempstalks, ate up the old man and woman, and carried the little girl off in a bag. And when the Hobyahs came to their home they hung up the bag with the little girl in it, and every Hobyah knocked on top of the bag and said, "Look me! look me!" and then they went to sleep until the next night, for the Hobyahs slept in the daytime. The little girl cried a great deal, and a man with a big dog came that way and heard her crying. When he asked her how she came there and she had told him, he put the dog in the bag and took the little girl to his home. The next night the Hobyahs took down the bag and knocked on the top of it and said, "Look me! look me!" and when they opened the bag the big dog jumped out and ate them all up; so there are no Hobyahs now.
November 15, 2025 at 2:28 PM
asls.org.uk
“On the way back from the 1937 Labour Party Conference at Brighton – we had stopped to eat sandwiches & talk about George Lansbury – I happened to notice a hobyah type of fairy just going away.”

—A casual reference to seeing fairies in Naomi Mitchison’s 1975 memoir ALL CHANGE HERE
#BookWormSat
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A sepia-tinted monochrome photo of Naomi Mitchison, c. 1925. A young woman looks directly at the camera, leaning forward slightly. Her long dark hair is parted down the middle, and tied behind her head. Her gaze is steady and appraising.
November 15, 2025 at 2:28 PM
asls.org.uk
“What are ye, little mannie? And where are ye going?”
“Not of the race of Adam,” said the creature; “the People of Peace shall never more be seen in Scotland.”

—The fairies’ farewell to Scotland, at Eathie, in Cromarty, c.1780. From Hugh Miller’s THE OLD RED SANDSTONE (1841)
#BookWormSat #folklore
On a Sabbath morning, nearly sixty years ago, the inmates of this little hamlet had all gone to church, all except a herd-boy and a little girl, his sister, who were lounging beside one of the cottages; when, just as the shadow of the garden dial had fallen on the line of noon, they saw a long cavalcade ascending out of the ravine through the wooded hollow. It winded among the knolls and bushes; and, turning round the northern gable of the cottage beside which the sole spectators of the scene were stationed, began to ascend the eminence towards the south. The horses were shaggy, diminutive things, speckled dun and gray; the riders, stunted, misgrown, ugly creatures, attired in antique jerkins of plaid, long gray cloaks, and little red caps, from under which their wild, uncombed locks shot out over their cheeks and foreheads. The boy and his sister stood gazing in utter dismay and astonishment, as rider after rider, each one more uncouth and dwarfish than the one that had preceded it, passed the cottage and disappeared among the brushwood, which at that period covered the hill, until at length the entire rout, except the last rider, who lingered a few yards behind the others, had gone by. "What are ye, little mannie? and where are ye going?" inquired the boy, his curiosity getting the better of his fears and his prudence. "Not of the race of Adam," said the creature, turning for a moment in his saddle; "the People of Peace shall never more be seen in Scotland."
November 15, 2025 at 1:17 PM
asls.org.uk
You might be interested in this … in Hamish Henderson’s “Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica” he refers to

“…the great word of Glencoe’s
son, that we should not disfigure ourselves
with villainy of hatred…”

which he explains in an interview with Colin Nicholson, in Poem, Purpose, & Place (1992)
Hamish Henderson from Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica FIRST ELEGY End of a Campaign There are many dead in the brutish desert, who lie uneasy among the scrub in this landscape of half-wit stunted ill-will. For the dead land is insatiate and necrophilous. The sand is blowing about still. Many who for various reasons, or because of mere unanswerable compulsion, came here and fought among the clutching gravestones, shivered and sweated, cried out, suffered thirst, were stoically silent, cursed the spittering machine-guns, were homesick for Europe and fast embedded in quicksand of Africa agonised and died. And sleep now. Sleep here the sleep of the dust. There were our own, there were the others. Their deaths were like their lives, human and animal. There were no gods and precious few heroes. What they regretted when they died had nothing to do with race and leader, realm indivisible, laboured Augustan speeches or vague imperial heritage. (They saw through that guff before the axe fell.) Their longing turned to the lost world glimpsed in the memory of letters: an evening at the pictures in the friendly dark, two knowing conspirators smiling and whispering secrets; or else a family gathering in the homely kitchen with Mum so proud of her boys in uniform: their thoughts trembled between moments of estrangement, and ecstatic moments of reconciliation: and their desire crucified itself against the unutterable shadow of someone whose photo was in their wallets. Then death made his incision. There were our own, there were the others. Therefore, minding the great word of Glencoe’s son, that we should not disfigure ourselves with villainy of hatred; and seeing that all have gone down like curs into anonymous silence, I will bear witness for I knew the others. Seeing that littoral and interior are alike indifferent and the birds are drawn again to our welcoming north why should I not sing them, the dead, the innocent? It comes from a story told to me in my childhood by my grandmother, a sentimental Jacobite to whom the Jacobite Episcopalian tradition meant a great deal and for whom the Glencoe massacre had brought great shame upon Scotland. She said that when the Jacobite troops occupied Edinburgh in 1745, a son of old Glencoe, who must have been an old man himself at that time – it was either his son or grandson – asked permission of the Prince to guard the house of the Master of Stair. The Master of Stair was a kind of secretary of state for Scotland, and he was thought of as having organised the Glencoe massacre. In seeking such permission the son or grandson had said that he did not want his family to be ‘stained with the villainy of hatred’. I thought what a wonderful phrase; if ever there was a heroic, magnanimous statement, here it was. And I thought it applied to the desert. Why should we hate this enemy? Don’t misunderstand me: I went right through the war trying to be instrumental in killing as many Germans as possible. But the two feelings could co-exist.
November 15, 2025 at 1:07 PM
asls.org.uk
Legend says that Robert Kirk was taken away by the fairies, in revenge for revealing their secrets. A relative had the chance to rescue him but failed at the last minute, & Kirk was lost forever. A later minister at Aberfoyle, Rev. Patrick Graham, tells the story in his SKETCHES OF PERTHSHIRE (1812)
Mr Kirk was the near relation of Graham of Duchray, the ancestor of the present General Graham Stirling. Shortly after his funeral, he appeared in the dress in which he had sunk down, to a mutual relation of his own and of Duchray. "Go," said he to him, "to my cousin Duchray, and tell him that I am not dead; I fell down in a swoon, and was carried into Fairy-land, where I now am. Tell him, that when he and my friends are assembled at the baptism of my child, (for he had left his wife pregnant) I will appear in the room, and that if he throws the knife which he holds in his hand over my head, I will be released, and restored to human society." The man, it seems, neglected, for some time, to deliver the message. Mr […] […] Kirk appeared to him a second time, threatening to haunt him night and day till he executed his commission, which, at length, he did. The time of the baptism arrived. They were seated at table; Mr Kirk entered, but the laird of Duchray, by some unaccountable fatality, neglected to perform the prescribed ceremony. Mr Kirk retired by another door, and was seen no more. It is firmly believed that he is, at this day, in Fairy-land. One other legend, in a similar strain, lately communicated by a very intelligent young lady, is given, principally because it furnishes an opportunity of pursuing an ingenious idea suggested by Mr Scott, in one of his learned notes to the Lady of the Lake. "A young man roaming one day through the forest, observed a number of persons, all dressed in green, issuing from one of those round eminences which are commonly […]
November 15, 2025 at 11:26 AM
asls.org.uk
He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.
And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop…

—Norman MacCaig, “Small boy”
from THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)
#poem #poetry
10/12
birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...
Small boy by Norman MacCaig He picked up a pebble and threw it into the sea. And another, and another. He couldn't stop. He wasn't trying to fill the sea. He wasn't trying to empty the beach. He was just throwing away, nothing else but. Like a kitten playing he was practising for the future when there'll be so many things he'll want to throw away if only his fingers will unclench and let them go.
November 14, 2025 at 2:26 PM
asls.org.uk
At the Place for Pulling up Boats
(one word in Gaelic) the tide is full.
It seeps over the grass, stealthy as a robber.
Which it is…

—Norman MacCaig, “Two Thieves”
from THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)
#poem #poetry
9/12
birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...
Two thieves by Norman MacCaig At the Place for Pulling up Boats (one word in Gaelic) the tide is full. It seeps over the grass, stealthy as a robber. Which it is. – For old Flora tells me that fifty yards stretch of gravel, now under water, was, in her granny's time, a smooth green sward where the Duke of Sutherland turned his coach and four. What an image of richness, a tiny pageantry in this small dying place whose every house is now lived in by the sad widow of a fine strong man. There were fine strong men in the Duke's time. He drove them to the shore, he drove them to Canada. He gave no friendly thought to them as he turned his coach and four on the sweet green sward by the Place for Pulling up Boats where no boats are.
November 14, 2025 at 2:26 PM
asls.org.uk
Everywhere she dies. Everywhere I go she dies.
No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain
but has her death in it.

—Norman MacCaig, “Memorial”
from THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)
#poem #poetry
8/12
birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...
Memorial by Norman MacCaig Everywhere she dies. Everywhere I go she dies. No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain but has her death in it. The silence of her dying sounds through the carousel of language, it's a web on which laughter stitches itself. How can my hand clasp another's when between them is that thick death, that intolerable distance? She grieves for my grief. Dying, she tells me that bird dives from the sun, that fish leaps into it. No crocus is carved more gently than the way her dying shapes my mind. – But I hear, too, the other words, black words that make the sound of soundlessness, that name the nowhere she is continuously going into. Ever since she died she can't stop dying. She makes me her elegy. I am a walking masterpiece, a true fiction of the ugliness of death. I am her sad music.
November 14, 2025 at 2:26 PM
asls.org.uk
I look across the table and think
(fiery with love)
Ask me, go on, ask me
to do something impossible…

—Norman MacCaig, “Incident”
from THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)
#poem #poetry
7/12
birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...
Incident by Norman MacCaig I look across the table and think (fiery with love) Ask me, go on, ask me to do something impossible, something freakishly useless, something unimaginable and inimitable like making a finger break into blossom or walking for half an hour in twenty minutes or remembering tomorrow. I will you to ask it. But all you say is Will you give me a cigarette, please? And I smile and, returning to the marvellous world of possibility, I give you one with a hand that trembles with a human trembling.
November 14, 2025 at 2:26 PM
asls.org.uk
From the corner of Scotland I know so well
I see Edinburgh sprawling like seven cats
on its seven hills beside the Firth of Forth…

—Norman MacCaig, “Assynt & Edinburgh”
in BETWEEN MOUNTAIN & SEA: Poems From Assynt (Birlinn, 2018)
#poem #poetry
6/12
birlinn.co.uk/product/betw...
Assynt and Edinburgh by Norman MacCaig From the corner of Scotland I know so well I see Edinburgh sprawling like seven cats on its seven hills beside the Firth of Forth. And when I’m in Edinburgh I walk amongst the mountains and lochs of that corner that looks across the Minch to the Hebrides. Two places I belong to as though I was born in both of them. They make every day a birthday, giving me gifts wrapped in the ribbons of memory. I store them away, greedy as a miser.
November 14, 2025 at 2:26 PM
asls.org.uk
Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast.
I could not answer her –
I could not understand her…

—Norman MacCaig, “Aunt Julia”
from THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)
#poem #poetry
4/10
birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...
Aunt Julia by Norman MacCaig Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic very loud and very fast. I could not answer her – I could not understand her. She wore men’s boots when she wore any. – I can see her strong foot, stained with peat, paddling with the treadle of the spinningwheel while her right hand drew yarn marvellously out of the air. Hers was the only house where I’ve lain at night in the absolute darkness of a box bed, listening to crickets being friendly. She was buckets and water flouncing into them. She was winds pouring wetly round house-ends. She was brown eggs, black skirts and a keeper of threepennybits in a teapot. Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic very loud and very fast. By the time I had learned a little, she lay silenced in the absolute black of a sandy grave at Luskentyre. But I hear her still, welcoming me with a seagull’s voice across a hundred yards of peatscrapes and lazybeds and getting angry, getting angry with so many questions unanswered.
November 14, 2025 at 2:26 PM
asls.org.uk
Norman MacCaig: A Man in My Position

In this film from 1977, the poet Norman MacCaig talks about his work to Magnus Magnusson & John MacInnes.
Available online via the @natlibscot.bsky.social Moving Image Archive
2/12
movingimage.nls.uk/film/2802
Title screen for the film NORMAN MacCAIG A Man in My Position The lettering is displayed against a grey clouded sky as we look up at the jagged skyline of Edinburgh's high street.
November 14, 2025 at 2:26 PM
asls.org.uk
Norman MacCaig (1910–1996) was born #OTD, 14 November. A self-described “Zen Calvinist”, when asked how long it took him to write a poem he would reply “one cigarette – or two for a long one”

A 🎂🧵

“Toad”
THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)
#poem #poetry
1/12
birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...
Toad by Norman MacCaig Stop looking like a purse. How could a purse squeeze under the rickety door and sit, full of satisfaction, in a man’s house? You clamber towards me on your four corners – right hand, left foot, left hand, right foot. I love you for being a toad, for crawling like a Japanese wrestler, and for not being frightened. I put you in my purse hand, not shutting it, and set you down outside directly under every star. A jewel in your head? Toad, you’ve put one in mine, a tiny radiance in a dark place.
November 14, 2025 at 2:26 PM
asls.org.uk
“I like hourglasses, maps, eighteenth-century typography, etymologies, the taste of coffee and the prose of Stevenson”
—Jorge Luis Borges

In 2017, Birlinn published a Stevenson anthology as imagined (but never published) by Jorge Luis Borges & Adolfo Bioy Casares in the 1960s
Book cover Robert Louis Stevenson An Anthology selected by Jorge Luis Borges & Adolfo Bioy Casares Edited by Kevin MacNeil Cover image shows a photograph of Stevenson, writing at a desk, and looking up at us. He is flanked by a quill pen and a peacock's feather. Other images include palm trees, an ink bottle, and an Argentinian flag.
November 13, 2025 at 2:45 PM
asls.org.uk
Also of interest:

Past & Current Trends in Italian Scottish Migration Writings: Time & Memory in Joe Pieri & Anne Pia
—Manuela D’Amore, Scottish Literary Review 17/1, Spring/Summer 2025

Available online through Open Access via @projectmuse.bsky.social
muse.jhu.edu/pub/243/arti...
Abstract The aim of this paper is to shed light on Joe Pieri (1918–2012) and Anne Pia (1950–) as key figures of Italian Scottish migration literature. Although they have been neglected by academic criticism, their commitment to representing their transnational identities, as well as the ‘process of becoming’ of their community members, now deserves full recognition. Time and memory are central themes in their writings. Isle of the Displaced: An Italian-Scot’s Memoirs of Internment in the Second World War (1997) and Language of My Choosing: A Candid Life-Memoir of an Italian Scot (2017), Pieri’s and Pia’s respective first memoirs, both revisit the horrors of the Second World War while maintaining strong ties to the present. Pieri includes a detailed description of Île Sainte-Hélène today, while Pia reflects on immigration as a ‘pilgrimage’ and expresses gratitude to Scotland as an inclusive, multiethnic country. Their works affirm that the hardships of their early lives were pivotal in shaping their complex identities. Belonging to different historical periods and endowed with unique sensitivities, Pieri and Pia also represent the earliest stages and latest trends of Italian Scottish migration literature. After analysing these memoirs – especially their relationship between past and present – the article concludes with Pia’s Magnacioni … My Food, My Italy (2023). A ‘Te Deum’ of Italian culture, this hybrid work confirms that time, self-reflection, and writing are distinctive features of this under-researched branch of the Italian diaspora in Anglophone countries.
November 13, 2025 at 1:58 PM
asls.org.uk
The original Deed of Gift is held by the Fairbanks Museum in St Johnsbury, Vermont, USA – shown here displayed on Samoan siapo (AKA tapa) cloth
5/5
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:De...
The original Deed of Gift, in Stevenson's handwriting A typed label reads "DEED OF GIFT" in which Robert L. Stevenson willed his birthday to Anne Ide. The whole rests on top of a black-and-white patterned Samoan siapo (AKA tapa) cloth
November 13, 2025 at 12:39 PM
asls.org.uk
Sadly for POTUS, Annie kept up her part of the bargain, celebrating the gifted birthday with appropriate enthusiasm every 13 November. And although it carries her true date of birth, her tombstone bears the name “Anne Louisa Ide”
3/5
A recumbent tombstone – the text reads Anne Louisa Ide wife of William Bourke Cockran Born December 25 1876 Died January 7 1945 The eternal God is my refuge and underneath are his everlasting arms
November 13, 2025 at 12:39 PM
asls.org.uk
Part of the deal was that Annie should add “Louisa” to her name (“at least in private”) & celebrate “by the sporting of fine raiment, eating of rich meats & receipt of gifts, compliments & copies of verse” – otherwise all rights to the birthday would revert to the President of the USA
2/5
LETTER: TO H. C. IDE [VAILIMA, JUNE 19, 1891] DEAR MR. IDE, — Herewith please find the DOCUMENT, which I trust will prove sufficient in law. It seems to me very attractive in its eclecticism; Scots, English, and Roman law phrases are all indifferently introduced, and a quotation from the works of Haynes Bayly can hardly fail to attract the indulgence of the Bench. — Yours very truly, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. I, Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate of the Scots Bar, author of THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE and MORAL EMBLEMS, stuck civil engineer, sole owner and patentee of the Palace and Plantation known as Vailima in the island of Upolu, Samoa, a British Subject, being in sound mind, and pretty well, I thank you, in body: In consideration that Miss Annie H. Ide, daughter of H. C. Ide, in the town of Saint Johnsbury, in the county of Caledonia, in the state of Vermont, United States of America, was born, out of all reason, upon Christmas Day, and is therefore out of all justice denied the consolation and profit of a proper birthday; And considering that I, the said Robert Louis Stevenson, have attained an age when O, we never mention it, and that I have now no further use for a birthday of any description; And in consideration that I have met H. C. Ide, the father of the said Annie H. Ide, and found him about as white a land commissioner as I require: HAVE TRANSFERRED, and DO HEREBY TRANSFER, to the said Annie H. Ide, ALL AND WHOLE my rights and priviledges in the thirteenth day of November, formerly my birthday, now, hereby, and henceforth, the birthday of the said Annie H. Ide, to have, hold, exercise, and enjoy the same in the customary manner, by the sporting of fine raiment, eating of rich meats, and receipt of gifts, compliments, and copies of verse, according to the manner of our ancestors; AND I DIRECT the said Annie H. Ide to add to the said name of Annie H. Ide the name Louisa—at least in private; and I charge her to use my said birthday with moderation and humanity…
November 13, 2025 at 12:39 PM
asls.org.uk
The ♦️9 from the Scottish Historical Playing Cards set, designed in the 1970s by Willie Rodger RSA. The central diamond is bordered in black, to denote the curse.
#HistorySky #playingcards
The front and back of the nine of diamonds from the Scottish Historical Playing Cards set, designed in the 1970s by Willie Rodger RSA. The card looks like any other nine of diamonds, with two rows of four diamonds on either side of a central diamond – except that the central diamond is bordered in black. The back of the card is a deep red, patterned in gold with slightly stylised, hand-drawn hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades.
November 13, 2025 at 12:00 PM