The Cave Burning
In my researches into the Stuarts, I have come across some tales that belong in Bernard Cornwell style Viking sagas. They are from Scotland in the time of James V1 and !st and this is the start:- Two MacLeods set of,, in winter on a fishing trip ut the weather grew grim and they landed on the island of Eigg, belonging to the MacDonalds. They were given shelter and fed but, in Walter Scotts’ words, were guilty of some incivility to a young woman were tied up and, after their boat was towed out to sea, set adrift. They lay in the boat for several hours and were on the point of expiring, when a MacLeod boat fond them. The fishers complained to their chief, who immediately set off to Eigg to take revenge. The MacDonalds saw him coming and hid in a cave on the island which has only a small entrance big enough to crawl through but opens up to a cavern. MacLeod searched for two days, burning and looting the crofts but found no sign of the people and, as it had started to snow, decided to leave on the morning of the third day. By this time, the MacDonalds were growing hungry, children squalling, women getting desperate and decided to send someone out to see if MacLeod had gone. The man chosen went to a lookout point, and was seen by the departing MacLeod. Now we have the mental dilemma; the man could try to go back to the cave, which would lead the MacLeods to the cave, or get caught and suffer. He tried to draw the MacLeaods off but had left tracks in the snow, which the MacLeads followed back to the cave. When their demands that the perpetrators of the setting adrift be surrendered were refused, in what is reminiscent of a Bernard Cornwell hall burning, the MacLeods crammed the entrance to the cave with dry heater and peat, set it alight and suffocated the inmates.
I’m not sure where this will go but it’s a starting point. It will probably finish as a Graham Dalton book as Sullatober is the author of village tales like welcome to Oakhaven and Best in Show and I don’t wnat someone expecting a village tale finding themselves in the middle of a Highland slaughter.