In my English life, they took old truths - my snowy birth, how I liked marshy places - and pressed them into proper lies, like how they saw me lift up a shoulder and turn into a crow. Susan Fletcher immediately transported me so thoroughly to a time and place, to ways of thinking and perceiving they are, for the time being, a part of me. Corrag’s life changed others’ lives - even that of the Reverend who heard her tale and jotted it down with his ink and quill. or Was she freer than most because she lived life on her terms with an open heart and positive attitude?

Scottish folklore is full of stories about supernatural beings and Glencoe has its fair share: ghosts and bogles, a water bull ( tarbh uisge ) and water horse ( each uisge ), fairies and selkies – Ballachulish even has a dragon! I knew very little about Jacobites and the fierce loyalty to kings that reached even the remotest of villages and seeped into daily breath. Set in the Highlands of Scotland, 1692, the title character Corrag has been branded a witch for warning the MacDonalds of Glencoe of an impending massacre. To access your ebook(s) after purchasing, you can download the free Glose app or read instantly on your browser by logging into Glose. I learned about the Massacre of Glencoe - on a frosty winter’s morning in 1692 King William III and his redcoats slaughtered men, women and children of the Scottish MacDonald Clan.Scottish folklore tells of a Highland witch named Corrag who tried to warn the MacDonald Clan about the impending British attack, but many did not believe her and were killed. Corrag is forced to flee alone to the Scottish Highlands where she settles near and befriends the MacDonald clan. With Eve Green, which won the Whitbread first novel prize, and the subsequent Oystercatchers, Susan Fletcher has built a reputation for her complex female narrators and for the luminous poetry of her prose. One was how much fear was built around these around these women - often old, often widowed or alone, sometimes too intelligent for their own good. Despite his feeling that witches do the Devil's work and "must be purged by fire or water, for their own sake," he goes to Corrag's cell to question her about the murders.

Susan Fletcher's poetic prose is such a joy to read as she brings Corrag, an accused witch, to life on the pages of this novel. Corrag;s plight fist inspires contempt in Charles and later compassion as he begins to understand far from being a wanton and loathsome witch, she is a loving and joyful soul, as the book is divided into sections where she talks about her life, and the letters by Charles to his wife in Ireland. No spoilers of her life in Glencoe prior to ending up in the cell; little by little the strange little woman insinuates herself into the close MacDonald clan. You wore the blue shawl that makes your eyes bluer, and I spoke of enchantment - so we spoke of witchcraft by that tree. Corrag explains her childhood in England, about her mother who was hung for witchcraft, her flight to Scotland where she came under the protection of the McDonald clan of Glencoe, and above all her joy in small things, her love of and deep compassion for people and animals, her knowledge of herb lore and above all her great understanding and embracing of life, after having had such a hard existence.The Scottish pools are "so still that there was a second sky in them"; when moths catch in the cobwebs in Corrag's hair, she says "my hair was wings and whiteness". For Corrag, words are as important as places and, throughout the novel, several words, "witch" among them, are weighted with particular significance. Oh, but Corrag is a very memorable character, finely drawn (for some reason I see her sketched in detail in pencil), drawn into a story that once it takes off, soars like a bird over glen and brae. Fletcher comes at her story obliquely, through the eyes of the eponymous Corrag, whose curious name is an amalgamation of her mother's – Cora – and the epithet most frequently thrown at her, hag. It was often noted that, however stormy the seas or wild the weather, the loch would still long enough to allow boats out for a burial.

Author Susan Fletcher was inspired by the historical stories of Charles Leslie and the struggle of the Highland clans to survive the political turmoil of late 1600's, so she wrote a story to ignite a spark of knowledge and understanding in the reader, and she has Corrags magical gift for storytelling ignite a spark of knowledge and understanding in Charles which he then pays forward as well.

Her talking is like a river – running on and bursting into smaller rivers which lead nowhere, so she comes back to her starting place. The Highland Witch (entitled Corrag or Witch’s Light in some countries) by Susan Fletcher is based on the events of the 1692 Glencoe Massacre of Clan MacDonald, told from the perspective of a outsider named Corrag. Corrag tells of her time in the mountains and gives vivid descriptions of the mountains, the people, and her small hut and friendship with the Macdonald clan. Charles is hoping to gain evidence that will prove that King William was involved in the Murder/Massacre so that King James could be reinstated.