‘Three Old Men’ by George Mackay Brown

A friend of a friend, speaking with great affection, once mentioned that she knew George Mackay Brown. Living on Orkney, she published a small journal, and on occasion George would tread a wayward path from his home to her office, neglecting none of the public houses in between, incurring local opprobrium en route. I often imagined that journey, then came across this story. Serendipity…

An old man leaves his house on a dark winter night. Snow is starting. He is somewhat bemused to find himself doing this. As the weather thickens, he is joined by another, known to him by long acquaintance. They walk arm in arm with no light to guide them. They make conversation, they share memories, somewhat baffled by the situation in which they find themselves. As the snow deepens and the sky turns to a blizzard, they encounter a third old man, out with his fiddle. He knows not why. He takes an arm, joins them, and they stumble together, amiable and seemingly directionless. For a moment the sky clears and is lit by a single star. Then darkness engulfs them again and they shamble on in snow become too deep for footprints, bumping into fences and posts they were unable to apprehend, until they recognise the sound of their local inn. A youngster appears and seems to be leading them towards it, but as they draw near they find themselves instead being taken to the stable behind, where they perceive a tiny glimmer of light.

And that’s all – I’ve almost given it away. Except that this is a story of the most luminous beauty, impossible to recreate in language other than its own. Please find your way to it. Imagine you’re amongst the Magi.

Published in The Tablet, 1991, then in the collection George Mackay Brown, Winter Tales, London: John Murray Ltd, 1995, subsequently in The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Penguin Random House UK, 2015

‘The Wireless Set’ by George Mackay Brown

Like most of George Mackay Brown’s work, ‘The Wireless Set’ is set on Orkney, and begins when the first wireless set arrives in 1939, presented by Howie to his mother. Howie tells her it speaks the truth; his father, old Hugh, is less convinced, citing an inaccurate weather report as evidence. When the war begins, the wireless is at first a source of news for the village, but after accidentally tuning into Lord Haw Haw they become fascinated by his lies. The story ends with news of Howie’s death and its final pages are among the most moving I have ever read.

First published in A Time to Keep, Hogarth Press, 1969, republished by Polygon in 2015

‘The Christmas Dove’ by George Mackay Brown

Often referred to as the Orkney Bard, George Mackay Brown (1921 – 1996) wrote poetry, short stories and novels. His novel Beside the Ocean of Time was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Saltire Society judged it their Scottish Book of the Year for 1994. In The Christmas Dove the children of a rich merchant keep a white dove in a cage. When the door is accidentally left open the dove escapes and takes wing on adventures of its own. The story bears the nostalgia of a bygone age. There is a sense of the exotic, too. Those are its charms. The author leaves the reader to contemplate its period, though by the end of the story it becomes clear that it’s Brown’s re-telling of the biblical story of the birth of Christ.

George Mackay Brown has been my literary hero for over forty years. His writing is full of nostalgia about the past. He found himself living on the cusp between two eras – the end of the Scottish Enlightenment and the dawning of Modernism and Modernity. It was a position he was never entirely comfortable with. In an essay written shortly after the publication of his first novel, Greenvoe (1972), entitled ‘Oil and the Orcadians’, Brown railed against the changes “progress and science have bought – books, radios, education, lemonade, bakehouse bread”. It’s a feeling that, in the fast-moving world of the twenty first century I find myself being able to empathise with. The story of ‘The Christmas Dove’, then, could be said to be Brown’s defiance against capitalism and the materialism that is the modern world.

First published in 1985 as a limited edition (150 copies) of four stories, by The Perpetua Press, titled Christmas Stories; reissued in 2020 as one of thirty stories in an anthology published by Galileo Publishing under the same title

Chosen by Carola Huttmann. Passionate about art, literature and writing, Carola draws much of her creative inspiration from the richness of landscape, stories, history and traditions of the Orkney Islands which imbue them with their vibrancy and charm. They have been her home since 1995. Find her on Twitter at @CarolaHuttmann