British action drama starring Saoirse Ronan. Understandably cold and aggressive after being shipped off to Britain from America to stay with her distant relatives, Daisy (Ronan) is initially weary of her new home in the English countryside, but as a relationship develops between Daisy and her cousin Edmond (George MacKay), she starts warming to her new surroundings. Left to their own devices while her Aunt Penn (Anna Chancellor) is abroad involved in peace negotiations, the group enjoy their idyllic surroundings and isolation from parental influence. However, when World War Three breaks out over Europe and Britain is taken over by military forces, the group is split up and detained in prisoner-of-war camps. With nothing left to lose, Daisy begins planning her escape in the hope of reuniting with her lover, but with war taking its toll on everyone throughout the country, she grows fearful of what she may find...

George Mackay Brown was a master of the short story form and produced a steady stream of short fiction collections, starting with A Calendar of Love (1967) and include A Time to Keep (1969) and Hawkfall (1974), as well as his poetry collections and novels. In this selection, edited and introduced by Malachy Tallack, we explore the author's Orkney and the ups and downs of the crofters and fishermen there. These magical stories, drawn from ancient lore and modern life, strip life down to the essentials.

Vinland, George Mackay Brown's fourth novel, follows the turbulent life of Ranald Sigmunson, a young boy born into the Dark Ages, when Orkney was torn between its Viking past and its Christian future. Lore and legend, the elemental pull of the sea and the land, the sweetness of the early religion and the darker, more ancient rites, weave through this exquisite celebration of Orcadian history and the inexorable seasons of life.

Vinland follows the turbulent life of Ranald Sigmundson, a young boy born into the Dark Ages when Orkney was torn between its Viking past and its Christian future. Struggling to understand the conflicts of his home, Ranald seeks adventure and knowledge across the seas, his journeys taking him as far as Norway, Iceland and Ireland. Through Ranald's story, many elements of early mediaeval life - of seamanship, marriage customs, beliefs and traditions - are brought vibrantly to life, and the traditional poetry interwoven through the prose adds a richness and poignancy to the tales he tells. In Vinland, Mackay Brown's fourth novel, lore and legend, the elementary pull of the sea and the land, the sweetness of the early religion and the darker, more ancient rites, create an exquisite celebration of Orcadian history.

Greenvoe, the tight-knit community on the Orcadian island of Hellya, has existed unchanged for generations, but Operation Black Star requires the island for unspecified purposes and threatens the islanders' way of life. A whole host of characters - The Skarf, failed fishermen and Marxist historian; Ivan Westray, boatman and dallier; pious creeler Samuel Whaness; drunken fishermen Bert Kerston; earth-mother Alice Voar, and meths-drinker Timmy Folster - are vividly brought to life in this sparkling mixture of prose and poetry. In the end Operation Black Star fails, but not before it has ruined the island; but the book ends on a note of hope as the islanders return to celebrate the ritual rebirth of Hellya.

Bestowed at birth with two gifts, an ivory flute and a bag of silver and gold coins, a young girl wanders through time. She is destined to pursue the dragon of war and before he consumes the world in flames, subdue him not with violence but music. Moving across the battlefields from East to West, the girl bears witness to the suffering and brutality of war throughout history ...

George's memory is inseparable from Orkney, where he was born the youngest child of a poor family and which he rarely left. His mother was a beautiful woman who spoke only Gaelic and his father was a wit, mimic and singer, who also doubled as postman and tailor. Tuberculosis framed George's early life and kept him in a kind of limbo. He discovered alcohol which gave him insights into the workings of the mind. While attending the University of Edinburgh he came into contact with Goodsir Smith, MacDiarmid and Norman MacCaig - and Stella Cartwright with whom perhaps all of them were in love. By the time of his death in 1996 he was recognised as one of the great writers of his time and country.

'I'm going to camp out on the land ... try and get my soul free'. So sang Joni Mitchell in 1970 on 'Woodstock'. But Woodstock is only the tip of the iceberg. Popular music festivals are one of the strikingly successful and enduring features of seasonal popular cultural consumption for young people and older generations of enthusiasts. From pop and rock to folk, jazz and techno, under stars and canvas, dancing in the streets and in the mud, the pleasures and politics of the carnival since the 1950s are discussed in this innovative and richly-illustrated collection. The Pop Festival brings scholarship in cultural studies, media studies, musicology, sociology, and history together in one volume to explore the music festival as a key event in the cultural landscape - and one of major interest to young people as festival-goers themselves and as students.

In this new Selected Poems, Kathleen Jamie explores the multi-faceted world of George Mackay Brown's Orkney, the poet's lifelong home and inspiration. George Mackay Brown's concerns were the ancestral world, the communalities of work, the fables and religious stories which he saw as underpinning mortal lives. Brown believed from the outset that poets had a social role and his true task was to fulfil that role. This is not the attitude of a shrinking violet, tentatively exploring his 'voice'. Art was sprung from the community, and his role as poet to know that community, to sing its stories. But there was also room for introspection; the poet's task was simultaneously to 'interrogate silence'.

We can do little to escape the experience of the United States of America through many media: TV, pop music, youth culture, Hollywood, fast food. How do these traces and images affect us? Do we internalize them, want to be American? Do we (can we?) resist them? Is our desire for them a symptom of European pop culture's crisis? From black face minstrelsy, rap music and fiction to McDonald's, rock festivals and Star Trek, the cultural conception of America is critically unpacked by contributors from Europe, Israel and the USA. McKay rounds off the picture by offering a comprehensive introduction that explains theoretical approaches to Americanization from the thesis of Yankee cultural imperialism to America as site of liberation or fantasy.

These two long stories are set, like most of George Mackay Brown's work, in Orkney and in a period, the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the pattern of island life, little changed since Viking times, was beginning to be threatened. The Golden Bird tells the story of the slow decline of an island community: a scattered village dependant on the sea for its livelihood and at risk from it, a place subject to the peculiar tensions of isolation and the unsettling influence of new values. The Life and Death of John Voe looks at the life of a typical young Orkney man: after whaling and sailing and gold-mining he comes home to devote the rest of his days to a beautiful country girl. These stories are the creation of a very rich imagination, of a practised and skillful writer, but they also have the power and simplicity of the traditional ballad. They will delight Mackay Brown's fans.

When the shopkeeper gives Jenny a skinny, black kitten she has no idea who she has adopted. Fankle is no ordinary cat. The fiercely clever feline has lived six lives so far: lives of adventure, danger, fortune and poverty. He's stared down angry pirates, started a blood feud, won a war, advised an empress and leapt onto the moon. Fankle tells Jenny tales of his former lives -- with the king of pirates, in ancient Egypt and even with the Empress of China. So what is he doing living in a crofter's cottage in Orkney? This classic novel by George Mackay Brown is a rich and rewarding read for adults and children alike.

Set in the Orkneys on the fictitious island of Norday, a young poet daydreams the history of the island and its people. He travels back in time to Viking adventures at the court of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople. Part of the 1995 Scottish Book Fortnight promotion.

The potato is economically a very important crop in many parts of the world. All improvements through potato breeding or biotechnology must be based on a thorough knowledge of potato genetics. This book fills a major gap in the current literature for an up-to-date account of this topic and its implications for crop improvement. Written by authorities from the UK, USA, Canada, Peru, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Poland, this major reference work will be indispensible for workers in plant genetics, breeding and biotechnology.

Towns, villages, islands, mountains, lochs and rivers of Scotland - all are listed, and the derivation of their names - some curious - some extraordinary - is given throughout. All have a story to tell, and Scotland's rich history is apparent in these place names. Celtic, Nordic and Anglo-Saxon influences that span 2,000 years from the beginning of the Common or Christian Era to the 11th century are shown. And as the incoming Celts did not find an empty land, some names can be traced to Pictish times. With the arrival of the Scots in the 6th century, Gaelic names began to appear, and then, a century later, Anglian names appeared from the south, to later be influenced by French and Dutch, becoming the 'Scots' tongue of the Middle Ages. The advent of the Norsemen in the 9th century produced Norse names in the North, the Northern and Western Isles and the South-West. Many names are Scots transliterations of Gaelic. Auchenshuggle, long thought of as an appropriate destination for Glasgow's tramcars is simply a Scots version of the Gaelic for 'rye field'. The book explains how, over successive generations with political, economic and cultural changes, while Scots became established, place names were not renewed or translated - they were merely Scotticised. And so today, with English as the common tongue, we can be reminded of the past at just about every turn. This book provides a fascinating journey that might take you from Aberbrothock to the Butt of Lewis, Cruachan to Dunnet, on to Ecclefechan and Friockheim, Gretna, Hoy, Ibrox, John o' Groats, Kells, pausing at Lanark before seeking out Mealfuarvounie, Nick, Oxgangs, Patna, Quanterness, Rum, Sciennes, Talisker, Uig,Voe, Waterloo, Yell and Zetland - your journey has just begun!

This is a guide to names used in Scotland - Scots, Gaelic, international, ancient, modern, and timeless - and their origins and meanings. These names are either popular in modern Scotland, or are chosen because they have some special significance or historical link to the country. With Gaelic pronunciations, and historical and geographical references to the origin of first names and surnames, this book both helps parents choose a name for their baby, and also guides the reader to the history of Scotland's most common surnames. Find out whether you have Scots ancestry in this fascinating compilation.