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deceasedanddesist · 3 years

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unrequited ( lily evans )

this is for @strawberrywafer‘s 300 writing challenge

pairing: lily evans x griffyndor!reader

fem! reader ( pronouns are not specified )

warnings: lots of angst, not a happy ending, mentions of homophobia, lots of talk about emotional turmoil and pain.

notes: i love me some angst, especially if its sapphic. i personally have experienced being in love with your straight best friend and I may or may not have cried writing this. enjoy :)

word count: 2.2k

you were in love with your best friend. it was the most gut wrenching form of self sabotage that you could fathom, and the worst part was you couldn’t even be mad at her, or even james potter for that matter.

its not like you couldn’t see the appeal, i mean he was stuck in the same boat as you. almost. if you didn’t see her subtle double takes when he walked into a room or the lingering disappointment in her eyes when he did something ridiculously immature, you probably would have bought the half-hearted glares and demeaning nicknames. if only you hadn’t paid so much attention to her striking emerald eyes as she watched the back of his head at the first feast of seventh year, you probably would have been fooled along with everyone else.

that was when you knew you were royally fucked, because she just didn’t seem into it this year. at first you tricked yourself into thinking it was because she was finally sick of him after all the years of extravagantly expressing his undying love for her, but a few weeks into your final year at hogwarts you knew. you knew it wasn’t because she was tired of him, it was because she was tired of pretending she didn’t love him back.

so no, you weren’t mad at james potter, in all of his arrogant, quidditch all-star glory. and you weren’t mad at lily evans—but who were you kidding, you could never be mad at her. you realized the anger you felt, that burning, self destructive pit in your stomach, was directed at yourself.

how could you let this happen? it had been in fifth year when you realized the feelings you harboured towards your roommate were not something a friend should feel for a friend. you kicked yourself for it then and you do the same thing now, because you always knew the red-head talked about james potter too much for it to just be out of hatred. what was it that you were always telling her, “there’s a thin line between hate and love, lils”, and it felt like you took a stake to the heart when you found out that she began to look at him with something in her eyes that you knew oh-so well. it was the one thing you and potter had in common.

then they were together, it happened faster than you could say quidditch. one minute james potter was professing his love, as per usual, and none of your peers looked twice at the impromptu great hall confessional. well, until people realized lily wasn't yelling and calling him an ‘arrogant toerag’.

you knew it was coming, and as much as you wanted to squeeze your eyes shut until they’d have to be pried opened by marlene, you forced yourself to watch as she finally said yes to the love of her life. you don't know why you did it, looking back, you would’ve walked out as soon as you came to the realization. maybe you felt you deserved it, after all, your parents aren't very supportive of who you love. maybe your mom’s world-crushing passive aggressive comments, or your dad’s suggestion about sending you away to some church town in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere were finally getting to your head.

they found out this summer, unbeknownst to all of your friends and peers. you still aren’t quite sure what happened, all you knew was that they found a more than friendly unsent letter to a beautiful red-head, and you certainly didn’t think your life could get any worse.....until now.

you hadn't realized your head had gone off into space until mary macdonald nudged you back into reality, giving you time to evaluate the situation.

lily had sat back down and began to furiously blush, while james was getting patted on the back by people from numerous houses, even he himself looked quite shocked she actually agreed to go out with him.

you told yourself you tried to listen to what lily was telling the group of girls, but in reality you were accumulating strategies in your head on how to slip away unnoticed to go cry somewhere. you didn't want to hear lily talking about where james was going to take her, and you certainly weren't gonna listen to her go on about how hard it was to keep up her resolve all of these years.

so you left, and when you looked back, she hadn't even glanced your way.

it didn't even come to a surprise to you that you were easily forgotten, and you hated yourself for it. you hated yourself for ignoring the obvious fact that lily evans and james potter were always meant to be together, and you hated that you would ignore factoring it into the equations you imagined in your head.

you hated being out of control, so you focused on the one thing you could. staying away from her.

it was completely selfish. you knew it, and so did marlene, mary, and dorcas. but you didn't give them time to convince you, because in your head this was the only option to help you get over her.

you walked into the dorm after you got confirmation lily was asleep, and you were gone before she woke up. lily didn't have any idea why and you almost felt bad for her, but you couldn’t bring yourself to. why? because she's the one that gets a happy ending, and the absence of one friend ( no matter how important you were to her ) isn’t going to fuck that up.

you were unlucky enough to get the short end of the stick, and it made you want to scream. the pressure of doing good on your n.e.w.t.s so you don't have to spend another suffocating summer with your parents, and now, with all of this unexplained weight on your chest that you have yet to figure out how to get rid of. it was infuriating, and letting it all brew up inside yourself was bound to make a mess later.

you knew that later would come eventually, but you never knew it would be in the form of james potter.

the realization came to you as soon as you saw the look on his face as he walked towards you in the hallway outside of the potions classroom you just walked out of. he looked spooked almost, like he felt a severe sense of dread to have this conversation with you.

“hey.” he dragged it out as the one word left his mouth. yup, definitely dreading this.

“hi.” you matched his awkwardness, he cringed like he was realizing how stupid he sounded. “you’re here about lily.”

you saved him the trouble. both of you didn't want to be here having this conversation, and he looked like he was on the verge of a stroke. not the confrontational type, you noted silently.

“yeah,” he paused and took the time to observe your stance, his brows furrowed almost, like he was wondering why you were so nonchalant about this. “just here to clear up a few things.”

it was your turn to furrow your brows. clear up a few things? why would lily send james to do her bidding?

“I don't know what exactly needs to be cleared between us, potter.” you unintentionally spat his name out like it was poison to you. immediately deflating when you saw his face drop, this wasn’t his fault after all.

“okay, it’s clear that you don't like me, but I don't know what that has to do with lily.” he paused once again before reluctantly continuing, “at first I thought it was because you fancied me-”

his words were cut off by your laugh, “how heteronormative. no offence james, but you’re really far from my type.”

his eyes widened, you nodded.

“if lily wants to ‘clear up a few things’ she can come to me herself.”

you left with the last words, and a bewildered james potter as an added bonus.

it had been a few weeks since that conversation, and you didn’t think lily got the message. well, that was until she somehow bribed mary into telling you she went to sleep early and managed to clear out the room. you guys always joked that she was the weakest link.

you were dissatisfied with yourself when you found that when you looked at her, all you could think about was how beautiful her eyes were. her red tresses appeared to be lazily thrown up into a bun, and she adorned some gryffindor pyjamas that the school provides you with every year.

you let out a breath you’ve been holding ever since the decision to distance yourself from her. it was like the weight you’ve been carrying was replaced with dread, because now you had to tell her, and you weren’t worried for your feelings, you were worried for hers. one think you knew for sure was that lily evans had an enormous heart, and it would be like passing the weight of your unrequited feelings onto her, and who would want someone they loved to deal with that.

“hi.” you decided to initiate the heavy exchange that was about to occur, you don’t know why you did it.

“we need to talk, y/n”

you just nodded. wanting to hear what she had to say first, you gestured to her meekly.

“i know you and james had a conversation, he told me,” she paused, seemingly collecting herself before she addressed the question that you knew she already knew the answer to. “i’m just a tad confused about the context of your side of it.”

“no you’re not lily.” you whispered it so softly you weren’t even sure she heard you, but the bit of breath she took in out of shock let you know she caught the innuendo.

“i-,” she collected herself once again, “i don’t know what to say, y/n.”

you looked down, because the pitying look she was giving you was going to make you mad if you looked at it any longer. with every utterance of your name, you felt a pang in your chest, the congestion of emotions finally clawing their way out. it was thick and it was coming out of you with the speed of a freight train, you broke the silence first.”

“look, you don’t have to say anything. i know you don’t reciprocate, and i’ve accepted it.” you hoped the one conversation you could never control the outcome of was over, and you did try to leave it at that by walking to your trunk and grabbing your night clothes, but something lily said stopped you.

“why did you keep this from me?” she seemed a bit angry, and the shock of it rolled through you as you processed the tone in which she spoke.

but to her surprise you just let out a wet laugh, wishing she would just let it go and let you sob it out in peace, but before you could even open your mouth to speak she did it for you.

“you just ignored me, like i had no business knowing that you feel this way towards me. it could have been different, you know.” she looked like what she said pained her to do so, and you hated it.

the tears were already flowing freely down your cheeks when you turned back around to face her,

“i was right here lily, by your side all along but you never saw me, did you?” you were full on snot nosed crying now, but you continued anyways.

“i know you’re angry because i’ve been ignoring you, but i just want you to be happy, and that can’t happen if you know i’m in love with you.”

“why-”

“because i’m around you constantly, lily. you’d never forgive yourself for not reciprocating, so we’re better off like this.” she looked like she was gonna disagree, so you added “i know you, and you know it’s true too.”

she took one unconscious step closer to you, to which you stepped back.

“just let me go,” you begged, “it’s better this way, i promise.”

she took one good look at your tear stricken face, “how can you know this is better y/n, look at you.”

you wiped your nose on your sleeve, “i’ve been dealing with this for so long. just let me go, if not for your sake, do it for mine.” she wasn’t going to let up until you looked at her and attempted to once again beg, but it just came out as a silent plea overcome by your fresh tears.

you just looked down, waiting until you heard her footsteps out the door to let your knees give out.

you really hoped all this pain would be better for you in the long run.

#harry potter #lily evans #lily evans x reader #jily #angst #not the good kind #sorry #hogwarts #marauders era #tw angst #tw pain #tw homophobic parents #fuck y/n's parents

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scotianostra · 4 years

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27th July 1689 saw the Battle of Killiecrankie.

The Battle of Killiecrankie (Gaelic: Cath Raon Ruairidh) was fought between Highland Scottish clans supporting King James VII and troops supporting King William of Orange during the first Jacobite uprising.

Following the so called ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688, the English Parliament had replaced King James VII with William of Orange and his wife Queen Mary, the daughter of James.

The following year the Scottish Parliament voted in favour of doing the same with the crown of Scotland. Many Scots, took exception to this and in response John Graham of Claverhouse, ‘Bonnie Dundee’ , raised a force of mainly Highlanders loyal to contest this decision.

In response, the Scottish government assembled an army of mostly Lowland Scots to counter the rebellion. Under the command of General Hugh Mackay, the Government troops marched to intercept the rebels at the Killicrankie Pass near Blair Castle, on the key route into the Highlands from Perth.

The Jacobites, who had arrived first, took up a commanding position on a ridge above the pass. Realising the futility of a frontal attack on such a strong defensive position, Mackay formed his troops in a line and simply ordered them to fire their muskets at the enemy.

As the sun sank on the horizon on 27th July 1689, Dundee ordered his men to advance and, true to form, the Highlanders charged the Government line. Surprised by the rapid change in tactics, Mackay’s troops did not have time to fix bayonets and so were ill equipped for the close quarter hand to hand fighting that would follow.

The battle quickly turned into a rout. Although the Jacobites had secured their first victory of the rebellion, they had lost a third of their number as well as their inspirational leader Bonnie Dundee, who had been killed alongside his men in the charge.

Just one month later the Jacobite rising, the ‘Dundee Rising’, would collapse following their defeat by Government forces at the Battle of Dunkeld on 21st August.

A footnote on the rising, many associate the Jacobite Uprisings with Catholicism but Allan Macinnes (Professor of History at Aberdeen Uni) in his "Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart" lists 50 separate clans who were significant enough to be able to act on their own. Of these only 6 are listed as Catholics. He lists 28 clans who supported Dundee's rising. Like all of the Jacobite Rebellions in Scotland the bulk of the Jacobites were Episcopalians. That is Scottish Anglicans. It was aligned to the long struggle between the Episcopalians and Presbyterians as to the nature of the Church of Scotland and the relationship between said church and state.

The 6 classed as Catholic did all come out. That is the MacDonalds of Glengarry, ClanRanald, and Keppoch; as well as McNeil of Barra; Chisholm of Strathglass and the Gordons.

The McGregors came out and are described as mixed Episcopalian and Catholic. There were another 5 clans were described as being mixed Presbyterian/Episcopalian/Catholic in their religious affiliations and 4 of these came out. That is the MacDonalds of Sleat. The MacDonnells of Antrim, the Camerons and the Frasers of Lovet. Clan Grant were divided politically as well as religiously.

There is another 17 clans who came out and 9 of these are described as Episcopalians. This includes the McLeans of Duart and the McLeans of Ardgour as well as the Stewarts of Appin. Another 9 are described as mixed Episcopalian/Presbyterian.

None of the clans described as Presbyterian came out which is of course maybe understandable as both Dundee and James VII himself have been said to be involved in the persecution of the Presbyterians, my previous post on Dundee has covered this.

Now the Braes O’ Killiecrankie is one of the most famous Scottish folk songs, but there are several versions of it. The version below is by Rabbie Burns, but the tune is a traditional Scots perhaps originating at the time of the battle. I will go through the Burns version rather than muddy the waters with the other rarer songs.

The song is addressed to a soldier, asked why he's all kitted out and where he's been. Pitcur, who fell in a furr, was Haliburton of Pitcur [a fine old Pictish place-name], fighting on Dundee's side, who fell in a drainage ditch. This song, to a great traditional tune of maybe the same date as the battle, is not completely folk, because it was certainly fiddled with by Burns, as he did with many songs he collected.

Brankie-o - refers to a spruce tree, meaning that the young soldier that the veteran is talking to appears strong and hearty. Cantie-o - means light-hearted or merry. The veteran is annoyed with the young man's flippant attitude and demeanor.

If you follow my posts, you will already know that Clavers is the the name given Bonnie Dundee by his enemies, usually "Bluidy Clavers." It is short for Claverhouse. John Graham was lord of Claverhouse before being created Viscount Dundee by James VII. Clankie means a sharp blow which seems to mean that Clavers received a sharp blow.

Shank is a leg and to shank-it is to run away.

Slaes are Sloes, the fruit of the Blackthorn. Very bitter and used to make sloe gin. (It could also be an allegory to those who were on the losing side). Gled is a bird like a kite or a buzzard; or a rapacious, greedy person.

So to sum it up you have and auld soldier after the battle asking someone, a younger man) why he (the younger man) is so cheerful and well turned out: Did you come from Killiecrankie?

Of course not all lyrics are explainable, even to this day in song words don't make much sense, in this case it's "I fought my auntie-o" could it be a nickname for Mary II who was joint ruler with William III or could it be a reference to the way in which families were divided and fought against each other? Auntie'is such a handy word for rhyming purposes. IFrom what I can gather Burns used it quite a lot.

The narrator goes on to say in effect "If you had gone through what I did, you wouldn't be so damn cheerful because I've just met the Devil and Dundee at Killiecrankie." So although being what is termed a Jacobite song, it would seem the main subject of the song was on the Government side on the side of William and Mary.

Whaur hae ye been sae braw, lad? Whaur hae ye been sae brankie-o? Whaur hae ye been sae braw, lad? Come 'ye by Killiecrankie-o? An' ye had been whaur I hae been Ye wadna been sae cantie-o An' ye had seen what I hae seen On the braes o' Killiecrankie-o I fought at land, I fought at sea At hame I fought my auntie-o But I met the Devil and Dundee On the braes o' Killiecrankie-o The bauld pit cur fell in a furr And Clavers gat a crankie-o Or I had fed an Athol gled On the braes o' Killiecrankie-o Oh fie, MacKay, What gart ye lie I' the brush ayont the brankie-o? Ye'd better kiss'd King Willie's lofe Than come tae Killiecrankie-o It's nae shame, it's nae shame It's nae shame to shank ye-o There's sour slaes on Athol braes And the de'ils at Killiecrankie-o

#Scotland #scottish #history #battle #Jacobites #Folk song #Robert Burns

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branlovestowrite · 5 years

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The Decoy Groom (1/5): A CS Fanfic

I have been absent from the fandom lately, and I woke up this morning with a burning desire to get back in. I miss everyone! To that end, I decided to challenge myself by posting a story I’ve been sitting on for months.

This is loosely (very loosely) based on the movie The Decoy Bride (starring Kelly MacDonald and David Tennant; it’s super cute and highly recommended). Brennan Jones is in this story, and, as it’s a no-magic AU, Tim Omundson will be playing that role.

Title: The Decoy Groom

Rating: M for language and some suggestive scenes in future installments

Summary: After a failed turn as a musician in Los Angeles, Killian Jones has returned to his home: Storybrooke Island, a remote, tiny island off the coast of Maine. Emma Swan is a famous actress that just wants one day out of the spotlight so she can get married. Storybrooke Island, just two miles long and accessible only by ferry, seems like the answer to her prayers. But will she really be able to keep her nuptials a private affair? And can Killian find the solace he craves when there’s a world-famous actress in town?

Also on AO3

Chapter 1

“The wedding is off!” Emma cried out as she stormed into her apartment. She kicked off her black stilettos and combed her fingers through her long blonde hair. Her green eyes narrowed on her fiancé, ready for a fight.

Walsh heaved a sigh and mussed his shaggy brown hair. This was unfortunately something they’d already been through once, and he knew she was not cancelling the event because of anything he’d done. “Who do I have to fire?”

“I don’t know!” she cried. “But someone leaked the location to the press, and now it’s up on TMZ and all the paps are going to be there, and… it’s just ruined! Everything is ruined!”

“Calm down,” Walsh said, putting his hands on her arms. “It’s not ruined.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” Emma growled as she pulled away. She stood with her back turned and rested her forehead in her right hand. She took a few deep, cleansing breaths before turning back around. “I think I’ve been pretty reasonable about this wedding. I agreed to your choices for the venue, the guest list, the menus… The one request I had was that we keep the press OUT. Now I’m not even getting that!” She stomped her foot and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not totally unreasonable to want this one day of my life to be private, at least for a little while!”

“Emma… come on, think about what you’re saying! You are the most popular movie star in the world! People want to see you get married! And if we would just work with the press instead of against them, we could charge whatever we wanted for exclusive rights. And then that publication will keep the others out. It’s a win-win!”

“No!” Emma cried out. “I have lived my life in the spotlight since I was sixteen! My wedding is going to be private.”

Walsh huffed again and walked to the kitchen. “Fine. You win. The wedding’s off. I’ll call Zelena tomorrow and have her make the cancellations.”

“Thank you,” Emma said, visibly deflating. She followed him to the kitchen and let him encircle her with his arms. “What now?”

“Elope?” Walsh asked. “We could go to Vegas.”

“Hell no. If we’re eloping I want it to be somewhere the press would never think we would go.”

“Some remote island? I could get on board with that. Some private beach in Tahiti?” His brown eyes sparkled with mischief. “We can ditch your big dress and get you a sexy little white bikini.”

Emma pulled away before he could slide his hands any lower. She was not in the mood. “No, there’s always someone with a camera there. We need to go somewhere crazy remote. Some island with less than 100 people where they don’t watch movies and no one knows who we are.”

“Good luck with that. We’re only the most well known couple in Hollywood. Biggest producer. World-famous actress. You’d have to find a place without internet to find somewhere that people don’t know us.”

“It’s got to exist.”

“Fine. I’ll ask Zelena to look into that too.”

“No, don’t,” Emma interjected. “Let me find a place.”

“Are you sure? She’s a wedding planner. This is her thing. She’ll probably know of a place.”

“I want to do this.” She stepped closer and threaded their fingers together. “I’ll find us a beautiful, romantic island where we can have the picture perfect, private, wedding of our dreams. Then we can have a beautiful honeymoon and escape the craziness of this life for a while.”

“Sounds perfect,” Walsh said, but his tone and lack of a smile set off Emma’s lie detector. She knew he’d rather have a flashy Hollywood wedding, but she was adamant on this point. No press. She would find a way. Once they got past this hurdle, their marriage would be perfect, and Emma would finally have the family she’d always wanted.

Killian stepped off the ferry and began the trek toward town. Last time he left, he told himself he’d never be coming back to Storybrooke Island. If only he’d known that he’d be returning three years later with his tail between his legs. He kept his head down and his eyes trained on the pavement as he walked. He’d been fortunate that the ferry driver was new and didn’t know him. And since it was the off season, there wasn’t much foot traffic in town. If he was lucky, he’d be able to traverse the entire two mile walk to the lighthouse at the other end of the island without anyone noticing him.

“Killian Jones! Is that you?”

He groaned before pasting on a smile and turning to face the woman currently running out of her establishment. He’d not even made it a tenth of the way. “Hello Granny.”

“I thought you were leaving us for good? Off to L.A. to make it big with your band. What are you doing back?”

He bowed low before the woman. “You must know that I can never stay away from you for very long, Lady Lucas.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the old woman said, turning her head away from him and waving at him dismissively. She chuffed and turned her head back, her steely blue eyes looking at him skeptically. “You’re here for him aren’t you?”

“Of course I am. I can’t leave him alone.”

“It would serve him right!”

“Regardless of his past misdeeds, he is still my father.”

“You’re too good,” she scoffed.

“I must admit that my motives are not entirely altruistic. I was not as successful as I had hoped I would be. I think it’s time to reevaluate my life and see if there is something more stable I could do to make my name.”

“Well, I forbid you from taking over for him in that lighthouse. You were not meant to waste away the rest of your life there.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” he said, bowing his head. “I should be going.”

“Tell your father I said hello.” She waved after him.

“Anything else?” he asked, looking back at her with a raised eyebrow.

“That he needs to get off of his sorry ass and come visit me every once in a while!” she yelled, but Killian kept on walking.

He had several similar encounters before finally reaching his destination. When he arrived at the house situated at the foot of the lighthouse, he didn’t bother knocking, but instead simply opened the door and walked inside. It was as if he’d never left. Nothing seemed to change on Storybrooke Island, other than the residents getting a little older every year.

“Killian?” he heard his father yell from the back of the small cottage.

“Aye,” he replied, raising his voice only slightly. Brennan Jones may be getting older, but his hearing was still as sharp as when he was a boy. Killian dropped his suitcase by the door and walked toward the kitchen, finding his father cleaning some fish. His nose crinkled at the pungent smell.

“You’ve been away too long!” Brennan said with a laugh as he spied his son's expression. He rubbed his forearm against the side of his nose and shook his head, his long gray waves shaking loose from the haphazard ponytail he’d secured them with. “Give it a week and you won’t even smell it anymore.”

Killian nodded. “That’s a nice catch there. Where’d you get it?”

“Will has a job on a fishing boat. He gets to purchase them at wholesale price.”

“I see. And where is Will?”

“Out on the boat for another week.”

“And how is Natalie?”

Brennan’s eyes lit up as he smiled. “She’s pregnant! She’s visiting her parents on the mainland while Will’s away, but I’m sure you’ll see her soon.”

Killian forced a smile. Unlike himself, his younger brother had no delusions of grandeur and thus was living a happy existence with his pretty wife, spending their lives on one of the most remote islands in the Northeastern US. It was not a life Killian would have chosen, but after the disappointment of the last three years, he was starting to see the appeal.

He walked over to the sink and began washing his hands. “What can I do?”

“I’ve found it!” Emma said as soon as Walsh answered the phone.

“Found what?”

“The perfect place for our wedding! Storybrooke Island. It’s off the coast of Maine, accessible through only a 90-minute ferry ride or a 30 minute helicopter ride. It has a beautiful church that was built as a replica of one in Ireland. And the best part is, the population is only 60 people!”

“Oh. Sounds… amazing.”

Emma’s mood soured the moment she heard his response. “Can’t you be a little excited for this? You know how much this means to me. There’s no way the press can find us there, and even if they do, they’ll have a hard time getting there in droves. We can have the beautiful, picturesque wedding I’ve always dreamed of.”

“You’re right, gorgeous. If this is what you want, I am happy to do it for you. When do we go?”

“This weekend too soon?”

“No. We can do that. I’ll make sure everything’s cancelled so we can leave Friday. I’ll let Zelena know so she can book the arrangements.”

“No, Elsa’s already taken care of everything. No need for Zelena to trouble herself.”

“Are we bringing anyone with us?”

“Elsa is coming along. The reservation is in her name, and she’ll be my maid of honor and witness. You’ll need to bring someone too. Robin?”

“No, Robin and I had a little falling out. Look, let’s not worry about me. I’m sure someone there can be our second witness. I don’t need anyone else but you.”

“Okay.” Emma breathed a contented sigh. “We’re finally doing this. Are you excited?”

“Hey, babe, listen. I gotta go. We’ll chat more later.”

“Oh… okay. See you tonight?”

“Maybe. I think I’m gonna have a late night again.”

Emma felt her lie detector alarm go off once more, but bit her tongue. “Okay, well, call me and let me know for sure.”

“Will do. Bye babe.”

“Bye…” Emma said, though he’d already hung up.

“Did you hear?” Granny said to Killian one morning a few days after he’d returned.

“Apparently not,” Killian replied.

“Some location scout is coming to check out the old church. They’re thinking about making a movie here. They even went ahead and rented out the place to ‘test the lighting’ or something like that. Could it be anyone you know?”

Killian laughed. “Not likely. LA is a big place, and I didn’t really spent time around the movie crowd.”

“Maybe you should introduce yourself when they’re here. You’re a pretty boy. You could make it in movies.”

“Not sure that’s where I want to focus my efforts.”

“Come on…” Granny teased. “Don’t waste those baby blues. Those are your money makers right there.”

“If I change my mind, I’ll make sure and hire you as my agent.”

“Damn right you will! I’ll ride your coattails all the way off this island!

Stepping off the ferry, Emma was transported back in time. “Wow. It’s so beautiful here! So untouched. Did you see the seals on the beach?”

“Yeah. It’s great,” Walsh said. “Now where is our car?”

“No cars allowed on the island,” Elsa said with a smirk, her crystal blue eyes glancing down at Walsh’s custom-made Italian leather loafers.

“So how do people get around?”

“You’ve got legs,” Emma teased, “start walking.” She stacked her overnight bag on top of the matching rolling suitcase and secured it in place before rolling it alongside as she began the trek. She’d already plotted the course to Granny’s Inn, the only place in town with lodgings for rent. It was a ten minute walk from the ferry. The cool air and calm atmosphere invigorated her. Her hair was pulled up under a beanie and she wore an oversized coat to protect against the chill. There were no cameras around for miles. She was anonymous for the first time in a long time, and finally felt at peace.

They’d only been walking a few minutes when Walsh began to complain. “Can we at least get a golf cart or something?”

Emma stopped and smiled back at him. “You’ve become spoiled. Come on, stretch those legs a little!” She turned her head to look at the beautifully blue sky. “Isn’t this place wonderful?”

Walsh said nothing but continued his trek. They reached Granny’s shortly after, and were surprised to come upon the proprietor herself standing in the yard, talking with a tall, dark haired man with brilliant blue eyes. Emma startled at the sight of him. He was gorgeous! Was he another actor? He was no one she could place, but she felt there was no way this man was simply just an inhabitant of such a secluded island as this.

“Good afternoon,” he said, the lilting tones of his British accent lending further credence to her theory that he was famous. He returned her gaze, and she felt suddenly very warm and exposed. She chastised herself for this sudden attraction to another man. She was here to get married!

Emma quickly broke her stare, and Elsa took her cue and jumped in, discussing their reservation. Granny bid the unfairly attractive man farewell and led them inside to procure keys and show them to their rooms.

Granny’s Inn had four rooms available, and Elsa had rented all of them to reduce any chance that a photographer or anyone else could crash the wedding. She’d engaged a professional wedding photographer that was coming in the morning to sign an ironclad NDA before taking wedding photos. He would not be releasing the photos to anyone other than Elsa. Emma would then review them and select a few to be released to the press at a later date.

The freedom she felt in this remote location could not be overstated. The moment she reached her room, she flopped onto the bed and sighed contentedly.

Killian took a seat in the diner and tried to forget the gorgeous pair of green eyes he'd seen. Although she was bundled up in a beanie and large jacket, he felt like he recognized her from somewhere. He just couldn't place it. Did he perhaps meet her when he was living in L.A.? It was a mystery, but one he hoped to have a chance to puzzle out more.

He was disrupted from his thoughts by a squeal as a blur of brown and red hair tackled him, pinning him to the side of the booth.

“Killian Jones!” The girl cried as she released her hold and permitted him to sit up. “I can't believe you're back!”

“Aye Ruby, I am,” he replied, straightening his clothes. “How are you?”

“In college now,” she said with a smile, bumping shoulders with him. “Not a little girl anymore.” She batted her eyelashes at him. Lashes that framed a striking pair of hazel green eyes. Complimented by smooth, creamy skin and a tall, lithe figure. Ruby Lucas was gorgeous, and she knew it. When he'd last been to the island, she'd been working in the diner and finishing high school online. Now she was a 21 year-old college student, and very clearly hitting on him.

Killian cleared his throat. “What are you studying?”

“I'm still a sophomore, so just working on my prerequisites.”

“And do you still work in the diner?”

She laughed and playfully hit him on the chest. “No way! I live on the mainland now, but when Granny told me you were back, I had to come see for myself. I came over on the ferry this morning.” Her gaze changed from playful to lusty in an instant. “Are you staying upstairs?”

“Ah… no. I'm staying with my father for now.”

“Oh boo,” Ruby said, exaggerating the pout on her lower lip. “I was hoping we could find somewhere to be alone together.” She moved closer and put her hand on his thigh, dangerously close to his groin. “I know you're shy,” she continued, her voice a near whisper. “And I know last time you were here I was a little girl, but I'm not little anymore. I'm a woman, and I know what I want. And, Killian Jones, I want you.” She squeezed his thigh, the tips of her fingers barely grazing his crotch and causing him to jump.

Carefully, he removed her hand from his thigh. “Ruby, you are a beautiful woman, but I just got out of a bad relationship, and I'm not ready to be with anyone else yet.”

“I don't mind being your rebound,” she replied with a giggle. He gave her a wary stare, to which she responded with a full-on laugh. “Killian! Come on! I'm 21 and still in school. I don't want anything serious. But I have had a crush on you for as long as I can remember!” She threw her hands up to emphasize her last point before her eyes took a predatory gleam and she leaned in to whisper once more. “The first time I masturbated, I was thinking of you.” He felt a flare in his cheeks at her words. “I just want to know if you are as good in bed as I imagine.” She rubbed against him, deliberately pushing her breasts into his arm. Killian bit back a groan. “You can deny it all you want, but your body is betraying you.” She glanced down at his pants, where the beginnings of an erection stood out. “I'm here all weekend. You know where to find me.” She slid out of the booth, adjusting her short skirt as she stood, and giving him a glimpse of her lacy black underwear.

Once she was gone, he exhaled a deep breath and took a sip of his coffee, trying to calm down. Had he met a girl like Ruby in L.A., he probably would have gladly taken her up on her offer, even if she was 10 years his junior. But Ruby from Storybrooke Island was different. He'd known her since she was very young, and he saw her in many ways as a little sister. Reflecting on her words now, he felt ashamed for not stopping her sooner. He felt like a dirty old man. He sighed once more and scrubbed his hand down his face, waiting for his hard-on to go down.

Once he felt able to move, he stood and exited the diner, leaving cash on the table for his coffee. He’d suddenly lost his appetite. The entire walk home, he pondered the face of the woman he’d seen outside the inn. He was almost to the lighthouse when it hit him. She was Emma Swan! All thoughts of his encounter with Ruby fled from his mind as he raced inside. He needed to look her up to confirm his suspicion.

He was still staring at his iPad 20 minutes later, not believing his eyes.

“What are you looking at, Killian?”

“Dad!” he jumped, not having heard his father enter the room.

“Who is Emma Swan? She’s quite pretty,” Brennan said.

“She’s an actress, Dad. Surely you’ve heard of her? She was in the ‘Savior’ trilogy. And that thriller about the madman that takes two women hostage. The one where they fight back and have to escape his house of horrors.”

“Never heard of her. It’s not like we have a movie theater here.”

“Well, for some reason, she’s on the island, staying at Granny’s.”

“What would a movie star be doing on Storybrooke Island?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think maybe she’s getting married in the old church.”

“In the church? But it’s the off season! And I still don’t understand why some Hollywood couple would want to get married here.”

“According to a couple articles I’ve read, she’s canceled her wedding twice because she wants to keep the press out. So it would make sense that she might prefer to come here and have a private ceremony. There’s limited access to the island. It makes for a good hideaway.”

“She’s been trying to escape the press?”

“Aye.”

“I bet they’d pay a lot of money to know that she was here now.”

“What are you going to do, Dad? Are you going to call up TMZ and tell them she’s here?”

“What’s TMZ?”

“Exactly. Let’s leave her be. If she wants a quiet wedding away from the horde, then she should have it.”

“Right…” Brennan trailed off. “I’ll just be off to the kitchen to get started on dinner. How would you like your fish prepared tonight?”

Killian suppressed a groan. After just a few days on the island, he was growing tired of eating fish every night.

Elsa had booked all the rooms at Granny’s Inn, but Emma assumed only two of those four would actually be occupied. So it came as a shock to her that Walsh insisted on staying in a separate room.

“Come on,” she said, standing in the doorway of the room he'd claimed. “This doesn't make any sense. Let's enjoy some quiet time together.”

“I'm really not in the mood,” Walsh grumbled.

“I don't understand, babe. We're getting married tomorrow. Aren't you excited? This is what we wanted.”

“No, Emma!” Walsh snapped. “It's not what I wanted. It's what you wanted. What you've insisted on, even though you know how important this wedding is for my career.”

“Your career?” Emma spat back. “Is that all this relationship is for you? A career move?!” She charged on him and shoved his shoulders. “I thought you loved me?!”

“Shit… that came out wrong. But you know the business we work in! When everyone finds out we ran off to get married in secret, there are going to be a lot of people pissed off that there wasn't a wedding for them to be invited to. People we can't really afford to piss off.”

“Fuck them,” Emma said. “They're not really our friends if they don't understand the importance of this for me.”

“They don't have to understand, Emma. Dammit, don't you see that?! It's not about us. It's about them feeling slighted. And then the next time I need a picture bankrolled, will these people pass me over because I didn't invite them to my wedding?”

“That's ridiculous, Walsh.”

“No, that's business. You're the one being ridiculous! Insisting on a private wedding?! What the fuck are you thinking? You know we don't get to have private lives. That's the trade-off.” He huffed a breath and turned his back to her before muttering something she couldn’t make out.

“What’d you say?”

He turned back to face her. “I said ‘Zelena gets this.’”

“What the hell does Zelena have to do with any of this? She's a wedding planner.” She stepped back and scrutinized him. His face looked suddenly pained, as if he didn’t like her belittling Zelena. Emma suddenly thought back to the past few months. How Walsh was always working late. How he was always speaking to Zelena. He’d volunteered to be the main point of contact for their wedding planner, without any prompting. Emma’d been glad for it at the time as it wasn’t something she wanted to deal with.

“You're sleeping with her, aren't you?”

Walsh stared at her for a full minute before replying. “Stop trying to change the subject.”

“That's not an answer.”

“Emma, come on. Let's not get distracted.”

“No! Lets! Answer me! Are. You. Sleeping. With. Her?”

He groaned fiercely. “Fine! You win. Yes. I've been sleeping with her. She gets this business. She understands. She's not some spoiled starlet who has had no true grip on reality.”

“That's what you really think of me?!” Emma reeled back and punched Walsh in square between the eyes. He doubled over, cradling his head in his hands.

“You stupid bitch!” he cried out, his voice muffled behind his hands.

“What the hell is going on?!” Elsa cried out, charging into the room.

Emma loomed over her fiancé. “Walsh is cheating on me. With our wedding planner!”

“Oh grow up, Emma.” Walsh stood and looked at her, his eyes already blackening and his nose bleeding. He grabbed a tissue from the box on the dresser and wiped away some of the blood. “No one is faithful in Hollywood. She’s just a good fuck.”

“How can you say that?” Emma cried. “I loved you!”

“You’re so naive. It’s part of your charm. You and me, getting married was a business move. It’s going to skyrocket your career and give me even better name recognition. Love wasn’t part of the equation.”

“Get out of here.” Emma bit her cheek to keep her tears from spilling. She had to keep it together until he left. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“Good luck with that, sweetheart,” he sneered. “You won’t be able to step foot on a set without my permission.”

Walsh’s head suddenly snapped back again as Elsa punched him in the chin. “Get the fuck out of here, Walsh,” she said, shaking her hand. “Your chauvinistic bullshit doesn’t fly anymore. Here,” she dug into her pocket and threw a business card at him. “That’s the number for the company that runs the helicopter rides to and from the island. Call them and get the hell away from here before I hit you again and break your jaw.”

He bent down and picked up the card before grabbing his still-packed suitcase and stomping out the door. The second he was gone and Elsa closed the door, Emma broke down in tears.

Tagging a few friends. For those of you I discussed the story with, sorry it’s taken me so long to do something with it!

@flslp87 @gingerchangeling @hollyethecurious @initiala @jonirobinson64 @kmomof4 @kymbersmith-90 @laschatzi @nerdyhuntress @resident-of-storybrooke @searchingwardrobes @sherlockianwhovian @shireness-says @snidgetsafan @snowbellewells @teamhook @thejollyroger-writer @thislassishooked @winterbythesea @winterbaby89 @wingedlioness @wyntereyez

#cs ff #cs au #cs fanfic #Captain Swan #captain swan au #the decoy groom #branwrites

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hecallsmehischild · 5 years

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Recent Media Consumed

Books

The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges. Good read. Mostly, I think, good reference and good for getting the imagination churning. I was amused to see 2 or 3 of CS Lewis’ creatures from his space trilogy listed.

Phantastes by George Macdonald. Revered by CS Lewis, Macdonald is an interesting fairy tale spinner. It is harder to read his work, but if you can, there is beautiful poetry and imagery therein.

After the Fall by Jack Fischer. A slim autobiography by Jack Fischer, a promising gymnast who broke his neck and became a quadriplegic. I grew up with Jack and Maria Fischer and their daughter attending our church. I didn’t really know the ins and outs of his story until I was editing this manuscript a couple years back but the Fischers have always been kind to me. It’s definitely a story of perseverance and strength through weakness. A short, good read.

Anime

March Comes In Like A Lion. I know I mentioned this before, but since I finally finished it, it’s worth another few lines. Very slow first arc. Still pretty slow second arc, but pulls in a storyline about bullying that sucked me in pretty deep. It chooses its moments to convey intense emotion and it does it very well. You get a look at the depth attached to each character from time to time and it is a thing of beauty to behold. All in all, a worthwhile slice of life anime about a pro Shogi player who is coming out of the shadow of lifelong depression one move at a time.

The Royal Tutor. It feels like it is trying for the same niche as Ouran High School Host Club in terms of balancing humor, parody, and sincere emotional moments. It was interesting enough to hold my attention, but the sincere emotional situations felt too much like tropes for me to fall in love with this series. Also the twist, from buildup to payoff, really made not sense. It is (to me) mediocre, but not BAD.

Movies

Unplanned. Very difficult movie to watch. However I appreciate its existence a lot more than the traveling pro-life truck billboards. This film follows the story of Abby Johnson, the youngest clinic director in Planned Parenthood history. She worked for them for 8 years, and resigned after witnessing an abortion for the first time. This is that story. It was well done, but don’t eat beforehand. The characters were, I felt, very well balanced. There were a wide range of Pro-Lifers represented and a wide range of Pro-Choicers represented, it was not clear-cut “Pro-Lifers are the heroes, Pro-Choicers are the villains!” In fact, the “turn or burn” crowd was presented as the first Christians you meet. I appreciate that the film owns that that faction exists and does harm. And you root for the clinic workers as they, with heroic music playing, risk their lives to finish all scheduled abortions in advance of Hurricane Ike. You are given the sense that on either side of this issue, people really believe that what they are doing is for the best. Yes, the film is decidedly Pro-Life, but the women are never villainized and neither are the clinicians (exceptions: one corporate climber is typical evil corporate climber, and one doctor is shown to be rough).

Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse. Wow. Just. Wow. I. What do you even say? I want more like this… a lot more. Mostly rendered speechless over here, so that’s about all I’ve got…

Mary Poppins. I re-watched this so that I could move from this into the sequel that was recently released. Man. What a nostalgia trip. I haven’t seen this in over a decade and it’s finally, FINALLY fresh again to me. Has anyone considered that Uncle Albert would fit well with Tumblr’s humor? I feel like I detected an early form of memery in some of his jokes. Also can we please bring Steppin Time back??? Actually, come to think of it, the whole second half is like a meme goldmine. Seriously. Bring it back, guys.

#child loves books #child loves movies #wrestling with God

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witch-of-time-and-letters · 6 years

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Fantasieherz, schöner Verstand. Pt I Born of the Father.

“All we can do is chose what to do with time what is given to us. "

Wurzelbaum.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer, poet, philologist, and academic, who is best known as the author of the classic high fantasyworks The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.

Tolkien’s immediate paternal ancestors were middle-class craftsmen who made and sold clocks, watches and pianos in London and Birmingham. The Tolkien family originated in the East Prussian town Kreuzburg near Königsberg, where his first known paternal ancestor Michel Tolkien was born around 1620. Michel’s son Christianus Tolkien (1663–1746) was a wealthy miller in Kreuzburg. His son Christian Tolkien (1706–1791) moved from Kreuzburg to nearby Danzig, and his two sons Daniel Gottlieb Tolkien (1747–1813) and Johann (later known as John) Benjamin Tolkien (1752–1819) emigrated to London in the 1770s and became the ancestors of the English family; the younger brother was J. R. R. Tolkien’s second great-grandfather. In 1792 John Benjamin Tolkien and William Gravell took over the Erdley Norton manufacture in London, which from then on sold clocks and watches under the name Gravell & Tolkien. Daniel Gottlieb obtained British citizenship in 1794, but John Benjamin apparently never became a British citizen. Other German relatives also joined the two brothers in London. Several people with the surname Tolkien or similar spelling, some of them members of the same family as J. R. R. Tolkien, live in northern Germany, but most of them are descendants of recent refugees from East Prussia who fled the Red Army invasion.

According to Ryszard Derdziński the Tolkien name is of Low Prussian origin and probably means "son/descendant of Tolk." Tolkien mistakenly believed his surname derived from the German word tollkühn, meaning "foolhardy",and jokingly inserted himself as a “cameo” into The Notion Club Papers under the literally translated name Rashbold.

However, Derdziński has demonstrated this to be a false etymology.While J. R. R. Tolkien was aware of the Tolkien family’s German origin, his knowledge of the family’s history was limited because he was “early isolated from the family of his prematurely deceased father”.

Kindheit des ersten Eldar.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (now Free State Province in South Africa) to Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857–1896), an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, née Suffield (1870–1904). The couple had left England when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British bank for which he worked. Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien, who was born on 17 February 1894.

As a child, Tolkien was bitten by a large baboon spider in the garden, an event some think later echoed in his stories, although he admitted no actual memory of the event and no special hatred of spiders as an adult. In another incident, a young family servant, who thought Tolkien a beautiful child, took the baby to his kraal to show him off, returning him the next morning.

When he was three, he went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them. This left the family without an income, so Tolkien’s mother took him to live with her parents in Kings Heath,Birmingham. Soon after, in 1896, they moved to Sarehole (now in Hall Green), then a Worcestershire village, later annexed to Birmingham.He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent, Lickey and Malvern Hills, which would later inspire scenes in his books, along with nearby towns and villages such as Bromsgrove, Alcester, and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt Jane’s farm of Bag End, the name of which he used in his fiction.

Mabel Tolkien taught her two children at home. Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil. She taught him a great deal of botany and awakened in him the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees, but his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin very early.

Tolkien could read by the age of four and could write fluently soon afterwards. His mother allowed him to read many books. He disliked Treasure Island and The Pied Piper and thought Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was “amusing but disturbing”. He liked stories about “Red Indians” (Native Americans) and the fantasy works by George MacDonald.[23] In addition, the “Fairy Books” of Andrew Lang were particularly important to him and their influence is apparent in some of his later writings.

Mabel Tolkien was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1900 despite vehement protests by her Baptist family,which stopped all financial assistance to her. In 1904, when J. R. R. Tolkien was 12, his mother died of acute diabetes at Fern Cottage in Rednal, which she was renting. She was then about 34 years of age, about as old as a person with diabetes mellitus type 1 could live without treatment—insulin would not be discovered until two decades later. Nine years after her death, Tolkien wrote, “My own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith.”

First to her death, Mabel Tolkien had assigned the guardianship of her sons to her close friend, Fr. Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory, who was assigned to bring them up as good Catholics. In a 1965 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled the influence of the man whom he always called "Father Francis": "He was an upper-class Welsh-Spaniard Tory, and seemed to some just a pottering old gossip. He was—and he was not. I first learned charity and forgiveness from him; and in the light of it pierced even the 'liberal' darkness out of which I came, knowing more [i.e. Tolkien having grown up knowing more] about 'Bloody Mary' than the Mother of Jesus—who was never mentioned except as an object of wicked worship by the Romanists."

After his mother’s death, Tolkien grew up in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham and attended King Edward’s School, Birmingham, and later St. Philip’s School. In 1903, he won a Foundation Scholarship and returned to King Edward’s. While a pupil there, Tolkien was one of the cadets from the school’s Officers Training Corps who helped “line the route” for the 1910 coronation parade of King George V. Like the other cadets from King Edward’s, Tolkien was posted just outside the gates of Buckingham Palace.

In Edgbaston, Tolkien lived there in the shadow of Perrott’s Folly and the Victorian tower of Edgbaston Waterworks, which may have influenced the images of the dark towers within his works. Another strong influence was the romantic medievalist paintings of Edward Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery had a large collection of works on public display.

#biography #literaturebiography #fantasiebiography #Tolkien #Lotr

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esprit-de-corps-magazine · 4 years

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Whitewashing The SS: The Attempt to Re-Write the History of Hitler’s Collaborators

By David Pugliese

Over the years some Ukrainian Canadians have staunchly defended the 14th SS Division Galicia. They have falsely claimed that Ukrainians who served in the division were conscripted, when in reality 80,000 volunteered and 13,000 were selected. Other apologists argue that the division fought only to protect Ukrainian territory. This too is false.

Then there are the claims that reports about 14th SS Division Galicia are the result of Russian disinformation or propaganda. Marcus Kolga, an Estonian activist with the right-wing Macdonald Laurier Institute in Ottawa, falsely claimed that articles linking the division to the SS and wartime criminal activity have “parroted the Kremlin’s tailored narratives.”

But the most common method that Nazi apologists use to defend the 14th SS Division Galicia is to cite the 1986 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada, often referred to as the Deschênes commission after its chairman, judge Jules Deschênes.

Supporters of 14th SS say the Deschênes commission cleared the division and all its members of any involvement in war crimes. “Charges of war crimes of Galicia Division have never been substantiated, either in 1950 when they were first preferred, or in 1984 when they were renewed, or before this Commission,” Deschênes concluded. “Further, in the absence of evidence of participation or knowledge of specific war crimes, mere membership in the Galicia Division is insufficient to justify prosecution.”

At the time critics labelled the commission’s report as a whitewash. The decades since have further reinforced that view as additional information about the 14th SS Division Galicia’s war crimes have emerged.

Deschênes either ignored or appeared to be unaware the Waffen SS – which the Galician Division was part of – had been declared a criminal organization by the International Military Tribunal during the Nuremberg Trials. This omission is particularly incredible as Canada participated as one of the allied nations in the prosecution of war criminals at the Nuremberg Trials and Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King actually visited the court and attended some of the trials.

Even a cursory glance at SS Galicia reveals its links to the Nazi campaign of destruction against the Jews and murder of civilians. Its commander was Oberfuhrer Fritz Freitag, a fanatical Nazi, who was directly involved in the mass murder of Jews.

Among the commanding officers of SS Galicia was Ukrainian-born SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Heinrich Wiens, who served with the Einsatzgruppen D murder squad and personally took part in mass executions of Jews. Another division officer, SS Obersturm-bannfuhrer Franz Magall, was also a seasoned killer of Jews. SS Galicia worked alongside SS-Sonderbattalion Dirlewanger, a unit that contained rapists, murders and the criminally insane and the two organizations, at times, transferred officers between each unit, noted Per Anders Rudling, a historian of Eastern European history and Associate Professor at the Department of History at Lund University, Sweden.

In addition, SS Galicia had officers and NCOs who came from the Nachtigall battalion, a Ukrainian collaboration organization that had taken part in the mass killings of Jews in the summer of 1941, added Rudling, who has extensively studied the division.

In 2003 a Polish government commission into Nazi war crimes concluded the 14th SS Galicia was responsible for the massacre of women and children in the village of Huta Pieniacka. Based on eye witness accounts, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, pointed out that members of the 14th division, entered the village and began executing civilians.

In 2005 the Institute of History at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences arrived at the same conclusion. The main difference between its investigation and the earlier Polish government investigation was the number of civilians murdered, added Rudling.

The Ukrainian investigation estimated around 500 people were killed. The Polish commission put the number of those murdered at 700 to 1,500.

Deschênes and his commission stayed in Canada, never travelling to Europe to interview those who suffered atrocities at the hands of 14th SS Galicia and the Nazis. Even a cursory examination of British government archives would have revealed the report the Polish underground sent to the Polish government-in-exile in London about the massacre at Huta Pieniacka. “The 14th Division of the Ukrainian SS surrounded the village Huta Pieniacka from three sides,” the report to Poland’s government- in-exile explained. “The people were gathered in the church or shot in the houses. Those gathered in the church – men, women and children – were taken outside in groups, children killed in front of their parents. Some men and women were shot in the cemetery, others were gathered in barns where they were shot.”

The 14th SS Galicia is also implicated in other atrocities in four other Polish villages, according to historians.

During part of 1944 the unit was stationed in Slovakia where it was involved in fighting partisans and took part in crushing the Slovak National Uprising. The division then moved to Slovenia in early 1945 where it continued fighting anti-Nazi partisans. These actions undercut claims by some in the Ukrainian-Canadian community that the SS Galicia Division only defended its Ukraine homeland. The division’s operations hunting down partisans, killing civilians, and burning down villages clearly show their actions were part of the greater Nazi war machine.

More concerning is the fact that Deschênes concealed a report prepared for his commission that concluded, “At least some persons who served with the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian police/militia units that participated in killing actions (of Jews) in 1941-1943 would have found their way into the ranks of the (Galician) Division.” The commission kept that report secret and it was only years later that a heavily censored copy was released through the Access to Information law.

Some have defended Justice Deschênes, stating he was under pressure from the Canadian government to clear the division and appease the Ukrainian Canadian community.

But over the decades as Holocaust historians publish more details about the atrocities of those who served in the SS Galicia Division, it has become clear to critics that the Deschênes commission was simply a whitewash of a military unit that subscribed to and served the ideology of Adolf Hitler and SS leader Heinrich Himmler.

Deschênes died in the year 2000. But his report lives on to be used by those who want to continue to whitewash the Nazi regime’s crimes and the eager collaborators who helped in those atrocities.

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michelles-garden-of-evil · 4 years

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Shadow Over Seventh Heaven Review, Part II: Jenny Wren and Richard Redbreast

Image source: “Da Luna et Ramsès- Doberman – Frère et Sœur -” by ERAL. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Welcome back to my review series for Shadow Over Seventh Heaven, the second novel by Ian Martin, original headwriter for Strange Paradise and second most prolific writer for CBS Radio Mystery Theater, published under the name of his second wife Joen Arliss. It’s been two and a half weeks, and I have been dying to go back to recapping this not-quite-rare-but-close piece of Martiniana.

In Part I, we learned of the late April Tennant, legendary star of the silver screen, whose glamorous life ended suddenly when she fell from the cliffs on her home estate of San Rafael. We also learned of her husband Richard Morgan, a legendary actor in his own right, and met his overly attached sister Lisa, who is not pleased by his recent remarriage, and Chita, their very Raxl-esque servant who clings to April’s memory. In this installment, we will meet Richard and his new wife, Jenny, themselves as they return from the Philippines to the former Spanish mission which may or may not be haunted by the spirit of his first wife.

Chapter 3

We open with our heroine, Jenny (née Summers), and her new husband Richard at the Manila International Airport, where paparazzi are hounding them. “She had seen [crowds] at fiestas, at rallies for President Marcos or even his opponents [1], at rush hours, church holidays, national holidays. The Philippine Islands abounded in inland fish, and in rice, but most of all, in people. But she had never seen a crowd quite like this” (p. 22). She is a little frightened, but Richard, for whom this is apparently a regular occurrence, tells her to keep moving until they get through the sea of people--which, given the current circumstances around the globe, sounds like a nightmare even though this book takes place about forty years ago.

A reporter starts to interview her and reminds her, almost right after their marriage, that she is replacing the legendary April Tennant:

“Mrs. Morgan--you are the envy of most every woman in the world as well as here in the Philippines. How does it feel to be Mrs. Richard Morgan the second?”

“You don’t have to answer,” Richard said protectively.

“But I want to,” she said. “It feels marvelous! I’m the luckiest woman in the world!”

“Aren’t you a little afraid?” the young man persisted.

Jenny wasn’t going to admit that to a stranger.

“Why should I be afraid?” she said.

“You are replacing a very exceptional woman.”

Now the noose of fear tightened around her neck, so that momentarily she could not answer. It was Richard who did for her.

“My first wife is dead,” he said with barely repressed anger. “For God’s sake let April rest in peace. For her own sake as well as ours. Now please--we have a plane to catch” (p. 23).

They leave him and hounding turns to harassing as rabid Richard Morgan fans begin reaching for them, tearing off pieces of her collar and the Filipino-style flower appliqué on her skirt and stealing Richard’s pocket square. “It was a good-natured, adulating adoring crowd,” the narration insists, “but like every mass of humanity, a possibly dangerous and uncontrollable force” (pp. 23-24). Sorry, narrator, but to me, it still sounds like a COVID nightmare--literally. I’ve had nightmares about this kind of thing for months. Generally, I try to avoid writing about current events on here because I don’t consider it appropriate for a blog about escapist Gothic melodrama, but this scene reminds me of some of my recent dreams.

Anyhow, the crowd and the reporter only reinforce Jenny’s feelings that she’s already in April’s shadow. Before Richard took an interest in her, she was only the daughter of an obscure American ambassador, not even an actress like April. She just got married and already she is having second thoughts, and not because of her husband:

Then that miserable worm of fear began to gnaw at her again, and she so desperately didn’t want to face the truth. But the words said themselves inexorably to her, marching across the inside of her eyelids as though chiseled on some granite rock that revolved before her inner sight, or burned so deeply on an indestructible tape that they could never be eradicated. The trouble is April Tennant. The woman the whole world revered and loved. They only wanted to see Jennifer, weigh her, find her wanting. They knew nobody could replace April--and that nobody had the right to try. Only without realizing what she was getting into, Jenny had done it. For once, she was the big attraction. But they didn’t think she could measure up, and she wasn’t sure she could herself. How had she ever thought she could? (pp. 24-25)

As they head for their flight, a crowd of “smiling brown people” cheer for them to return, and one little Filipina girl even chases Jenny down to give her “a woven garland of sampaguita flowers” (pp. 25-26). I must admit that I don’t know much about Filipino history, but I have trouble imagining that a crowd of Filipino people would cheer on the (presumably white) daughter of an American official who, given U.S. foreign policy at the time, would have backed Marcos’ repressive regime. Do I believe that they cheer for an international celebrity like Richard? Yes. Would they want to wish him a happy marriage? Probably. But I can’t imagine them liking Jenny much, for reasons that have nothing to do with April Tennant.

Chapter 4

This chapter begins with a description of Richard Morgan’s appearance that is an entire page long:

His mouth was full, the lips unusually red, with just the slightest quirk in repose which suggested sardonicism...The nose was classic, intriguingly flawed by some old injury...The eyes were brown, so dark that they were almost black, smoldering under somewhat sullen brows...His hair was a great, tousled, tawny mane, unruly, and resistant to brush or comb. His eyebrows had a fierceness about them that seemed to challenge anyone to cross swords; but this aggressive effect was completely belied by the way one or another would twitch and cock upward as though laughing at the world--or perhaps himself. His chin was probably too prominent, but again the feeling of overconfidence and overwhelming strength was softened by the deep cleft in the middle of it that broke the uncompromising line. He was not a tall man--perhaps an inch under six feet--but he carried himself with the lithe balance of a jungle animal or a trained athlete, and there was hardly anyone who did not think of him as tall and powerful. He was a man who even in repose radiated a sense of kinetic and tireless energy (pp. 29-30).

Richard Morgan, according to the cover artist.

Honestly, I was disappointed the first time I read this passage because he doesn’t much resemble Colin Fox. Virtually the only features the two have in common are the nose and the way they carry themselves--and (if we are talking about Jacques’ portrait) the lips. I always find it interesting how male authors describe the male characters whom others in the story find attractive, especially when said author is straight and writing for a female audience. Therefore, this is likely Ian Martin’s idea of what an incredibly handsome man looks like and/or his idea of what the average straight woman wants.

That, in turn, makes me wonder if this is how he visualized Jean Paul Desmond and his lookalike ancestor Jacques Eloi des Mondes, especially given that most of the other characters (and many fans, myself included) see them as incredibly handsome. Richard does have several facial features in common with John Bayliss, the actor originally cast in those roles, but there isn’t any evidence to suggest that their resemblance is anything more than a coincidence.[2]

The SP character whose appearance Richard’s description most closely matches, the Reverend Matthew Dawson. Lacks the unruly tawny hair and the sardonic lips and doesn’t carry himself like Richard, but the eyes are similar and they have the same chin. Not ugly (Dan MacDonald was better-looking IMO than the guy on the cover), but also not my idea of male perfection.

While relaxing on the plane, Jenny allows herself the luxury of thinking about herself instead of Matt Dawson’s tawny-haired twin. We learn that her name isn’t actually Jennifer--which contradicts the passage above where she calls herself that--but just Jenny, and that her parents named her after Jenny Wren from the (surprisingly dark) nursery rhyme “The Wedding of Robin Redbreast and Jenny Wren.” She relates in particular to the part where the wren says “I must wear my plain brown gown / And never go too fine,” because she dislikes not just putting on airs, but thinking about herself, period, which she attributes to her strict upbringing. She’s almost cartoonishly modest, which is pretty typical of Gothic ingenues and of Linda Barclay, the protagonist of Martin’s earlier “romantic suspense” book, Nightmare’s Nest, who was even more so.

We flash back to the evening she met Richard, who was apparently an old friend of Nene Ilusorio, one of her late father’s friends who became her close companion following his death in a helicopter crash. At that time, April was not yet dead, so Richard had to keep his dates with Jenny secret. They traveled out to the mountains together, where she showed him the rice paddies the locals constructed on the mountains with their irrigation system and where he won her heart by quoting Robert Burns’ poem “My Heart’s in the Highlands.” Apparently women find men who like Robert Burns irresistible, at least according to this and the Kitty Soames storyline on Dark Shadows. I can’t confirm, though, because no man has ever quoted Burns to me or given me a book of his poems.

Chapter 5

A filler chapter about Jenny and Richard’s flight from Honolulu (where they had a layover) to San Francisco. I got excited at one point when Richard said, “We had a picture half done that had to be scrapped because of her death” (p. 46), thinking at first that he was referring to the portrait and being reminded of two certain other portraits of a certain character from Strange Paradise. But then I realized, no, he means “picture” as in “movie,” not as in “painting,” and got disappointed. We also learn that Richard has an encyclopedic knowledge of all the classic poets and playwrights, not just Robert Burns. In a flashback, Richard recites Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem “How do I love thee?” for her in his amazing voice, leaving her “drunk on love” and “drunk on all [the poets to whom he introduced her]” (p. 54). If he sounds anything like Colin, I can understand why she’s so seduced by him reading poetry. Even so, if I were her, I wouldn’t be able to get past the fact that he’s quoting other people instead of using his own words to convey his love. If Jean Paul could come up with something new to say to his frozen wife four days a week for a month, then surely Richard can as well. He's just being lazy--or is he? The back cover (”WHAT LAY BEHIND THE MASK OF LOVE?”) hints at some possible deception on his part.

Chapter 6

Jenny and Richard arrive back in California, and the story starts to pick up again. This is roughly where “Here Goes the Bride” begins, not counting the teaser at the beginning. They are driving along the Pacific shore in a red Mercedes without air conditioning, and Richard refuses to let her roll the windows down because he doesn’t want anyone to recognize him. He angsts for a while about how, even though actors like him need the audience in order to live and “for the magic to come alive,” the audience has become increasingly like “a great, crouching tiger...a creature of emotion and whim that can turn on you suddenly and get completely beyond your control” (p. 59). He rants about how April’s fans worshiped her and made almost a cult around her, and about how they will most likely go ballistic if they see him with another woman instead of playing “the high priest, ascetic, mourning, forever dedicated to her memory” (p. 60). By driving the car with the windows up, he hopes to avoid the paparazzi and other stalkers on their way to San Rafael.

We learn in a flashback, by the way, that the car is Lisa’s and that Richard had Jenny disguise herself as her by putting on a hat and sunglasses. Jenny asks if she really looks like Lisa--which, if it were true, would imply that he reciprocated Lisa’s feelings for him, at least on an unconscious level--but he says no. Her hair is dark, while Jenny’s is “tawny gold” (p. 63), which I had forgotten, probably because Lisa reminds me too much of Cersei Lannister not to picture her as such. Also, Richard has dark hair now, too? Two chapters earlier, his hair was tawny like Jenny’s. I guess this book’s editor didn’t notice the continuity error--not that it was that important, anyway.

The woman on the cover, most likely Jenny.

While waiting for Juan to open the gates, Jenny stares in awe at the fortifications surrounding the estate--which, as you may recall from Chapter 1, Richard had built around the estate, allegedly to keep his and April’s rabid fans out, and even added the broken glass himself. “It’s like a fortress--barbed wire, broken glass,” she exclaims. “And the gate looks as though you borrowed it from the Bastille!” The mention of the Bastille reads like subtle foreshadowing of a later reveal, but, per my self-imposed rule against spoilers, I won’t say any more about it for now. The gates open and we hear Richard’s pack of snarling dogs for the first time, the sound of which makes her uneasy. She asks about them and Richard just says, “They’re our guardian angels. They patrol the grounds at night” (p. 67).

We also meet Juan, “a square-set Mexican...a man of some sixty years, with a sun-whipped face that was as craggy and seared with lines as the landscape they had just passed outside the gate” and “blackened teeth in a dark-brown face dried by so many days of sun that the oil had cooked from the skin until it was tanned like animal hide” (p. 67). Here we have the third piece of evidence of the dystopian nature of life at San Rafael. First, we saw the excessive level of security which Jenny compared to the most notorious prison of France’s ancien régime; next, we heard snarling from Richard’s kennel; and now, it is implied that Juan doesn’t get paid enough to afford either modern dentistry, sunscreen, or a good moisturizer. Combine this with Richard’s refusal to romance Jenny in his own words and his insistence that they drive with the windows up and no air conditioning in southern California, and his behavior abounds with red flags. It does make you wonder what lay behind the mask of love, and it’s quite reminiscent of early Jean Paul and his control-freak tendencies even when Jacques isn’t possessing him.

Unlike Quito, his Strange Paradise equivalent, Juan can speak and often does. Half of his dialogue is in Spanish, the other half in English. Sometimes he will even randomly throw a Spanish word into a mostly English sentence (ex. “They will not be tranquilo till they see you for themselves” (p. 68), which, even with my extremely limited knowledge of Spanish, I know should read “tranquilos,” because he is talking about the dogs). This, combined with his appearance and the mention that he stands “with Indian patience, unmoving and stolid” (p. 70), makes him come across as rather stereotypical. It’s surprising how SP, despite being a decade older, has actually aged slightly better than this book in terms of racial matters--although, given that this book is forty years old, that’s to be expected.

Upon meeting Juan, Jenny feels “an icy whisk of rejection that shuddered between her shoulderblades [sic]” (p. 68), as though she knows before he says anything that he is a card-carrying member of the Cult of April Tennant. He reveals to Jenny that the dogs “are trained to kill...anyone who does not belong here,” and that they will only protect her “if they learn to know you belong” (p. 70). Then he casts a huge heaping of doubt on whether that will ever happen:

Jenny’s voice was hushed and sympathetic.

“You must have loved her very much.”

He lifted his head proudly, the dark deep-set eyes flashing from under the craggy brows. “She was La Senora de la Casa!”

The statement was simple and obdurate. A declaration of faith that shook Jenny because it was so basic. She found herself fighting to keep her throat from tightening up as she answered tentatively, “I hope you won’t blame me too much for taking her place.”

The answer, although delivered with remote courtesy, was flatly uncompromising. “There is no one to take her place” (p. 71).

Richard interrupts them when he returns with all six of his dogs on leashes, which frightens her even more now that Juan has given her reason to suspect that the dogs, too, worship April Tennant and will not accept anyone in her place. He probably wants them to reject her, especially because he never thought to give her some bones or treats to use to win their loyalty. If I were in her position, I would be begging Juan for some good cow knuckles filled with marrow for them to gnaw on. Then--assuming that he obliged--I’m sure they would love me forever.

Chapter 7

Richard introduces Jenny to his dogs, six Doberman pinschers named for “the six noblest Romans of them all. Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Marc Anthony--Mark for short--Cinna, and Casca” (p. 74). He has them demonstrate their obedience to him--while he demonstrates more of his own control-freak-ness--by ordering them to sit, then charge, then shake hands with her. Much to Juan’s likely chagrin, Richard has every intention on making the dogs recognize her as their new mistress, and so he has her give them dog biscuits.

They all appear to like her except for Casca, who is slightly less quick to obey Richard’s commands and also reluctant to kiss Jenny’s hand, unlike the others. She’s relieved to have found acceptance from them so quickly, but Juan has to rain on her proverbial parade by staring silently “with no solitary hint that he shared the dogs’ enthusiasm for Jenny” (p. 77).

Chapter 8

They get back in the car and continue driving (how vast is the estate?), this time with the top down because of the lack of prying eyes. We learn as they drive to San Rafael that April’s mother had it built, something that Richard doesn’t want to admit, but which he makes obvious at least to the reader:

“When April’s mother-” He choked that off and rephrased, biting his tongue for bringing up her name. “I mean, when the property was first bought, some foundations were discovered where the house was to be built; and the architect sold Apr--ah--them on recreating a Spanish mission. It was picturesque, but not very practical for modern living, so when Ap--I mean, when I was married and entered the picture, some changes were made [like the addition of that portrait, I assume]” (p. 79).

Jenny expresses her doubts that San Rafael “will open its arms to [her] and invite [her] in,” and he responds by kissing her, which doesn’t answer her question, but whatever:

He lifted her chin, tilting her face toward him gently, his eyes flickering back and forth across hers, his own gleaming and almost mesmeric as the sun slowly slipped down over the horizon. Then very slowly he touched his mouth to hers, his lips opening against hers as he quite suddenly pressed against her ardently, his tongue lightly touching hers, engaging it, probing and awakening her mouth and the answering touch of lips and tongue, till all the world was blotted out, and there was only the rush of teeming blood, throbbing in the head and along all the nerves to the end, and the surge of desire that blotted out anything else (p. 80).

Unbeknownst to them, Chita and Lisa are spying on them, wondering why the car stopped! (ROFL) When Chita realizes what’s going on, she criticizes Richard in true prudish Raxl fashion: “That he would be so shameless in daylight,” says she. “To take this woman in his arms--” (p. 81). Lisa reminds her that they are married now; although the narration doesn’t mention a twinge of jealousy, I’ve no doubt in my mind that she wishes she were Jenny in that car.

Richard and Jenny get out and Lisa rushes to hug them. Surprisingly, she acts outwardly friendly towards Jenny, who notices that “[Lisa’s] dark blue eyes were penetrating as they took in Jenny in one swift appraisal. They might have frightened Jenny except for the deep spark of interest in them, and the wide smile which she didn’t realize was uncharacteristic for LIsa” (p. 82).

Then he introduces Jenny to Chita, whom she instantly dislikes. “From her long sojourn in the Philippines,” the narration tells us, “she was very conscious of relationships between employer and servant. Not that she subscribed to the sort of feudal system that existed there, but simply because she was an extraordinarily sensitive girl who was responsive to human vibrations. And she could tell that Conchita’s were not right about her” (pp. 83-84).

Conchita, likewise, has a bad first impression of Jenny, thinking her a snob because of her use of Castilian instead of Mexican Spanish. But Jenny doesn’t realize that, instead noticing and fixating on the portrait of April:

Either by accident or design, those were the lights which Conchita had turned on. In the gloom of the hall, the full-length portrait dominated everything. Every detail of that matchless beauty was so sharp and clear that the figure of this lovely woman seemed to be alive and breathing.

And to Jenny, to be warning her and saying, “Why did you come? You don’t belong. How did you dream you could take my place? Did you think I would ever allow you to? This is my home, and Richard is mine. I’ll never let either of them go” (pp. 84-85)!

Compared to the beginning, Chapters 3 through 8 are not very meaty. These chapters are like chicken wings compared to the drumsticks that were the intro and the first two chapters. The main similarities that I found between these chapters and Strange Paradise were (1) the revelation that, like Maljardin-era Jean Paul, Richard is a control freak who is obsessed with his privacy and (2) the introduction of Juan, who fills Quito’s role as loyal male retainer but talks using occasionally inaccurate gratuitous Spanish (the “tranquilo” line). There is a lot of filler and also perhaps a little too much repetition of the idea that no one can ever take April’s place as mistress of San Rafael, so not as enjoyable as Part I or the next part of the story.

Coming up next: We get our first set of hints about April’s mysterious past, while Jenny tries to adjust to life in a house that may or may not be haunted by her spirit.

{ <- Previous: Part I || Next: Part III -> }

Notes

[1] Did Ferdinand Marcos even allow his opponents to hold rallies? As I said above, I don’t know much about Filipino history, but I do know that he ruled over the Philippines as a dictator and tried to suppress any opposition to him. Most likely either the above passage is inaccurate or what Martin is describing are actually political protests, but it’s worded in a way that suggests that he thought of Filipino politics in the 1970s-1980s as more democratic than they actually were.

[2] I did look up Michael Wager, the actor who played Richard in the original radio drama, and he did resemble this description (and was indeed quite handsome, if I do say so myself). However, it would be strange for Martin to have Richard look like his original actor when none of the other characters in the book do. Notably, Jenny’s description in the book as a gray-eyed blonde bears no resemblance to her original actress Ruby Dee--which I suspect may have something to do with the publisher wanting to avoid controversy for depicting interracial marriage, as Ruby Dee was black.

#shadow over seventh heaven #joen arliss #ian martin #cbs radio mystery theater #gothic fiction #strange paradise #related media #review #ian martin's novels #continuity errors #dark shadows #foreshadowing #the irresistible seductive power of robert burns #rebecca

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Horror and humiliation in Minneapolis

Where black churches nourished the civil rights movement, identity politics has built a culture of rage and rejection.

The Baltimore police stopped doing what police forces do when attempting to contain a large criminal population – that is, to roust anyone who looks like he might be up to no good. Blacks comprise 13% of the US population, but committed 53% of homicides in which the perpetrator was known in 2018, as well as 60% of robberies.

In keeping with the fall in the incidence of violent crime, the incarceration rate for blacks has fallen steadily, from a total of 592,900 prisoners in 2007 to 475,900 in 2017. As the Pew Institute reports, the black incarceration rate has fallen faster than the white incarceration rate. Policing has been one of America’s great success stories, and blacks have benefited from it more than whites.

The inadequate preparation of young American blacks for higher education isn’t hard to explain. Black marriage rates are much lower than white or Hispanic marriage rates. Marriage rates are declining for all parts of the US population, but much faster for blacks.

In 1960, 90% of white women and 87% of black women aged 18-59 years had been married at some point in their lives; by 2016 the proportion had fallen to 60% for white women and just 33% for black women.

The US National Institute of Health wrote in 2015, “In 2014, 70 percent of non-Hispanic white children (ages 0–18) and roughly 59 percent of Hispanic children were living with both of their biological parents. The same was true for only a little more than one-third of black children.”

Sadly, black women account for 40% of all abortions, although they comprise only 12% of the female population. Black babies, that is, are more than three times as likely to be killed before birth than white babies.

A death knell is tolling over black America. The high murder rate of black victims killed by black perpetrators is the most extreme expression of the self-destructive impulses that undermine black families. Self-destruction through violence – a form of what Emil Durkheim called anomic suicide – horrifies white liberals. They do not have to send to ask for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for them, too.

by Spengler June 8, 2020

Why did the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd in police custody arouse a national wave of revulsion? There are two vectors to this wave: The humiliation of American blacks and the horror of white liberals.

If police are restrained, or even de-funded, as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Democrat of New York) demands, the crime rate will rise sharply, and blacks are far more likely to be crime victims than whites.

Why black Americans should want to undermine the police forces that protect them is a sensitive question that has a simple answer: The price of such police protection is humiliation.

The sort of policing that keeps criminals off the streets through filters such as stopping and frisking large numbers of people and stopping cars with broken tail lights also subjects large numbers of innocent people to humiliating examination and occasional mistreatment.

Most people would rather be dead than humiliated, and black Americans are no exception.

A black American is a thousand times more likely to be killed by another black American than by a police officer, as the estimable Heather MacDonald explained last week in The Wall Street Journal.

To be precise, American police (white or black) killed exactly nine unarmed black Americans in 2019. Whether these shootings were justified is a different issue. That is about one one-thousandth of the 7,407 blacks murdered in 2018 (last year for which data are available), about 90% of whom were killed by other black Americans.

As MacDonald observed, “The police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, according to a Washington Post database, down from 38 and 32, respectively, in 2015. The Post defines ‘unarmed’ broadly to include such cases as a suspect in Newark, New Jersey, who had a loaded handgun in his car during a police chase.

“In 2018 there were 7,407 black homicide victims. Assuming a comparable number of victims last year, those nine unarmed black victims of police shootings represent 0.1% of all African-Americans killed in 2019. By contrast, a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.”

If the present wave of protests succeeds in hamstringing American police departments, many more black Americans will die. That is just what transpired in Baltimore after the 2015 riots following the death of Freddie Gray, who died in the back of a police van after his arrest for possession of a knife. Several days of looting and burning ended with the arrival of the National Guard.

“From 2008 to 2014, there were between a hundred and ninety-seven and two hundred and forty homicides each year in Baltimore; since Freddie Gray’s killing, there have never been fewer than three hundred,” Benjamin Wallace-Wells lamented in the New Yorker May 29. “The city’s mayor at the time – a quiet, serious-minded black woman named Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who had been seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party – eventually chose not to seek re-election.”

That was no surprise, considering that the Baltimore city government charged six police officers with murder and manslaughter, and mainly black juries acquitted them.

A third of the US prison population is black (although the proportion has fallen somewhat in the past decade). That is effective policing, and it has led to a steady decline in the rate of violent crime in America during the past thirty years—although it sometimes leads to misadventure as in the case of Freddie Gray, as well as rare but outrageous acts of police violence.

Below is a graphic from the Pew Institute illustrating the striking success of American police methods.

Why, then, do black communities view police with such hostility? The fact that the increased safety of black communities depends upon measures imposed from the outside by a largely white state power is humiliating. It comes on top of other humiliations, of which the most onerous is the fake promise of upward mobility through university education.

Among white 18-year-olds, 42% will attend college versus 37% for blacks and 36% for Hispanics. The percentage of young blacks of college age who will attend university in the United States is not much different from that of whites. But under 34% of black males at US universities will graduate within six years (the standard program is four years). These are shocking numbers.

Of this 37%, only a third, or 12.5% of college-age black men, will obtain university degrees. Almost one-quarter of all black men of college age will try and fail. Those were the black youth who stayed out of trouble, graduated from high school, and sought advancement in the university system – but ended up at the bottom of the greasy pole. That is a humiliation on a gigantic scale.

Blacks to be accepted at colleges need Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)scores 250 points lower than white candidates; Hispanics, 185 points lower. Asians must score 50 points higher than whites. A standard deviation is 210 points on the SAT, so the handicapping is enormous. That fiddle has equalized black and white college admissions, but not graduation rates.

Worst of all, the six-year graduate rate for black men stood at just 33.8% in 2016 (for 2010 university entrants), while the graduate rate for men of all other races and ethnicities rose over the past 25 years. Most impressive is the increase in the graduation rate of Hispanic men, which rose from just above 40% for university entrants in 1996 to over 50% for 2010 university entrants.

The drastic improvement in Hispanic graduate rates excludes the possibility that America has a problem with minorities as such. Hispanics are America’s largest minority group at 16.7% of the population, and their university graduation rate has improved steadily. This is a not a minority problem but a black problem, and specifically a problem for black men. The six-year graduation rate for black women is 43%.

For liberals who think that the problem is racism, and that black women are doubly oppressed by misogyny as well as racism, these facts pose a conundrum: If racism somehow deters black men from succeeding in higher education, why doesn’t the combination of racism and misogyny deter black women even more?

A vicious hoax has been perpetrated on America’s young black men by the liberal establishment. University administrators are the most liberal collection of people in any American institution, private or public.

As Professor Samuel Abrams of Sarah Lawrence College reports, “Two-thirds of administrators self-identify as liberal, with 40 percent of that liberal pool stating that they are far left. A quarter of them call themselves middle of the road, while only 5 percent say they are on the right. That makes for a liberal-to-conservative ratio of 12 to one.”

The revolving door of minority admissions creates jobs and perquisites for college bureaucrats. US universities now spend almost as much on “administrative support” as they do on instruction, Caroline Simon wrote in Forbes.

“During the 1980-1981 school year, public and private institutions spent $20.7 billion in total on instruction, and $13 billion on academic support, student services and institutional support combined, according to data from the National Center for Educational Statistics. By the 2014-2015 school year, total instructional costs had climbed to $148 billion, while the same grouping of administrative expenses had risen to $122.3 billion,” wrote Simon.

The leftists who run the university system are happy to cover up their deception and incompetence by blaming racism for the low graduation rate of black men. A 2006 study in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education commented, “High dropout rates appear to be primarily caused by inferior K-12 preparation and an absence of a family college tradition, conditions that apply to a very large percentage of today’s college-bound African Americans.”

As I observed in a March 30 review-essay, mention of this 2006 analysis in a journal edited and written by blacks would be grounds for instant dismissal on grounds of racism at any major American university.

In the cited March 30 essay I quoted a sample of the academic studies bandied about to demonstrate that systemic racism rather than lack of preparation is responsible for the catastrophic failure rate of black men at American universities.

A woman at a protest against the murder of George Floyd and other victims of police brutality, Sunday, June 7, 2020, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Photo: AFP via NurPhoto/Jason Whitman In 1960, 90% of white women and 87% of black women aged 18-59 years had been married at some point in their lives; by 2016 the proportion had fallen to 60% for white women and just 33% for black women.

The long humiliation of black men has incubated a terrible rage. The phony promise of upward mobility leaves them feeling cheated, with good reason. This rage has metastasized into a dominant trope in black popular culture. Rapper Jay-Z, an intimate of the Obamas and a regular at the Obama White House, put it this way (in “Dirt off Your Shoulder”):

I probably owe it to y’all, proud to be locked by the force

Tryin to hustle some things, that go with the Porsche

Feelin no remorse, feelin like my hand was forced

Middle finger to the law, n***r grip’n my balls…

For white liberals, a black identity shaped by rage is not only to be condoned, but celebrated. All politics is identity politics to liberals, because the whole object of their existence is to invent one’s identity according to therapeutic needs. That is why the progressive movement took up the cause of transgender rights with such passion: To change one’s gender is the ultimate expression of self-invention in defiance of nature and tradition.

The possessors of these newly-invented pseudo-selves know that they are imposters, and that everyone is laughing at them behind their backs. As Mephisto told Faust, “Wear a wig with a million hairs, and stand in heels as long as your elbow, and you still remain what you are.”

The self-inventors hoped to escape the intolerable anxiety of existence by creating an identity out of thin air. But it is a hopeless enterprise; only true psychotics have the concentration to create their own identity. The rest of the self-inventors live in dread of the day when they will be found out for frauds. Life presents endless occasions for humiliation.

African Americans watch as a black-clad activist who brought along a can of spray paint defaces a Chicago police vehicle during a protest against the death of George Floyd. Photo: AFP/Jim Vondruska/NurPhoto Among all the identities that modern liberalism has constructed, black identity is the first and most practiced: In place of the Christian culture that made black churches the bearers of the civil rights movement, black identity politics has constructed a culture of rage and rejection.

In 1993 the Reverend Calvin Butts, pastor of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church and the most distinguished black pastor in New York, drove a bulldozer up to the headquarters of Sony Music and crushed a pile of rap CD’s to protest their effect on black youth. More recently, the first black president hosted an obscenity-spewing rapper at the White House.

That, I believe, explains the dire position of young black men in America. The humiliation of black men and their enraged, self-destructive response horrifies white liberals, for whom the sorrows of black America are not merely a social problem, but an identity crisis.

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weavingthetapestry · 7 years

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The Battle of Largs and the Treaty of Perth, Part 3

(Reading time- roughly 16 minutes, here are parts 1 and 2)

A fair wind saw the Norwegian fleet reach Shetland within days, where it put into Bressay for a couple of weeks before continuing on to Orkney. There Hakon IV remained for the rest of July, negotiating with the inhabitants of Caithness across the Pentland Firth (who paid the king’s tax to avoid trouble), while sending some of his fleet further south to plunder in the Moray Firth. After around a month spent in the Northern Isles, demonstrating his lordship, the king then set sail again on the 10th of August, rounding Cape Wrath and joining up with the galleys of Magnus Olafsson, King of Mann, on the way south. The whole fleet now sailed unchecked through the Inner Hebrides, passing the recently devastated island of Skye and stopping briefly in Lochalsh, before moving on to the island of Kerrera, where Alexander II of Scotland had died of an illness just over fourteen years before, during his own Hebridean expedition. There, Hakon split his force in half again, and himself sailed a way further south to the island of Gigha, opposite the Kintyre peninsula (on the Scottish mainland).

On Gigha, the Norwegian king once again set about demonstrating his lordship. A friar who came to ask that his monastery be spared was granted royal protection. Angus Mor MacDonald of Islay and a certain Murchad (possibly Murchadh MacSween) also journeyed to meet the king there and swore fealty, however their allegiance was obviously suspect and they were obliged to give hostages for the safety of their territory. The other major Island magnate to appear at Gigha was less ready to side with the Norwegian king; Ewen MacDougall of Argyll had learnt from his earlier troubles and, though for some reason he still met with King Hakon in Gigha, he steadfastly refused to break his new oath to the king of Scots, and was temporarily arrested.

Though the loyalty of the Hebridean lords who came to Gigha was hardly inspiring, Hakon was not without allies in the west. The other half of his fleet were plundering Kintyre at this time, and these galleys were partly commanded by Irish sea magnates, namely Magnus Olafsson, the Crovan king of Mann, and Dubhgall mac Ruadhrí, now sole king of the Isles (as far as Norway was concerned). Lesser men also joined the campaign as the Norwegian fleet passed through the Isles, though in some cases this may have been in order to settle personal scores or win plunder. Dunaverty Castle in Kintyre was also surrendered to the king of Norway around this time. A smaller ship sent ahead by the king even managed to take the Stewart stronghold of Rothesay on Bute, and several villages there were burnt. Meanwhile King Hakon received more visitors at Gigha, messengers from Irish lords who had heard of his coming and begged assistance against the English. The king sent men across to Ireland to find out more, but for now continued on his original mission; recalling his entire fleet, he rounded the Mull of Kintyre soon after and finally sailed into the Firth of Clyde.

(This is a very crowded diagram but should hopefully help)

While his ships lay in Lamlash Bay, sheltered between Arran and the Holy Isle, Hakon was approached by Dominican friars: messengers from Alexander III of Scotland, then at Ayr. For some time thereafter envoys went between the two monarchs, attempting to negotiate a peace. Ewen of Argyll was also released with surprising goodwill, and even given gifts; it is possible that Hakon hoped Ewen would persuade the king of Scots towards peace, but still odd that he does not seem to have been seriously punished for his earlier disloyalty. Eventually though, the talks floundered- Hakon would not relinquish the Western Isles and Alexander particularly refused to part with Arran, Bute, and the Cumbraes. The Scots may also have been playing for time, knowing that the season was growing late and the weather worsening. Eventually King Hakon moved across to the Cumbraes, implicitly threatening the adjacent Ayrshire coast, and gave the Scots a last chance to negotiate seriously, with both kings present, or meet in battle. The Scots did not falter at this threat however, and the Norwegians swiftly retaliated by sending forty galleys up Loch Long to harry Scotland, under the command of Magnus, king of Mann, and Dubhgall, king of the Isles, along with the latter’s brother Alan mac Ruadhrí and other islesmen. Having burnt Loch Lomond and the Lennox, Alan Mac Ruadhrí’s contingent may have penetrated even further into the country: the earldom of Menteith bordered the Lennox and was possibly an appealing target since it was held de jure uxoris by Walter Stewart. Even Stirling Castle seems to have been placed on a war footing, and was perhaps a base of operations for those defending against Alan’s incursion.

However, while this assault was possibly too close to the heart of the kingdom for comfort, the Scots were ultimately to weather the storm- quite literally, as the predicted bad weather now set in, and a violent storm just after Michaelmas wrecked ten of the galleys in Loch Long. It also played havoc with the fleet in the Firth, scattering many ships and causing even Kristsuden, King Hakon’s dragon-prowed longship, to drift despite being weighed down with eight anchors. Several longships, as well as a supply ship, drifted ashore, where they were harassed by Scottish arrows, though the Scots withdrew when King Hakon sent boats to reinforce the stranded men. The next day, the 2nd of October, the king himself went ashore with several hundred men to supervise the salvaging of the goods on the supply ship. He also sent one of his more active captains, Ogmund Crowdance, with two hundred men to a small mound above the beach. The work proceeded without much incident until the supply ship was almost empty, when suddenly a Scottish army was spotted, approaching swiftly from the south. Even taking into account the possibility of Norwegian exaggeration, the Scottish host seems to have been reasonably large for an army which was presumably only one of several such forces put on alert along the coast. Norwegian estimates of perhaps as many as five hundred well-mounted knights may not have been far off the mark, and these were reinforced by a much larger number of foot soldiers, carrying mostly bows and Irish axes. The Scots made such an impressive spectacle that some assumed their king was among them. In fact the army was most likely led by the major local magnate Alexander Stewart, the High Steward of Scotland, and perhaps also his brother Walter, Earl of Menteith, who may have been Sheriff of Ayr at this time and whose role would have been to lead the common army.

(Not my picture)

Moving quickly, the Scots made a feint on Ogmund Crowdance’s position atop the mound, possibly attempting to cut his force off from the beach. To avoid being surrounded, the men on the mound descended to the beach, though some of the Norwegians thought they were retreating and fled in turn. Now, King Hakon’s followers pleaded with him to return to the ships, and though he initially refused, he was eventually compelled to board one of the boats and be rowed away. Meanwhile, the Scots advanced, flinging arrows and stones, while the Norwegians abandoned the supply-ship and fell back, some of them drowning when the boats they tried to escape in sank. Others met their attackers in battle, and a violent skirmish ensued where the Norwegians were outnumbered and several of King Hakon’s guardsmen fell, though Sturla Thordarson's saga claims the Scots lost more men. When the Norwegians regrouped, it was the Scots’ turn to withdraw and, after a long period of fighting, retreat, while the Norwegians, with no wish to fight further, returned to the sea, rowing back to their ships with great difficulty in the stormy conditions. The next morning, some Norwegians were sent back to count the dead, and bury them in a nearby church, (the Scots had had time to remove many of their dead to a wood). Meanwhile, the galleys that had been sent to raid up Loch Long rejoined the main fleet, and, after sending men to burn the ships that had been beached near Largs, King Hakon sailed back to Arran with his fleet. When brought news of Irish affairs by the messenger he had earlier sent, Hakon seems to have been of a mind to sail over to Ireland to help against the English, but was strongly opposed by his army, who seem to have been largely against prosecuting yet another war. Thus frustrated, Hakon sailed out of the Firth of Clyde, deciding to postpone his campaign till spring.

This then was the famous ‘Battle of Largs’, more accurately an inconclusive tussle on the beach in which most of the Norwegian force was not present, and the Scots were not gloriously victorious. The main near-contemporary source for the campaign is Sturla Thordarson’s saga of the life of Hakon Hakonarsson, and Sturla never explicitly attributes a victory to either side, though he does claim at points that the Scots had the worst of the fighting. The Scottish Chronicle of Melrose was as eager to attribute Norwegians' defeat to the hand of God (wrecking their fleet and spreading disease among them) as to Scottish military might. Thus the fight on the beach at Largs, at least of itself, does not seem to have struck any contemporary writers as particularly game-changing. This did not prevent later writers waxing lyrical upon the subject though. John of Fordun gives the number of Hakon’s fighting men as 20,000 which seems somewhat exaggerated (though the tally of ships is given as 160, which is likely near enough) and portrays the event as an unambiguous Scottish triumph where the royal army ‘swept down many [Norwegians], both nobles and serfs’. Fordun’s continuator Walter Bower added yet more to the story, thousands of Norwegians were slain in the 'severe battle' at Largs, and that King Hakon himself barely escaped with his life. Bower even adds a story of the spirit of St Margaret (with her husband and several sons) personally going to Largs to defend Scotland from ‘the usurper who is unjustly trying to subject my kingdom to his rule’. Some later historians were rather more discerning (Lord Hailes thankfully being one of them to an extent) but others, especially nineteenth century popular historians, raised the profile of the battle in the imagination of many Scots, with Taylor’s Pictorial History (for one) naming it as one of the most important ‘national’ events in Scottish history, thus placing it on a par with Stirling Bridge and Bannockburn. This approach is now rightly seen by most modern historians as something of a misrepresentation, at the very least.

(The mural designed by William Brassey Hole that depicts the Battle of Largs may be seen at the National Gallery of Scotland. Not my picture)

Nonetheless Largs does assume greater importance if considered in a wider context, both of the 1263 campaign and Hakon IV’s reputation. Though at first glance the Norwegian campaign seems impressive, with several castles taken, Hakon’s fleet accompanied by key Hebridean magnates, and his followers raiding the interior of the Scottish kingdom, there are in fact signs that it was a rather hollow effort. On several occasions, Hakon had been opposed or even overruled by his own men, while he had allowed Ewen MacDougall's defection to go largely unpunished. His army had attacked the Scottish mainland, but, crucially, Scotland weathered this assault, and nor were the Scots cowed, as others had been, by the sight of Hakon’s fleet in the Firth of Clyde nor by his threats of war. Hakon did not make another attempt on the mainland after Largs, preferring to postpone his campaign for the winter- a wise move in view of the weather, and the Scots' readiness to withstand assault, but it meant relinquishing his advantage. There were wider problems too. As Hakon sailed north again he rewarded his men, but it soon became clear that the Scots would simply exact revenge upon his adherents as soon as the Norwegians were out of the way. The Scottish Crown, stronger now than in 1098 and ruthlessly intent on expansion, was able to put pressure on the Hebrides in a way that Norway, due to both distance and resources, simply could not match in the long term. King Alexander III could also rely on stronger (if often self-serving) support from local magnates- when King Hakon stopped at Kerrera on his way north, he received news that Ewen of Argyll had attacked Mull, while later some of his men who went ashore in Sutherland were killed by Scots. Even as Hakon’s fleet sailed to Orkney, intending to winter there and then resume the campaign, it must have been clear that this would be an increasingly difficult undertaking. Certainly, Sturla Thordarson’s claim that, ‘In this expedition, king Hakon had won back again all the dominions that king Magnus Bareleg had acquired’, was not entirely truthful.

For now, Hakon dismissed some of his army upon returning to Orkney (though others went without leave), but soon the king’s campaign was brought to a more permanent end. Ever since summer, he had suffered intermittently from sickness, and now he became seriously ill, taking to his bed in the Bishop’s Palace at Kirkwall just after Martinmas. Though his health improved briefly, it soon deteriorated again and, as it became clear to the king that he was dying, he put his affairs in order, paying off retainers and writing advisory letters to his son, the lately crowned King Magnus, having affirmed that he had no other offspring living. Meanwhile, books were read to him day and night- first the Bible and then, as he grew weaker, works in Norse, the saints’ lives and, after, the sagas of kings. Sturla Thordarson writes that this continued until the saga of Hakon’s grandfather, Sverre, was finished near midnight on the 15th of December. Just after midnight, King Hakon finally passed. He was not yet sixty, but had ruled Norway for forty-six years. In the course of his long reign he achieved an end to the bitter civil wars that had divided Norway for over a century, and was also highly educated and a formidable military leader, who, for better or for worse, left Norway a much reformed kingdom. It was his misfortune to die in the middle of an ultimately disappointing campaign, which, if not before, was now definitely a failure. His body was returned to Bergen in the new year, where it was met by his son Magnus and interred in Christ Church. Meanwhile, the news of Hakon's death was allegedly brought to Alexander III of Scotland on the same day that his queen Margaret of England, gave birth to a son and heir Prince Alexander**.

While the Norwegians buried their king, the Scots wasted no time in pressing their advantage. Before Hakon’s body was even cold in the ground, the Earl of Ross was menacing Caithness on behalf of the Crown, while in the summer of 1264 Alan Durward and the earls of Buchan and Mar invaded the Isles, receiving Angus Mor of Islay’s submission. An invasion of the Isle of Man was only prevented by King Magnus Olafsson personally journeying to Dumfries to do homage to the King of Scots for the island; the submission of the man who had been such an active supporter of King Hakon only the previous year is a particularly strong example of the way the wind was blowing in 1264. Later, Alan Mac Ruadhrí would also come into King Alexander’s peace, though his brother King Dubhgall remained at large and in defiance of the Scottish Crown until his death in 1268, possibly in exile in Norway.

In light of all this- both the constant Scottish pressure on Norwegian possessions in the Hebrides and the recent loss of his father- it is little wonder that King Magnus of Norway was sick of the war in the west, as were many of his subjects. The Orcadians were the first to sue for peace, and the bishop and chancellor of Orkney sent messengers to the king of Scots as early as spring of 1264. These messengers were not at all successful however, as the Scots imprisoned some of the envoys and angrily accused the Norwegians of burning and plundering their land- which may seem somewhat rich coming from Scotland but it seems to me like the Scots were utilising a sense of righteous indignation while flexing their negotiating muscles and holding out for better terms than a mere suspension of hostilities. In any case, later on when the King of Norway himself sent envoys they were more readily welcomed, and the Scots seemed amenable to peace, recommending that the Norwegian king send more messengers in the future. Now negotiations proceeded more smoothly, with the two countries frequently exchanging emissaries over the next couple of years. Eventually King Magnus seems to have come to the opinion that only the permanent surrender of the Hebrides would ensure peace, but the Norwegians would not walk away empty-handed from this deal as it was decided that the Scots would pay a yearly fee for the islands- what is often known as the ‘annual’. Thus the Treaty of Perth was ratified in 1266, with the Scots agreeing to pay an annual fee of a hundred marks for the Hebrides and the Isle of Man, and King Alexander paying four thousand marks up front ‘for greater security’. Conflict between Norway and Scotland was finally brought to an end, and Scottish sovereignty over the Western Isles and Mann formally established.

Though some Scottish histories, having reached this point, like to shuffle the Western Isles offstage again until the Battle of Harlaw in 1411, the Treaty of Perth was only the start of a very new relationship between the Hebrides and the Scottish Crown, while the Isle of Man also went through considerable change in the century that followed. In fact, as Scotland entered an extended period of civil strife in the fourteenth century, the isles once again saw the rebirth of a strong, semi-independent political entity in the form of the Lordship of the Isles, and continued to take a distinctively Hebridean stance in Irish sea politics in the centuries that followed. But in 1266 the balance of power in the Atlantic certainly shifted, and Norway’s ability to insert itself into the political affairs of the British Isles was massively reduced, even despite their possession of Orkney and Shetland. By the early fourteenth century Norwegian politics had definitively shifted away from a focus on the west, while Scotland was now an increasingly centralised and coherent kingdom, at least officially, and this would become increasingly apparent over the course of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. With the exception of the Northern Isles (and later the loss of Berwick-upon-Tweed and Man), the borders of the Scottish kingdom by the end of the reign of Alexander III were much more similar to the way they look today, and the annexation of the Western Isles had an immeasurable effect on the way in which that country was viewed both by its inhabitants and the outside world.

*It is worth noting briefly England’s position in all this. Fractured by civil war at this point, the English were essentially unable to capitalise on Norwegian defeat, and it may well have turned out to be a good time for Norwegian intervention in Ireland if Hakon had gone through with it. Also, in 1262 Henry III wrote a very interesting letter to the king of Norway begging him not to invade the British Isles, which has been the source of much speculation since.

**Prince Alexander of course died in 1284, following the deaths of his sister, brother and mother. Alexander III died in 1286, and his granddaughter- Hakon IV’s great-granddaughter- Margaret of Norway died, like her great-grandfather, in Kirkwall in 1290- this crisis of the succession indirectly led to the Wars of Independence.

Selected References for all three parts:

“Early Sources of Scottish History,’ Volume II, A.O. Anderson (sources such as the Icelandic Annals, Sturla Thordarson’s saga of Hakon Hakonarsson, the Chronicle of Melrose, the Chronicle of Mann, and several Irish Annals)

‘Chronica Gentis Scotorum’, by John of Fordun (trans. W.F. Skene)

‘Scotichronicon’, by Walter Bower (trans. D.E.R. Watt)

‘The Kingdom of the Isles’, R. Andrew McDonald

‘Kingship and Unity’, G.W.S. Barrow

‘Domination and Lordship, Scotland 1070-1230′, Richard Oram

‘The Wars of Scotland, 1214-1371′, Michael Brown

‘The Army of Alexander III’s Scotland’, G.W.S. Barrow in ‘Scotland in the Reign of Alexander III’, ed. Norman H. Reid

‘Norwegian Sunset- Scottish Dawn: Hakon IV and Alexander III’, by Edward J. Cowan (also in the above)

‘Alexander II’, Richard Oram

‘The Norwegian Invasion of Scotland in 1263: A Translation from Det Norske Folks Historie’ P.A. Munch

And others

#Battle of Largs #Scottish history #Scotland #Norway #Norwegian history #Western Isles #Isle of Man #thirteenth century #Alexander III #Hakon IV #warfare #battles #House of Dunkeld #House of Sverre #Ayr #Orkney #Kirkwall #Treaty of Perth

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