An Apple from a Tree

by Margaret Elphinstone

This new edition of An Apple from a Tree, with additional stories previously published elsewhere, provides the reader with the opportunity to revisit some of Margaret Elphinstone's early writing. Themes and motifs which have come to characterise much of her subsequent work are already evident. Her writing resonates with a deep and underlying concern with the way we understand and relate to our environment while at the same time it is always ready to challenge conventional perceptions of myth and reality. By restructuring paradigms and demonstrating the impermanence of accepted boundaries she offers insights which can be both surprising and disturbing. Her characters are frequently from elsewhere - whether the realms of folklore or far places and different cultures - and display the stranger's ability to make unexpected assumptions or ask uncomfortable questions. "...spicy, ironic, passionate, humorous, painful and witty.." Jennie Renton, Scottish Book Collector

Genres: Short Stories

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Margaret Elphinstone is a Scottish novelist. She studied at Queen's College in London and Durham University, where she graduated in English Language and Literature. She was until recently, Professor of Writing in the Department of English Studies at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, now retired. Her academic research areas are Scottish writers and the literature of Scotland's offshore islands.

Elphinstone published her first futuristic novel in 1987. Her first historical novel, The Sea Road was published in 2000 and won won a Scottish Arts Council Spring Book Award. She is also the author of Lost People (Wild Game Publications, 2024) The Gathering Night (Canongate Books, 2009), Gato (Sandstone Press, 2007), Light (Canongate Books, 2006), Voyagers (Canongate Books, 2003), Hy Brasil (Canongate Books, 2002), Islanders (Polygon, 1994), Apple from a Tree (Women's Press, 1990), A Sparrow's Flight (Polygon, 1989), and The Incomer (Women's Press, 1987).

She did extensive study tours in Iceland, Greenland, Labrador and the United States. She lived for eight years in the Shetland Islands and is the mother of two children.

Reviews

[Seenie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection of Scottish-folklore related short stories

[Jack Deighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of Elphinstone’s short prose works. As usual with Elphinstone the writing is accomplished.
The Green Man. An Art teacher with some romantic disappointments and reasonably unsuccessful exhibitions behind her is walking the disused Dumfries to Stranraer railway line when she comes across an unusual dome-shaped green tent at the lochside near Lochskerrow Halt. Its occupant is a green man, possibly from an alien planet (his tent is not a spaceship, but his culture is other-worldly) who seems able to read her thoughts. Nevertheless their conversation is at cross purposes and frustrating. However, she does not feel threatened by him and agrees to return the next day. She finds herself attracted to him and the inevitable happens. Yet she doesn’t go back again. Her experience feeds into her artwork and her paintings become desirable. When the Loch Skerrow location is identified by one viewer she realises she has put the green man in danger.
Islands of Sheep. A middle-aged academic who has seemingly been unable to sustain relationships with the various women in his life has moved into a bungalow on the Cambridgeshire fens with an ancient mulberry tree in the garden and a view towards a low ridge that was once an island. He takes in as a tenant a young attractive woman psychologist, whom he has difficulty in understanding. As the tale comes towards its end he experiences hallucinations, symptoms of a nervous breakdown.
Conditions of Employment delves into the Matter of Britain. A relatively young jobless woman despairing at her lot in life throws rocks into a stream in her anguish. A few days later she sees a post as a Well Guardian advertised at her local Job Centre. She goes along to the unusual location for the interview. As Well Guardian she finds herself giving advice to people with minor skin complaints or other medical requirements. She also encounters the Watcher of the Sleepers who wants to know if it is the time of danger enough to wake those asleep under Cairnsmore Hill.
The Cold Well features the permanent Guardian of the Well, Oddny, who, at her antlered folkloric counterpart’s request, travels across a stretch of sea to try to undo the source of the sickness affecting the local deer. Reading between the lines, that source is Sellafield.
An Apple From a Tree. The events of this are narrated by a woman to her lover some months after they supposedly took place. She was in a stand of beech trees in the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh when an apple fell on her. Biting into it she was suddenly transported to a grassy plain where stood a naked woman, who (later) gives her name as Nisola. Shortly her male companion arrived. Nisola was as discomfited by our narrator – especially her clothes – as she was herself. After some confused discussion Nisola bit the apple and they were transported to Edinburgh. Cue toing and froing trying to ameliorate Nisola’s nakedness, before they work put a solution that will serve both. There are irresistible echoes here of the tale of Adam and Eve.
A Life of Glory is narrated by a disembodied consciousness roaming the universe and looking down on the affair of a couple - one from Edinburgh the other from Colorado - with whom the narrator eventually becomes intimately entangled.

[Juliet Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 1991 collection of short stories from Scottish based writer Margaret Elphinstone is a lovely mixture of realism, magical realism and science fiction. The author uses this blend of genres to explore the human relationship with nature as well as our relationships with each other.

The title story sees Alison visit the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, where she meets a mysterious naked woman with whom she has a strange connection. Two of the other stories feature Oddney, the guardian of a well and the work she does to help nature stay in balance.

The writing is beautiful, particularly the descriptions of nature, such as this, from the opening to The Cold Well:

"She sat under the waterfall, letting the burn wash over her. The falls were white and full, churning the pool into a froth of air bubbles and brown water. Little waves lapped against the rocks, which were scoured into a smooth curve at the pool's edge, following the circling water. The water itself was soft with peat, bitter with acid, flowing over her with a touch like a northern breeze on a spring day..."

This is an engaging and thought-provoking collection of short stories from the author of The Sea Road