Double Heider: "Loon" & "The Girnin Gates": Twa Novellas in Scots

by Sheena Blackhall, Hamish MacDonald

These two novellas - on related themes but very different in approach and narrative voice - are bound back to back or 'heelstergowdie', the Scots for 'back to front' or 'head over heels'. Loon, by Sheena Blackhall, tells the story of Donnie Paterson and how his troubled life is turned around by the discovery of his missing grandfather in a retirement home and a holiday in the Highlands where he hears a strange story that becomes the key to solving his problems. In Gilbert McGlinchy, by Hamish MacDonald, the eponymous narrator has the weight of the world's woes on his shoulders so sets out to make his drab Clydebank surroundings exotic by embarking on a story-telling journey - the rationale for which only slowly unfolds. Presented in a single volume, these two novellas meet, quite literally, halfway.

128 pages, Paperback

First published May 27, 2003

About the author

Sheena Blackhall, née Middleton, (b. 1947) is a Scottish poet, novelist, short story writer, illustrator, traditional story teller and singer. She was born and educated in Aberdeen.

Author of over 100 poetry pamphlets, 12 short story collections, 4 novels and two televised plays for children, The Nicht Bus and The Broken Hert. From 1998 - 2003 she was Creative Writing Fellow in Scots at the Elphinstone Institute. Along with Les Wheeler, she co-edits the Doric resource Elphinstone Kist, and currently works on the Aberdeen Reading Bus, as a storyteller and writer, also sitting on the editorial board for their children's publications in Doric, promoting Scots culture and language in the North East.