Witch Wood (Canongate Classics): 22

by Christopher Harvie (Introduction), Christopher Harvie (Introduction), John Buchan (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2001

  $11.22

  Set against the religious struggles of seventeenth-century Scotland, with Montrose for the king against a convenanted kirk, John Buchan's Witch Wood is a gripping atmospheric tale in the spirit of Stevenson and Neil Munro. As a moderate Presbyterian minister, young David Sempill disputes with the extremists of his faith. All around, the defeated remnants of Montrose's men are being harried and slaughtered by the faithful, and Sempill's plea for compassion, like his love for the beautiful Katrine Yester, is out of joint with the times. There are still older conflicts to be faced however, symbolised by the presence of the Melanudrigill Wood, a last remnant of the ancient Caledonian forest. Here there is black magic to be uncovered, but also the more positive pre-Christian intimations of nature worship. In such setting, and faced with the onset of the plague, David Sempill's struggle and eventual disappearance take on a strange and timeless aspect in what was John Buchan's own favourite among his many novels.

• Used

  Paperback
  1993

  $3.36

  In The Witch Wood (1927) John Buchan brings all the tension of his wartime thrillers to a complex story of witchcraft in the ancient Wood of Caledon in the Scottish Borders. It is a stirring and challenging tale of seventeenth-century devilry, combatted in vain by David Sempill, the parish minister, who is hindered by the hypocrisy of his parishioners and his fellow-ministers' cant. In the background, meanwhile, the civil unrest of the Scottish Wars of the Covenant tears David's loyalties between his love of his calling and his admiration for the Marquis of Montrose, the leading opponent of the extreme Covenanters. Witch Wood also tells a love story that owes much to the ballads Buchan learned from his father and is infused with a subtle, other-worldly longing, nourished by the author's knowledge of Dante, Plato, and Virgil. The Dark Wood is not merely Scottish: it is the classical and medieval symbol for the subliminal powers which challenge reason in every age. This book is intended for general readers, Buchan fans, readers of Scottish fiction.