Episode 56: The Curse of Mathair nan Uisgeachan by Angus Wolfe Murray

Angus Wolfe MurrayAngus Wolfe Murray was born in 1937 and now lives at Traquair in the Scottish Borders. With his late wife he founded Canongate Publishers. He comes from a celebrated Scottish family and his details can be found in the peerage. Edcated at Eton and working as a journalist and latterly a film critic.  He is still alive, and while I am glad of that, I am slightly embarrassed that I thought he had died. I had been asked to do a Scottish story and I was keen to use my Scottish accent (my father was a Scot), and I found this story in an anthology of Scottish ghost stories. We have holidayed in the Highlands the past two years and it also gave me a chance to say some words in Gaelic. My first degree was in Celtic and I spent a summer in Stornoway learning Gaelic many years ago. I can't really speak it any more though.  After I had recorded the story and started researching it, I found Angus Wolfe Murray was alive and I have tried to contact him via Twitter and I see he has a dormant Facebook page. I went ahead with the reading but if anyone can contact him, and he would like the episode removed, then of course I will do that.  Mathair nan UisgeachanScottish Gaelic for The Mother of the Waters. The name of the whirlpool in the loch. The story begins as a very naturalistic tale of an idealistic young man from the Scottish upper classes who returns to the family estate and appreciates the history of the Highlands. He comments on the empty glen and alludes to the Highland Clearances and the remaining Highlanders wily ways and tenacity to keep to tradition. Tradition when the clan owned everything in common and Chief was not a feudal lord, but the father of the tribe. Hugh, coming back from Toronto is a reminder of the change in attitudes where the Gaelic Clan Chiefs were Anglicised and transformed themselves into property owners as per the standard European model. Hugh is not a sympathetic character, but his Canadian wife Anne is and our unnamed narrator falls for her. A love trian