As climate change and global warming have taken a temporary diversion, we can categorically state that reports circulating that Hell is encased in ice is the fabrication of hyperactive imaginings.

In an exclusive interview with the Science Director of the Diablo Science Foundation, we can report that the reality is somewhat different. Immaculate in her size 10 white leathers, with an ivory tussah silk blouse parting her cleavage to her navel and auburn hair framing an almost angelic face then falling to caress her lightly tanned shoulders, she explained the reality that had been distorted by ill-meaning ideologues.

Was I going to understand this, with three PhDs under her neatly fitting belt? Was Sonaria going to launch into a detailed impenetrable thesis on the science of climate mastering?

But no. With the skills gained from a Masters in Communications along the way, she wanted to put the record straight.

The Diablo Science Foundation wished to be understood as a force for good in the world (and underworld). They had a lot of heat, renewable in perpetuity; and heat is energy, so conversion allowed them to utilise that energy, intended as a penance, to power a world driven by an agenda of change and not one of endless excesses as believed by some.

The air conditioning in Sonaria’s office was unobtrusive, the white wine perfectly chilled and the red exploded in wondrous flavours on the palate. Later we toured the vineyards and an Eden of olive groves – eat your heart out Gethsemane – tomatoes, aubergines and peppers plump and flavoursome in an unending supply.

The questions kept coming and the answers freely given but there was a condition. I could only report on the story I had come to find out about and I could not name her other than as Sonaria.

Apparently with skilful infiltration over decades, moves are afoot in the Vatican for her beatification and her Trustees thought that the potential for the beatification of the first high ranking diabless could bring about a breakdown in static ideologies and open the world to progressive freethinking.

Ah! But enough of this havering nonsense!  If ideas are the fountain that dies in ideology then ideology is death to the world of ideas.

Societal mores form barriers where old beliefs are ostracised – as brilliantly described in The Last Bear by Mandy Haggith, winner of The Robin Jenkins Literary Award, the UK’s first environmental literary award. Jenkins was obsessed by morality and it is somehow fitting that the first book to win the Award is an intimate exploration of changing beliefs and mores of society in Highland Scotland at the end of the first millennium.

Beautifully and evocatively written, painstakingly researched for historical accuracy, this is a story about much more than a historic environment and the implications for succeeding millennia. Mandy takes us to the formation of an early Scotland and the influences and conflicts that shaped what we are today and in some respects have yet failed to resolve.

In the Celtic world of the 10th Century the changes wrought by Christianity are in conflict with older beliefs. From their origins in the Indian sub continent, the Celts spread across Europe and were so sophisticated in the alliances they formed that even Rome fell to their advances for a brief period.

Celts and Celtic culture was soon to be confined to the Atlantic edges of Europe where it became infused with older cultures and later influences and settlement.

Woven into the story of The Last Bear is the considerable influence and legacy of the Norse in the West Highlands. As the story unfolds we are introduced to the key characters in a multicultural society, their attitudes to change and abilities and difficulties in respecting and valuing differing traditions and the environment their share. The Last Bear sits comfortably within a Northern European literary tradition and its tales.  In Mandy’s descriptive style I am reminded of the powerful language of the Swedish writer, Kerstin Ekman in the descriptions of a changing environment.

The exchanges between the Celtic people of Ireland and Scotland have contributed much to both societies as has the infusion of Nordic blood and tradition on both sides of the waters that link us rather than divide us. This brings me to The Black Soul, a regrettably overlooked novel, by Liam O’Flaherty, first published in 1924.

That’s for another day but I leave you with this thought:

A dying François Rabelais (c1494 -1553) said ‘I have nothing, I owe a great deal, the rest I give to the poor.’ Have we yet understood the richness of his endowment?

Russell Bruce, Book Editor

Footnote: The Last Bear, Mandy Haggith  Two Ravens Press ISBN  978-1-906120-16-0, 199pp paperback £8.99

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