Flight of the Heron read-along: Part I chapters 1-2

[regshoe]

Hark! now the drums they beat again for all good soldiers, gentlemen...

Welcome back to the Flight of the Heron read-along! This week we read the first two proper chapters, and meet Keith Windham—and Keith meets Ewen Cameron.

As you'll have noticed, Broster is fond of including both Gaelic and Scots words in dialogue; this online Gaelic-English dictionary and this one for Scots may be of use if you'd like to look anything up.

Next week we will continue with chapters 3 and 4.

Comments

[tei]

Oh no, I missed this and woke up today like “why didn’t regshoe ever post a Flight of the Heron discussion😤” ANYWAY, I found these much more fun than the prologue, probably because there was more swordfighting and less description of scenery. :P As has been discussed, Keith ages mountains a normal amount, apparently. THAT SAID, I think I had an initial impression of him that was more negative than that of Ewan, because Ewan is introduced splashing around in the lake, forbidding the shooting of birds, contemplating how much he loves the lake and his girlfriend and how wonderful everything in the world is, etc., and Keith stomps in like “this sucks. I hate this. Fuck THIS MOUNTAIN IN PARTICULAR.” However, once they meet he becomes much more pleasant!

[regshoe]

Ewan is introduced splashing around in the lake, forbidding the shooting of birds, contemplating how much he loves the lake and his girlfriend and how wonderful everything in the world is, etc., and Keith stomps in like “this sucks. I hate this. Fuck THIS MOUNTAIN IN PARTICULAR.”

XD

I do like Keith's 'this is silly, I want to get back to REAL fighting in a SENSIBLE country like FLANDERS' attitude—I know just enough about the retreat at Fontenoy to know that the role Keith played there is very impressive, and I think it says some interesting things about him that that's how he feels now. And, of course, about British government underestimation of the Jacobites.

And the swordfighting is great! There's more of that to come later on, too... :D