Frontier Partisans

The Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts Who Fought the Battles of Empire

Highlanders, Stuarts And Sea Dogs

December 26, 2020, by JimC

Badass Santa, in his wisdom and generosity, delivered tomes to be mined for the materials that will craft Series 2 of The Frontier Partisans Podcast.

As of now, the plan is for a three-parter:

• The Highland Frontier.

The Highland Line was a frontier zone for centuries. The English and the Lowland Scots thought and spoke of the Highlanders in virtually identical terms as the “Wild Irish” and the North American Indians — as “savages” or “barbarians” who either had to be brought to true Christian civilization or extirpated….

• The Saga of Rob Roy MacGregor.

Warrior, skilled cattle drover, rustler, outlaw, guerrilla fighter. Rob Roy is as Frontier Partisan as they come.

• The Highlanders on the North American Frontier.

Exiled from their homeland, many Highlanders found their way onto the frontiers of North America. Some fought in Highland regiments raised for the Seven Years War (in North America, The French & Indian War). Some became traders among the native peoples. In the American Southeast, Scots intermarried with the Cherokee and Creek Indians; Highland names abound among the leadership of both peoples. To the north, Scots were extraordinarily active in the Fur Trade, especially from the late 18th through early 19th Century.

Some of these colonized people became colonizers in their turn; some walked a different path that leaves a poignant trace of what might have been:

“We were Cree and we were Scottish,” says Albert MacLeod, a Winnipeg Métis whose Lewis-born ancestor joined the Hudson’s Bay Company. “We were comfortable with that. We had our own way of living. We had a vision of how our future might be. But we could only have found our way to that future if we’d been left alone — and we weren’t left alone.” (Colin C. Calloway — White People, Indians and Highlanders).

 

*

The MacGregor book is THE scholarly work on the legendary Highland Rogue. WH Murray was famed as a mountaineer as well as a writer. Clanlands is a bit of fun, featuring Outlander stars Graham McTavish (Dougal MacKenzie) and Sam Heughan (Jamie Fraser). It had to be prised from the clutches of daughter Ceili (“It has pictures!?!”).

Yes, Ceili. It has pictures…

While it’s a lark, Clanlands also offers a serious look at some bloodsoaked history. Apparently McTavish has long been fascinated with the Glencoe Massacre, and his recounting of the events is quite good. And I love the descriptions of his experience of frisson (or, as Heughan describes it rather hilariously “a Meg Ryan moment”) when handling Jacobite artifacts from the ’45.

Series 2 will roll out in January…

*

Christmas Day in these parts was rather dank and chilly. With the prospect of several days off in a row ahead of me (an unprecedented luxury), I felt completely at ease indulging in lounging about and laying in some background on the turbulent Stuart/Stewart dynasty — in the delightful company of the lovely Prof. Kate Williams.

 

There is nothing more satisfying on a grey day than copious quantities of beef, cheese, and hours of bloody British history. It’s also perversely comforting to recognize that our current plague-and political-turmoil-ridden state is really standard fare. Our current conspiracy theorists are pikers compared to the baby-in-a-bedpan scandal-mongering monarch-topplers of the so-called Glorious Revolution.

Just sayin’.

Topped it off with a tale of Queen Bess’s Devonshire Sea Dogs…

Which put me in mind of NC Wyeth and Westward Ho!…

…And Robert E. Howard…

 

Solomon Kane’s Homecoming
The white gulls wheeled above the cliffs, the air was slashed with foam,
The long tides moaned along the strand when Solomon Kane came home.
He walked in silence strange and dazed through the little Devon town,
His gaze, like a ghost’s come back to life, roamed up the streets and down.
The people followed wonderingly to mark his spectral stare,
And in the tavern silently they thronged about him there.
He heard as a man hears in a dream the worn old rafters creak,
And Solomon lifted his drinking-jack and spoke as a ghost might speak:
“There sat Sir Richard Grenville once; in smoke and flame he passed.
“And we were one to fifty-three, but we gave them blast for blast.
“From crimson dawn to crimson dawn, we held the Dons at bay.
“The dead lay littered on our decks, our masts were shot away.
“We beat them back with broken blades, till crimson ran the tide;
“Death thundered in the cannon smoke when Richard Grenville died.
“We should have blown her hull apart and sunk beneath the Main.”
The people saw upon his wrist the scars of the racks of Spain.
“Where is Bess?” said Solomon Kane. “Woe that I caused her tears.”
“In the quiet churchyard by the sea she has slept these seven years.”
The sea-wind moaned at the window-pane, and Solomon bowed his head.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and the fairest fade,” he said.
His eyes were mystical deep pools that drowned unearthly things,
And Solomon lifted up his head and spoke of his wanderings.
“Mine eyes have looked on sorcery in dark and naked lands,
“Horror born of the jungle gloom and death on the pathless sands.
“And I have known a deathless queen in a city old as Death,
“Where towering pyramids of skulls her glory witnesseth.
“Her kiss was like an adder’s fang, with the sweetness Lilith had,
“And her red-eyed vassals howled for blood in that City of the Mad.
“And I have slain a vampire shape that sucked a black king white,
“And I have roamed through grisly hills where dead men walked at night.
“And I have seen heads fall like fruit in a slaver’s barracoon,
“And I have seen winged demons fly all naked in the moon.
“My feet are weary of wandering and age comes on apace;
“I fain would dwell in Devon now, forever in my place.”
The howling of the ocean pack came whistling down the gale,
And Solomon Kane threw up his head like a hound that sniffs the trail.
A-down the wind like a running pack the hounds of the ocean bayed,
And Solomon Kane rose up again and girt his Spanish blade.
In his strange cold eyes a vagrant gleam grew wayward and blind and bright,
And Solomon put the people by and went into the night.
A wild moon rode the wild white clouds, the waves in white crests flowed,
When Solomon Kane went forth again and no man knew his road.
They glimpsed him etched against the moon, where clouds on hilltop thinned;
They heard an eery echoed call that whistled down the wind.

Solomon Kane, Art by Pat Presley.

The Return of Sir Richard Grenville
One slept beneath the branches dim,
Cloaked in the crawling mist,
And Richard Grenville came to him
And plucked him by the wrist.
No nightwind shook the forest deep
Where the shadows of Doom were spread,
And Solomon Kane awoke from sleep
And looked upon the dead.
He spake in wonder, not in fear:
“How walks a man who died?
“Friend of old times, what do ye here,
“Long fallen at my side?”
“Rise up, rise up,” Sir Richard said,
“The hounds of doom are free;
“The slayers come to take your head
“To hang on the ju-ju tree.
“Swift feet press the jungle mud
“Where the shadows are grim and stark,
“And naked men who pant for blood
“Are racing through the dark.”
And Solomon rose and bared his sword,
And swift as tongue could tell,
The dark spewed forth a painted horde
Like shadows out of Hell.
His pistols thundered in the night,
And in that burst of flame
He saw red eyes with hate alight,
And on the figures came.
His sword was like a cobra’s stroke
And death hummed in its tune;
His arm was steel and knotted oak
Beneath the rising moon.
But by him sang another sword,
And a great form roared and thrust,
And dropped like leaves the screaming horde
To writhe in bloody dust.
Silent as death their charge had been,
Silent as night they fled;
And in the trampled glade was seen
Only the torn dead.
And Solomon turned with outstretched hand,
Then halted suddenly,
For no man stood with naked brand
Beneath the moon-lit tree.

Filed Under: Frontier Partisan Bookshelf

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Comments

  1. Matthew says

    December 26, 2020 at 7:25 am

    When I think of Highlanders, I still think of the tv series about immortals that fascinated me in my teens. If I remember correctly the title character lived with the Indians for a time in one of the flashbacks in the series.

    Always loved those Solomon Kane poems.

    Also, I got Tim Willock’s The Religion for Christmas.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      December 26, 2020 at 8:16 am

      Ah, yes… Highlander. I quite enjoyed that show. Are you diving into The Religion for the first time? If so…. I salute your journey.

      Reply
      • Matthew says

        December 26, 2020 at 9:22 am

        I will be once I finish the book I’m reading. Still, also going through Samuel Pepys Diary, some of which is real interesting and other parts not so.

        Reply
  2. John M Roberts says

    December 26, 2020 at 8:17 am

    I gave Beth “Clanlands” for Christmas.

    Reply
  3. Chuck says

    December 26, 2020 at 8:43 am

    Clanlands is a very fun read. I laughed throughout and their is a good deal of knowledge being shared. Those two seems to have a good friendship and the banter is humorous. Recently fi ished Born Fighting and How Scots Invented… Both good books. I enjoyed your podcast with HP. Let’s get Jim Webb and Tulsi Gabbard to run together.

    Looking forward to the next series. Glad your Christmas was good. Happy Hogmanay to you and yours!

    Reply
    • JimC says

      December 26, 2020 at 12:57 pm

      Thank you Chuck. I’m looking forward to their TV show together.

      Reply
  4. David C Wrolson says

    December 26, 2020 at 8:57 am

    I finished The Religion a few weeks back. I don’t read a lot of novels, but some of them here have been to my taste. I will for sure read the second book.

    Also just finished Against The Blood. That one earned a place on the shelf next to the Bartle Bull Africa series.

    Re-Scotland. In McAuslan-One of Dand’s (Fraser’s) Grandmothers is a pagan from the Sea Isles and he talks about how in her youth she had known an old lady who had seen “Ronald and Donald” come back from the ’45.

    When you get to it-The story about the Highland Games (“McAuslan’s Court Martial”) should be right up your alley.

    Off to take pictures today of the Spirit Lake Massacre site for the Inkpaduta project.

    A recent purchase has jumped to the top of Mount TBR. I like that phrase from the Hillbilly Highways guy.

    “Why We Drive: Towards a Philosophy of the Open Road”

    Looks at the move from being drivers to being passengers in self-driving cars and ubers.

    >>>”Once We Were Drivers, the open road alive with autonomy, adventure, danger, trust and speed.”<<<<

    The jacket also mentions the rewards of "Folk Engineering."

    Author previously wrote a book on shop classes and so forth.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      December 26, 2020 at 12:56 pm

      The McAuslan Read begins tonight…

      Reply
  5. Quixotic Mainer says

    January 2, 2021 at 12:22 pm

    Glad to see Badass Santa made his literary delivery! I got my wife Clan Lands as well, though I expect I’ll read it as soon as she’s done. I’ll bet it will turn into a best seller amongst the visitors to the FP fire.

    Reply
  6. .lane batot says

    January 4, 2021 at 4:35 pm

    Sounds like some good Highland Scots books–I have a “Rob Roy McGregor, His Life And Times” by W. H. Murray, waiting to be read in The Pile, but I’ll havta keep these titles in mind, too!

    Reply

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