Eggplant.place

91d

Dream of me riding the horse you galloped as a girl –
the one that rode onto the ferry

just as the floor was rising up, in the days when
horses rode the wild sea…

—Jackie Kay, “Dream Pier”
published in DARLING (Bloodaxe, 2007)

https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/darling-877

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Jackie Kay
Dream Pier

Dream of me riding the horse you galloped as a girl –
the one that rode onto the ferry

just as the floor was rising up, in the days when
horses rode the wild sea.

Dream of us swimming in the crazy sea,
our wet hair dark as seals

just as they rise up from the salt water
sleek, slippery clever.

Dream of you, dream of me, and the old country,
strolling in the heather.

Dream of the years falling off, and the rainy weather.
Then dream of us as girls,

Bold girls who become black horses, black horses who bolt
the stable one dark night.

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105d

DNA and Archeological Research Reveal the Overlooked History of Japan’s Women Warriors

By Sage Helene

https://mymodernmet.com/japan-women-samurai-archaeology/?utm_source=convertkit&utm_campaign=daily-digest&utm_content=link&utm_term=07292026&utm_medium=email

Books about Japanese fiction at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/36794

#books #literature #history

"Hangakujo". The female warrior samurai Hangaku Gozen by Yoshitoshi (1839-1892). From the series "Yoshitoshi mushaburui: A series of warriors by Yoshitoshi." Published in "The Floating world of Ukiyo-e," essays by Sandy Kita, New York, 2001, no. 72, p. 135. Exhibited at "The Floating world of Ukiyo-e: shadows, dreams and substances," organized by the Library of Congress, 2001.

A woodblock print depicting an onna-musha (female samurai warrior) mounted on a rearing white horse. She wears red and black lacquered armor with a quiver of arrows on her back, and holds a bow.

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105d

How Shakespeare and his contemporaries used music to rouse emotions

by Shirley Bell

Shakespeare used music in a multitude of ways to delight, amuse, relax, confuse and frighten his audiences.

https://theconversation.com/how-shakespeare-and-his-contemporaries-used-music-to-rouse-emotions-287118?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20July%2030%202026%20-%203892139637&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20July%2030%202026%20-%203892139637+CID_1d72a754d221aafee869a5348be8a6e0&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=How%20Shakespeare%20and%20his%20contemporaries%20used%20music%20to%20rouse%20emotions

Books by Shakespeare at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/65

#books #literature #music

The Chandos portrait, likely depicting Shakespeare, c. 1611

It shows Shakespeare with a receding hairline, dark curly hair, a gold hoop earring, mustache and small beard, wearing a black doublet with a white collar against a dark background.

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24d

“Carry the same idea of using one’s senses accurately and constantly, and you will see that many a surgical case will bring his past history, national, social, and medical, into the consulting-room as he walks in.”

—Lindsay Fitzharris on the observational genius of Professor Joseph Bell – the Edinburgh doctor who inspired Sherlock Holmes

https://lithub.com/the-real-sherlock-holmes-how-an-edinburgh-doctor-inspired-doyles-detective/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #Edinburgh #medicalhumanities #SherlockHolmes #ConanDoyle

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105d

“You will have heard that I am going to commence Poet in print; and to-morrow my works go to the press. I expect it will be a volume of about two hundred pages. It is just the last foolish action I intend to do—and then turn a wise man as fast as possible.”

The “Kilmarnock Edition” of Robert Burns’s Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was published #OTD, 31 July, 1786.

https://digital.nls.uk/poems-chiefly-in-the-scottish-dialect/archive/74464614#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-9336%2C-785%2C21170%2C15693

#Scottish #literature #poetry #18thcentury #RobertBurns #romanticism #BookHistory

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180d

To Noroway, to Noroway,
To Noroway o’er the faem;
The king’s daughter o’ Noroway,
’Tis thou maun bring her hame…

The ballad “Sir Patrick Spens” is probably based on the 1290 mission to Norway to fetch the 7-year-old princess Margaret, heir to the Scottish crown, following the death of Alexander III

🇳🇴🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

#Scottish #literature #ballad #poem #Norway #Nasjonaldagen #poetry

A stained-glass window by Charles Cameron Baillie, c.1930, from Abbot House, Dunfermline. It depicts a three-masted sailing ship in full sail on a stormy green-blue sea with white wave-caps. There are red flags flying from the ship's masts. Some of the sails have yellow stripes on them; one might have a sunburst design, but it's tucked in behind other sails and is hard to see. One sail at the front is a black-and-white chequerboard, and at the prow of the ship, on the bowsprit, is a sail displaying the blue-and-white Scottish saltire, a white X on a blue background.

Underneath, on a scroll, are the words

To Noroway, To Noroway
To Norway Ower the Faem

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139d

Claude Monet by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Renoir and Monet studied painting together at the atelier of Charles Gler in Paris. Renoir submitted this painting to the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1874

#reading #book #art #painting #bookstodon @bookstodon #literature #book #readingcommunity #bookstagram #BookTok #bookish

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89d

Honoré de Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine is a Hindu mandala

The 19th-century novelist Honoré de Balzac was Catholic, French to the core and obsessed with the material details of French society. Yet there is something profoundly Hindu in the way he sought to understand the world.

by Harsh Trivedi (from the archives)

https://theconversation.com/honore-de-balzacs-la-comedie-humaine-is-a-hindu-mandala-262151

Books by Balzac at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/251

#books #literature

Title page of Honoré de Balzac's Cousin Bette (1846).

It is showing a woman in dark mourning-style dress sitting on a stool beside a bed, watching over a figure lying beneath the covers in a sparse attic room with exposed wooden beams and a small skylight.

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90d

Every Novel Is Boring—Until It Isn’t

With almost every novel I read, I go through the same arc. At first the novel bores me. Then, suddenly, it becomes the most interesting thing in the world.

by Emma Adler

https://www.publicbooks.org/every-novel-is-boring-until-it-isnt/

Books about Literary Fiction at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=literary+fiction

#books #literature

Augustus Leopold Egg, The Travelling Companions, 1862, oil-on-canvas, 65.3 × 78.7 centimetres (25.7 × 31.0 in), Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

It depicts two nearly identical young women in matching pale silk dresses seated in a train carriage — one asleep, the other reading — with a Mediterranean coastal landscape visible through the window.

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90d

“Worthless Idiot, Donkey Head”
Parodies of Pedantry on the Renaissance Stage

By Arnoud S. Q. Visser via @publicdomainrev

Pompous know-it-alls were once a mainstay of mockery on the Italian stage.

https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/parodies-of-pedantry/

Il pedante by Francesco Belo is available at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34640

#books #literature #pedantry

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90d

The Tragedy of Loving Sylvia Plath

Sarai Walker on Obsession, Ownership, and Plath Worship

https://lithub.com/the-tragedy-of-loving-sylvia-plath/

#books #literature #poetry

This black-and-white photo of Sylvia Plath shows her from the chest up. She faces left and looks away from the camera. Her short dark hair has bangs, and she wears a shirt or jacket with wide lapels.

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90d

“The influence of Walter Scott can be felt in every province of the literature of his age.”
—Pushkin

Walter Scott was born #OTD, 15 Aug 1771. He was & is one of the most significant figures in world literature

@litstudies

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https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/issues/issue-16/

#Scottish #literature #WalterScott #SirWalterScott #19thcentury #romanticism #novel

A portrait head of Walter Scott, painted by Sir Henry Raeburn, c.1822–23, oil on canvas. Walter Scott is clean shaven, with thinning fair hair brushed across a high forehead. His grey-blue eyes look out past the viewer, at something we cannot see.

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90d

“Scott is the most filmic of writers… He may be considered difficult to read today, long-winded & meandering by modern standards, but his narratives still come alive when the characters move dramatically in a visual world”

—Walter Scott & Cinema

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https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2013/05/wattie-goes-to-hollywood-scott-scotland-and-film/

#Scottish #literature #WalterScott #SirWalterScott #19thcentury #Victorian #romanticism #novel #cinema #film #cinemahistory

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90d

Walter Scott, Opera, & the Italian Journey

“What was it about Scott’s poems and novels that attracted composers all over Europe—and inspired more than seventy operas? […] We have four on Rob Roy, four on The Heart of Midlothian, eight on The Bride of Lammermoor, and no less than eleven each on Ivanhoe and Kenilworth.”

📷 “Lucia di Lammermoor”, Metropolitan Opera 2011

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2011/05/scott-opera-and-the-italian-journey/

#Scottish #literature #WalterScott #SirWalterScott #19thcentury #Victorian #opera #classicalmusic

Natalie Dessay as Lucia di Lammermoor for the Metropolitan Opera in 2011. The photo shows a young woman in a white wedding dress. She holds one hand to her cheek and looks upwards and away, with a lost, distracted expression. She has long, dark hair. Her raised hand, and the entire front of her white dress, is splashed with red blood. Behind her, a group of men and women in what appear to be late-19th-century formal clothes are seen, out of focus, standing on a curving stair.

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104d

It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonie,
Beneath the moon’s unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie…

—Robert Burns, “Corn Rigs”
pages from Robert Burns: Selected Poems & Songs (OUP, 2013)

Today, 1 August, is Lammas Day

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/selected-poems-and-songs-9780199682324?cc=gb&lang=en&

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #song #18thcentury #folksong #RobertBurns #Lammas #LammasDay #romanticism #Scots #Scotslanguage

SONG
Tune-Corn Rigs are bonie

It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonie,
Beneath the moon's unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie:®
The time flew by, wi' tentless heed,
Till 'tween the late and early;
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed,
To see me thro' the barley.

The sky was blue, the wind was still,
The moon was shining clearly;
I set her down, wi' right good will,
Amang the rigs o' barley:
I ken't her heart was a' my ain;
I lov'd her most sincerely;
I kiss'd her ore and owre again,
Amang the rigs o' barley.

I lock'd her in my fond embrace;
Her heart was beating rarely:
My blessings on that happy place,
Amang the rigs o' barley!
But by the moon and stars so bright,
That shone that hour so clearly!
She ay shall bless that happy night,
Amang the rigs o' barley.

ALT

I hae been blythe wi' Comrades dear;
I hae been merry drinking;
I hae been joyfu gath'rin gear;
I hae been happy thinking:
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw,
Tho' three times doubl'd fairly,
That happy night was worth them a',
Amang the rigs o' barley.

CHORUS
Corn rigs, an' barley rigs,
An' corn rigs are bonie:
I'll ne'er forget that happy night,
Amang the rigs wi' Annie.

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104d

Men slapped the ponies from pit bank to field,
slammed the gate shut and left them to their fortnight
but it rained solid so their poor backs turned black-sodden as old carpet.

Told not to, the boy went out with brown apples and endearments,
dug his nails into their manes, gave each one a Sunday name…

—Pippa Little, “Lammas Goldfish”
published in NAMING THE SNAKES: New Writing Scotland 44 (ASL, 2026)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws44/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Lammas

Pippa Little
Lammas Goldfish

for Ray

Men slapped the ponies from pit bank to field,
slammed the gate shut and left them to their fortnight
but it rained solid so their poor backs turned black-sodden as old carpet.

Told not to, the boy went out with brown apples and endearments,
dug his nails into their manes, gave each one a Sunday name. Then
saw it first, flickering, inner-lit through the gloom of their trough,

strange discarded thing from a drunken homecoming
the night of the Lammas fair, won for a kiss perhaps,
beautiful, the word hurt in his mouth.

And kept watch day after day as it swelled in its pink-gold
pomp, memorised every curved samurai scale,
its secret flowering. Until one morning early

he came to the field to find it gone,
the water numb and calm and grey
and every beast led back inside the earth.

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90d

From Sept 2025 – Dr Gerard McKeever, lecturer in modern Scottish literature at the University of Edinburgh, speaks about Walter Scott’s relationship with Scotland, particularly through the lens of his so-called “Scotch Novels”

@litstudies

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twvrXYw1Sus

#Scottish #literature #WalterScott #SirWalterScott #Scotland ##19thcentury #Victorian #novel

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97d

My new book 'Atlas Gothica: An Alternative Guide to the World's Most Curious Destinations' (Headline/Hachette) is now on pre-order! The book takes in 50 Gothic destinations around the world, including vampire-plagued Victorian graveyards, haunted English libraries, witch-haunted caves, mummy-stuffed catacombs, Dracula's Whitby and much more. You can discover the very raven the inspired Edgar Allan Poe, a Chinese city based on a blueprint of hell, the tombs of Voodoo queens, and the lair of the legendary Mothman. Grab it here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Atlas-Gothica-Alternative-Curious-Destinations/dp/1035434385/ #gothic #folklore #history #mythology #weird #paranormal #literature #travel #books #graveyard #death #ghost #vampire #vampires

The front cover, back cover and spine of the book 'Atlas Gothica: An Alternative Guide to the World's Most Curious Destinations' by David Castleton. The book has the title and blurb in silver lettering on a mainly black background, with silver highlights in an abstract map-like design.

The blurb reads: "Step off the tourist trail to discover 50 darkly captivating locations - from the eerie Lockrum Island monastery to the legendary lair of the Mothman, and from China's mysterious ghost city of Fengdu to the windswept moors that inspired 'Wuthering Heights'. With rich storytelling and atmospheric photography revealing the myths, legends and histories behind each destination, this is the ultimate gothic travel guide for anyone drawn to the dark side."

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90d

He will outlast us, churning out his books,
advocate and historian, his prose
earning him Abbotsford with its borrowed gates,
its cheap mementos from the land he made…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “At the Scott Exhibition, Edinburgh Festival”
published in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS (Carcanet, 2021)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800170940/deer-on-the-high-hills/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WalterScott #IainCrichtonSmith #writers #writing

AT THE SCOTT EXHIBITION, EDINBURGH FESTIVAL
Iain Crichton Smith

He will outlast us, churning out his books,
advocate and historian, his prose
earning him Abbotsford with its borrowed gates,
its cheap mementos from the land he made.
Walking the room together in this merciless
galaxy of manuscripts and notes
I am exhausted by such energy.
I hold your hand for guidance. Over your brow
the green light falls from tall and narrow windows.
His style is ignorant of this tenderness,
the vulnerable angle of your body
below the Raeburn with its steady gaze.

It was all in his life, not in his books
‘Oh I am dying, take me home to Scotland
where I can breathe though that breath were my last.’
He limped through an Edinburgh being made anew.
He worked his way through debts, past a dead wife.
My dear, we love each other in our weakness
as he with white grave face diminishing through
stroke after stroke down to the unpaid room.
We know what we are but know not what we will be.
I tremble in this factory of books.
What love he must have lost to write so much.

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89d

The Laird o’ Cockpen, he’s proud an’ he’s great,
His mind is ta’en up wi’ the things o’ the State…

Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne (1766–1845) was born #OTD, 16 Aug. Oliphant wrote over 100 popular songs to traditional Scottish tunes. Although she shunned publicity & never acknowledged her authorship, along with Robert Burns she is one of the most significant figures in Scottish folksong

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#Scottish #literature #song #folksong #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters #Scots #Scotslanguage

Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne
“The Laird o’ Cockpen”

The Laird o’ Cockpen, he’s proud an’ he’s great,
His mind is ta’en up wi’ the things o’ the State;
He wanted a wife, his braw house to keep,
But favour wi’ wooin’ was fashious to seek.

Down by the dyke-side a lady did dwell,
At his table head he thocht she’d look well,
M’Leish’s ae dochter o’ Clavers-ha’ Lea,
A penniless lass wi’ a lang pedigree.

His wig was weel pouther’d and as gude as new,
His waistcoat was white, his coat it was blue;
He put on a ring, a sword, and cock’d hat,
And wha could refuse the Laird wi’ a’ that?

He took the grey mare, and rade cannily,
And rapp’d at the yett o’ Clavers-ha’ Lea;
‘Gae tell Mistress Jean to come speedily ben, –
She’s wanted to speak to the Laird o’ Cockpen.’

Mistress Jean she was makin’ the elderflower wine;
‘An’ what brings the Laird at sic a like time?’
She put aff her apron, and on her silk goun,
Her mutch wi’ red ribbons, and gaed awa’ doun.

An’ when she cam’ ben, he bowed fu’ low,
An’ what was his errand he soon let her know;
Amazed was the Laird when the lady said ‘Na’,
And wi’ a laigh curtsie she turned awa’.

Dumfounder’d was he, nae sigh did he gie,
He mounted his mare – he rade cannily;
An’ aften he thought, as he gaed through the glen,
She’s daft to refuse the laird o’ Cockpen.

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91d

How Emperor Augustus Silenced Rome’s Most Famous Poet

At the height of his popularity in Rome, Augustus exiled the poet Ovid to the Black Sea. There, the whimsical author produced a striking series of poems.

https://www.thecollector.com/ovid-roman-poet-exile/

Ovid at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2868

#books #literature #poetry

In this painting by Anton von Werner, Ovid sits on a stone throne set in a shallow, arched niche. He wears a classical toga over his left shoulder and torso, leaving his right shoulder uncovered. He gazes a little to his left.

He holds a small rectangular writing tablet in his lap with his left hand. His right hand holds a stylus near his chin. He wears a simple wreath or band on his head, open-toed sandals, and sits with his right leg crossed over his left.

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103d

Last night, when the moon
slipped into my attic-room
disguised as an oblong of light,
I sensed she’d come to commiserate.

It was August. She travelled
with a small valise
of darkness, and the first few stars
returning to the northern sky…

—Kathleen Jamie, “Moon”
published in SELECTED POEMS, (Picador, 2018)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/selected-poems/9781509882953

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Moon
by Kathleen Jamie

Last night, when the moon
slipped into my attic-room
disguised as an oblong of light,
I sensed she’d come to commiserate.

It was August. She travelled
with a small valise
of darkness, and the first few stars
returning to the northern sky,

and my room, it seemed,
had missed her. She pretended
an interest in the bookcase
while other objects

stirred, as in a rock pool,
with unexpected life:
strings of beads in their green bowl gleamed,
the paper-crowded desk;

the books, too, appeared inclined
to open and confess.
Being sure the moon
harboured some intention,

I waited; watched for an age
her cool gaze shift
first toward a flower sketch
pinned on the far wall

then glide down to recline
along the pinewood floor,
before I’d had enough. Moon,
I said, we’re both scarred now.

Are they quite beyond you,
the simple words of love? Say them.
You are not my mother;
with my mother, I waited unto death.

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103d

Like an unnourished rose I see you now, and yours the
Pallor of that city of soot and pigeons…

—George Sutherland Fraser, “A Winter Letter (To my sister in London, from Asmara)”
published in From the Line: Scottish War Poetry 1914–1945 (ASL, 2014)

Today, 2 August, is Sisters Day

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #sisters #SistersDay #WarPoem #WarPoetry #WW2