Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 20 on 10/04/2005.

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More wanderings in Scott’s steps

John Hannavy on the trail of Sir Walter Scott’s landscapes

One of the most enduringly appealing aspects of Sir Walter Scott’s writings was his ability to evoke the various faces and moods of the Scottish landscape in his works. Read some of his descriptions – actually they go beyond mere description – and you can see the places, experience the terrain, feel the wind, and smell the flora.

Add to that a uniquely well developed ability to weave historical fact and fiction seamlessly together and set them amidst those hugely evocative word pictures, and Scott’s enormous popularity becomes easy to understand.

It is Scott’s vivid description of the rugged landscapes of Scotland which attracted me to his epic poems, and The Lord of the Isles, first published in the year of Waterloo, 1815, is no exception. The great Battle of Waterloo was itself the subject of a poem completed a few months later.

The Lord of the Isles is set in the year 1307, with Robert the Bruce making his return to Scotland from exile on the island of Rachrin off the coast of Ireland. In telling the story, Scott draws heavily on Lord Hailes’ account of the history of Scotland and, as with all his narratives, both in verse and in prose, embellishes it as he goes along.

Although the poem is titled The Lord of the Isles, very little of it is set in the islands themselves – although I have concentrated on the islands in my selection of images – the majority of it being set in Scott’s favourite countryside around the Tweed, on the Argyllshire coast, on Arran, and around S.....

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By John Hannavy

Section : Scottish Landscapes

Page number : 18