To say that Susan Fletcher's novel Corrag is the story of the Glencoe massacre as told by a witch-woman awaiting execution, is to convey nothing of the involuted complexity and beauty of this book, or of its limpid quality, like a cloudscape reflected in water - subtly shaded, shifting, depths within depths.
Corrag has fled from the north of England and taunts of "witch" and "hag", riding alone through Scotland and eventually seeking sanctuary in the Highland valley of Glencoe, home to a fierce and feared sept of the clan MacDonald. Her isolation suits her well at first but when her presence is discovered by members of the clan and her skills as a herbalist and healer bring her into close contact with their chief, The MacIain, she is accepted and made welcome. Her existence is still a harsh and solitary one, but this strange young woman with the ghost-grey eyes finds it is her heart rather than her head which guides her, never moreso than in the early morning of 13th. February, 1692, when soldiers receiving hospitality from the MacDonalds turned on their hosts and killed them, committing the heinous crime of murder under trust.
The book consists of Corrag telling her story while imprisoned in Inverary gaol awaiting trial by fire, her account interspersed with letters to his wife from her prison visitor, Charles Leslie, an Irishman and Jacobite who is there to find evidence of the Orange King William's hand in the massacre. At first he is wary of Corrag and finds her talk rambling, but gradually trust builds until the eventual outcome is not as the reader first suspects.
Not everyone will take to Corrag's as narrative voice: "her talking is like a river - running on and bursting into smaller rivers which lead nowhere", as Leslie says, but I found it mesmerising: distinctive and entirely fitting. Her account is like a tone poem in prose, individual words and phrases its constantly recapitulated themes, its pace and rhythm providing structure and scope. I found its stillness stilled my mind, while the book's strong sense of place held me firmly. I loved it and I applaud Susan Fletcher for this very original historical novel.
