CONTENTS

1.  "There she Blows!"
2.  Goturm's Hole
3.  Dogs and Superdogs
4.  Trouble with the Trolls
5.  The Wreck of the Harvest Rose
6.  "The Best Laid Schemes"
7.  Feynesses and Fancies

Gallant soldier, classical scholar, local historian and beloved headmaster - Andrew Thomas Cluness was a distinguished member of the Shetland community for the greater part of this century. He was of a generation which regarded service to the community as a natural obligation in return for the gift of education. As a writer he is associated with three significant books:  Shetland Isles, Told Round the Peat Fire and Shetland Education Committee's  The Shetland Book, all of which have become standards in Shetland literature.

It is now almost forty years since the first publication of  Told Round the Peat Fire, and a brief biographical note may not come amiss. A.T. Cluness was born in Uyeasound in 1890 and his precocious scholasticism ensured a bursary to the Anderson Educational Institute and entry to Edinburgh University, where he achieved first class honours in classics. The tides of war swept him and two of his younger brothers through the carnage of France and Belgium. Another two brothers served at sea, and very much against the odds, all five survived to return to Shetland. Andrew was wounded on four occasions and received the Military Medal and Bar in acknowledgement of his bravery.

Early in his teaching career Andrew was appointed rector of the Anderson Institute and oversaw many advances in the educational system and a trebling of the school roll during nearly thirty years in the same post. He had retired before I reached high school but I have since heard many former pupils echo James W. Irvine's simple tribute in  The Years Between:

In Class One we didn't meet him a great deal, but even at that tender age he treated us as people, and we had no difficulty in realising that he was a caring man. As I rose through the classes I saw more and more of him, and by the time I left the Institute I knew I was unlikely ever to meet a finer man. Andrew Cluness retired to his roots in Uyeasound, and died in 1966.

Now, happily, a new generation of readers can draa dem in aboot, bal anidder paet on da fire and rejoice in a literal reflection of that fine old tradition of island storytelling, with just a hint of Aesop's Fables into the bargain. Andrew's inherently kindly nature and fund of good humour illuminate these absorbing yarns; "There she Blows!" recalls the great adventures of Greenland whqling, tall tales enhanced by a treatise from a Classical Greek historian; my uncle always had a favourite mutt by his side, and "Dogs and Superdogs" will remind many readers of the idiosyncrasies of their trusted best friends; "Trouble with the Trolls " is an inspired reconstruction of the lifestyle of these mystic mischief-makers, narrating the abduction of a local worthy a thousand years before Rip van Winkle. The whole book is instilled with the author's complete devotion to his island home, from "Goturm's Hole" at one end of Unst, to "Glatna Kirk" at the other, creating an incomparable blend of historical fact, vivid scenic detail and treasured folklore.