THE QUANTUM OF HAPPINESS

Three Scottish Islands: Orkney, Lewis and South Uist

Part I: ISLANDS OF THE WILD BOAR PEOPLE

Ornithology I

Chapter One: A Spindle Whorl
Chapter Two: The Italian Chapel: A Love Story
Chapter Three: ‘Spaik Right, Beuy’
Chapter Four: Dwarfie Stane
Chapter Five: Leopards in the Temple
Chapter Six: The Basso Profundo of Tom Muir
Chapter Seven: Hermit’s Ghost
Chapter Eight: Cowboy Puck

Part II: THE HEATHER ISLE (Eilean an fhraoich)

Ornithology II

Chapter Nine: The Quantum of Happiness
Chapter Ten: Are There Apples in Gaeldom?
Chapter Eleven: ‘A Shimmering Kaleidoscopic Harmony’
Chapter Twelve: This Thing of Darkness
Chapter Thirteen: The Silver Shield
Chapter Fourteen: Town Bard / Bàrda a bhaile
Chapter Fifteen: The White Road
Chapter Sixteen: ‘Say We Went the Night’: Will Maclean in Lewis
Chapter Seventeen: God, Herring and Potatoes
Chapter Eighteen: The Old Soldiers of Uig
Chapter Nineteen: At the Whiskey Club with Alastair McIntosh
Chapter Twenty: ‘Blest Be the Boat’

Part III: THE LAND OF BENT GRASS (Tir A’Mhurain)

Ornithology III

Chapter Twenty-One The Gargoyle
Chapter Twenty-Two Traveller
Chapter Twenty-Three The Speaking Stone
Chapter Twenty-Four Those Magnificent Fergusons
Chapter Twenty-Five All Things Strange
Chapter Twenty-Six Maighstir Cailean
Chapter Twenty-Seven The Priest’s Stone

NOTES & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS