|
The Guide to Mysterious Perthshire (Haunted Britain S.)
|
| List Price: | £14.99 |
| Price: | £12.74 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Delivery. Details |
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk
14 new or used available from £7.10
Average customer review:
Product Description
"The Guide to Mysterious Perthshire" contains everything folkloric, supernatural, paranormal, eccentric and odd that has been recorded about the county. The guide is a fascinating introduction to Perthshire's tombstones, simulacra, standing stones, gargoyles and archaeological curiosities; tales of ghosts, fairies, witchcraft, freak weather, strange deaths, tall tales and hoaxes. This is a guide for the armchair adventurer or the on-location visitor, with stories arranged in a sequence of easily found geographical locations. It is profusely illustrated with the author's own photographs and there are extensive references and endnotes to enable the reader to follow up the sources, if he should so wish.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #297000 in Books
- Published on: 2006-11-01
- Original language: English
- Binding: Paperback
- 192 pages
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Geoff Holder is an award-winning television and video writer and producer with wide experience in the field. He wrote and produced a popular six-part series Mysterious Scotland for ITV1 in Scotland in 2004 and contributed a regular column for the Perthshire Advertiser, also called 'Mysterious Perthshire'.
Customer Reviews
Mysterious Perthshire
I grew up in rural Perthshire and loved the mysterious stories of hermits, dragons, fairies washing their feet in ponds, and lone headless horsemen that went with the landscape popularly known as the gateway to the highlands. A spectacular view at the end of a mornings hiking was always, it seemed to me, so much more enjoyable when accompanied by the legend of the local witch cursing the mean spirited excise man.
A complete encyclopaedic overview of all the local tales has been long overdue, and Mr Holder has done very well in producing this for us. After a fairly brief but useful introduction, wherein, the author sets out the terms and topics he will be concerned with, the book is broken down into chapters each covering a smaller geographical area of Perthshire. The great advantage of this is that if you are off on a walk around Blairgowrie, you need only read the chapter on Strathmore.
The two great legends of Scots history based in Perthshire are Macbeth, and The Stone of Destiny; and while he admits that each of them would fill a book itself, he deals with the main versions of each legend in an even handed manner. In this sense the books serves as a taster, and if the reader goes to the superb bibliography at the back there are citations for further reading.
But the real benefit of Holders book is the amount of small, local detail under each of the headings, occasionally with an odd word from the author to let you know he hasn't suspended his disbelief too far. So if you are out on a walk, and see something Celtic carved on a standing stone, you can bet he has a short explanation of both the stone, and the later carved motif.
There are dozens of monochrome photographs throughout, and the book might have benefited from a few in colour, but this would no doubt have added disproportionately to the cost.
I would recommend you get yourself a copy of this if you have any interest in the history of Perthshire, or are a regular hiker are cyclist around its lochs; it's not a travel guide, but is an excellent supplementary volume if folklore and the supernatural are your area of interest.
Drew Mishmash
Absolutely fantasic
If I could give this book ten stars, i would!
Basically, if you want an entertaining guide to Perthshire, this is it! And if you want a great read - well, this is also it! I haven't been to this part of Scotland myself, but I absolutely loved it. He is so interested by things: stone carvings, wierd museum relics, news reports from the eighteenth century and bizarre stories of saints attacking monsters - and yet he also includes rich details such as the historical background to battles. Reading one of his books is like taking a 'Grand Tour', only with a guide with an absolutely wicked sense of humour who also likes wierd stories.
He makes you appreciate your surroundings so much more, and I am going to keep my eyes open next time I pass a church or graveyard. Look out for his 'Guide to Mysterious Loch Ness and the Inverness Area' too - I haven't laughed so much for ages, and his Nessie stories are great.
I could not recommend this book more
