Four Tales
By James Hogg
2001
First Published
3.63
Average Rating
144
Number of Pages
James Hogg's incomparable stories of the supernatural hark back to the oral traditions of his own upbringing and tales of wonder around the fireside. The Brownie of the Black Haggs tells of the eerie relationship between the violent-tempered Lady Wheelhope and her strange servant, the ill-favoured Merodach, who has 'the form of a boy, but the features of a hundred years old'. The Cameronian Preacher's Tale tells of murder, spiritual apparition and God's justice in a world of hidden bodies and uncertain witnesses. Mary Burnet is one of the 'traditionary tales' that Hogg loved to recount, while his poem Kilmeny offers another account of faerie visitation and a virgin's vision of the future. All of these pieces explore themes that echo in his masterpiece, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.
Avg Rating
3.63
Number of Ratings
30
5 STARS
20%
4 STARS
33%
3 STARS
37%
2 STARS
10%
1 STARS
0%
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Author
James Hogg
Author · 9 books
James Hogg was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a friend of many of the great writers of his day, including Sir Walter Scott, of whom he later wrote an unauthorized biography. He became widely known as the "Ettrick Shepherd", a nickname under which some of his works were published, and the character name he was given in the widely read series 'Noctes Ambrosianae', published in Blackwood's Magazine. He is best known today for his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. His other works include the long poem The Queen's Wake, his collection of songs Jacobite Reliques, and the novels The Three Perils of Man, The Three Perils of Woman, and The Brownie of Bodsbeck.
