Since then, it has been said, that when a descendant of the man who loved the dog is near death, a vision of the big grey dog shows itself to them. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look on this type of dog again without thinking about this story. She fell on him with joy as she used to do, but when her offspring saw what she was doing, they misunderstood and came to her “rescue”. They came to an island on which had been living the big grey dog. Some time later the man was out on the water with his sons. One spring, when she was pregnant for puppies, she disappeared and did not come home. The dog became known as “the big grey dog”.
And the man had a dog of which he was very fond. Once there was a family with a Highland name who lived beside the sea. Ghosts aren’t nearly so bad as attacking dogs and dead fathers. Once you get past the first part of the story, it gets easier to bear. Why did I go on? Because the cadence of his writing lured me on with the hope of good things to come. Not only is it ghost-y, but it’s also horribly sad with a terribly graphic and heartbreaking scene of brutality.
This is more of a ghost story than anything else a haunting tale passed down through generations. So I chose As Birds Bring Forth the Sun – sounds summery, right? (I can hear those of you who know this story laughing at me already.) How wrong I was. I felt like it was time for another short story from Alistair MacLeod’s Island collection, and thought it would be nice to find one appropriate for summer.
0 kommentar(er)
