However, once you grow accustomed to the style, it becomes both lilting and propulsive, such that I have more trouble deciding where to end my quotes than where to start. Even knowing what to expect, the effect is momentarily very strange and perhaps even a deal-breaker for those expecting the techniques of modern storytelling. It makes the novel feel distinctly personal, as a tale told directly to you, yet it’s also distancing – this is a tale of a while ago and Hunter does not play up the drama. Mollie Hunter was Scottish and she tried to recreate the feel of Shetland customs and concerns as such, there is a distinct cadence to the writing, a pattern of speech rather than straight narrative. The first thing to understand about A Stranger Came Ashore is that it is deliberately written in the style of an oral folktale. Concerned for his sister, Robbie sets out to discover the truth about the stranger – and when he does, he will need to find help, or Elspeth will suffer a terrible fate… Scottish author Maureen Mollie Hunter McIlwraith.

As omens appear in the funeral fire and Elspeth grows listless, Robbie begins to see something menacing behind Finn’s ready smile. Only twelve year old Robbie Henderson finds it hard to trust the stranger. Calling himself Finn Learson, the good-looking young man secures shelter in the Henderson household, charming the family and their neighbours and quietly making himself indispensable while paying court to his hosts’ lovely daughter Elspeth. It is a dark and stormy night on the Shetlands Islands when the Norwegian ship Bergen wrecks and a solitary man washes ashore in the isolated community of Black Ness.

Sign me up.įirst Line: It was a while ago, in the days when they used to tell stories about creatures called the Selkie Folk. The cover makes this look fairly campy, but the actual story hearkens to North Sea folktales.

A stranger came ashore by mollie hunter