Beside the Ocean of Time

In this beautifully crafted novel set on the fictitious island of Norday in the Orkneys, George Mackay Brown beckons us into the imaginary world of the young Thorfinn Ragnarson, son of a crofter. In his day dreams he relives the history of this island people, travelling back in time to join Viking adventurers at the court of the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, then accompanying a Falstaffian knight to the battle of Bannockburn. Thorfinn wakes to the twentieth century and a community whose way of life, steeped in legend and tradition has remained unchanged for centuries. George Mackay Brown intertwines myth and reality to create a novel of deceptive simplicity rooted in the timeless landscape of the Orkneys, the inspiration of all his writing