Book review: Columba’s Bones, by David Greig
David Greig is well known as a prolific, successful and much admired playwright. Columba’s Bones is his first work of prose fiction. It is the fourth book to be published in an interesting Polygon series entitled Darkland Tales, described as “dramatic retellings of stories from the nation’s history, myth and legend”. Previous books in the series have been written by Denise Mina, Jenny Fagan and Alan Warner. So far they have all been short books, novellas rather than novels, an afternoon or evening’s reading.
Columba’s Bones is set, of course, on Iona. The year is 825, more than 250 years after St Columba’s death. He died at the altar of his own church and was buried there, but a hundred years later his bones were carried off to Ireland. They were later returned to Iona but at some time disappeared, probably as a result of a Viking Raid. Greig’s novella begins with such a raid, and a very bloody and brutal one. The Abbot is murdered for refusing to reveal where the saint’s bones are, whereupon the marauders run riot, monks are slaughtered crying “alleluia” as they yield to matryrdom, the abbey is sacked and buildings destroyed before the raiders sail away, disappointed and disgruntled.
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Hide AdOne Viking, however, remains behind, a veteran called Grimur. His best days are behind him, though he can still make up songs and can still use a sword or axe – which indeed he does, when he finds encounters the island’s blacksmith and makes short and nasty work of him. Greig doesn’t shrink from slaughter, and this novella is as violent as a Tarantino movie.
After the departure of the longboats there is a silence on the island. Apart from Grimur (who had passed out, drunk) there are only the Smith’s woman and a novice monk called Martin left. A local king calls in with his men, buries the monks and offers to take the survivors away, but they refuse. Then Grimur wakes up, surprised to find himself stranded. The Smith’s widow, the island’s apiarist, gives him a cup of the mead she makes.
She didn’t care much for the smith anyway, and Grimur – for the moment, anyway – has had enough of killing. Meanwhile, young Martin is religiously performing the offices of the Church. Gradually some sort of relationship, even friendship, develops between the three survivors. The woman cares for the man and boy, Grimur even begins to rebuild the Church whem he sees that Martin’s first attempts are feeble, and then, astonishingly, he becomes interested in Martin’s real work, the salvaging and restoration of an illuminated manuscript. There is even something idyllic about the middle passages of the book. But then the Viking ships return with Grimur’s old master, the ferocious chief Helgi, still in search of the bones – a valuable relic. What will Grimur do?
This is a nicely balanced book with some fine poetic touches. The balance is there because Greig, while maintaining a light touch, contrives to offer echoes of the Norse Sagas in all their ferocious and poetic intensity while at the same time, in his evocation of Iona itself and his depiction of the young Monk Martin, he captures the spirit of Celtic Christianity and the beauties of the Celtic Church. The narrative is both light and rapid. There are times when the beauty of his writing and evocation of times past evoke memories of that great Orcadian writer George Mackay Brown. While one wouldn’t wish him to abandon the threatre (and of course, it’s unlikely that he will) I hope he may write some more fiction, whether short stories, novellas like this one or full-scale novels.)
One hopes that Polygon will persist with this series of Darkland Tales, too. There are so many episodes in Scottish history which cry out for this kind of treatment – the assassination of James I, poet and king, for instance, or that still puzzling episode in the reign of James VI, the Gowrie Conspiracy, while there is undoubtedly room for another treatment of the Macbeth story.
Columba’s Bones, by David Greig, Polygon, £10