GOLDEN BIRD: TWO ORKNEY STORIES (POLYGON)

These two long stories are set at a time when the pattern of Orkney’s life, little changed since the Vikings, was beginning to be threatened. The Golden Bird tells of the slow decline of an island community subject to the peculiar tensions of isolation and the unsettling influence of new values. In The Life and Death of John Voe, a typical young Orkney man comes home after whaling and sailing and gold-mining to devote the rest of his days to a beautiful country girl.