Jim Hewitson

Down in the Glen Something Stirs Jim Hewitson

The year is 2037 and the world is plagued by drought, war, vast migrations of people from the arid lands with resultant social and economic meltdown. Abundant supplies of fresh water are beginning to give a newly independent Scotland a precious advantage in a much-changed Europe. Obituaries Editor Kal Gilroy finds himself in receipt of a strange gift from a recently deceased former girlfriend - the manuscript of a novel looking back at the Scottish independence referendum of 2014. This supposedly 'fictional' work bequeathed to Gilroy by folklorist Professor Jane Hill tells a very different story of the 2014 referendum from that taught in university classes or recorded in the electronic journals of the period. 'Down in the Glen Something Stirs' is essentially a novel within a novel suggesting that behind day-to-day life in Scotland in 2014, hidden forces are at work. In deepest Stirlingshire something stirs in response to this potentially historic moment. Unlikely focus of activity is the sleepy village of Auchenblane. In this Lowland Brigadoon a clandestine community of 'guid folk', enterprising elementals, are seeking out their human doubles from their base in a strange mansion called Shadowside and an internet café-shop - the Faery Dell. They have a radical Celtic agenda for the new Scotland.