G. Lawson White

WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE DISORDER.  WE ARE PRESENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION AND LOOKING FORWARD TO GREAT THINGS AS WE INTRODUCE TWO NEW WORKS FROM THE IMAGINATION OF

G. LAWSON WHITE.  

It's been a long journey from a trip to Scotland to the completion of the fourth in a series of historical fiction fantasies placed in a land that can only be described as enchanted.  Storyteller, poet and artist, indie author G. Lawson White mingles the folklore and history of Celtic lands with magic and miracles to create tales where faeries flourish, mysterious creatures emerge, and wizards and witches become commonplace. 

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Changing Tides of Time ~ A Journey Across Scotland is the first in a series of historical fiction fantasies by G. Lawson White taking you on a journey across 13^th Century Scotland and into its famed Highlands in search of the Flying Wizard Michael Scot. 

When young Colin MacLaren stumbles across a pile of carved stones in a graveyard near his home in Stirling, Scotland, he has no idea the journey he is about to embark upon.  A message sent through time on the echo of a shadowy figure from an ancient and mysterious past, the lad finds himself a traveler across time to 13^th Century Scotland.  Far from the comfort and security of home and family, Colin realizes there is only one who can send him back to his rightful place in time, that being the legendary Flying Wizard, Michael Scot.  Trekking across the land to find the elusive sorcerer, Colin acquires an unusual set of traveling companions who vow to accompany him to the Highlands where Scot is reported to be waiting for him. 

Once the wizard is met, Colin and his friends have reservations about traveling with one of such notorious notoriety.  And why shouldn’t they?  Scot is a renowned practitioner of the black arts.  A magician, a scholar, a literary genius, a scientist and, yes, even an ordained holy man, Michael Scot’s interests are vast and varied.  And Scot has in his possession a book documenting his life’s work.  The Book of Lies is dangerous business indeed. 

But distance is far between the Highlands and Melrose Abbey in the Lowlands where the troop must journey for the long time spell on the wizard to reach its conclusion, thereby ending the necessity for Colin’s 13^th Century presence.  But is it possible for the lad to be sent home?  Does Scot really wield that kind of magic? 

Weaving history, myth and magic, a tapestry emerges where Colin and Scot discover that their destinies are linked together by more than just the remnants of the wizard’s headstone that the lad found in his future time. 

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You are invited to read an excerpt from Changing Tides of Time

Chapter 1 ~ The Whispering Stones

Sandstone, the most fragile of all rocks.  To hold in the hand and rub its grainy surface, it’s so easy to see how it came by its name.  A handful of sand, then an unpredictable wisp of wind and it’s back to the earth from whence it came.

Why then would a monument of such great importance be chiseled from a thing so brittle yet delicate?  Carved in stone is hardly the permanent state we have come to believe.  A headstone to mark the memory of a loved one, a king, a commoner, an artist or a poet is victim equal in the eyes of the forces of nature.  The ravages of wind and rain upon hilltop high take full advantage of such little protection from the elements.  And snow and ice are more evil still until the date inscribed upon wastes away, the name becomes a faint whisper in the whole of time, and once it falls to the ground and crumbles into pieces, it becomes just another rock strewn among the unruly blades of grass to be trampled by those unaware and unconcerned with its once noteworthy status.

On any given day, dozens of pilgrims walk the cobblestone streets of Stirling making their way to Castle Hill.  Eons ago, the molten rock welled up from the violent depths of the earth to create the volcanic sill on which Stirling Castle now stands, firmly planted as if the structure itself grows from the dolomite, basalt, quartz and black coal.

But before reaching the castle, at the meeting of St. John Road and Broad Street, you’ll come to Kirkyard and Holy Rude Graveyard.  Headstones here go back to the 16^th Century, the earliest dating to 1579 in honor of Stonemason Gibb where he rests near his family members.  Some of the headstones seem rather gruesome, carved with skulls, skeletons, crossbones and snakes on the earliest stones.  Graceful scrolls and floral designs decorate stones of later vintage.  Symbols may tell a person’s occupation: a plow for a farmer, shovel and rake for a gardener, a chisel and hammer for a stonemason.  Standing upon high are the intricately interwoven curls and swirls of the Celtic crosses.

Here in the shadow of Stirling Castle the grass is the greenest you’ll ever see on this earth and it is here that our story begins.

To a child, how is a cemetery any different from a park with its green grass to run and romp on and sturdy rocks to climb and jump off?

It’s that magical time of evening where the shadows loom long, lending an eerie presence to the landscape.  But it’s also at this time that few visitors linger and Holy Rude becomes a private playground for one.

He is the knight.  He can be Robert the Bruce or William Wallace.  He can fight the Boer War with the Argyll Highlanders.  He may be a noble or a commoner.  With imagination, anything is possible here.

Today, he plays the part of the hunter gatherer.  Daisies, bluebells and grasses are picked, investigated and pocketed for later cataloging.  A ladybug brings good luck this fine evening as it strolls across a clover leaf, then takes a symbolic flight of freedom to King’s Knot in the valley far, far below.

A whisper of will o’ the wisp skirts the wind across the daisy-dotted grass, its intention all along seemingly to catch the attention of the imaginative one and lead him to Kirkyard, the oldest part of the cemetery.  While dashing between the headstones, the lad is hardly easy prey even for the wily wisp, if one is to believe in such things, and folks in these parts surely do.

Will o’ the wisp appears as an atmospheric, pale flame, a ghostly light appearing in the haze over damp ground.  Associated with spirits of the dead who are unable to enter either heaven or hell, wisps find themselves forever doomed to wander the earth, leading the unwary traveler astray as an elusive goal that cannot be reached.

 And with this particular wisp is carried a message, the echo of a shadowy figure from an ancient and mysterious past, a traveler across time and all the space between who lives only in the memory of the rocks that used to be the headstone documenting his existence so many, many years ago… 

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Michael Scot and the Isle of Skye

Michael Scot was a changed man.  There was no doubt about that.  He had been granted a gift that few are blessed with; a second chance at life.  Overwintering in Edinburgh after his experience at Melrose Abbey offered him time to consider what life would have in store for him next.  He had promised the lad Colin MacLaren that he would visit the Isle of Skye one last time before his years on this earth were through, and Colin vowed that he too would travel to the Misty Isle, although the time between would seem insurmountable. 

Scot's tour leads through the Eastern Highlands to the North Sea and across Scotland's most northerly reach, a journey that he had not taken in over twenty-five years.  Adopting Father Killian's habit of picking up strays along the way he agrees to take on a guide, a young man who, like Scot, has a secret of his own. 

But the wizard's tale wouldn't be complete without a certain amount of magic, and visitations with witches, the enchanted and faerie folk are most likely in the forecast even for one who has since discarded the robe of a wizard, leaving his magical staff and, presumably, the Flying Wizard's book of magic, The Book of Lies, buried beneath the earth at his gravesite at Melrose Abbey.  And no one could visit the Isle of Skye without sensing that some enchantment is inherent in the Isle of Mist's very being.   

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COMING SOON!  An excerpt from Michael Scot and the Isle of Skye.