The Outrun. Amy Liptrot
Published in Great Britain in 2016 by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2016 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Amy Liptrot 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 422 9
eISBN 978 1 78211 549 6
Typeset in Bembo Std by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire
CONTENTS
GLOSSARY
bonxie: great skua
burn: stream
byre: barn
caddie lamb: orphan lamb, reared by bottle
clapshot: mashed mixed neeps and tatties
dyke: drystone wall
geo: narrow inlet of sea in cliffs
grimlins: midsummer night sky
haar: sea fog
hillyans: mythical hill folk
holm (pr. ‘home’): offshore islet
kirk: church
kye: cattle
lum: chimney
lum reekin: chimney smoke
Merry Dancers: Northern Lights
midden: muck heap
muckle: big
neep: turnip
noust: hollow for storing small boats
peedie: small
selkie: seal
spoot: razor clam
steamer: ferry boat steamin’/blazin’/guttered: drunk
steeves: stone structures for building stooks
stooks: stacks of grain
swappin’ for auks: hunting seabirds
tangles: seaweed
tattie: potato
trows/trowies: trolls
teeicks: lapwings
tystie: black guillemot
whaups: curlews
yole: simple boat
PROLOGUE
UNDER WHIRRING HELICOPTER BLADES, a young woman holds her newborn baby as she is pushed in a wheelchair along the runway of the island airport to meet a man in a straitjacket being pushed in a wheelchair from the other direction.
That