Miriam Hastings, author

Beltane in the Highlands.

I grew very sweet on Donald MacLeod, and the following April I looked forward to the lighting of the Beltan fires even more than was usual, for my dream was of dancing with him and I dearly hoped he would choose me for a partner.
We called the month of May the time of Yellow Beltane for the brae would be covered with the bright yellow flowers of the gorse, and it was on the first day of May we would build the great fires for Beltan.  Beltan was a feast I loved - so exciting it made my heart pound and my blood throb in my veins.  Fire!  Fire, blaze and burn the witches!

We were, and are, good Christian people - the Gospel was preached at both ends of the Strath and few, if any, would fail to worship on the Sabbath.  My family attended the mission at Achness across the river, and we said prayers together before bed every night.  But there is a saying, generations old, Keep all the gods happy, pay to each a tribute.  This was why we lit the fires for Beltan, even though the Kirk frowned on them.

On the morning of the first of May, to protect the cattle from witches and any evil geas of the fey folk, Grandmother fastened a piece of rowan-tree over the door of the byre, using iron nails, of course, iron being the metal of power.  I went with Peter and Iain up the brae and helped collect dried furze, broom, peat and turves, and then together with the young people from all the townships in the south end of the Strath, we built two bonfire piles in large trenches the lads had dug ready.  I made sure we joined company with Donald and the others from Rosal while we were busy at this work.
We left a passage clear between the piles and then we returned home to wait until sundown.  At this time of year the sun is already setting late in the evening, and the waiting seemed so long!  Georgie and I couldn't sit still for excitement - my stomach began to hurt with it.  Mother and Grandmother gathered with the other women to bake the Beltan cakes, which would be brought to the fires.
Sunset came in the end, and all the households along the Strath made their way up the hill to the still and watchful piles, now standing out dark against the gold and crimson of the evening sky.  The head man of each house thrust a lighted brand into one of the piles and when the both were fully caught and crackling with flames, each homestead in turn brought our cattle close, one at a time, and we drove the beasts along the path between the two great blazing bonfires.  By doing this we ensured their good health and safety during the coming months in the summer pastures.  Once all the cattle had gone through, lowing and bellowing with fear, we let them loose to graze upon the hillside, while we young ones began the dancing.  At first we danced three times southways round the burning piles, shouting the ritual chant, Fire! blaze and burn the witches.  Then we danced anyway we chose, making up a foursome for the reels, wild and joyful, for summer had now properly begun.
My brother, Peter, was a bold, reckless lad, and he enjoyed displaying his fearlessness, dancing and leaping dangerously near the flames, showing off in front of all the girls who watched him with admiration, for he was a bonnie youth.  Iain was more careful and cautious around the fires, although he was just as brave by nature.  I loved my brothers and felt proud of them too, for they were strong and tall and beautiful to look upon, as well as clever and skilful at all they did.  They had many partners for the dancing, for they were both popular with the lassies.  It seemed unfair to me that I was left minding little Georgie when I wanted to be dancing with the older lads, and my heart was smarting all the more because Donald didn’t notice me even once.
The women brought out the Beltan cakes and divided one up between the men.  The other cake was kept until the fires were burnt low.  I was just fourteen years old now and so, for the first time, I was old enough to join in the dancing across the embers that would follow next.  The old Widow MacKenzie, our midwife and wise woman, rolled the second cake through each fire in turn while we young people danced after it across the hot ashes.  You had to be quick and nimble and leap high over the glowing parts.  I hesitated, for my feet were bare and the embers looked red hot.  But then Donald noticed my fear and he came running back, holding out his hand to me.
“Run with me, Grace,” he said, “and jump high when I tell you to jump, and you will do fine so.”
I did as he told me, laughing and screaming as we leapt high together, and sure enough we crossed both the fires safely without a burn to our feet.  In truth, I think even had my feet been scorched, I wouldn’t have noticed so glad I was to be with him.  But then, to my grief, he left me soon afterwards and took no more notice of me, although the dancing went on and on - until the night had grown quite dark and the fires had gone quite out.

Miriam Hastings’ latest novel, The Dowager’s Dream, is available now in paperback from FeedARead Publishing. Also as an e-book on Kindle: The Dowager’s Dream.

In a crumbling mansion on the north coast of Scotland, the Dowager grows old; exiled there by her son, the Laird, she dreams of her girlhood and waits for death, but when the tenants keep talking of a monster in the sea, she becomes obsessed with the strange creature living in the bay beyond her windows.

The people claim the sea monster portends disaster and they are right for the Laird has grand plans to improve the estate. He intends to evict all the tenants from their crofts in order to turn the land over to an army of sheep.

Can the Dowager stand up to her unscrupulous son? If she does, she may have to pay a terrible price.

Walking Shadow, Miriam Hasting’s first historical novel, was published in November 2019 under the name of M W Hastings, and is available direct from FeedaRead Books as well as through Amazon. It is also available as an e-book on Kindle. This is a historical novel with profoundly modern themes: the fear of terrorism, political manipulation of information, and issues of religious fundamentalism and intolerance.

Edmund (aka Rosamund) Shakespeare, younger sibling of William and lead player of female roles with the King’s Men, is the narrator and central protagonist. When the novel opens, it is January 1606 and London is a dangerous place; the gunpowder plot has just been foiled, spies and informers are everywhere, and Edmund is a prisoner in the Tower, charged with treason. 

The Minotaur Hunt.

Miriam’s first novel, winner of the MIND Book of the Year Award, is a present-day story with a legendary model. To the people of Crete, the Minotaur was traditionally a creature of darkness and horror. Locked in a labyrinth where no-one could see him, he became the scapegoat for everyone’s worst imaginable nightmares and terrors.

Chrissie and Rachel are Minotaurs. They meet in Bradley, a rambling Victorian institution for the mentally ill. As the novel unfolds and their respective stories are gradually revealed, their growing relationship becomes a rich source of shared experience and a focus for their deepening knowledge of themselves.

Some reviews of Miriam Hastings’ The Minotaur Hunt:

[An author] “of great talent and wit, the courage to lead us through purgatory and the tenderness to love and understand its inhabitants.” Monica Dickens.

“There are echoes of romantic fiction, but there is also a whiff of grim realism . . . Underlying the narrative is an impressive refusal to attempt glib explanations.” Bernard Ineichen.

“Miriam Hastings’ The Minotaur Hunt is an engrossing novel set in a mental health institution and in the minds of some of its patients. . .The positive portrayal is very well done, yet it does not pull any punches about the difficulties faced by those with serious mental illness”, Mercia McMahon.

“No matter how dark the labyrinthe of emotions, there is always redemption for the human condition, and this sensitivity to lightness, back-to-back with the darkness, is where Hastings’ writing is at its finest. It has the voice of authenticity.” Vine Voice.

“The Minotaur Hunt is beautifully written with an immediacy and urgency that has you turning the pages”, The Bub.

 New Work

Miriam Hastings has recently completed a new novel, The Dowager’s Dream, a surreal fantasy set on the north coast of Scotland at the time of the brutal clearances in the Scottish Highlands.  The novel was inspired by the (largely imagined) lives of Miriam’s great great-grandmothers, Margaret MacKenzie and Christine Patterson, and also by an account written in 1809 by a minister’s daughter, describing a mermaid she had seen in Sandside Bay, Caithness. Although The Dowager’s Dream is set in the early years of the 19th Century, the themes of dispossession and ethnic cleansing will resonate with the contemporary reader.