Review: The Loch of the Bees

Donald S Murray, The Loch of the Bees, (Saraband/Contraband, 2026)

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8613951916

The story of a Hebridean loch, with bees

Guss struggles to his feet beside Loch nan Seillean (Lake of the Bees) after a battle, bees, messengers to the afterlife, buzzing around the bodies on top of him. He and his clansmen had come to this part of the island to raid.

Some time later, Brother Colm builds his shieling (hut) there, a haven away from St Catan’s Chapel. Supplicants come to seek his healing; Brother Dicuil has told them where he is. Before the Norsemen came.

We feel the raw beauty of the Hebridean isles, winds whistling over tree-less hills, cushioned with heathers and lichens, the Northern Lights in the night skies over the mountains, a heron waiting motionless for a trout. Gods’ country, both the old gods and the new. Here be the demons of Hebridean folklore, the murderous Mac an t-Srònaich, the lake monster Searrach Uisge.

From time to time, the dialogue sounds like it’s been translated from another language, where sometimes I fancy I hear them speaking in Gaelic.

The novel has an innovative structure. There’s no plot per se; instead, it’s a series of vignettes with the loch as setting. Interspersed are invented news articles, entries from logbooks, songs in Gaelic. It tells a long story of life around the loch (modelled on Loch Dibadale), from the eighth to the twenty-first century; each age with its own protagonist.

The eighth century Highlander, the anchorite who can’t escape the crowds, pilgrims seeking miracles from St Catan, the fishermen pressganged onto a British warship to fight Napolean, the schoolboy who refuses to speak English, the people driven from the land by Lord Langavat. Each leave clues in the bog to the mysteries in their lives, mysteries the bees continue to whisper.

The author was inspired by the archaeological treasures he’s found in various island lochs.

This review first appeared in Historical Novels Review.