I know I am a little bit behind with everything. I have not even watched the fifth season yet because I had some guests at home. However, I have been reading again book 5. I am aware that many describe The Fiery Cross as not an easy read. It looks like the plot starts slowly because it is building up to something. The question is what exactly it is building up to. There are several plotlines in the book, and I tend to suspect that everything is progressing towards the events of book 6, A Breath of Snow and Ashes. As a blogger, I find book five and book six fascinating. My recommendation is to read the following post that I wrote a few years back, White Animals and the King of Ireland. I am sharing this post because it provides a lot of information to many subsequent events in The Fiery Cross. Of course, I am still puzzled about why Jamie becoming the King of Ireland towards the end of the dream symbolizes. I subsequently learned that many Kings of Ireland ended up being brutally sacrificed and in bogs. For more information about this, I suggest reading the following post. Who is the Tithe/Teind?
I will be writing three main blog posts about details that have caught my attention in this reread project.
Roger’s Shaving Incident (Chapter 1)
. . . They don’t call them cutthroat razors for nothing, aye?”
The gash had already crusted into a neat dark line, a cut some inches long, angled down from the corner of his jaw across the side of his throat . . . the blade of the razor had cut straight in, no flap of skin needing suture. . . . it did look as though he had tried to cut his throat.
I was wondering whether this passage foreshadows Roger’s hanging.
Animistic Beliefs (Chapter 1)
Claire sees a raven out of a sudden and describes the animal as a bird of omen. Then, she realizes that she is being superstitious.
. . . . Live with Highlanders long enough, and every damn rock and tree meant something!
. . . . All my scattered thoughts receded, as I listened for the voice of rocks and trees — and heard the bell of the mountain strike once, somewhere deep beneath my feet.
I might have stood thus enchanted for some time, all thought of breakfast forgotten, but the voices of rocks and trees hushed and vanished with the clatter . . .
One might think that it is Jamie, who has influenced Claire to connect with her natural surroundings. However, Claire has a natural tendency to connect with the natural world and inanimate objects, especially fossils and bones. Good examples include when she was able to determine the manner of death for both Otter Tooth and Geillis. She was exactly looking at their skulls and was able to get the essence of what exactly happened to them without doing much of forensic analysis. In book 2, she experiences something similar while being at Raymond’s Ossuary. I suggest reading the following blog posts Raymond’s Ossuary and Skulls and Bone Reading. I suspect Claire inherited these sensorial skills, as well a time-traveling, from her ancestor, Raymond.
Lizzie’s Menarche (Chapter 2)
Lizzie’s interaction with Private Ogilvie caught Jamie’s attention. He tells Claire that he will be looking for a husband for Lizzie. I guess single women were expected at that time not to interact with single men, especially a stranger, even if the conversation is out of courtesy. I wonder whether she was sad that he was leaving and whether she was attracted to Private Ogilvie. This scene foreshadows what Lizzie will eventually do when it comes to marriage in subsequent books.
The Business with the Thief-Taker (Chapter 2)
There is the revelation that Rob McGillivray was involved in killing somebody at Ardsmuir: ” . . . That business at Ardsmuir was all long ago and done wi’, aye?” I guess this is a reference to the murder of one of the Murchinson twins, of which Tom Christie was present.
Regarding the Murchinson twins, there is a reference to them in Chapter 7. Claire is removing a piece of shrapnel from Hayes’s body. It turns out that the person responsible for that was a Sargeant Murchinson. He was about to stab Hayes, who was eleven back then and fighting for Prince Charles at Culloden. The exciting thing about this story is that Jamie is the one who rescued young Hayes by hitting Murchinson at the head. It is a very heroic act that Jamie could not recall. Even though young Hayes seems suspicious, he is thankful for Jamie saving him. This event explains the Murchinson twins’ hatred towards Jamie. However, they are naturally despicable.
Furthermore, Hayes’s appearance at the Gathering seems to be more associated with looking for revenge against the Murchinson twins. He feels pleased to see Claire’s reaction to the “Murchinson” last name when he tells her about his experience at Culloden. Somehow it seems he was tracking the last of the Murchinson twins down. One wonders whether he is familiar with the story of Quarry being suspicious of Jamie in the death of a Murchinson at Ardsmuir. It is also interesting that he is at Mount Helicon, where many former prisoners of Ardsmuir, some of them involved in the murder of one of the twins, are present.
Abel MacLennan (Chapter 2)
Abel is a character that has lost everything – his property, his children, and his wife. The description of his surroundings and other characters as dead resembles in a way how Claire felt without Jamie in the twentieth century when she thought he was dead: ” . . .to find that the sense of unreality persisted. Everything around him seemed no more than a waking dream. MacLennan himself seemed to have ceased to exist; . . . None of the outer world existed any longer. . .”
Contraception Methods (Chapter 3)
Brianna is concerned about having contracted a venereal disease from Bonnet, especially after seeing her mother treat a child with congenital syphilis. Claire gives her information about some herbal contraceptive methods. In this conversation, Claire mentions how Amerindians understand pregnancy, which will play a significant role in Ian’s story. The man’s spirit has to overwhelm the woman’s spirit for her to becomes pregnant. According to Nayawenne’s teachings, there are herbs or seeds to prevent that. In Chapter 10, Claire receives some small dark brown seeds called dauco by the Amerindians, which prevent pregnancy. They turn out to be a gift by a character, Grannie Bacon, whose grandmother was a medicine woman.
The Possibly “Possessed” White Sow (Chapter 19)
For this particular topic, I suggest reading the following post first to understand the white sow. White Animals and the King of Ireland. First, white is a color associated with peace and happiness, according to the Cherokee shamanistic system. However, those words do not describe the white sow at all. She is a dangerous animal due to her “wildness.” Of course, there are some good things about her because she is fertile.
The big white sow, while possessed of superior fatness and amazing reproductive capacity, was also a creature of low cunning, and impatient of captivity (ch. 19).
The trick to understanding the white sow is probably comparing her to the white bear. In subsequent chapters, the Cherokee think the white bear is not a real animal.
Given the color of this bear, as well as its stubborn and malicious behavior, it was apparent that it was not a real bear, but rather some malign spirit that had decided to manifest itself as a bear (ch. 82)
Thus the atrociousness of the bear’s conduct; white animals normally were accorded respect and considered to be carriers of messages from the otherworld – . . . – but this bear was not behaving in any manner they understood (ch 82).
Did the Cherokee believe that the white bear was possessed by a spirit associated with death (and the West)? Since the white sow exhibits an erratic behavior that does not match her color, it is possible to assume that she might be possessed by a wild and fierce spirit, not necessarily an evil one.
In chapter 19, Hermon Husband has been distributing some pamphlets supporting the Regulators. He reaches Fraser’s Ridge, and he is unable to dissuade Jamie in creating a militia supporting Governor Tryon. However, Jamie offers him to take care of his family since Mr. Husband is unable to pay his taxes. He leaves Jamie a mare:
Her name is Jerusha, but my wife calls her Mistress Piggy; I am afraid she does possess a great appetite,” he added apologetically to Jamie, who had stiffened perceptibly at the word “pig.” (ch. 19)
“Jerusha” is a Jewish name, and it means “inheritance, possession.” I guess the name is a perfect match to the situation that Hermon Husband is facing. He leaves the mare to Jamie because he does not want her to fall in the hands of Sheriff Anstruther. Furthermore, Jamie is supposed to give the horse back to members of Hermon’s family if they ever need her. The reason why Jamie does not like the Mistress Piggy name is related to the white sow that has escaped her pen just before the arrival of Hermon Husband.
The meaning of the name Jerusha and the comparison of the mare’s appetite to one of a pig (and Jamie’s reaction to the name Mistress Piggy) imply that probably the white sow is possessed by a wild and feral spirit.
I hope you enjoyed this post. I will be publishing another one in a week from now.