Asterix comic published in Gaelic and Scots

Comic book hero Asterix the Gaul visits the Highlands on his latest adventure which has been published in Gaelic and, for the first time, in Scots.

Jean-Yves Ferri launches Asterix and the Picts in Scotland earlier thsi year. Picture: Robert Perry

Asterix and the Picts (Asterix ann an Duthaich nan Cruithneach/Asterix and the Pechts) tells the story of Asterix and sidekick Obelix’s journey from ancient Gaul to Iron Age Scotland inhabited by Pictish clans.

The pair don kilts and discover whisky, the bagpipes, the origins of Hadrian’s Wall and the location of the Loch Ness Monster.

Illustrator Albert Uderzo invented the warrior Gaul with scriptwriter Rene Goscinny in 1959. Goscinny died in 1977 and Uderzo took over the writing until his retirement two years ago.

A girl reads Asterix and the Picts in French. Picture: Getty

Author Jean Yves-Ferri and illustrator Didier Conrad are behind the 35th book in the much-loved series which spawned an Asterix theme park in France.

Asterix has appeared once before in Gaelic, in Asterix nan Ceilteach (Asterix the Gaul) in 1989. A Scots edition has not appeared until now.

The Gaelic and Scots versions of Asterix and the Picts were overseen by Alun Ceri Jones of Dalen Books which produces the series in Welsh.

Raghnaid Sandilands, from Farr in Sutherland, was contacted to translate the book into Gaelic.

She said: “I was delighted when Alun called me to see if I’d be interested. I told him, ‘absolutely’!

“I’ve been familiar with Asterix ever since I was a child, and it was a happy coincidence that years ago my mum used to translate the series into Gaelic for her own pleasure and to pass the long winters.”

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