Books in brief: Lochs by Julian Holland | An Cuilithionn 1939 by Somhairle MacGill-Eain | ABC, My Granny Caught a Flea ed. Ewan McVicar

Our reviewer takes a look at the pick of the new books released recently...

Lochs

by Julian Holland

(Frances Lincoln, 19.99) ****

Above which loch did Landseer paint his Monarch of the Glen? Which acts the part of "Hogwarts Lake" in the Harry Potter films? Which has an island which itself contains a loch which has an island? The answers to these questions are to be found in this colourful compendium of over 30 of Scotland's finest freshwater lochs. Beautifully illustrated, this is first and foremost a book for browsing: Holland's text is full of (often serendipitous) interest on everything from geology to myth.

An Cuilithionn 1939

by Somhairle MacGill-Eain, edited by Christopher Whyte

(ASLS, 12.50) *****

What's good for Moscow must be good for Mararaulin: in Sorley MacLean's great poem, the hammer and sickle come to Skye. A defiant affirmation of Gaelic cultural pride, it's a political call to arms as well: "The surging of the hopes of humanity/made the mountain shake." If, to most of us, MacLean's Gaelic may be exotic, the facing English text (his own translation) seems scarcely less so – in its declamatory confidence; its unabashed idealism; its peculiar mix of Marxist politics, personal lyricism and love of "Nature". It's hard, all those decades later, to recapture the feeling that all will be well if only the red flag flies over the Black Cuillin. Yet it's difficult too to resist the ingenuous eloquence of a poem which – in a single Neruda-esque sweep – takes in the beauties of the country and the sufferings of its poor and then sets both against a vastly wider historic background. An Cuilithionn proclaims the utter centrality of the utterly parochial. A triumph.

ABC, My Grannie Caught a Flea

edited by Ewan McVicar

(Birlinn, 9.99) ****

"Mary Queen of Scots got her head chopped off…"; "Glory glory hallelujah/The teacher hit me with a ruler…"; "When I was one I sucked my thumb…": the fact that at some point we put such songs and rhymes as these behind us might seem to be one of the few advantages in growing up. Not for Ewan McVicar: his new anthology returns us to a time when the merest mention of a bodily function or a ladies' undergarment could trigger endless mirth. The whole rich heritage of Scots children's songs and rhymes is represented here, from "Stop the bus ah need a wee wee' to "Jingle Bells, Batman smells…"