Alastair Macleod 
The Tale of a Northern Atlantis 
or the Flight of the Bittern

photocredit — Richard Stonier — ‘bittern in flight’ ‘The queen was young, her face pale her feature fine. Vlado had never been in her presence and her beauty struck into his heart. She was clad in a sleeveless tunic of finest buckskin. Around her shoulders was a short buckskin cloak trimmed with fur. Her neck was adorned with beads of amber and jet alternated with mammoth ivory. Her slender arms bore the royal tattoos, and at her wrists were delicate bracelets of white fish bones. Her long blonde hair was braided through with coloured cloth and pulled back and up into a top knot held with a carved ivory pin. On either side of her head, from a black leather band encircling it, hung feathers of the Great Bittern.’