The Priest's Wife
“a work of great beauty and imagination”
Rolf Billes, Iona Community
The story is presaged by the visit of a wandering vagrant, Gormagh, who confronts Morag:
‘You!’ His eyes were wide, the whites bloodshot. ‘Do you not know who you are?’ … ‘Who was it gave you birth? It was she, was it not? She! She!’
The question disturbs her. She never knew her mother; she is haunted by taunts that echo in her mind from childhood: Who's your mother? Don’t you know?
Morag has lived with this unknowing all her life.
But as Hugh sickens, then dies, so her position in the community crumbles. She must set out to find the answer to Gormagh's question, and find herself anew.
Her quest takes her first to Kimmoil, where she grew up. Arriving in the hungry quarter of the year, she has a cool reception from the shareg (headman) and an enigmatic answer from the town's keeper of records.
Meanwhile Father Aidan has come as Hugh's replacement. Unlike Hugh and the old archpriest, Aidan is intolerant of the blend of Druidical myth and Christian story that has nourished the Islanders. Indeed, he is under instruction from the new archpriest to destroy it and bring in its place a more patriarchal creed.
Two people: a priest's widow and a priest, linked by role yet spiritually poles apart. And both must find the place in the community where they belong.