Author: robinacrawford

Robin Crawford is an author and illustrator, with a particular interest in the culture and natural heritage of Scotland. His first book, ‘Into the Peatlands: A Journey Through the Moorland Year’, was published in 2018 and longlisted for the Highland Book Prize. ‘Cauld Blasts and Clishmaclavers’ (2020) is a treasury of Scottish Words. His third book ‘The Sound of Many Waters, A Jjourney along the River Tay’ is published in June 2023 by Birlinn. He lives in Auchtermuchty, in Fife.

The sacrificed and the saved

robinacrawfordLeave a comment

People, happy to think of themselves ‘conservationists’, have wrought death to infant trees to resurrect the bog, a Bruegel-like ‘Massacre of the Innocents’ in the snow.  The blood- ochre roots of pulled up saplings orange against white. Behind the arbitrary boundary fence- a liminal between life and death- the plantation of the saved stand silent witness to the slaughtered metres away.