Flight of the Heron and Quest for a Kelpie

[osprey_archer]

Not so long ago, skygiants acquired Frances Mary Hendry’s Quest for a Kelpie, which is about a girl during the Jacobite uprising of 1745 who is fated by a seer to meet with someone four times.

“Hmmm,” we said. “This sounds similar to D. K. Broster’s Flight of the Heron!”

Conveniently, I just recently unpacked the paper copy of Flight of the Heron that I found at John K. King Books in fall of 2023, and felt like rereading it anyway because I’d never read it on paper before, so I gave it a spin before skygiants sent me Quest for a Kelpie.

Although it is of course possible that Frances Mary Hendry read Flight of the Heron at some point, I wouldn’t bet on it based on Quest for a Kelpie. Although the two books have the same setting and almost the same premise (in Flight of the Heron it’s five meetings instead of four, of course), their thematic preoccupations are completely different.

Flight of the Heron is interested in honor, particularly the moments when honor and duty clash with desire and prudence - not just in the repeated meetings of Ewen and Keith, but in Lochiel’s decision to rise for the Prince because he promised his support, even though he knows that the Prince’s choices have made this particular rising unlikely to succeed. It’s interested in people on opposing sides of a war who would have been friends under different circumstances. And, of course, gorgeous men being wounded and tenderly nursed back to health by a friend in a desperate situation.

Quest for a Kelpie is interested in women’s work, work in general and the way that small subsistence-level communities survive, the effect of war on the poor who have little say in whether war comes or not, the devastation wrought by war (to be fair, Flight of the Heron is cognizant of this too; it’s not a main theme, but it comes up insistently nonetheless), the fact that we are all human despite divides of class or caste or race, and the way this is so easy to forget and the forgetting so easily leads to our devastation.

There is also no actual kelpie, only a war horse that our heroine thinks is a kelpie, which I expected given the general atmosphere of the book but was disappointed by nonetheless. If your title promises a kelpie I want a kelpie!

This was Hendry’s first book, and it’s not as polished and memorable as Quest for a Maid. (I can’t be the only one who thought of Quest for a Maid and the heroine’s streak of white hair where her witch sister struck her when I first saw Frozen.) But it’s thematically resonant with the later book, and shares many of the same overriding preoccupations.

Quest for a Maid was the only Hendry published in the US, so Quest for a Kelpie is hard to come by. Would anyone like my copy? I’d be happy to mail it within the US.

Comments

[philomytha]

That sounds like a great book, even without the kelpie. As you say, while FotH doesn't centre around it, there is an undercurrent that's all about the devastation of war. The scene where Keith finds the dead woman with her dead baby is one of the most affecting bits of the whole book imo, it's hard to read.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, that bit's so good! The way he thinks she's alive at first and just ignoring him, and then the dawning horror as he realizes she's dead, and so is the baby in her lap...

[sanguinity]

I'd be interested in Quest for a Kelpie, please! I'm definitely interested in a Jacobite novel that centers women's work and those who aren't the clan leaders and officers.

[osprey_archer]

If you'll PM me your address, I will send you the book! Note that skygiants wants it back in the end, so I will also send you the address to send the book onto once you've finished reading.

[sanguinity]

DM sent!

[osprey_archer]

Fingers crossed I'll be able to get it in the mail tomorrow.

[sanguinity]

No rush on my behalf! I have plenty to read here. :-D

Just let me know when you've sent it, so I have an idea of when to look for it!

[osprey_archer]

It is on its way!

[sanguinity]

Woo-hoo!

[luzula]

Definitely going to read this at some point, it sounds great! It's on Archive.org, just as a tip for other comment readers. And it doesn't look that long, so maybe not that much of a pain to read it there.

[osprey_archer]

I hope you enjoy it!

[sovay]

If your title promises a kelpie I want a kelpie!

I was so bitterly disappointed by so many books with dragons in the title.

[osprey_archer]

Laurence Yep disappointed me so many times on this score that I missed his series that actually DOES have dragons.

[skygiants]

did you never actually read his series that has dragons in it?!

[osprey_archer]

I didn't! And it seems to be a bit hard to get one's hands on now. But perhaps that will be my next quest after I finish the Newberies... miniquest.

[skygiants]

I felt bad leaving you with the impression that there was a kelpie ... but I did not want to spoil the way The Kelpie plays out ....

(for the record very happy for this book to go around to all interested parties but ideally it would come full circle back to us eventually, I'm enjoying cultivating a Hendry collection)

[osprey_archer]

No, you can't tell people about The Kelpie beforehand! Even though it is rough when the title seems to promise a kelpie and then... no kelpie...

I will send your address onward with the book so that it will come back to you! How many books are in your Hendry collection so far?

[skygiants]

only the two, but I'm on the Used Bookstore Quest now!

[asakiyume]

I love how two books can cover the same material or events and yet be completely different because of, exactly as you say, their thematic preoccupations. I appreciate the themes of both of these! (not to read rn though...)

[osprey_archer]

Sometimes one appreciates a certain theme in the abstract without necessarily wishing to read it just at this specific moment.

[asakiyume]

In this case, with these two, I think I could/might enjoy them right now... but just, whoa, time, you know? (Same with the cult one, though I have to say that one felt like maybe it's less heavy--even dealing with cults!--and therefore possibly more approachable.)

[osprey_archer]

The cult one is a fast read, and compared to a lot of books I review, pretty easy to access! Quest for a Kelpie is also pretty short, and Flight of the Heron... well, okay, Flight of the Heron is just a hefty chunk of book.