The Last Bear

A novel set in 1000AD in a fictionalised version of Assynt, in the northwest Highlands of Scotland, and on Orkney. It imagines how the last brown bear was killed in Scotland, and places the extinction event within a time of cultural upheaval when the indigenous pre-Christian tradition was squeezed out between Christianity from the south and the Norse. Its main characters reflect these three cultures - Brigid, a native shamanic medicine woman; Bjorn, a Norse settler; and Margaret his Christian Scot wife. The novel won the Robin Jenkins Literary Award in 2009.