Such is the gentle nature of Angus that all who meet him find they are filled with dreams of love. A good deal of the time they are dreams of love for Angus, but he never returns their affections. But one day when he is older Angus is ensnared by a dream of a beautiful woman. For the longest time he wastes away, uninterested in food or drink for love of this woman.
Finally she is found, but as fate would have it she must spend alternate years as a swan. So strong is Angus' love for Caer that he himself transforms into a swan so that they can be together.
While McCall Smith is telling us these details, he is interspersing them with short stories of humans set in modern times. One of the stories details a boy whose life has a parallel path to Angus'. When he went to live with his stepbrother who had a son a few years older then him, the two boys becoming inseparable and often mistaken as actual brothers. One night Angus dreams that new "brother" wasn't there any more, and it was so real that when he woke up he was inconsolable.
Similarly then, in "My Brother," set in rural Scotland in the Depression of the 1930s, Jamie idealizes his older brother Davie and goes everywhere with him if possible. He believes in all his heart that they will be together for the rest of their lives; he even imagines a time after their parents have died and they would share the house they grew up in.
So he is devastated when his brother receives an invitation to go to Canada to live with a cousin in Nova Scotia. The night after he finds out that his brother will be leaving he tries to convince Davie to let him come too. Instead of agreeing, Davie tells Jamie to ask "Dream Angus" to bring him dreams of him in Canada. That night Jamie dreams of dark trees and white snow and knows it's Canada.
Dream Angus can help Jamie because he knows about the love between brothers and how much it hurts to lose that bond. In that first night he sends him a promise in the shape of a dream that he will keep them connected, even if only through their dreams. In the dream world we can have just as powerful feelings as we have in the waking world and Jamie can love his brother with as much intensity as he wants asleep and never have to worry about losing him.
The stories that run in our world's time have both literal and fantastical connections to the life of Angus. McCall Smith has woven elements of the nature of the god into the stories in a way that they reflect the spirit of gentleness and love that are the embodiment of Angus. When the young lady in "Is There A Place For Pigs There?" dreams about loving the simple young man who tends the pigs in the science lab where she works, she is at first surprised at herself. But she also knows for certain that he is the one for her.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!