The Coffin Roads - Ian Bradley

• Paperback
• Condition: As New
• 183 pages
• Non-Fiction: Scottish History, Travel 

The Highlands and islands of Scotland are criss-crossed by coffin roads - ancient tracks along which bodies were carried on their way to burial in remote graveyards. Ian Bradley journeys along some of these ancient ways, which often pass through wild and spectacular scenery, to explore Hebridean and West Highland attitudes to dying, death and the afterlife. He visits well known places such as Kilmartin Valley and the Street of the Dead on Iona, as well as churchyards and burial places across the region.

Using graphic, first-hand accounts of funeral practices, he describes such customs as the three-day wake, the singing of the death croon and the keen or lament, in addition to premonitions and omens of death experienced by those gifted with second sight. At a time when we are becoming more open about death, this book offers much that is relevant as well as consoling.