The Three Perils of Man; Or, War, Women, and Witchcraft, Vol. 1 (of 3)

War, women, and witchcraft collide in James Hogg's magnificently untamed border romance. Set in feudal Scotland during the reign of Robert II, the novel erupts when the king offers his daughter Princess Margaret's hand to whoever can capture the English-held Castle of Roxburgh. But the princess herself has other ideas, announcing she will undertake the task herself, defying every convention of courtly chivalry. What follows is a breathless cascade of adventure, as knights clash, supernatural forces stir, and Hogg pours every ounce of his beloved Border folklore onto the page. The result reads like Scotland's answer to Malory, if Malory had been written by a shepherd who talked to fairies and had a vicious sense of humor. Hogg fuses the historical with the hallucinatory, the heroic with the hilarious, creating a world where sword fights share pages with witchcraft and ghosts. It was considered an anachronism in 1822. Today it reads like something entirely new.