Dream Angus by Alexander McCall Smith

Author:Alexander McCall Smith [Smith, Alexander McCall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9781841958231
Publisher: ISIS Publishing
Published: 2005-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

Angus is kind to pigs

There were people who had been changed into pigs, something which happened from time to time in those days. They lived in a part of Ireland where there were many places for pigs to find food; where there were nuts that grew in profusion on low branches that pigs could reach; where there were small ditches rich in the most succulent and delicious pig food. These pigs had a village that they had made, a small village of round houses with turf roofs, and they lived in this village, rising early in the morning to feel the sun on their backs and the dew underfoot. They were contented enough.

The happiness of these pigs was interrupted by the arrival of hunting hounds. The pigs were strong warriors, able to protect themselves against most threats, but they did not like having to keep watch all the time for lurking hounds. A shadow could be a shadow, or it could be a hound. A howling sound could be the sound of the wind across the stones, or it could come from the throat of a hound. The pigs could not tolerate such uncertainty, such fear. They moved from their village, leaving behind the houses they had made, leaving the abundant nuts, the well-worn paths through their village, all their memories. From the top of a nearby hill, people watched the pigs run behind their leader, a stream of excited squealing, a river of bristle; and then there was just the sound of birdsong and the rustling of the leaves like dice.

The pigs came to Angus, and he received them. He allowed them to press their moist snouts against his toes and his ankles; he allowed them to gaze at the birds that flew around his head. They could stay with him, he said, living down at the bottom of a field near his house. They inspected this place and declared themselves satisfied. The mother of the pigs looked up at Angus, and there was gratitude in her tiny, dark eyes. And there was light in these eyes, too; the light of intelligence.

Angus heard the pigs singing. He would stand on a small hillock and listen to the sound of the pigs’ songs carried upon the breeze. Some of these songs were for the weddings of pigs, and they were sweet songs, full of love. Others were sad songs, for the funeral of a pig, who would be carried on the backs of its brothers and sisters and laid in a place where the pigs would normally not venture.

But there were people who ate these pigs, although the pigs were really people turned into pigs. How were such people to know? And so they fell upon these pigs, turning them upside down and cutting their throats so that the pig blood was red and bright in the sun. When this happened the other pigs sang their sad songs for the one that had gone and their words were full of regret for the fact that they had been changed into pigs.

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