SOURCE: A review of Winter Tales, in Kirkus Reviews, Vol. LXIV, No. 2, January 15, 1996, p. 82.

In the following review, the critic describes the stories of Winter Tales as "always luminous if sometimes lifeless."

Noted Scottish poet, novelist, and playwright Brown (A Time to Keep, 1987, etc.) celebrates the dark season of the year in the Orkney Islands with 18 always luminous if sometimes lifeless stories.

Suffused with old Norse and Christian beliefs, the tales are all set in the northern islands once ruled by the Vikings. Many characters, like the stubborn farmer in "The Paraffin Lamp," who uses the electric light only when he needs to fill his old lamp, still observe the traditional rituals, especially those of the Yule season, that ease the passing of winter. Inured to hardship and frugality, the islanders must contend with weather that is always changing ("one day is wind and flung spindrift, the next...