SOURCE: "George Mackay Brown, 74, Dies; Poet Steeped in Orkneys Lore," in The New York Times, April 16, 1996, p. B7.

In the following obituary, Gussow recaps Brown's life and career.

George Mackay Brown, a poet, novelist and short story writer whose work evoked the rugged life and the history and culture of the remote Orkney Islands in Scotland, died on Saturday in a hospital in Kirkwall in the Orkneys. He was 74.

Writing in the British magazine The Listener, Seamus Heaney said that Mr. Brown's imagination "is stirred by legends of the Viking warrior and Christian saint," and added, "It consecrates the visible survivals of history, and ruins of time, into altars that are decked with the writings themselves." Mr. Heaney said he had never seen Mr. Brown's poetry sufficiently praised.

Mr. Brown was born and remained rooted in the Orkneys, and his art was filled with the rich lore and...