The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott

The Black Dwarf Reviews

• 
  John

  A good story with elements of the supernatural. I had to look up quite a few Scottish words but an entertaining yarn. This was Scott’s shortest novel with my copy 165 pages long. The author also based it on a dwarf he met called David Ritchie.
  
  The story is centers around a dwarf living amongst some stones which are seen as haunted by the locals. He builds a cottage there and does not tolerate human company. Although he does cure people with his medicines and his bark is worse than his bite.
  
  Enter damsel being forced to marry against her will due to a profligate father. The dwarf is not all what he seems and is linked to the girl Isobel Vere. There is also a subplot with a possible rebellion and another local called Hobbie who has his fiancée kidnapped. A swashbuckling story but the characters lack depth.
• 
  Sotiris Karaiskos

  In his other large book series, Tales of My Landlord, the author attempts a different approach by writing a series of stories. This is the first book of this series and is the smallest for a number of reasons not directly related to its writing. This small size means that unlike the other books of the author, the pace is fast and there is not much room for anything else that would make things complicated. It's an adventurous story against the backdrop of the fierce scottish landscape and with the equally fierce inhabitants of the area as protagonists that the passionate way of dealing with their lives leads to permanent conflicts (I think I have already write this in another review) and at a time of intense political disputes shortly after the final union between Scotland and England are even more intense. Embezzles, acts of revenge, destruction, kidnappings of beautiful women are on the everyday agenda and only the intervention of the brightest can restore order. The Black Dwarf of our story is a deformed and ugly man who lives away from people and witnesses this situation, which confirms his the choice of isolation from the people who are capable only for evil was the ideal and of course this choice gives the writer the opportunity to speak through him about the evils of human nature. In the end, however, it turns out that this man is hiding a secret that will prove important later when the young heroes of our history will have big problems. A nice beginning, a book that can be read quickly and easily without this meaning that there is not Shakti Kapoor substance in it.
  
  Στην άλλη μεγάλη σειρά βιβλίων του, Tales of My Landlord, ο συγγραφέας επιχειρεί μία διαφορετική προσέγγιση γράφοντας μία σειρά ιστοριών. Αυτό είναι το πρώτο βιβλίο αυτής της σειράς και είναι το μικρότερο για διάφορο��ς λόγους που δεν έχουν άμεση σχέση με τη συγγραφή του. Αυτό το μικρό μέγεθος σημαίνει ότι σε αντίθεση με τα άλλα βιβλία του συγγραφέα ο ρυθμός είναι γρήγορος και δεν υπάρχει πολύς χώρος για οτιδήποτε άλλο που θα έκανε τα πράγματα περίπλοκα. Είναι μία περιπετειώδης ιστορία με φόντο το άγριο σκωτσέζικο τοπίο και πρωταγωνιστές τους εξίσου άγριους κατοίκους της περιοχής που ο παθιασμένος τρόπος που αντιμετωπίζουν τη ζωή τους οδηγεί σε μόνιμες συγκρούσεις (αυτό νομίζω το έχω ξαναγράψει) και σε μία εποχή έντονων πολιτικών διαφορών λίγο μετά την οριστική ένωση της Σκωτίας με την Αγγλία είναι ακόμα πιο έντονες. Ενέδρες, πράξεις εκδίκησης, καταστροφές, απαγωγές όμορφων γυναικών είναι στην ημερήσια διάταξη και μόνο η παρέμβαση των γενναιότερων μπορείς να επαναφέρει την τάξη. Ο Μαύρος Νάνος της ιστορίας μας είναι ένας παραμορφωμένος και άσχημος άντρας που ζει μακριά από τους ανθρώπους και γίνεται μάρτυρας αυτής της κατάστασης, κάτι που του επιβεβαιώνει ότι η επιλογή της απομόνωσης από τους ανθρώπους που μόνο για κακό είναι ικανοί ήταν η ιδανικότερη και φυσικά αυτή η επιλογή δίνει την ευκαιρία στον συγγραφέα να μιλήσει μέσα από αυτόν για τα κακά της της ανθρώπινης φύσης. Στο τέλος, όμως, αποδεικνύεται ότι ο άνθρωπος αυτός κρύβει ένα μυστικό που θα αποδειχθεί σημαντικό στη συνέχεια όταν οι νεαροί ήρωες της ιστορίας μας θα έχουν μεγάλα προβλήματα. Μία ωραία αρχή, ένα βιβλίο που διαβάζεται γρήγορα και εύκολα, χωρίς αυτό να σημαίνει ότι δεν υπάρχει περιεχόμενο.
• 
  Mrs. C.

  *The Black Dwarf* has a host of components--a hint of the supernatural, the threat of a forced marriage, Jacobite conspirators in the cause of the Old Pretender, and the "feeling" of Border life in the years following the establishment of Great Britain in the early years of the 18th century. After a slow start, the pace picks up when Scott introduces the mysterious and unsightly person the folks in the neighborhood call the Black Dwarf, a misanthrope whose history is a mystery but who keeps appearing at every turn. At the end of the novel, one realizes that it has largely been the tale of three women--a woman already dead when the story opens, her daughter, and a commoner who is abducted and nearly sold into slavery, all of whom are affected by the Black Dwarf in one way or another. It is not a feminist novel by any means, but it gives a glimpse of female life in a time when dowry and property--and revenge--were (nearly) everything. The various threads of the story all come together in the final chapters when various unexplained elements are finally resolved. Sir Walter himself wrote a harsh, anonymous critique of the work, but my only criticism would be that not enough foreshadowing was provided to set the reader up to accept several twists in the plot. Instead of one development growing out of another, the complications seem to happen randomly, leaving the reader wondering, "Did I miss something?" It would have been helpful, for example, to have been made aware of the beautiful tomb in the chapel before the end when it becomes key to the story's resolution. However, I enjoyed the novel and very much like the way Scott fleshed out the truth of I Samuel 16:7: "The Lord does not look at the things people look at, but the Lord looks at the heart."
• 
  Murgatroyd

  Sir Walter Scott so well portrays the broken spirit and eventual misanthropy of a man who has been persecuted by the general public and cast aside by society as a whole. A fair amount of scotch dialect, as one would expect from Scott. Beautiful story in a similar theme as The Hunchback of Norte Dame. Also, a strong argument for the practice of mutual aid.
• 
  Kim

  "The Black Dwarf" is a novel by Sir Walter Scott published in December 1816 by William Blackwood, Edinburgh, and John Murray, London. It was part of his Tales of My Landlord series, the first in the series which was originally intended to comprise four volumes, each volume containing a separate story set in a different region of Scotland: the Borders, the Southwest, the Highlands, and Fife. However because of the length of the second novel Old Mortality only two of the volumes were written, Old Mortality came to occupy three of volumes. Here we go with the first of the stories The Black Dwarf.
  
  I found it very interesting that the main character in our novel is based on David Ritchie, whom Scott met in the autumn of 1797. Ritchie was born at the nearby town of Stobo, he was known also as David of Manor Water, Bow'd Davie, Crooked David & of course The Black Dwarf. He was the son of a labourer in the slate-quarries and is believed to have been born in his misshapen form, though he sometimes imputed it to physical abuse when a child. Tired of being the object of laughter and derision, David Ritchie resolved to retreat to some wilderness, where he might have the least possible communication with the world. He lived in a cottage on the banks of Manor Water near Peebles, Scotland. The cottage which he built was extremely small, but the walls, as well as those of a little garden that surrounded it were composed of layers of large stones and turf; and some of the stones were so weighty, they puzzled the spectators how such a person as the dwarf could possibly have lifted them. Scott says:
  
  "His skull," says this authority, "which was of an oblong and rather unusual shape, was said to be of such strength, that he could strike it with ease through the panel of a door, or the end of a barrel. His laugh is said to have been quite horrible; and his screech-owl voice, shrill, uncouth, and dissonant, corresponded well with his other peculiarities."
  
  "The author has invested Wise Elshie with some qualities which made him appear, in the eyes of the vulgar, a man possessed of supernatural power. Common fame paid David Ritchie a similar compliment, for some of the poor and ignorant, as well as all the children, in the neighbourhood, held him to be what is called uncanny. He himself did not altogether discourage the idea; it enlarged his very limited circle of power, and in so far gratified his conceit; and it soothed his misanthropy, by increasing his means of giving terror or pain. But even in a rude Scottish glen thirty years back, the fear of sorcery was very much out of date".
  
  Moving on to the story, I will say that while I did eventually start enjoying the story it certainly took me awhile to get to that enjoyment. The book begins with an introduction written by Jedediah Cleishbotham, a character whom Scott had invented as a fictional editor of the series. We are told that these stories are collected and reported by Jedediah Cleishbotham, schoolmaster and parish-clerk of Gandercleugh. Just the first line of the introduction makes my head begin to ache:
  
  "As I may, without vanity, presume that the name and official description prefixed to this Proem will secure it, from the sedate and reflecting part of mankind, to whom only I would be understood to address myself, such attention as is due to the sedulous instructor of youth, and the careful performer of my Sabbath duties, I will forbear to hold up a candle to the daylight, or to point out to the judicious those recommendations of my labours which they must necessarily anticipate from the perusal of the title-page."
  
  To my mind this sentence is so very wordy and said in such a way I found hard to understand. I had to read just the first sentence twice and we're not even at the story yet. We are told, after a lot of other things, that Mr. Cleishbotham had been a teacher for a young man named Peter or Patrick Pattieson,
  
  "who delighted in the collection of olden tales and legends, and in garnishing them with the flowers of poesy, whereof he was a vain and frivolous professor. For he followed not the example of those strong poets whom I proposed to him as a pattern, but formed versification of a flimsy and modern texture, to the compounding whereof was necessary small pains and less thought."
  
  When Mr. Pattieson dies as a young man Mr. Cleishbotham takes his papers he had written over the years, arranges them, and publishes them. It is these stories we are now about to read, the first of these collected stories; "The Black Dwarf".
  
  Now on to what really was annoying to me, the Scotch dialect. Almost any character in the book who speaks talks this dialect, and that means that almost any time any character in the book speaks there is a very good chance I have no idea what they just said. Here are some examples:
  
  "he'll be unco busy amang the morts this season"
  
  "Your father believed it unco stievely, though"
  
  " and the bonny broomy knowe, where he liked sae weel to sit at e'en, wi' his plaid about him, and look at the kye as they cam down the loaning, ill wad he hae liked to hae seen that braw sunny knowe a' riven out wi' the pleugh in the fashion it is at this day."
  
  "but ye ken we maun hae turnips for the lang sheep, billie, and muckle hard wark to get them, baith wi' the pleugh and the howe; and that wad sort ill wi' sitting on the broomy knowe, and cracking about Black Dwarfs, and siccan clavers, as was the gate lang syne, when the short sheep were in the fashion."
  
  "The carline, she sits in the neuk yonder, upbye"
  
  Are you getting the idea? That's just the first two chapters. As to the story itself, we have a dwarf (no kidding) that most everyone in the novel is afraid of, they think he has special powers given to him by the devil. He never bothers to confirm or deny this, he just wants to be left alone by all humans. There is a reason for his hatred besides that of how he's been treated all these years, we find the reason toward the end of the novel, but you'll have to find that all by yourself. We have Hobbie Elliot and the woman he loves and wants to marry, also Patrick Earnscliff and the woman he loves and wants to marry; Mr. Vere, the father of one of the women, Sir Frederick Langley, another suitor for Vere's daughter, among others. The story is interesting, there is a kidnapping, burning of houses, lots of people fighting with lots of other people for no reason, raids and wars just for fun as far as I could tell. I liked the story, I liked the dwarf, maybe because I felt sorry for him especially after the story of his youth is told and I and never thought he was as hateful as others thought him.
  
  At the beginning of each chapter there is a small quote a line or two of poetry. This one interested me:
  
  "Three ruffians seized me yester morn,
  Alas! a maiden most forlorn;
  They choked my cries with wicked might,
  And bound me on a palfrey white:
  As sure as Heaven shall pity me,
  I cannot tell what men they be."
  
  —CHRISTABELLE.
  
  I kept wondering how, if ruffians kidnapped that maiden, choked her cries, bound her on a horse and she has no idea where they are going or who these men are, when did she find the time to compose and write a poem? :-} As I said, I liked the story but don't ask me what the characters were saying, I hope it wasn't important. :-}
  
  
• 
  Steve Lindahl

  Sir Walter Scott released an anonymous review of his novel, The Black Dwarf, in which he was very critical, especially with the ending. (I wasn't able to find a copy of the review, so I haven't read it, but it is described in the Wikipedia entry for the novel.) I had some problems with the way the story wrapped up, but it was the beginning that gave me the most trouble. It took me awhile to get used to Scott's writing. There are a few reasons for this, which have more to do with my reading than the writing.
  
  1. It’s 19th Century literature and it always takes me awhile to get used to classics after a period of reading modern works.
  
  2. Some of the characters have Scottish accents, which I had to handle by reading out loud and ignoring some unfamiliar words. Here’s an example:
  
  “Hout awa, man,” answered the farmer, “ye'll hae heard o' Canny Elshie the Black Dwarf, or I am muckle mistaen – A' the warld tells tales about him, but it's but daft nonsense after a' – I dinna believe a word o't frae beginning to end.”
  
  3. I was expecting the dwarf to appear earlier than he did. Instead he was discussed in conversations before he showed up.
  
  
  Two things kept me reading. First of all, my daughter, who loves 19th Century literature, said this was her favorite Sir Walter Scott novel. Secondly, one of the reviews I read said another reader had trouble getting into the story, but like it once he did. I’m glad I kept going.
  
  The plot is about a dwarf who was betrayed by the few people he trusted. Because he feels people have let him down, he decides to escape to the forest to become a hermit. The villagers who live near this man believe him to be a demon with supernatural powers, but the animals in the forest treat him as they would treat any other human. He finds solace in the animals and just wants the people to leave him alone. Of course, that doesn’t happen. Throughout the story Scott contrasts compassionate people with others who are manipulative and selfish in ways that bring home the points he was trying to make.
  
  I thought Scott hit the readers a little too hard at times and I also didn't like the way the story wrapped up a bit too perfectly. But I loved the idea of a man who decided to escape from humanity and find peace through a natural, solitary life.
  
  Steve Lindahl - author of Motherless Soul and White Horse Regressions
• 
  John Yelverton

  Its ending was seriously wanting, and the author's attempt to imitate a Scottish brogue made it almost impossible to read.
• 
  Paul Gosselin

  Scott's The Black Dwarf (first published, 1816), as is usual with Scott, brings together a cast of interesting and contrasted characters. While I expect this is not remembered as one of Scott's best novels, it is worth reading. I was a bit startled as I realized that the plot was winding down about halfway through the book. I then realized that I’d picked up a university edition with half of the book occupied by scholarly notes and papers by English lit Scott specialists discussion variations between different editions of the The Black Dwarf. Oh well... I am rarely drawn to such material...
• 
  Perry Whitford

  A small, dark mysterious figure is sighted amongst the gloaming on a winter's eve on Mucklestane Moor assembling a makeshift dwelling from the rocks and rubble.
  
  The moor is said to be haunted by an old hag and her gaggle of geese turned to stone, or as one of the locals puts it, "they do say there's a sort o' worricows and lang-nebbit things about the land".
  
  Elshender the Recluse is the frightful figure mistaken for the legendary Brown Man, a supernatural figure whose past appearances have always coincided with Jacobite uprisings.
  
  He is a swarthy dwarf and becomes a hostile, misanthropic presence for any who approach him, but also something of a herbalist and soothsayer who gains the nickname "Canny Elsie".
  
  Family feuds, political intrigue and insurrection, enforced marriages, a suggestion of the supernatural added to the stew, with great meaty dollops of Scotch dialect divvied up throughout - all the classic ingredients for a Waverley novel are present and correct in an early, uncharacteristically slim volume from Scott.
  
  Though short, three quarters of the way through I thought that The Black Dwarf's brevity (sic) was proving to be something of a strength as most of Scott's stories tend to become bogged down in overblown romantic rhetoric, but not this one.
  
  Come the resolution, however, Scott completely dropped the ball and all the tensions were resolved in the lamest possible way.
  
  The Black Dwarf ended a little short of a good finish.
• 
  Steve R

  By far the shortest of all the Waverley novels, Scott himself thought little of this work, which he claims to have 'bungled up' a conclusion for in order to dispense with it. Set in the early eighteenth century, just after the union of Scotland and England, it tells of the encounters of a group of characters with the mysterious title character, one Edward Mauley, who is a hermit. In its few pages, it nonetheless presents a complex tale of love, revenge, betrayal, Jacobite schemes and a threatened forced marriage. One of the most scathing reviews it received at the time of its publication was supposedly written by Scott himself. Not as bad as the above suggests.
• 
  Emmanuel Wallart

  Short story but a good one. A kind of a fairy tale.
• 
  Eliza Fitzgerald

  A perfect October read because it's just the right amount of creepy. This is one of his shorter novels so it was a quick and fun.
• 
  Richard Rogers

  I have become a Sir Walter Scott superfan. Wasn't expecting to.
  
  I can stipulate that the novels of Sir Walter Scott contain problematic language and attitudes. The intolerance we see toward Roma folk, autistic people, and Jews (the first two in Guy Mannering, the last in Ivanhoe) and the insensitive language used to describe many types of people is jarring to modern sensibilities. In this novel, which even has a coarse title, Elshie, the titular character, is regarded as horrifying and frightening because of his appearance. But despite the intolerance and casual cruelty displayed in the stories as part of cultural norms, the author never seems to join in. The authorial voice behind the narrator feels much more progressive than the characters he invented, so much so that it one could argue that his novels are an exercise in humanizing those who had been marginalized in our thoughts. This is somewhat true of the Jewish characters in Ivanhoe, but even more so with the Roma woman and the autistic scholar in Guy Mannering, the incredible character of the beggar in The Antiquary, and the little person in The Black Dwarf. In each case, Scott has created a character that is not just sympathetic but memorable and even inspiring. None of them are wholly good, but all of them are so well drawn that their personalities exceed the limits placed on them by their condition or ethnicity.
  
  Elshie (who I couldn't help but picture as Peter Dinklage) isn't a nice man and is deservedly called a misanthrope. Over the course of this short novel we discover the cause of it, but that isn't what makes him sympathetic. It's his capacity for altruism in spite of his personal feelings that makes him exceptional. He's complex and interesting and a real person--not the monster or sorcerer or brute that his neighbors think him.
  
  In the introduction, the author admits that he planned a longer novel but was convinced by a friend that his readers would not be interested in such a character. That's a shame. It's an outstanding novel anyway (IMO) but could have been nearer his usual length. Never mind the fact that there are a number of interesting and complex characters in the novel; Elshie was a worthy protagonist and could have sustained a fuller narrative.
  
  Oh, well. What we have is exceptional.
  
  Recommended (for readers of classic adventure novels, anyway).
• 
  Valery Dostovalova

  Классная история, с элементами мистики. Хороший сюжет: таинственный карлик, молодой лэрд, веселый фермер и несчастная наследница, которую хочет выдать замуж эгоистичный отец. Но не хватило глубины и предистории характерам. По якобитам прошлись вскользь, из главных героев мы знаем что-то об Эллиоте и о карлике, и то из речей одного из героев. Кажется, Скотт немного поторопился с выпуском романа. Ассоциация со штамповкой Дарьи Донцовой с поправкой на 19 век.
  Тем не менее, читается быстро и интересно.
• 
  Josh

  Scott is always difficult for me to get through sometimes. But as always his settings are described wonderfully and the main characters are built with immense detail. I struggled a lot with the names in this book and sometimes couldn’t remember who was who. Nothing of a great deal happened but I found the messages within to be relevant and deep.
• 
  Djordje

  UKUPNA OCENA ★★★ 3
  - Radnja ★★★
  - Okruženje ★★★✫
  - Pripovedanje ★★★
  - Likovi ★★★
  
  UTISAK - kratka istorijska fikcija sa primesama romanse u klasičnom piščevom stilu, zasnovana na legendi o crnom patuljku.
• 
  Gillian

  Really enjoyed this yarn.
• 
  Al Duran

  Brush up on your Scots before attempting to read this work. I would estimate that from a fourth to a third of it is written in that dialect.
• 
  Aaron Michael

  Elshie the recluse of Mucklestane Moor.
• 
  Monty Milne

  I am re-reading all Scott’s novels in chronological order and now I have got to his fourth, I can see what a disappointment it was compared to the previous three. It is by no means a complete stinker, though. The eponymous dwarf is well done, and there are all the kind of things one looks for and enjoys in Scott: Jacobite plots, damsels in distress, gallant gentlemen galloping to the rescue, Scotch mist, Gothicisms a-plenty, etc etc. So why is it so inferior to its predecessors?
  
  Scott had a number of tiresome features which in many cases got worse as he went on and indulged them even more. One is that he seems to take forever to get going…here we have the Introduction by the supposed collator of the tales, the not-very-funny joke schoolmaster Jedediah Cleishbotham, followed by the real Introduction, followed by the first chapter, entitled “Preliminary.” Get on with it, man! And it isn’t long before we are treated to huge indigestible gobbets of dialect – that other Scotticism which is fun in reasonable doses but, when overdone, is like trying to swallow down a bucketful of cold porridge. Usually, once Scott gets into his stride we get a splendid yarn and a deeply satisfying ending. Here, it feels rushed and in need of better editing. One suspects Scott just couldn’t write a really good short novel – he needs space to expand and fill the tale.
  
  I like that the misanthropic midget is treated as a thoroughly miserable and anti-social recluse and yet also given remarkably sympathetic treatment by the author (if not by many of the other characters in the novel). Scott, as so often, is great at putting marginalised characters centre stage and showing a profoundly noble sympathy for them. It’s just a pity he makes the dwarf (slight spoiler) a secret toff. The real dwarf was no such thing, but perhaps Scott felt it would be stretching the sympathy of his readers a little too far if he made his central character both incredibly ugly and a plebeian as well.
  
• 
  Okenwillow

  Un court roman qui se liquide en moins de deux. Une intrigue sympathique, des personnages qui le sont tout autant, une atmosphère de superstitions et de craintes pseudo-religieuses, un pays tourmenté par une politique chaotique, menacé de revolutions etc, tous ces ingrédients n’ont pourtant pas suffit à me passionner. La brièveté du livre doit y petre pour quelque chose, tout va trop vite, on n’a pas forcément le temps de s’immerger dans l’histoire, vite bouclée. Néanmoins un agréable aperçu de l’oeuvre de Walter Scott, que je considère toute fois comme relativement anecdotique.
• 
  Isabelle

  Un livre qui a commencé de façon très médiocre, j'étais certaine de ne pas aimer... Finalement, une lecture agréable et légère, avec une petite (très petite) dose de suspense, et une bonne mise en place historique (période suivant l'annexion de l'Écosse aux Royaumes-Unis, bonne description des mœurs et superstitions de l'époque). L'édition est bourrée de coquilles, mais c'est un livre gratuit alors on fait avec! Je ne crois vraiment pas qu'il s'agisse du genre de romans que je relirais, mais je vais peut-être considérer lire les autres volets de la série (c'est gratuit, t'sais!).
• 
  Sunsette

  This is a little difficult to read in places unless you are Scottish or are used to reading Scottish dialect. The more I read, the more I was able to understand what was being said by some of the characters with stronger dialects. As it says in his introduction to the story, the author intended it to be longer when he began, but was advised otherwise. Therefore, the tale seems a little rushed in places...not bad, but not one of my favorites.
• 
  Alan

  Interesting book. Gives me some insight into the border culture between England and Scotland. These are some of the same people who settled the back woods of Appalachia in Eastern USA. They brought their unsettled ways and fierce independence with them. President Andrew Jackson was a good example. Read Albion's Seed to find out more.
• 
  Lauren Little

  Not very good. Hard to follow what was going on, and not much really happened anyway. Good thing it was short.