Men of the Moss Hags is an 1895 historical novel by Samuel Rutherford Crockett. It forms a duology with Lochinvar.
Set during the "Killing Times", when Covenanted Presbyterians were viciously persecuted, it tells the story of a Galloway youth who joins the Covenant cause.
Tropes
- Action Girl: Kate and especially Maisie have their moments, before suffering a certain amount of
Badass Decay in Lochinvar. - All Witches Have Cats: Corp-Licht Kate's lair is crawling with them.
- Alliterative Name: Multiple James Johnstones (see One-Steve Limit, which is very much not in force).
- Badass Preacher: Unsurprisingly, a novel about Covenanters features several of these, risking their lives for their faith.
- Brave Scot: Most of the cast. It's an Adventure novel set in Galloway during the turbulence of the late seventeenth century, after all.
- The Cavalier Years: It's set in the reign of Charles II.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Will and Maisie.
- Deuteragonist: Wat. (He becomes the main protagonist in the sequel.)
- Excessive Mourning: Will's mother becomes very selfish in grieving his father. She doesn't care for her children's loss, or that Maisie has lost her brothers, but acts as if she's the only one bereaved.
- First-Person Perspective: Will narrates his own story.
- Handicapped Badass: Will walks with a limp because of a childhood injury, but is still a competent fighter (for all his Self-Deprecation) and will end up a soldier.
- Historical Domain Character: Many of the Covenant rebels, Royalist officers, and government officials are real people, including the Gordons of Earlstoun themselves (although historically Will had more siblings than are depicted here). Will Gordon's life is far more obscure than those of his father and eldest brother, allowing Crockett room for invention.
- A House Divided: Averted. The Gordons of Earlstoun are Covenanters and their cousins of Lochinvar support King Charles, but family comes first.
- Illegal Religion: It's set during the "Killing Times", the brutal suppression of the Covenanters.
- Kissing Cousins: Will and Maisie are distantly related.
- La Résistance: The Covenanters are outlawed for their beliefs but stand up against religious repression.
- Last-Minute Reprieve: Maisie gallops in with the pardons for Will and her father when they're due to be beheaded for treason.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Was Corp-Licht Kate's witchcraft real? And was Gash Gibbie really the Devil's son?
- A Minor Kidroduction: We get a couple of chapters of the protagonists' childhood before skipping ahead.
- Moral Dilemma: When Maisie steals what she believes is one blank pardon, she agonises over whether to save Will or her father. As it turns out, though, there are TWO pardons.
- More Despicable Minion: Claverhouse commands the King's dragoons hunting the Covenanters, but is relatively honourable and merciful; many junior officers, notably Westerhall, are far more vicious.
- Oh, Crap!: When Wat and Will realise that the man they have wounded is the Duke of Wellwood.
- One-Steve Limit:
- Hilariously averted when Westerhall demands the name of a peasant boy who talks back to him. He's told it's James Johnstone, which is also his own name. Frustrated, he asks who the boy's father is: James Johnstone. One of his own troopers starts laughing and a furious Westerhall demands to know which one it was: guess the soldier's name!
- There are two ministers called Peter local to Earlstoun.
- Then there's Kate McGhie and the witch Corp-Licht Kate.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Passionate Wat and the more considered Will.
- Scenery Porn: A signature Crockett trope. His beloved Galloway countryside is lovingly described.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Maisie rides to Edinburgh in male disguise.
- Time Skip: Two. From Will and Maisie's childhood circa the late 1660s to 1679, and the page or so that Will spends on his first sojourn in the Dutch United Provinces, which seems brief but based on events must cover 1680-84.
- Would Hurt a Child: When Maisie challenges Jock Marshall for sheep-stealing, he orders her death and Will's; they escape but Will is shot in the leg. This occurs during the childhood prologue.
