The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [84]
This book told the story of what happened to the Bonnie Prince and his followers after the disaster at Culloden. Included in the description of those harrowing days was the poignant quote which I later used in Dragonfly in Amber: After the final battle at Culloden, eighteen Jacobite officers, all wounded, took refuge in the old house and for two days, their wounds untended, lay in pain; then they were taken out to be shot. One of them, a Fraser of the Master of Lovat’s regiment escaped the slaughter; the others were buried at the edge of the domestic park.
Now, by this point I had “seen” enough of the story to think that it should end at Culloden—but I had the feeling that there was more to the story than that. So, on the off chance that there might one day be a sequel to this book (cough), I thought it might be advisable for Jamie [] to survive that battle—and if that were the case … well, plainly his last name should then be Fraser.
As to the other characters in the books, some name themselves without apparent reference to anything, some names I pick from the mists of memory or the ragbag of whimsy, and others I select quite consciously—though these latter names tend to belong to minor characters.
Colum MacKenzie (Callum, in Cross Stitch) was another character who arrived early on. Groping for a Scottish-sounding name, I picked “Colum” from one of James Clavell’s novels (Noble House, I think), in which a Scottish family had a son so named. Much, much later, when we sold the book to a U.K. publisher, and I asked them to have a Scot read it, Reay Tannahill (who read the manuscript and made many helpful comments) informed me that while this was a Gaelic name, the usual Scottish spelling was “Callum”; “Colum” is, evidently, Irish.
Ah, well. We changed it for the U.K. edition, but since the U.S. edition had already reached the galley-proof stage, we didn’t change it there—on the grounds that the spelling would be immaterial to U.S. readers—and given the extreme variations in Gaelic spellings that I had so far encountered, Colum/Callum seemed minor.
I WATCHED DOCTOR WHO as reruns on our local PBS channel. Owing to the differences of format between British shows and American programming, the credits of imported shows were sometimes cut off, to allow time for PBS announcements following the show. Consequently, it was not until I had finished writing Outlander that I discovered the name of the actor who had played Jamie MacCrimmon—one Frazer Hines.
As I went on doing research through the course of the novels, I came across the legend of the Dun-bonnet—the survivor of Culloden who returned to his estate, and lived seven years in hiding in a cave, protected by his loyal tenants. This struck me as a most romantic and suitable story, so—in the larcenous fashion of novelists—I snatched it and adapted it to my own purposes.
Many months later, I came across the story of the Dunbonnet, repeated by another source. This one, more complete, gave the real name of the man known as the Dunbonnet— one James Fraser.
Colum’s son (or not, as the case may be), Hamish, was named in compliment to the hero of M.C. Beaton’s delightful comic novels, the Highland policeman Hamish MacBeth.
Where did I get names like Letitia and Maura? Heaven knows: I don’t.
Geillis Duncan was a conscious choice, though. In the course of the research, I had discovered a Scottish witch, executed in the late sixteenth century, named Geillis Duncan. I liked the name—and had also seen a passing reference in one of Dorothy Dunnett’s novels (which I much admire) to Geillis as “a witch’s name.” Little did I realize that the woman who bore it in Out-lander had also chosen it deliberately, and for the same reason! She so informed me, sometime later, when she chose to reveal her real name—or what I must presently assume to be her real name—Gillian Edgars.
Mother Hildegarde