"The stars danced like this the night Saint Columba died on Iona," Kenneth said, "and the monks thought it was the angels carrying his soul to Heaven."
The whole day had been strange. First there was the sound, like thunder or a sonic boom, as the four walked in the woods of Argyll. John thought he heard a call for help. Later there was the harp music - a tune that filled Bridie's heart with deep longing. An old woman was singing, and when Kenneth saw her, he became aware of danger. "Don't listen!" he cried.
For over a year Bridie had moved in and out of an imaginary world. Now she had entered it for a moment. The MacDonalds had accepted her as one of the family, but today they had quarreled. It had something to do with the ruined fort, and the sooner they got away from it, the better.
But the harp music draws Bridie, and after her Kenneth and Sheena and John, into a world thirteen centuries dead - into the pagan kingdom of Dalriada at the time when Saint Columba first brought Christianity to Scotland.
Winifred Finlay's imaginative mood fantasy dramatically re-creates another age. And though her adventurous dream of Dalriada, Bridies finds a place fore her true self in the real world.