19. Introductory handsel

The word ‘quair’ is a Scots term for a book, literally, a ‘quire’ (that is, 24 sheets of writing paper folded to make 16 pages). The dictionary link to the word notes its use in the 18^th century as well as its further meaning – more generally as a literally work, as in the much older poem by James I, The Kingis Quair (c.1423). Dictionary definitions can give you documented historical references, but since this section is about literature, allow the powers of implication to hold sway for a moment and think of the significance Lewis Grassic Gibbon gives in his work to the voices of women and men – in their daily practice, in gossip, raised in song or whispered in terms of endearment, expletive in anger, joined in concurrence of ideals, isolated and lonely in their exclusion from the normative pressures of conservative society...

Is it possible that he chose the word as the title for the trilogy partly at least for its resonance with the word, ‘choir’? I don’t mean to challenge etymological accuracy here, only to suggest that a bound number of sheets of paper on which are written or printed words representing speech might be thought of as a choir of human voices rather than only as a collection of signs made from wood and ink. Whatever the linguistic history, the idea is germane to Grassic Gibbon’s achievement, as you shall see.