As Birds Bring Forth the Sun by Alistair MacLeod
"As Birds Bring Forth the Sun" by Alistair MacLeod is a poignant narrative steeped in Scottish Highland heritage, exploring themes of familial legacy, loss, and the haunting connections between past and present. The story follows a man who is deeply bonded to his large gray dog, a creature he rescued and cared for, symbolizing loyalty and companionship. When the dog mysteriously disappears just before giving birth, the man and his family are left in despair. The narrative takes a tragic turn when, during a fishing trip, the man joyfully reunites with his dog only to be fatally attacked by her unexpected offspring.
The aftermath of this incident ripples through generations, profoundly affecting the man's descendants, who are burdened by the specter of their ancestor's death and the ominous presence of the gray dog. As the narrator reflects on this legacy, the story delves into themes of grief, memory, and the haunting nature of familial ties, suggesting that the past continues to shape the present in powerful ways. The narrative intertwines elements of magical realism, where the dog transcends her role as a pet to become a mythic figure tied to the family's history of tragedy. Overall, MacLeod's work invites readers to contemplate the weight of ancestral stories and the enduring impact of loss on those who come after.
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As Birds Bring Forth the Sun by Alistair MacLeod
First published: 1985
Type of plot: Magical Realism, fantasy
Time of work: The nineteenth and the twentieth centuries
Locale: An unspecified place by the sea and Toronto, Canada
Principal Characters:
The gray hound The gray hound's master His teenage son , who helps his father on the fishing boatHis younger son , who also helps on the boatHis great-great-great-grandson , the narratorHis eleventh son , the narrator's great-great-grandfather
The Story
"As Birds Bring Forth the Sun" begins as the story of a man whose family name, which is never revealed, indicates a Scottish Highland heritage. He lives by the ocean and has a large family whom he supports by fishing and farming. The man has a huge gray dog, that is devoted to him. He adopted her when she was just a small puppy that someone had left on his doorstep. Later, he saved her life again by nursing her back to health after she was run over by a cart. Though he has never given the dog a name but simply calls her cù mòr glas, or "the big gray dog" in Gaelic, he is very much attached to her. When she comes into heat, he searches out a male large enough for her and helps them breed. However, shortly before her pups are to be born, the big gray dog disappears. The whole family worries about her, her master most of all, but she never returns.
More than a year later, while the man and two of his sons are out in their boat fishing, a sudden storm blows up, forcing them to take refuge on a nearby island. Suddenly they see the missing dog, standing on a hilltop. Her master is so overjoyed that he jumps out of the boat and wades toward shore; spying him, she rushes headlong down the hill, jumps up on him, and in her enthusiasm knocks him down. Suddenly six more gray dogs rush down to join in what they assume is an attack on this strange man. Before their mother can drive them off, they have killed her former master. The next day, when the sea is calmer, the sons take their dead father home. Later searches of the island reveal no trace of the dogs, though periodically a sighting is reported.
At this point the narrator reveals that the man who died was his own great-great-great-grandfather. This tragic incident had grave consequences. Because of it, the narrator's great-great-grandfather, born a few months after the dogs' attack, never had a chance to know his father. Moreover, neither of the two boys who witnessed their father's death ever recovered from the shock. The younger of them had terrible nightmares about the gray dog, which he associated with death; after a particularly vivid dream, he killed himself. The older son lived to be forty, but only by drowning his memories in drink. His end came one night in a Glasgow pub, when something he said about the big gray dog resulted in his getting into a fight with a large, gray-haired man. According to the story, when the two took their quarrel outside, six more gray-haired men appeared. The seven of them beat the son to death, then vanished.
The narrator admits that all of this happened in the distant past. However, he insists, each of the succeeding generations of his family has had visitations by the gray dog, and always they were followed by someone's death. What has reminded him of these stories is that he and his five brothers, all gray-haired, are at their father's bedside in a Toronto hospital. They all worry that their father may have a dream or a vision of the gray dog and give up his attempt to survive. However, what they fear most is that the gray dog will appear to them, for in their hearts they know that the tales are true.