Andrina by George Mackay Brown

• Andrina is a short story by George Mackay Brown.
• Like many of George Mackay Brown’s works, it takes place in a small island community in or around the Orkney Islands.
• In this story, fisherman, Bill Torvald, is forced to confront his past. A young woman, Andrina comes to visit him and supports him in his old age, but leaves abruptly and never returns.

The story has themes of:

• time and mortality
• memory and regret
• love, loss and betrayal

You can read Andrina by George Mackay Brown and the other short stories on the SQA website.

• George Mackay Brown (1921-1996) was an award winning Scottish writer from Stromness, Orkney.
• Mackay Brown’s stories often weave the past and the present together, showing the importance of history on life today.
• His stories often have a supernatural or spiritual aspect – with redemption and sacrifice appearing in several.
• His stories feature everyday people found on remote islands, focusing on fishermen, farmers, and village life.

Find out more here:BBC: Writing Scotland - George MacKay Brown

Andrina by George Mackay Brown is a Scottish ghost story set on the fictional island of Seleskay. It is narrated by Bill Torvald, an elderly retired sea captain who lives alone near a small village.

During the winter months, Torvald receives daily visits from a young woman named Andrina. Each evening, she tends to him while he tells her stories about his life, often exaggerating his youthful adventures.

In late February. Torvald becomes seriously ill and is confined to his bed for several days. During this time, he longs for Andrina’s visits, but she does not return. He is left to endure his illness alone, slipping in and out of feverish thoughts.

Once he recovers, Torvald feels deeply unsettled by Andrina’s absence. He remembers how she abruptly left when he began recounting his most painful memory.

Fifty years earlier, Torvald had been in love with a young woman named Sigrid. Their relationship was intense but ended when she became pregnant. Torvald fled the island and spent his life at sea, never returning to her. Sigrid attempted to follow him but failed. Torvald eventually returned home in old age, believing the past was buried.

Torvald visits the village and asks about Andrina, but no one recognises her name or description.

Back home, he reads a letter that arrived while he was ill. It was written five months earlier by Sigrid, now living in Australia. She reveals that she gave birth to his daughter and later became a grandmother to a girl named Andrina. This granddaughter had long wished to meet Torvald, imagining him as a kind man, and hoped to care for him in his old age. However, Sigrid explains that Andrina died recently.

Torvald realises that the young woman who visited him all winter must have been his granddaughter’s spirit. Her presence brought warmth, companionship, and quiet healing into his life. Through her visits and Sigrid’s letter, Torvald confronts his past mistakes and receives a sense of forgiveness, suggesting emotional closure and renewal as spring begins.

Bill Torvald is the central character and narrator of Andrina, and his complex character is revealed through his actions, thoughts and memories. Although independent, he is lonely and shows regret for his past actions and how they have shaped his life.

Independent

Torvald is portrayed as an independent spirit. As a "tough old seaman", he has led a solitary life in which he has relied on himself rather than others.

“as soon as she has gone… I throw the jersey from my shoulders and mix myself a toddy.”

Despite Andrina’s care to keep him warm and comfortable, he rebels when she leaves. Although she prepares him a warm bed, the hot water bottle will be cold before he climbs in around midnight after reading a “few chapters” of a Joseph Conrad novel. Conrad’s books, known for their sea themes, explore isolation, guilt, and morality, mirroring Torvald’s emotional journey.

When Torvald falls ill, he looks after himself rather than seeking help:

I forced down a few tasteless mouthfuls, and drank hot ugly tea. There was nothing to do after that but get back to bed with my book.

And when he reflects on his life as a sailor, it is clear he has made his own way in the world without the support of others or a steady home life to fall back on:

That rootlessness, for the next half century, was to be his life: making salt circles about the globe, with no secure footage anywhere. To be sure, he studied his navigation manuals, he rose at last to be a ship’s officer, and more.

Lonely

The flip side of Torvald's independence is that he is isolated and lonely.

He lives alone, separate from the local village, and relies on Andrina’s visits for companionship. When he falls ill he realises it “would cheer me to see the girl,” indicating how important her presence has become.

And he expresses how much a visit from her would mean to him:

A few words from her would be like a bell-buoy to a sailor lost in a hopeless fog.

Instead, he feels Andrina's absence, and as his illness peaks, he experiences "the longest night of my life."

Although relatively little happens during Andrina's visits, they have taken on great importance to Torvald, reflecting that he has few other personal connections in his life:

But there was a sense of desolation on me. It was as if I had been betrayed — deliberately kicked when I was down. I came almost to the verge of self-pity. Why had my friend left me in my bad time?

His dependence on her company reveals that beneath his tough exterior, he is deeply lonely.

Selfish

At the heart of Torvald's loneliness is the selfish decision he made to abandon Sigrid.

He thrust her away. He turned. He ran…

Rather than support the worman he loved, Torvald rejected her, and fled from his responsibility.

That same day he was at the emigration agents in Hamnavoe, asking for an urgent immediate passage to Canada orAustralia or South Africa — anywhere.

It is clear that Torvald was thinking only of himself at this point, but there is suggestion of panic. Perhaps he had not thought through his actions and reacted out of youthful instinct, something he has regretted ever since.

Regretful

As he spends more time with Andrina, he begins to think about this key moment in his life:

the episode in my life that hurts me whenever I think of it

He knows that he has committed an absolute wrong, but avoids confronting it. He thinks of it “rarely"

for that time is locked up and the key dropped deep in the Atlantic.

Torvald admits that the stories he tells about his past are exaggerated to make him seem exciting, his inner voice reveals how empty he sees his life as having been:

The barren years became a burden to him.

And when he finally gives up his life as a sailor, he describes his past in terms of harm:

he set his course homeward to his island; hoping that fifty winters might have scabbed over an old wound.

Reconciled

Through Andrina’s visits and by confronting his past, Torvald finds some redemption and there is a sense that he is reconciled with his past actions:

I thought of the brightness and burgeoning and dew that visitant had brought across the threshold of my latest winter

And in the final sentence, imagery of death ("dust") and renewal show a sense of acceptance of his life, mortality and the world that will continue beyond his own story:

but there, where she was dust, a new time was brightening earth and sea.

Andrina is a “winsome twenty-year-old” who visits Torvald “every afternoon in winter, just before it gets dark”. The nature of her visits and disappearance make her a mysterious character, while through her actions, and Sigrig's letter, we learn that she is kind, caring and empathetic.

Kind and caring

Andrina suddenly appears in Torvald's life after the Harvest Home:

you had too much whisky and she supported you home and rolled you unconscious into bed.

Although Andrina doesn't know Torvald at this point, he is clearly in need, and she seems to help him without judgement or expectation. This continues through her visits, where she tends to his practical needs:

She lights my lamp, sets the peat fire in a blaze, sees that there is enough water in my bucket

And the fact that "she fusses a little… puts an extra peat or two on the fire" when he is ill shows a level of extra concern and caring about his health.

Torvald sees what she does for him as " little rockpools of charity and kindness". She is clearly looking after him, and seems to do so either out of kindness itself, or some form of fulfillment from helping him.

There is a sense that she indulges Torvard:

the ‘tut-tut’ of sweet disapproval at some of the things she saw…

Not only does she encourage him to tell his tall stories, her actions suggest she is playing along and adding to the atmosphere of mystery and excitement that Torvald wishes to create about himself:

And the girl loved those pieces of mingled fiction and fact; turning the wick of my lamp down a little to make everything more mysterious, stirring the peats into new flowers of flame …

This suggests she is empathetic. Just as she tends to his physical needs, she seems understanding of the enjoyment he gets from telling his stories and making himself seem exciting.

Later, Sigrid's letter confirms Andrina's caring nature when she passes on Andrina's words:

‘I wish I knew that grandfather of mine. Gran, do you think he’s lonely? I think he would be glad of somebody to make him a pot of tea and see to his fire. Some day I’m going to Scotland… and I’ll do things for him.'

This demonstrates her sense of care and consideration for others, and the "sweetness", "llight and goodness" that she brings to others.

Mysterious

Throughout the story, Andrina is mysterious and there are hints that she is more than just an ordinary visitor. She arrives in Torvald's life at night, and she visits "every afternoon in winter, just before it gets dark". This time is traditionally linked to the supernatural. The description of how she arrives adds to this sense:

I expected her with the first cluster of shadows: the slow lift of the latch, the low greeting

The imagery of shadows, and her quiet, almost secretive arrival suggest an eerie atmosphere and a ghost-like presence.

When Andrina leaves before Torvald finishes his story about his relationship with Sigrid, her final interaction with him adds to the idea that she is a ghost, while also suggesting her shock and hurt:

she had put a white look and a cold kiss on my cheek”

The character becomes even more mysterious when it is revealed no-one else on the island knows about her:

“there was nobody of that name… in the island; and there never had been”

Finally, Sigrid's letter confirms who Andrina was, and that she has died. This leaves a sense of mystery; did Torvald imagine her visits? If so, how could he, if he did not know about her existence. Or is she really a ghost or spirit, visiting and caring for her grandfather, as she had intended to do while alive?

After each visit, Andrina:

left a peace behind — a sense that everything in the house was pure, as if it had stood with open doors and windows at the heart of a clean summer wind.

She brought calm to Torvald, who had spent his life wandering and alone. She visited him right up until she found out the story of Torvald leaving Sigrid when she was pregnant. Once she had heard enough (she left before he completed the story “as if she could foresee and suffer the end”), she “put a white look and a cold kiss on my cheek” and left “out at the door; as it turned out, for the last time”. The “white look” and “cold kiss” are indications that she is a ghost, but also show that, despite not being happy with what he has done, she doesn’t completely condemn him: she wouldn’t kiss him goodbye if she did.

This lack of judgment by Torvald aligns with what Sigrid later tells him in her letter - that she was a joyful girl with “such sweetness”. Sigrid tells Torvald that if he had known Andrina, she would have “been a lamp in your winter,” echoing Torvald's own words about Andrina being “a lamp in your dark time,” reinforcing the continued depiction of Andrina as a bringer of light.

She yearned to meet her grandfather, worried he was lonely, and thought he'd like companionship and someone to make tea and tend his fire, which she later did for him. She told her grandmother she planned to visit Scotland, knock on his door wherever he was, and do things for him. She saw the best in Torvald, believing he must be good for being loved by her grandmother. She didn't want her grandmother to spoil their love story, preferring to hear it first hand from him, especially the love story.

She achieved her goal: she brought “brightness and burgeoning and dew” to “latest winter”, and left Torvald with the impression that “a new time was brightening earth and sea” – that he had been forgiven and was unburdened of his guilt, confirmed by Sigrid’s letter.

Sigrid

Sigrid is an unseen character, whose personality is revealed through Torvald's memories and her letter.

As a young girl, she and Bill are seen as being very much in love. This is described in poetic language: they wandered “through the lingering enchantment of twilight,” suggesting magic and hope. “It is never dark then,” reflecting the joy of early love, when everything seems perfect. Their deep connection is clear:

“the boy and girl lived, it seemed, on each other’s heartbeats,

Both families were crofters, but there was a social divide: Torvald had prospects beyond crofting, while Sigrid

was bound to the few family acres — the digging of peat — the making of butter and cheese

Torvald’s family likely had more money for his education, whereas Sigrid was limited by her family’s needs and being a woman. Sigrid hoped they would marry, believing,

her place would be beside the young man with whom she shared her breath and heartbeats, once he gained his teacher’s certificate.

At this time and in this culture, Sigrid's prospects seem tied to finding a man to settle down with.

Everything changes when Sigrid becomes pregnant. She looks for Bill's love and support, but is let down: “She put out her hand to him” but “was left alone at the mouth of the cave” as he abandoned her “with the burden of a greater, more desolate mystery on her.”

Despite this cruel end to the relationship, Sigrid's letter reveals her continued love and positivity, as she recalls their summer together as “such a wonder.”

After Torvald abandons her, Sigrid demonstrates resilience. Rather than giving up, she attempts to follow him “half round the world.” This might be because her family rejected her because of her pregnancy or purely that she was very determined. She tells Torvald that “you and some others” believed that “that time” was “shameful,” showing that she faced hardship because of how others saw and treated her.

Eventually, she builds a new life in Australia, raising their child alone. She avoided talking to Torvald about their daughter because he refused to accept her, apparently respecting his choices. We see what a selfless woman she truly is: even though Torvald disrespected and abandoned her, she does not tell stories about him:

I have kept a silence too, because I had such regard for you that I did not want you to suffer as I had, in many ways, over the years.

This indicates that life has been difficult for her as an unmarried woman with a child, but she has never become bitter towards the man who caused her hardship.

She writes to “gladden” Torvald when lonely, thanks him for giving her a daughter who bore Andrina, and shows she bears no resentment. She still cares for him, reminiscing about their shared summer, indicating she’s not bitter about his betrayal. She finds happiness with her child and grandchild, something Torvald missed out on. Showing, once again, a kindness that Torvald does not truly deserve, Sigrid chooses to speak about him only positively to Andrina: "I told her only things that came sweetly from my mouth."

Her letter provides comfort to Torvald, who realises that he has been forgiven. Sigrid’s letter acts as both an announcement of Andrina’s death and a symbolic reminder of Torvald’s past decisions, specifically his abandonment of Sigrid and the consequences of that choice.

The story is told through the first-person narrative of Bill Torvald, a retired sea captain. After travelling the world for fifty years, he has recently come home to the island of Seleskay. Very few people, as a result, remember him at all, and he seems to have no strong connection with anyone in the village. No one visits him or notices his absence while he is ill. He is, therefore, a bit of an outsider, living on the periphery of village life.

Because the story is told from Torvald’s point of view, the reader has direct access to his thoughts, feelings, and memories. We see his emotional repression and the gradual way he opens up through his internal monologue. His tone shifts from guarded to almost confessional, reflecting the emotional journey he goes through after spending time with Andrina.

In his time of fever and loneliness, in the darkness of the night, he recalls how he

“experienced, over again, some of the dull and sordid events of my life; one certain episode was repeated again and again like an ancient gramophone record being put on time after time”

At this point, we are not told what this event is, but it becomes clear as the story progresses. He almost foreshadows what has happened by saying:

Love had been killed, but many ghosts had been awakened.

Torvald’s narrative is reasonably honest. He pokes fun at himself, saying that, while he was ill, he was like “Captain Scott writing his few last words in the Antarctic tent”, showing he knows he was exaggerating his situation somewhat, feeling sorry for himself. He also admits to embellishing his stories when he tells them to Andrina, and that he was prone “to add spice to those bits of autobiography”. Because he controls this narrative, key details are withheld from the reader until later in the story, until he reveals them.

When Torvald finally tells the true story of his shameful past, he acknowledges it is his story. However, he tells it at a distance: in a flashback, he talks about “a young man”, although it is clear that it was he who fell in love with Sigrid and abandoned her when she fell pregnant. He does not shy away from describing how awfully he behaved towards Sigrid, though, so his distancing of himself from those events stands as a form of self-protection and guilt. He admits to it being a:

tale of crude country manners: a mingling of innocence and heartlessness

Using a first-person narrative also means the reader knows only what the narrator knows, which builds suspense. This creates a layered structure where the reader gradually uncovers the truth alongside Torvald. We are as unaware as he is that he has a granddaughter, and we are left as confused as he is about Andrina’s true nature, making the twist at the end all the more powerful.

Setting in place: Seleskay

The story takes place on the fictional island of Seleskay in the Orkney Islands, highlighting Torvald's loneliness and creating a tense atmosphere. Torvald rejected Sigrid and the family they could have built together. His choice to leave cut his ties to his home in both the literal and emotional sense. In old age, he lives in solitude, without family or community connections, showing the toll of rejecting home.

The remote setting adds a supernatural twist and reinforces themes of guilt, memory, and reconciliation. It's more than a backdrop; it aids character development. The isolated location reflects Torvald’s emotional state. Cut off from the world, physically and metaphorically, he abandoned Sigrid and returned to this harsh island after a life at sea. The harsh weather and long days symbolise his self-judgment; his solitude acts as punishment for his past sins.

This is a close-knit community, so when no one knows Andrina, the reader knows that something is not quite right. The people who work on the island know everyone who lives there:

• “Tina Stewart the postmistress knew everybody and everything; all the shifting subtle web of relationship in the island.”
• “Isaac Irving knows the island and its people, if anything, even better than Tina Stewart.”

However, this community has only vaguely remembered Torvald and seems to have forgotten Sigrid and her family.

A few remembered him vaguely. The name of a certain vanished woman … he never mentioned, nor did he ever hear it uttered.

The past appears distant and hidden: this is a place where what is known remains uncertain, making Andrina’s existence seem believable. Perhaps Tina and Isaac do not know everything?

Torvald, it seems, has returned there with the hope that perhaps Sigrid still lives there. Maybe it was with the hope of redemption that he had done so? However, when he goes to look at where she once lived:

“Her parents’ croft was a ruin, a ruckle of stones on the side of the hill. He climbed up to it one day and looked at it coldly. No sweet ghost lingered at the end of the house, waiting for a twilight summons — ‘Sigrid’”

The dark, remote, cold location makes the presence of a ghost seem quite believable. This is a place rich in folklore and tradition. This description also enhances the build up of the twist: a place like this is exactly where you might expect a ghost to return. In this case, it is not the “sweet ghost” of Sigrid who awaits a “twilight summons”; it is her granddaughter who arrives at that very moment.

The landscape

Other features of the landscape have symbolic meaning. The young Torvald and Sigrid “came to the rocks and the sand and sea just as the sun was rising,” and this description is layered with meaning. The rising sun indicates the start of something new and beautiful. The juxtaposition of “sand and sea” suggests they are at a liminal place – somewhere where one thing ends, and another begins. However, the inclusion of “rocks” implies that this will not be entirely smooth or easy.

When the couple sought secluded spots, “there were too many windows,” revealing their desire for secrecy and highlighting that the community would be watching and judging them. They instead went “secretly night after night to the beach with its bird cries, its cave, its changing waters” to find solitude. The “changing waters” and the “bird cries” suggest that challenges will be ahead.

The “cave” symbolises secrecy and intimacy, a place where they could be enclosed in their own world. It also resembles a womb, representing the creation of new life. This is further emphasised when Torvald leaves Sigrid

alone at the mouth of the cave, with the burden of a greater more desolate mystery on her.

She is left with a growing life in her womb, which is both a “burden” and a “desolate mystery”, illustrating how she will face judgement and hardship because of this situation.

The sea

Torvald’s identity as a sailor is inseparable from the sea surrounding the island – he calls himself “a tough old seaman” and “a tough old salt,” and his language is full of references to the sea. When he hopes that Andrina will visit him, he says:

A few words from her would be like a bell-buoy to a sailor lost in a hopeless fog

This shows that he finds security in her and that she makes him feel safe. He also worries that she has fallen in love and that she stopped coming to him because “her little rockpools of charity and kindness drowned in that huge incoming flood.”

The sea symbolises several things. It is where he and Sigrid were free to love each other, and they took time to walk alongside it:

They walked day after day beside shining beckoning waters.

The sea also serves as his escape from her pregnancy, as he spent decades “making salt circles about the globe”. However, it is also a source of loss – it is where he abandons his daughter, her mother, and eventually Andrina. It causes him to have “barren years”.

Features of landscape, such as the sea, have symbolic meaning in Andrina. Find out more about symbolism with this short revision video.

Winter

Winter traditionally symbolises death and the end of life. When we meet Torvald, it is winter, and he is elderly, frail and approaching his own death. We first meet him when he is sick and dependent on Andrina for care. Winter also reflects Torvald’s guilt, which he has long kept buried. Andrina visits “before it gets dark”, an interesting detail that could suggest she appears before his death and before he has to face his dark secrets. This season is a time of stillness – nothing grows, and nature is dormant. Torvald’s life is like this – he can’t grow as a person until he faces up to his past mistakes. There is nothing to do but to try to stay warm and to reflect, so it is the perfect season for Torvald to confront his past.

Although winter is the season of death, it also comes just before spring – the season of growth, renewal and new life. The process of confronting his sins allows Torvald to experience growth, like a symbolic “thaw” after dark, cold times. Winter’s coldness contrasts with the warmth Andrina brings to Torvald. It is no coincidence that she is associated with Spring. Torvald acknowledges the benefits she brought:

you’ve had a whole winter of her kindness and consideration. She brought a lamp into your dark time

Torvald realises that Andrina had come to him as night fell, but when, in Australia, “a new time was brightening earth and sea”.

Spring

Andrina herself embodies a spring-like presence, symbolising renewal, hope, and the cyclical nature of life. She is young, energetic, and full of life, like the first signs of spring after a long winter. Torvald describes how she “left a peace behind — a sense that everything in the house was pure, as if it had stood with open doors and windows at the heart of a clean summer wind.” Just as spring brings warmth and brightness, so too does Andrina, metaphorically and literally: she lights the lamp, tends the fire, and brightens the room. Her presence also encourages Torvald to undergo moral and emotional renewal by drawing stories out of him. This helps him confess and confront the guilt he has buried for decades. Her visits melt his frozen conscience.

It is spring when Torvald discovers the mystery of Andrina’s presence. He finds the letter on a day when

“March airs were moving over the island. The sky, almost overnight, was taller and bluer. Daffodils trumpeted, silently, the arrival of spring from ditches here and there. A young lamb danced, all four feet in the air at once”.

This sense of new life and growth is tinged with sadness when Torvald opens the letter, sent by Sigrid three months earlier, to be told that “Our granddaughter Andrina died last week, suddenly, in the first stirrings of spring …” This corresponds with the time she arrived in Torvald’s life – the autumn season in Scotland. She is symbolic of spring as she brought “brightness and burgeoning and dew…across the threshold of my latest winter”.

Summer

Summer represents the time when Torvald had true love in his life: he first fell in love with Sigrid “one day in early summer”. They spent time with each other at “the midsummer dance” and went for a walk in “the lingering enchantment of twilight — it is never dark then”. In summer in those islands, it never gets truly dark, and this symbolises how, at that time, nothing could make Sigrid and Torvald feel bad.

“The springs of day were beginning to surge up” suggests the development of romantic feelings as well as the arrival of a sunny day. That bright feeling is continued in the idea that their love “was a tale soaked in the light of a single brief summer”. Warmth and light were the key characteristics of their relationship right up until Sigrid fell pregnant:

And at once the summertime spell was broken

This is hinted at by the description of “the ripening fields gathered him soon and hid him from her”, suggesting growth and fertility and that this was what split them up.

Loss is shown in multiple ways in this story:

• Torvald and Sigrid’s lost love
• the loss of his future as a teacher
• the loss of the future they both might have had
• the loss of the joy that family brings
• the loss of Andrina

Andrina explores the theme of death by emphasising Torvald’s old age and his closeness to mortality.

He seems aware that he is nearing the end of his life, especially when illness leaves him weak and vulnerable. During this time, he experiences “the longest night of my life,” suggesting not only physical suffering but possibly a confrontation with death itself.

His thoughts become reflective and regretful, showing how age brings a reckoning with earlier actions. It seems Torvald is searching for a sense of closure before his life reaches its end.

The supernatural nature of Andrina’s presence suggests that death, rather than ending connection, offers Torvald a final chance for comfort, reflection, and peace. There is a religious, angelic quality to the character and her visits, particularly through the imagery of light, which could suggest an existence beyond death.

In Andrina, age and youth are deeply connected rather than just opposites. Torvald’s old age reflects the youth he left behind, while Andrina’s youthful presence reminds him of what he has lost. Andrina has also lost the opportunity to grow old because she died young.

Torvald’s decline illustrates his old age, ill health, and isolation, symbolising the physical and emotional constraints of ageing. His health decline serves as a reminder of mortality, while his loneliness highlights the repercussions of disconnecting from family and community earlier in life. As he nears the end of his life, he confronts regrets and memories, especially regarding his abandonment of Sigrid. Torvald’s rejection of Sigrid decades earlier means he lost the chance to enjoy family life and the vitality of younger generations.

Andrina comes across as a youthful, lively visitor, injecting warmth and companionship into Torvald’s bleak life. Her youth and vitality create a stark contrast to Torvald’s fragility, emphasising what he has sacrificed through his decisions. The twist that Andrina is dead also shows that youth is not invulnerable and that death can reach the young as well as the old.

Torvald’s age isolates him, while Andrina’s youth symbolises the possibility of renewal and belonging.

Torvald leads an isolated life and, although he presents himself as self-reliant, he shows a hidden need for companionship and grows to depend on Andrina’s visits:

It’ll cheer me to see the girl.

Her presence brings warmth and comfort, leaving “a peace behind,” which highlights how empty his life is without her. When she suddenly stops coming during his illness, his loneliness becomes overwhelming, and he describes that time as “the longest night of my life,” showing both physical suffering and emotional isolation.

Torvald’s past actions also deepen his loneliness. By abandoning Sigrid, he cut himself off from love and family, leading to a rootless existence. As he reflects, there is “a sense of desolation on me,” revealing his emotional emptiness. Andrina briefly fills this void, suggesting the importance of human connection, while her absence reinforces how deeply loneliness has shaped his life.

This story serves as a warning that breaking family ties and betraying those you love will only leave you vulnerable, forgotten, isolated, and lonely. This is reinforced by Sigrid’s letter, which shows the warmth of a family that could have been his.

Andrina explores the theme of time and the past by showing how Torvald’s earlier actions continue to shape his present life.

He has tried to forget his youthful relationship with Sigrid:

that time is locked up and the key dropped deep in the Atlantic”

But his memories return vividly during his illness, demonstrating that the past cannot be permanently buried:

it haunted me… during my recent illness

It is clear that Torvald experiences regret, and the imagery suggests pain an attempted healing:

hoping that fifty winters might have scabbed over an old wound

The contrast between his past as a reckless young man and his present as a lonely old sailor highlights the passage of time and its consequences.

Andrina herself acts as a bridge between past and present. As Torvald’s granddaughter, she connects him to the life he abandoned, allowing him to confront his mistakes. Her visits suggest that unresolved emotions do not fade with time but wait to be acknowledged. The final revelation and the arrival of spring symbolise renewal, showing that although the past cannot be changed, it can be understood and accepted, bringing a sense of closure and peace.

“I thought of the brightness… that visitant had brought across the threshold of my latest winter”

In Andrina, memory is a key theme. The story explores how a person’s past can never truly be erased and how it can shape who they are. The story also shows how memory can resurface in unexpected ways.

Torvald’s memory of abandoning Sigrid has been a burden he has carried since his youth and still haunts him in old age. Andrina’s visits show how memory continues – the consequences of past choices can live on in memories through your descendants. Sigrid has not shared all of her memories of Torvald with Andrina, only the happiest memories. She has chosen to keep Torvald’s memory a happy one, rather than remember with bitterness or regret. Torvald, in contrast, has remembered his betrayal and abandonment with (appropriate) shame. As a result of these contrasting memories, Sigrid lives in warmth, surrounded by family, and Torvald exists in bitter cold, alone and unwell.

Andrina’s ghost comes to visit Torvald because of the memories Sigrid has shared with her. She draws out Torvald’s guilty memories, allowing him to confront his shame. She represents how memory can return, unbidden, to confront us with truths we tried to escape.

Sigrid’s letter forces Torvald to face the truth of his past. His memories are painful but also offer a chance for reflection, reconciliation, and forgiveness. Torvald’s sense of self has been shaped by what he recalls (and what he has tried to forget), and this story shows that memory is intertwined with identity: we are connected to the choices we have made and the memories of those we have left behind.

it haunted me… during my recent illness

The story explores how Torvald's past actions have stayed with him, framing his life with a sense of regret. The idea of his memories haunting him form the basis of this ghost story.

Although Andrina is portrayed as a ghost, her visits do not evoke fear; instead, they offer comfort and compassion, creating a bridge between worlds.

From the beginning, her visits are linked to an eerie atmosphere. She arrives “every afternoon in winter, just before it gets dark,” a time associated with the boundary between life and death. Her entrances are quiet and unnatural, marked by “the slow lift of the latch,” creating a ghost-like impression.

There are subtle physical hints that she is a ghostly presence, particularly when she gives Torvald “a cold kiss on my cheek,”

After she disappears, she continues to haunt him emotionally, as he waits for her return and feels her absence intensely. This haunting becomes psychological as well as supernatural.

there was nobody of that name… in the island

The mystery deepens when villagers deny Andrina's existence. The final revelation through Sigrid’s letter, that Andrina is dead confirms that her visits were supernatural, presenting her as a ghostly figure who returns to comfort Torvald and help him confront his past.

Andrina explores both connection and silence between characters.

At first, communication seems strong between Torvald and Andrina. She listens attentively to his stories, creating a sense of companionship and emotional connection, even though their conversations are mainly one-sided:

Andrina… had never done… asking me questions about myself

However, this communication is limited, as Torvald's stories are exaggerated, and he does not fully tell her the story that matters most to him:

One story I did not tell her completely

Andrina also shows the consequences of failed communication in the past. Torvald’s relationship with Sigrid breaks down when he cannot respond to her “tremulous perilous secret,” choosing silence and escape instead of honesty. This lack of communication leads to years of separation and regret.

Later, Sigrid's letter communicates her continued love and forgiveness, as well as explaining the truth about Andrina. The writer suggests the importance of this letter and communication generally, when Torvald compares the postman to “ a messenger of light.”

Ultimately, the story suggests that while communication may be delayed or incomplete, it is essential for understanding, connection, and emotional closure.

This theme is demonstrated through Torvald abandoning Sigrid when she was pregnant, leaving her to raise their child alone, and his choice haunts him in old age. His actions cut ties to family and community, shaping his later life of isolation and regret. It was also a moral failure in Torvald: he rejected responsibility, love, and family, things he should be duty-bound to support, love, and care for.

Sigrid was abandoned and left to deal with the stigma and hardship of raising a child without support. Consequently, their daughter and granddaughter were also forsaken by someone who should have been there to support them. Andrina, as Torvald’s granddaughter, represents the generations he abandoned and the family he lost.

As a result of his betrayal, Torvald is left isolated, lacking access to companionship and community. Betrayal and abandonment are punished in this story because they are shown as destructive forces that break those bonds. Isolation and loneliness become the consequence of selfishness, and Torvald’s solitude emphasises the importance of loyalty, family, and belonging.

The ending of the story highlights the central theme of forgiveness. Despite his treatment of her, Sigrid writes to Torvald to inform him of Andrina’s death. The act of writing to him indicates that Sigrid has forgiven him and that there remains a possibility of reconciliation, even after such a long time and from such a great distance.

Sigrid’s letter is full of compassion, revealing that she bears no bitterness towards Torvald. She speaks of him kindly to others and has never wished for him to feel judged in the way she once did. This truly demonstrates selflessness and forgiveness.

Andrina’s visits are gentle and non-judgmental. She provides Torvald with companionship in his loneliness, encouraging the same forgiveness. Her prompting him to tell his story compels him to face his actions. While he cannot change the past, Andrina offers the opportunity to acknowledge it and move towards self-forgiveness.

By the end of the story, Torvald’s family ties are restored: Sigrid re-establishes contact with Torvald, reconnecting him to the family he once abandoned, even if only through a letter. Andrina’s visits foster generational healing: broken bonds can still be recognised and potentially mended. Even late in life, there remains a chance for connection and healing.

Much of the imagery in Torvald’s story draws from his experiences as a sailor. The first example, “gasping like a fish out of water,” is a simile used to illustrate how unwell Torvald was. Just as a fish out of water would struggle to breathe, so Torvald is here due to his illness.

My head was a block of pulsing wood

He uses a metaphor to show how heavy and rough his head feels, likely influenced by his experience as a sailor. The “pulsing” describes the pain of a severe headache.

He believes Andrina has forgotten him because of her new romantic relationship, comparing love to a “huge incoming flood” that would wipe out everything, including her attention to Torvald. Her kindness is like “little rockpools” - small and fleeting, disappearing as the tide rises, indicating he thinks she will forget him for a romantic partner.

He also mentions that “the winter sun was making brief stained glass of sea and sky”, blending seafaring and religious imagery. The setting sun cast amber, gold, and red, reflecting in the sky, clouds, and waves, resembling a church stained-glass window. This metaphor connects to themes of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation found in a church.

Torvald uses natural imagery, like “I was as right as rain; a tough old salt like me.” This simile indicates feeling healthy or in good order. Originating in the 19th century, it suggests something is as reliable as rain in the UK.

When he realises she is not coming, his imagery reflects Andrina’s true nature. He first awoke “like a ghost in a hollow stone”. In Scottish storytelling, stones often carry supernatural associations (standing stones, cairns, gravestones). His feeling like a ghost in a stone could suggest he feels like a spirit bound to the land, or that he feels like a shadow of himself after his illness. The reference to the stone could also imply that he feels his body is heavy, but his spirit is weak. When he tries to ask for help from the postman, his voice is also described as “a ghost appeal.”

During his fever, his past mistakes replayed in his mind

like an ancient gramophone record being put on time after time, and a rusty needle scuttling over worn wax.

This simile suggests how long these memories have haunted him. He notes how “the shameful images broke and melted at last into sleep”, as if the only way he could sleep was if the ‘record’ of his betrayal melted or broke like a wax gramophone record. He describes how “Love had been killed but many ghosts had been awakened," foreshadowing what we learn about Andrina: she had died, and her ghost had awakened to visit him.

The language Torvald uses about his romance with Sigrid is poetic. He describes their love as them seeing each other with "new eyes", calling their story became “a tale soaked in the light of a single brief summer”. This metaphor suggests it was full of warmth, sunlight, and joy. When speaking to Sigrid, he utters “words that were nonsense but that sometimes in his mouth became a sweet mysterious music — ‘Sigrid’.” This metaphor implying her name is like a prayer or spell that captivates him. He tells us that “The boy and the girl lived, it seemed, on each other’s heartbeats," showing their closeness and deep connection.

When “the summertime spell was broken,” everything changes. The metaphor links back and forward to Torvald’s whispering Sigrid’s name. He then runs from her, and personification shows how lost he was to her:

the ripening fields gathered him soon and hid him from her.

‘Ripening’ and growing crops symbolise Sigrid's developing pregnancy, but the crops seem to conspire with Torvald to hide him, symbolising how pregnancy pushes him away. Although she follows, “the bird had flown,” another natural metaphor, shows Torvald had freedom to escape, but Sigrid must stay grounded for her child.

At the story's end, Torvald, “hoping that fifty winters might have scabbed over an old wound, returns home.” This metaphor suggests he's been hurt by his actions or hopes to find a forgiving Sigrid. At home, he finds redemption, reflected in his words about the sky being “taller and bluer” - an image of a larger, brighter world after releasing his guilt. The personification of flowers - “Daffodils trumpeted, silently” - implies celebration and renewal, symbolising his joy and a fresh start.

All four stories explore how everyday life and the supernatural interact and examine how humans respond to mystery, mortality, and hidden truths. They vary in tone and tradition, from oral folktale to modern Gothic, but all share a fascination with how the unseen influences human experience.

The supernatural

We see the supernatural in all of the stories in this selection:

• Andrina features a ghost from the past who visits her sickly grandfather soon after her death. Their family relationship brings closure to the central character.
• A Voice Spoke to Me at Night features a ghost from the distant past who appears in the narrator’s mirror. It seems their shared sense of loneliness is so strong that it bridges time to bring them together.
• Death in a Nut features Death in human form. He seems sympathetic, which fits with the overall message that death is not evil or judgemental, but a part of existence that we all must accept.
• Things My Wife and I Found Hidden in Our House takes traditional folk tale elements of witches and kelpies, and places them in a modern, present-day setting.

Death

Death features in all four stories in different ways and to different degrees.

• In Andrina, George Mackay Brown focuses on mortality and the unavoidable nature of death. Torvald encounters the ghost of his granddaughter, prompting him to confront guilt, memories, and the sorrow of loss, perhaps achieving a sense of closure that will allow him to die peacefully.
• In Death in a Nut, Jack’s effort to trap Death result in chaos, emphasising that life depends on death and that humans must accept their fate.
• In A Voice Spoke to Me at Night, the man in the mirror has become isolated because everyone in his village has died from plague.
• In Things My Wife and I Found Hidden in Our House, despite the death of Alice's grandmother, and her grandfather's first wife, the results of their actions live on, threatening the lives and relationship of Alice and Rain.

Relationships

All the stories deal with relationships in some way, or the lack of them, and associated ideas such as isolation and loneliness.

-Andrina deals with the narrator’s relationship with Andrina’s grandmother long ago. Bill Torvald abandoned Sigrid when she became pregnant, and he seems filled with regret and lonely. The ghost of Andrina leads him to face what he did and, together with Sigrid's letter, brings his comfort and sense of closure.

• In A Voice Spoke to Me at Night the narrator has no relationships and is isolated, perhaps largely through choice. The narrator forms a kind of bond with the man in the mirror who is also isolated. Their loneliness seems to bring them together.
• In Things My Wife and I Found Hidden in Our House the central relationship is strong, but there is a hint that it is endangered by the kelpie's curse. The destructive nature of relationships forms the background to the story, with the love triangle between Alice's grandmother, grandfather, and his first wife as the source of the curse.
• In Death in a Nut the relationship Jack has with his mum is so strong he feels he cannot face the isolation and loneliness her death would bring. He later learns to accept that everyone, including his mother, must die.

Time

Time plays a part in all of the stories.

• In Andrina, the title character's visits to her grandfather lead him to face his past actions and overcome his regrets.
• In A Voice Spoke to Me at Night despite a difference of centuries between the man in the mirror and the narrator, they are able to connect because of their shared loneliness. Although the narrator's isolation seems tied to technology and modern life, there is a suggestion that feelings of loneliness have always, and will always exist.
• In Things My Wife and I Found Hidden in Our House the lives and relationship of the main characters are threatened by actions of two generations ago. The past continues to have an impact.
• In Death in a Nut, Death is portrayed as an old man, suggesting he has always existed. The theme of time links to how Jack matures and becomes an adult through his encounter with Death, and through the idea that trying to stop death almost stops time in the way it prevents normal life from taking place.

Communication

• In Andrina, Bill tells Andrina exaggerated stories about his life. Sigrid's letter is a key communication that informs Bill about his granddaughter, her death, and the life Sigrid had after Bill abandoned her.
• In A Voice Spoke To Me At Night, although they share an emotional connection, there are communication issues between the man in the mirror and the narrator. This is mainly due to the language barrier as the man from the past speaks a mixture of Scots and Latin, meaning the narrator has to record him and translate it later.
• In Things My Wife and I Found Hidden in Our House, Rain seems naive and feels Alice's grandmother was trying to communicate positively with them. It is Alice who communicates the back story to the haunting.
• In Death in a Nut, Jack learns his lesson about the necessity of death when he finally listens to his mother and accepts that she is willing to die.

Love

All the stories deal with love, or the lack of it, in some way, and associated ideas such as isolation and loneliness.

• Andrina deals with the Torvald’s youthful loving relationship with Sigrid, and how he abandoned her when she became pregnant. But we are shown the enduring power of love as expressed in Sigrid's letter, and in the way the ghost of Andrina comforts the grandfather she never knew.
• In Things My Wife and I Found Hidden in Our House, the central relationship remains strong and supportive, but is still threatened by the supernatural.
• In A Voice Spoke to Me at Night the narrator has no relationships and is isolated, but then forms a bond with the man in the mirror. The narrator comes to see loneliness as a powerful force - "a kind of love for everyone that is never returned".
• In Death in a Nut, Jack's love for his mother is so strong that he battles Death rather than lose her. The mother shows love by being willing to sacrifice herself so that the world can return to normal.

Revise Andrina and other short stories with interactive quizzes.