Creed

The story takes place on the high fells of the eastern Lake District. Below, in the north, are the towns of Penrith, where every three months Ruth gets taken by taxi to do her shopping, and Carlisle, where her brother and sister now live. Once a year, using the old high Roman road, Michael Creed drives his lambs down off the fells for slaughter. The Scotsman, Ruth's fateful visitor, arrives at her house in darkness and fog via Rampsgill Head and Blea Tarn, a perilous route.

'Creed' is proof, if any were needed, that out of the local and particular, with sufficient love and faith, a story can be made that will exceed, without ever deserting, its location, and touch any reader anywhere. Rooted in local realities, Carys Davies's characters live lives that are, in Keats's phrase, 'like the scriptures, figurative.' And her writing is an act not of transfiguration, but of revelation.