Mossdale · Galloway · 3,000 years
MossTales
The hidden stories of a small Galloway village
Paul Clarke
What we see is what we know.
What we know is what we think.
What we think is what we do.
What we do is what we see. Found on a gravestone at Balmaghie Kirk
This is a book about perception: how people in every age see their own time, and live with it in different ways.
A Roman soldier buries a hoard. A witch-finder meets his sister. A band plays one silent song in a village hall. And under the loch, something has been waiting.
Fourteen linked stories around one place. Three thousand years of hidden histories that have remained silent until now.
The stories, in book order
One village, many times
Each story stands alone. Read them together and you start to see the threads: a hoard that will not stay buried, a green light on the moss, and a mark of three lines that keeps turning up.
- AD 82Prologue
The Custodian
By the River Dee, a Roman soldier is given silver to keep. He keeps it the only way he can.
- c. AD 690One
The Mosslight
A green light walks on the moss. Nest knows the three rules. The king's reeve does not.
The night of the great frost. - 1147Two
The Whispering Soil
At Mossgarth Cell, monks dig beside an old marked stone. The soil has its own ideas about what should be found.
- 1575Three
Liminal Ground
A witch-finder rides into the oak woods at Duchrae, and meets his sister.
The old woods, where the paths are older than the maps. - 1854Four
Galloway Tea
At a lonely halt by Loch Skerrow, a maid named Else gathers a harvest bound for the Crimean War.
Liberty caps, hand-coloured by James Sowerby for Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms (1795–1815), plate 248, figures 1–3. Public domain. - 1914Five
The Bank Incident
Wartime, a small country bank in New Galloway, and an auditor on his way.
- 1930sSix
The Shooting Party
On the moor at Slogarie, the light turns a colour it should never be.
- 1967Seven
James Allen
Snow, a stranded van, and a stranger who gives his name as James Allen. The village hall will never forget the night.
- 2021Eight
Seeds of Doubt
A tree-planting squad finds silver on the hill above the village, and a grant deadline to meet.
- 2026Nine
The Low Water
Drought pulls the loch back. Underneath, a drowned kirk and its graves come up for air.
Water remembers where it has been. - 2027Ten
The Frequency
Oleg winds a copper coil, sunwise. Across Mossdale, the lights begin to fail.
- 2041Eleven
Owner Access
The machines keep the village warm. Then, one winter, they don't.
- Far futureTwelve
The Answering
The moss learns to speak. Someone, a very long way off, answers.
A signal, sent a long time ago, finally heard. - c. 1000 BCThirteen
Lineage
Eda and her daughter Senn climb the hill at Woodhall with gifts, and leave a space for whoever is coming next.
From The Mosslight
Three rules for the lights
- Do not follow it.
- Do not wave to it.
- Stand still, and let it see you.
Her mother had taken her hand and drawn it through the air. Down. Then across, one way. Then across, the other. One line standing, two lines crossing.
"Then you make the mark. So it knows you."
"Knows what?"
"That we have kept its place."
I remember all of them who stood still. There have not been so very many. Most run, or follow. I breathe slowly. But I am always, always paying attention.
The ground beneath the stories
Where the stories live
The stories are fiction, but they grow from real ground around Mossdale. Much of it is private land and people's homes, so please enjoy these places through the stories.
Glenlochar and the Dee
The river, the old Roman ground and the moss beside it. The Custodian and The Mosslight begin here.
Balmaghie Kirk
Where the poem at the front of the book was found, on a gravestone.
Duchrae
Old woods and older paths. The setting for Liminal Ground.
Loch Skerrow
A remote loch on the old railway line. Galloway Tea waits here.
Loch Ken
A made loch over older ground. The Low Water asks what lies beneath it.
Woodhall Loch
Where the book ends, three thousand years ago.
The launch
Friday 13 November 2026Doors 6:30pm. Starts 7:00pm.
CatStrand, High Street, New Galloway, DG7 3RN.
Readings from MossTales, the story behind the stories, and signed copies. All welcome.
Hear it first
The audiobook is being made
MossTales will also be an audiobook. Leave your email and we will tell you about the launch, the audiobook and new stories.
The author
Paul Clarke
Dr Paul Clarke is director of Naturally Smart Group CIC, a land-based eco-cultural social enterprise in Mossdale, Galloway, inside the Galloway and Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere.
Naturally Smart brings people, land and story together. It grows food, shares skills and tells stories, helping a small rural community become more resilient on its own terms.
Naturally Smart works in partnership with the World Ecological Civilization Community Foundation (WECCF), a foundation based in Geneva. Paul is also an international consultant to the Beijing Sustainable Development Committee.
His work, in Galloway and around the world, asks the same question as this book: how people see their own time and place, and how they choose to live in it.
MossTales is his latest collection of fiction, and the first volume of a planned series set in Mossdale.
Buy the book
Availability
MossTales is available on Amazon, and will be available in local bookshops. The special edition is made by hand in Mossdale, and you reserve it here.
Paperback ISBN 978-1-9999645-2-8 · Hardback ISBN 978-1-9999645-3-5 · Bookshops can order using these numbers.
Special edition
Reserve one of 25
Fill in the form and we will hold a copy for you. Paul will email you to confirm, with the total and a secure payment link. Nothing is paid on this website.
Copies are numbered in the order reservations arrive.
I saw a time.
I saw a place.
I dreamt another realm —
the realm dreamt me in return.