ABANDONED. YA Book, Celtic themes- scene where restless dead parade

[Sarah]

Hello all,

I have a sneaking suspicion that this might be a Susan Cooper, but I can't find the scene in the plot summaries. This was set in England/Ireland/Scotland, I believe, and was a book with some sort of wizarding going on. It must have been written in, or before the 1990s.

The only scene that I remember was the march of the unhallowed dead. The protagonist wasn't supposed to see it! There were some ghosts who had burned to death, and it really stuck with me. There may have been a reference to the song "I'll take the high road, and you take the low road," with the low road being that of the dead.

This may have been on All Soul's day.

Any thoughts?

Thank you

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Sarah--the part about the low road being that of the dead is what the song is about. The person doing the singing is dieing and telling their friend that they will beat them home, because they'll go as a ghost.

There was another author at about the same time that Cooper was writing that wrote on similar themes, only it was a male author. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen or one of the other books in this series? (Sorry, it's been an incredibly long time since I read either this series or the Cooper one, so I can't tell you if your dead reference is in this series.

[Michele]

Not Weirdstone, there's nothing like that in there. I've read all of Susan Cooper several times and I don't think it's in there either.

Maybe something by Patricia A. McKillip? She tends to use Celtic themes like this in her book.

Do you remember anything at all about the main character -- boy, girl, old, magical, "muggle" ?

[Sarah]

I'm pretty sure the main characters were muggles (hee!), being introduced to the magical world. I'm not sure whether it was a boy, or a boy and a girl. I don't think it was McKillip, because the protagonist(s) were definitely contemporary.

I search through A Wizard Abroad today, but I don't think that's right either.

Thank you both!

[Aerulan]

Long shot, huge long shot actually, but maybe The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea? It rang some really really faint bells while reading your description, but it's been way too long since I read it so I 'm really not sure.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Sarah, are you still looking for this?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

No response in 2+ years. Moving to Abandoned.