A guidebook for visitors to the Lordship of the Isles, complete with the most modern information and suggestions for foreigners, with explanations of words that may be unfamiliar, and a page detailing further reading recommended by the author.

Printed 1412, by Catriona nic Ceann-each Donn

If you think of empires defended by island strongholds and granite ramparts, of fleets that cover entire oceans, of beautiful artwork, of ancient battlefields, of dynasties that could trace their ancestors back into the mists of antiquity, you do not think of the Western Isles - the flat plains of sand that rise out of the Atlantic Ocean, just as wild and desolate as the mountains and glens on the mainland.

But the Lordship of the Isles holds sway over the land from the Butt of Lewis to Inverness, to Kintyre to Antrim, and its birlinns roam the oceans in their thousands. For most, the Last Gaelic Empire is a strange and alien place, of which they know little and understand less. The customs and languages are seen as foreign, and the artwork and architecture bizarre. The exotic food and the cosmopolitan society are not known anywhere else in northern Europe, and nowhere else is there such equality and harmony.

I am an inhabitant of the Lordship of the Isles, born in 1370, and have written this on behalf of all of those who wish to visit my homeland. I can assure you that it will leave you speechless.