In his day-dreams, Thorfinn Ragnarson, the son of a crofter, relives the history of this island people, travelling back in time to join Viking adventurers at the court of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople, then accompanying a Falstaffian knight to the battle of Bannockburn. Thorfinn wakes to the 20th century and a community whose way of life, steeped in legend and tradition, has remained unchanged for centuries. But as the boy grows up – and falls in love with a vivacious and mysterious stranger – the transforming effect of modern civilization brings momentous and irreversible changes to the island. During the Second World War Thorfinn finds himself in a German prisoner-of-war camp, and it is here that he discovers his gifts as a writer. Long afterwards he returns, now a successful novelist, to a deserted and battle-scarred island.