Talk:The Merry Men (short story)

I don't see a way to edit this page, but there are two errors in the article which need to be corrected.

The first is with regard to the topography of the story location. Stevenson clearly states in the story that the place, which he calls Eilean Aros ("eilean" is Scottish Gaelic for "island") is a tidal island. From his description in the text, it is clearly the island of Earraid, which forms the southwest corner of the Ross of the larger island of Mull, just off the west coast of Argyll across from the town of Oban. Stevenson links on the internet, including the Wikipedia link for the island, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erraid, confirm that he set this story there. That being the case, the reference to Aros as a promontory in this article is incorrect. I've been to the southwest tip of Mull. Earraid is not a promontory, but an island, even though it may contain a promontory within its one square mile of surface.

The second error is in the plot synopsis. I just finished reading the story. Charles Darnaway states that during his first dive to see if he could find the Spanish wreck, he thought that he had found what might be the wreck of a ship underneath several layers of undersea vegetation, but that on his second dive, it became clear that there was no wreck there -- it was just a rock formation which he had mistaken for the remains of a ship. He picked up the human bone from the growth anchored to the top of this rock formation.

Catriona M207.119.151.182 (talk) 19:57, 25 February 2011 (UTC)