Highland Folk Ways

by Isabel Frances Grant

Isabel Grant describes the homely settings, the lifestyles, the festivals and the customs of 'Highland Folk' and furnishes the reader with a link to the beliefs and the ideals of the past.

Genres: Scotland, History, Nonfiction

390 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1961

About the author

Dr. Isabel Frances Grant MBE was a Scottish ethnographer, historian, collector and pioneering founder of the Highland Folk Museum.

Reviews

[Karen Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating insight into the culture and habits of Highlanders in the past.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book for research. I read and re-read bits of it because of the fascinating bits of knowledge I glean about the old ways of Scotland. Ms. I.F. Grant knew her stuff. And she shared it. Today one can visit the villages of Kingussie and Newtonmore and travel back in time, thanks to Ms. Grant and others like her. Kingussie (pronounced "ken-yew'-see) contains a small museum and a few outdoor exhibits. Just outside Newtonmore you'll find a fantastic living history museum that covers 80 acres and stretches for about a mile. The two properties together comprise the Highland Folk Museum, and the caretakers have done a fantastic, even brilliant job there. Read this book before you go, to familiarize yourself somewhat; read it after you return home, to gather the small details that you may miss during your interesting visit.

[Gregor Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Impressive account, bringing to life a Scotland that has now been and gone. A well sourced collection of cultural phenomena.

Good wee stories here and there to explain various elements of Scottish cultural history, but the lack of narrative made it a slow burner for a linear read.

Would recommend to anyone interested in Scotland from 1600(ish) and onwards. It acts as a handbook of sorts for the ‘highland folk museum’ in Newtonmore. The writer managed, maybe even started the museum, near enough dedicating her whole life to the conservation of cultural heritage.

[Chris Shepheard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting and thoroughly researched book showing how the highlander's lives have changed over the centuries. It covers all aspects of their daily lives from the mundane to the exceptional.

Sadly this edition has obviously been printed by using scanning and optical character recognition of an earlier version which has then not been properly proof-read. There are many cases of character pairs being misread (e.g. "rn" becoming "m"). As there are many unusual Gaelic terms the reader will not have come across before he/she will be easily mislead as to what those terms should be - a bad fault in what is at least partly an educational text book.

The publisher needs to ensure the text is thoroughly checked against a copy of the original before the next re-printing.

[Dave McBain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superbly well written book that sits beautifully in that niche between history and archaeology. If you have every asked the question in a Highland environment of why did they do it like that? What sort of food did they eat (and/or grow)? Where would I find a source for that little gem of information on fishing technique in the past? or so many others.
Exquisitely researched, very readable and enlightening.
Will however confess, I've owned it for years and never read it because I imagined from the title that it was a bunch of old folk stories. It isn't, but it does have a few tucked in there as a means of explaining something.

[Helen Lisl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy books describing societies and ways of life with which I am unfamiliar. This book has given me a very vivid picture of life in the Highlands of Scotland as a pre-industrial society until very recently, and now, and I have greatly enjoyed it. I have only given 4 stars as there was a lot of technical historical detail better fitted to a work of scholarship than one for the general reader. The author seemed not quite sure who her audience was so tried to satisfy everyone. however I found it quite easy to skip where necessary

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[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

tl;dr – WHY were they so obsessed with butter…the SPOTS I can’t even begin to imagine

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Obsessively detailed it might be, with a lot of anecdotes that you could perhaps quite comfortably skim over, but if you ever wanted to find out about every intricacy of weaving plaid fabrics (who knew they did it because it was so much cheaper and that everyone wore it regardless of social status?), then Highland Folk Ways might just be the book for you. Definitely not one you could power through in a whole sitting, unless you were held at gun point perhaps, but I.F. Grant does have a delightfully personable way of covering a millennium’s worth of history that manages to feel like a good friend saying “oh and another thing” while never lacking on the technical details. I personally picked this book because I hope to one day write a series of horror stories set in Scotland and it was infuriating me not knowing exactly what peasants ate back in the good old days, but now I do – so problem solved! And who knew it was mostly butter? As a big fan of the stuff myself, I’m glad this heritage has persisted through the years – although I can’t see myself becoming a fan of the husks mixed with water, I do have to say.

[Mary Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're the kind of person that is more interested in the minute details of Highland life than you are in dates and battles and who succeeded who as king of wherever, this is the book for you. It tells you more than you ever needed to know about the ways that Highland people lived, including their traditions, foods, livestocks, farming equipment, clothes, and holidays. Some of it is definitely went over my head, especially about boat construction (she takes for Grant...ed [see what I did there?] that you know a lot of information about boats...I do not. #landlocked), but it's not a hard read other than that. I'd definitely recommend it to authors who want to learn about daily life for books but for me, it was tedious. Every so often Grant would talk about her collection of old Scottish stuff and her museum and that one time she raised black-faced sheep and wow why am I not as cool as her but yeah just not my kind of book.

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely amazing! It's not a book to read for pure pleasure, but there is everything you could possibly want to know about Highland life. Grant is so knowledgable, and provides little anecdotes from her childhood which I found very interesting. Crazy to think that as a child she had known people who were familiar with the Highland Clearances! Absolute gem of a resource.

[Elizabeth Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore this book. I bought it for research but it has become so much more than that to me. It is a brief glimpse into my history and that history of all Scottish people.

Absolute treasure of a book.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little over half-a-century since it was originally published this remains perhaps the best single-volume introduction to the history and development of Scottish Gaelic culture.

A 'must read' for anyone with an interest in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland!