Popular Tales of the West Highlands, Volume 1

by John Francis Campbell, John Halsted (Producer)

This volume contains twenty-three ursgeuln or tales plus a number of fables from the Western Highlands of Scotland. These are tales and stories in which something 'Fairy' or magical occurs, something extraordinary - fairies, giants, dwarfs, speaking animals, or simply the remarkable stupidity of some of the characters. But these aren't just a collection of amusing and entertaining stories. In the days before schools these are the tales that were used to teach the lessons of life.

The story of Murchag a's Mionachag, for example, is legendary among the Gaelic tales. It is the infant ladder to learning about the chain of cause and effect, and fully as sensible as any of its kind. It used to be commonly taught to children of five or six years of age, and repeated by school boys, and was often recalled by grownups in all parts of the Highlands.

So take some time out and travel back to a period before television and radio, a time when tales were passed on orally - at the drying kilns, at the communal well or in homes, where families would gather around a crackling and spitting hearth and granddad or grandma or uncle or auntie would delight and captivate the gathering with stories passed on to them from their parents and grandparents from time immemorial. A proportion of the profit from the sale of this book will be donated towards the education of the underprivileged in Scotland.

Genres: Scotland, Fairy Tales, Anthologies, Folk Tales, Mythology

334 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1860

About the author

John Francis Campbell (Scottish Gaelic: Iain Frangan Caimbeul), also known as Young John of Islay (Scottish Gaelic: Iain Òg Ìle), was a Scottish author and scholar who specialised in Celtic studies. He was an authority on Celtic folklore and of the Gaelic peoples. He also invented a sunshine recorder that bears his name as the Campbell-Stokes recorder. He was heir to the island of Islay, until his father was forced to sell his estate in 1847.

With the assistance of contemporary scholars, such as Hector MacLean, Hector Urquhart, John Dewar and Alexander Carmichael, Campbell amassed a vast collection of original manuscripts related to Gaelic language and literature, which was later published as Popular Tales of the West Highlands (1860 - 62).

Reviews

[Christopher Nilsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A treasure trove of Scottish culture.