POPULAR TALES of the WEST HIGHLANDS - 23 Scottish ursgeuln or tales E-Book

Anon E. Mouse

• Herausgeber: Abela Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

This 1st volume contains 23 Scottish ursgeuln, or tales, 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.
Herein you will find tales like:

• The Young King Of Easaidh Ruadh,
• The Battle Of The Birds,
• The Tale Of The Hoodie,
• The Sea-Maiden,
• Conall Cra Bhuidhe,
• The Tale Of Conal Crovi,
• The Tale Of Connal,
• Murchag A's Mionachag and more.

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.

10% of the publisher’s profit from the sale of this book will be donated to Charities by the publisher.
Yesterday's Books for Today's Charities

Leseprobe

POPULAR TALES

OF THE

WEST HIGHLANDS

VOLUME I

ORALLY COLLECTED

WITH A TRANSLATION

BY THE LATE

J. F. CAMPBELL

Published by

ALEXANDER GARDNER

OF

PAISLEY AND LONDON

[1890]

* * * * * * *

Resurrected by

ABELA PUBLISHING

LONDON

[2017]

Popular Tales of the West Highlands

Typographical arrangement of this edition

© Abela Publishing 2017

This book may not be reproduced in its current format in any manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical ( including photocopy, file or video recording, internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other information storage and retrieval system) except as permitted by law without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Abela Publishing,

London

United Kingdom

2017

ISBN-13: 978-1-907256-02-8

email

[email protected]

Website

www.AbelaPublishing.com

DO

IAIN MAC SHEORAIS

MAC CALLEN MOR

MARQUESS OF LORNE.

___________

MY DEAR LORNE,

I dedicate this collection of West Country Stories to you as the son of my Chief, in the hope that it may add too the interest which you already feel in a people, of whom a large number look with respect on "Mac Callen Mor" as the head of their tribe. I know that the poorest Highlanders still feel an honest pride whenever their chiefs, or men of their name, earn distinction; and many of "Clan Dhiarmaid" take a warm interest in you.

Amidst curious rubbish you will find sound sense if you look for it. You will find the creed of the people, as shewn in their stories, to be, that wisdom and courage, though weak, may overcome strength, and ignorance, and pride; that the most despised is often the most worthy; that small beginnings lead to great results.

You will find perseverance, frugality, and filial piety rewarded; pride, greed, and laziness punished. You will find much which tells of barbarous times; I hope you will meet nothing that can hurt, or should offend.

If you follow any study, even that of a popular tale, far enough, it will lead you to a closed door, beyond which you cannot pass till you have searched and found the key, and every study will lead the wisest to a fast locked door at last; but knowledge lies beyond these doors, and one key may open the way to many a store which can be reached, and may be turned to evil or to good.

That you may go on acquiring knowledge, selecting the good, and rejecting the evil; that you, like Conal in the story, may gather gold, and escape unharmed from the giant's land, is the earnest wish of your affectionate kinsman,

J. F. CAMPBELL.

SEPTEMBER, 1860.

Acknowledgements

The Publisher acknowledges the

work that J. F. Campbell did

in compiling this first volume of

Popular Tales of the West Highlands in a time

well before any electronic media was in use.

A percentage of the net from the sale of this book

will be donated to the Prince’s Trust

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

In reproducing this first volume of Popular Tales of the West Highlands, we have elected to omit the detailed referential material that was assigned to each individual story, choosing to retain the commentary and focus on the tales themselves.

We have also elected to retain the somewhat lengthy introduction as it pertains to all four volumes and which we believe contains the necessary referential information for those readers whose interest extends beyond the tales themselves.

John Halsted

Abela Publishing

CONTENTS

Introduction

Postscript.

I. The Young King Of Easaidh Ruadh.

Ii. The Battle Of The Birds.

Iii. The Tale Of The Hoodie.

Iv. The Sea-Maiden

V. Conall Cra Bhuidhe

Vi. The Tale Of Conal Crovi

Vii. The Tale Of Connal

Viii. Murchag A's Mionachag

Ix. The Brown Bear Of The Green Glen

X. The Three Soldiers

Xi. The Story Of The White Pet.

Xii. The Daughter Of The Skies.

Xiii. The Girl And The Dead Man

Xiv. The King Who Wished To Marry His Daughter

Xv. The Poor Brother And The Rich

Xvi. The King Of Lochlin's Three Daughters

Xvii. Maol A Chliobain

Xviia. Fables

Xviib. Bailie Lunnain,

Xviic. The Slim Swarthy Champion

First Version

Second Version

Xviid. The Tale Of The Shifty Lad, The Widow's Son

INTRODUCTION

THE FAIRY EGG, AND WHAT CAME OUT OF IT

ON the stormy coasts of the Hebrides, amongst seaweed and shells, fishermen and kelp-burners often find certain hard, light, floating objects, somewhat like flat chestnuts, of various colours--grey, black, and brown, which they call sea-nuts, strand-nuts, and fairy-eggs. Where they are most common, they are used as snuffboxes, but they are also worn and preserved as amulets, with a firm or sceptical belief in their mysterious virtues. Old Martin, who wrote of the Western Isles in 1703, calls them "Molluka beans," and tells how they were then found, and worn, and used as medicine; how they preserved men from the evil eye, and cured sick cattle by a process as incomprehensible as mesmerism. Practical Highlandmen of the present day call the nuts trash, and brand those who wear them, like their ancestors a hundred and fifty years ago, as ignorant and superstitious; but learned botanists, too wise to overlook trifles, set themselves to study even fairy-eggs; and believing them to be West Indian weeds, stranded in Europe, they planted them, and some (from the Azores) grew. Philosophers, having discovered what they were, used them to demonstrate the existence of the Gulf Stream, and it is even said that they formed a part of one link in that chain of reasoning which led Columbus to the New World.

So within this century, men have gathered nursery tales. They set themselves earnestly to learn all that they could concerning them; they found similar tales common to many languages; they traced them back for centuries; they planted them in books, and at last the Brothers Grimm, their predecessors and their followers, have raised up a pastime for children to be "a study fit for the energies of grown men and to all the dignity of a science."

So at least says the learned author of the translation of "Norse Tales," and there are many who agree with him.

Men have now collected stories from most parts of the world. They have taken them from the dictation of American Indians, South Sea Islanders, Lapps and Samoydes, Germans and Russians. Missionaries have published the fables of African savages; learned men have translated Arabic, Sanscrit, and Chinese manuscripts; even Egyptian papyri have been dug up, and forced to yield their meaning, and all alike have furnished tales, very similar to stories now told by word of mouth. But as some of these are common to races whose languages have been traced to a common origin, it is now held that nursery stories and popular tales have been handed down together with the languages in which they are told; and they are used in striving to trace out the origin of races, as philologists use words to trace language, as geologists class rocks by the shells and bones which they contain, and as natural philosophers used fairy-eggs in tracing the Gulf Stream.

The following collection is intended to be a contribution to this new science of "Storyology." It is a museum of curious rubbish about to perish, given as it was gathered in the rough, for it seemed to me as barbarous to "polish" a genuine popular tale, as it would be to adorn the bones of a Megatherium with tinsel, or gild a rare old copper coin. On this, however, opinions vary, but I hold my own, that stories orally collected can only be valuable if given unaltered; besides, where is the model story to be found?