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The Folklore of Northern Scotland: FiveDiscourses on Cultural RepresentationJames Porter aa The Elphinstone Institute University of AberdeenPublished online: 16 Jan 2012.

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Folklore 109 (1998):1-14

SIXTEENTH KATHARINE BRIGGS MEMORIAL LECTURE, NOVEMBER 1997

The Folklore of Northern Scotland: Five Discourses on Cultural Representation

James Porter

H o w is it possible to d o justice, in the l imits of this lecture, to the folklore of N o r t h e r n Scotland, a rela­tively vast , u n e v e n l y p o p u l a t e d a rea—rough ly one sixth of the l and area of the British ma in l and—tha t stretches from Iona in the wes t to Uns t in the Shetland Isles, from the A n g u s a n d Per thshire glens to the Ou te r Hebr ides? It w o u l d be relat ively easy, I suppose , if superficial a n d repeti t ive, to s u m m a r i s e the folklore that has been amassed over two a n d a half centuries. It w o u l d b e less easy, b u t probably m o r e instructive, to survey the lore that has spread from this region as a result of extensive a n d pro longed emigra t ion over the s a m e per iod.

It w o u l d also be useful, n o doubt , to discuss the w o r k of s tuden t s of the region in the pas t century a n d a half, from John Francis Campbe l l of Islay to John L o m e C a m p b e l l of C a n n a , f rom J o h n G r e g o r s o n Campbel l to Walter Gregor or Margare t Fay Shaw, or even the obscure Janet H e n d e r s o n of Wick, w h o to­w a r d s the e n d of last cen tury wro te to the Folklore Society offering t h e m a book on Cai thness folklore. 1

Finally, g iven the n e e d to re th ink o u r concepts a n d m e t h o d s from t ime to time, w e migh t review, wi th spe­cial a t tent ion to Nor the rn Scotland, changing not ions of folklore and folklife, ethnology, material culture, oral tradit ion, a n d the like. Recent discussions have taken place o n the re la t ionship be tween e thnology a n d folk­lore (Fenton 1993) a n d be tween folklore and identi ty (Oring, Kirshenblat t-Gimblett a n d Glassie 1994). Folk­lorists still g rapple w i th terminology as they trace the l ineage and current mean ing of " k e y w o r d s " such as tradition, art, text, group, performance, genre, a n d context (Feintuch 1995). To these shou ld certainly be a d d e d special usages of m o r e recent vintage, such as heritage and cultural tourism (see F ladmark 1993; 1994; Brewer 1994; Wells 1996). Relating concepts of this sort to con­tempora ry work on Nor the rn Scottish tradit ions w o u l d be a d a u n t i n g b u t no t unmanageab le task. 2

But I prefer to d o someth ing different and set forth w h a t I see as a set of current discourses constructed a r o u n d the folklore of Nor the rn Scotland. I use the te rm "discourse" because it implicitly rejects the idea of folk­lore as solely a p roduc t of communa l imaginat ion or ind iv idua l aesthetic sense. Rather, the p roduc t ion of folklore is also int imately related to p o w e r relat ions in society, to economic factors, to publ ic inst i tut ions a n d to academic disciplines (see Tilley 1991,153). M y justi­fication for this s tance lies in the h u g e popula t ion shifts

that have taken place in Nor the rn Scotland, not merely in the pas t twenty-five years bu t in the pas t two h u n ­d r e d a n d fifty years, a n d the abuse of the High lands in part icular by h u m a n agency such as " improve r s " or absentee l andowners . The first of these popula t ion d isplacements w a s d u e to the coming of N o r t h Sea Oil a r o u n d 1965 a n d immigra t ion into the N o r t h East as­sociated wi th it; the second to the upheava l of the High­land Clearances , the mid-n ine teen th century po ta to famine that is bet ter k n o w n from Ireland, a n d land improvemen t (Devine 1988).

Older discourses on the folklore of the N o r t h of Scot­land, as e lsewhere a century ago, t ended to dwel l on its decline d u e to change a n d progress—the 'Revo lu ­t ionary premise" that Alan D u n d e s identified as ex­pla ining the supposed decline of folk t radi t ions (1969). But certainly the declaration, in 1835, of the Cromar ty s tonemason a n d folklorist H u g h Miller w a s typical: "I see the s t ream of t radi t ion rapidly lessening as it flows o n w a r d , a n d displaying ... a broader a n d more p o w ­erful v o l u m e as I trace it t owards its source" (Quoted Dorson 1968, 31). That concept of folklore devolving or d iminish ing embodied a set of older discourses con­structed a round the not ion of folklore as survivals from an ear l ier s tage of cu l tu re , o r folklore as his tor ical source . Ult imately, I w a n t to cont ras t these w i t h a newer set of discourses a n d challenges as they affect the product ion of folklore: namely, folklore as cultural continuity and folklore as an emergent feature of con­temporary life.

At the same time w e cannot avoid, in this pos tmodern climate, a deeper critical issue that overarches any sim­ple definition of folklore, namely that of cultural repre­sentation: w h o is representing whom, or what , and why? I would identify cultural representation as the pr imary discourse within which w e can analyse and unders tand folklore more fully, and I wou ld like to take the case of Northern Scotland as m y central example (cf. Hall 1997). 3

The cultural representation of Scotland as a whole, even in Scotland itself, is a discursive minefield, and I shall mention here only a few prominent examples as a wider context within which the folklore of Nor thern Scotland may be understood. These examples, which have occa­sioned considerable comment in recent years from cul­tural analysts, are especially relevant to the final stages of m y discussion of cultural representation (e.g. Na i rn 1977; M c A r t h u r 1982; Bever idge and Turnbul l 1989; Calder 1994; Craig 1996; McCrone 1998).

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1. Tartanry and Highlandism

M y first example of these discourses is tar tanry: the cult of ta r tan as a symbol of identity, which is indel­ibly l inked to the Romantic m o v e m e n t in l i terature and t h e a r t s of t h e l a t e -e igh teen th century . A n o t h e r is High land i sm: the cult of the High lands as visual a n d poet ic metaphor , which is involved not only wi th that Romant ic , Ossian-influenced pas t b u t also w i th cul­tural pa t r imony a n d the vexed quest ion of land o w n ­e r sh ip . W h o o w n s Scot land? is a ques t ion tha t h a s b r o u g h t forth a p ro longed deba te part icularly on the na tu re of the High lands , its people , history, economy, a n d cul ture (e.g. H u n t e r 1976; 1995; MacEwen 1981; C r a m b 1996; W i g h t m a n 1996). Tar tanry a n d H i g h ­landism have bo th been critically dissected in recent t i m e s : o n e w r i t e r h a s c o n c l u d e d t h a t t h e t a r t a n -w r a p p e d visit of George IV to Ed inburgh in 1822—the first visit of a re igning King of Scots in a century and t h r e e - q u a r t e r s — m a r k e d t h e ideo log ica l m e a n s b y w h i c h "a U n i o n of pract ical conven ience b e c a m e a Union of irrat ional love a n d fears, subl imated in mili­tarism, tartanry, royal ism and, eventual ly imperia l ism" (Calder 1994, 103). Othe r s h a v e po in ted ou t that one cannot exorcise tar tanry by a dose of historical real­ism—as H u g h Trevor-Roper tr ied to d o (1983)—since its significance is no t historical b u t an thropologica l (McCrone 1998).

G e n e r a l l y s p e a k i n g , h i s t o r i a n s h a v e n o t d i s t in ­gu i shed carefully e n o u g h b e t w e e n p o p u l a r (urban) cul ture a n d genu ine folk t radi t ions , a n d this is also t rue of Scotland. Appropr i a t ed by the Music Hal l and Har ry Lauder in the in te rwar per iod, ta r tanry came to represent, for Lowlanders , a garb to which they could claim allegiance only vicariously, t h rough identifica­t ion wi th the heroic image of the High landers w h o h a d once been their e n e m y (Clyde 1995). The early m o d ­ern phase of tar tanry in the twent ie th century e n d e d in a debased popu la r cul ture of sentimentality, "s tage Scotchmen," and Brigadoon. Despi te that, the spell of a heroic pas t h a s been w o v e n pe rmanen t ly into the "in­ternat ional" recognit ion of ta r tan as represent ing the High lands a n d its cul ture (Finlayson 1987,65 a n d 2 2 9 -31).

H igh land i sm is also a discourse that has to be con­fronted to b e unders tood . Its roots, again like those of tartanry, lie in the Romant ic era. The scenic g r a n d e u r of the H igh lands led Archibald Geikie to describe t h e m as " the Ossianic landscape," referring thereby to James Macpherson ' s poetic f ragments of the 1760s that cap­t ivated Europe a n d ushered in Romant ic i sm (Geikie 1905, 114-15). 4 Med ia people , especially f i lmmakers , often v iew Scotland in te rms of an elegaic discourse der ived from more historical events such as the Mas ­sacre of Glencoe (1692) or the Battle of Cul loden (1746). Scenes of Glencoe, for example , in films of S tevenson ' s Kidnapped o r Buchan ' s The Thirty-Nine Steps serve as a p ic turesque b a c k d r o p to a terror which echoes tha t of the massacre. Alternatively, f i lmmakers see Scotland, a n d especially N o r t h e r n Scotland, as a magical rea lm

which t ransforms the visitor, for instance in Local Hero, or Loch Ness, or even Mrs Brown (cf. MacAr thur 1982; 1993). Even the rejection of this fantasy, in the gri t ty u r b a n language a n d style of Trainspotting, is not e n o u g h to dispel the magic of the Highlands . A n d s tereotyp­ing of "Celtic" regions is in any case a conceptual fate that besets Ireland a n d Wales as wel l as Scotland. 5

D o m i n a n t v iews of the H igh l ands tend to be im­posed from wi thout , by d o u g h t y travellers like Pen­nant , Defoe, Boswell and Johnson, or Wordswor th w h o established the discourse of the H igh lands as interest­ing e n o u g h b u t bleak, inhospitable, sterile. This att i­tude , wh ich transferred the bleakness of the l andscape in to i ncomprehens ion a n d m e t a p h o r i c d i smissa l of H igh land culture, m u s t be set against the more sym­pathetic, if idealised, picture of Mar t in Mart in (1698; 1703), the descr ipt ion of cus toms by E d w a r d L h u y d (1699; see Campbel l 1975), or the realism of Cap ta in E d w a r d Burt (1754). Even so, external ly-constructed depict ions of the H igh lands as " landscape w i thou t fig­u r e s " cont inue . A dis t inguished historian declares that:

our view of the Highlands now (and therefore the psy­chological raison d'etre of the tourist trade) is a highly complex one. While it is built up of elements that origi­nate in the perceptions of the travellers of an earlier age ... it is by no means an accretion of them all. We have kept some, jettisoned some, altered some, found new ones of our own (Smout 1983, 100).

While bo th internal a n d external v iews of the High­l a n d s a r e i n d e e d c o m p l e x for t h o s e r e a s o n s , deconst ruct ing that " w e " reveals a failure to consider the High land v iew of the Highlands , the v iews of those w h o have sett led there, or even to acknowledge ac­coun t s by those b o r n into, or exper ienced in, H igh­l a n d cu l tu re (cf. G r a n t 1806; Gran t , 1950; MacLean 1975). The High lands , despi te the colourful construc­t ions wi th which it has been invested b y outs iders since the e ighteenth century, main ta ins a distinctive sense of internal cul tural pa t te rn a n d identi ty in landscape, h is tory a n d language . But a d i s tu rb ing ques t ion n o w arises: can the H igh lands cont inue to sustain this iden­tity whi le absorbing a n es t imated mill ion touris ts each year?

2. Highland and Lowland

Until recently, his tor ians have often described Scotland culturally in t e rms of High land and Lowland, a l though this is a c rude divis ion given the recession of Gaelic as an everyday language to the Hebr ides , wi th only a few pockets of the l anguage remaining on the wes te rn sea­board of the main land . H o w far the "L o w lan d s" ex­tend into the nor the rn landscape is also a moo t ques ­tion: one account of the Nor th East Lowlands perceives it as flowing from Aberdeenshi re pas t Inverness as far as the arable l ands of Easter Ross a n d Cai thness (Allan 1974), whereas o thers see the Lowlands end ing t radi ­t ional ly at t he o lder H i g h l a n d l ine s t re tch ing from Stonehaven o n the east coast to Comrie a n d Aberfoyle

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to He lensburgh in the wes t (MacLean 1975, 1). H i s ­tory, culture, economy, language a n d topography can easily become confused in such conceptions, a n d the H i g h l a n d s is still a fluid idea tha t d e m a n d s careful definition.

Ethnologists have t ended to perceive Scotland as a who le s o m e w h a t differently from historians, isolating as m a n y as a dozen regions based on set t lement pa t ­terns , p lacenames , a n d so on. F rom n o r t h to south , these regions have been described b y one wri ter as: 1. Shetland; 2. Orkney; 3. Cai thness; 4. Ou te r Hebr ides ; 5. N o r t h a n d West Mainland, Inner Hebr ides ; 6. N o r t h East; 7. Grampian Mounta ins ; 8. Southwest High lands ; 9. Fife, A n g u s , East Per thshi re , Loth ians ; 10. Sou th West; 11. South West Borders; a n d 12. Sou th East Bor­ders (Aldr idge 1971). Alexander Fenton d iv ides the regions similarly, t hough into eight ra ther than twelve (1998).

One could subdivide areas further, into micro-areas b y topography, dialect, p lacenames, subsistence poten­tial a n d so on ; or in to macro-areas, as I prefer to d o here for b roader identification. Some differences are anc i en t , s o m e m o r e m o d e r n , t h e l a t t e r s t e m m i n g mainly from the great wa te r shed of the e ighteenth cen­tury w h e n agricultural improvemen t began substan­tially to alter the character of the region. A further jolt w a s to be g iven by the Highland Clearances in the nine­teenth century, w h e n who le set t lements w e r e forcibly r emoved from their h o m e s and radical t ransformation of H igh l and society w a s b r o u g h t about . Popula t ion shift in the last century a n d a half, even in Lowland areas of the Nor th , has been substant ial if no t as d ra ­matic as in the High lands : to take just one example , the popu la t ion of Kincardineshire fell by a quar te r be­t w e e n 1851 a n d 1971, from 35,017 to 26,058. But by 1981 it h a d r isen aga in to 33,725, the h ighes t figure since 1891. This is a lmost entirely d u e to the deve lop­men t of N o r t h Sea oil from 1970 o n w a r d s (Smith 1988, xvi-xvii) . In contrast, it h a s been es t imated that , in the yea r s 1989-91 alone, a lmos t 14,000 peop le migra ted from England into Scotland, wi th sizeable popula t ions on Arran, Mul l a n d Skye (Smith 1992, 23).

If for the m o m e n t w e can concentrate o n t h e three ma in subdivis ions of the Nor th that I w o u l d d r a w here for ease of unde r s t and ing—the Nor th East, the High­l ands a n d Western Isles, a n d the N o r t h e r n Isles (with Cai thness)—we can see h o w topography a n d settle­m e n t established the basis for cul tural life and folk tra­di t ion. The N o r t h East is cut off s o u t h w a r d s by the Mounth , to the west by the Grampians , and to the nor th b y the Moray Firth. The H i g h l a n d s , similarly, w e r e largely isolated unt i l General Wade 's roads of 1725-38, a n d the Nor the rn Isles, Orkney and Shetland, in­tersected a p a t h of hegemonic s truggle be tween Scot­land and N o r w a y unt i l they were ceded to the Scot­tish c rown in 1472. Uda l tenure of land there, by which proper ty w a s divisible a m o n g heirs ins tead of pass ing by pr imogeni ture , pers is ted at least unti l the seven­teenth century a n d h a s cont inued to affect fishing a n d o the r r i gh t s d o w n to the p r e s e n t ( D o n a l d s o n a n d

Morpe th 1977, 220). This historical p ic ture is complicated, again, by the

K ingdom of the Isles, stretching from the Isle of M a n to Lewis, that emerged in the ten th and e leventh cen­turies. By the twelfth century, Norwegian over lordship in religious and secular mat te rs h a d been established a n d this cont inued unti l the Treaty of Per th in 1266. The later claim b y Dona ld , Lord of the Isles, to the E a r l d o m of Ross w a s t h e r e a s o n for t h e Bat t le of Harlaw, just nor th of Aberdeen, in 1411, a subsequen t bal lad o n wh ich w a s interpreted b y some historians, inaccurately, as a struggle for hegemony be tween High­land a n d L o w l a n d cul ture w h e n the real d i spu te w a s a family one over the Ear ldom of Ross (cf. Mackay 1921; S impson 1949, 42-61). There is n o quest ion however that the North , wi th its mixture of feudal a n d clan struc­tures a n d landhold ings , w a s inevitably a "contested landscape ," in which contestation often w e n t together w i t h appropr ia t ion of the past , either b y stressing con­t i nu i ty or b y a m o r e b r u t a l k i n d of a p p r o p r i a t i o n (Bender 1992).

So m u c h for historical background . But one cannot ignore the powerful t r aumas in the his tory of the en­tire N o r t h which , t h o u g h bur ied , rise easily, or per­h a p s uneasily, to the surface in narra t ives a n d songs: the batt le of H a r l a w (1411), Glencoe (1692), Cul loden (1746), a n d the Clearances of the nineteenth century. In relation to H igh land cul ture and oral tradit ion, each of these events has m a d e its m a r k (cf. Dorson 1971). C u l l o d e n , t o o , w a s b u t a p o t e n t s t i m u l u s to t h e "epidemical fury of emigra t ion" wh ich h a d a l ready b e g u n and which Samuel Johnson observed in his visit to the High lands wi th Boswell in 1773. The latter no ted in his d iary the fashion in Skye, a t that very moment , for a dance called "America" that spoke to g rowing emigra t ion (Quoted H u n t e r 1994). Accord ing to the poet Iain MacCodrum, the Nor th of Scotland w a s los­ing its t radit ional loyalties: "Look a round you a n d see the nobility wi thou t feeling for poor folk, w i thou t k ind­ness to friends; they are of the opinion that you d o no t be long to the soil and, t hough they have left y o u dest i­tute , they cannot see it as a loss" (Quoted Matheson 1938, 199-203). Impor tan t folklore a n d folksong col­lections since the mid-1800s, however , h a v e often suc­c e e d e d in c a p t u r i n g t h e cu l tu re of t h i s t h r e a t e n e d wor ld .

The in famous Clearances , as the consequence of agrar ian " improvemen t " o n the pa r t of l andowner s , we re p u t into action by ruthless factors such as Patrick Sellar a n d James Loch, a n d it is in Suther land a lmost forty years a g o tha t a H igh l and folklorist found a l and­scape resembling a "necropol is" (MacLean 1975,133). The Revd Dona ld MacLeod, w h o w e n t into exile in C a n a d a w i t h h i s evicted par ishioners , wrote :

I have read from speeches delivered by Mr Loch at public dinners among his own party, [that he would] never be satisfied until the Gaelic language and the Gaelic people would be extirpated root and branch from the Sutherland estate; yes, from the Highlands of Scotland (Quoted MacLean 1975,136).

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It bears repeat ing that the first major clearances took place in Suther land in 1792, Bliadhna nan Caorach [The Year of the Sheep] o n land o w n e d by Sir John Sinclair and by Lord Stafford, a n d people were forcibly m o v e d to coastal set t lements. In the Strath of Ki ldonan where there were once 2,000 people , all of it w a s cleared, and thousands emigra ted to Canada . The b a d harves ts of 1835-6 a n d the pota to blight of 1846-7 accelerated emi­grat ion. It h a s been est imated, for instance, that over 8,000 people were uproo ted in Sutherland, a n d in Ed­inburgh in 1850 the appearance of people from the is­land of Barra "in a state of absolute s tarvat ion" caused a n outburs t of indignat ion (see H u n t e r 1994,119). Clear­ances of people for sheep in Ross and Cromar ty took p lace in Cu l r a in (1820), Glenca lv ie (1845), Co igach (1852-3), a n d Greenyards (1855). Sheep n u m b e r s there g rew from a few thousand in 1780 to 252,000 in 1854 a n d 391,000 in 1869 (Richards 1984,170). With d e p o p u ­lation, l anguage suppress ion, a n d the ambivalence of bodies such as the influential Society in Scotland for the Propagat ion of Christian Knowledge th roughout the nineteenth century, the subsequen t decline of Gaelic in the High lands as a whole has been a major cause for concern (Withers 1988; Mack innon 1991; Meek 1996). 6

One influential folklorist noticed all this. H u g h Miller, aware of the Clearances in the cul tural border land area of Cromar ty where h e g r e w u p , w a s h a u n t e d by the wre tchedness of the rura l poor, the l iving and work ing condit ions of farm labourers , f ishermen and High land crofters as the glens were e m p t i e d to m a k e w a y for sheep (Rosie 1981, 62). These impress ions p r o d u c e d some of Mil ler ' s finest, mos t powerful essays: "Peas­an t Proper t ies , " "The Cot t ages of o u r H i n d s , " "The Bothy Sys tem," "The H i g h l a n d s , " "The Scotch Poor Law," "Pauper Labour," "The Felons of the Country," a n d the scathing piece, "Suther land as it Was a n d is, Or H o w a Coun t ry M a y be Ruined ." This last is a sus­tained, seven-par t attack o n the folly a n d callousness of the wea l thy Suther land family on t w o counts : the clearing of people a n d the refusal of the D u k e to a l low the Free Church to bui ld on any of his vas t l ands (Rosie 1981, 119). 7

The y o u n g Miller, rooted in village fishing culture, w a s also pa r t of a l i terary cul ture that ming led land­scape, folktale, magic a n d myth , as wel l as autobiogra­phy. In The Old Red Sandstone (1841), wh ich r an into twenty-s ix edi t ions , Miller i n v o k e d the voice of the Romant ic wanderer , m a k i n g na tura l h is tory a personal j o u r n e y ac ros s t h e o p e n l a n d s c a p e . W o r k i n g c l a s s themes of labour a n d intellectual ques t mingle wi th in the psychological f ramework of his o w n life-story set in the nor thern Scottish landscape (Paradis 1996, 130-6). The Hill of Cromarty, where Miller p layed as a boy, w a s a b reed ing g r o u n d a n d context for h i s interest in na tura l his tory and folklore of the region. Drawing on Gilbert White'sNafwra/ History and Antiquities ofSelborne (1789) as a model , Mil ler ' s " t radi t ional h is tory" took its cue from Whi te ' s "parochial history," a l though Scenes and Legends (1835) h a s actually m o r e in c o m m o n wi th

the t ide of local ant iquar ianism than wi th Whi te ' s na tu ­ral descript ions (Paradis 1996, 133).

M i l l e r ' s a c c o u n t s a re v a l u a b l e , fur ther , b e c a u s e th rough t h e m w e can trace the later condi t ion of folk­lore in t h e a rea . N e w bel ie fs a n d n a r r a t i v e s h a v e emerged: as D.A. Mackenzie has no ted (1935), the Clach Malloch (large bou lde r exposed at low tides a n d no ted by Miller in one of his family stories) is m o r e recently said to be cursed because a f i sherwoman left he r child t h e r e w h i l e s h e g a t h e r e d ba i t , a n d t h e c h i l d w a s d r o w n e d b y the incoming t ide; curses are del ivered b y an individual s tanding or kneeling bare-kneed o n Clach Malloch. Cus toms , too, h a v e been revived: the Sainf s Well at Navity, bare ly u s e d as a rag wel l in Mi l l e r ' s day, w a s repor tedly decked wi th rags in 1934; a n d old stories are t ransferred to n e w locations: even today, children tell of the Green Lady w h o h a u n t e d houses in Mil ler 's chi ldhood, be ing alive and well in the tower of the school bu i ld ing (Alston 1996, 224).

In a recent work on the phenomenology of landscape, Chr i s topher Tilley r eminds us that a sense of a t tach­m e n t to place is frequently der ived from the stabili ty of m e a n i n g s associated w i t h it (Tilley 1994). Place is bo th " in ternal" and "external" to the h u m a n subject, a personal ly e m b e d d e d centre of mean ings a n d a phys i ­cal locus for action.The n a m i n g a n d identification of topographical features is crucial for the es tabl i shment and main tenance of their identity. P lacenames are t h u s of vital significance because they t ransform the phys i ­cal a n d geographical into someth ing bo th historically a n d socially experienced. N a m i n g in general bes tows s t ructure o n a chaotic wor ld , and further, p lacenames carry e m b e d d e d wi th in t h e m narra t ives of their or igin a n d m e a n i n g (cf. Nicolaisen 1984; Tilley 1994, 31-3).

The p lacenames of the N o r t h reveal its h u m a n land­scape. Celts, vikings, Picts, F lemings a n d o thers im­pr in ted their id ioms o n a n historical region that yie lds a pa r t i cu la r ly r ich set of p l a c e n a m e s (Watson 1926; N ico l a i s en 1976b). T h e s e of ten p r o v i d e a l t e r n a t i v e etiologies: Loch Ness , for instance, m a y get its n a m e from the expression "Tha loch anna n i s " (There is a loch in i t—the g len—now); or from the Irish he ro N y s u s , w h o w a s the first to sail on it (Nicolaisen 1976a, 156). The creature is k n o w n b y Gaelic speakers today as an neasaidh [female of the Ness] . Scandinavian p lacenames in t roduced t h r o u g h N o r s e occupat ion (900-1100 A.D.) are found main ly in the N o r t h e r n a n d Western isles and in Ca i thness a n d Easter Ross o n the ma in land ; in Abe rdeensh i r e they are r e m a r k a b l y absen t . Bes ides s o m e B r y t h o n i c o r P i c t i s h n a m e s , t h e t w o m a i n toponymic strata there are Gaelic a n d "Scoto-English," the former ex tending over the w h o le county from the coast i nwards a n d increasing as one moves sou thwes t (Alexander 1952). Gaelic itself w a s t augh t in Alford par ish, twenty-f ive miles wes t of Aberdeen , unt i l the late-eighteenth century, a n d w a s recorded in Braemar, despi te the clearance of forty families from Glen Ey in the 1840s, as late as 1981 (Watson a n d Clement 1983; Mitchell 1994). 8

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But from the eighteenth century, clearance and emi­gra t ion w a s a u g m e n t e d b y a s t eady drift of Gaelic-speaking Highlanders from the eastern seaboard of the Nor th into Aberdeen, one result of emerging economic magne t s such as the grani te indus t ry (Withers 1989). This drift has cont inued into all the major cities of Scot­land u p to the present . The last p rominen t m o v e m e n t of Gaelic-speaking people occurred w h e n the popu la ­t ion of St Kilda (or Hirta , to give it its p rope r name) , a h u n d r e d miles wes t of the Hebr ides , w a s evacuated on 29 Augus t 1930 to Larachbeg on Loch Aline in Morvern , where the people were inexplicably separa ted from any v iew of the sea a n d employed as forestry worke r s in an utterly different w a y of life (MacLean 1975, 77). A n u m b e r of t radi t ions have been recorded from St Kilda emigran t s . 9

In contrast to the depopula t ion of the High lands a n d the recession of Gaelic the speech of the N o r t h East Lowlands , as a regional dialect of vernacular Scots, is still rich and vigorous , and has been reinforced b y the founding of a Scots Language Resource Centre as pa r t of a dr ive to recognise Scots as a l anguage distinct from English a l though bo th have the same parentage , ra ther like Norweg ian a n d Danish (Fladmark 1994, 37). But the v igour of Nor th East t radi t ions outs ide l anguage can be decept ive: as in o ther pa r t s of the Lowlands , High land cul ture—or w h a t Lowlanders conceive to be High land cu l ture—has been appropr i a t ed in var ious ways : High land Games , for example , or convent ional wear ing of the kilt on formal occasions such as w e d ­dings , and cult ivation of the bagpipe . Al though High­land Games are supposed to have existed from the elev­en th century, w h e n Malcolm III he ld someth ing of the sort at or near Braemar, the reinvention of Games w a s in t roduced b y Lord G w y d i r at Strathf illan in Perthshire for his tenantry in 1826 (Grant 1961, 345). By a t tending the Braemar Gather ing in 1848, Q u e e n Victoria con­ferred a respectability on them that has guaranteed their popular i ty ever since. According to var ious est imates, games are held in as m a n y as one h u n d r e d locations t h r o u g h o u t Scot land each summer , a n d increasingly a b r o a d as the i r a p p e a l w i d e n s . The first H i g h l a n d Games in the USA in the m o d e r n per iod appea r to been organised as a "sport ive event" b y the High land Soci­ety of N e w York as early as 1836 (Young 1971, 253). Lowland a n d foreign construct ions of High land cul­ture are thus enshr ined in the Victorian-inspired con­texts of the Games wi th their contests in which p ip ing a n d solo danc ing complemen t physical feats.

"Legendary" characters emerged from these n ine ­t e e n t h - c e n t u r y e v e n t s in Scot land , such as D o n a l d Dinnie (d. London , 1916), w h o broke records o n the High land Games circuit for tossing the caber, pu t t ing the shot, th rowing the hammer , weightlifting, and danc­ing. O n e of his famous feats w a s to carry t w o h u g e stones we igh ing 785 p o u n d s across the River Dee at Potarch Bridge, a feat never repeated despi te efforts by others (Urquhar t 1996). Such achievements were pr i­mar i ly tr ials of ma le s t rength , t h o u g h u n d e r N o r t h

Amer ican influence w o m e n are n o w contest ing t radi­t ional male territory. The mil i tary coloura t ion of the N o r t h East psyche, bo th male and female—derived in pa r t from conservative clan loyalty to families such as the Forbeses or Gordons—emerges in the devot ion to the Gordon Highlanders , the regiment raised in 1794 b y Jean, Duchess of Gordon, w h o encouraged conscrip­t ion by offering to kiss individual recruits (Donaldson a n d Morpe th 1977, 87). We have n o reports as to h o w successful this part icular strategy w a s .

But the relationship be tween Lowlanders , bo th those in the N o r t h East and elsewhere, and High land cul ture is complex because the influx of High landers from the mid-e ighteenth century onwards , mainly for economic reasons, he lped shape Lowland perception of High land tradit ions. Language has remained the single d iv id ing force in the hegemony of English or Doric over Gaelic in the Nor th East. Religious and political t radi t ions have complicated the region 's character even further: since the Reformation, Catholics in the in land glens or Epis­copal ians a n d Presbyterians in the cities h a v e lived s ide b y s ide wi th coastal Baptists, O p e n a n d Close Breth­ren, c i ty-based Quake r s , o r m o r e recent char ismat ic sects (Porter 1998b, forthcoming).

Politically, the N o r t h East w a s a ho tbed of Jacobitism in the e ighteenth century, conservative d u r i n g British imperial expansion in the nineteenth and twent ie th cen­tur ies unt i l t w o World Wars, the decline of farming, a n d the coming of N o r t h Sea oil. Widespread interest in Doric, however , and in the songs of bo thy cul ture ( through re-enactment of tradit ional "meal and ales"), celebrate an energet ic speech communi ty that is still alive in the streets of nor theas tern towns—even if the agricultural wor ld in which the language found its mos t characteristic expression has d isappeared . This w a s a wor ld , just before the Great War, wh ich y ie lded the sp lendid Greig-Duncan song collection, a n exuberan t expression of local self-confidence (Shuldham-Shaw et al. 1981-97), as well as the bo thy songs w i th their criti­cal unde rp inn ings (Ord 1930). With the decline of tha t nmeteenth-century e thos after World War II there van­i s h e d , t o o , t h e s e n t i m e n t a l l i t e r a r y g e n r e of "kai lyardism," in which smal l - town or count ry char­acters were represented as myopical ly parochial (Shep­he rd 1988). In contrast, m u c h late-Victorian p o p u l a r fic­t ion h a d represented ordinary life, inc luding urbanisa­tion, wi th realism a n d v igour (Donaldson 1986).

3. Fishing and Farming The ma in economic dist inction in N o r t h e r n Scot land has been be tween agriculture a n d fishing. In represent­ing this distinction, however , w e should no t overem­phas ise it. We migh t no te as except ions O r k n e y a n d Shetland (and par t s of the West Highlands ; see Gray 1972), where in Orkney there are farmers w h o h a p p e n to fish whi le in Shet land there are f ishermen w h o are also crofters (Fenton 1978). Both of these occupat ions on the N o r t h East main land , for instance, n o w bu t a

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6 James Porter

s h a d o w of t w o genera t ions ago, h a v e p roduced a rich oral t radi t ion in such genres as the b o t h y bal lads a n d f i shermen 's beliefs (Anson 1965; Cameron 1978; O r d 1990; see also Car ter 1979; Devine 1984; Buchan 1996; A n t h o n y 1997). These t w o w o r l d s in the N o r t h East, coastal a n d hinter land, were ut ter ly different in their wor ldview, reflecting on the one h a n d a relatively sta­ble env i ronment of h a r d - w o n fertile landscape and , on t h e other, the tu rbu lence of unpred ic tab le t ides a n d hosti le seas.

In in land cul ture , ceremonies such a s The H o r s e ­m a n ' s Word in i t ia ted you th fu l p l o u g h m e n in to the wor ld of men , at least unti l World War II; the Word has b e e n f o u n d in O r k n e y a s w e l l a s t h e N o r t h Eas t (Marwick 1975). Initiations were usual ly a t Mar t inmas , 11 November . The initiate h a d to appea r at the b a m , be tween 11 p .m. and 1 a.m. o n a d a r k night , taking wi th h i m a candle, a loaf of bread, and a bott le of whisky. At the d o o r h e w a s bl indfolded and led before the secret cour t—an older p l o u g h m a n , a mas te r of ceremonies, at an altar m a d e by inver t ing a bushe l measu re over a sack of corn. The y o u t h w a s t hen subjected to ques­t ioning a n d m a d e to repeat a certain form of w o r d s . At the climax of init iation h e got a shake of the Devil ' s h a n d — u s u a l l y a stick covered w i th a ha i ry skin. H e w a s t hen g iven the Word—"Both in O n e , " m e a n i n g comple te h a r m o n y b e t w e e n m a n a n d b e a s t — w h i c h conferred p o w e r over horses , m a k i n g them s tand still w h e n n o one else could m o v e them, or come to their hand le r from a dis tance (Macpherson 1929, 291). This p o w e r w a s sexual too, a n d r ep resen ted p o w e r over w o m e n . Unti l t he initiation, the y o u n g m a n w o u l d have p rob lems w i th his horses , caused b y older p l o u g h m e n tainting the horse collar w i th p ig d u n g , o r a tack em­b e d d e d in the collar (Allan 1974,188-9; Cameron 1984, 194-205).

The fishing village culture, o n the o ther h a n d , w a s distinctive for its pa t t e rn of beliefs still to b e found. In Na i rn for instance, innumerab le taboos existed in pre­ven t ing a f i sherman go ing to sea: it w a s u n l u c k y to shoot ne ts o n the por t s ide, to taste food before any fish w e r e caught , to leave a creel uppe rmos t , no t to d r a w blood from the first fish caught . N o Morayshi re fisher­m a n w o u l d ever b e i n d u c e d to ca r ry a parce l for a friend, go to sea at the beg inn ing of the season, before b lood h a d been shed. Somet imes a free fight w o u l d be s tar ted to get the des i red result . N o f isherman's wife, again, w o u l d comb her hai r after sunse t w h e n her h u s ­b a n d w a s a t sea, and i i she d r e a m e d of a wh i t e sea, he w o u l d have good luck (Anson 1930).

These older habi ts existed s ide b y s ide wi th , or came to b e over la id by, a later set of rel igious beliefs. The fishing communi t ies , m o r e so t han the l a n d w a r d folk, we re h u g e l y affected b y the rel igious revivals of the nineteenth century, especially the 1858 Revival w h e n , o n 17 Augus t , a covered w a g o n entered Kaysie b y the Banff Road procla iming the slogan: "Ezekiel Fleming, M a n of God. Ye Genera t ions of Vipers, H o w Can Ye Escape the D a m n a t i o n of Hell? Fr iends , C o m e to Je­

sus ." A n d the driver, Mr Fleming, w o u l d raise his h a t and announce from t ime to t ime in flat tones, "Night ly at 8 p m in the school" (Paterson 1981,35). In Peterhead the leader of the Revival, James Turner, a cooper a n d her r ing curer, converted more t han 8,000 people in t w o years a long the N o r t h East coast. The Revival of 1921, wh ich or iginated in Lowestoft a n d Yarmouth, h a d a similar effect. Groups of f ishermen could b e found gath­ered round a street lamp-post , s inging h y m n s or listen­ing to some recent convert tell of spir i tual experiences. The n u m b e r of meet ing-houses found in the vil lages today, a n d the religious spirit still to b e found there in the Close a n d O p e n Brethren, is tes t imony to this fer­v o u r in the coas ta l c o m m u n i t i e s of t h e N o r t h East (Anson 1981,40). A significant change in local a t t i tude to the loss of life at sea has come about wi th the recent rais ing of the Sapphi re a n d its crew; formerly, g iven the communi ty ' s s trongly he ld biblical beliefs a n d its lack of present -day technology, the dead were left to the deep .

A different k ind of community, a n d fervour, is evi­d e n t at F indhorn , jus t a l ong the coast f rom t h e o ld Pic t ish cap i ta l of B u r g h e a d w h e r e the w e l l - k n o w n Clavie is still b u r n e d o n 11 January (Macpherson 1929, 19-20; Shepherd et al. 1992); a long w i th the re invented Up-Hel ly-Aa festival in Shet land, the Burning of the Clavie m a r k s the tu rn ing of the year in the N o r t h (see Newal l 1978). The F indhorn Founda t ion w a s s tar ted in 1962 by Eileen a n d Peter C a d d y and Dorothy Maclean, combining ideals of humanity , community, whole earth, a n d spi r i tua l exper ience t h rough ar ts , mus ic , dance , crafts, ga rden ing a n d self analysis (McKean 1987, 80). This Utopian deve lopmen t m a y wel l have been mot i ­va ted by the pass ion for wholeness—par t ly influenced by Volkskunde [folklore] a n d pa r t l y b y a n empi r i ca l awareness of p o w e r in the local landscape—recent ly descr ibed b y the G e r m a n ethnologist Konrad Kostlin (1997).

4. Landscape and Mindscape As Chr is topher Tilley h a s noted , landscape is a signify­ing sys tem th rough w h i c h the social is r ep roduced and t ransformed. Unlike the concept of place, which pr ivi­leges difference a n d singularity, l andscape is a m o r e holistic not ion that encompasses ra ther than excludes (Tilley 1994, 34). Beliefs, rituals, a n d their accompany­ing na r ra t ives h a v e flourished in the n o r t h e r n l and­scape: stones, w i th wel ls a n d caves, are e n d u r i n g sym­bols of p rae te rna tu ra l power , their a tempora l i ty em­b e d d e d in a n i m p o s i n g or i n v i t i n g p r e s e n t . J .M. Mackinlay, inFolklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs (1893), notes that in 1656 the Dingwal l Presbytery sought to suppress reverence for s tones that were consul ted for future events . M a n y of these were k n o w n as Dru id ' s Circles or Stones. John Aubrey, w h o is best k n o w n for us ing the term, appea r s to h a v e der ived the n a m e from James Garden, Professor of Divinity at Aberdeen Uni ­versity from 1680, in a letter of 15 June 1692. But the

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Folklore of Northern Scotland 7

n a m e w a s in use before Garden ' s time: there is a circle a t D r u i d s t o n e , P r e m n a y ; t w o p i l l a r - s t o n e s n e a r Montgarrie, Alford, are Dru id ' s Stones, and their site Druidsfield. Pot ter ton Farm, five miles nor th of Aber­deen, k n o w n locally as Dru id Temple, lies in Temple Field. The t e rm "Auld Kirk" is somet imes appl ied to these s t ructures (Ritchie 1925-6, 307).

Walter Gregor ment ions Clach-na-bhan, a h u g e gran­ite rock o n t o p of Meall-na-gaineimh [sandy hill], on the east side of Glenavon (Gregor 1881, 42). Clach-na-b h a n is shaped like an armchair. Women about to be mothe r s cl imbed the hill a n d seated themselves in the hol low believing this ensu red them a n easy del ivery (McPherson 1929, 79). In 1836 a repor t described the chair ing of as m a n y as " twelve full-bodied w o m e n w h o h a d that m o r n i n g come from Speyside, over twen ty miles, to u n d e r g o the opera t ion" (Smith 1875, 1:514). The rock w a s said also to have the p o w e r to b r ing h u s ­b a n d s to single w o m e n . In the River Dee at Dinnet , a s t and ing s tone wi th a hole in it abou t e ighteen inches in d iameter h a d the p o w e r to transform a childless wife, w h o passed t h rough the eye of the stone, into a mothe r (Allan 1974, 194-5). The Dinnet s tone w a s k n o w n as the "Deil 's Needle ," a n d h a d the efficacy of cur ing ste­rility (Rorie 1994,67). Even in the recent film Rob Roy, a s tanding s tone is the scene for lovemaking be tween Rob a n d his wife.

The idea that these s tones are u n d e r special care of the spir i t -world w a s widely prevalent . River s tones be­lieved to possess remarkable p o w e r s were often black­ened in the fire a n d u s e d w i th incanta t ions to b r ing h a r m (Ross 1976, 78f). Other uses of s tones incur red d i f f i cu l t i e s : t h e s t o n e c i rc le a t M a i n s of H a t t o n , Auchterless, w a s removed to form gateposts . But horses found it difficult to pass th rough the gate and the farmer the reupon decided to replace the s tones on the original si te. Two ho r se s w i t h difficulty d r a g g e d each s tone downhi l l to the gate, b u t one horse only found it easy to pul l a s tone uphil l to the circle. Again, a s tone at Old Noth , near Gartly, w a s taken to the farm to m a k e a lin­tel over a d o o r w a y to the s teading, b u t the door w a s often found open, w i th the animals w a n d e r i n g about . W h e n the s tone w a s p u t back again the t rouble ceased (Ritchie 1925-6, 305).

Narra t ives relating to s tones a n d landscape features such as wel ls and caves emerge even n o w in the tales of travell ing folk such as Stanley Robertson, w h o in his book Exodus to Alford (1988, 79-82) relates the legend of the Ma iden Stone, a n elaborately carved cross-and-s y m b o l s t o n e w e s t of C h a p e l of Gar ioch . A y o u n g w o m a n a t Colpy, nea r the hill of Bennachie, is chal­l enged b y a h a n d s o m e s t r ange r (for w h o m she h a s fallen) to bake 101 scones before h e bu i lds a road over Bennachie. If she wins , he will give her gold a n d m a r r y her. Suddenly, whi le bak ing furiously she sees her ab­sent fiance re tu rn ing a n d pauses , a l lowing the Devi l— for tha t is w h o the s t ranger was—to w i n the wager . She is immedia te ly tu rned to stone. The s tone 's n a m e m a y wel l be a vers ion of St Medan , to w h o m several

sites in Aberdeenshi re were dedica ted (Ritchie 1925-6, 311).

Early Christ ian holy m e n are often associated wi th s t and ing s tones in the Nor th East: at Bankhead Farm, Banff, there are remains of a circle called St Brennan 's Stanes, after the pa t ron saint of Boyndie. Of t w o s tand­ing s tones wh ich are all tha t r emains of a circle, the taller is k n o w n as St Marnan ' s Chair, Marnoch be ing a seven th cen tury miss ionary said to h a v e d ied at h is church here in 625. The old church of Logie-Coldstone has , close against its outs ide wall, an up r igh t s t and ing s tone k n o w n as St Walloch's Stone. The par i sh church at Midmar, dedicated to St Nidan , occupies pa r t of the area of a s tone circle, the recumbent s tone a n d pillars of wh ich are still s t and ing (ibid., 308). Fur ther nor th , in Orkney , t h e L a d y k i r k S tone a t St M a r y ' s C h u r c h , Burwick, South Ronaldsay has t w o footprints taken to be those of mar ty red St M a g n u s (c. 1076-1116), killed b y his cousin Haakon . The Saint is said to have sailed across Pent land Firth o n the Ladykirk Stone. The Stones of Stenness, a s tone circle o n the sou th shore of Loch of Harray, a n d the Ring of Brodgar, nor theas t of Stenness were , according to the e ighteenth-century an t iquary Robert Henry, the reputed scene of cour t ing a n d heal­ing r i tuals tha t looked to pre-Chris t ian g o d s such as O d i n (Marwick 1975, 60; cf. archaeological discussion in MacKie 1975, 233-5; Ritchie 1981, 47-52).

S tanding stones d o not just connote his tory or leg­end ; they also an th ropomorph i se the landscape . The g rande r mass of nor the rn mounta ins , tradit ionally peo­pled by spirit phenomena , have st imulated legends such as those recorded by Affleck Gray (b. Boat of Gar ten 1906), w h o learned m a n y tales in Gaelic from his g rand­father, Domhal l Grudaire , such as that of A m Fear Liath Mor, the Big Grey M a n of Ben MacDhui . Gray h a s in­corpora ted a n u m b e r of t h e m in to his books o n leg­ends relating to the Cai rngorms (Gray 1970; 1987; Leitch 1995). 1 0 Another legend is at tached to the Forest of Gaick near Blair Atholl , tha t of the sinister "Black Officer," A n t-Othaichear Dubh , Capta in John Macphe r son of Ballachroan, a recruiting agent of the Hanove r i an gov­e r n m e n t a r o u n d 1800 a n d a r e p u t e d h i re l ing of t h e D e v i l . It is w i d e s p r e a d in B a d e n o c h , L o c h a b e r , Glenurquhar t , Moidart , a n d even in Skye, South Uist a n d Benbecula. Reports of the Officer's grisly end, wi th tha t of companions at Gaick as an avalanche carried them away, have been found r ight across the H igh lands (MacLean 1975, 9 1 ^ ) .

A cont inuous s t ream of lore su r round ing land- a n d sea-scape in Nor the rn Scotland, a n d deep ly e m b e d d e d in both, involves the faculty of second sight, bel ieved in High land t radi t ion to pass from father to son for sev­eral genera t ions (Campbel l 1975, 36). "Second s ight" as a denota t ive category actually involves a range of p a r a n o r m a l p h e n o m e n a , a m o n g t h e m cla i rvoyance, telepathy, a n d pre- and r e c o g n i t i o n (Sutherland 1985, 33). The concept is especially a t tached to the p rophe ­cies of the seventeenth-century Brahan Seer, Coinnich O d h a r Fiosaiche, Sallow Kenne th the Seer (Ross 1976,

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35-8). O v e r 125 of h i s predic t ions axe k n o w n today, t hough m a n y which were ascribed to h im m a y s imply have been d r a w n into his legendary orbit (Matheson 1971). N u m e r o u s of his predic t ions h a v e come true; some are still to be realised. H e prophesied, for exam­ple, of a p rominen t s tone near Strathpeffer, Clach an Tiompain [Stone of the Lyre], that the day w o u l d come w h e n ships w o u l d r ide wi th cables at tached to it. Does this imply the bu i ld ing of another canal, or the removal of the s tone to Dingwall? (Ross 1976, 38). Ano the r p re ­dict ion ascribed to the Seer involved oil-rig worke r s o n Loch Kishorn, and seems to refer to the central plat­form buil t there: it w a s that the one- legged mons te r w o u l d go twice be low the wate r brea th ing fire a n d the third t ime w o u l d spell disaster in the G e r m a n ocean. The monoli thic structure of the Nin ian Central Platform (most rigs have four or more legs) w a s submerged twice before its final posi t ioning, a n d does indeed breathe fire from its flare stack (Sutherland 1985, 332).

The te rm odhar u sed to describe the Brahan Seer pos­sibly refers to the sal low complexion b rough t about by his ou tdoor occupation; b u t it m a y indicate the da rker complexion associated wi th Gypsy or traveller males (Sutherland 1984,243). Even now, travellers are reputed to have second sight: Jeannie Robertson, the r e n o w n e d Nor th East singer, for one, often expressed h o w deeply she regretted possess ing the "gift" (Porter and Gower 1995, 62). Second sight w a s widespread in the Nor th , as were associated visions b rough t about , possibly, by depr iva t ion a n d stress. We migh t think of G u n n e r John Thomson of the Seaforth High landers w h o , in July 1918, fell asleep exhaus ted after a heavy shell ing on the Ypres front. Then, he c la imed, a n appa r i t i on clad in black appea red a n d to ld h i m no t to wor ry : he w o u l d sur­vive. More t han that, the figure said, the War w o u l d end on the e leventh d a y of the e leventh mon th . W h e n he awoke that July, m o n t h s before the end of the con­flict, h e confided in the m e n of his battery. They d i d not take h i m too seriously, and some laid bets, just for a laugh, on this "prophecy." But G u n n e r T h o m s o n be­lieved in his d ream, a n d wro te h o m e , w h e r e again no one took h i m seriously. The Armist ice came, however, w i th even greater precision t han the appar i t ion p rom­ised, at 11 a.m. o n 11 N o v e m b e r 1918 (Weintraub 1985, 8-9).

Earlier, H u g h Miller himself w a s d o g g e d by visions: on the day his father w a s lost a t sea h e h a d myster i ­ously "seen" the h a n d of a d e a d female (Miller 1893, 12). The p rae te rna tura l , in the form of such visions, ghosts and witches, w a s a vital pa r t of Mi l le r ' s internal wor ld . His friend Samuel Smiles tells how, one d a y on the rocks by Holborn Head , H u g h exclaimed, "The fair­ies have got hold of m y trousers ," a n d si t t ing d o w n , cont inued to r ub his legs for a long t ime (Smiles 1878, 235). Mil ler ' s life came to a tragic e n d as h e wrest led w i th the d r eams and visions that h a d beset h im all h is d a y s (Rosie 1981, 15). O n the d a y he kil led himself, nearly two h u n d r e d miles a w a y in Cromarty his mother, g r a n d d a u g h t e r of the Gaelic seer Dona ld "Roy" Ross,

sat u p in bed to wa tch a ball of br ight light float a r o u n d her room. According to her the ball hovered over dif­ferent i tems of furniture as if looking for s o m e w h e r e to alight. It then began to fade and w a s sudden ly ext in­guished, " leaving u t ter blackness beh ind , and in h e r frame, the thrill ing effect of a s u d d e n and awful ca lam­ity" (Rosie 1981, 82 ) . n The climate, configuration a n d cul tural history of the Nor the rn landscape p rov ided a ready context for H u g h Miller or the Brahan Seer, w h o are only the bet ter k n o w n cases. The w idesp read na­ture of "pa rano rma l " p h e n o m e n a in the N o r t h reflects the interaction of na tura l and anthropogenic processes . Fur thermore the frequency of such experiences, as wel l as their typological range, d e m a n d s different levels of explanat ion (Sutherland 1985; MacNeill a n d M a c Q u e e n 1996, 23).

5. Representation, Negotiation, Interpretation Landscape , then, p rov ides N o r t h e r n Scot land w i t h a rich vein of lore that cont inues to impr in t itself o n be ­liefs, visions, a n d associated narrat ive forms: a conti­nui ty of mindscape . In Gaelic tradit ion, ancient m o n u ­men t s were associated wi th Celtic heroes: for example , the Iron Age hill fort, D u n d a Lamh, in Badenoch w a s regarded as the work of Fingal and his m e n as late as 1863 (Macpherson 1893, 99-100; Campbel l 1975, 46-S). In the Nordic cultural orbit, Orkney has a n u m b e r of C u b b i e Roo s t o n e s f l ung b y a g i a n t of t h a t n a m e (Kolbein Hruga , a Norse chieftain w h o lived on the is­land of Wyre. Marwick 1975, 31). Archaeology, o n the o ther h an d , unt i l recently h a s endeavou red to locate and identify impor tan t aspects of prehis tory th rough measurement , a n d to p rov ide a very different contrast­ing story in explaining, for instance, megali thic remains (e.g. Thorn 1980; 1990). 1 2 But the premises of the N e w Archaeology, which in the 1970s and '80s p r i ded itself o n hav ing left beh ind its deb t to cultural his tory a n d espoused "objectivity," has lately come u n d e r attack. RetMnking archaeology as a "discipl ine" reveals h o w subjective its interpretations have a lways been (Sherman 1989, xii; Tilley 1991). The subsequen t closer l inkage a m o n g archaeology, mater ia l culture, dialectology, cus­tom a n d belief, narra t ive , and folk life creates a con­text, a n d a discourse, in wh ich the t radi t ions of Nor th ­e rn Scot land can be bet ter unde r s tood at the end of the twent ie th century. But this context is incomplete wi th ­ou t a n envi ronmenta l a n d indeed political d imension , as one commenta to r h a s noted (McCrone 1998). N e w strategies that are evolving to mee t the challenges of l and o w n e r s h i p , crofting communi t i e s , a n d cu l tura l tour i sm d e m a n d careful a n d wil l ing co-operat ion be­t w e e n academics , politicians, a n d local councils if the goals of env i ronmenta l sustainability, social diversity, and cul tural representat ion are to be achieved. Here , then, w e begin to encounte r the n e w e r chal lenges of heri tage interpretat ion a n d its critical core, cul tural r ep­resentat ion (Fladmark 1993).

D a v i d L o w e n t h a l h a s o b s e r v e d tha t , in h e r i t a g e

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te rms, the concept of landscape involves three ideas: first, na ture as fundamenta l heri tage; second, the envi­ronmen t as sett ing of h u m a n action; a n d third, the sense of place as the locus for awareness of local difference a n d appreciat ion of ancestral roots (Lowenthal 1993, 4). The m o r e recent emphas i s on heri tage in Britain h a s been, of course, d r iven by bo th gove rnmen t concerns for historical bui ld ings and the buil t her i tage in gen­eral, and b y the availability of funding for rehabilita­t ion of such s t ructures t h r o u g h the Her i tage Lottery Fund . This deve lopment has been accompanied in Scot­land, a n d the High lands in particular, by d e e p concern over land owner sh ip a n d l and use as well as cul tural factors such as l a n g u a g e a n d oral t rad i t ion (Hun te r 1976). The Nor th of Scotland, as e lsewhere in Britain, is peppe red wi th "heri tage centres" of one sort or an­other. Let m e take one p rominen t example of her i tage managemen t , a n d the challenges it raises.

The Highland Regional Council has developed a p lan to deve lop a H igh land Folk Park at Newtonmore , de ­scribed as "... a flagship project a imed at creating a ' lei­sure a n d learning ' experience for a n e w mil lennium, embrac ing such concepts as sustainable tour ism, learn­ing by part icipation, a n d the integration of a l iving en­v i ronment w i th l iving h is tory" (McDermott a n d Noble 1994, 254f). The descr ipt ion continues:

All the environmental management principles are in­volved: detailed research and planning by the provider, strong community links and well thought out interpre­tation strategies for visitors ... the concept is firmly rooted in the "open-air museum" tradition which be­gan in Scandinavia a century ago and in the more re­cent eco-museum concepts of Georges-Henri Riviere.

Pragmatically, it has developed out of the changing role of the Highland Folk Museum in Kingussie, Brit­ain's first spedalist folk and open-air museum opened in 1935, which has evolved from being a last sanctuary for the material remains of traditional Highland cul­ture to a focus for the integration of traditional lore and skills into modem Highland life (ibid., 257).

The te rm "Folk Pa rk" w a s chosen to d is t inguish it from an open-air m u s e u m .

But there is a fundamental difference in concept... the buildings and other man-made objects intended to pro­vide a setting which raises one's awareness of the ex­perience.

This experience is brought about by a series of im­aginative reconstructions of historic Highland settle­ments enhanced by displays, live demonstrations and visitor participation in traditional practices ... to focus the visitor's mind on the interpretive experience, the reception building will take the form of an 18th cen­tury inn. Here the visitor takes the role of traveller and is encouraged to explore, in time as well as space, re­constructions ranging from the Stone Age to the twen­tieth century (ibid., 255).

The real p rob l em w i t h this, it seems to m e , is no t just that of a t t empt ing to contain a vas t s w e e p of "his tory as her i tage" wi th in the l imitations of t ime a n d space

for a visitor, b u t the selectivity which provides faulty or part ial overviews, a n d w h e n conflicting or contest­able not ions of her i tage beg in t o replace a negot ia ted historical reality (cf. Jenkins 1986-7; Ha rvey 1996).

C o m m e n t i n g on this ambi t ious project, wh ich sees reconstruct ion of the pas t as some kind of authent ic representat ion of that reality, a critic has asked: where does the oral t radi t ion figure in all of this? w h e r e a re the people , their cultural interaction, and the p roduc ­tion of folklore either as cul tural continuity or an emer­gent feature of everyday life? There is a press ing need, h e believes, in this representation of her i tage th rough dedicated "cul tural centres," to dis t inguish be tween the real and the counterfeit. O n e such centre in the High­l ands h a s elaborate v ideo displays wi th Gaelic sound­tracks. But the Gaelic is not of the region, and there is n o sign of it. Pr ide of place has been given to the local saint, about w h o m little is k n o w n . In contrast, the una ­d o r n e d taigh dubh [black house] in Skye also has n o in­habi tants , b u t is a more a tmospher ic representat ion of tradit ional context. Even here, in such examples , herit­age in the sense of oral tradit ion is h id d en a n d neglected w h e n there is a real need to m a k e it available th rough access a n d part icipat ion for bo th in-dwellers a n d visi­tors (Meek 1998).

In m a n y High land communi t i e s n e w mechan i sms for the identification and t ransmiss ion of t radi t ional knowledge have been developed, such as the comunn eachdraidh, the local history society devoted to assem­bl ing a n d mak ing accessible significant aspects of the h i s t o r y a n d self u n d e r s t a n d i n g of t h e c o m m u n i t y (Mackay 1996). The g rowth of feisean—local, non-com­peti t ive music festivals b e g u n by a par ish priest, Colin Machines, in Barra in the 1980s, or Blasad den lar (inter­p re t ive locally b a s e d tour i s t s h o w s ) — h a v e s u p p l e ­m e n t e d t h e Gael ic Rev iva l in l a n g u a g e d r i v e n b y C o m m u n n n a G a i d h l i g w i t h g o v e r n m e n t s u p p o r t (Pedersen 1995). Even the conservat ive A n C o m u n n Gaidhealach, founded in 1891, has now, in 1997, b e g u n to introduce rock b a n d competi t ions into its annua l Mod (equivalent of Welsh eisteddfod). Such mechan i sms he lp to counterbalance external, m a n d a r i n v iews of heri t­age and history, and the results are presented in local m u s e u m s or publ ic centres. Even t h o u g h the idea of comuinn eachdraidh (Island Associa t ion of His tor ical Societies) is a more modes t project, it a rguably p rov ides a bet ter mode l for the future of Gaelic in unk ing it to the classroom on the one hand , a n d to cul tural tour i sm on the other. It has been supp lemen ted by other s trate­gies: by the Muinntir an Eachdraidh ("History Folk"), the n a m e given b y village people to y o u n g u n e m p l o y e d w h o visited their houses collecting historical artifacts and recording elderly people ' s reminiscences (Mackay 1996, 6). In o ther words , t he n e w e r challenge is one of access and part icipation: if cul tural representat ion is to involve in te rven t ion it m u s t involve d i scuss ion a n d consultat ion at the level of the local l anguage c o m m u ­nity. Cul tu ra l e m p o w e r m e n t , in o ther w o r d s , can be encouraged bu t not imposed from outs ide . A dia logue

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be tween the local communi t ies , local councils, a n d gov­e rnmen t cu l ture brokers is a necessity in any scenario a imed at cul tural representat ion.

A n d w h a t of the folklorist in this? The challenge to the folklorist in contr ibut ing to the d ia logue is to en­sure that cultural representat ion, like cultural identi ty itself, is seen as a process and not as a reified, idealised v iew of the past . Even al lowing that the representat ion of mater ia l cul ture involves bui ld ings a n d object-ori­en ted displays, these m u s t b e complemented by a con­cern for oral t radi t ions a n d language . This process in­volves negotiat ion be tween a n d a m o n g all of the con­cerned parties. Opt ing for such negotiat ion (rather than, say, for i n t e rven t ion b y m a n d a r i n sources ) a n d for shared decis ion-making has impor tan t cultural conse­quences . Within this process it is essential tha t the m o ­tivation, prescript ion, a n d implementa t ion come from wi th in local g roups wh ich see cont inui ty wi th the pas t existing a longside n e w a n d vital forms of expression. The impr in t ing of the landscape a n d its mean ings on the mind of incomers to the Nor th is also a vital pa r t of this process. Adap ta t ion th rough dia logue, th rough at­tention to local his tory and l anguage and their signifi­cance m u s t be pa r t of the prescript ive process. In this w a y the Highlands , a n d the N o r t h of Scotland in gen­eral, can look backwards a n d forwards wi th a sense of cultural p u r p o s e in creating the contexts that al low folk­lore to emerge natural ly as a p roduc t of everyday life.

The Elphinstone Institute University of Aberdeen

Notes 'The book proposal was rejected by the Counril of the

Sodety. The Henderson correspondence and the Coundl 's reply are noted in the Minutes of 11 January 1898. Janet Henderson (b. Wick, 1840) was the daughte r of John Henderson, W.S. of Thurso (1800-3), author of Caithness Fam­ily History (Edinburgh 1884). I am indebted to John Ashton for bringing this item to my attention.

2Folklore, ethnology, history, archaeology and sodology, of course, sit uneasily at the same scholarly table. But inter-disdplinary co-operation has become a fact of intellectual life as disdplines re-assess not only their traditional limits but also their limitations.

3 As Director of The Elphinstone Institute at the University of Aberdeen and holder of the Chair of Scottish Ethnology my remit is to study the traditions of Northern Scotland, the area covered by Bishop Elphinstone's vision of the univer­sity when he founded it in 1495. Defining "Northern Scot­land" in any case is not a simple task in cultural terms, or even in geographical terms given variable interpretations of where its southern limit begins (see Withrington 1972). Broadly speaking the uplands of Perthshire, Angus and Stirlingshire mark the traditional boundary between the Cen­tral Lowlands and the North. But I want to emphasise that to me, at least, this means the study of "folklore in Northern Scotland" rather than just "Northern Scottish folklore"—a significant distinction that involves culture-change resulting

from forces such as emigration and immigration (see the ear­lier argument in the 1970s on "American folklore" vs "folk­lore in America," in Dorson 1978; Bronner and Stem 1980).

4Macpherson himself is a figure of some complexity and cannot be readily dismissed as a "forger" (Stafford 1988, 4). His seminal place in the formation of European Romanti-dsm has come to be re-assessed in recent years (cf. Gaskill 1991; 1996). Ossianic tales continue to be recorded in Gaelic, however, some of them considered superior to those in J.F. Campbell's classic Popular Tales of the West Highlands. See the tales recorded from the fine storyteller of Sutherland travel­ler stock, Alasdair "Brian" Stewart, in Tocher 29 (1978).

5Countless films, from The Quiet Man (1952) to The Eng­lishman Who Went Up a Hill, But Came Down a Mountain (1995), by and large depict their Irish or Welsh charaders as whim­sical, fey representations set in an idealised bucolic landscape.

6Some have argued that the Clearances were necessary because of overcrowding: between 1801-51 the population of Sutherland increased by over 2,000, with a similar increase in other Highland counties. Poverty accelerated as the best land was taken from the people and leased to sheepfarmers and tacksmen. The rental of one sheep farm was often greater than the combined rental of fifty smallholdings, and instead of alleviating poverty and hardship, the Clearances exacer­bated both (MacLean 1975, 139-40). The "crofters' wars" of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, as a strug­gle for redaiming the land by indigenous Highlanders, has been well documented (e.g. Devine 1994; Cameron 1996). But Highland emigrants in Manitoba, Cape Breton Island, or North Carolina, who often perished in great numbers hav­ing disembarked from disease-ridden ships, created the sort of communities that their landlords were destroying back home (Craig 1990). Gaelic too has persisted in Cape Breton Island which, physically and economically, is a doser paral­lel to the Highland landscape than the plains of Manitoba or North Carolina, where Gaelic did not survive (cf. Mackinnon 1983). Cape Breton has lately developed the idea of ftisean, based on the Hebridean model recently begun in Barra.

'Nevertheless, these Highlanders, loyal, conservative, pres­ervationist and not by nature imperialist, were constrained to play a central role in the expansion of British imperial ambitions (Finlayson 1987, 42; Clyde 1995).

T h e name Alford itself, like a number of others in the North East, is still pronounced following its Gaelic form (Athphort).

'As, for example, in Tocher 36-7 (1982):447-50. 1 0At 4296 feet, Ben Macdhui is the highest peak in the Cairn­

gorms. The mountain range has been the focus of intensive attempts at conservation (cf. Conroy, Watson and Gunson 1990). For the country as a whole The Scottish Land Com­mission, set up under the chairmanship of Professor Allan Machines of the University of Aberdeen in 1995, has now recommended greater controls on absentee landlords and the abolition of the feudal power of the Crown Estates Commis­sion, as well as the eventual breakup of massive blocks of single ownership and the passing of control of rural grants to new community land councils (Cairns 1997).

"Miller told his doctor of his conviction of being abroad in the night wind, and dragged through places as if by some

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invisible power: "Last night I felt as if I had been ridden by a witch for fifty miles, and rose more wearied in mind and body than when I lay down." The doctors diagnosed his con­dition as being due to "overwork" (Rosie 1981, 81). Miller's friend Smiles, a journalist from Haddington, East Lothian, penned a book, Self-Help (1859), in which his extolling of the virtues of honesty, self-denial, justice and tmthfulness is wed­ded to a romantic vision of free and united peoples in Eu­rope who would throw off "the shackles of want and toil" and reap in leisure "the fruits of hard-won culture" (see Calder 1994,131-2 and 263-4). This book was recommended by such diverse personalities as Harry Lauder and Keith Joseph (who wrote an Introduction to the 1986 "abridged" edition).

1 2Alexander Thorn (b. 1894), Professor of Engineering Sci­ence at Oxford from 1945-61, while on a sailing holiday in 1934 dropped anchor by Callanish and was struck by the great stones standing outlined against the moon. He noticed the north-south alignment, with the pole star shining above (in former times there would have been no pole star since its constellation had not reached today's position). Thorn first identified the megalithic yard (2,72 feet) as a basic construc­tion measurement from the evidence of Scottish sites, and later in Brittany from 1970. Such megalithic sites, and their possible connection with other ancient sites in Britain, had earlier inspired Alfred Watkins (b. 1855) to investigate the contested area of ley lines, and to write his The Old Straight Track (1924, 1971), which has been both venerated and vili­fied.

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F O R G E T T I N G FROLIC: M A R R I A G E T R A D I T I O N S I N I R E L A N D

BY

L I N D A - M A Y B A L L A R D

Published by the Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen's University of Belfast in Association with the Folklore Society

Available from March 1998. 172pp. 18 B&W illustrations. £9.50. ISBN 0 85389 666 6

Forgetting Frolic considers the traditions and customs of marriage, with the associated material culture, set in an historical context. Its main focus is on the North of Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but evidence for earlier periods and other regions is also presented.

Linda-May Ballard is Curator of Textiles at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, and has written widely on rites of passage, and especially on women's roles in birth and death.

Cheques should be made payable to The Queen's University of Belfast and sent to: The Institute of Irish Studies, 8 Fitzwilliam Street, Belfast BT9 6AW

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