Any views expressed within media held on this service are those of the contributors, should not be taken as approved or endorsed by the University, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University in respect of any particular issue.
At our recent steering group meeting our Chair, Prof Melissa Terras, noted that the index cards I shared in the post on Alan Bruford’s Tale Types make great writing prompts. This immediately cast me back to my Am-Dram days, when our director would ask us to pick a number and assign us whichever ATU tale type that corresponded, to create a short play with. This is a really useful tool for creativity and I thought I would share some Tale types and a few examples from the card index, which you may wish to explore.
These index cards summaries one part of a recording, or a manuscript in the SSSA collections. Often they are just the most brief description of the tale and other cards go into more detail.
ATU 1696
“What Should I have Said…?”
You can read this above version of this tale type in our Maclagan collection, via the OpenBooks platform (page 11, MML2389).
Tom Robertson told Alan Bruford that this tale was his grandmother’s story.
ATU 510
Cinderella , Cap of Rushes
This is not from recording or a manuscript in SSSA, but I have to say that the way that the summary is written made it stand out to me. There are thousands of variants of Cinderella and many examples in the Tale Archive, including Essie Pattle, the Shetland variant. You can listen to T A Robertson read the story of Essie Pattle (SA1972.238.B1) in Shetland dialect here: https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/71783
Supernatural Witch Tales
Bewitched Dancing
This is one of the tale types devised by Alan Bruford for classifying Witch Tales. This tale appears in Calum MacLean’s notebooks, collected from Roy Bridge, and is a story of Alasdair nan Cleas – Alasdair of the Tricks – who was Keppoch Clan Chief and thought to be a sorcerer. There is a great blog about this tale over on the Calum MacLean Project blog: http://calumimaclean.blogspot.com/2015/05/dance-till-you-drop.html
ATU 1137
Tales of the Stupid Ogre / Self Did It
These types of tales have origins in the story of Odysseus and the Cyclops.
ATU 1452
Choosing a Wife
The above tale, told by Lucy Stewart (SA1960.167.A12). is a variant of a type of bride tests tale which includes stories which feature the selection of a wife on how she cuts cheese! You can listen to this recording via the SSSA material on Tobar an Dualchais: https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/22452
ATU 1408
The Foolish Husband & His Wife / The The man who does his wife’s work
Angus MacLellan told the story of a crofter who thought his wife was useless, until she asked him to swap places with him. The recording is on Tobar an Dualchais, with a summary in English. https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/34492
We also have a version of this in Maclagan, from Islay, MML 2386
Romantic Tales: The Lad and his Dream
Ending with a take from the Romantic Tales Index here at SSSA – two strangers dream of one another and set off to find the other!
If you feel inclined to use any of these prompts, we would love to see your work!
Here in the The School of Scottish Studies Archives we have tales classified under the ATU index, as well as tales grouped together under story types, such as Robber Tales, Historical Tradition; Romance Tales; Hero Tales and Legends.
There are also indexes of tales which are classified under “Supernatural Witch” and “Supernatural Fairies” which were part of the work of Alan Bruford (1937-1995) to survey the Central Index and pull together material of “recurrent plots and motifs from the tangled mass of Scottish, and especially Gaelic, local traditions of supernatural and historical events” [Bruford, 1967].
There isn’t a great deal written on the ongoing work of these type-lists, but it is clear that Bruford continued to work on this until his death. Donald Archie MacDonald (1929-1999) published a broader paper on the type-lists in 1995 and I link to that at the end.
Bruford, Alan 1967, ‘Scottish Gaelic Witch Stories: A Provisional Type-list’, Scottish Studies (volume 11), pp 12-47
MacDonald, Donald Archie 1994-1195. ‘ Migratory Legends of the Supernatural in Scotland: A General Survey’, Béaloideas (62/63), pp 29-78 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20522441
*The Maclagan Mss is in the process of being added to the University of Edinburgh’s OpenBooks platform as an open access resource. This is a work in progress but the pdf batches so far can be accessed here: https://edin.ac/3UdzSSz
Today is International Cat Day and that is as good as excuse as any to look in the Tale Archive for any material purrtaining to Felis Catus. Don’t worry though – should you not hold with such cosy nonsense – for the tale I’ve chosen is far removed from cute and fluffy!
Tocher, Vol 7. (1972)
‘Sùil a Sporan agus Sùil a Dia’ was a tale given by Donald Alasdair Johnston on two separate occasions to fieldworkers for The School of Scottish Studies (SA1969.120.A1; SA1970.214.A1). It is classified as a variant of ATU 613 – Two Travellers. We have a third version of this type in the Tale Archive, which John Shaw collected from Cape Breton in 1978, from Flora MacLellan.
Donald Alasdair’s story was published in Tocher in 1972 and tells the story of two brothers. Sùil a Dia believed that God would provide all he needed in life, but Sùil a Sporan argued that his purse could provide him with everything. So serious was this argument that the best way to test this out – it seemed – was for Sùil a Sporan to dash out his devout brother’s eyes, in order to see if God would restore them.
Now blind, Sùil a Dia took refuge in a house which belonged to the King of Cats, Gugtrabhad, and his company. Sùil a Dia overheard the messenger kitten, Piseag Shalach Odhar, tell the clowder of a healing well. Once they left, the blind brother scrambled on hand and knee til he found the well, restored his sight and returned to his brother.However – if not dark enough already – this tale takes a few more sinister turns!
Sùil a Sporan asked his brother to put out his eyes next to make certain of the miracle. Once blind and alone, Sùil a Sporan felt his way inside the same house, to the same spot of refuge. When the cats assembled again there was outrage when Piseag Shalach Odhar told them that a human had been listening to them the night before. They hunted around the house and – mistaking Sùil a Sporan for his brother – exact their revenge. The story doesn’t really end well for anyone – certainly not Sùil a Sporan or the cats, ultimately, who meet a fiery end!
You can read the story as transcribed in Tocher (SA1969.120.A1), by clicking on the image below (link opens a pdf)
Click the image for a PDF of this tale, from Tocher, Vol 7 (1972)
Further Information
John Shaw wrote an article for Scottish Studies which compares Donald Alasdair’s tale with Sgeulachd a’ Chait Bhig ‘s a’ Chait Mhóir, collected from Cape Breton:
Shaw, J 1991, ‘Sgeulachd a’ Chait Bhig ‘s a’ Chait Mhóir‘, Scottish Studies, vol 30. Pp93-106
There are several versions of ATU 613 collected in Ireland, mainly in the Schools collection and these are held online at Duchas.ie: https://www.duchas.ie/en/aath/cbes/0613
For more cats in the collections held at SSSA, you can read this post over on the SSSA blog: Puzzling Black Cats
There is a lot of cross-over in my two jobs as Archive & Library Assistant at The School of Scottish Studies Archives (SSSA) and Copyright Administrator working for the Decoding Hidden Heritages Project, as I work with the same collections for both.
Recently I came across this card from the “Informants index” in the Tale Archive.
It is not unusual to see material restricted in the archive, but many of the closures and restrictions at SSSA tend to be retrospective where we have screened archive material or when we discover ‘special category’ data is discussed. It is slightly more unusual – in our collections – to see material restricted from the earlier days of the School, such as this recording from 1974. As there is the potential that transcriptions of these exist, and that these may soon be digitised and published, it is important to look into this further.
As you may remember from some of my earlier posts, there are several places within the archive to look for further information – the first is the Chronological Registers containing summaries of fieldwork recordings.
RESTRICTED: not to be available to non-members of the School before the year 2000: “Blue”
This was the first time I encountered a restriction from this period with a future date attached. The year 2000 may have been chosen as a date to be sufficient for period of restriction due to a number of reasons, but it seems somewhat arbitrary without any further information. The three bawdy anecdotes are summarised here, along with other bawdy riddles and songs, but there isn’t too much here to tell us about how “blue” it might be.
Something to remember about this point of the history of the School of Scottish Studies was that it was a Research Unit; in the 1970s SOSS had begun to offer undergraduate courses at 1st and 2nd year level and offered supervision for Postgraduate research, but it was not yet established in offering it’s own degree courses and the collections were not widely open for access. However, this notice does suggest that there was – or might be in the future – access to others beyond UOE.
Alan Bruford kept helpful notes on much of his fieldwork and his contributors and so I next checked these to see if there was more information about this contributor, Mr Hughson.
Context is a wonderful thing! As well as giving us information about Mr Hughson’s blue riddles – or guddicks, in the Shetland dialect – this gives such a great insight into how Bruford approached fieldwork – from pre-interview telephone calls, interesting information about the interviewee and the importance of the person’s contributions for the ongoing research at SOSS. It also shows the bonds of trust between fieldworker and contributor, which would seem to be a driving motivation in Bruford restricting the material. There is no further indication why the date was chosen for the embargo, but I think it’s fair to assume it was a point in time in which it was assumed Mr Hughson would have passed away.
I had a listen to the recording itself and the blue material includes three bawdy songs, one which includes a Peeping Tom; an anecdote which infers bestiality (SA1974.199.B4); a story of three women discussing what they think a penis looks like and then meeting a willing man to help them in their research (SA1974.199.B8) and a tale of a fellow who is given medicine to assist with fertility but which has an extraordinary affect on the size of his manhood (SA1974.199.B9).
Of course, we can remove the restriction on this material now (a mere 22 years after it’s intended embargo date!) but we do still have an ethical responsibility to ensure our records are up to date and that we inform our service users that this material may cause potential offence. While this material was intended to be funny by the contributor, there are triggers here for many people in some of these pieces, for example, sexual abuse and unwanted sexual attention. In cases like this, we ensure that we include a text file with the digitised recording, so that staff can flag issues to our readers, before they begin listening. This is something that will need to be considered when making transcriptions and recordings available online.
Since 2008 people from across the UK have celebrated Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month each June. Through celebration, education and raising awareness, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month helps to tackle prejudice, challenge myths and to amplify these voices in wider society. At The School of Scottish Studies Archives, we try to share relevant material in June from our own collections, which highlight Traveller life and experience; this material is a rich seam indeed and it’s a privilege to hold Traveller oral testimony here.
To celebrate #GRTHM here on this little corner of the internet, I wanted to share something from our Tale Archive, from someone whose name appears again and again in the indexes and transcriptions – Alasdair “Brian” Stewart (1911-2008).
Alasdair “Brian” Stewart was of the Sutherland Stewarts, a family of the Highland Traveller tradition who can be found throughout our collections sharing tale, tradition and song. He was nicknamed Brian, due to his place of birth (Ach a’ Bhràigh) and he learned much of his repertoire of Gaelic tales – particularly hero tales – from family members, such as his uncle Ailidh Dall Stewart (1882-1968) and his grandmother Susie Stewart (1846-??).
Alasdair “Brian” Stewart, (far right), with his wife Ina. Pictured with SOSS staff Ian Fraser (left) and Donald Archie MacDonald. Image by Alan Bruford (C) SSSA (1974)
Brian was recorded a several times by fieldworkers from the School and in 1978 he was the focus of a volume of Tocher and I thought that it might be interesting to share Hamish Henderson’s recollections of meeting Brian and also a tale from him, transcribed for that volume.
It was the discovery, in 1953 and 1954, of an enormous wealth of folktale among the travelling people of Aberdeenshire that made me determined to look for oral narrative in Gaelic among the North Highland travelling folk. […] What we discovered that summer exceeded all my expectations. The semi-nomadic Stewarts of Lairg – the ‘summer walkers’, as the local crofters called them – turned out to be the custodians of a folk-cultural heritage even more voluminous than that of their North-East counterparts. Although every single member of the group could be considered a tradition bearer, the principal figure- and acknowledged champion – among them was blind AIec Stewart, better known as Aili Dall. This amazing old hero had a version of Am Bròn Binn (The Sweet Sorrow), an heroic lay now very rare, and stories of Oisean and the Féinn as well as a vast store of wonder tales and other Marchen. My notebook, already packed with information about travellers recorded en route, was soon full of the names of other Stewarts and Williamsons who, as Aili Dall thought, would have material of interest for us; and among these I wrote down the name of another Alec Stewart who was a nephew of Aili’s, whose nickname was Brian, and who was working in the Forestry and living at Culrain.
When I got back to Edinburgh this information was passed on without delay to Calum Maclean, and Calum followed it up the same summer. His own beautifully written account of his meeting with yet another Alexander Stewart – ‘Alasdair mac Phàdruig,’ whom I had recorded at Tomich, Muir of Ord, a few weeks earlier while on the way to Sutherland – and with old Grace, Alasdair’s mother, will be found in Chapter VI of his book The Highlands (recently republished by Club Leabhar, with a preface by Séan O Súilleabháin). Alasdair mac Phàdruig told him many hours of stories in the Ord Arms Hotel, and was still telling them right up to the time Calum had to rush to catch a train to Brora. Unfortunately Calum did not locate Aili Dall and his entourage when in Sutherland – they were of course on the move at the time- and the onset of the serious illness which then beset him made subsequent collecting much more difficult.
Consequently I returned myself to Ross-shire and Sutherland in 1957 and 1958 and in both years spent several weeks travelling around with the ‘summer walkers’. It was during the second of these tours that I went to see Brian in Culrain. Unlike his uncle, who still kept up the ancestral summer caravan through the great cleared straths of Sutherland, Brian was permanently settled in a neat little house called ‘the Bungalow’, kept spotless trim by his charming wife Ina. Had I not known of Briarn’s impeccable traveller lineage, I would have taken him at first sight for member of the laity – a crofter, or what-ever. It became immediately clear, however, that he was exceedingly and justifiably proud of his traveller Stewart ancestry, and was eager to speak about their way of life. (Since retiring from the Forestry three years ago he has spent part of every summer driving along the roads he travelled with horse anrl cart as a boy, and cleaning up the wells and camping sites used by his people – some of which must have a very ancient history).
Prospecting for stories and other lore from Brian, I found that his repertoire to a large extent duplicated that of his Uncle Aili Dall – nor was this strange, for he had learned most of his stories from old Susie, Aili Dall’s mother. Uncle and nephew thus had a common source for much of their material. Old Susie died in 1938 aged 9l; this means she was born 13 years before the publication of the first volumes of Campbell of Islay’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands, and must have learned many of her stories orally in the mid 19th century from relations born before the end of the 18th century – from folk, therefore, who in all likelihood were travelling the roads while ‘Ossian’ Macpherson was still alive.
Brian’s versions of the tales offer many interesting points of comparison with the versions told by his uncle, and the recording – and, if possible, re-recording – of his complete repertoire seemed an obvious necessity.
Hamish Henderson, Tocher 29 (1978)
The story I have chosen (transcribed in Gaelic as it was told, and translated into English) is A’ MARAICHE MAIRNEAL, a variant of ATU433B King Lindworm – a tale type that often deals with maidens disenchanting serpentine husbands. Donald Archie MacDonald thought that Brian’s version was unique to the Sutherland Stewarts. (Click on the image below to access the pdf of this tale.)
For further reading of Brian Stewart and his storytelling style, you can read Carol Zall’s article in Scottish Studies Vol 36:
To find out more about Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month events in Scotland, you can visit https://grthm.scot/ and follow the hashtag #GRTHM22 on social media.
I had intended to share this tale yesterday, as it was the First of May. I hope you will forgive my tardiness!
Wood engraving of a cuckoo, from History of British Birds (1797). (Public Domain)
May 1st is the date we traditionally associate with the beginning of summer (not that it feels particularly summery in Edinburgh today) and I wanted to find a suitable tale to share with you from the collection in the Tale Archive, at SSSA.
Duncan Williamson told the story of Jack and the Singing Leaves (ATU432) to Linda Williamson and a group of children, in 1976 (SA1976.062.A2;B1). The recording and transcription are held in the archives.
Jack, one of three brothers on a farm, was very lazy but loved animals and one day he rescued a cuckoo with a broken wing. His uncaring brothers thought Jack was a fool for taking the bird in, but they did not see that it was an enchanted bird from a faraway country. In return for his kindness, the cuckoo promised to return to Jack on the first day of May, with a gift.
The gift of the magical singing leaves are brought to the Princess for her birthday, where they enthral the Royal Family, so much so that the King asks for more leaves and will make Jack a rich man in return. As the story transpires, by the end of the summer, they all appear to live happily ever after – with the exception of Jack’s brothers perhaps!
The recording can be listened to in it’s entirety via Tobar an Dualchais and it runs to around 35 minutes in length. I listened to it whilst I looked over the scans of the transcript and was so happy to see Duncan’s Scots accent is well captured by the transcriber. What the written version doesn’t convey though are the responses from the children he is telling the story too; they can be heard in the background held in the thrall of a good tale and it is a joy to listen to.
…
I heard a cuckoo whilst walking near the Water of Leith last week….does that mean summer is on the way?
One of the best things about having worked in The School of Scottish Studies Archives & Library for the past five years is seeing how people are connected with the archive recordings here.
I don’t only mean seeing how our readers are affected by connecting their own research to the myriad depths and layers of oral record testimony – though that process is rather like watching someone discovering treasure every single time. Once the Decoding Hidden Heritages project reaches its culmination, the transcript material from the Tale Archive will be another important layer to these recordings, and available for all to discover.
I also refer to the connections than extend outside the archives.
Angus MacNeil of Smirasary, Glenuig, being interviewed by Calum Maclean (out of image) 1959 Image copyright: SSSA
Many of the people who were recorded in the first decades of the School of Scottish Studies are no longer alive, but their material lives on in those who have connections to the people, their native area, or work or traditions. For example. Shetland fiddle players come to the collections to learn the playing style of the isles; Gaelic singers have used the archive to learn a regional variation of a song for performance; local heritage groups using material recorded in their location for museum exhibitions; storytellers learning tales…and the Carrying Stream flows on.
For me, these connections are particularly palpable when tied to family and we have great links with relations of some of our contributors and fieldworkers. Some can fill in details for us, such as other family members who were recorded or give background information that adds more depth. Often they give permission for re-use of material, if the archive do not hold the rights. Sometimes people come to us looking for recordings their relatives made and at other times we are connected with people who did not know their relation was recorded at all. In all of these instances those connections between contributor, recording, family and us, as the archive, are further strengthened and emboldened.
For those who read my previous blog on seeking the unknown person in the collections – I have an update! A former colleague (connections, again!) sent the post on to her friend from Glenuig who may have known my two unknown women of Smirasary – “You never know, he might have an idea who they are?”
Within a few hours I had a response – not only did he know who they were, but one of the women was his grandmother. The woman that was down in our records as “Anon Woman B / Mrs MacDonald?” was indeed a Mrs MacDonald. She was Johanna MacDonald (1880-1973) and there is more material in the Archives attributed to her from other fieldwork trips to Smirasary in the mid-late 1950s. You can hear some of those other recordings on Tobar an Dualchais. Another fantastic set of connections and one which will hopefully lead to these transcriptions becoming more accessible.
I never fail to be surprised at the connections people have to The School of Scottish Studies Archives, or the weight and strength of those connections!
As Copyright Administrator for the Decoding Hidden Heritages project, it’s my role to investigate the copyright status of the sound material and transcriptions in the Tale Archive.
Everyone involved with a sound recording has copyright to their material. As a result, it can be a lengthy process when checking which individuals are involved with a recording, and if The School of Scottish Studies Archives (SSSA) hold records of copyright assignation. Typically, the search must go outwith SSSA and that’s when I feel like donning my deerstalker! Today I will highlight some of that process.
We come across a number of contributors who are down as Unknown or Anonymous in our collections. There can be a few different reasons why this happened; not everyone’s names were captured by the fieldworker, or it was a cataloguing error. Sometimes people just wished to remain anonymous – either they were too shy to go on record, or the material may have been deemed too sensitive. These days, we have distinct copyright and Data Protection rules to safeguard sensitive material. We also have methods to close or mute someone’s material for a set period of time rather than anonymising completely or forever. So there is some flexibility in the approaches that we can take.
If persons are not explicitly named for a recording, it doesn’t mean we can assume that copyright can be cleared on that basis alone – we still have to do our due diligence. Given that this week marks International Woman’s Day 2022 (March 8) – let’s look at an example of two anonymous women in the Tale Archive. This card refers to part of the recording SA1959.027 – but it doesn’t give us much information, other than it was recorded in Smearisary, Glenuig and the story is of Murchag is Meanchag/Murchag A’s Mionachag.
My next step was to look at what is included on the whole recording. On checking the Summary book for 1959, it shows that this was a recording made by Calum Maclean, Basil Megaw and Ian Whittaker. The other contributors on the tape were Angus MacNeill, Sandy Gillies and “Anon Woman A”, “Anon Woman B / Mrs MacDonald (?)” and “Anon Woman C”. Not terribly enlightening, in the grand scheme of things! Even if Anon Woman B might be a Mrs MacDonald, it doesn’t give us anything to go on. From here I went down to the archive store room to look at the original tape box – sometimes there was a listing completed at the time of recording and included in the box.
A beautiful listing both outside and inside the box, but – as an archive colleague from the past has noted, in pencil – “Who are the informants?”
Listening to the recording itself can be helpful in some cases, because often the name is given at some point – but my Gaelic is not yet good enough for this tape.
So, what now? I will contact our colleagues at Tobar an Dualchais because parts of this tape are available to listen to online; these recordings are by the named contributors. It is possible when their researchers were seeking copyright that they were able to find out who these anonymous female storytellers were. I will keep you updated.
It’s really important to find out who unknown people in our collections are and, if possible, put a name to the voice and acknowledge their important contribution in the archives. I include a very short extract of Anon Woman A and Anon Woman B / Mrs Macdonald (?), of Smearisary and thank them for making my job so interesting!
This clip is placed here on a risk-balanced approach and that is another part of the process for another blog post!
Extract from SA1959.027 from collection of School of Scottish Studies Archives.
