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Burgess, Moira (2006) "Between the Words of a Song": Supernatural and Mythical Elements in the Scottish Fiction of Naomi Mitchison

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Burgess, Moira (2006) "Between the words of a song": supernatural and mythical elements in the Scottish fiction of Naomi Mitchison. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5413/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] 'BETWEEN THE WORDS OF A SONG': SUPERNATURAL AND MYTHICAL ELEMENTS IN THE SCOTTISH FICTION OF NAOMI MITCHISON MOIRA BURGESS Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD in the Department of Scottish Literature, University of Glasgow, July 2006 (D Moira Burgess 2006 'BETWEEN THE WORDS OF A SONG': SUPERNATURAL AND MYTHICAL ELEMENTS IN THE SCOTTISH FICTION OF NAOMI MITCHISON MOIRA BURGESS Abstract The supernaturalis a recurrent element in the fiction of Naomi Mitchison. This thesis examinesfour novels and a selectionof short stories from a period in her career,approximately 1935-1960,when she was basedmostly in Scotland,had rediscoveredher Scottish identity, and was using Scottishthemes and settingsin her work. It considersMitchison's attitude to 'the irrational' and her perception of a connectionbetween this and her gift of creativity. Mitchison's interestin tile supernaturalwas combinedwith an interestin scienceand an extremepracticality and pragmatismin everyday life, one of many contradictionswhich can be found in her life and writing. The thesis goes on to examine the influence on her thinking and writing of Sir JamesFrazer's The Golden Bough, JessieWeston's l7roin Ritual to Romance and Margaret Murray's The Witch-Cult in [Vestern Europe. The Introduction summarises the topic, scope and approach of the thesis and places the work of the selected period in the context of the rest of Mitchison's fiction. Chapter I examines the recurrence of apparently supernatural experiences fii her life, noting parallel experiences recorded by other writers, and suggesting a possible explanation for her childhood terrors. Chapter 2 traces the influence of these experiences on her writing, and also considers influences from her extensive reading, such as the ballads and the work of George MacDonald. The mythical element in Mitchison's work is linked to that in the work of other novelists of the Scottish Literary Renaissance. Her poem 'The House of the Hare' is examined and the connections that Mitchison found between creativity, sexuality and fertility are described and discussed. Chapters 3-6 consider her novels, Me Have Been JFarned (1935), Yhe Bull Calves (1947), 7he Big House (1950) and Lobsters on the Agenda (1952), with reference to the supernatural and mythical elements in each, noting that Mitchison apparently subscribed to Margaret Murray's view of witchcraft as a surviving pagan religion. Chapter 7 surveys the recurrence of supernatural themes in Mitchison's short stories. Chapter 8 considers the recurrent concepts of tl ie fairy hill and the swan maiden, , suggesting that these concepts were seen by Mitchison as relevant to her own life. Finally, a Conclusion offers an overall summary of the supernatural and mythical components in Mitchison's life and work. Appendices: 1: the Margaret Murray theory of witchcraft; 11: the swan maiden its myth and use in a range of creative work; III : Mitchison's response to a 1942 Mass-Observation directive on supernatural belief, IV: the lyrics of the song 'The Thing', a possible source of her story 'The Box'. CONTENTS Introduction I I Supernatural experience in the life of Naomi Mitchison 9 2 Supernatural and myth in the writing of Naomi Mitchison: sources and contexts 32 3 Witches and women 1: WeHave Been lFarned 75 4 Witches and women 11: The Bull Calves 110 5 Magic, children and class: The Big House 134 6 Magic in the community: Lobsters on the Agenda 167 7A continuing concern: short fiction 189 8 Myth, reality and Naomi Mitchison 218 Conclusion 253 Appendix 1: Margaret Murray's theory of witchcraft 256 Appendix 11: Swan maidens 262 Appendix III: Mass-Observation directive on supernatural belief, April 1942 266 Appendix IV: 'The Thing' 268 Bibliography 270 ILLUSTRATIONS Goya: Other LawsfOr the People following page 86 Chirico: The Disquieting Aluses following page 101 i ABBREVIATIONS The following abbreviationsare used for titles of works by Naomi Mitchison: ACH All ChangeHere AGML A Girl AllustLive AY7N AnzongYou Taking Notes BC TheBull Calves BH TheBig House BS Black Sparta CK The Cleansing of the Knife EMS Five Men and a Swan EP TheFourth Pig LA Lobsters on the Agenda LB TheLaburnum Branch ffl Mucking Around MH Metzand Herring RFH Return to the Fairy Hill SSP Naomi Mitchison (Saltire Seýf-Portrait) ST Sinall Talk TCP To the Chapel Perilous WDYTY WhatDo You Think Yoursep WHBW WeHave Been Warned YMVA YouMay Well Ask 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have helped me during the preparation of this thesis in the Department of Scottish Literature of the University of Glasgow. My supervisorProfessor Alan Riach has been endlessly supportive. At different stagesof the work Dr Christopher Whyte and Dr Kirsteen McCue listened to presentationswith apparentinterest and ProfessorDouglas Gifford read some chapters at an early stage. Comments from all of them have been both kind and enlightening. I am much indebted to assistance given by the staff of Glasgow University Library and The Mitchell Library, Glasgow. Dr Helen Lloyd, then engagedon her own PhD thesis on Mitchison, was unstintingly generous in sharing information, notably supplying the Mass-Observation response which forms Appendix III of this thesis. Professor Isobel Murray allowed me to have several books from her own Mitchison collection on very long loan. Hamish Whyte supplied sourcesand translations for Latin quotations. Angus Martin supplied infon-nation on Caffadale fishermen and folklore and gave me copies of John Campbell's Saddell stories and Denis Macintosh's memoirs. Dr Margaret Bennett suggested reading material on the meaning of fairies. Kirsten and Peter Stirling accepted with equanimity my metamorphosis into an extremely mature student;to them and to all those mentioned,my sincerestthanks. iii INTRODUCTION This thesis will consider the occurrenceof supernaturaland mythical themes in the work of Naomi Mitchison (1897-1999). While she published over eighty books, fiction, poetry, drama and non-fiction, as well as a great deal of still uncollected poetry and prose, the principal focus here will be on the writing of the two decadesfrom 1940 to 1960.These years producedmost of what we may call Mitchison's Scottish novels, as distinct from her African and science fiction novels, though the oeuvre of such a prolific and adventurouswriter cannot be divided up quite as neatly as that would imply. In the chronology of Mitchison's writing these might also be called her Carradaleyears. In strict reckoning there were in fact over sixty Carradale years. Mitchison was born in Edinburgh, and, though she was brought up in Oxford, spent her early married life in London, travelled widely, and maintained an international outlook, she came to feel her Scottishnessas deep and inescapable.She spent holidays at her family home of Cloan in Perthshire and later in the West Highlands, and in 1937 she and her husband bought Carradale House in Kintyre. Originally intended as a holiday retreat, it remainedher home until her deathin 1999.Her most intenserelationship with Carradale, the village and its people, however, lasted from the end of the 1930s to the mid or late 1950s. (She more than once describes this relationship as a love affair, and, like other such affairs, it followed a variable course,ending in perhapsinevitable disillusionment.) Mitchison played many roles besides that of writcr during her long life. Aristocrat; socialist; wife and mother; lover; farmer; fisheries expert; Argyll county councillor; feminist; Scottish nationalist; internationalist; African tribal elder; the list goes on. The very title of the biography by Jenni Calder published to mark Mitchison's hundredth birthday, The Nine Lives of AraondMilchison, emphasisesher multi-faceted quality. ' Becauseof this and Mitchison's because of slightly unorthodox publishing history - after the successof the early novels published in her twenties and thirties, she dropped out of sight, critically speaking, for many years - it is easy to assumethat writing was just another activity in her busy life. Some contemporary reviewers suggestedthat it would have been better for her writing career, or for her statusas a writer, if she had not beendoing so many other things at the sametime. She considersthe question herself: Would I have done better to be only one person?Perhaps. Most of the really successfulwriters do one thing, remain one person.But it isn't so interesting 2 for them - or maybe in the final judgment, their readers. In fact it will be argued in the course of this thesis that Mitchison's writing was a continual accompanimentto her other concerns;that her creativity as a writer underpinnedand permeatedeverything she under-took;and that she saw this creativity as associatedwith, and indeed enabled
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