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The Persistence of Fairy Culture in Scotland, 1572-1703 and 1811-1927

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The Persistence of Fairy Culture in Scotland, 1572-1703 and 1811-1927 “What are ye, little mannie?”: The Persistence of Fairy Culture in Scotland, 1572-1703 and 1811-1927 Alison Marie Hight Thesis submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Danna Agmon (Co-Chair) David Cline (Co-Chair) Matthew Gabriele May 5, 2014 Blacksburg, VA Keywords: Scotland, fairy, national identity, cultural heritage, witchcraft, escapism, class culture “What are ye, little mannie?”: The Persistence of Fairy Culture in Scotland, 1572-1703 and 1811-1927 Alison Marie Hight ABSTRACT This thesis is a chronologically comparative study of fairy culture and belief in early modern and Victorian Scotland. Using fairy culture as a case study, I examine the adaptability of folk culture by exploring whether beliefs and legends surrounding fairies in the early modern era continued into the nineteenth and early twentieth as a single culture system, or whether the Victorian fairy revival was a distinct cultural phenomenon. Based on contextual, physical, and behavioral comparisons, this thesis argues the former; while select aspects of fairy culture developed and adapted to serve the needs and values of Victorian society, its resurgence and popularization was largely predicated on the notion that it was a remnant of the past, therefore directly linking the nineteenth century interpretation to the early modern. In each era, fairy culture serves as a window into the major tensions complicating Scottish identity formation. In the early modern era, these largely centered around witchcraft, theology, and the Reformation, while notions of cultural heritage, national mythology, and escapist fantasy dominated Victorian fairy discourse. A comparative study on fairy culture demonstrates how cultural traditions can help link vastly different time periods and complicate traditional conceptions about periodization. Ultimately, this thesis reveals how issues of class impacted the popularization and persistence of fairy culture across both eras, reflecting ongoing discussions about Scottish identity. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to enthusiastically thank my committee, Drs. Danna Agmon, David Cline, and Matthew Gabriele, without whom this thesis would not exist. Their willingness to take on a project outside their immediate fields allowed me to pursue my passions, and their continued guidance helped transform my ideas into arguments. I would especially like to thank them for the countless hours they spent talking and reading about my project—whether in the form of various chapter drafts or condensed conference presentations. Their encouragement for both the project and my development as a researcher has been invaluable. I am also grateful for the numerous other people who helped bring this project to fruition with various forms of support. Dr. Kathleen Jones and the Department of History generously helped fund my travel for archival research in Edinburgh—an experience that was instrumental in pushing me to think through my ideas and gather primary sources. I also benefited from conversations with countless people, which helped my project evolve over the course of the year. These include Drs. Julian Goodare and Ewan Cameron from the University of Edinburgh, and Drs. Emily Satterwhite, Anne-Marie Knoblauch, Andrew Becker, Zach Dresser, Katherine Graham, and Marian Mollin from Virginia Tech. I would also like to thank my friends, whose baffled yet intrigued reactions to my topic helped reinforce my enthusiasm and drive to explain how fairies could be historically relevant. Finally, I must thank my family for their love, support, and willingness to concede holidays to this project. Thank you for teaching me the value of education and encouraging me to pursue my interests to the fullest. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 1. Witchcraft, Fantasy, and Heritage: the changing nature of fairy discourse in early modern and Victorian Scotland 18 Early Modern era 20 Victorian era 41 2. “Not of the race of Adam”: physical characterizations of fairies in early modern and Victorian Scotland 60 Early Modern era 62 Victorian era 76 3. “Thro weel or woe as chance may be”: moral and the behavioral characterizations of fairies in early modern and Victorian Scotland 97 Early Modern era 99 Victorian era 125 Conclusion 147 Bibliography 152 Appendix 162 LIST OF TABLES Figure 1: Primary Source Types 10 iv Introduction On the morning of his death in 1692, Rev. Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle in central Scotland, was walking along a local hill when he collapsed, seemingly dead. Though a funeral was held and a tombstone erected, the death of the minister and the circumstances surrounding it soon came into question, for that locals widely associated that particular hill with the fairies. According to Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott, born eighty years later, "the unenlightened took [it] for death, [but] the more understanding knew it to be a swoon produced by the supernatural influence of the people whose precincts he had violated."1 The Highland reverend had devoted much of the later portion of his life to gathering and compiling information for a treatise titled The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies. In it, Kirk attempted to describe and explain the appearances and customs of the fairy race, as well as the phenomenon of Second Sight. Many feared that the fairies abducted Kirk that day as punishment for divulging so much information about the fairy realm. Scott recounted the story of the events following Kirk's mysterious collapse in a letter: After the ceremony of a seeming funeral, the form of the Reverend Robert Kirke appeared to a relation, and commanded him to go to the Grahame of Duchray, ancestor of the present General Graham Stirling. ‘Say to Duchray, who is my cousin, as well as your own, that I am not dead, but a captive in Fairy Land; and only one chance remains for my liberation…[At the upcoming baptism of my child,] I will appear in the room, when if Duchray shall throw over my head the knife or dirk which he hold in his hand, I may be restored to society; but if this opportunity is neglected, I am lost for ever.2 As the legend goes, an apparition of Kirk did appear at the baptism, but, overwhelmed by his surprise, Duchray neglected to throw his knife in time. Adding to the dramatic effect, Scott lamented, "it is to be feared that Mr. Kirke still [remains trapped in] the Elfin state."3 1 Walter Scott, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, Addressed to J.G. Lockhart, Esq. (London: John Murray, 1830), 160. 2 Scott, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, 161. 3 Scott, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, 161. 1 The story of Robert Kirk is an ideal example of how fairy culture and belief can serve as a link between the early modern and Victorian eras—a connection I seek to emphasize in this project. The fact that Kirk, a highly educated Highland minister with degrees from the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews, felt the need to pen such a treatise at the end of the seventeenth century emphasizes the relevance that fairy culture had in early modern Scotland. His Secret Commonwealth capped a continuous discussion about the nature and function of fairies that took place throughout early modern Scotland. But in addition to essentially closing the early modern conversation about fairies as the eighteenth century ushered in the Scottish Enlightenment, Kirk’s treatise played a large role in prompting a revival in fairy culture that flourished in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Though he was unable to publish The Secret Commonwealth before his collapse in Aberfoyle, Kirk’s manuscripts survived into the modern era. The treatise was discovered and published in the nineteenth century by prominent authors and folklorists Sir Walter Scott and Andrew Lang. The curious reverend even earned some new nicknames from the Scottish Romantics that continue today. In his 1893 reprint of Scott’s initial 1815 publication of Kirk’s treatise, Lang included a dedication to “The Fairy Minister,” complete with an original poem explaining how Kirk became “Chaplain to the Fairy Queen.”4 Kirk’s treatise on fairies and second sight links the early modern and Victorian eras, supporting this project’s intention to use fairy culture as a window into changing world views about cultural identity formation, Christianity, and modernity in Scotland. To investigate those cultural links across generations, this thesis offers a chronologically comparative analysis of Scottish fairy culture in the early modern and ‘long’ Victorian eras— more specifically, 1572-1703 and 1811-1927. It seeks to investigate the adaptability and 4 Robert Kirk and Andrew Lang, The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies: a study in folk-lore & psychical research (London: D. Nutt, 1893), vii. 2 persistence of folk culture, while also considering how elites has discussed folk culture over time. Using popular beliefs in fairies as an avenue for examining folk culture, this project examines how beliefs and legends surrounding fairies in the early modern era continued into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a single cultural system, rather than conceiving of the Victorian fairy revival as a separate form of fairy culture. While fairy culture in these two vastly different time periods may appear distinct on the surface, they featured prominent similarities that link them together. Though it is true—and to be expected—that the nineteenth century revival of fairy culture in Scotland developed to serve the needs and values of Victorian society, its resurgence and popularization was largely predicated on the notion that fairy culture came from their past. Based on their research on Scottish fairy belief in the early modern period, Lizanne Henderson and Edward J. Cowan argue: The pantomime question annually roared at laughing children, ‘Do you believe in fairies?’ would have baffled people in pre-industrial societies; everybody did, for the contrary was unthinkable.
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