Scottish Studies 35

SCOTTISH STUDIES 35 Published with financial support from an anonymous donor Scottish Studies The Journal of the School of Scottish Studies University of Edinburgh Vol. 35 2007-2010 EDITED BY JOHN SHAW Published by The School of Scottish Studies University of Edinburgh 2010 Articles are invited and should be sent to: Dr John Shaw The Editor, Scottish Studies The School of Scottish Studies The University of Edinburgh 27 George Square Edinburgh EH8 9LD All articles submitted are sent out to readers for peer review. Enquiries may be made by email to: [email protected] The journal is published annually and costs £12. Subscriptions should be sent to The Subscription Secretary, Scottish Studies, at the address above. ©The School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh Printed in Great Britain by Airdrie Print Services ISBN 978-0-900949-02-9 Contents Contributors vii Editorial ix Ronald Black 1 A Bawdy New Year’s Rhyme from Gaelic Scotland John Burnett 36 Carnival and Other Festivity in Scotland in the Nineteenth Century Tiber F.M. Falzett 59 Brìgh `Chiùil: Vernacular Ear-Learned Piping in Cape Breton and South Uist Explored through Seanchas-Based Narratives Frances J. Fischer 92 ‘Hildina’ - A Norn Ballad in Shetland Joseph J. Flahive 106 A Hero’s Lament: Aithbhreac inghean Coirceadail’s Lament for Niall Óg mac Néill Nancy Cassell McEntire 120 Supernatural Beings in the Far North: Folkore, Folk Belief, and the Selkie Michael Newton 144 Prophecy and Cultural Conﬂ ict in Gaelic Tradition Andrew E. M. Wiseman 174 Caterwauling and Demon Raising: The Ancient Rite of the Taghairm? Carol Zall 209 Variation in Gaelic Storytelling Donald Mark Zimmerman 244 The Last Georgic, or James Grahame’s Revision of Eighteenth-Century Rural Labour Book Reviews 253 Contributors Ronald Black, Peebles John Burnett, National Museums of Scotland Tiber F.M. Falzett, School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh Frances Fischer, School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh Joseph J. Flahive, University College Cork Nancy Cassell McEntire, Indiana State University, USA Michael Newton, St Francis Xavier University, Canada Andrew E.M. Wiseman, University of Edinburgh Carol Zall, Cambridge, MA, USA Donald Mark Zimmerman, Colorado Springs, CO, USA vii Editorial As the School of Scottish Studies approaches the sixtieth anniversary of its founding, it is timely for those active in the field, from young scholars who are beginning their productive careers to the seasoned ethnologists, to look back over projects recently completed, and to consider current and future initiatives. Among the welcome major changes, and one that has already provided a significant increase in Scottish Ethnology research and publications produced, is the presence of the European Ethnological Research Centre (EERC) within the School since August 2006. Current research activity by staff ranges widely within the discipline and has been supported by two major awards of external funding: the Carmichael Watson Project, newly launched, and the Calum Maclean Project, completed in September 2009 and now accessible online (www.celtscot.ed.ac.uk/calum-maclean). Both resources will play a pioneering role in future ethnological research in bringing the benefits of digitisation to two of Scotland’s most important and extensive Gaelic folklore collections. Further projects include compiling an electronic catalogue for the Maclagan Manuscripts (1893-1902 c.9000 pp.); continuing work on the Scottish Place-Name Database; making publications of traditional ballad airs accessible in electronic format; and a study of calendar customs and community rituals. Also located at the School is a major working section of Tobar an Dualchais/Kist O Riches, a national digitisation project making available online to communities, institutions and researchers the primary sound archives of Scottish folklore. Work on historical and cross-cultural aspects of ethnology has progressed under the aegis of the Traditional Cosmology Society (TCS) with its journal Cosmos, which has carried inter alia papers from its 2007 Deep History of Stories conference, held at Edinburgh and featuring a distinguished international set of speakers. Other TCS sponsored conferences have featured recent research on myths, tales and legends, and have explored the extensive legacy of the comparative mythologist Georges Dumézil in its contemporary contexts. The EERC’s primary publishing initiative is the detailed and authoritative Compendium of Scottish Ethnology series; of the 14 projected volumes 11, have appeared to date and have been welcomed by researchers and students in our field and beyond. Further recent books by members of staff have appeared on such topics as the fiddle in Scotland; the Greig-Duncan collection of ballads from the North-East; ritual dialogue in marriage traditions; an ethnography of rural Perthshire; and a collection of traditional Gaelic tales recorded in the field. Collections of articles have appeared on the life and work of the Highland folklore collector Alexander Carmichael; international views on tourism, festivals and local identity; and a festschrift in honour of Dr Emily Lyle, along with a collection of articles by her on fairy ballads and active promoters of ballad traditions. The Scottish Traditions Series has continued to make available CDs of selected audio field recordings on specific themes from Gaelic and Scots traditions, and Tocher, the in-house journal, has been given a new and expanded format. ix A Bawdy New Year’s Rhyme from Gaelic Scotland RONALD BLACK The primary purpose of this paper* is to improve our understanding of a difficult New Year’s rhyme, Text H below, whose original was first published in The Gaelic Otherworld (Black 2005). In the course of contextualising it a number of emendments will be proposed to the translation of two other New Year’s rhymes, Texts G1 and G2 below, which appeared in Tocher no. 20 (1975: 144–45), under the title ‘Duan Calluinn: Hogmanay Poem’. The Gaelic Otherworld consists basically of a work on Gaelic traditions written by the Rev. John Gregorson Campbell of Tiree (JGC) in and around 1874. It was first published as two books, Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands (JG Campbell 1900) and Witchcraft & Second Sight in the Highlands & Islands (JG Campbell 1902). The text which is the primary focus of the present article appeared (in translation only) in the chapter ‘The Celtic Year’ (JG Campbell 1902: 224–307), to which my attention was drawn by Margaret Bennett in 1983 after I had given a paper in a School of Scottish Studies seminar series on the calendar. JGC died in 1891. A few years later, when Alexander Carmichael was in the process of bringing out Carmina Gadelica in a sumptuous two-volume edition at his own expense, JGC’s sister Jessy decided to have something done about publishing her late brother’s collection of traditions. James Maclehose, the Glasgow university printer, agreed to do it for her, but his strategy was timid. He divided it into two small books so that he could test the market before committing himself fully, and stripped away the Gaelic originals of all texts longer than one stanza. JGC may have inadvertently made this easy by putting them in an appendix. Both books were a success, as they deserved to be. Maclehose, feeling guilty perhaps about the appendix, showed it to George Henderson in Glasgow, who showed it to Alexander Carmichael in Edinburgh, who made a copy of it in his own hand before sending it back to Glasgow, where it disappeared. The copy is now MS 241 in the Carmichael Watson Collection in Edinburgh University Library. Words cannot express my delight when I found it in 2004. This then is why the Gaelic originals of JGC’s longer texts appear in the book edited in 2005 even though they were dropped from those published in 1900 and 1902. In most cases the text of the originals that I put into The Gaelic Otherworld was lightly edited by me for spelling and punctuation. The same applies to JGC’s printed works, except that there were a remarkable number of typographic errors, such as ‘wine’ for ‘urine’, which I also had to correct. But in a few cases, where the material was particularly difficult, I gave Carmichael’s text exactly as it stood in the manuscript, along with JGC’s translation, thus exposing any dysfunction to the full view of the reader, and I attempted to deal with it in my commentary. Of our Text H, which was particularly challenging, I was forced to conclude (Black 2005: 579): I have chosen to present the Gaelic text unedited, exactly as it stands in the manuscript – it requires more detailed commentary than is possible here, and the text which gave rise to Campbell’s translation will be more helpful for present purposes than one which raises fresh questions. There are a number of things which I do not understand. * Based on one given as part of the Traditional Cosmology Society’s seminar series in the Department of Celtic and Scottish Studies on 6 November 2007 1 1 2 RONALD BLACK The process of ‘detailed commentary’ demands prior contextualisation, so at this point we must take a step back and look more broadly at the genre. A duan Callainn, rann Callainn or New Year’s rhyme was spoken or sung on New Year’s night to gain admittance to a house. That is why its characteristic ending is Fosgail ’s leig a-staigh mi: “Open and let me in.” It is about opening doors; whether this may be characterised as ‘appropriate metaphor’ or ‘imitative magic’ should not detain us here, but it is certainly an ‘entry ritual’ as defined by Neill Martin (354–55). The need for a rhyme was common to everyone, but at New Year there seem to have been at least two sorts of people going about.

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