The evangelical revivals (known in English as ‘awakenings’ and in Gaelic as na dùsgaidhean) of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had an immediate impact upon singing and music-making in Presbyterian communities in the Western Isles as well as a significant long-term effect on both traditional and sacred musical practice and performance. Awakenings often led converts to re...
Caithness lay outside the national railway network in 1868, but as this article demonstrates, used the band music of its local volunteer military units, embedded within a wider contemporary British context of imperial music-making, as a means to express and shape local political identities. The second Reform Act of 1867, enacted in Scotland by the Representation of the People...
Beyond the intricacies of audio recording equipment and the electric typewriter, technology hasn’t always been a big part of Scottish Studies. The past few decades, however, have witnessed the growing impact that digital technologies are having on our field. To get a sense of what lies ahead, this essay examines the efforts of three scholars involved in transforming access to...
In the twentieth century, several prominent Gaelic scholars argued that nineteenth-century bàrdachd baile (‘township poetry’) was cliché-ridden, and therefore of limited literary merit. In reassessing such opinions, this article considers a representative sample of the poetry from two points of view. First, it demonstrates through close analysis that these local poets used a wide...
The story of the killing of the ‘last’ great auk (Pinguinus impennis) in Britain, apparently put to death as a witch at Stac an Armin in the St Kilda archipelago c. 1840, is well known. However, other accounts claim that an auk was killed on the main island, Hirta, having been condemned to death by the celebrated men’s ‘parliament’. The historical veracity of three differing...
Robert Burns devoted much effort to the collection of tunes which he expected to be published in James Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum and George Thomson’s Select Collection. The tunes were often accompanied by the words of songs and Burns related to these sources in different ways. This article studies in detail his relationship to four songs and demonstrates how the partial...
Among Canada’s pioneer poets John MacLean is uniquely Am Bàrd MacGilleathan.His ‘The Gloomy Forest’ gave an eloquent account of tree-felling challenges facingHighland settlers. MacLean’s background in fertile Tiree, where his bardic skillsdeveloped, was very different. This paper focuses on a friendship between the bardand a priest, Colin Grant, who shared his knowledge of clan...
The field notebooks of Alexander Carmichael (1832–1912), now transcribed, catalogued, and available at www.carmichaelwatson.lib.ed.ac.uk, allow us to eavesdrop on interactions between a major Highland folklore collector and his informants. Carmichael noted names, ages, locations, and occupations of interviewees, along with dates of interviews, allowing us to trace continuities...
In oral tradition, as well as in literature, the theme is well known of the young man who takes leave of his betrothed or spouse, with the agreement that she is free to (re)marry if he does not return within a specified period of time. Upon his return after many years, unrecognized, he is told that her wedding will take place that night. He sends the bride a concealed message...
The epithet meranach is found in Irish sources from the eleventh century. The same element may be present in the Irish surname Merna(gh) and perhaps also in the early thirteenth-century Scottish epithet Marrenah. It is suggested that the underlying element is meránach (‘delirious, mad, insane’), which survives in Scottish Gaelic mearan(ach). The rich variety of forms which...