Traiveller tales

Storytelling in Scotland comes from a timeless and borderless tradition. Many of the stories that have come down through the Travellers have been identified by folklorists as having versions in a number countries and among peoples throughout the world. The types and motifs of stories are generally classified in the Aarne-Thompson index where practically all stories from the oral tradition are shown to be variations on general themes.

The power of this tradition was recognised in the 1549 publication ‘The Complaynt of Scotland’, a polemic written by Robert Wedderburn at the time of Henry VIII’s attempt to aggressively impose an alliance between England and Scotland. Wedderburn strives to show the strength of Scotland’s cultural heritage. Among other examples he references two stories – ‘Tam Lin’ and ‘The Red Etin’ – which have survived to the present through the oral tradition and in books such as Robert Chambers’ ‘Popular Rhymes of Scotland’  and in Duncan and Linda Williamson’s ‘A Thorn in the King’s Foot’ (first published in 1987). A ballad version of Tam Lin, ‘Thomas the Rhymer and Queen of Elfland’ also appears in the ballad collection of Anna Gordon.

In the preface and introduction to ‘A Thorn in the King’s Foot’ some insight is given to both the language and provenance of Duncan’s stories. Written by Linda Williamson, an American folklorist and storyteller who was married to Duncan, she writes how Duncan’s speech was a mixture of both English and Scots. In many ways this is reflected in the text and is explained by the circumstances of Duncan’s early life on Loch Fyneside in Argyllshire where his spoken language was said to be ‘Highland English’. His Scots tongue was acquired later when he travelled among the Lowlands and in the north-east and south of Scotland.

For conventions in written Scots Linda refers to the ‘Manual of Modern Scots’, a 1921 publication by academics William Grant an James Main Dixon. This book set out to interpret written and spoken Scots for the modern scholar, particularly for students abroad who were less familiar with Scots tongue. In Hamish Henderson’s introduction a good account is given of the folklorist’s discovery in the 1950s of the wealth of stories that survived among the Travelling people. From Jeannie Robertson’s ceilidh-house in Aberdeen and among the berry fields of Blairgowrie, these stories were collected for posterity and are now held in the archives of the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

‘A Thorn in the King’s Foot’ is a wondrous collection of twenty three tales, written down by Linda as Duncan would have told them. Other books by Duncan Williamson include ‘Broonie, Silkies and Fairies’, ‘Fireside Tales of the Traveller Children’ and ‘Horsieman’.

‘Till Doomsday in the Afternoon’ (first published by Manchester University Press, 1986) by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger is taken from a series of recordings of the Stewarts of Blairgowrie family between 1962 and 1979. Through music and folklore, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger have been recognised as great promoters of folk traditions throughout Britain and America. The introduction gives some background to the Travellers’ way of life as well as providing a glossary of cant words as used by the Travelling people. Transcribed from the storytelling of the Stewarts, the book also features a numbers of stories, riddles, children’s rhymes and songs. The stories are a mixture of wonder-tales from the deep well of tradition as well as more recent anecdotal (though often wildly extravagant) or humorous tales. The riddles recorded in MacColl an Seeger’s collection are a mixture of both the innocent an racy, while the songs include ancient ballads, popular folk-songs, bothy ballads and bawdy songs from the ribaldry of the Scots tradition. There are also ‘mak ye ups’, songs with known Traveller authorship or from living memory.

The seanachie’s tales often follow a pattern where a journey is undertaken and privations are overcome, often through some supernatural agency. A lesson is usually learned and there is some reward or forfeit at the end of the tale. ‘Till Doomsday in the Afternoon’ gives types and motifs from the Aarne-Thompson index to most of its folktales. The collection is abundant in Scots words and expressions and shares a common tale (as might be expected) with Duncan Williamson’s ‘A Thorn in the King’s Foot’. For example, there is the story called ‘The Cripple in the Churchyard’, which in Williamson’s book is called ‘The Tailor and the Skeleton’. Also common to many Travellers’ collections are tales of a protagonist named Jack. Jack is a familiar figure, often skilful and shrewd beneath his outwardly modest appearance, who wins through in the end. ‘Till Doomsday in the Afternoon’ offers one Jack tale, while ‘A Thorn in the King’s Foot’ offers several.

Sharing more than one tale in common with ‘A Thorn in the King’s Foot’ is Stanley Robertson’s magical ‘Reek Roon A Camp Fire: A Collection of Ancient Tales’. Dwelling in the memory of Stanley as a boy, the tales are embedded in the seasonal ritual of north-east Travellers as they settle then move camps. From pearl-fishing at Deeside to the berry fields by Lumphanan and on to the flax harvest at Alford. The reader is given a glimpse into the intimate circle of ‘the glimmer’ (fireside) as a cast of characters bearing names like Meldrum Brews, Madame Cabanya, Maisie Moor Loch and Auld Grue, pass through to tell their tales. There are a number of Jack tales alongside gruesome stories of the calibre of ‘The Tattiebogle’, an eerie tale of a scarecrow made from human body parts. There is the telling of ‘The Gaberlunzie King’, a traditional tale sometimes known as ‘The Guid Man o Balengeich’. This tale is said to be handed down from the times of James V of Scotland when the king would travel around disguised as a beggar.

The language of ‘Reek Roon a Camp Fire’ is a rich and powerfu mixture of Cant an Doric. In the glossary, Stanley Robertson shows the provenance of his words to also be from Romany, Gaelic and Scots origins, making a distinction between Doric an Scots. Cant words include:

.    cane – house

.    hantel –  people

.    monteclara – water

Many collections of Travellers’ Tales have ‘Burker’ stories, rooted in the murderous exploits of Burke and Hare who preyed on live human specimens as well as cadavers for supply to the Edinburgh anatomy school in the 1820s. The memory of Burke and Hare looms with menace in the collective Travellers’ memory and in the final piece in the book. ‘The Kenchins’ Ceilidh’  is a children’s re-enactment from this tradition. Stanley Robertson’s life is also revealed alongside the tales. From his work as a filleter in Aberdeen (a world explored in his memoir ‘Fish Hooses’) to becoming a well-known ballad singer and storyteller, these talents would take him to festivals throughout Europe, Britain and North America where they would lead to him being recognised as a teacher and cultural ambassador to the Travelling peoples of Scotland.