THE SCHOOL OF SCOTTISH STUDIES
In the early 1950s, collectors of oral tradition working in The School of Scottish Studies, among them Dr Hamish Henderson, were busy in the field trying to record the remaining fragments of traditional Gaelic and Scots lore, including ballads and bothy songs, local legends and pipe and fiddle tunes. As far as the long wonder tales were concerned, folklorists believed they were no longer to be found among Scots/English speakers in Scotland. Even among Highland Gaelic speakers, collectors considered themselves fortunate to find the occasional remembered mythic legend as passed down originally from Ireland, or a recognised wonder tale as once recorded by John Campbell. Then it happened that on a ballad hunt in the Northeast and in Aberdeen itself in 1953, Hamish Henderson was led to the late Jeannie Robertson, possibly the greatest traditional ballad singer Scotland has ever produced. Hamish was immediately struck by her fabulous natural voice and equally impressed with her incredible repertoire of songs. It wasn’t until months later in the summer of 1954 that it occurred to him to ask her for stories. Without hesitation she told him a version of the international wonder tale known as ‘The Dragon Slayer’ (AT 300). As Hamish put it: he knew then that he was standing at the edge of a newly opened subterranean treasure house.
And so the doors, later to become flood gates, of the guarded mine of traveller stories were at last opened. Next came the discovery by Maurice Flemming, also from the School, of the amazing Stewart family of Blairgowrie – Belle, her husband Alec, his sister Bella Higgins, his brother John and their cousin Willie MacPhee– all travellers with stories to tell. In the following years others such as Betsy Whyte and her husband Bryce, and Jeannie Robertson’s nephew Stanley, added their stories to the growing archive of the School. But one master storyteller in particular was to provide the greatest repertoire of them all.
IN CONVERSATION WITH DUNCAN WILLIAMSON, COLLECTOR AND MASTER STORYTELLER
Duncan Williamson was born to storytelling. When he was a young boy in the 1920s he was one of a family of 16 (three children died) and lived in a big tent in the great woods of Furnace owned by the Duke of Argyll. He learned most of his earliest stories from his parents and his mother’s mother Bella McDonald. Duncan remembers his wee granny as keeping enticing things for children in her apron pocket and always smoking her clay pipe. But best of all she was a wonderful storyteller and told tales she heard from her mother when she was a young child. (She was past 80 when he remembers her telling him stories.)
Duncan, like all his brothers and sisters, went to the local village school. They were obliged by law to attend 240 half-day sessions each year. As a pupil he did well, though for him his important learning did not come from school.
We used tae work with my faither on the farms and I learned my education there. And when I left home I got wee jobs with the farmers and slept in the barns. Or the hay shed. Or the aul bothy. It wis the auld farmer’s wife and the farmers gave me my education. All the teachers at school taught me was my A,B,Cs and tae write. But as far as my education it was my family, the stories, the songs, and the music and the ballads that came from my people from my granny and grand-faither, and stories I learned from the local people.
Duncan especially liked the Jack tales he heard from his father and other travellers. Jack tales were popular with his people, and one or two could be found in practically every family repertoire.
Jack was the great man. They looked up tae him. And naturally that’s why if they wanted tae tell a story, even if the chap in the story’s name was nae Jack, then it became Jack tae the travellers, because it was their man, their hero, they visualized themsels as Jack, the only way they could compete and be superior to the settled community, tae the landowners and farmers, wis be somebody. So in their beliefs they were Jack. That’s why there’s so many Jack tales.
According to Duncan the most important gift traveller parents can give their children is not material possessions, easily lost and quickly forgotten, but stories and songs. These are true treasures that help keep alive the memory of parents and grandparents, and bind living travellers with their rooted past.
They gave (their children) tales and songs that they had heard from their forebearers. They would say, I remember my auld faither tolt me this. It’s always the remembrance of the auld folk. As long as they are there in their stories, they’re alive. We can bring them back. And with me telling you a story I can visualise in my mind my faither sittin there. I remember his pipe, putting a coal tae his pipe. And my mother sittin there. I’m building up a picture and memory. I can remember my granny sittin there, a wee bone comb, there’s nae but three teeth in it. She’s sittin and telling me stories. You think when a person’s gone, he’s gone. But travellers are never gone. They may be done in body, but they’re still here in spirit. Because naebody dies in traveller tradition. They’re always here.
Duncan started telling stories when he was still a child. He remembers well the time he told his first one. He was seven and his teacher asked him to look after the infants for the afternoon.
My first story ever was the fox and the crow up the tree wi a bit o cheese. And the children was so quiet listenin tae me telling that story that the teacher slipped in tae see why they was so quiet. I says, I’m telling a story, I says, they’re enjoyin it. And I tolt them another story – the stories my faither and mother and my granny tolt me. So I took an interest in stories ever after that.
Throughout his childhood Duncan was learning and squir-reling away stories in his mind, not only stories from his family and other travellers, but from neighbours and people he met when his father would take the family camping at Loch Fyne while he worked at odd jobs on the farms.
When Duncan was thirteen he left school and began to work for Neil MacCallum, a skilled stonemason and drys-tone dyker. During the three years of their association, Neil passed on all his Gaelic stories (in English) to Duncan. This was the start of Duncan’s serious collecting which led him through Argyll, Perthshire, Inverness-shire, Fife and Ayrshire, the Northeast and even across to the Hebrides.
I’ve been collecting stories for about 60 years. I collected stories from travellers and the local fishermen. I travelled to the Hebrides and collected stories there. Went to the ceilidhs. Told one story and left with two, and left with three.
Now his repertoire, unmatched by any traditional storyteller today, runs to over 700 tales and among his collection there are more than 100 international tale types. Looking back to the 1950s, when the early collectors from the School of Scottish Studies identified less than 30 tale types existing in the English language, you can understand what a rich contribution the travelling people and most especially Duncan Williamson have made to the preservation and perpetuation of Scottish traditional culture and what a great debt we owe them.
Barbara McDermitt
FIRESIDE TALES OF THE TRAVELLER CHILDREN
The Cockerel and the Fox
I remember my daddy telling me this wee story. Och, the cracks and tales they used to tell round the camp-fires long ago, there were hundreds and thousands of them. Parents would take turns, you see, telling stories, and we children used to sit and listen curled up to the fire.
ON this farm there was a big cockerel. And this cockerel had a wife an about half a dozen o’ wee chickens. They were picking round about the farm all day. But in these days farmers didna keep nae hen-houses or nothing. And the cockerel was ay telling the hen, ‘Look, you’d better keep an eye to these wee weans! Keep an eye to them because you ken the foxes an things comin down from the hill would snap you awa in a minute. An eagles! I cannae be guarding you all the time, ye ken,’ he said to the hen. ‘I’ve got to scrape an look for my bit livin the same as you.’
She said, ‘I’m doing my best. How about you watching them for a wee while?’
‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I’m doing my best too. Well, I’ll tell ye, they’re beginning to grow now and we’d better draw them all round about us an tell them this wee story.’
So the cockerel sat down on this wee branch and the hen sat aside him. And he gathered all the wee chickens round about him. He said, ‘Look, weans, come here! I want to tell you a wee story. When I was wee wi my father years and years ago I stayed on this farm too. And like me, my father was here wi my mother too. There were eight o’ us. And me being a wee bit bigger than the rest, I was a wee bit flyer than the rest o’ them.’ Now all the wee chickens were sitting listening on top of the branch, and the hen was sitting. ‘My father tellt me to watch for foxes,’ said the cockerel. ‘But we didna ken what foxes was in them days when I was young.’ And all the wee chickens were curled up aside their mother, ye ken? And they were listening to their father telling the story.
The cockerel said, ‘So my father didna care very much, he didna watch us very much. We were runnin about the stockyard pickin here an pickin there, an he never looked after us at night-time or a haet.1 My poor old mother, she looked after us better than him. But anyway, down cam a fox yin night – snapped ane o’ my brothers awa. Now there were only seven o’ us left. My mother went into an awful state, but my father didna bother so much. Man, my father was a fool! But on the farm where we stayed was a big spruce tree, and every night we used to climb up on a branch an sit on a branch so that nae beast could get us, me an my brothers and sisters.
‘But yin night we were just going to hop on a branch when down came the fox and nicked awa another brother belongin to me! Now there were only six o’ us left. And I was the only laddie. But I was a wee bit older than the rest. But my father was a fool! We all hopped up on the branch at night. My mother gathered us all together and took us up on this branch, here we were sittin. We looked down just on this moonlit night – here’s a fox comin. And he came right in below the tree where we were all sittin. He stopped. He cracked to my father.
‘He said to my father, “What are ye doin sittin up there? Come on down, man, and hae a wee bit crack! I’ll tell ye where I was, and you can tell me what you’ve been doin all day.”
‘But my father being kind o’ soft-wittit, he hopped down on another lower branch, an he’s cracking away to the fox. An him an the fox got to be good pals.
‘Fox said, “Man, I keep stretchin my neck to tell ye a wee story. Can ye no come down a wee bit closer so’s I’ll no need to reach up to crack to ye?”
‘My father hopped down to another branch. So him an the fox cracked away again for another long while. But the fox sat that way, an he coaxed an he coaxed an he coaxed till he got my father down, right down to the last low branch. And he says to my father, “Listen, I’ll tell ye another wee story.”
‘My father got interested an he hopped down aside him. That’s the last time I ever saw my father! The fox went away wi him. Now my mother was left wi the wee weans and she had to rear us all up her ainsel. My sisters were sellt. But I was the only brother and I was kept.
‘Now,’ says the cockerel, ‘I’ll no be so silly as what my father was! Come on, it’s gettin kind o’ gloamin. Come on, we’ll go to the tree.’
He hops up the tree. He’s sitting in the tree … first thing comes down is a fox! He says to the hen, ‘Look, look comin down there – a fox! Get the weans hopped onto the next branch. I’m no as soft as my father was,’ this big cockerel said.
In comes the fox, stops below the tree. ‘Aye,’ he says, ‘it’s a fine night.’
‘Aye,’ says the cockerel, ‘it’s a fine night.’
Fox said, ‘Eh, what’s about comin down for a wee crack?’
‘Na, no me,’ Cockerel said, ‘I’m no comin down for nae crack. It’s too cold down there more the night. The moon’s too bright, you never ken who’s knockin about … dangerous folk.’
‘Dangerous folk!’ he said. ‘There’s naebody here to speak to1 ye, man. It’s only me, a wee fox who wouldna speak to ye – I wouldna touch ye!’
‘Aye,’ he said, ‘ye never ken who would touch ye – you could be as bad as the rest.’
‘Na, na,’ Fox said, ‘I wouldna touch ye. Come on down! I’ll tell ye a wee story, where I’ve been and where I’ve no been, and who I’ve seen, how many folk I’ve seen.’
Cockerel said, ‘Did ye see yin body passin here a minute ago?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I never seen nae— who was it?’
He says, ‘A man wi a gun an two dogs passed there just now, passed by this tree a wee minute ago. I dinna ken what he was lookin for.’
‘Ah,’ Fox said, ‘he might be lookin for me! It’s a good job you didna come down. If I’d hae got ye down here, you would hae never hae got back!’ And that’s the last o’ the wee story.
1 a haet – nothing at all
1 speak to – trouble
The Fox and the Goat
An old uncle of mine, Sandy Reid, told me this old tale on the shores of Loch Fyne when I was only about five years old. He was a great story-teller who travelled every summer to Argyll.
IT was a fine summer’s morning and the old fox wakened in his den. He stretched himself. He’d had a great supper the night before in the rocks, and where he had his den was warm and hot. He felt thirsty, so he said, ‘I must get up and go and have a drink in the first little brook that I come to because I am very thirsty this morning.’
He came out and stretched himself again. It was the middle of June and already the rocks were hot with the sun. So he went to look for a drink in the first stream that he came to, but all the streams were dry. The sun had dried them all up, and the fox wandered for nearly half a day but couldnae find a drink. He got more thirsty; the further he went the thirstier he got. So he said, ‘I must find a drink some place!’ But no. He searched as far as he could – all the water was dried up – no drink. So he sat down and his tongue was hanging out dry.
He thought and he thought, where was the nearest pool or lake or stream that he could get to without being seen? He said, ‘There is only one place … that is down at the farm. And down at the farm there lives my enemy, the farmer. If he sees me he will shoot me because farmers do not like foxes running about their farms. They are afraid of us killing their hens.’ But finally the thirst got the better of him and he made his way down to the farm.
Now in those bygone days the farmers didnae have any water inside the houses. They had these wells outside the farm. And on the wells they had what you call a ‘windlass’ with a rope and two buckets: this rope lowered one bucket down and you pulled it up; then you reversed it and lowered the other bucket down, and pulled it up. As one bucket went down the other one came up.
The fox crawled his way down to the farm hiding himself as much as possible. Finally he made his way to the well thinking that the farmer would have left a wee drop water in the bucket. When he landed there the two buckets were dry. One was down in the well and the other bucket was up at the top. He looked down into the well, he saw the beautiful clear crystal water. He longed for one taste of that water. He was not hungry, he was thirsty.
And he thought and he thought, ‘How can I get a drink? Because I can’t do what the farmer does, wind the handle and call up the bucket, wind it up. Probably if I jumped in the bucket it would take me down into the well, then I could drink until my heart’s content.’ At last he decided the only way he was going to get a drink was to jump in the bucket.
So he jumped in, and the weight of him took the bucket right into the well, which was about ten feet down from the ground. The bucket landed right side up in the well. And the fox leaned over and he licked, he licked and he licked – all this beautiful clear water – until he was finally contented. He lay in the bucket fully contented … then it dawned on him. He looked up, he could see the sun shining above him in the well.
‘Now,’ he says, ‘I am a silly old fox. I was so dry and thirsty that I never gave it a thought: I foolishly jumped in the bucket, and now I am down in the well how am I going to get up? How am I going to get out of this bucket? There is no way I’m going to climb up there! And the first person that is going t
o come along will be the farmer, he is going to wind up the bucket for water. And sure enough if he gets me in his bucket he is going to shoot me! Because farmers do not like foxes very much, we are farmers’ enemies.’ Now he begins to get worried. He sits and he sits, he sits in the bucket; the day passes by. He knows from past experience that the farmer always comes late in the evening for two buckets of water.
But unknown to him an old goat belonging to the farmer was having the same trouble: he was thirsty with the sunshine and he too wanted a drink. He knew that the farmer always drew water from the well, and after having searched all round the farm he thought, ‘There is only one place I’ll get a drink – that is at the well. Because the farmer always leaves a little water in his bucket.’ So the old goat made his way to the well. (This was an old goat the farmer had had for years, a pet for his children. And it just wandered around the farm doing what it pleased.)
When he landed at the well, one bucket was up and the other was down. He looked in the bucket and there was nothing – it was dry. Then he looked into the well: what he saw was old Mr Fox sitting in the bucket.
Now the fox was sitting looking up and the goat was at the top looking down. Now the fox and the goat were good friends, because all animals really are; they never really hurt each other unless they want something to eat. That is the only time they kill, when they need something to eat.
So the old goat looked down and said, ‘Hello, Mr Fox!’ in the best voice he could put on.
And the fox looked up surprised, because he thought it was the farmer at first. He said, ‘Hello, Mr Goat!’ Then he thought, ‘I will have to work something here, I’ll have to work up a fast plan.’
The King and the Lamp Page 2
