Tale
Popular Tales of the West Highlands
J. F. Campbell · 1860
Synopsis
Tales collected in the Highlands and the islands: a king's son who must bring back three impossible objects, a blacksmith who shuts death in a sack, a fisherman's wife who promised her child before it was born, the water-horse that takes human form at the edge of the lochs, the giants who guard castles and the old women who know how to kill them. Each tale bears the name of the person who told it, his or her age and trade.
Context
Four volumes published between 1860 and 1862 in Edinburgh, collected by their author and by Gaelic-speaking men whom he paid for the purpose, among them a future famous collector. The principle was new in Europe: the Gaelic text is printed with the English translation facing it, and each storyteller is named. The idea had come to him on reading a collection of Norwegian tales published by a friend the year before, in which he had recognised stories heard in Gaelic in his childhood. The fourth volume is devoted for the most part to the Ossian controversy.
Who it is for
Four volumes, with the Gaelic facing the English in the original editions. The tales can be read separately and nothing requires following the order.
Prizes and reception
One of the first European collections to name its informants, and the main source of the Gaelic tales of Scotland.