Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 1

IXTRODUCTION. XXXI
visit. I found them to be men with clear heads and
wonderful memories, generally very poor and old, living
in remote corners of remote islands, and speaking only
Gaelic ; in short, those who have lived most at home,
furthest from the world, and who have no source of men-
tal relaxation beyond themselves and their neighbours.
At Gearrloch on the mainland, some old namesakes
of mine are of the same stamp, but in these regions the
schoolmaster has made himself at home. Tales have
been forbidden, but other lore has been provided.
There are many well attended English schools, so old
men have access to books and newspapers through
their children. Tradition is out of fashion and books
are in.
Farther east stories are still rarer, and seem to
be told rather by women than by men. The long
romances of the west give place to stories about
ghosts and fairies, apparitions, and dreams, — stories
which would be told in a few words, if at all, in
the islands. Fairy belief is becoming a fairy tale.
In another generation it will grow into a romance, as
it has in the hands of poets elsewhere, and then the
whole Avill either be forgotten or carried from people
who must work to gentles who can afford to be idle
and read books. Eailways, roads, newspapers, and
tourists, are slowly but surely doing their accustomed
work. They are driving out romance ; but they are
not driving out the popular creed as to sui^ernaturals.
That creed -wall survive when the last remnant of
romance has been banished, for superstition seems to
belong to no one period in the history of civilization,
but to all. It is as rife in toAvns as it is amongst the
liills, and is not confined to the ignorant.
I have wandered amongst the peasantry of many
countries, and this trip but confirmed my old impres-