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

Ivi INTRODUCTION.
votaries, as branches of literature have amongst the
learned ; that one man is the peasant historian and tells
of the battles of the clans ; another, a walking peerage,
who knows the descent of most of the families in
Scotland, and all about his neighbours and their
origin ; others are romancers, and tell about the
giants ; others are moralists, and prefer the sagacious
prose tales, which have a meaning, and might have a
moral ; a few know the history of the Feni, and are
antiquarians. Many despise the whole as frivolities ;
they are practical moderns, and answer to practical
men in other ranks of society.
But though each prefers his own subject, the best
Highland story-tellers know specimens of all kinds.
Start them, and it seems as if they would never stop.
I timed one, and he spoke for an hour without pause
or hesitation, or verbal repetition. His story was
ConnaU Gulban, and he said he could repeat fourscore.
He recited a poem, but despised " Bardism ; " and he
followed me six miles in the dark to my inn, to tell
me numbers 19 and 20, which I have condensed ; for
the very same thing can be shortly told when it is not
a composition. For example.
In telling a story, narrative and dialogue are
mixed ; what the characters have told each other to do
is repeated as narrative. The people in the story tell
it to each other, and branch off into discussions about
their horses and houses and crops, or anytliing that
happens to turn up. One story grows out of another,
and the tree is almost hidden by a foliage of the
speaker's invention. Here and there comes a passage
repeated by rote, and common to many stories, and to
every good narrator. It seems to act as a rest for the
tnemory. Now and then, an observation from the
audience starts an argument. In short, one good story