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

INTRODUCTION. Ivii
in tlie mouth of a good narrator, with a good audience,
might easily go rambling on for a whole winter's night,
as it is said to do.
The " Slim Swarthy Champion used to last for four
hours." Connall Gulban " used to last for three even-
ings. Those that wanted to hear the end had to come
back." One of my collectors said it would take him
a month to write it down, but I am bound to add that
he has since done it in a very much shorter time.
I have heard of a man who fell asleep by the fire,
and found a story going on when he awoke next
morning. I have one fragment on which (as I am
told) an old man in Eoss-shire used to found twenty-
four stories, all of which died Avitli him.
• There are varieties in public speakers amongst the
people as amongst their rej^resentatives, for some are
eloquent, some terse, some prosy.
But though a tale may be spun out to any extent,
the very same incidents can be, and often are, told in
a few words, and those tales which have been written
for me are fair representations of them as they are
usually told. They are like a good condensed report
of a rambling speech, with extraneous matter left out.
One narrator said of the longest story which I had then
got — " It is but the contents ;" but I have more than
once asked a narrator to tell me the story which
he had previously told to one of my collectors, and
a collector to write down a story which I had pre-
viously heard, and I have always found the pith,
often the very words. In no instance have I found
anything added by those whom I employed, when
their work was subjected to this severe test.
This is the account which one of my collectors
gives of the old customs of his class — he is a workman
employed by the Duke of Argyll ; he tells me that he
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