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Contexts of Ambivalence: The Folkloristic Activities of Nineteenth Century Scottish Highland Ministers

1992; Routledge; Volume: 103; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0015587x.1992.9715843

1469-8315

Deborah Davis,

Historical Studies of British Isles

These early years might be termed 'pre-scientific'-a time when theories had not yet been fully articulated and folklorists could not truly be said to be operating under a paradigm (in the sense in which Thomas Kuhn employs the term in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: '... models from which spring particular coherent trends of scientific research').' Nevertheless, folklore was forming as a discipline, given impetus and structure by William Thoms' 1846 definition.2 The founding of the Folklore Society in Britain in 1878 further solidified the position of folklore as an area of serious scholarship. Alfred Nutt, publisher for the Society and an ardent Celticist, was instrumental in getting considerable Scottish lore into print, as will be discussed presently. The later nineteenth century saw a burgeoning of interest and activity in gathering materials on beliefs and customs of the Scottish Gaidhealtachd, and particularly in the collecting, from oral sources, of folklore in the original Gaelic language. One group that contributed greatly to folklore scholarship at this time was the Calvinist clergymen of Highland Scotland. Their role in the forging of folkloristics, however, has been misapprehended by scholars such as Richard Dorson. I suggest that this comes as a consequence of failing to recognise the context of ambivalence in which supernatural folklore was communicated and collected in Gaelic-speaking nineteenth-century Scotland. In the interest of demonstrating the emergence of folkloristics as a discipline, Dorson has ignored the milieu-the history of the people and the ambivalent attitudes-in which the ministers were operating. Awareness of these circumstances is essential to understanding both the contributions of the clergy to the emergence of folklore studies and the mixture of meanings that supernatural folklore had for people (including the clergy themselves).