The Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland

The Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland
By Walter Gregor

"This is an ethnographic study of the inhabitants of the North-Eastern area of Scotland in the mid-19th century, at a time when an agrarian, barter economy still prevailed. Life was hard among these remote coastal communities, and they lived in fear of maleficent witches and the Evil Eye. Many of the rituals, taboos and folkways in this book are to ward off witchcraft directed against economic mainstays such as livestock and fishing. The book has many fascinating bits of lore, as well as extensive oral poetry, all in Scots dialect. (There is, thankfully, an extensive glossary at the end, in case yere na sure fhat all the clatterins aboot.). There are also detailed descriptions of holidays, weddings, and other celebrations, which reveal that life was not completely grim."

About the Author:

"The Reverend Dr Walter Gregor, a founder member of the Folklore Society, was one of the most outstanding men of his day, combining the life of a parish minister with that of a prolific scholar of international repute, a not unusual state of affairs in Victorian times.

Walter Gregor was born on 23 October 1825 at Fogieside, in the parish of Keith, in the northeast of Scotland, where his father James was a tenant farmer. He was educated at Keith School, a successful parochial school of the old style, gaining a bursary in 1845 to pursue a distinguished undergraduate career at Kings College, the older of Aberdeens two universities. He graduated MA in 1849 and shortly afterwards was appointed master of the Macduff Parish School in the Moray Firth fishing village of Gamrie. He spent ten successful years in this post, during which time - as was not uncommon-he underwent a course in Divinity and was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Turriff in 1857 at the late age of thirty-two. A popular and well-respected man, he was ordained to Macduff Parish Church two years later, before being presented by Queen Victoria in 1863 to the Parish of Pitsligo in the farming countryside of northeast Scotland.

He spent the rest of his working life at Pitsligo before retiring to Bonnyrigg in 1895, at the age of seventy, where he died in 1897 after a short illness. He had many ups and downs during his professional life, especially in his relationships with his Presbytery (he held that his manse was insanitary and refused to live in it until it was eventually remodelled), but was held in high regard by his parishioners, especially for the courage shown in singlehandedly ministering to the sick during a severe cholera epidemic."