THE CAMPBELL OF ISLAY MSS.
AT THE
ADVOCATES’ LIBRARY, EDINBURGH.
I TOOK advantage of an Easter holiday-trip to Edinburgh to devote a few hours to the examination of a portion of the MSS. bequeathed to the Advocates’ Library by the late J. F. Campbell, the collector and editor of the Popular Tales from the West Highlands,[1] and of the Leabhair na Feinne. I reckoned that to work carefully through those MSS. bearing upon folk-lore and upon Celtic antiquities, and, by indexing them, to render their contents accessible to students, would require at least a month’s steady labour. The following notes must thus only be considered as an attempt to draw the attention of folk-lorists to this mine of unworked matter; and no conclusion respecting the richness and value of the collection must be drawn from my silence respecting those portions which I had not time to examine. I may say at once, however, that the hopes I entertained of finding English versions of the many variants and unpublished tales to which Campbell refers in the P. T. were not realised. I came across a considerable deal of unpublished English, but chiefly stories about fairies, local and clan traditions. How many of the unpublished Gaelic tales, of which a list is given at the end of P. T., vol. iv, may be found in the collection I cannot of course say, but I incline to believe very few. It would thus appear that, besides the MSS. in the Advocates’ Library, there must be another batch elsewhere. If this is so, I would appeal to the owner to allow examination at the hands of a competent Gaelic scholar.
- ↑ Cited as P. T. throughout this article.
