Wigtown Book Festival logo
The 11th Wigtown Book Festival has just closed its doors. So, once more they did it ! And if the feast is over the music can still be heard !
Wigtown Book Festival programme
The 2008 Wigtown Book Festival won the Thistle Award for Best Regional Event and Festival but there is no doubt that the 2009 edition will have been as successful as the preceding one. My 2009 Wigtown Book Festival programme is still open on my desk and I’m browsing on and on its lively pages as in an illustrated book, always discovering new things and still trying to imagine what it must have been to be there during these 10 days of Scottish cultural feast.
We are quite impressed by the wave of cultural dynamism which is spreading all over Scotland and past its frontiers, encompassing all ages and tendencies. The Wigtown Book Festival is a perfect illustration of this tendency with its great variety of cultural events focusing not only on books but also on art, film, poetry, theatre and a creativity which gave birth to the first ever artist residency and to “Whisky & Words”, a unique ‘festival-within-a-festival’. The Wigtown Poetry Competition has become a national event and Scotland’s largest poetry competition with a first prize of £ 2,500. It will be launched this year by the famous Scottish poet and playwright Liz Lochhead.
In our never-ending quest for Scotland and while drawing Scotiana’s virtual itinerary of the festival we’ve discovered many invaluable things about books, authors, artists, and even got in the process a better sense of place ! And though we did not attend the Festival at Wigtown this year, we’ve bought or intend to buy a number of very interesting Scottish and Irish books by authors we’ve discovered in the programme.
Our reading list is growing more and more rapidly ! How are we coping with it, I still wonder ! Among the books we’ve selected for Scotiana’s list I’d like to focus more particularly on The Lore of Scotland. Only 576 pages, well, it could have been worse ! Scotland’s history echoes with fascinating and unforgettable stories of local legends but memories are fading. Fortunately some people are trying to gather together the most interesting tales before they are lost, recording them place by place in the countryside… in the islands… in the mainland. We are eager to learn more about the subject in Jennifer Westwood and Sophia Kingshill’s book:
Scotland’s rich past and varied landscape have inspired an extraordinary array of legends and beliefs, and in The Lore of Scotland Jennifer Westwood and Sophia Kingshill bring together many of the finest and most intriguing: stories of heroes and bloody feuds, tales of giants, fairies, and witches, and accounts of local customs and traditions. Their range extends right across the country, from the Borders with their haunting ballads, via Glasgow, site of St Mungo’s miracles, to the fateful battlefield of Culloden, and finally to the Shetlands, home of the seal-people. More than simply retelling these stories, The Lore of Scotland explores their origins, showing how and when they arose and investigating what basis – if any – they have in historical fact. In the process, it uncovers the events that inspired Shakespeare’s Macbeth, probes the claim that Mary King’s Close is the most haunted street in Edinburgh, and examines the surprising truth behind the fame of the MacCrimmons, Skye’s unsurpassed bagpipers. Moreover, it reveals how generations of Picts, Vikings, Celtic saints and Presbyterian reformers shaped the myriad tales that still circulate, and, from across the country, it gathers together legends of such renowned figures as Sir William Wallace, St Columba, and the great warrior Fingal. The result is a thrilling journey through Scotland’s legendary past and an endlessly fascinating account of the traditions and beliefs that play such an important role in its heritage.
Jennifer Westwood was born in 1940 and studied English Language at Oxford, followed by Medieval Icelandic at Cambridge. A long-time member of the Folklore Society, she served as editor of FLS Books and also the journal Folklore. Her books include Albion: A Guide to Legendary Britain (1985), Gothick Cornwall (1992), Lost Atlantis (1997), On Pilgrimage (2003) and The Lore of the Land (2005, with Jacqueline Simpson). Sadly, she died in 2008. Sophia Kingshill is a writer, editor and researcher. She has contributed to folklore publications and her plays have been performed in Scotland, England and Norway. She lives in London. (Source : Amazon)
When the grey howlet has three times hoo’d, 1 Oct 2009
Robert Burns once wrote of his mother’s cousin Betty Davidson that she had “the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery” – and now, auld Betty has at last been out-trumped by Jennifer Westwood and Sophia Kingshill in The Lore of Scotland. This is a must-have book for anyone who has even a passing curiosity about Scottish folklore and the Scottish imagination. For the casual reader it is a beautifully presented book, with over 500 fascinating instances of folklore, drawn from across Scotland and illustrated with numerous engravings and colour plates. For people with a more serious interest, it is a scholarly and compelling work – the entries are arranged in a gazetteer and supported by a series of essays and thorough bibliography, references and comprehensive index, along with an index of concordance with migratory legends. It’s genius really – in that the book can be used in so many ways. It is great for anyone interested in their local history; a wonderful tool for planning travel in Scotland; essential reading for authors and storytellers; a perfect reference book for students and researchers; a gift to journalists facing a slow news week and a delight just to dip into at random to discover yet another story. More than anything, the book shows a richness of story and magic that, far from being mere remnants of parochial superstition, creates a picture of shared traditions – helping us to get closer to those fundamental tales and impulses that lie at the heart of our souls and by doing so, get closer to understanding each other. There is remarkable humanist character to the lore and to the book that documents it so masterfully. Buy it – or get a fairy to steal it for you. (Source Amazon : N.Edwards comment)
Hey Janice, we’d better go to our readings. Wanna start with Iain M. Banks ?
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