John Gregorson Campbell (1836 – 22 November 1891) was a Scottish
folklorist and
Free Church minister at the
Tiree and
Coll parishes in
Argyll
Argyll (; archaically Argyle, in modern Gaelic, ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a historic county and registration county of western Scotland.
Argyll is of ancient origin, and corresponds to most of the part of the ancient kingdom of ...
, Scotland. An avid collector of traditional stories, he became Secretary to the
Ossianic Society of
Glasgow University in the mid-1850s. Ill health had prevented him taking up employment as a Minister when he was initially approved to preach by the
Presbytery of Glasgow
The Presbytery of Glasgow is one of the 46 Presbyteries of the Church of Scotland. It dates back to the earliest periods of Presbyterian church government in the Church of Scotland in the late 16th century. The Presbytery of Glasgow currently has ...
in 1858 and later after he was appointed to Tiree by the
Duke of Argyll
Duke of Argyll ( gd, Diùc Earraghàidheil) is a title created in the peerage of Scotland in 1701 and in the peerage of the United Kingdom in 1892. The earls, marquesses, and dukes of Argyll were for several centuries among the most powerful ...
in 1861, parishioners objected to his manner of preaching.
Several of the anecdotes he amassed were published in magazines and, just before his death, work began on collating the first of four compendiums of the tales; three were published a few years after his death. He was fluent in several languages, including
Scottish Gaelic, and transcribed the legends precisely as dictated by the narrators.
Early life and education
John Gregorson Campbell was born near
Loch Linnhe
Loch Linnhe () is a sea loch on the west coast of Scotland. The part upstream of Corran is known in Gaelic as (the black pool, originally known as Loch Abar), and downstream as (the salty pool). The name ''Linnhe'' is derived from the Gaelic ...
at Kingairloch, Argyll in 1836, the fourth child and second son of Helen MacGregor and Captain Campbell, an officer for the ship ''Cygnet''. A short memoir, published in 1895 and based on information from Gregorson Campbell's sister, states a ''
Bean Shìth'', or fairy washerwoman as Gregorson Campbell defined it, had cast a spell on his father's ancestors proclaiming "they shall grow like the rush and wither like the fern". The family moved to
Appin in about 1839, where the local
parochial school
A parochial school is a private primary or secondary school affiliated with a religious organization, and whose curriculum includes general religious education in addition to secular subjects, such as science, mathematics and language arts. The wo ...
provided Gregorson Campbell's education until he was ten years old. He then attended a higher school in Glasgow before moving on to the
University of Glasgow.
Career
Law was the subject Gregorson Campbell chose to study after completing his education but his primary interest was
folklore, a topic that fascinated him from his college days. In the mid-1850s he was appointed Secretary to the Glasgow University
Ossianic Society.
He secured a licence to preach from the
Presbytery of Glasgow
The Presbytery of Glasgow is one of the 46 Presbyteries of the Church of Scotland. It dates back to the earliest periods of Presbyterian church government in the Church of Scotland in the late 16th century. The Presbytery of Glasgow currently has ...
in 1858 but was unable to commence work as a clergyman at that time owing to ill health. His recuperation was spent beginning his collection of folklore stories.
When appointed as clergyman at the
Free Church united parishes of
Tiree and
Coll by the
Duke of Argyll
Duke of Argyll ( gd, Diùc Earraghàidheil) is a title created in the peerage of Scotland in 1701 and in the peerage of the United Kingdom in 1892. The earls, marquesses, and dukes of Argyll were for several centuries among the most powerful ...
in early 1861, objections were initially raised by some members of the Tiree congregation who found Gregorson Campbell's sermons boring, uninspiring and "devoid of fervour". The Presbytery upheld two of the three main complaints, but an appeal was made to the
Synod. Concerns had also been expressed that his health was insufficiently robust to serve the needs and challenges of the Tiree parish. The appeal was heard by the General Assembly on 31 May 1861 with Gregorson Campbell's defence arguing that the main thrust of the complaints was actually founded on the congregation's desire to have their own preferred minister appointed. The motion was not upheld and Gregorson Campbell became the minister of both parishes, a position he held for thirty years.
Folklore collections
Interest in mythology and folklore gained momentum in the last quarter of the 19th century, probably fuelled by the contentious debates surrounding the authenticity of the ''
Ossian
Ossian (; Irish Gaelic/Scottish Gaelic: ''Oisean'') is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson, originally as ''Fingal'' (1761) and ''Temora'' (1763), and later combined under ...
'' poems published by
James Macpherson
James Macpherson ( Gaelic: ''Seumas MacMhuirich'' or ''Seumas Mac a' Phearsain''; 27 October 1736 – 17 February 1796) was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of epic poem ...
during the 1760s. Gregorson Campbell continued to build on the collection he started during his period of recuperation around 1858, preserving the traditional tales as quoted at the time. The folklorist
John Francis Campbell (1822–85), also known as Campbell of
Islay, had his first mythology books published in 1860 and he corresponded with Gregorson Campbell. Both men were fluent in several languages, including
Scottish Gaelic, and their letters discuss the variations in the folk tales, with Campbell of Islay stating: "I have about 16 versions of one story in Gaelic, and no two have the same name."
Gregorson Campbell had his own style of collating legends, meticulously transcribing the stories as dictated by the individual storytellers, and only rarely interspersing tales with his own comments. Christian ministers in Scotland differed in their attitudes towards the traditional beliefs and myths perpetuated by their parishioners, and were often dismissive of what they considered to be
superstition and
paganism, but Gregorson Campbell persisted in enthusiastically adding to his collection throughout the late 1800s. He was concerned that the intolerance shown by some of his fellow collectors towards the illiterate Gaelic-speaking storytellers and those who believed in the myths would result in the loss of a valuable resource, as he regarded the narrators as having "powers of mind of a highest order".
Published work
Traditional tales collected by Gregorson Campbell were first published in the inaugural edition of the quarterly periodical the ''Scottish Celtic Review'' in March 1881. Reproduced in Gaelic and translated on the following pages in English, it was entitled "How the great Tuairisgeul was put to death" and told how the son of the King of Ireland went to a hunting hill and sought the answer to the death of the Great Tuairisgeul. Further legends from his collection were included in the next three volumes of the review. The Gaelic Society of Inverness published some of the tales, also given in Gaelic with an English translation, from 1888 until 1892. The first of these in 1888, "Sir Olave O'Corn", also involved a King of Ireland and included some explanatory notes from Gregorson Campbell. ''Celtic Magazine'' and ''Highland Monthly'' were two other journals that published some of his folklore. Some of these were reprinted in the first compendium of Gregorson Campbell's collection, ''The Fians'', a set of traditional tales and verses about combat printed as part of the Argyllshire series of books in 1891.
Death and legacy
Gregorson Campbell's health deteriorated in the last years of his life, especially after the death of his mother Helen at the Tiree
manse
A manse () is a clergy house inhabited by, or formerly inhabited by, a minister, usually used in the context of Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and other Christian traditions.
Ultimately derived from the Latin ''mansus'', "dwelling", from '' ...
in 1890; he died on 22 November 1891 before seeing the final printed edition of ''The Fians''.
Alfred Nutt
Alfred Trübner Nutt (22 November 1856 – 21 May 1910) was a British publisher who studied and wrote about folklore and Celtic studies.
Biography
Nutt was born in London, the eldest son of publisher David Nutt. His mother was the granddaughter ...
, fellow folklorist and publisher, chronicled details of Gregorson Campbell's life as an introduction to the second compilation of Gregorson Campbell's collection of myths, ''Clan Traditions and Popular Tales of the Western Highlands and Islands'', published in 1895. Two other books were published posthumously: ''Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland'' in 1900, and ''Witchcraft and Second Sight in the West Highlands'' the following year.
Richard Dorson
Richard Mercer Dorson (March 12, 1916 – September 11, 1981) was an American folklorist, professor, and director of the Folklore Institute at Indiana University. Dorson has been called the "father of American folklore"Nichols, Amber M.Richard M. ...
, American author and director of the Folklore Institute at Indiana University, describes Gregorson Campbell as worthy of a "front rank among
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
*Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Foo ...
folklorists" and Sophia Kingshill, author and folklorist, felt his writing was "vivid and engaging". Contemporary praise was not entirely universal; an anonymous review of ''Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland'' included in ''The Scottish Antiquary, Or, Northern Notes & Queries'' (now ''
The Scottish Historical Review'') in 1901 described the work as "a book of considerable pretension" and stated it was in need of proofreading, citing several printing errors.
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
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External References
Works by John Gregorson Campbell at Project Gutenberg
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gregorson Campbell, John
1836 births
1891 deaths
Alumni of the University of Glasgow
Collectors of fairy tales
19th-century Ministers of the Free Church of Scotland
People from Lochaber
People from Tiree
Scottish folklorists
Translators from Scottish Gaelic
19th-century British translators