Walter Traill Dennison (1825–1894) was a farmer and folklorist. He was a native of the Orkney island of Sanday, in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, where he collected local folk tales and other antiquites. Dennison recorded most of the information available about traditional tales told in Orkney, but to an extent "romanticised and systematised" parts of it in the process of transforming the stories into prose. Writing in 2004 and 2010 twenty-first century academics from the

University of the Highlands and Islands , type = federal, public , image_name = UHI Coat of Arms.jpg , image_size = 150px , established = 2011 – University status 1992 – UHI Millennium Institute , chancellor = The Princess Royal , vice_chancellor = , budget = £139m (202 ...

and

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indicate Traill Dennison "relied almost exclusively on the peasantry of his native island for the raw materials of his literary work" and he "provided us with some authentic traditions and that he got these, as he always claimed, directly from the Orkney peasantry". The Orcadian folklorist and antiquarian

Ernest Marwick Ernest Walker Marwick (born 1915 Evie, Orkney; died July 1977) was an Orcadian writer noted for his writings on Orkney folklore and history. Marwick's father was a travelling salesman who had a smallholding in the parish of Evie, to the north o ...

considered that Traill Dennison bridged the gap between the social classes and that he had an "affinity with the common people". Traill Dennison published the folk stories, many in the local Orcadian dialect, in 1880 under the title ''The Orcadian Sketch-Book'' (William Peace & Son,

Kirkwall Kirkwall ( sco, Kirkwaa, gd, Bàgh na h-Eaglaise, nrn, Kirkavå) is the largest town in Orkney, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland. The name Kirkwall comes from the Norse name (''Church Bay''), which later changed to ''Kirkv ...

). Also author of the ten ''Sanday Revival Hymns'' (published anonymously, 1861,

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

). Married with one daughter, he died on 3 September 1894 after a short illness.

References

Bibliography

* * * 1825 births 1894 deaths People from Orkney Scottish folklorists Scottish farmers Scottish songwriters Scottish non-fiction writers 19th-century Scottish writers Victorian writers {{Orkney-bio-stub