Island Voices: Traditions of North Mull Book

There was an old custom at Treshnish Point. There is a high, steep cliff going down to the sea and there is a corrie there-Corrie Bhrochain ("porridge cauldron"), they used to call it-and in olden days, you know, many of them were collecting seaweed as a fertilizer, and they were doing this in honor of Mana, god of the sea... They used, on the New Year's Day, to meet at Cargary strand, at the white strand, and they would come from Dervaig, Treshnish, to play shinty on that day.-Peter MacLean, Dervaig Focusing on North Mull (north of Glen More, but excluding Craignure, Torosay, and Brolas,) this book is a wonderful anthology of the tales and traditions of Mull in the words of those who tell of them. The subjects throughout are timeless-local belief and superstition, pastimes, work, health and cures, tales, and proverbs. They are taken from a wide range of sources and periods, from Martin Martin in the seventeenth century to writing that dates from the end of World War II, a time that saw many changes in Gaelic society as a whole. The material covers traditions and accounts of a very practical and often harsh existence, variations on tales that are more obscure as well as those that are well known. The stories illustrate the sharpness of phrase, shrewdness of observation, and humor characteristic of the Scottish West Highlands and Islands. This book is a celebration of a people who are often excluded from the standard historical accounts of the clans and Highlands, but who have endured much and safeguarded an important heritage.Read More