Witchcraft & Second Sight in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland

The border line of fairyland once crossed is a bourne from which few antiquaries return. We have had great difficulty in getting back ourselves, led on as we were by the seductive John Gregorson Campbell, assuredly, if ever man was, since Campbell of Islay’s day, in the innermost secrets of the Elfin folk. Indeed, Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands, full to overflowing though they are, do not seem to us to express with anything like the same fullness and body the misty legend and wayward romance and quaint realism of the Celtic supernatural as does this plainer and prosaic notebook of an old parish minister between 1861 and 1891. Folklore whether of Celt or Saxon, henceforward has to reckon with the posthumous notebooks of John Gregorson Campbell for an indispensable section of its apparatus of study.—ANTIQUARY.

The importance of the work from the scientific point of view can hardly be exaggerated, as its accuracy is absolutely indisputable. And yet being little more than a collection of stories told in the simplest English, it is as enjoyable as one of Mr. Lang’s fairy-books.—THE SPECTATOR.

Altogether the volume is in its way singularly interesting, and forms a rich mine for the folklorist. Some of the stories may be met with under other versions, but most of them appear here for the first time and are wonderfully varied. The light they throw upon the Highlander’s ways of thinking is remarkable.—SCOTTISH REVIEW.

Statements and beliefs are given exactly as they reached the author, nor do I think it would be possible to detect a single instance in which wider knowledge or prepossession of any kind has induced him to alter or distort a fact. This rigid conscientiousness will always secure for Mr. Campbell’s work the confidence and regard of true folklorists.... Campbell of Tiree takes his place by the side of Kirk, and of Walter Gregor of Pitsligo, among those recorders of folk-lore to whom the student can always turn with increased confidence and admiration.—MR. ALFRED NUTT in FOLKLORE.

Students of tradition will find much to interest them in this new collection of Highland folk-lore, for although a good deal of the information is similar to that contained in previous works of the kind, yet many details are new, and even those which are already familiar have this great recommendation—that they were obtained at first-hand from the peasantry, and not from other books.—RELIQUARY.

On the whole their can be few richer fields of ancient folk-belief, especially of the gloomier and sterner sort, than that which was so successfully cultivated by the lamented author of this book.—ATHENÆUM.

Mr. Campbell has escaped most of the difficulties by which his predecessors were beset. A very interesting series of stories has been collected, and the volume exercises much fascination over the reader. On the subjects such as divination, spells, the devil, etc., much interesting information is given. While scientifically thorough in treatment, the book is indeed admirably suited for general perusal.—NOTES AND QUERIES.

The tales are plucked directly from their native soil in the popular memory; and while few of them are absolute rarities, there is hardly anyone that does not in some way illustrate the infinite variety and the vivid imaginative colouring, as well as the wealth of Highland superstitions.—SCOTSMAN.

This volume is posthumous, and we cannot but regret that the author was not spared to see it safely launched. It is a capital book written in a thoroughly sane and sober spirit. In this it differs from most books that deal with the manners, customs, and usages of the Gaels of Scotland, for in them the wildest theories, based mainly on fanciful ideas, are treated as facts and enunciated as truths. In gathering his material the late Mr. Campbell relied solely on oral communications made to himself so that in every case of doubt he could interrogate his informant.—SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE.