John P McWilliams

Selected Scottish Tales - Retold by the Story-Teller John P McWilliams

This Book: This book contains thirty-five selected tales about various aspects of Scottish culture retold by the author, The Story-Teller. They are divided into twelve main categories such as: Seal People Tales, Step-Mother Tales, Bewitched Lover Tales, Giant Tales, Faerie Tales, Exiles of the Faeries Tales, Tales of Changelings, The Devil Amongst Us, Tales of Strange Beasties, Tales of Spinner Women, Some Other Tales. and finally Second Sight. This is for ease in organization. At least one, and in most cases two or more tales for each of the twelve categories, mentioned above, are included here The tales themselves cover a variety of topics as pointed out above. The narrative is written in American English for the purposes of better comprehension. However, the dialogue is presented in a modified form of the Edinburgh dialect of Lowland Scots, in order to provide some uniformity, since these tales come from various places in Scotland (with their own unique dialects), and from various time periods in the past. However, for ease of understanding the dialogue, three things are done here. First, commonly-used terminology is generally defined in the Preface and these terms are not translated in the dialogue text because most can be surmised by the reader from the accompanying context. Secondly, the dialogue (in Lowland Scots) has been amended to translate certain unfamiliar terminology. These are shown parenthetically within the affected dialogue. Thirdly, a very extensive Scots Glossary is presented at the rear of the book for the reader's reference. These tales are delightful!