19.1 Examples of prose fiction written in Scots

This section will focus on two stories, Walter Scott’s Wandering Willie’s Tale and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Thrawn Janet. The section will consider the ways in which Scots language is used in relation to English in the stories, how the stories themselves balance aspects of the supernatural and the material or earthly world. They will explore questions of who the narrator is and who the narrative is addressed to, and finally what legacy the stories imply for their own narrators and for subsequent readers. This last question prompts consideration of the relation between storytelling and extended prose fiction, novels.

The Scots language in these two stories is used to particular effect, not only to generate a quality of strangeness or mystery but also to give a sense of vocal immediacy or authenticity. This is a paradox: one aspect of its use as written, printed language exploits its unfamiliarity: to those accustomed to seeing the English language on the page, then Scots may seem odd or difficult; the other aspect exploits the colloquial intimacy of Scots language and implies that the speakers of these stories are talking ‘naturally’.

We know that all literature is artifice – all the arts employ design or intention, structure and method – but the relation between writing and speech is a palpable presence in these stories. How does this work? What effect does it have? You will answer these questions through exploring the two stories in some detail.

Benjamin draws our attention to a number of things, which can illuminate our reading of Scott and Stevenson and how their Scots language stories work in these examples. I’d like to draw attention to two key comparisons he makes. One is between the storyteller who stays at home and knows all about a particular locality, its inhabitants and ways of life; the other is the storyteller who travels the world and visits other places, returning with news of foreign parts and different customs. What categories do the narrators of the Scott and Stevenson stories most closely fit? The second thing is the difference between the storyteller and the novelist.

In the oral tradition, the storyteller is always present, telling the story; in the printed tradition, the novelist is almost always absent (except, these days, at book festivals and signings). You will now investigate how this observation applies to the narrators in Scott’s and Stevenson’s stories.

Portrait of Sir Walter Scott

Let’s start with the older text, Scott’s ‘Wandering Willie’s Tale’ from 1824, which forms chapter six of the novel Redgauntlet. It is worth thinking about the novel and the story’s place within it before looking at the story itself:

The narrator of the story is a character in the novel. The Scots of his story is embedded within the English of the narrative as a whole. Earlier chapters of the novel take the form of letters between characters, mainly in English, and the overall narrative of the book – Scott’s voice, one might argue – is given in English. So while the authority of Wandering Willie’s Scots is undisputed while the story lasts, it passes away into the larger context. But this can be regarded as something of a paradox. The story has been anthologised and read, probably, by more people over centuries, than have read the novel as a whole. That Scots voice and language has a lasting hold on the imagination of readers in a way that the novel only partly offsets. It has its own authority despite its context.

Activity 5

By signing in and enrolling on this course you can view and complete all activities within the course, track your progress in My OpenLearn Create. and when you have completed a course, you can download and print a free Statement of Participation - which you can use to demonstrate your learning.

Part 2

In the closing dialogue at the end of the story (the end of the novel’s chapter six), Willie tells his companion that “it is nae chancy thing to tak’a stranger traveller for a guide when you are in an uncouth land.” His companion, who is the main link to the novel’s main narrative, responds by saying that he should not have thought so, since the narrator’s grandfather’s adventure as recounted in the tale “was fortunate for himself, whom it saved from ruin and distress; and fortunate for his landlord.” And then Willie delivers the final revelation, the moral of the tale, which taints the ending of the story and suggests a world of unpredicted consequences. And this is the element Benjamin labelled the ‘nature of every real story […] something useful’ – a lesson to be learned.

Listen to the moral of Willie’s tale and read it out yourself. What do you think is the lesson of the tale?

You can record your response here, but this facility requires a free OU account. Sign in or register.

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript

Listen

Aye, but they had baith to sup the sauce o’ ‘t sooner or later,’ said Wandering Willie; ‘what was fristed wasna forgiven. Sir John died before he was much over threescore; and it was just like of a moment’s illness. And for my gudesire, though he departed in fullness of life, yet there was my father, a yauld man of forty-five, fell down betwixt the stilts of his plow, and rase never again, and left nae bairn but me, a puir, sightless, fatherless, motherless creature, could neither work nor want. Things gaed weel aneugh at first; for Sir Regwald Redgauntlet, the only son of Sir John and the oye of auld Sir Robert, and, wae ’s me! The last of the honorable house, took the farm aff our hands, and brought me into his household to have care of me. My head never settled since I lost him; and if I say another word about it, deil a bar will I have the heart to play the night. Look out, my gentle chap,’ he resumed, in a different tone; ‘ye should see the lights at Brokenburn Glen by this time.

Model

Aye, but they had baith to sup the sauce o’ ‘t sooner or later,’ said Wandering Willie; ‘what was fristed wasna forgiven. Sir John died before he was much over threescore; and it was just like of a moment’s illness. And for my gudesire, though he departed in fullness of life, yet there was my father, a yauld man of forty-five, fell down betwixt the stilts of his plow, and rase never again, and left nae bairn but me, a puir, sightless, fatherless, motherless creature, could neither work nor want. Things gaed weel aneugh at first; for Sir Regwald Redgauntlet, the only son of Sir John and the oye of auld Sir Robert, and, wae ’s me! The last of the honorable house, took the farm aff our hands, and brought me into his household to have care of me. My head never settled since I lost him; and if I say another word about it, deil a bar will I have the heart to play the night. Look out, my gentle chap,’ he resumed, in a different tone; ‘ye should see the lights at Brokenburn Glen by this time.

End transcript

 

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Robert Louis Stevenson by Henry Walter Barnett

Unlike Willie’s story, Stevenson’s Thrawn Janet (1881) was written as a complete work in itself, and published as soon as it was sent to the Cornhill Magazine after its completion. Stevenson begins the story in relatively straightforward English but moves into Scots very quickly and stays there. The Scots-speaking storyteller carries you through the tale and no return to an authoritative English language narrative comes at the end.