The Silver Bough

Canongate Classics #24

by F. Marian McNeill

A marvellous and indispensible treasury of Scottish folklore and folk belief from the world of Celtic magic, gods and fairies, to the prophesies of the Brahan seer, second sight, witchcraft, earth magic, selkies, changelings and a host of traditional spells and cures. The Silver Bough involved many years of research into both living and recorded folklore, and remains a classic of literature.

Genres: Folklore, Scotland, Mythology, Nonfiction, History, Religion, Paganism

180 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1989

About the author

Florence Marian McNeill, MBE was a Scottish folklorist, best known for writing The Silver Bough, a four-volume study of Scottish folklore.

McNeill was born at Holm in Orkney and educated at Kirkwall Burgh School and then at Glasgow University from which she graduated in 1912. For the next year, she taught English in France and Germany. She returned to Britain in 1913 and worked initially as an organiser for the Scottish Federation of Women's Suffrage Societies in Scotland and later as secretary for the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene in London where she remained until 1917. At the end of the First World War, she moved back to Edinburgh and started work as a researcher for the Scottish National Dictionary and by 1929 she had become principal assistant on the project.

During the years between the First and Second World Wars she became involved in the revival of Scottish literature and culture known as the Scottish Renaissance. She is best known as the author of The Scots Kitchen, published in 1929.

Reviews

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would not recommend it as a book to start out your studies with but as one that you can read after you have some history about the Celts- especially the Scottish people- and the Druids. Please read my review at Celtic Scholar's Reviews and Opinions.

[Old-Barbarossa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good overview of old Scots traditions.
The edition I had was a wee paperback, Canongate I think, cover had the Cernunnos scene from the Gundestrup cauldron on it.

[Raido D · Rating 5 out of 5]

F. Marian McNeill is a fascinating person, a female ethnologist and folklorist far ahead of her time. Despite her father being a Church of Scotland minister, she had a deep interest in - and understanding of - Scotland's pagan past, sometimes very thinly veiled under the guise of Christian feasts and saints' days. She does not romanticise the past, however, but presents the old customs of the peoples of Scotland as a beautiful amalgam of tradition which arose out of a social, psychological and physiological need to commemorate the various observable changes in the landscape which even in McNeill's lifetime, most of Scotland utterly depended on for survival. The Silver Bough is a four tome collection of McNeill's writing; I am reviewing merely one of them, though I can vouch for the quality of all four. They are written with the wit and flow of an entry-level book, but are nonetheless precious for the academic folklorist. Most importantly, unlike so many others who have written about the folklore and customs of Celtic peoples, F. M. MacNeill had a decent understanding of Gaelic and Scots alike, being descended from speakers of both languages on the two sides of her family.

I would highly recommend this book to anybody interested in finding out more about cloutie wells, witches, Beltane fires, and why many houses in Scotland still have rowan trees planted at the front gate.

[Andrew Pixton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this overview of folklore legends and traditions in Scotland, with ties to neighboring Celtic communities. It caught my attention by reading about brownies on wikipedia, where a line about a MacFarlane hosting a urisk. I'm descended from the clan, its lore has been strong in my family despite being generations removed from Scotland. I'm also Elliott and McIntyre, though these weren't mentioned in Silver Bough.

The reading has lots of useful footnotes. I loved the comparisons to original Scots Gaelic. I was maybe a little perturbed by the talk of druids and witches. It recognizes that druids were more of a Gaulish thing, but then goes on to talk about druids without saying much about whatever the Gaelic equivalent would be called. Then in the witch section, it recognizes that paganism or witchcraft was originally just nature worship, but it then goes on to discuss witches as Satan worshipers during the purges. Granted, the first half of the book covers that naturalist version and the devil witches are certainly a part of the folklore as well. This is quite essential for any fan of Scottish history and folklore.

[Gina Lyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

McNeil's first volume of The Silver Bough provides some really great insight into folk customs and beliefs in Scottish culture, tracing the origins of its traditions and exploring the purposes they serve. By no means is this a perfect introduction to Scots folk-lore (it assumes a certain level of reader knowledge, and Sanderson's introduction advises you to take some statements on the Druids as a 'sun cult' with a pinch of salt), but I thoroughly enjoyed reading about kelpies, powerful stones, wells with powers, cursing bones, and which plants protect against evil spells.

[Julian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an old book with outdated, disproven ideas. Chapter eight in particular is wildly misguided. Approach this book with a critical mind, or, better yet, read a different book.

[Abby Beatrice Quick · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Vol I: Scottish Folklore and Folk Belief]

[Vol III: A Calendar of Scottish National Festivals - Halloween to Yule]

[Amanda B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written at a time when people cited Margaret Murray as factual. Still a great read.