Calgacus 2 Quotes

“Why were so many songs collected in the north-east, for example? In part, no doubt, the answer has to do with the activities of collectors; but the richness of the north-east in songs compared with the barren song terrain of the Lothians strongly suggests that differences in rural social organisation have explanatory value. We need to get away from simply counterposing 'lowland' to 'highland'. We need to see the enormous diversity in social arrangements within Lowland Scotland, even in recent times; and to analyse that diversity case by case without trying to smash it into a spurious shape with the intellectual cudgel of 'improvement'.”
― Ian R. Carter, Calgacus 2: Summer 1975

“We know almost nothing of the rural class relations of lowland Scotland in the last two centuries and, as a consequence, are still struggling to escape from accounts of class relations in lowland agriculture which are in fact generalised accounts of the relations noted by observers (with keen eyesight, to be fair) sitting in Edinburgh. The north-east, the south-west, Strathmore were not like the Lothians; and folk music provides important evidence to support the point.”
― Ian R. Carter, Calgacus 2: Summer 1975