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Songs, Stories, and Reflections of Duncan Williamson, Scottish Traveller
- 360 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
About this book
Born in 1928 in a tent on the shore of Loch Fyne, Argyll, Duncan Williamson (d. 2007) eventually came to be recognized as one of the foremost storytellers in Scotland and the world. Webspinner: Songs, Stories, and Reflections of Duncan Williamson, Scottish Traveller is based on more than a hundred hours of tape-recorded interviews undertaken with him in the 1980s. Williamson tells of his birth and upbringing in the west of Scotland, his family background as one of Scotland's seminomadic travelling people, his varied work experiences after setting out from home at about age fifteen, and the challenges he later faced while raising a family of his own, living on the road for half the year.
The recordings on which the book is based were made by John D. Niles, who was then an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Niles has transcribed selections from his field tapes with scrupulous accuracy, arranging them alongside commentary, photos, and other scholarly aids, making this priceless self-portrait of a brilliant storyteller available to the public. The result is a delight to read. It is also a mine of information concerning a vanished way of life and the place of singing and storytelling in Traveller culture. In chapters that feature many colorful anecdotes and that mirror the spontaneity of oral delivery, readers learn much about how Williamson and other members of his persecuted minority had the resourcefulness to make a living on the outskirts of society, owning very little in the way of material goods but sustained by a rich oral heritage.
The recordings on which the book is based were made by John D. Niles, who was then an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Niles has transcribed selections from his field tapes with scrupulous accuracy, arranging them alongside commentary, photos, and other scholarly aids, making this priceless self-portrait of a brilliant storyteller available to the public. The result is a delight to read. It is also a mine of information concerning a vanished way of life and the place of singing and storytelling in Traveller culture. In chapters that feature many colorful anecdotes and that mirror the spontaneity of oral delivery, readers learn much about how Williamson and other members of his persecuted minority had the resourcefulness to make a living on the outskirts of society, owning very little in the way of material goods but sustained by a rich oral heritage.
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Yes, you can access Webspinner by John D. Niles in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- WEBSPINNER
- Title
- Copyright
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- List of Songs and Stories
- Chapter 1: Williamson and the Travellers
- Chapter 2: Those Who Went Before
- Chapter 3: A Childhood in Argyll
- Chapter 4: Making a Living
- Chapter 5: Courtship, Marriage, and Raising Children
- Chapter 6: Food and Health, Drink and Conviviality
- Chapter 7: Music and the Flow of Life
- Chapter 8: The How and Why of Storytelling
- Chapter 9: Scenes from a Vanished World
- Chapter 10: Webspinner: The Book, the Poem, and the Man
- Commentary
- Appendix 1: These Recordings and How They Were Made
- Appendix 2: Transcribing âOral Textsâ from Voice to Page
- List of Transcriptions
- Glossary of Scots Words and Travellersâ Cant
- Selected Bibliography
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR