Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland

John Gregorson Campbell (1836-91) was a Scottish folklorist and Free Church minister at the Tiree and Coll parishes in Argyll. Folklore had been his primary interest since college days and he became secretary to the Ossianic Society of Glasgow University. Ill health prevented him taking up a ministry when he was first approved to preach, and his recuperation was spent beginning his collection of folklore tales. As an avid collector of traditional stories who was fluent in several languages including Scottish Gaelic, he meticulously transcribed the stories precisely as dictated by the individual narrators, only rarely adding his own comments. In 1861 he was appointed minister to the united parishes of Tiree and Coll by the Duke of Argyll and despite initial objections from his parishioners who did not take to his style of preaching, he held the position for thirty years. The traditional tales he had collected first saw publication in the inaugural edition of the quarterly periodical Scottish Celtic Review in March 1881, with further legends from his collection included in the next three volumes. The Gaelic Society of Inverness published several of his tales from 1888-92 and Celtic Magazine and Highland Monthly also published some of his folklore, with a first compilation entitled The Fians appearing in book form in 1891 by which time his health was failing and he died before seeing the final printed edition. Three further volumes were published posthumously, with this work, collected entirely from oral sources, appearing in 1900.