{
  "title": "ALEXANDER POLSON",
  "category": "[RADIO-TALKS]",
  "article": "“The author had been a teacher in Inverness, Easter & Wester Ross, Lewis, Sutherland and\nCaithness. It is a delightful collection of fairy, ghost, witch or second sight stories recorded by\npupils in his senior classes at that time.”\nPolson set his knowledge of the lore and the history behind it in two books, Our Highland\nFolklore Heritage (1926) and Scottish Witchcraft Lore (1932).\n[Polson, Highland] “It is simply a collection of beliefs and stories which the Author has been\ngathering for many years. He has taught in Inverness, Easter and Wester Ross, Lewis, Sutherland,\nand Caithness, and much of what is here set down was got in these districts and in the following\nway. In School, some fairy, ghost, witch, or second sight story was told the pupils in the senior\nclass. They were requested to relate it to any old persons they knew, and ask them for any similar\ntale which they heard when they were young. The pupils who succeeded in getting such tales\nwrote them out a few days later as an English composition.\n“The Author’s thanks are due to the boys and girls—now grown to manhood and womanhood—\nwho acted as collectors…”\n“Much of interest to the folklorist can…still be gleaned in the Highlands where the conditions\nhave been favourable. Wide districts are still untouched by railways, in some parts no motor has\neven yet been seen, and newspapers have not altogether ousted the social meetings round the\nwinter peat fires, where tales of second-sight, ghosts, water horses and fairies are told. The people\nare social and live their quiet lives in an environment which must be favourable to the formation\nof strange beliefs. There are always the lofty mountains which, if not covered with mist, have that\nhazy blue covering which suggests the mysterious, and in the mysterious Highlanders always\nreveled… There are many dark sullen tarns and dreary moorlands, across which flits Will o’ the\nWisp. It is not to be wondered at that such places should in imagination be peopled by creatures\nhaving perculiar powers, whose favour the people would do well to court if they could devise no\nsure means of overcoming them.”",
  "origination": "",
  "duration": "",
  "personnel": "",
  "extant_recordings": "",
  "chronology": "(5SC, GLASGOW)\n[Tuesday—6:00-6:15 PM]\nNovember 26, 1929\n“Highland Fairies”\n[\"…from Aberdeen…”]\n(2BD, ABERDEEN)\n[Tuesday— 6:00-6:15 PM]\nDecember 24, 1929\n“Old-Time Yuletide Highland Customs”\n(ABERDEEN)\n[Tuesday—6:00-6:15 PM]\nDecember 23, 1930\n“St. Nicholas”\n[Thursday—3:20-3:40 PM]\nJuly 16, 1931\n“The Characteristics of Gaelic Poetry”\nSTRANGE TALES FROM THE WEST (SCOTTISH PROGRAMME)\n[Wednesday—7:15-7:30 PM\nApril 17, 1935\n“Highland Magicians”\n(SCOTTISH PROGRAMME)\n[Friday—9:20-9:30 PM]\nJanuary 31, 1936\n“Room 13”\n[“…A Ghost Story, told by Alexander Polson…”]",
  "sources": "",
  "gallery": "",
  "images": []
}