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