John Gregorson Campbell, and Alexander Macbain were uneasy with his earlier treatment of material he had collected. Although little public criticism was voiced during Carmichael's lifetime, it is clear that other Gaelic folklore collectors and scholars such as Father Allan McDonald, the Rev. The first two volumes of Carmina Gadelica were initially welcomed by reviewers as a monumental achievement in folklore, as well as a lasting testament to their creator: the ‘splendid consummation of the love-labour of a whole diligent life-time’. Carmina Gadelica was a landmark in Scottish art publishing, intended not just as a treasury of lore, but as an object of beauty in itself. The book itself, dedicated to Mary Frances, was published in two volumes in October 1900, under the auspices of Walter Biggar Blaikie (1847–1928) in a limited edition of 300 copies, costing 3 guineas a copy. The initial letters, adapted from early medieval insular manuscripts and engraved stones, were illustrated by Carmichael's wife Mary Frances Macbean (1838–1928). Much of the final editing was carried out after Carmichael's retirement from the Inland Revenue in December 1897, with the help of a team of assistants including his daughter Ella Carmichael and his protégés George Henderson (1866–1912), who gave the work its title, and Kenneth MacLeod (1871–1955). In both cases, the offer was withdrawn owing to Carmichael's unhappiness with the publisher's plans, and his determination to see the collection through the press on his own terms and according to his own design. The collection was first offered, in 1891, to the Clarendon Press as Idylls of the Isles, then subsequently to Archibald Sinclair's Gaelic publishing company in Glasgow. The popularity of ‘Grazing and Agrestic Customs’, and a subsequent paper Carmichael delivered on 24 December 1888 to the Gaelic Society of Glasgow on ‘Uist Old Hymns’, encouraged him to embark upon a much more comprehensive work on the subject. Carmichael rounded off his contribution in an unorthodox manner, presenting a selection of traditional rhymes, prayers, blessings, and songs he had gathered from a wide variety of informants in the islands, intended to illustrate the spiritual refinement and respectability of their crofter reciters. Francis Napier, 10th Lord Napier, had requested Carmichael to compose a piece on traditional Hebridean land customs based on the chapter on the subject that he had written for the third volume of William Forbes Skene’s Celtic Scotland. The origins of the Carmina Gadelica can be traced to ‘Grazing and Agrestic Customs of the Outer Hebrides’, the second appendix Alexander Carmichael contributed to the Report of the Napier Commission in 1884. Floris Press reprinted the entire six-volume series in 2006. In 1992 Floris Press published a one-volume English-language edition with a valuable introduction by Dr John MacInnes (b. The series was rounded off in 1971 with a sixth volume containing a lengthy glossary and indices, edited by Angus Matheson with the assistance of his brother William (1910–1995). A fifth volume, mostly taken up with song texts, was edited by Professor Angus Matheson (1912–1962) in 1954. Further selections from Carmichael's manuscripts were edited by his grandson James Carmichael Watson (1910–1942) and published as volumes III (1940) and IV (1941). Although Carmichael's correspondence suggests that he planned at least one further volume in the series, he was unable to bring this plan to fruition. The material was recorded, translated, and reworked by the exciseman and folklorist Alexander Carmichael (1832–1912).Ĭarmina Gadelica was published in six volumes: Alexander Carmichael himself, with the assistance of family and friends, was responsible for the first two volumes, published in 1900 these were re-edited by his daughter Ella (1870–1928) in 1928. Carmina Gadelica is a compendium of prayers, hymns, charms, incantations, blessings, literary-folkloric poems and songs, proverbs, lexical items, historical anecdotes, natural history observations, and miscellaneous lore gathered in the Gaelic-speaking regions of Scotland between 18.
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