LL-L: "Literature" LOWLANDS-L, 26.AUG.2000 (04) [E/S]

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  L O W L A N D S - L * 26.AUG.2000 (04) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Literature"

Well, the current thinking seems to be that the earliest Scots
novel was written in the 1990's, while we (once you get a .org
you can call yourself "we"!) at ScotsteXt have always maintained
that "Marget Pow" by Catherine P. Slater (first complete edition
1925) is the first. Objections raised have been centred on the
fact that Marget Pow is more English than Scots, but database
analysis of spelling variants and grammar in the the book show
that it is in fact Scots with many English spellings (something
that we at ScotsteXt will be rectifying in due course!).

However, we were wrong just the same. Unearthing of the Edwardian
paperback novelette "Betty's Trip tae Edinbury" by Black Spider
challenges Slater's lofty claim to being the first true Scots
novelist, and moreover discomfits the notion that no such early
novels had been written, narrative and dialect, in a language
indubitably Scots. A sample:

    "What's wrang wi the folk, think ye, Leezie," says I, but she
jist gied a yell an' joined the rinnin' match, leavin' me tae fin'
oot for masel' the cause o the hullibaloo, an' what was't efter a'
but a bit auld coo that had gotten intae a pickle. I could see by
the size o' her uther an' the wey she was rinnin' that she was
lookin for somebody tae milk her, an that she didna mean tae meddle
onybody. The toon bodies ken naething aboot coos, says I tae masel',
an steppin intae the middle o' the street I says in a voice she
coodna misunderstan', "Cosh lady; cosh, cosh, cosh my woman," an
the puir beast jist stoppit at ma very feet. She was that gled tae
meet somebody that kenned her language, an gi'ein' her a bit clap
on the shoother, she turned roond an' licket ma hand an' was as
freendly as ye like.

This book is only a 70-page novelette, however, so Black Spider's
claim to being the first novelist in Scots is somewhat shaky.
Similarly, J.B.Salmond's 1899 novel "My Man Sandy" might be said
to be merely a series of character sketches, or not. Fortunately,
the issue is resolved by the unearthing of the 250-page 1894 novel,
"James Inwick" by P. Hay Hunter. The eponymous hero is a Scottish
ploughman who, on being elected elder of the Kirk, finds himself
caught up in the politics of disestablishmentarianism, with
disastrous consequences. Not only is this a complete, integrated
story of full novel length, but the Scots is excellent, as this
example shows:

    I no' mind o' the wife bein sae upliftit wi onythin, aa the
time we've been thegither, as wi me bein made an elder. I was made
muckle o, thae days, I can tell ye; there was naethin ower guid for
Jims; it minded me o' the time whan I was coortin her, four-an'-thretty
year syne. An' whan it cam roun' to the Saiturday nicht afore the day
I was to be ordained, what I büde to gae through in the way o' reddin
up!--she was that fiky, ye micht ha' thocht I was some young quean
bein buskit for her waddin. First she set tae an' stairched an' airned
my sark an' collar, an syne she got my guid-anes oot o' the kist, an'
darned a wee hole in the coat aneath the oxter, an' hung them a' afore
the fire to tak oot the lirks. An' after supper-time, in comes Ecky
Blair, the herd at Toombucht, wi' his shears--she had trysted Ecky
withoot ever lettin on to me--to gie me a clip; for she said it wad
never dae for me to be stan'in up in the transe afore a' the folk,
an' ma heid like a heather cowe. An' on the Sabbath mornin she gart
me shave mysel till my chafts were like a year-auld bairn's, an'
creish my pow wi' the claggiest pomatum she could come by; an' syne
she tied on me a bonny new craig-cloth she had coft doun by, as white
as the driven snaw.

So I suppose P. Hay Hunter "bears the gree" as the first novelist
in Scots. Any other takers?

Sandy
http://scotstext.org
A dinna dout him, for he says that he
On nae accoont wad ever tell a lee.
                          - C.W.Wade,
                    'The Adventures o McNab'

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