John Francis Campbell of Islay: Collecting Gaelic stories

Among our extensive Scottish Gaelic collections, the manuscripts and printed books of John Francis Campbell of Islay hold a special place. They are a memorial to one of the most versatile, likeable and industrious scholars, travellers and watercolour artists of the Victorian age.

Who was John Francis Campbell?

John Francis Campbell is best known as a collector of Gaelic folktales and Gaelic heroic tales and ballads. This was by no means his only interest: he was also a scientist and world-wide traveller. However, it is the field of research where he surpassed himself and others. He left behind a wealth of information on storytelling and storytellers in the Gaelic-speaking Highlands of Scotland that is considered outstanding to this day.

Campbell was born on his family's estate on the isle of Islay in 1821. As a young boy he spent much time in the care of the family piper, also named John Campbell, who became his teacher. He walked around the island with him in all weather, spoke Gaelic with him so that he became fluent, and introduced him to the island's Gaelic-speaking population. This familiarity with Gaelic society would later stand him in good stead.

His father's attempts to improve the Islay estate resulted in debts so enormous that he was forced to sell it in 1847. While his widowed father emigrated to Normandy, young John Francis Campbell went to London, where his cousin George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, took care of him. The Duke employed him as his private secretary, and later as secretary to various scientific royal commissions. This suited his interests, and he became part of an aristocratic and scholarly network that would prove invaluable.

Scientist and traveller

His career as a published author began with several studies on scientific subjects, most notably his geological study 'Frost and Fire' (1865). Geology, glaciers and volcanoes were objects of never-ending fascination. Wherever he went, rock-rubbings and sketches of mountainous landscapes would accumulate in his sketchbooks and scrapbook-like journals that are preserved in his manuscript collection.

He also loved Scandinavia, especially the very northern parts, and not just for their geological grandeur. Ethnology and particularly the Saami people had become a new interest. Eleven trips to northern Scandinavia between 1849 and 1873, often arduous and full of unexpected adventure, testify to a deeply felt affinity.

Campbell's diaries and excellent watercolours from these expeditions offer a full and lively account. You can explore images of these and his other travel journals in our Digital Gallery

Sunlight was another interest of his. He was co-inventor of a device to record sunshine hours and embraced the new art of photography with enthusiasm, even if his artist's eye also saw its limitations. Travelling in the south of France in 1873, he wrote in his journal: "The difference between art and mere photography appears to be in 'selection'. The photographers in this most beautiful region of the world are not artists. They get to some point where they can see a great deal and copy without looking for 'lines of grace and beauty', or for 'composition, or light & shade'." Artists, in his view, make pictures. "The others make maps."

'Storyology'

In 1859, Campbell's idea to collect Gaelic folktales presented a move into an entirely different field. However, it was one which was close to his heart. It allowed him to engage deeply with the culture in which he had grown up and where he had not been forgotten. To the Gaelic speakers that had known his family on Islay, he was still known as Iain Òg Ìle or "Young John of Islay".

Campbell lived at a time in which European story collectors (such as the Brothers Grimm or the Scandinavian scholar George Dasent) were studying and comparing international folktales. They had discovered that many stories and story elements had travelled widely and were shared by more than one country. This had become a new discipline of research: Campbell called it 'storyology'. His library of printed books, which he bequeathed to the Library along with his manuscripts, includes editions of folktales from many countries. You can browse this collection online.

In the introduction to the first volume of his 'Popular Tales of the West Highlands', Campbell conjures up an atmospheric image of the transmission of stories:

"… and as it is with driftwood in the Highlands, so, as I imagine, it has been with popular tales everywhere. They are as old as the races who tell them, but the original ideas, like the trees from which logs, masts, and ships are made, have been broken up, cut, carved, and ornamented — lost and found — wrecked, destroyed, broken, and put together again; and though the original shape is hard to find, the fragments may be recognized in books, and wherever else they may now be."

Scottish Gaelic folktales, however, had so far been missing from this big picture. Not many people knew that versions of the Frog Prince and other well-known tales were also told by Gaelic storytellers. The language barrier, and the fact that many Gaelic-speaking communities lived in areas that were not easy to reach, had kept these stories in isolation from the world. Campbell decided to make Scottish Gaelic folktales accessible to all, so that they could become part of 'storyology' research.

He also realised that these stories were in need of preservation. They had been alive for centuries through oral transmission only, but numbers of Gaelic speakers were decreasing. Also, in some areas religious teaching worked against storytelling. Gaelic folktales were in danger of being forgotten and lost.

The resulting four-volume publication, 'Popular tales of the West Highlands', was published from 1860 to 1862. It prints most of the stories in English and Gaelic, and it includes only a part of the stories he collected. Two further volumes were published after Campbell's death, but there is still a lot of unpublished material to be discovered.

Collecting Gaelic stories

In his large manuscript collection and archive, Campbell preserved a treasure of stories and related information and correspondence. It allows us to see his fast, analytical and perceptive mind at work. It leaves a detailed record of Campbell's planning work and communication with his helpers Hector Maclean, Hector Urquhart and John Dewar in collecting stories.

There are countless stories, often in different versions, as well as information on the storytellers themselves. For each story version, a note records the date, place and the individual storyteller. This was done not just to document its authenticity, but also as a mark of respect for the tradition bearers, who were often admirable performers with remarkable memories.

Campbell remained in the field of Gaelic studies for his next work, 'Leabhar na Feinne' (1872). This brought together the many medieval Gaelic heroic ballads about Fionn Mac Cumhaill (Finn MacCool or Fingal) and his warrior friends that had been in circulation in the Highlands for centuries. He was able to draw on the work that had already been done by fieldworkers in the 18th and earlier 19th centuries. Many of the collections of these early collectors were by then in the Advocates Library (the forerunner of the National Library of Scotland) and Campbell was in close contact with two Gaelic-speaking librarians there.

He also travelled the Scottish Highlands and Ireland himself in 1870 and 1871. Campbell's journals of these tours belong to the most fascinating items in his collection. Illustrated with his own watercolours, and full of his wry sense of humour, they bring to life the landscape and people he encountered.

He listened to their singing and storytelling. He spoke to men and women to whom the events of a ballad or medieval tale were still firmly connected to the landscape around them. Their memories are preserved in his journals, affectionately or grumpily sketched in words or watercolour, and even rarely captured in photographs.

The legacy of John Francis Campbell's work

The significance of Campbell's Gaelic-related work cannot be overestimated. It would not have been possible without his three main helpers, and without the storytellers themselves. They willingly told their stories and saw them written down on paper for the very first time. Most of them told them with kindness and patience so that a scribe was able to keep up and preserve them just as they had been told, word for word. Campbell, in turn, made sure that their names and stories would not be forgotten.

Although he was overall a man who never seemed to rest, he was also a thoughtful observer. We sometimes see him lean back and take a break, as on one fine day in August 1871:

"Ardpatrick. Aug 14. 1871. Took my sketching bag & sketched the Jura hills. Wandered around the point all day basking in the brilliant hot sun and drank in the clean fresh sea breeze from the West & N. West. Sleeping in the heather sniffing the sweet gale dreaming … a day to be marked with a white stone."

The resulting watercolour survives in his journal:

In the following years, Campbell travelled abroad again, this time to Russia, North America, Japan and India. His published work 'My circular notes' (1876) record these travels with some of his own illustrations.

In his final years, he spent much time in the Mediterranean, again on a scientific quest. He was looking for a way of measuring solar energy, which led to the publication of his last major work, 'Thermography' (1883).

Campbell died in Cannes on 17 February 1885. He bequeathed his collection of printed books and manuscripts to the Advocates Library. In 1925, on the foundation of the National Library of Scotland, his collection was presented to the Scottish nation by the Faculty of Advocates.

John Francis Campbell's legacy lies not only in what he collected, but in how he understood its value. By carefully recording stories with their exact wording, names and contexts, he helped ensure that Gaelic storytelling entered wider scholarly conversation without losing its local meaning or human texture. He respected the work of his predecessors and gave it new significance, was aware of the work of his contemporaries, and he was an inspiration to those who came after him. Today, his manuscripts, books and artworks continue to support research, reinterpretation and creative engagement. They never lost their freshness and charm, bringing to life the landscape, voices and imagination of the Gaelic speakers of his time.