Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Celtic Weird and author Eochann MacPhaidein

Celtic Weird: Tales of Wicked Folklore and Dark Mythology, is a newly published anthology edited by Johnny Mains. It contains some twenty-one stories, divided into seven sections: Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Isle of Mann, Wales, Cornwall, and Gaelic. Some of the authors are well-known, like Robert Aickman, Count Stenbock, Edith Wharton, Nigel Kneale, Arthur Machen, and Frank Baker, etc. Of course I immediately gravitated towards the authors unknown to me, and I'd like to discuss one of them here. The story is called "The Butterfly's Marriage" and it is by Eochann MacPhaidein.

Mains introduces the story as follows:  

I cannot find anything about Eachann (Hector) MacPhaidein apart from the fact that he wrote Pòsadh An Dealan-dè ("The Butterfly's Wedding") for Uirsgenlan Gaidhealach / Highland Tales (1905). The following story is, in my opinion, astonishing, I don't think I've ever read anything so out there and he distills the very essence of Gaelic folklore and outré imagination into every single word. This is one weird tale. 

I think the editor oversells the story a bit, but it is an odd one, and I certainly wish we had more stories from this author. Uirsgenlan Gaidhealach is a small all-Gaelic anthology of four stories, of which MacPhaidein's is the last one. The book (published in 1905 in wrappers at 6d, and cloth at 1s) is only 64 pages, and MacPhaidein's story is found on pages 58-64; it is the shortest in the book. The names of the four authors are given only in the table of contents, with the names Gaelicised. However, an early review in the October 1905 issue of An Deo-Ghréine, gives MacPhaidein's everyday name as Hector MacFadyen, and notes "The author is a master of the folk style, and his tale does not lapse once into modernity. We should like to see larger output from the same source" (p. 16). The book was reprinted in both formats in 1912. 

Mains does not say where the English translation comes from, but it appeared soon after the book's publication in the 16 October 1905 issue of  The Celtic Review, with no author's name given, and no translator's name either. The translator was clearly someone closely associated with The Celtic Review, for after the 1912 second edition of Uirsgenlan Gaidhealach had been published, an unsigned review appeared in the January 1914 issue, where the reviewer admitted that "Pòsadh An Dealan-dè (the Butterfly's Wedding), a delightful fairy fantasy by Hector MacFadyen, . . . so charmed the present writer that he translated it for the Celtic Review" (p. 252). 

The editor of Uirsgenlan Gaidhealach was (per the title page) Chaluim Mhic Phàrlain, or Malcolm MacFarlane (1853-1931), a Gaelic scholar, very active in the An Comunn Gàidhealach (the "Gaelic Association"), an organization, founded in 1891 to promote Gaelic language and culture, which continues to the present day. The Association sponsored an annual Mod, a convention at which many prizes were given for composition in Gaelic. All four stories in Uirsgenlan Gaidhealach were winners of prizes. 

What of Hector MacFadyen? The Caledonian (NY) for November 1902 notes that at the 11th annual Mod, held in Dundee the last week of September, Hector MacFadyen, of Glasgow, won a prize for the "best original Gaelic tale"-- presumably Pòsadh An Dealan-dè. MacFadyen also won other compositional prizes at other Mods in the first decade of the twentieth century, including a £5 prize in September 1907 for a "Gaelic Short Story, extending to 1500 words or more, of Olden Times in the Highlands, with historical setting" (An Deo-Ghréine, October 1907, p.2).  Nothing further is known of this second tale. 

Genealogical resources haven't helped me to pin down anything more about Hector MacFadyen, as multiple Hector MacFadyen's turn up. The name of John MacFadyen, also common, is perhaps a relative, for it appears in the lists of prize-winners at the annual Mods at the same time as Hector's name does. John MacFadyen also lived in Glasgow. Unlike Hector, John MacFadyen published some books, including An t-Eileanach [The Islander] (1890; second edition 1921), containing original Gaelic songs, and Sgeulaiche nan Caol (1902), containing original Gaelic readings, sketches, poems and songs.  

Perhaps someone with access to better resources than I have in the US can find out more about these MacFadyens. Meanwhile, I share below scans of "The Butterfly's Marriage" as it appeared in The Celtic Review in 1905.  (If I've done this right, clicking on the image will make the page bigger.)

 



10 comments:

  1. Cheers for this Douglas! Lovely to read. And as to over-selling, I stand by my words!

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  2. Thanks, Johnny! LOL! I'm very much enjoying your book.

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  3. I’m curious as to the other stories translated from Celtic languages - are they all Scots Gaelic or are there any from Irish? I recognise some Irish authors from the description but don’t think any of them were writing in Irish. I was wondering if there was anything new (to me) there :)

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    1. I was interested in a similar question, as a Welsh speaker. I don't think there are any stories translated from Welsh in here. I don't think that's because we don't have weird tales - but perhaps because there's not a lot of translation of anything outside the Mabinogion?

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    2. That's something I hope to address in Celtic Weird 2. And will need scholarly help on, I think.

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    3. Many thanks Jonny. I suspect there may be people at University of Wales, National Library of Wales, or even Jesus College Oxford who might be sufficiently scholarly. Much as I love Machen I don't really feel his Monmouthshire is really the Wales I grew up in, out west, in the wilds. He always feels much more 'Roman' rather than 'Celtic' to me.

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  4. I really hope you enjoy the rest of the book. Was a pleasure to do, and I am absolutely thrilled that you have it!

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    1. I should also note that the British Library (as publisher) did a very attractive job of it.

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    2. Stunning book, shame about the editor? 😂

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