In November 1894, under public accusation of plagiarism, S.R. Crockett argued that drawing on Scottish folk tradition was what all writers did \u2014 Scott included. Four years later, in December 1898, he made that argument again in fiction. \u2018The Goodman of Ballangiech,\u2019 published in The Lady\u2019s Realm and never thereafter collected, is what that argument looks like when exercised at full creative strength. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This article examines what Crockett actually did with the Ballangiech tradition: how he relocated a story belonging to Stirlingshire and the Trossachs to the Galloway uplands, grounding it in the specific historical ecology of 1531 and the aftermath of Johnnie Armstrong\u2019s hanging at Carlanrig; how he transformed Scott\u2019s vague domestic alias into the comic figure of \u201cJames Jamieson, the King\u2019s poulterer\u201d; how he introduced a villain drawn from inside the court rather than from the hills; and how he created Elspeth Kennedy \u2014 a character with no equivalent in either of Scott\u2019s versions \u2014 whose domestic Scots voice holds the story\u2019s heroic and comic registers in sustained, confident balance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story is now available in the S.R. Crockett Online Museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An article from the Reading Room of the S.R. Crockett Online Museum.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n