Scottish Customs: From the Cradle to the Grave

by Margaret Bennett

Book Overview

A highly readable and absorbing anthology of traditional Scottish customs and rites of passage, Scottish Customs from the Cradle to the Grave draws upon a broad range of literary and oral sources. Scotland has been fortunate to have written accounts of intrepid early travellers such as Martin Martin, Edward Burt and John Lane Buchanan, and extracts from their writing are found alongside modern interviews made by Margaret Bennett and researchers from...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 184158293X
• ISBN13: 9781841582931
• Release Date: December 2004
• Publisher: Birlinn
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.6" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Wow

This is fascinating. I love the details of everyday life down to the most ordinary things. A fascinating look at our own lives if we lived them in Scotland. Makes me want to visit there.

Accessible, comprehensive book about Scottish life and beliefs

This book is the real deal - it's based on multiple conversations with real Scottish people, who shared their most intimate life stories as well as the stories of their parents, grandparents and earlier ancestors. Anyone who wants to truly "get" Scottish culture (which has changed, of course, but still reflects its history), needs to add this book to the library.

Scottish Customs: From the Cradle to the Grave

Scottish Customs: From The Cradle To The Grave The best book for my needs.

Scottish Customs

I'd say the previous reviewer covered this one pretty well. This is a well-written guide to the customs and culture of Scotland literally from the cradle to the grave, looking at motherhood, childhood, courting and youthful romance, some recent and modern marital traditions, real 'Highland Weddings', the Scottish attitudes towards death, burial rites, and the associated bodies of spirituality and folklore for all of these topics. The bulk of the book's text is the writings of Scots (or foreign observers of their customs), mostly in the 19th and 20th Centuries, though some of the book's content goes back as far as the later Middle Ages. This means that most of it is the memories and first-hand experiences of people who have lived the unique customs of Scotland. I greatly enjoyed this book, and anyone interested in the culture of recent-modern Scotland will as well.

What a relief!

As someone of Scottish descent and a student of Anthropology and History, I really appreciated this text. There are a myriad of books available that purport to tell about Scottish customs, or focus on some narrow aspect of Scottish life, such as clan associations. This book, however, addresses the whole gamet of life of the Scottish folk, from motherhood and child-rearing, through the rites of passage into adulthood, and finally the passage from life into eternal life. Bennett draws upon a wide selection of historical sources, disparite in both locale and time period. Relying not only upon the historical record, but utilizing her expertise as a folklorist, Bennett elicits ethnogrpahic data which she presents and uses to draw her conclusions. She paints a vivid picture of life in Scotland that offers new and insightful ways in which to look at Scottish cultural practices. I highly recommend this lucid, yet academic and well-researched book regarding Scottish customs to anyone wishing to get beyond the surface aspects of the fascinating and vibrant traditional Scottish cultural patterns.