Alexander Carmichael

Alexander Carmichael (full name Alexander Archibald Carmichael or Alasdair Gilleasbaig MacGilleMhìcheil in his native Scottish Gaelic; 1 December 1832, Taylochan, Isle of Lismore – 6 June 1912, Barnton, Edinburgh) was a Scottish exciseman, folklorist, antiquarian, and author. Between 1860 and his death Carmichael collected a vast amount of folklore, local traditions, natural history observations, antiquarian data, and material objects from people throughout the Scottish Highlands, particularly in the southern Outer Hebrides where he lived, worked, and brought up his family between 1864 and 1882. Alexander Carmichael is best known today for Carmina Gadelica, an influential but controversial compendium of edited Highland lore and literature published in six volumes between 1900 and 1971. Amongst other points, MacInnes's preface explores the extent to which Carmichael might have embellished some of his material. In the Napier material that in some of the "old hymns" cited, Carmichael specifies "close translation", and not so with others. A folklorist with an approach to living tradition such as that of the late Hamish Henderson (also of the University of Edinburgh) on seeing such specification might have surmised that in some cases, where "close translation" was not specified, Carmichael allowed himself to enter into the tradition by allowing it to flow via his own interpretation of what he heard ... and that as an indigenous West Highland himself (from Lismore) this could be considered as being eminently appropriate - depending on how one views the rigidity or fluidity of a folk tradition..His personal collection of artefacts was gifted by his family to The West Highland Museum where it is on display.

Personal life He was an exciseman and in the course of his travels was able to collect extensive folklore. In the Napier submissions he mentions that he had often turned down promotion in order to continue as an excise man in a location that allowed his major work to be seen through. His daughter Ella who continued to publish his work after his death was married to Scottish Gaelic scholar William J. Watson.

Works Carmina Gadelica, 1900 Popular Tales of the West Highlands, 1862 Deirdire and the Lay of the Children of Uisne, 1905, Edinburgh: Norman MacLeod Publishers