RIP Duncan Williamson

One of Scotland's greatest storytellers has gone. Let's hope that in his recordings some of his stories remain to be passed on.

Duncan James Williamson, storyteller and singer, born April 11 1928; died November 8 2007

"I was reared, born and bred on stories. That's all I had in my life." So said Scotland's greatest contemporary storyteller, Duncan Williamson, who has died of a stroke aged 79. A member of the Scottish Traveller community, Duncan learned his stories, and a repertoire of traditional songs and ballads, from fellow Travellers, including family members. He reached a wider Scottish audience after a folk festival appearance in 1968, and later achieved international recognition - through his second wife, the American folklorist Linda Headlee - for his live performances and published collections of stories.

Duncan was born in a tent on the banks of Loch Fyne, near Furnace in Argyll, the seventh of 16 children. Neither parent could read or write, but pipers, singers and storytellers on both sides of the family were testament to a rich oral culture. His father, a basketmaker and tinsmith, was determined that his children should get a basic education, and Duncan went to school in Furnace until, at 14, he was apprenticed to a stonemason and drystone-dyker, Neil MacCallum, who told him stories in English mixed up with words and phrases in Gaelic. A year later, he left home with an older brother, travelling all over Argyll and Perth. He worked as a farm labourer and became a horse dealer.
Duncan first heard stories and songs within the family, including a version of the classic supernatural ballad, Tam Lin, from his grandmother, Bet McColl. Duncan recalled his father's storytelling in the introduction to his own collection of stories, Fireside Tales of the Traveller Children (1983). He knew his father was telling him something that "was going to stand us through our entire life", and even though they may have had no food to eat, "we were full of love of our father's voice". He also recalled listening, at the age of 24, to an old man telling stories from 10 o'clock at night through to six the next morning. Such was the power of the storytelling culture of the Travellers.

It was this culture that the Scottish folklorist Hamish Henderson described so eloquently in his introduction to Duncan and Linda's A Thorn in the King's Foot: Folktales of the Scottish Travelling People (1986). There, Henderson described Duncan as "possibly the most extraordinary tradition-bearer of the whole Traveller tribe".

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