The Flight of the Golden Bird: Scottish Folk Tales for Children

by Duncan Williamson

Overview

Duncan Williamson, one of Scotland's Travelling People, has been celebrated as the bearer of Scotland's greatest national treasure: the richest trove of story and song in Europe. In this collection, he passes on some of these wonderful children's folk and fairy tales, collected from sixty years of travelling around Scotland. This collection includes stories about silver horses and golden birds, cunning lions and trilling nightingales, brave princesses and magic scarecrows, the four seasons and old Father Time. At the heart of each story is a lesson about life and what it means to be a good person. The stories have been written down as faithfully as possible to Duncan's unique storytelling voice, full of colour, humour and life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781782500278
Publisher:	Floris Books
Publication date:	08/22/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
File size:	270 KB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Duncan Williamson was born in 1928 on the shores of Loch Fyne. He was the seventh of sixteen children born to a family of Travellers, who set up camp in the same place every winter and wandered the Highlands during the summer, hawking their tin and natural willow wares. Duncan left home at the age of fifteen and spent the next forty years travelling, continuing the traditional trades of his people. In 1980 he moved into a farm cottage in Fife with his second wife, Linda, who transcribed some of his vast repertoire of songs, stories and family history. Duncan died in 2007, leaving behind a worldwide legacy. His reputation was extraordinary and the impact of his storytelling continues in literary editions of his work, published by Canongate, Cambridge UniversityPress, Penguin, Mondadori, and more recently Birlinn, Luath Press and Floris Books. Linda Williamson was born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1949. She has a PhD from Edinburgh University, and is an American folklorist, storyteller and editor. She has three children and five grandchildren — on both sides of the Atlantic. She was married to Duncan Williamson.

Editorial Reviews

'Storytellers and those who enjoy reading aloud will find this an excellent resource filled with lively language.'
– Kirkus Reviews

'A delightful collection of tales that any child will love.'
– Lothian Life

From the Publisher

2014-02-26
More traditional tales from Scotland. Williamson, who died in 2007, was one of Scotland's Travelling People, and he collected and told stories from the oral tradition. In this companion to The Coming of the Unicorn (2012), humans, rabbits, foxes, donkeys and hedgehogs "follow the solar year and mark the progress of its seasons according to Traveller tradition." Each tale rewards goodness and kindness over greed and selfishness. Some will be familiar to storytellers, including "The Twelve White Swans" and "Princess and the Glass Hill." There's a rewarding mix of humor, trickery and devotion, along with cautionary tales about spiders and flies, safety in numbers and listening to gossip. Three Christmas stories, religious and secular, and a touching tale of Father Time and the coming of the New Year conclude the volume. Storytellers and those who enjoy reading aloud will find this an excellent resource filled with lively language. Ever-present is an enormous respect for traditional ways and beliefs, as written in the opening lines of "The Twelve Seasons": "My father told me this story years and years ago when I was wee. I never saw it in a book or heard anyone before him telling it." Sit back and listen to the words of the old folks and their bygone ways. (glossary of Scottish words) (Folk tales. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews