made of Duncan by Peggy McClements (1936), John Lorne Campbell (early 1950s), and Calum Iain Maclean (1947-53). In other words, the stories contributed by Donald John from Duncan and Neil are more similar to Craig – and to each other – than to versions taken down by other collectors. This finding is anomalous – Donald John’s texts are the most temporally distant from Craig’s transcriptions of any of the extant versions. One would expect the language of storytellers to evolve over time. For a person to suddenly revert back to how he or she told a tale ten years prior would be highly unusual. Furthermore, it is understood that Neil is a separate individual from Duncan. These two variables – temporal distance and the involvement of a separate narrator – would be expected to be associated with more, rather than less variation. A close textual examination of the texts, such as Bruford himself conducted, provides hints of the underlying relationship between Donald John’s texts and those of Craig. However, once a quantitative analysis is carried out, the level of intersection between them is so extensive, and their divergence from the texts of other collectors so marked, as to suggest only one conclusion: Donald John’s texts of Neil and Duncan are not independent from Craig’s published texts of Duncan. In fact, there is strong evidence (see §3.1.3 below) to suggest that Donald John visually copied Craig’s work into his manuscripts, word for word in some places, and slightly altered in others. This is a surprising finding, and it raises a number of interesting questions and implications that will be explored in the current paper. Abbreviations used Cat ‘Am Fear a Thug Cait dhan Tuirc’ CG ‘Conall Gulban’ CIM Calum Iain Maclean DJM Donald John MacDonald DJM-D Duncan MacDonald’s texts in the Donald John MacDonald ms collection DJM-N Neil MacDonald’s texts in the Donald John MacDonald ms collection EM ‘Eachdraidh Mhànuis’ GS ‘Gruagach nan Sealg’ IFC Irish Folklore Commission IO ‘Iain Òg Mac Rìgh na Frainge’ JLC John Lorne Campbell NP Noun phrase Old Ms ‘Old manuscript’
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