Abstract
In an obscure early nineteenthcentury antiquarian publication, the Scot William Motherwell poet, journalist, ballad editor (Minstrelsy: Ancient and Modern, 1827) offered a curious historical legend, something he titled The Story of the Palmyarm Ross, claiming its verity. No parallel texts have been noted and the editor of the volume in which it appeared suggested that Motherwell fabricated the text. How then can we read it? This paper suggests that one way to place the text is to interrogate Motherwells lived experience, his habitus, and to engage in historical ethnography. In the process, the author places this study in the context of her own introduction to the study of folk narrative.
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