Scottish Folk-Lore and Folk Life: Studies in Race, Culture and Tradition

Abstract

MR. MACKENZIE gives his readers a comprehensive view of the main heads of Scottish folk-tradition and belief. He ranges from food taboos to giants, fairies and goddesses. One of the more remarkable of the topics with which he deals is the attitude of the Scottish people towards the pig. Among the other peoples of Britain it has always been more or less a staple article of diet; but in Scotland, although there is evidence that it was eaten and was a victim in sacrifice, generally, or at least widely, it has been avoided as an article of food. Mr. Mackenzie holds that this attitude is pre-Christian, and derives it from the East, whence he thinks it may have been taken by the eastern Celts from Attis worship and the legend of the slaying of the god by a boar.