Traditional Gaelic prose of Skye: Kenneth MacLeod

Gaelic Literature of the Isle of Skye: an annotated bibliography

Traditional Prose: collections and collectors

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MACLEOD, Kenneth (1871 – 1955)

Born and brought up in Eigg, Kenneth MacLeod was for some time a lay missionary of the Church of Scotland in various places in the Highlands and Islands, before being ordained to the ministry and serving in Colonsay and Gigha. He retired in 1947 and died in 1955.

(Information from Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticane, (4:69; 8:323; 9:392).)

During his long life the Rev. Kenneth Macleod was in contact with most of the well-known names in the Gaelic literary world, but perhaps he is best known as the Gaelic collaborator of Marjory Kennedy-Fraser. Professor Donald MacKinnon proposed him as collaborator to Mrs. Kennedy-Fraser and from the late spring of 1908 he worked with her on the four volumes of Hebridean song detailed below. For a discussion of the nature and results of that collaboration, see the introductory notes to the Kennedy-Fraser Collection and the Kenneth MacLeod Collection in the section for poetry and song.

See also entries for Kenneth MacLeod in the section for poetry and song of known authorship;

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Sgioobhaidhean Choinnich MhicLeòid: the Gaelic Prose of Kenneth MacLeod. Edited by Thomas Moffatt Murchison. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press for the Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, 1988.

Kenneth MacLeod wrote beautiful Gaelic prose in a style which owed much to the traditional Gaelic style as well as bearing the mark of his own distinctive personality. More than thirty years after his death this collection of his Gaelic prose writings edited by the Rev. T. M. Murchison was published in the Scottish

Gaelic Texts Society series. The editor’s English-language introduction (pp. i-xlv) gives a valuable account of Kenneth MacLeod’s life and work. The text is arranged in a series of sections or categories. Much of the material in this collection had not been previously published; where I have traced previous publication of any of the items, this has been noted below. Some of the material could be classified as non-traditional creative prose; details are listed in the appropriate section of this bibliography); other material is listed in the section for journalism and miscellaneous prose. Listed below are all the section headings for the collection, with items of traditional prose noted.