Talk on cultural links between Shetland and Norway, with a t...

Original Track ID

SA1989.195

Original Tape ID

SA1989.195

Summary

Talk on cultural links between Shetland and Norway, with a trow story.

When George Peterson was a boy on Papa Stour, his grand uncle pointed out the grave of Tirval. Tirval's daughter refused to marry the man of Tirval's choice, so he stranded her on top of a stack. She was taken off, and Tirval located her on the other side of the sound with a young man. Pretending friendship, he carried the young man back to Papa Stour, where he was shortly found dead, in a meadow thereafter called MacLennan's Meadow. Dr Barbara Crawford found a historical record of Tirval (Thorvald Thorison) in Bergen, dated 1299. According to folk memory, Tirval and his sons were wrecked on the sunken reef known as Tirval's Baa.

Shetland trows (trolls) are another link with Norway. Mr Peterson evokes the world of dim light and moving shadows before electric lighting, and tells a story. A widow called Mallie gave bere [a kind of barley] to a trow, leaving her children hungry. She sent them to beg from her well-off neighbour, but the neighbour turned them away, using the saying, "Chow the sweet side of your tongue." Mallie was rewarded by finding gold coins in her peat. The neighbour went to the same place for peat [break to turn tape] but what she got was an infestation of mice, and she had to beg from Mallie.

Item Notes

Recorded at the Netherbow, Edinburgh.

Item Subject/Person

Thorison, Thorvald [Tirval]

Recording Location

Item Location

Language

English, Scots

Genre

Story Information Other

Collection

SoSS

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Fair