Fairies and Shamans in My Scotland? – The Secret Commonwealth by Robert Kirk

The Secret Commonwealth or A Treatise Displaying the Chief Curousities among the People of Scotland as they are in Use to This Day by the Reverand Robert Kirk is a famous study on 17^th century folk beliefs where Kirk sums up many of the beliefs around faeries and the second sight prevalent amongst his parishioners in 1690s Aberfoyle. It’s a book I remember hearing about during my undergraduate at Aberdeen, but at the time the only copy was in the Heavy Demand section, and so it was only this year that I finally managed to get a hold of a copy of the Folklore Society edition edited by Stewart Sanderson from my local university library in Glasgow. Or at least, I thought that I had taken out the Folklore Society version – what I had actually taken out was the edition by ceremonial magician and occultist R J Stewart. Realising I had made a mistake I did eventually take out the Folklore Society version as well, so in a rare treat the Alt Clud Review of Books is reviewing two books for the price of one.

The story of Robert Kirk is fascinating in his own right. An Episcopalian Minister who spent large parts of his career trying to make sure that his Gaelic speaking parishioners had access to the Bible in their own language. (He helped translate the first Gaelic Bible in Scotland ) Far from the stereotype of a 19^th century vicar spending all their time collecting rocks or a 17th Century Witchfinder General out to destroy everything outside of their world view, Kirk’s history is one about someone deeply interested in the life of his parishioners and focused on understanding the wider spiritual world they lived in of faeries and Second Sight. This marks out The Secret Commonwealth as it not an anthropological study on Highland folklore from someone outside the community, but is instead a text by someone from within that world writing about the beliefs in a scientific manner so that those outside its world could understand it better. Kirk is a believer in the Second Sight, but he is also an orthodox 17^th century Christian, and so what comes together is a fascinating study that uses empirical evidence, testimony Scriptural reference and philosophical insight to create an argument for the lived experience of 17^th century Highlanders. I’m glad I read it and if your interested in Highland folk beliefs then I can definitely recommend it.

But what edition would I recommend. My readers probably are going to think that I would chose Sanderson’s edition, and certainly if you want an excellent biography of Kirk alongside the text thenyou would choose Sanderson. However, Sanderson provides very little commentary on the actual text – leaving much of it obscure to the reader – and from a readability level, the quality of the printing is very poor, with a horrible Courier font that makes the text hard to read. (The text was published in 1976 on a limited run and so I can only imagine this is a cost issue.)

Stewart’s edition on the other hand has both the benefit of modernised spelling and a very full commentary on the elements of the text he finds interesting. Now I don’t want to oversell this, Stewart is someone deeply interested in the occult elements and much of his commentary is casting light on more obscure (and tangential elements) of Kirk’s treatise such as the fact that in Kirk’s system faeries are reincarnated and the occasional mention of occultists within Kirk’s work. That being said, most of the commentary are just summaries of Kirk’s main points in simpler English, and if you can ignore the occasional digression into speculations on Shamanism then they can be useful guides. Things get a lot more ropey in the appendixes – largely because a few of them are unrelated occult essays on Scottish border poetry which I feel where largely added to make sure the book got over 150 pages. (That’s not a condemnation – if an author wants to publish something and the publisher goes “it needs to be slightly longer” then I don’t think it’s unfair for them to pad it out a bit.) Also the less said about the diagrams (see opposite picture) the better!

Ultimately The Secret Commonwealth is a fascinating document that could really use a modern edition with commentary that is accessible to a general audience. However until that day, I would recommend you get a hold of both modern versions of the texts as Sanderson’s biography and Stewart’s commentary together provide reasonable background for understanding Kirk’s text. That being said, if anyone does know of a better version of The Secret Commonwealth please let me know as I get the feeling I’m going to be trying to find out more about the varied and interesting life of Robert Kirk for years to come.