PS 108 – Community Pages

Murdoch’s Black Dog

4 November 201627 January 2017 Barnaby BrownHistorical Documents

This title bothers me: It is one of pibroch’s unsolved mysteries. No-one has come up with a convincing interpretation. There are two dogs in Colin Campbell’s Instrumental Book 1797: ‘Samuell’s Black dog’ (PS 108) and ‘McLeod’s Dog Short Tail’ (PS 131), but we[…]

Sorley’s Black Dog

26 October 201627 January 2017 Barnaby BrownHistorical Documents

The children’s game ‘Telephone’ (called ‘Chinese whispers’ in the UK) can have hilarious results. It works best when the seed phrase is unexpected. The same is true in oral transmission: bigger changes occur when the model is unfamiliar. If no template[…]