Revisiting the Past for Young Readers: Retellings of Traditional Tales in Scottish Picturebooks

Ever since the years of Devolution and the birth of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, Scottish projects revolving around national heritage and culture, including traditional narrative, have received considerable funding and political support. Scotland possesses an extraordinarily rich and well-documented folk narrative tradition. Collections of traditional folk and fairy tales, as well as adaptations in picturebook-format, have always been included in children’s libraries. However, from the beginning of the twentieth century, leading up to the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum, and especially through the decade that followed, there has been a surge in the publication of picturebooks (aimed at ages three to six) based on oral narrative, and publishing houses appear to have invested more effort in their selection and design, with a view to appealing to a wider public. Amidst these publications, the Picture Kelpies1 series of Traditional Scottish Tales stands out for the number and quality of its texts and illustrations. This paper focuses on how traditional narrative is presented to and adapted for contemporary young readers. By juxtaposing a traditional oral tale (Donald MacDougall’s MacCodrum’s Seal Wife) with a recent picturebook based on the same traditional plot (Janis Mackay’s The Selkie Girl), close reading reveals substantial continuities between the two texts and illustrates the creative fluidity employed by contemporary storytellers in selecting, adapting, and repurposing traditional materials to suit the current cultural contexts and social needs of Scottish children.