SOURCE: Alston, David. “The Fallen Meteor: Hugh Miller and Local Tradition.” In Hugh Miller and the Controversies of Victorian Science, edited by Michael Shortland, pp. 206-29. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.

In the following essay, Alston emphasizes Miller's analytical and literary contributions as a folklorist of Scottish legends, myths, and stories.

Hugh Miller collected around 350 traditional tales and customs,¹ the bulk of which were published in Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland (1835) and in his autobiographical My Schools and Schoolmasters (1854). This number does not include stories from written sources, which he wove together with his own collection into the ‘traditional history of Cromarty’, the subtitle of Scenes and Legends. Traditional stories also form the bulk of Tales and Sketches (1863), edited by his wife Lydia after his death, and including his biography of the Cromarty merchant William Forsyth, a work which drew on local memories and tales. Books based...