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Paper short abstract

Recorded archival stories collapse time, so a listener experiences both closeness and distance from the performance. Comparing versions of the “Gifts of the Little People” across Ireland and Scotland highlights how storytellers, transcribers, and audiences navigate “naturalness” in an old story.

Paper long abstract

Archival recordings of folk narratives create a collapsed time in which audiences can experience “being there,” but also a distancing effect through material evidence such as tape distortion and degradation. This paper considers a collection of 77 versions of the “Gifts of the Little People,” ATU 503, told across Ireland and Scotland in the early 20th century, all transcribed from audio recordings of storytellers held in the Irish National Folklore Collection and the School of Scottish Studies Archives. In some cases, both recording and transcription are still available, and in a few cases even publicly available online. The archival materials associated with these texts, including the recordings, metadata, and interviews from the storytelling session, inform modern understanding of the past performance environment. The act of transcription, by hand and digital, adds another layer of mediation and shapes the ways in which a story is re-performed in subsequent listening and reading. The effects of time, technology, and layers of mediation become apparent when comparing many different versions of the “same” story. A story that centers on the fairy fort, ATU 503 also highlights the ways in which storytellers imagine the overlap of the human, the natural, and the supernatural world. Examining the marks of technology can highlight the work of both storytellers and transcribers as they navigate the “natural” way to tell an old story.