The Green Island
Transcription of extracts from ‘The Green Island’ by Rev. John Gregorson Campbell.
The eminent folklorist Rev. John Gregorson Campbell (1836-1891) collected many traditional stories, both from Tiree itself and other parts of the west coast, during the time he served as Tiree’s minister.
In the 1880s he wrote an essay about the ‘Green Island’, an enchanted isle in the Atlantic, sometimes above the waves, often submerged, which was believed by some to be west of Tiree. Indeed, a mythical island in the west has been part of European tradition since earliest times.
In his essay Campbell suggested that in the wanderings of the tribes of north-west Europe and the communication between Iceland, Ireland and the Western Isles of Scotland is ‘a clue to the reason of the name Greenland being given to that forbidding region.’