AN OUTLINE OF MANX LITERATURE

In addition to an author who has something worth while to say and has the skill to say it, the production of a literature generally involves several other factors. First, an audience to hear or read or see, and appreciate, what has been composed; second, the means to sustain the author while he works at his art, and third, the means to make his work available to the audience. The support of authors may be through the generosity of a patron, through payment by the audience, or through the author's having another occupation which allows sufficient leisure for his literary work. The work may be made available orally through the mobility of the author or his audience, but if it is to be diffused through the medium of writing then a literate audience is required and a large enough one to make the production of books worth while for copyists, printers or publishers, and a rich enough one to pay for such books when produced.

The audience for Manx literature has during most of its history been too small and too poor, and its authors too lacking in patrons and therefore unable to live by authorship, for us to expect a rich harvest of literary works in the language. What has survived in manuscript and in print has a strong bias to religious subjects, since the clergy and other serious-minded people were the most likely to have the education and the leisure for authorship, and educational and religious charities were the most likely to produce the grants in aid of publication which alone could bring books within the limited means of those for whom they were intended. Such constraints do not necessarily apply to oral composition and transmission; neither author nor audience need be literate composition is a spare-time activity, and the rewards are likely to be limited to entertainment and hospitality and the acquisition of a degree of local celebrity. These economic and social factors, however, have left their mark on literary composition in Manx.

The earliest datable text, though preserved in manuscripts of the second half of the eighteenth century, can on internal evidence be assigned to the sixteenth century at the latest. It is a poem purporting to give a potted history of the Island from the introduction of Christianity, and though transmitted orally for much of its existence, seems likely to have originated in antiquarian speculation based on tradition, place-names and documentary history [l]. Its recording in the eighteenth century seems to be part of a movement about that period to recover old oral verse, a consequence of the controversy aroused by James Macpherson's 'translations' of the poems of 'Ossian' from Scottish Gaelic. The rejection of these on the a priori ground that no such poems could exist stimulated a search throughout the Gaelic world for evidence, here perhaps at the instance of the Rev. James McLagan, an army chaplain in the Island and a notable collector throughout a long life (1728-1805) in Scotland. In Man only one such piece was recorded at this time, a poem about Fin and Oshin [2], derived from Gaelic tradition, with a parallel in Irish where many poems from this cycle of stories survive from the later Middle Ages. According to one of the manuscripts the Manx poem had become a ballad with a 'Fal la la' refrain.

Also first recorded in the eighteenth century but dating obviously from the seventeenth is another ballad poem on the death of Illiam Dhone [3], the patriot William Christian executed in 1662. This poem and the Traditionary Ballad probably owe their survival to their being revived in connection with political events in the eighteenth century. Other popular poetry, however, escaped notice until the interest in folk-song collecting in the later nineteenth century. Most of the rest of what survives we owe to such collections, and much of what was available was published by A. W. Moore in his Manx Ballads (1896)[4], but some collectors were earlier in the field and one early nineteenth century song collection has recently come to light in manuscript form, some items of which are in course of publication. The contents of these collections are very varied: children's rhymes and assorted stray stanzas which have lost their context; poems on local personalities and events which can sometimes be dated, such as the loss of the herring fleet in a storm off Douglas in 1787, or the sea battle between Thurot and Elliot off the west coast in 1760, or the search for the snowbound sheep in Ny kirree fo niaghtey about 1700; songs of love and courtship; and some connected with folk belief and practice[5].

The main body of original verse takes the form of carvals, religious poetry on a variety of themes. Verse of a similar kind is found in Gaelic Scotland near the end of the seventeenth century, and is itself a development of a genre well known to the Gaelic professional poets of the Middle Ages. The Manx poems, however, appear to belong to the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, early eighteenth century dates are assigned to a few of them but the manuscript evidence is lacking to support them, and the manuscripts point to the second half of the century. The carvals had an institutional setting to provide a motive for preserving them and for continuing to compose them, in that they were traditionally sung in the parish churches on Christmas Eve. Some are closely concerned with the Christmas season, but most treat a collection of subjects taken from the whole theme of salvation, from the fall of man to the last judgment. A small number concentrate on a single Biblical character, while others are more concerned with more abstract moral themes such as charity and temperance. The poems are recorded in manuscript collections written up by named individuals and ranging from a handful of poems to quite large numbers. The length of such poems ranges from forty or fifty lines up to two or three hundred, arranged in stanzas chiefly of four or eight lines, and probably modelled on the metres of the metrical psalms. For any one poem the evidence ranges from a single copy to twenty or more. The total number of these poems known from manuscripts in public collections is about 150, and about half of these were printed in A. W. Moore's Carvalyn Gailckagh (1891)[6]. Some of the rest were printed by P. W. Caine in newspapers during the Great War but a collected edition failed to appear.

The majority of the material designed to be printed is translated and on religious subjects. A bridge between this and the original verse is provided by the abridgment of Milton's Paradise Lost to about 4000 lines, in heroic couplets, published by the Rev. Thomas Christian in 1796, but probably written between twenty and thirty years earlier [7]. Milton provides the matter of the poem but the translator has rearranged it in chronological sequence and shortened the treatment in varying degrees in different parts of the poem as he thought best for his audience, concentrating on the narrative sections. It is the general sense which is translated not the precise wording of the original, so that the result has some claim to be considered a composition in its own right.

Generally, however, strict translation was the intent, as in the first certainly datable work extant in a nearly contemporary manuscript. This is Bishop John Phillips' Manx version of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, completed by him in 1610, and surviving in a manuscript of c.1630 [8].

It was not printed at that time for unknown reasons of which expense was probably one; the manuscript shows signs of having been used in the later seventeenth century and had not been lost sight of early in the eighteenth. This was the largest single work attempted in Manx before the Bible. The bishop was Welsh, which may have given him a better appreciation of the need for such a translation, and as far as is known he had the task of reducing continuous Manx, as distinct from isolated names of persons and places, to writing for the first time. Though his system differs in important respects from that followed in the next century and subsequently, he laid down the general scheme of Manx orthography for good. Neither he nor anyone else in Man, of course, was acquainted with the very different traditional Gaelic spelling. The language of the text in grammar and vocabulary is clearly though not greatly more archaic than that of the eighteenth-century writings, and in these respects only the Traditionary Ballad is comparable. The quality of the translation is uneven, much of it exhibiting good Gaelic idiom, but with occasional lapses into the most literal renderings of the English original. There appear to be two hands in the translation, and there is evidence that the Rev. Hugh Cannell, vicar of Kirk Michael, and the bishop's nearest clerical neighbour at Bishopscourt, assisted him in the work of translating. There is a clear distinction on linguistic grounds between the Prayer Book proper and the Psalter attached to it. This work gives a valuable insight into the state of the language at a time when the influence of bilingualism had scarcely begun and its effects were still confined to the vocabulary.

The first printed work in Manx dates from 1707. Bishop Thomas Wilson had composed in English a much expanded version of the Prayer Book catechism, The principles and Duties of Christianity, and had it translated into Manx by some of the clergy and published as a bilingual text in parallel columns for use in the diocese [9]. The orthography differs from that adopted by Bishop Phillips and, although not fully stabilised at this date, is virtually the same as that of all later printed matter, differing only in the details of some words. The translation is fairly close but not slavish and generally provides an object lesson in the art of rendering a more abstract and learned English style in simple and natural Manx.

It was just about this time that the first interest in Manx from outside the Island was shown. Edward Lluyd, the father of Celtic philology, published, also in 1707, the first and only volume of his Archaeoloqia Britannica, including a handful of Manx words, and a copy of the material he had collected for him in the Island by one of his assistants has recently come to light [10]. Lluyd was a pioneer in many ways, not least in his use of his 'universal alphabet', the germ of a true phonetic alphabet, based upon Welsh conventions, in which he wrote down what he heard, so that we have in his word lists the first evidence of the sound of Manx independent of the conventions of writing adopted by those who spoke it.

The next project for translation was a Manx version of the Bible, beginning with the publication of St. Matthew's Gospel in 1748 from a version probably made about twenty years earlier [11]. A revision of this, together with other Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, appeared in 1763 [12], and a first edition of the Epistles and Revelation in 1767 [13]. These had been translated by a small group, but the Old Testament required the services of all the clergy to be enlisted, and as a result of their efforts the first half, Genesis to Esther, appeared in 1771, reprinted in 1772, and the second half, Job to Malachi, together with Wisdom and Eccles- iasticus from the Apocrypha completed the whole Bible in 1775 [14]. Five more texts from the Apocrypha, notably Tobit and Judith, survived in manuscript to be printed in 1979.

The translators' drafts were revised by a small editorial group who normalised the spelling and terminology, and sometimes removed renderings which seemed Insufficiently close to the original, but generally seem not to have scrutinised the translation very closely. The translators worked from the Authorised Version in English for the most part though a few consulted the Greek version of the Old Testament in addition. Many of the freer renderings of obscure passages derive from the translator's own understanding or from the commentators available at the time. Though the standard of the Manx varies from book to book, and the editors seem rarely to have corrected their colleagues' grammar, the work as a whole is of a high standard and reflects great credit on those who produced it.The work was initiated by Bishop Wilson but made little progress in his time, and his successor Bishop Mark Hildesley was responsible for urging on the translators and tapping the charitable funds without which publication and distribution would have been impossible.

At the same time as the New Testament was appearing an edition of the Prayer Book was in preparation. This was a new work as regards the Prayer Book proper, though the Psalter, which preserved the seventeenth century English text unchanged (while the Biblical matter in the Prayer Book was brought into line with the Authorised Version in the revision which followed the Restoration of 1660), was only revised and retains a large part of Phillips' version. This in turn was taken over by the Bible translators and Manx therefore has no version of the Psalms corresponding to the Authorised Version. The first printing of the Prayer Book appeared in-1765; the text only is in Manx, all the rubrics being left in English, unlike the 1610 version [15].

One other edifying work was also printed about this time, a translation of the short volume The Christian Monitor, a late seventeenth century work which had passed through many editions in English, and appeared in Manx in 1763 [16]. It is an excellent piece of translation and shows the language at its best, demonstrating its capacity for handling quite involved and complex sentences, and was the work of the Rev. Paul Crebbin vicar of Santon, who unfortunately did not live to take part in the translation of the Old Testament.

Another English work of Bishop Wilson, his Short and Plain Instruction for the better understanding of the Lord's Supper, appeared in Manx and English, in parallel columns or on facing pages, in 1777 [17]. He left also a body of English sermons 99 of which were printed in a collected edition after his death, and from this a selection of 22 was translated into Manx and published in 1783 [18]. Both of these works follow the standard Bible spelling, and both are good translations, the sermons particularly offering a good deal of material not found elsewhere.

A by-product of Bible translation was the beginning of interest in analysing and describing the language. The young John Kelly (1750-1809) acted as copyist of the text for the press and as proof-reader, and subsequently went to Cambridge and was ordained. As a youth he had begun a dictionary of Manx and he continued to expand this work in the years following. He did not publish it but a version of it appeared in 1866, edited by the Rev. William Gill [19]. Kelly also compiled a triglot dictionary, based on the Rev. William Shaw's English and Galic Dictionary (1780) translating English into Manx, Irish and Scottish Gaelic in parallel columns this was due for publication in 1805, but a fire at the printers during its production put an end to the project. The manuscript was utilised by the Rev. William Gill and the Rev. J.T. Clarke to provide a counterpart to the edition of the Manx-English dictionary of 1866. Kelly also produced a sketch of the grammar of the language, very much under the influence of grammars of the classical languages and virtually confined to accidence, which he published in 1804 [20]. Kelly's preoccupation with accidence prevented his seeing that what really needs to be described in a Manx grammar is syntax, and his knowledge of Scottish and Irish Gaelic and his etymological theorising make him at times an unreliable witness to Manx vocabulary. He is, nevertheless, our only source for a considerable quantity of that kind of vocabulary which lies outside the predominantly religious interest of our printed and manuscript texts.

The other Manx lexicographer is Archibald Cregeen whose dictionary was published in 1835 [21]. He appears to have been particularly concerned at the difficulties posed for learners by the changes in the initial consonants of words and gave up much valuable space to entering such mutated forms as well as their radicals. His dictionary, though on a smaller scale than Kelly's, has the advantage of marking the genders and plurals of nouns, and some of the inflections of prepositions and verbs, and is in addition much less prone to the inclusion of fanciful words and terms added by analogy with the other Gaelic languages. There are a good many references to scriptural examples, and proverbs and phrases are freely cited. Despite undoubted omissions and oversights it is a safer and more sober guide than Kelly, as well as a more informative one.

The end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century saw an increase in the number but a diminution in the scale of Manx publications. One genre which makes its appearance about this time is the hymn book: a selection of metrical psalms had been made in 1761 and attached to the Prayer Book, and further unofficial translations were made from the same source. The introduction of Methodism in the 1770's stimulated the translations of hymns for Manx-speaking congregations, and several collections were published, beginning with that of 1795 which contains 147 hymns mainly from Methodist sources but also drawing on Watts, Addison, Ken, Cowper, and others [22]. The number of hymns rose steadily in subsequent issues to 221 in 1846. It does not appear that the composition of hymns in Manx was common, despite the existence of so many carvals, but the translators exhibit a considerable degree of skill, sometimes in difficult metres. The same, regrettably, cannot often be said of the additional psalms translated by the Rev. John Clague some time before 1809, but not published.

He did, however, publish a catechism, a translation of one by H. Crossman, in 1814, and this was only one of several such works to appear in Manx, J. Lewis's in 1769, and Catechism ny Killagh in 1802 [23]. In 1822 a version of the Thirty-nine Articles (not included in the Manx Prayer Book) was printed in London, and by the same printer six of the sermons in the Book of Homilies (1-111, VI-VII, IX); the Articles and possibly the Homilies are thought to be the work of the Rev. J.T. Clarke. A considerable body of short tracts published by various societies also appeared in the first half of the nineteenth century. A translation of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and the beginning of another, exist in manuscript.

For much of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century sermons in Manx were being composed and a great many of these survive in manuscript, often with annotations showing where and when (and how often) they were delivered. The extent to which this large corpus is original or how far it may be translated from or inspired by printed sermons in English has not been investigated. A solitary specimen, composed in 1815, was published in 1947 [24].

In the nineties Edward Faragher (1831-1908) the last native writer of Manx, wrote down for Archdeacon Kewley a number; of recollections of his own life chiefly spent as a fisherman, and of anecdotes, customs and old stories he remembered, as well as composing verse in both Manx and English and translating some of Aesop's Fables. Only the last were published at the time, in 1901; but the original prose has now been printed [25].

For most of the present century the emphasis has been on aids to learning the language and on reprinting older works. The principal exceptions are Cooinaghtyn Manninagh by Dr John Clague (1842-1908), a collection of folklore, tradition and anecdote published posthumously in 1911 [26], and the volume Skeealaght (1976) in which four authors combined to produce a collection of anecdotes, traditional stories, and translations from other Gaelic traditions [27]. For more sustained composition we have to turn to John Gell's Cooinaghtyn my Aegid as Cooinaghtyn Elley, and to the novel he was working on up to his death in 1983 [28].

Robert L. Thomson