List of fictional Scots
The following notable Scottish characters have appeared in fictional works.
The Scottish people or Scots, are an ethnic group indigenous to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of Celtic peoples — the Picts, the Gaels, and the Brythons. The Latin word Scotti originally applied to a particular, 5th century, Gaelic tribe that inhabited Ireland.[1][2]
Authors of romantic fiction have been influential in creating the popular image of Scots as kilted Highlanders, noted for their military prowess, bagpipes, rustic kailyard and doomed Jacobitism. Sir Walter Scott's Waverley novels were especially influential as they were widely read and highly praised in the 19th century. The author organised the pageantry for the visit of King George IV to Scotland which started the vogue for tartanry and Victorian Balmoralism which did much to create the modern Scottish national identity.[3][4]
Fictional Scottish characters
- Adam McAdam is "an arrogant and scheming little Scotsman" in Oliver Oliphant's Owd Bob.[5] The story, a children's classic, involves contests of skill and reputation between sheepdogs.
- Amy Pond - a companion of Doctor Who. The character was originally conceived as English but was changed to use the natural Inverness accent of the actress playing the part.[6]
- Bella Caledonia (Scotland as a woman) invokes Scots iconography, including plaid, thistles, and the Forth Railway Bridge. She is an artificial woman, Bella Baxter, in Alasdair Gray's 1992 novel Poor Things.[7]
- Jean Brodie, the titular character in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, exemplifies aspects of both Calvinist and Roman Catholic influence in Scotland.[8]
- The Broons are a large, tenement-dwelling, extended family in the DC Thomson cartoon strip of the same name. The publisher's similar strips about the young lad, Oor Wullie, are set in the same fictional town of Auchenshoogle.[9]
- Connor and Duncan MacLeod were immortal Highlanders in film and television.[10]
- Donald Farfrae successfully romances the Mayor of Casterbridge's lover and daughter. Simultaneously "sentimental and astute", he is one of the earliest exemplars of Kailyardism.[11]
- David Balfour is the central character of Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. This was based upon the Appin Murder and so many of the other characters, such as Alan Breck Stewart, were real people. The sequel, Catriona, is also known as David Balfour: Being Memoirs of His Adventures at Home and Abroad.[12]
- Desmond Hume is a character from the ABC television show Lost.[13] Henry Ian Cusick, the actor who portrays him, is of Peruvian and Scottish descent and was raised in Scotland, UK for part of his life.[14]
- Dr. Finlay is the central character of popular stories by A.J.Cronin, set in the fictional village of Tannochbrae. Other characters included partner Dr Cameron, housekeeper Janet and rival Dr Snoddie.[15] The television productions have been seen as an example of modern Kailyardism.[16]
- Fat Bastard is a grotesquely fat Scotsman in the Austin Powers comedies.[17]
- Fingal is the hero of "Ossian", a poem by James Macpherson.[18] Notable features such as Fingal's Cave are named after him.[19]
- Groundskeeper Willie is a well-loved character in The Simpsons. He has flaming red hair and a powerful, muscular body.[20] A 2007 study conducted in the US concluded that Willie was the character that US residents "...most believe personifies the Scottish temperament."[21]
- Jack Parlabane is the journalist hero of the novels by Christopher Brookmyre such as Quite Ugly One Morning.[22][23]
- James Bond - following the success of Sean Connery in the role, author Ian Fleming gave Bond a mixed parentage - a Scottish father and Swiss mother. This background gave the character a colonial perspective, being an outsider in England.[24]
- Jamie Fraser is the Laird of Broch Tuarach in the Outlander stories.[25]
- Jamie McCrimmon - an early companion of Doctor Who. He was a piper and wore a kilt.[26]
- Mr. Mackay - the stern prison officer in Porridge which also featured McClaren as a black Scottish inmate and hard man.[27]
- Malcolm Tucker is the aggressive, profane and feared Government Director of communications, in the BBC Comedy The Thick of It. He was played by Peter Capaldi, who is a Glaswegian, but who actually based the character on the behaviour of Hollywood agents and producers such as Harvey Weinstein.[28]
- Minerva McGonagall - the head of Gryffindor house in the Harry Potter stories. She was named after the notorious Scottish poet William McGonagall.[29]
- Moira MacTaggert is the colleague and sometime fiancée of Professor X in the X-Men comic.[30]
- Montgomery Scott is the chief engineer in Star Trek, famous for the alleged catchphrase, "Beam me up, Scotty".[31] The actor, James Doohan, was Canadian and auditioned with a variety of accents but suggested that Scottish would be best for the character, following the long tradition of Scottish nautical engineering. Director Gene Roddenberry liked the accent and so it was settled.[32]
- Para Handy - the captain of a puffer on the Clyde in the popular stories by Neil Munro, which have been filmed many times.[33] His crew included Dan Macphail, Dougie, Hurricane Jack, Sunny Jim and The Tar.[34]
- Private James Frazer - the miserly undertaker in Dad's Army[35] who comes from the bleak Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides.[36]
- Rab C. Nesbitt - a dissolute Glaswegian in the eponymous comedy.[37]
- Redgauntlet is a novel by Sir Walter Scott which contains numerous Scottish characters including the Laird of Redgauntlet, hero Darsie Latimer and musician Wandering Willie.[38]
- Richard Hannay - a stalwart of the British Empire in the stories by John Buchan, he was born in Edinburgh like his real-life inspiration, the spy and general Edmund Ironside.[39]
- Scrooge McDuck - the uncle of Disney's Donald Duck, a comic book, TV, and film character, he's a billionaire businessman, treasure hunter, and adventurer.[40] He was honoured by Glasgow council as a famous Glaswegian.[41] Believed to be a hybrid of real life Scottish-American Andrew Carnegie and fictional Englishman Ebenezer Scrooge, his arch-enemy is fellow Scot Flintheart Glomgold, a kilt-wearing corrupt businessman who often teams up with other villains to make himself richer.
- Shrek, although possessing a German name and being an ogre (thought to be a medieval stereotype of Hungarians), was portrayed as Scottish by Mike Myers in the Shrek film series.[42]
- Super Gran – a grandmother with super powers in books written by Forrest Wilson. In the popular TV adaption, she was played by actress Gudrun Ure.[43]
- DCI Jim Taggart - the title character of the successful television drama about a Glaswegian detective, played by Mark McManus. The title persisted even after the lead character was killed off following McManus' death.[44]
- Tam Lin - a knight in thrall to the Queen of Faerie in the ballad of that name.[45]
- Tam O'Shanter - the title character of the celebrated poem by Robert Burns - a drunken rustic.[46]
- Several Scots stock characters are present in Brigadoon, first staged on Broadway in 1947. They are variously warriors, drunkards, overly thrifty as a result of Calvinism, or capable of unusual insights stemming from a close relationship to the natural world.[47]
Real Scottish people who have been extensively fictionalised or mythologised
- Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Jacobite young Pretender who appears in novels such as Redgauntlet.
- Macbeth as in Shakespeare's play.
- Rob Roy MacGregor as in Rob Roy.
- Sir Patrick Spens - heroic captain of a doomed voyage for the King of Scotland.[48]
- Thomas the Rhymer, a 13th-century prophet and poet who, in ballad, is led by the Queen of Faerie to Elfland.[49]
- William Wallace as in Braveheart.
See also
References
- Bede used a Latin form of the word Scots as the name of the Gaels of Dál Riata.Roger Collins, Judith McClure; Beda el Venerable, Bede (1999). The Ecclesiastical History of the English People: The Greater Chronicle ; Bede's Letter to Egbert. Oxford University Press. p. 386.
- Anthony Richard (TRN) Birley, Cornelius Tacitus; Cayo Cornelio Tácito. Agricola and Germany. Oxford University Press.
- Walter H. Conser, Rodger Milton Payne, Southern crossroads
- "Scotland and Sir Walter Scott", The Economist, Jul 29, 2010
- Mark Royden Winchell (1996), Cleanth Brooks and the rise of modern criticism, University of Virginia Press, p. 11, ISBN 978-0-8139-1647-7
- Rick Fulton (Mar 22, 2010), "It's great to be a Scots redhead in the Tardis", Daily Record, archived from the original on 2011-06-09
- Kirsten Stirling (2008). Bella Caledonia: woman, nation, text. Rodopi. p. 88. ISBN 978-90-420-2510-3.
- Gerard Carruthers (2009). Scottish literature. Edinburgh University Press. p. 128. ISBN 978-0-7486-3309-8.
- Andrew Nash, Kailyard and Scottish literature, p. 225
- Shawn Shimpach, Television in Transition: The Life and Afterlife of the Narrative Action Hero
- Christopher Harvie (2004). Scotland and nationalism: Scottish society and politics, 1707 to the present. Routledge. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-415-32725-1.
- Robert Kiely (1964), Robert Louis Stevenson and the fiction of adventure
- Mark Dykeman (2010), Desmond Hume from Lost, archived from the original on 2014-02-02, retrieved 2014-01-19
- Wanda Leibowitz (2007), Ten Facts About Henry Ian Cusick, Aka Desmond Hume on TV's Lost, archived from the original on 2014-07-28, retrieved 2014-01-19
- Robert Crawford, Scotland's books: a history of Scottish literature
- Andrew Nash (2007), Kailyard and Scottish literature, p. 234
- Neil Blain, David Hutchison (2008), The media in Scotland
- G. Gregory Smith, Scottish Literature, Character & Influence
- Charles Frederick Partington, The British Cyclopædia of Literature, History, Geography, Law, and Politics
- Cort Cass, The Redhead Handbook
- "Groundskeeper Willie is the classic Scot for Americans". The Scotsman. 2007-09-19. Retrieved 2010-07-10.
- Ronald Carter, John McRae, The Routledge history of literature in English: Britain and Ireland
- Fiona MacGregor (12 February 2008), "The greatest work of fiction?", The Scotsman
- Vivian Halloran, Ian Fleming & James Bond: the cultural politics of 007
- Diana Gabaldon (2015), The Outlandish Companion, 1, Random House, p. 263, ISBN 9781473535916
- Berthold Schoene-Harwood, The Edinburgh companion to contemporary Scottish literature
- "TV Timewarp", The Journal, April 21, 2005
- Tom Cole (31 January 2012), "Peter Capaldi reveals true inspiration for Malcolm Tucker's character", Radio Times
- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Sparknotes
- Frank Northen Magill (1983), Survey of modern fantasy literature
- Stacey Endres, Robert Cushman, Hollywood at your feet, p. 330
- James Van Hise, The Man Who Created Star Trek, p. 26
- Neil Wilson, Alan Murphy, "Essential Scottish Reads", Scotland
- Alan Norman Bold, Scotland: a literary guide
- Jeffrey Richards, Films and British national identity: from Dickens to Dad's army
- Richard Webber, The complete A-Z of Dad's Army, p. 228
- John Corbett, Language and Scottish literature
- Maureen M. Martin (2009), "Redgauntlet, the Lowlands, and the Historicity of Scottish Nationhood", The mighty Scot
- Douglas S. Mack, Scottish fiction and the British Empire
- In DuckTales episode 26: "The Curse of Castle McDuck", Scrooge, the nephews, and Webby visit Scrooge's ancestral home in Scotland, only to be embroiled in a mystery surrounding Castle McDuck. Available on volume 1 DVD set.
- Glasgow claims McDuck as its own, BBC, 1 October 2007
- Lucy Hewitt (24 December 2008). "Best fictional Scots character". The Scotsman.
- Hayley Dodwell, "Super Gran! The Childhood Show We All Loved?", 80's kids
- Adrienne Scullion, "Scottish identity and representation in television drama", Group identities on French and British television
- Graham Seal, Encyclopedia of folk heroes
- Hugh Walker, Three Centuries of Scottish Literature
- Colin McArthur (2003). Brigadoon, Braveheart and the Scots: distortions of Scotland in Hollywood cinema. I.B.Tauris Publishers. p. 107. ISBN 978-1-86064-927-1.
- Francis James Child, English and Scottish ballads, 3
- Graham Seal, Encyclopedia of folk heroes
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