Cultural Milieu
The Scottish Travellers referred to palm-reading as "drookerin" in cant, and labelled a non-traveller as a "naken".
When the Stewarts of Blairgowrie went to the Sidmouth Festival (founded in 1955) in Devon they encountered "New Age travellers" for the first time, selling jewellery. Belle Stewart noticed how dirty the New Agers were. They labelled themselves as travellers but Belle replied "No, you're not. We are." The New Age Travellers said "But you're dressed too fine to be travellers." The photographs in Sheila Stewart's book show how much care the Stewarts took with personal appearance. At festivals the whole family would wear tartan kilts and the pipers among them wore full regalia.
Belle's repertoire of folk tales frequently refer to the supernatural, including changelings. A collection of her stories appeared in print as "The King o' the Black Art" in 1987. When Alex Stewart died, the Church of Scotland minister at Blairgowrie refused to allow a funeral service in his church, because Alex had been a Traveller. A Dundee minister phoned them and offered them a service in his church.
Read more about this topic: Belle Stewart
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