Duncan Williamson was born in 1928 on the shores of Loch Fyne. He was the seventh of sixteen children born to a family of Travellers, who set up camp in the same place every winter and wandered the Highlands during the summer, hawking their tin and natural willow wares. Duncan left home at the age of fifteen and spent the next forty years travelling, continuing the traditional trades of his people. In 1980 he moved into a farm cottage in Fife with his second wife, Linda, who transcribed some of his vast repertoire of songs, stories and family history. Duncan died in 2007, leaving behind a worldwide legacy. His reputation was extraordinary and the impact of his storytelling continues in literary editions of his work, published by Canongate, Cambridge University Press, Penguin, Mondadori, and more recently Birlinn, Luath Press and Floris Books.
