Undiscovered Scotland

 

In the years since it was first published in 1999, "The Gruffalo", written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, has become a children's classic. The book tells, in rhyming couplets, the story of a mouse, taking a walk through a forest. En route the mouse deters the ambitions of a number of predatory animals by telling each that he is going to dine with a gruffalo, a creature that is half grizzly bear and half buffalo, who likes to eat the predatory animal the mouse is talking to. The mouse knows that there is no such thing as a gruffalo: until he meets one. Again he has to deploy his considerable cunning, this time to overcome the danger of becoming a meal for the gruffalo. He does this by leading the gruffalo to meet each of the animals who appeared earlier in the book, to demonstrate how scared they are of him (though in reality of course, it is the accompanying gruffalo they are actually scared of). In this way the mouse succeeds in scaring off the gruffalo and saving his own skin.

"The Gruffalo" is said to have sold over 13 million copies since it was first published, and it has been translated into over 50 different languages throughout the world. The publication of "The Glasgow Gruffalo", which is the book translated into Glaswegian by Scottish actress Elaine C. Smith, adds one more to the number of languages in which the book can be read and enjoyed. It also marks the latest step in Black & White Publishing's extremely welcome efforts to make well known and much loved children's books available in a range of Scottish editions. This seems to have moved far beyond the initial appearance of books in the Scots language and now takes a much more fine-grained approach that more fully reflects the diversity of language and culture across Scotland. This is exemplified by their publication of "The Gruffalo" in Glaswegian.

So welcome to the world of “A gallus moose taen a dauner through a scary big wood. A fox clocked the moose an the moose looked good.” As the publishers say: "Moan intae the scary big wood an funnoot whit the score wiz, when the wee gallus moose squared uptae an auld owl, a sleekit snake an a ginormous gruffalo..."