Alison's Jants in Ferlieland : Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in West-Central Scots (Ayrshire)

Lewis Carroll is the pen-name o Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the screiver o "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", an a lecturer in Mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford. Dodgson stertit his famous bairns' tale on 4 July 1862, when, on a bonny simmer's efternuin, he tuik a lang jant in a rowin boat on the Thames Watter in Oxford, alangside his freen the Reverend Robinson Duckworth, Alice Liddell (ten year-auld) the dochter o the Dean o Christ Church, an her twa sisters, Lorina (aged thirteen), an Edith (juist aicht). Frae the poem at the stert o the buik, it's plain that thae three wee lassies threipt on at puir Mr Dodgson tae tell thaim a tale. Tho sweirt at the stert, he wycely gied in, an by the en o their day oot, he had gethert thegither the makins o an awfy guid splore aboot a steirin wee lass caad Alice. Spreid richt throu the feenishd wark, furst-published in 1865, are a wheen hauf-hidden references tae the five folk on that boat on that happy day. -- Thenks tae his "Poems Written Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect" screived by Robert Burns-born in Ayrshire twae-hunner an fifty-five years syne-the Scots Language still hauds on tae its virr an vigour in the southwest o Scotland in the twinty-furst Century; an is weel able tae add its unique flavour an zest tae the splores an jants o Alice-or in this case-wee Alison. Settin the tale in Scotland, I felt that "Alice" soundit a wee bit "ower English" for the Scots narrative; an being weel-acquaint wi "Alison" as a weel-loued, tradeitional Lowlan Scots lass's name, still uised frae weel afore the time o Burns till nouadays, I pickt it. On checkin its provenance in the The Oxford Names Companion (naiturally!), I fand oot tae my delicht that it cam frae a medieval Norman diminutive for Alice. A guid choice!