166. Fiona part 2
The Allusionist
Helen Zaltzman
4.7 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2022
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“I don't think that anyone should come away from this conversation not wanting to use the name Fiona. I think this is a beautiful and rich history. It might not be quite the history that you imagined, but I think it's a beautiful history," says writer and performer Harry Josie Giles. She and PhD researcher Moll Heaton-Callaway investigate this complicated name with fascinating history. This is the second half of a pair of episodes about the name Fiona; listen to the first episode before this one! theallusionist.org/fiona1.
Find out more about this episode and get extra information about the topics therein at theallusionist.org/fiona2, where there's also a transcript.
Both Josie and I relied heavily on Sharon Krossa's research into the etymology of Fiona; read it at medievalscotland.org/problem/names/fiona.shtml.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the illusionist in which I, Helen Zoltzmann, |
| 0:07.0 | huddle around language to keep warm. |
| 0:09.0 | This episode is the second half of the two part about the name Fiona. |
| 0:14.0 | Listen to part one first, then come back here for part two. |
| 0:17.0 | It'll make a lot more sense that way round. |
| 0:20.0 | Act for the subject matter that they are two mutually necessary halves. |
| 0:24.0 | One last reminder of the illusionist's nive show, |
| 0:27.0 | your name here, which is happening in the Hot Dog Cinema in Toronto at 1pm on Sunday 11th December 2022. |
| 0:35.0 | With masks on and come along, a musical entertainment about epinems doesn't happen every day, |
| 0:41.0 | or indeed the majority of days, but it is happening on this day in Toronto. |
| 0:46.0 | Ticket links are at theillusionist.org slash events. |
| 0:49.0 | On with the show. |
| 0:58.0 | Previously on the illusionist. |
| 1:00.0 | Everyone thinks it's an old Scottish name, but it's not an old Scottish name. |
| 1:04.0 | Given how common the name Fiona is now, you wouldn't have thought it just |
| 1:08.0 | has only appeared in 1893 or whatever. |
| 1:11.0 | The first public figure who had the name Fiona is the Scottish writer Fiona MacKartick. |
| 1:18.0 | Fiona MacKartick was talked about as this prophetess of the Celtic revival. |
| 1:25.0 | William Sharp was a late Victorian writer, |
| 1:29.0 | was not really the most popular writer in the world after William Sharp's death. |
| 1:35.0 | Everybody else found out that he wrote as MacKartick. |
| 1:39.0 | That's Mollheaton Callaway, who's written in PhD thesis about William Sharp and Fiona MacKartick or Will Fion as there was sometimes called. |
... |
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