The Story of Biorachan Beag and Biorachan Mòr
Nan MacKinnon

Nan MacKinnon from Vatersay tells this story about Big Biorachan and Little Biorachan went out to pick nuts, but Little Biorachan wouldn’t stop eating them! Big Biorachan set out to teach his greedy friend a lesson, unleashing a chain of unintended consequences. This traditional Scottish Gaelic tale was once the most widely-known children’s story in the Gaelic world; the Gaels brought the tale with them from the Highlands of Scotland to Nova Scotia 200 years ago, and passed it down in oral tradition.

The story was recorded in 1960 by the School of Scottish Studies. You can listen to the original tape on the online archive resource Tobar an Dualchais: Track ID 55259