F. Marian McNeill was born in 1885 at Holm

Holm, Mainland Orkney

Holm, pronounced "Ham", is a parish on Mainland, Orkney. It is not to be confused with the many Orkney Islands with "holm" in their name.An adjacent Sound, running between Mainland, and Burray, is also named after Holm. It has since been blocked up by the Churchill Barriers...

 in Orkney where her father was the minister of the Free Presbyterian Kirk. She was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 folklorist

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

, best known for writing The Silver Bough (not to be confused with The Golden Bough

The Golden Bough

The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer . It first was published in two volumes in 1890; the third edition, published 1906–15, comprised twelve volumes...

), a four-volume set of Scottish folklore, considered essential by many in the field.

She is also known as the author of The Scots Kitchen. This encyclopaedic work covers the essentials and surprising diversity of Scotland's culinary heritage, complete with a wealth of historical and literary references. Recipes include Forfar bridies, cockaleekie, Aberdeen rowies, proper porage, stuffed cod's head, roast mutton, mince an' tatties, Edinburgh baps, and Stornoway batch bread.

She died in 1973.