The Lay of the Last Minstrel

 

Riding the Marches, Selkirk

This has been the month of the Riding of the Marches in the Scottish Border towns commemorating the need in historic times to protect the town lands against the warlords that were the clan chiefs in pursuit of land and influence.

At the Selkirk Common Riding, there is also the remembrance of the tragedy of the battle of Flodden when the town lost all its young men save one.

In the aftermath of that ill-fated encounter and the death of King James IV, the powerful families vied for control of the kingdom.

Skirmish Hill near Melrose which has been added to the list of Scottish battlefields, was the result of the clash of ambitions in the power vacuum that was 16th century Scotland nearly five hundred years ago.

 

On 29th July 1526, a cavalry encounter between horsemen, the reivers, of the Border clans, took place near  Darnick where the Waverley Castle hotel stands.

All the troops were mounted and would have been armed with lances, swords and dirks. They would have carried small shields and worn padded jackets and steel helmets.

Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, was one of the most influential of the Scottish nobles of the sixteenth century.

He first came to prominence on 6 August 1514 when he married Margaret, the Dowager Queen, widow of James IV, mother of James V and elder sister of Henry VIII of England.

Acting as guardian to the young king, he sought to control the kingdom.

Becoming irked by his virtual imprisonment by the Douglas clan, James had
  "wrote a quiet and secret writing with his own hand, and sent it to the laird of Buccleugh, beseeking him, that he would come with his kin and friends, and all the force that he might be, and meet him at Melrose at his home passing and there to take him out of the Douglasses hands and to put him to liberty, to use himself among the lave of his lords, as he thinks expedient."

(Pitscottie, 1899: 209-10).

 

With a long history of blood feuds and clan rivalries, the Scotts needed no excuse.

"Wicked Wat", Walter Scott of Buccleuch summoned his men and their allies, the Elliots to intercept the Douglases and Maxwells accompanying the young king.

Darnick Tower

It is said that young James watched the battle from the ramparts of nearby Darnick Tower.

Coming down from the Eildon Hills, the Scotts clashed with the king's retinue and, at first, seemed to prevail but the arrival of Lord Hume with the Douglas allies, the Kerrs, swung the battle against Buccleuch.

The Eildons

The Scotts and Elliots retreated, pursued by the Kerrs. The Elliots turned and made a stand and Andrew Kerr of Cessford was killed.

The site is supposedly at the Turn-Again Stone though on inspection, the stone is obviously an ancient standing stone that has been renamed.

The Turn-Again Stone

Douglas won the day but not for long. His wife divorced him, the king escaped his clutches, he lost power, was imprisoned in France, escaped, fled to England, returned with armies to Scotland and during all his, for his times, long life, he strove to advance the power of the Douglases.

Walter Scott of Buccleuch led raids into England in subsequent years, and fought in the battles of Ancrum Moor and Pinkie during the Rough Wooing. He was eventually killed in the street in Edinburgh in 1552 by a group of Kerrs taking revenge for the death of Andrew Kerr of Cessford.

Such was the land of Scotland in the sixteenth century, a land of ruthless, power hungry chiefs where violence was the chosen means of advancement. It was little wonder that the folk of the Border towns felt the need to patrol their boundaries.

Today, these are holidays and a chance to ride the in the cavalcades of up to three hundred horses through the Border hills but once they were deadly serious affairs.

For on his soul the slaughter red

Of that unhallowed morn arose, 

When first the Scott and Car were foes, 

When royal James beheld the fray, 

Prize to the victor of the day ; 

When Home and Douglas, in the van, 

Bore down Buccleuch's retiring clan, 

Till gallant Cessford's heart-blood dear

Reeked on dark Elliot's  border spear

(The Lay of the Last Minstrel by Sir Walter Scott)

The Sun and the Moon

 

4am

The summer solstice saw an early rising to be at the Knowe above the beach to see day break.

As the end of what must have been a prehistoric processional way, it is an ideal site for a view of the eastern horizon

A low bank of cloud hid the actual sunrise. but the magenta sky was an augur of good weather.

The sun just breaking over the cloud bank

It was also a full moon.

This was the Flower Moon or the Honey Moon or, by association, the Mead Moon for each is dependent on the previous.The bees go to the flowers to make honey for us to make mead.

It is the Strawberry Moon in America

A Honey Coloured Moon

 

In the U.K. it is the Flower Moon or, in the Celtic calendar, the Moon of the Horses or the Oak Moon.

'Full moons come,
Full moons go,
softening nights
with their silver glow.
They pass in silence
all untamed,
but as they travel
they are named. *

The bees have been slow to forage this year with the cold wet weather not to their liking but the cotoneaster against the south facing wall of the garden was buzzing with an assembly of mason bees, white-tailed and carder bees with a good representation from the honey bees as well. The cold weather seems to have inhibited the swallows as there are far fewer this year.

When we first came to this house, many years ago, the huge gean or bird cherry in the garden would be humming with bees when in flower but they are no longer heard.

Let's hope the Honey Moon will bring them out again.

*

Rhyme from 'When the Moon is Full' a book for young children by Penny Pollack

Seascapes and sunsets

The Lewis trip was no more successful for sea eagles than the Iona trip but a little loch between two beaches on the Braighe connecting the Eye peninsula to the main island provided some compensation as it was the resting place for hundreds of long tailed duck presumably on migration.

The beaches and the loch margins were patrolled by a mixture of waders. Oyster-catchers, sanderling and knot but also some dunlin in their handsome summer plumage and little ringed plovers.

Some odd ducks appeared on a loch near Tiumpan head lighthouse. At first glance I thought they were shoveller duck but close to, I guessed they were some mallard cross-breeds, especially when they waddled up to be fed.

The trip to Bernera across the "bridge across the Atlantic" was equally unsuccessful erne-wise but provided some spectacular views and a sight of the tidal bell at Bosta beach. 

 

A bronze bell that sounds different notes as the tide ebbs and flows. We really ought to make an effort to install such a splendid piece of art locally. We have the coastline for it here.

A scramble out onto the promontory at Crothair brought me close up to the remains of a small broch, Dun Stuigh, only a few feet of walls remain but it still commands the headland. Beneath it, in the bay was what seemed to be an ancient fish trap with a low wall allowing the fish to swim in at high tide but preventing their escape as it ebbed.

Dun Stuigh

Ancient fish trap

I have been trying to capture the Green Flash at sunset for years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_flash

Best seen over the sea, with a flat horizon, I have watched many sunsets from our Lewis base. They are spectacularly beautiful like a Rothko painting but, without a sea horizon, the green flash has always eluded me.

This year I think I captured, at least the green ray, on video, or maybe I'm kidding myself.

I think there was a green element to those rays

I'll try again next year and maybe the sea eagles will be less camera shy.

If stones could speak

Off to the Western Isles for our annual trip, we made our way up to the furthest tip to see if that rarest of migrants, the red-necked phalarope had arrived at Loch na Muilne ( Blog 3rd June 2014).
We were too early. The summer visitors hadn't arrived so we contented ourselves with a walk over the Ness machair in search of some ancient stones. We had done the famous Callanish stones and their satellite groups many times but there are stones with stories all over the island.

We were also too early to see the machair at its finest with the carpets of wild flowers that come later in the summer but the sun was shining and the views were magnificent so we set out, with some guidance from archaeologist Chris Barrowman at Comunn Eachdraidh Nis, to find Clach na Gruagaich - The Maiden's Stone and Clach na Fala - the Blood Stone.

Clach na Fala - The Blood Stone

Clach na Gruagaich is now recumbent and in pieces but at one time probably stood erect.

The maiden in question was a fairy, a magical creature. People would leave liquid offerings of milk or whisky in the depression on the stone to ensure the well-being of their animals or for a good harvest.

Clach na Gruagaich

The place for libations

Passing a souterrain discovered by the army in 1944 when building a look-out post and yet to be fully excavated, we headed out towards the shore and found Clach na Fala which has a much more gruesome tale. 

The Blood Stone is where the chief of the Morrisons, the dominant clan in the area who had the title of Breve or law officer conferred by the Lord of the Isles, would order the execution of offenders. More often or not, these were Macaulays from Uig, sworn enemies of the Morrisons.

The red colour of the stone is said to be from the blood spilled there.

Dun Carloway Broch

Inside the walls

Later that day, we passed the Broch at Dun Carloway where the Macaulays turned the tables on their neighbours. They caught some Morrisons stealing cattle and, when the latter took refuge in the famous tower, Donald Cam Macaulay climbed the wall to drop in burning heather and smoke them out to meet their fate.

Teampull Pheadair

Further over the machair we came upon Teampull Pheadair - Peter's Chapel, an early mediaeval or even dark age, chapel with its rows of unhewn stone grave markers, headers and footers.

 Like all such early Christian sites it stood beside a stream with a deep pool for instant baptism of the converted.

Back in the village, at the local museum and family history archive, there was another reminder of the times when the Celtic church was merging with the pagan beliefs that had erected and cherished the stones and their meanings.

The Rona Cross is a rough-hewn cross from the island of North Rona with three holes in it and the outline of an obviously naked man superimposed.

So, no phalaropes but a journey back to the dark ages. All in all a good day out.

Wonderful views

One swallow doth not a summer make

Ben Cruachan across the Sound of Mull

A trip to Mull, Iona and Staffa seemed like a good idea especially if there was a chance of seeing sea eagles or even a sea eagle

Iona Abbey

Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas. The bitter Arctic wind made exploring the islands into a test of stamina and meant that prolonged standing about of the kind required for sea eagle spotting was only for the most determined. We did see two golden eagles and a good number of ravens, some goldeneye and grey herons but nary an erne.

We didn't managed a sea trip to Staffa as the swell was too great for the boat to cope so no puffins or dolphins either.

On Iona, we noted a house in the lea of a small hill called Dunsmeorach, literally "the hill of thrush" in Gaelic, though no thrushes not even a storm cock, were singing in that wind.

No sea eagles then, but I did spot a swallow come winging in against the gale. All the way from Africa to such a poor welcome. You have to admire their sheer perseverance, fighting their way north against the freezing winds with not a midgie for sustenance.

Back home, I saw one of the same hunched on the telephone wire above the snow covered street.

 

I can put out meal worms for the thrushes to help them through the lean times but I can't conjure up flies for the swallow. What weather is this for May!

Art and the sea

As is my wont when let loose in Edinburgh, I was wandering around giving serendipity a chance to make my day. Crossing the North Bridge, I glanced over the parapet and noticed an exhibition at the City Art Centre "The Artist and the Sea". 

http://www.theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2015/09/at-the-city-art-centre-seascape-exhibition/ 

 

Well, as I live by the sea and I know quite a few artists, I just had to go and take a look. A quick diversion down The Scotsman steps past the erstwhile home of that august newspaper and I was in Market Street and the gallery.

Happenstance worked again. I had an enjoyable hour or more with a couple of hundred years of art with themes from Trafalgar to trawlers and from McTaggart's St Columba to Bellany's fish gutters.

Marvellous stuff.

In such company it seems presumptuous to choose a highlight but it was. for me, Elizabeth Ogilvie's triptych Sea Journals.

Three panels - the centre one, a boat and a weathered, faded journal of a trip to the home of her people on St Kilda. with the anticipation, then the elation as Hirta appears on the horizon. The side panels contain the most delicate drawings of fronds of kelp growing and waving in the deep water.

 

Hirta and Boreray on the horizon

It brought back memories of an unforgettable trip to St Kilda some years ago.

 I have only a few camera shots to convey the impressions of that day. Sea Journals captures the essence of St Kilda more than pictures or words can.
 I suppose that's what art does.

"...the chapel fair of Tillmouth upon Tweed" *

* Marmion Canto VI
   Scott

The medieval Twizel Bridge over the Till

Today,  the 20th March is the day St Cuthbert is reputed to have died in 687 on Lindisfarne.

After walking the St Cuthbert's Way last year, (Blogs 15/5/2015 to 23/07/2105), I am easily lured by any place with the saint's name attached and there are so many to choose from. The number of chapels and sites where his body is said to have rested on his travels around what is now Northumberland, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Southern Scotland numbers at least fifty, not counting his final resting place at Durham.

When the Viking raiders attacked Lindisfarne two hundred years after his demise, the monks exhumed the body which was said to be uncorrupted, evidence of his sainthood.

They set off to carry it to safety and for the next seven years journeyed around the kingdom of Northumbria as it then was – as far north as Mailros (Melrose) where Cuthbert had first become a monk, as far west as Whithorn where his mentor Aidan had studied and as far south as Ripon, the monastery of his contemporary, St Wilfred.

Later examination of the remains of the saint suggest the body had been mummified.

The extent and duration of the travels throughout the land suggest another purpose for the journey of the saintly corpse than merely to escape the depredations of the Norsemen.
 A cult figure in his lifetime and a venerated saint afterwards, he served as a symbol to rally the, by then Christian, peoples of the kingdom of Northumbria against the pagan Norse.

Where the River Till joins the Tweed stands St Cuthbert's chapel.

St Cuthbert's Chapel, Tillmouth

What is there today is an eighteenth century folly but it stands on the site of the medieval village of Tillmouth. The village is long gone save for a few crop marks seen on aerial photos but there was a chapel of St Cuthbert here in 1311 and legend has it that his remains were floated in a stone coffin down the Tweed from Melrose and came to rest at Tillmouth

An extract from Hutchison's 1823 edition of  HISTORY & ANTIQUITIES OF THE COUNTY PALATINE OF DURHAM  reads

On a peninsula formed by the confluence of the rivers Till and Tweed, was an ancient chapel, on the side of which, about five years ago, (1794) Sir Francis Blake built a small chapel; the windows of which some wanton and sacrilegious villains have lately destroyed. About thirty yards to the west of this place, and fifteen from the Tweed, lie the remains of a stone boat or coffin, in which, tradition says, the body of St. Cuthbert was miraculously conveyed down the Tweed from Mailross. By some hydrostatical experiments whilst it was entire, we are informed it was proved that it might float with the remains of the saint *.
 Mr Gough, in his Additions to Camden, says, that it " is a stone boat, of as fine in shape as a boat of wood." We confess we did not examine the parts so narrowly, being prejudiced with the idea, that they were the mere fragments of a stone coffin. The dimensions of the present remains of the boat are— 

In the inside, length 5' 0"  Breadth at top 2' 0'' Do. broadest part 3' 2''. (One end is broken off, and has been taken away.)Do. where broken off. 3' 0'' Height of the sides 1' 3''|Thickness of sides and bottom 0'4'' 

* From this data, it is probable, that the outside length of the boat when entire,was nine feet three inches—its mean outside breadth three feet three inches—the height one foot nine inches—and the circumference twenty one feet. From thence, it is calculated, that it contained nearly twenty cubic feet uf solid stone, which, by reckoning the specific gravity of freestone, 2,5. it would weigh 31251b. and its outside dimensions would displace 52,6. cubic feet of water, which. at 62lb. and a half to a cubic foot, would be 32871b.—therefore, from 32871b.weight of water displaced, take 31251b. weight of boat, leaving 1621b. for  the boat to carry, which is equal to that of a man near twelve stone weight. 

So it seems that the saint in his stone coffin could have floated down the Tweed ! 

 There is another legend that a local farmer took the broken stone coffin away to use to salt pork. Now that sounds genuine!

The spot where the Tweed receives the Till, its only English tributary, is peaceful and even if the legend is untrue, it didn't detract from the enjoyment of watching goosanders fishing in the junction of the waters.

Goosander

Goosander ducks and drakes at the rivers' junction

On the way home, I remembered the stone coffin in the ruins of the 14th century Priory in our village and went to measure it

Stone coffin at local Priory

It is about the same size.  I wonder if  Historic Scotland would let me see if it floats?