Category Archives: Scotland

Day 10: It’s the Little Things

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Sometimes the best parts of a holiday are the little things, and this was a day full of the small happinesses that make up a big happiness.

First thing: the hotel had a pool. I got up early and enjoyed it, but as the minutes ticked by, it began to fill with Germans who all knew each other, and who had no intention of circle swimming. The water came to look plowed as people continued to pile in, and since I wasn’t with them, and I was doing a 20-minute water tread instead of swimming back and forth, dirty looks came my way.

Not so the lady swimming back and forth next to me. I scooted over, and she smiled and said in a very Scottish accent, “I can go around ya easy enough.” We began chatting as she half-protected me from the encroaching snarling women who wanted my corner for their own. She swam at the pool mornings before going to her nursing job in town.

“Is it always this crowded?” I asked as two more bodies tumbled in next to us.

“Nah. Sometimes it’s much worse.” She grinned.

After the swim and a fun breakfast full of international foods again, off we went to Dunfermline.

Now you need to remember that Jack and I used to live here, and in the East Neuk, so for me this was old home week. Everyone else was oohing and aahing over the sites and I was looking to see if the tea shop was still on the corner. I was also very aware that Dunfermline’s High Street, not far from its historic abbey, has seven-count ’em, seven-thrift stores. The abbey is next to the library and I ran a storytelling club there for about a decade.

So Cassidy and I went to the Abbot’s House just in front of the Abbey, because it is beautiful and historic. It was owned by a lady who basically kept Scotland’s second-most famous poet safe during the Reformation. She was rich, and she was a royal backer, so when she took him into her house as a guest, Robert Henryson was safe, even though some of his poems had not been looked on kindly as religions and allegiances swung back and forth in the ponderous pendulum of who was trying to get more power. After the reformation, it was owned by an herbalist named Anne Halkitt who almost got burned for a witch; ironically the great Dunfermline fire saved her.

Back when the Historic Trust for Scotland was trying to get more kids to visit historic properties, I led mouse hunts through the Abbot’s House, telling kids the sanitized version of various historic events, and letting them look for the mice that decorated the walls because Henryson had done Scots versions of the Aesop fables, and there was the infamous story of all the mice leaving town before the great fire that destroyed the house’s second floor in the 1600s, etc. It was fun. And I still know where every mouse is, and what she represents.

But my favorite part of the Abbot’s House is out front, in the saying over the door, which I will translate here: Since word enslaves but thoughts are free keep well thy tongue I counsel thee.

Good advice then, good advice now.

After the Abbot House Cassidy and I peeled off as the rest of the group followed Jack into PIttencrieff Park. The biggest thing to know about the park is, Andrew Carnegie (yeah, the guy who got rich) was born in Dunfermline and not allowed to play in the park as a child. When he made the big time, he bought the park and opened it to all the children of Dunfermline. Sometimes, just sometimes, the best therapy is revenge. But only if the revenge is kind to other people, shall we say?

The second thing to know about the park is, by skipping it, Cassidy and I found two sweaters, two rare recordings, a pair of shoes that looked like cats, a purse, and some yarn.

It was a good morning.

Dunfermline Abbey is gorgeous and one of those places my friend Donald Leech (a medievalist at UVA Wise) likes to hold up as what people get wrong about those times. Color was EVERYWHERE in this abbey. All the colors they knew how to make (three, but hey it’s a start) were spiraling around pillars, decorating the sides of the stained glass windows, across the coats of arms of wealthy families who went to church there.

The palace next to the abbey was originally a priory, and then King David I (1124-1153) made it into a palace. Charles I was the last king to be born there in 1600 (he’s the king who got beheaded after a trial for treason in 1649. It’s unusual for a king to be beheaded, but that Declaration of Arbroath changed a lot of the responsibilities royals were expected to uphold for their people.)

One more thing about the palace: David was the son of Margaret and Malcolm, and if you want to read about an amazing piece of Scottish history, look up Malcolm Canmore and Margaret of Hungary. There isn’t enough space to go into their lives here, but they might be the most fascinating royal couple ever. The only thing I can’t resist saying here is, Shakespeare missed the better story. MacBeth reigned shortly before Malcolm (whose reign ended in 1097, and whose father was Duncan; yes, THAT Duncan). Shakespeare really should have written about the double Ms. They were formidable.

But he didn’t. And Cassidy and I still beat everyone else to the abbey, despite our shopping streak. We had a wonderful look around, imagining the colors on a sunny day and the monks walking on the now-derelict walkway above, and the gold stars put into the ceiling. It would have been heady.

Then we walked out to the palace, and Cassidy went to the tower while I went to the queen’s chamber. We met later, and compared notes. What the guides don’t tell you is that taking the turning stairs to the second floor of the ruined palace is, in a word, terrifying. Hands and knees, I crawled, telling myself it was okay, I knew Jesus, if today was my day He would receive me, although He and all the angels would be laughing at how I died. And thinking that my tombstone would say “she was an eejit for trying” and also thinking that once I got up, I would have to come back down….

Cassidy later sent a video of herself, hyperventilating as she inched down, hugging the wall. Highly not recommended. Andrea took one look and said, “Nope.” Harry just turned around with her.

I think Mr. Fox might have tried it, but Lulu wouldn’t let him.

Altogether once again, we visited the gift shop. Because that’s what you do after seeing almost a thousand years of history and surviving a near-death experience.

Awed by the majesty and the intense history of the place, I bought a rubber duck in full regalia playing the bagpipes. Made in China sticker on its bum.

In my defense, it was for a good friend who collects them and loves Scotland.

Off to Falkland we drove, everyone comparing notes on the palace stairs. Fiona hadn’t tried, Gareth raced up and down them, and Lulu didn’t want to talk about it.

Falkland is famous for its marriage stones. On either side of the top the doorway in a newly built house (back in the 1500s and 1600s) people would put stones with the initials of the two newlyweds, and the date of their marriage in a stone in the center. What’s really sweet is some people in the side streets of Falkland paint pieces of slate with their initials and date of marriage and set them beside their doorways.

The Falkland palace was the royal hunting lodge (read: weekend getaway) for the Royal Stuarts. Mary Queen of Scots would have hunted there, along with her traitor son who agreed to her execution so he could be both King of England and of Scotland. (This is the one who was terrified of witches and nothing went well for herbalists and other strong women for awhile there in either country.)

Falkland holds 500 years of amazing Scottish history. It’s also where they filmed the opening scene of Outlander, so the buses just kept pulling up to the market cross and teashop, one after the other. People filed out, took photos, filed back on, and the next bus came.

I can’t really talk. I bought a duck playing the bagpipes in one of the oldest preserved abbeys in the country.

And then it was off to the East Neuk. Of course we had to go to Anstruther for their famous fish suppers (for lunch, you understand). Even Gareth couldn’t finish all the leftovers. I used to joke about the self-loathing that follows a good fish supper given that everything is fried and battered and bad for you and tastes so good.

And then it was St. Andrews. I feel a bit sad visiting St. Andrews these days. When we lived in the area it was my go-to for the grocery store, or a day out thrifting, meeting a friend for tea, and walking the cathedral grounds. It kept me grounded when I was writing my dissertation, as a newly wed while Jack was working during the day.

But the cathedral ruins were declared unsafe after some stones and mortar fell from a tower. They embedded in the ground and everyone knew it was time to fence the ruins off. So now they’re behind chain link.

St Andrews is also the place where, as you walk past the ruined palace on one of the side roads to the shops, you can look down and see the brass X where Wycliffe was burned to death. The Bible translator. Just walking around, and that’s where died. It’s a wee bit melancholic.

I showed Cassidy how to find the 12 charity shops of St Andrews, and then Jack and I went on an errand.

Several years ago, on another trip to Scotland leading a tour, Jack had bought me some Sheila Fleet earrings. These are high end Scottish-themed products. And on a recent trip to Richmond, one fell off. We were going to replace them.

But when I told the lady in the shop the story, she went behind the counter and produced a catalog. “The Fleets will replace a lost earring. And since these are sentimental from your husband, she would be happy to do that.” She gave me contact details, and wrote down the model number and information. “I’d be happy to sell you a new pair, but what you really want is your old pair intact. And that’s a design she doesn’t do anymore, but she never throws away the molds. So write her.”

We took the card away, and this is on my to-do list once I finish all the adventure blogs.

From St. Andrews it was back across Fife to the hotel, where the sunny solarium was heaving with the Germans from the swimming pool. Some of them recognized me. I tried to keep a low profile. And there was sticky toffee pudding and cranachan for dessert, and everyone went to bed happy but feeling a little sad, too.

Tomorrow was our last day.

Old Friends, New Places

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After our second breakfast (Uhm, as in second day in Pitlochry, not in the Hobbit sense) we said goodbye to the lovely waitress, and gave her two of Jack’s and my CD of Scottish songs, one for Bridget and Peter, one for her.

We also cleared our bar bill.

Off to Aberlemno to see some of Scotland’s best standing stones. Also called menhirs, they’re from the Bronze Age, and people are STILL debating whether they are historic records, religious symbols, or the first computers. (Predicting weather patterns and such by calculating the sun and shadow movements, something like that)

We’ve taken many people to see these stones over the years, so we know that they don’t expect one thing we enjoy watching them figure out. The Aberlemno stones are FUNNY. There’s a centaur carrying a plant, representing medicine. Herbalists have said for centuries that it looks like dried mullein still on the stalk. There’s a soldier with a raven on his face. (You can see both in the photo above.) Technically this probably represents the massive deaths at the battle of Dun Nechtan in 685. Pictish forces under Brude MacBeli defeated the Northumbrian King Ecgfrith and his army. (That seems to be the battle depicted on the stone, and Ecgfrith may be the guy the raven is taking out.) But it also gave rise to a weird story that the Picts magically controlled ravens who attacked the invaders, giving rise to the growing fear of those fierce little blue-painted guys north of that wall. (Hadrian built his famous wall to keep the Picts out.)

Anyway, the more you look at the stones the crazier the stories get. Plus there are a few symbols no one has yet figured out the meaning of; these recur on many stones across Scotland and have been given names like the mirror and the comb, just because that’s what they look like. There’s no indication that these are female symbols.

But we can never look at these mysterious designs without thinking of Marianna Lines, an American artist who lived near us in Fife and was an expert on Pictish symbols and standing stones. She died more than a decade ago, but we always send a thank you to God for her life when we stand in front of the Aberlemno stones.

From there we made an unscheduled stop at Arbroath Abbey, mostly because it’s such an important historic point in Scottish (and indeed European and American) history. If you’ve seen the movie The Winter King, you know what a bastard Robert the Bruce actually was, but that he was the better of two horrible arses both trying to rule Scotland as the 1200s turned into the 1300s. Edward was King of England, and he let Edward Balliol rule Scotland as King because Eddie the Scot was loyal (read: subservient) to Eddie the English; Bruce was fighting Balliol the whole time he was on the throne.

When Balliol senior died his son John ascended with help from good ol’ English Ed, but he lasted like twenty minutes, to be replaced by his cousin, also named John. (So they didn’t have to change the letterheads,) The reason there were at least two strong claimants to the Scottish throne is complicated but fascinating, and includes a famous ballad about Margaret of Norway (not historically accurate but lovely all the same). You can google the Second War of Scottish Independence or read the interpretive plaques above. (There were a LOT of Scottish independence wars.) Also what the plaque doesn’t say about Alexander and that fateful horse ride was that he was making a booty call. He was literally on his way to see his mistress, even though his courtiers with him said it was a terrible rainy night and he shouldn’t go. That’s how he died. That’s how history is made. He set in motion a chain of events that left Scotland in dire straits for about 25 years.

Short version of how Bruce finally became king: Robert the Bruce tricked John Comyn, Eddie-the-Scot’s nephew and heir apparent endorsed by English Eddie, into meeting in a church to talk peace terms–then stabbed him dead and declared himself king in front of the nobles assembled for the meeting.

Now here’s the fun part: the whole time Bruce had declared himself king of whatever he could claim from the north and tried to take out his rivals, he was a pretty bad ruler. Scotland was suffering famine because of the men being forced to go for soldiers, ruining crops and production not to mention requisitioning the work horses people needed to farm, plus Scotland had a long spate of terrible weather (which is saying something for Scotland). Worse, the plague had hit. People were broke, tired, hungry, and sick.

What did Bruce do after he killed his rival in a church? Unite the northern and southern areas? Tell people he had grain in storage for seed? Nope. Told everybody the most important thing for Scotland was for him to be crowned the final and definitive king because then they’d be free from English tyranny. He’d get around to helping with the harvest and all that after he was securely on the throne with the English threat removed; send your sons, we’re going after English Ed.

Yeah, that was a little too much for the nobles who had helped put Bruce on the throne, (read: who knew what he was going to do at that church-and-dagger meeting) so they did something that helped found America, changed the course of European history, and scared the Pope and a whole bunch of other big shots nearly to death. On April 6, 1320 they hauled Bruce out into the courtyard of Arbroath Abbey, sat him down at a camp table, and made him sign a letter carefully prepared for the occasion. The sense of threat at making Bruce sign in a field was intentional; he was signing the Declaration of Arbroath.

The Declaration of Arbroath was probably drafted by an abbot named Bernard, at the behest of most of the Scots nobles. They had had enough of all the war and famine. The letter asked the pope to recognize Bruce as the rightful Scottish king. Then it said, more or less, and we the nobles will make sure he behaves well and if he doesn’t he will find out quickly that he actually answers to us, because we have put him on that there throne he coveted so badly. So if he doesn’t behave well toward us, we’ll be in touch, Mr. Pope.

You should read the declaration; it is a masterpiece. And Thomas Jefferson stole pieces of its wording, as well as its foundational idea, to write the American Declaration of Independence.

The abbey seemed to fascinate and sober everyone at the same time. Several people made comments paralleling Scotland’s troubled divisions to modern-times America. Which led to one of the first political arguments of the trip, as Lulu and Harry engaged. Good points were made, honest questions asked, and freedom to argue rang through the van until somebody broke out some millionaire shortbread and we all got too much caramel in our mouths to keep talking. When all the people can eat, there is sweet peace.

Our next stop was Dundee, Scotland’s answer to Pittsburgh. It’s got some culture spots (and an awesome bakery) but mostly it’s a seedy little working class town. Zahnke party of three headed for the Discovery, Harry and Andrea went to the Victoria and Albert museum, Maria sought donuts at the specialty bakery, and Cassidy stared in horror at the driech city and said she’s stay on the bus.

I know from my many times telling stories at the Dundee library that there’s a dragon carved on one of the streets, so I raced to visit him and fit in a few thrift stores. (Even these couldn’t entice Cassidy away from the safety of the van!)

Andrea had a good moment at the train station near the museum. We had been encouraging all the musicians on the trip to take part in ongoing ceilidhs, but Andrea declared herself on vacation from her position as church pianist. The piano at the train station enticed her and she played a few pieces, to the delight of a few passersby.

When we left, Cassidy summed up the opinions of the group: okay, now we’ve seen working modern Scotland, but we liked the castles and history version better.

Off to Keavil House hotel in Dunfermline we went, but with one more stop to visit an old friend. Duncan Williamson’s grave is in Strathmiglo (also the home of the Johnny Cash family’s ancestors). We always put a rock on the grave and say hey, buddy; he’s another voice we miss in the world.

And there was a nice quiet dinner replete with steak and kidney pie in the sunny solarium-dining room, and there was sleep, and that was the ninth day.