Tag Archives: Rosslyn Chapel

Rosslyn Chapel: still day one

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Sorry, y’all, our food processor broke and since we’re in the middle of garden mayhem, that was a crisis. Just getting to the Scottish adventures now after a hard day’s chopping.

Now, when last we left our heroes, everyone was on the van and everyone but Maria had their luggage. We headed off to Rosslyn Chapel, a working church, as well as a Knights Templar site and the setting for one of Dan Brown’s novels (referred to by the historical society as The Second Miracle—the first one being that Cromwell left the place standing although his troops did stable their horses in the chapel during the “it doesn’t pay to be a heretic” times.)

The chapel was sometimes called “the green chapel” in the 1700-1900s because it was so overgrown with fungus. Queen Victoria wanted it preserved, but who had any money? Until Dan Brown upped its visitors from 1000 per year to about 150K per year. A lot of restoration went on after that.

The chapel’s most beloved story is probably the Apprentice’s Pillar (read about it here after you finish reading about our adventures: https://www.rosslynchapel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/apprentice-pillar-fact-sheet.pdf)

But my two favorites are the heart that appears quite randomly amidst all the amazing and mysterious carvings of apostles, corn (which is weird because corn didn’t exist in Scotland during the time the chapel was being built in 1466), and some strange green men who age as you move clockwise through the chapel. It’s a big mashup of symbols and ideas, and smack in the middle of the left well as you face the altar is a heart. A very traditional heart.

I asked the guide about it. “Victorian graffiti,” he said with a smile. “Kids used to party here before it was fixed up, back in her day. And somebody carved that sometime in the 1800s.”

Kids… whatcha gonna do?

My other favorite story from the chapel comes from the Apocrypha, and is about Zerubbabel, the guy who asked King Darius to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. One night Z and two other king’s advisors put on a bet. Each would say what was strongest, and the king would adjudicate who was correct. One said the king, because, you know, he was judging the contest. Another said wine because it could make people do silly things even if they didn’t want to. Zerubbabel said women, because they gave birth to people who made wine and became kings, plus men had been known to become absolute idiots just to get their attention. And then he said, “but the truth conquers everything else because we all have to bow to it.”

Hence the Latin saying carved to the right of the chapel altar: The king is strong, wine is stronger, women are stronger still, but truth conquers all.  It’s the only quotation in the whole of the chapel, and frankly it’s a coded message that the chapel owner was a Templar.

There was one more interesting message at Rosslyn. As I mentioned, it’s a working church so we had to wait to enter. As we walked around outside, a man from another group cut in front of a woman taking a photo, and then said something rude to her about not getting her knickers in a twist. Based on their accents, the man was in his home country, and she wasn’t.

As he kept up a barrage of abuse toward her, I asked her how she was enjoying her holiday. She spoke pleasantly of getting to see the chapel for the first time, something that had been on her bucket list for years. And of her home country, Switzerland. We chatted amiably until the man’s stream of invective dried up and he drifted away. Tourism sometimes brings out the worst in people seeking good times. Weird.

A pleasant drive from Rosslyn to our hotel in Peebles, beautifully appointed and generous with its magnificent dinner portions. This is when we discovered Gareth’s superpower was finishing other people’s unwanted portions. A good team member to have.

Then it was off to bed because everyone was still the wee bit jetlagged. Presumably the haggis bon-bons from the starter course danced in their heads as they slept.

The Great Cornbread Controversy

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Kelley, the chef here at Second Story Cafe, has been soliciting opinions: should cornbread have sugar in it?

Yes, it’s that ugly, age-old conflict of North vs. South, encapsulated in food. Northerners tend to say yes, Southerners no. And we all know what happened the last time these geographies disagreed on an important issue….

Before we dive into this rather heated debate, permit me to point out that cornbread has brokered culture blend way longer than it has provoked division. When Europeans “discovered” America, they found corn a staple of food for the people already here, and adapted it into their own recipes. Cornmeal went from something served more like polenta to the pone that became a part of every Appalachian’s diet.

[Side note: A great story Dan Brown missed in his use of Rosslyn Chapel for The DaVinci Code is the decorative carvings of maize on its walls – put there at least two centuries before corn came to the Isles from the New World. This fascinates Jack and the people who visit Rossyln as part of the annual Scottish tour he leads. How did corn show up in art when no one had seen it yet?]

My grandmother made the best cornbread, in a pre-heated, pre-buttered cast iron skillet so the crust was hard and the inside crumbly. Hers wasn’t sweet, but dripped butter enough to make Julia Child pause. Growing up, cornbread at Sunday dinner, alongside ham and green beans, preceded cornbread in a glass of milk for bedtime snack. And if there happened to be any left (an unusual occurrence) it was Monday morning breakfast before catching the school bus, as well.

cornbreadAfter Gran’s death, during my lean graduate years, I resorted to those pre-packaged mixes, about 30 cents each. Of the two brands that fought for supremacy in my local grocery, one was sweet and bright yellow, one savory and pale. I bought the bleached brand out of loyalty to grandmother; for under a dollar, even counting the butter, I could make an evening meal out of cornbread and a side vegetable. Breakfast the next morning – leftover cornbread heated up, then dumped into cold milk–was about 40 cents.

In New York City, they of course take a sophisticated (read: compromising) approach to this subject: you can buy artisinal cornbread from the local bakery with jam in the middle, or with a tangy herbed butter mix. That sound you hear? Gran rolling in her grave. She might not have cared about the jam, but the $4-a-tiny-loaf price tag? *Eye roll*

So I don’t mind if cornbread is sweet or savory, choosing rather to celebrate its cheap (in Appalachia, at least) wholesome goodness and its cultural blending. But if you want to see some REALLY fun debates, hop over to Second Story Cafe’s FB page and read the comments. “Sugar in cornbread”???!!! Feuding words.