U.S. Groundhog Day, pre-Celtic Candlemas Focus on International Rewilding/Reuse of Old Farmland w/Solar Assist

U.S. GROUNDHOG DAY, PRE-CELTIC CANDLEMAS FOCUS ON INTERNATIONAL REWILDING/REUSE OF OLD FARMLAND w/SOLAR ASSIST

First Wednesday Creative (& Insecure) Writing Celebration of Indo-Euro-Brit Support for Rewilding Old Spaces w/Solar Panel Technology

Getting Carried Away by their own Animal Festivities

Americans do seem to take Groundhog Day a little too literally sometimes—Pres. Biden’s staff getting rather more worked up about holding the poor animal (ground squirrel/marmot) on high for the cameras this year, rather than low for the (poor beast’s fodder) grass & wood-fiber—beaver cousin pictured below top left). And it is the magical creature’s flat-tailed beaver cousin, that Europeans (bar a few Scots purists) think will save the Day—or at least some of our blessed days in the immediate future of the planet and for all of us grateful inhabitants—if we’re spared!

In U.S.A., February 2nd is usually reserved as a fixed date for the miracle animal’s so-called peep out of his underground hideaway—very similar to us obscure writers, hidden away in our Muse-bower or whatever serves to give us undisturbed solitude with our keyboard—before he theoretically pronounces the weather forecast for the coming month [traditional six week gap]. This year’s Candlemas-Beaver-Groundhog Day got a little complicated by Chinese New Year’s being celebrated early with the beloved #Wabbit—aka Hare—coinciding with the last week in January 2023—so they can celebrate a candle-on-water floating ceremony; but the end results appear to come together as February—ancient Candlemas—begins.

Candlemas, as we learn repeatedly from our ancestors, is traditional Feast Day of Bride; Bridei; old British Brigantia; Forest Maiden & Earth Mother—identifying with Ancient Egyptian ISIS [‘Eset’], above far rt., Egyptian Queen of Heaven & Mother of the World. As Patron of all women, she has in recent years (with feminism rising) become world icon for International Women’s Day. It’s crazy in the Shetland Isles as they, too, are celebrating Up-Hellya amid gale-force winds!

It’s Brazil & S.American Carnival time also—traditionally an end to winter with street parades taking over every town.

Chinese New Year tradition—in nations like S.Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, mainland China, Burma & Philippines include a prayer-float from shore towards the open ocean, pictured left.

Hawai’i, particularly in winter months, is dominated by an increase in numbers on the southern route of migrating Whales—most vivid & entrancing, the Humpback whales, who often give birth in these tropical waters before returning to their northern grounds in the Salish Sea(B.C.) to overwinter.

Mid-Pacific technology appears already to be able to outstrip Western thinking—perhaps increased hours of sunlight have something to do with it—a Hawai’ian farming project, given Local Government funding & support, are offering farmland acreage on Oahu, HI, complete with installed solar panel-covered roofs—like glasshouses w/built-in sun—so their solar panel technology will be used to maximum, gathering rays while simultaneously covering useful greenhouses.

British Weather Used to Max for Windpower

As a Scots ex-Pat—grateful for no longer having to endure the rigours of the wintry North Coast [Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, Moray Firth], I’m proud to see, not only restoration of my personal tree glade outside my walled garden, pic top rt. but the continued appreciation of the stand of hazel, wild & domestic cherry (gean; morello; pear & alder, bottom 2nd l.) to supplement plum, birch & previous century’s copper beech. Foregound Redwood [Sequoiadendron Giganteum] planted to celebrate the birth of my son there adjacent to/obscuring the two-century-old Douglas Fir [Pseudotsuga Menziesii; gifted by David Douglas as a seedling to the then Minister in residence in 1827 at the Old Manse who was designate Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, at that time. Scots pine aka Caledonian Pine abound.

It is also truly amazing—and fairly Scots in nature—to know that the little kirk below the Manse in the farmland of the Kirkton continues to celebrate a Sunday service once every two weeks!

Nevertheless, weather & human nature being relatively constant—although increasingly wild conditions appear to be taking hold, the winds of the North are being harnessed—following a lead by radical innovator Burnett of Williamston family, led by daughter ‘boss’, with their Culsalmond/Colpy windfarm. Now wind & wave harnessing is occurring through the Glens of Foudland as far as Maggieknockater in the Buchan peninsula to electric generator power centers in the Black Isle, Cromarty; reaching into Sinclair territory in the Far North.

Bejeweled Whale-centred Dreamcatcher holds all bad nightmares at bay

Easter Island Facial Traits Show Influence on Other Pacific Island Residents

Many Europeans may not notice, but there is a noted characteristic in Hawai’ian, and other mid-Pacific island residents like French Frigate Shoals, Guam, resulting in a less-circular “Caucasian” round-headed appearance, and more flat-backed, almost sheared-off shape for which Easter Island’s gods, below—and presumably their ancient resident population—were known. It is remarkable that the Hawai’ian Royal House, headed by King Kamakameha whose statue stands in downtown Hilo, HI overlooking Lilli’ewa Bay, (bottom rt.) took pride in this trait.

Last of the Royal Hawai’ian line, Queen Lilliuokalani, died last week, aged 90. Her hand-sculpted coffin made of local koa wood is currently lying in state in the Royal Palace, Honolulu. She was the daughter of Queen Lydia Kamakameha (1838-1917) who was the ultimate sovereign of the Islands and who lived during the annexation of Hawai’i by the United States in 1898.

Hawai’ians are not only proud of their facial characteristics and unique Pacific heritage, but on special occasions—during hula dance festivals or fire & light ceremonies, they dress with leis (orchid garlands w/mix of tropical blossoms-frangipani, plumeria, hibiscus-in their hair) usually tied in a “topknot”, shown above left. Easter Island topknots were a feature of all the gods aligned on the island’s shore. They were carefully chosen from local volcanic rock, sculpted into the topknot shape.

Many are now lost.

Hawai’ians are not only expert hula dance performers—using hip movement which Europeans take years to learn. But their body shape—maybe considered large to Britiish eyes—in particular with current mountain-climbing madness gripping a (mostly male) muscle-bound population.

Body movement, however, reveals a supple quality within waist & hip gyration that Caucasians are hard-pressed to emulate. It takes years to learn.

Access 2 balmy ocean temperatures have a lot to offer, & many Hawai’ians bathe once or twice daily in local pool. Pictured here rt. within a literal stone’s throw of downtown Hilo, is fave Lilli’ewa Bay. Its easy shallow sandy beach makes it popular not just with locals, but w/Oldies visiting who may have found volcanic black rocks difficult to negotiate elsewhere!

It’s also the single most sought-after go-to pool for that Pacific anomalous practice of Doolah-tending: South Seas (Bali, initially) assist within water to help young mothers prepare for giving birth.

Hawai’ian Paradise Wins Hands Down, Despite Weather Woes

Bottom Line:when all else is said, locals may complain about the weather; Californians about drought alternating with hurricane disruption; New Zealander Kiwis about people raiding their carefully-guarded environmentally-protected reefs, but it’s relative.

Pele—Hawai’ian goddess of fire & ice—continues to reside atop the Mauna, pic above l, holding the world’s largest telescope array [extra-large telescope, ELT] in her sacred grasp, while anchoring her watery toes 29,000ft into the Pacific Ocean’s deepest trench below. She is revered from ocean fringe to Mariana Trench; from coastal California—earthquake roadblock above top rt.—to Bali, Indonesia, Fiji and beyond. Like the Phoenix, ISIS, Egyptian Queen of Heaven, pic top far rt. she may fade but will never die. Even the world telescope symposium atop her sunset summit, above l., keeps touch with local Hawai’ian ‘guardians’ adhering to their policy of no unnecessary disturbance/development at her summit.

It is sacred ground, after all.

Meanwhile, despite record dry rock-bottom water supply (not) in drought-ridden No.Cal (pic 3 above rt.), organic rewilders and other gardening/planting enthusiasts continue to allow the ground around the sacred mountain and its new farmland project in Oahu to prosper—as it will even more when planned solar-panel-roofed greenhouses are erected.

And what about the workers?!

Yes:we writers, IWSGers, NaNoWriMo-ers, Muse-driven regular bloggers, insecure or otherwise, are fortunate to have such a neighborly friendly heritage right on our doorstep. Whether we’re groundhog fans or not, whether we’re just monthly First Wednesday bloggers with a leaf of fresh mint or homegrown lettuce to chew on [lucky us]; let’s agree we are a fortunate lot.

Some people never get past the comic section in their local newspaper—confusingly, Hawai’i’s own is Bahamian (Herald-Tribune) in reverse:Tribune-Herald! See what happens when you let the fritillary (above bottom rt.) out of the chrysalis!

And meantime in authentic Hawai’ian lingo, may I again wish all Hau’oli Makahiki Hou! Happy New Year. Keep on writing!

©2023 Marian C. Youngblood

Maypole Dancing for Beginners—Tripping the Light Fantastic

MAYPOLE DANCING FOR BEGINNERS—TRIPPING THE LIGHT FANTASTIC

INSECURE WRITERS’ FIRST WEDNESDAY LEAP FROM DARK WO/MAN-CAVE INTO THE LIGHT

Leaping out of Dark Writers’ Cave into Dazzling Light Takes Guts

Bealtainn, Celtic quarter day of the ancient pre-Christian calendar, brings out all the suppressed joy held inside all winter, screaming it into the daylight, sunshine’s warm glow, encouraging us to leave all negativity and pessimistic thoughts behind (down there in our man/woman writers‘ cave and brave the reality of a world struggling to love itself, despite restricted activity and anti-diluvian healthcare system.

Maypole dancing—like Morris dancing—is Saxon English in origin rather than sprung from a native Celtic/Scots/Pictish Irish celebration of summer—quarter day Bealtainn/Beltane exactly divides the ancient year into four, with cross-quarter days every six weeks—

Weaving, like maypole dancing, entwines threads seamlessly from different origins

Ancient archetypes, top, not altogether helpful during astral fireworks in May skies; focus solar & lunar conjunction clusters of Jupiter/Uranus Venus/Mars in Taurus with Pisces bringing up every watery emotion

Images, top, bring archaic belief to life—except for last, recent find in Turkey: wine-god Dionysus, decapitated, drowning floundering in his own filth, blood-stained or worse—anti-booze ad par excellence. Others, from Vatican lookalike flower-of-life orb to amygdala, pineal gland/brain cortex held by our primeval/ancestral dragon self, l. to simple ride on hippocampus, rt, forerunner to seahorse and/or unicorn; top mid rt. classic show of devotion by (Phrygian-capped) Ganymede, synchronously cup-bearer to the gods—offering to Zeus who appears as the Great Eagle—and as one of Jupiter’s main satellites in a Galileo universe, 1560s.

Northern Fishing Villages Last to Keep Fire-Festival Tradition

Rural Banffshire and the Pictish North Coast have vastly different traditions of their own—ranging from the precursor to Nevada’s Burning Man—Bealltainn ‘Burn the Witches #Bonefire’ (May 2nd) Lammas Fire (Aug.1) & famously, Burghead’s Clavie Burning still has a hold in fishing communities all along the Moray coast—Burghead one of few remaining to uphold fire festival tradition. Superstition holds firm in Buckie in particular, with its 32 churches. Until WWII all the northern ports held bonfire rituals four times a year. Stonehaven’s Swinging Fireballs is a relic of Hallowe’en, but held now on Hogmanay.

According to the Rev. Gregor, In some districts fires were kindled on May 2nd, O.S., called bonefires. It was believed that on that evening and night, witches were abroad in all their force, casting ill on cattle and stealing cow’s milk. To counteract their evil power branches of rowan tree and woodbine were hung over byre doors, with fires kindled by every farmer and cottar. Old thatch, straw, furze (gorse), broom clippings gathered into a central ‘bonefire’ were set alight moments after sunset. Some continually fed the fire, while others pick up flaming mass with pitchforks and poles and run hither and thither through the smoke or dancing round the fire shouting ‘Fire! Blaze an’ burn the Witches’.

In some villages (1881)a large round cake made of oat or barley-meal was rolled through the ashes. “When all was burned up, the ashes were celebrated and scattered far and wide, and all continued until quite dark to run through the ashes crying ‘Fire! fire! burn the witches’.” Gregor

Vestiges of such a strong tradition remain—every port on Aberdeen’s North Coast used to celebrate.

Distributing fire altar gifts from the Doorie, Clavie King Dan Ralph is one of few remaining Burghead residents who remembers when all northern fishing ports celebrated, with ‘pieces’ of burning Clavie barrel given to important local residents (publican, harbor master) on Clavie Crew’s ritual circling of the town.

By the Fireside—Peat Smoke & Storytelling—Centre of the Hoos

“At one corner of the hearth sat the father, and at the other the mother. Between the two, family group might extend to a servant or two, for all were on a footing of equality; the servant being a neighbour’s son or daughter of exactly the same rank and means.

“All were busy. One of the women might be knitting, another making/mending an article of dress.

“Of the men, one might be making candles from bog-fir—cleavin can’les—another manufacturing wood harrow-tynes, a third sewing brogues, and a fourth weaving a pair of mittens. [cleek]

“Family evenings usually included one or more neighbours spending time at the fireside, sharing supper together from the communal cooking pot—this was called geein them a forenicht. On these occasions, young women brought their spinning wheels on their shoulders and their wool or flax under arm. It was not unusual for three or four spinning wheels to be going at once, skilful fingers busy at the stent, with each spinner vying with the other who would be first to complete.” Rev. W. Gregor, 1881

Tales of Supernatural Draw Children in Around the Hearth

He continues. “When the children’s school-books were laid aside, and they’d finished their homework, it was time for song and story and ballad to begin. For most part stories were of fairies and their doings, water-kelpies, ghosts, of witches and their deeds, of compacts with the Devil, and what befell those who made such compacts; of men skilled in black airt, and strange things they were able to do.

“As tale succeeded tale, and the big peat fire began to fade, younger members crept nearer and nearer to the older ones and after a little, seated themselves on their knees or between them and the fire, with eyes now fearfully turned to the doors, now to the chimney, now to a corner whence issued the smallest noise, and now to the next, in dread of seeing some of the uncanny brood. Often stories were mixed in with history, oftentimes the wars between England and Scotland, but the Supernatural beings always won.”

The Folk-Lore of the NORTH-EAST OF SCOTLAND by the Reverend Walter Gregor, M.A. published for the FOLK-LORE SOCIETY, London Paternoster Row, E.C. 1881

Highland Hospitality—Roaring Nineties’ Déjà Vu of PotLuck

Central firepit with hanging chain for kettle cauldron

Peat fire in central fireplace room for spinning wheel

120 year gap: fires and fire festivals then & now—hearth centre of the home, above, photos 1860 courtesy Theodora Fitzgibbon’s ‘A Taste of Scotland Traditional Scots Recipes’, 1971

Aberdeen and Northeast Scotland isn’t known just for its whisky and shortbread. The North Coast has a long tradition of smoking/drying fish: Speldings—Sandend, Portsoy, Buckie haddock, herring, trout, ling cod, even potted salmon in the Blootoon, Peterheid.

600ft Tor of Troup-Gamrie Mohr Immune to Norse, Foodie Heaven

Eentie teentie tippenny bun The Cat geed oot tae get some fun To get some fun played on a drum Eentie teentie tippenny bun—festival rhyme, Banff

Eetum peetum penny pump A’a the ladies in a lump Sax or saiven in a clew, A’ made wi’ candy glue

Fraserburgh Rhyming slang, Party Games mnemonics

Think Bannocks, Forfar Bridies, Mutton pies, Aiberdeenshire is famous for Butteries—the buttery rowie: breakfast-lunch #bap (bun) snack of roll oozing butter. Cullen, Banffshire where Scots king Culen died 967, has Cullen skink, ice cream! intact railway viaduct, pink beaches from extruded Old Red Sandstone while Portsoy and MacDuff boast their secret ocean treasure of fresh ling cod, lobster, shrimp and crab available at dockside. Other locations like 600ft, Gamrie Mohr to Tor of Troup teeter high over waves on an open coastline which dissuaded Viking intrusion. St.John’s kirk, and neighbouring Findlater castle are perfect examples of the Buchan coastline’s built-in immunity to attack. St.John’s North sea-facing stone wall, built c.1100, featured Norse skulls from the ‘Bloody Pits’ (‘Bleedy Pots’) battlefield above Gamrie-Crovie beach where a foolish longship anchored without a familiar Fjord (c.f. Argyll, Western Isles coast) to ‘cloak’ its approach. Similarly at Sandend, 16thC Findlater castle perches eye-to-eye with gannets and puffin over sheer drop cliff below, its ‘local’ kirk at Fordyce another 8thC Fite kirk (fite=white aka built of stone not sod, see King Nechtan) is dedicated to St.Talorcan. Like all 8thC Fite kirks—it has the mark of early monastic peripatetic teaching, following a line of stone-built kirks from Tyrie to Strichen and from Old Deer to Old Rayne.

Sandend, still famous for its smokies (dried haddock), smoked salmon, kippers—and surfing—is part of mediaeval landholdings of Fordyce castle, itself a stone’s throw away from Roman-occupied Deskford, where the famed (near-unique) Pictish carnyx battle horn lay buried after battle, c. 420 A.D.

Foodwise, Banff & Buchan were originally geared for oats: oatcakes, Skirlie and Atholl Brose (all use oatmeal). Neeps n’ tatties, too: basic soup broth. Stovies are potatoes fried open fire. And barley (bear) from ancient strain makes the best whisky. Try Caledonian Creme.* *Be prepared: there’s a lot of whisky about: Atholl brose and Caledonian cream specials are loaded with it.

‘After the Galantine of Venison’—post lunch drawing room Mar Lodge, 1885 ©Wm.Aird

Frighten Away Ghosts by Playing Party Games, Rhymes

I saw a doo flee ower the dam, Wi’ silver wings an’ golden ban; She leukit east, she leukit west, She leukit fahr tae light on best. She lightit on a bank o’ san’ Tae see the cocks o’ Cumberlan’ Fite puddin’ black trout—Ye’re Oot’

Rev. Walter Gregor Folklore 1881 collection of party rhymes and garden hide-and-seek games, counting conundrums, nonsense rhymes, many lost to current generation, see below

As I gaed up the Brindy Hill* I met my faither—he geed wull He hid jewels, he hid rings; He’d a cat wi’ ten tails He’d a ship wi’ sivven sails He’d a haimmer dreeve nails. Up Jack, doon Tam; Blaw the bellows, aul’ man. *Brindy, Cothiemuir wood, Alford

Mr Smith’s a very good man; He teaches his scholars noo an’ than. An’ fin he’s deen he taks a dance Up t’London doon t’France He wears a green beaver wi’ a snoot Tarry Diddle— ye’re oot!

Cottar hand-weaving kashie, left, to carry peat from bog’s drying dykes after casting

similar traditional Pacific hand weave hats, baskets neck gear in ‘maypole’ weave, top

Eerinnges, oranges, twa fer a penny Ah’m a guid scholar fer coontin’ sae many—Portsoy

Eerie, aaree, Biscuit Mary, Pim, Pam, Pot—Portsoy

Eetum fer peetum, the King cam tae meet ‘m, An’ dang John Hamilton doon—Tyrie

As I gaed up the aipple tree, A’ the aipples stack tae me; Fite puddin’ black trout, I choose you oot fer a dirty dish clout—party game counter, choosing a partner, Portsoy

Een, twa, three, fower, five, sax, sieven A’a them fisher dodds widna win t’ haven

Anti-fishing joke rhyme told by fishermen of the Broch (Fraserburgh) against themselves, 1880s

Writerly Advice or Just Common Sense

No critique: but current iGens, Tween-tiger/tigresses, GenZ, even Millennials are far more interested in possible NorthCoast sources for fresh lobster, wild salmon, Sandend speldings or Deveron troot than how those precious fishing villages survived, nay now thrive, despite decades of neglect. Same goes for the Doric language. Unless our genetic curiosity prevails, what hope is there for us country quines?

Nevertheless our joint hereditary conditioning—see previous post on Scythian-Scots Irish connection, echoed by Walter Gregor—digs deeply into a [Caucasian] genetic ability to adapt to whatever Mother Nature throws at us. Plus a deeply-embedded love of fire and celebration by flame in all its guises. Burning the old allows us entry into the new. As writerly occupants of subterranean Wo/Man Cave dwellings—who’ve really had a long winter—we can surely agree now’s a great time for renewal.

Happy month of May, a rare celestial all-planets direct, conjunction and… May the 4th be with You. ©2022 Marian Cameron Youngblood

Wars of Independence—Cultural Melting Pot

700 Years since Wallace, Wars of Independence, & ‘Hammer of the Scots’

WRITTEN HISTORY or CULTURAL FOLK MEMORY—MONTHLY MISSIVE from our INSECURE WRITERS‘ CAVE

‘Wallace Guardian of Scotland was a tall man with the body of a giant lengthy flanks broad in the hips, strong arms and legs with all his limbs very firm. He had the gift of speech and kindness’ —Walter Bower Scotichronicon

Wallace statue Aberdeen “So lang’s this stane stands on this craft
The name of Keith shall be held alaft’
But when this stane begins t’ fa’
The name of Keith shall wear awa’” Inverugie Castle, Banffshire

“As long’s there’s an eagle in Pennan
There will be a Baird in Auchmedden”*

Thomas the Rhymer

*Baird was a Keith family name–hereditary Earls Marischal and Master of the King’s Horse. In historical records of the House, a pair of eagles built their nest in the cliffs near the village of Pennan and the Bairds protected them with the greatest care and fed them by placing daily on a ledge of rock near their eyrie food and tidbits. Willam Baird joined ‘Bonnie’ Prince Charlie as an officer of his bodyguard at Culloden. He continued in hiding for some years after and then lived the remainder of his life at Echt House (central Aberdeenshire) where he died in 1777. Auchmedden was not confiscated, but Mr Baird had to sell it in 1750 to relieve debt contracted in support of the Stuarts. When it was bought by Earl of Aberdeen in that year, the eagles left.

400 years before that time of the Old and Young Pretenders (Stuarts), Scotland needed its nobles to stand together. Their Declaration of Arbroath, 1320, was still a pipedream. The action was around Stirling Castle on the River Forth.

Wars of Independence and the ‘Hammer of the Scots’

HISTORY REVEALS REGIONAL LOYALTY SPLIT BETWEEN NE-SW WAS BRUCE’S ACE CARD

After the death of the infant queen Margaret Maid of Norway, Scotland was without a monarch—technically an interregnum. King Edward I of England negotiated to choose a successor from several claimant Guardians of Scotland—Wallace, Comyn, Moray, Balliol—he chose John Balliol. Crowned on St.Andrew’s Day 1292 at Scone—atop the Stone of Destiny—Balliol ‘ruled as Toom Tabard’ (empty cloak, i.e. no substance to his leadership) for all of four years, i.e. until King Edward decided to invade Scotland 1296. Balliol (founder of college Oxon) was arrested, but survived, and died in exile 1314.

Galvanized by 1296 shock tactic, but flying independent banners, Scots nobility from Annandale to Badenoch, the Black Isle to Galloway grouped their forces and, with newfound zeal under Guardian William Wallace, with Andrew, Mormaer of Moray in tow, fought in the world-changing historic Battle of Stirling Bridge, September 1297. And won.

Balliol’s lineage had been important in the search for an heir to the Crown of Scotland: Norman French paternally from King David I (Huntingdon); impeccable matrilinear descent thru Pictish-Celtic princess Devorguilla. John ‘Red’ Comyn, Mormaer (Earl) of Buchan was last of Pictish line on his mother’s side, owned lands of Badenoch, Banff, Strathspey, and Buchan with fortresses, rich hunting forests, cathedrals and strong fishing grounds linking ancient maritime North Sea and Baltic routes.

Braveheart Scenario Masks Murder at the Altar

‘When Dee and Don shall run as one
And Tweed shall run with Tay
The Bonnie Waters o’ the Urie
Shall bear the Bass away.’

‘Papist’ Bourtie-ancient Bowirdin-a Battlefield

Sometime between 1170-1199, Barra-Bourtie landowner Sir Wm. de Lamberton granted an endowment charter on personal lands on his estate in favour of the Priory of St.Andrews at Kilrymounth, mid pic below. Rich endowment was added to by subsequent heirs, confirmed in 1202-06 with added acreage given; confirmed Pope Innocent III 1206, Pope Innocent IV & King Alexander 1248.

Radulf, Bishop of Aberdeen added further ‘two pleughs’ or ploughgates:100 Scots acres to kirklands between 1248-68. Effigies of medieval knight and his lady (head sever recent) probably grave of de Lamberton although tradition claims affiliate of Bruce, Thomas de Longueville, who died at 1308 Battle of Barra, in valley below kirk.

As soon as the king (Balliol) was arrested and escorted into England, all knightly valour and honour were put aside and allegiances changed overnight. Wallace (SW) and Moray (NE) combined forces and their military strength took English-occupied Stirling Castle troops by surprise. Battle of Stirling Bridge, 1297, below l. Bower’s Scotichronicon

Edward abandoned his French invasion, prepared to attack— Falkirk July 22, 1298. As at the Bridge the previous year, English numbered more than the Scots, so Wallace created defensive strategy. Pikemen of Scots foot soldiers formed schiltrons—below—circular positions where the soldiers’ 12-foot spears were turned outwards, positioned at an angle as a tactic against cavalry charges. The schiltron wounded horses’ flanks, yet protected archers ranged behind them. It was near impenetrable.

Unfortunately, it was no match for the English longbow.

Example of the schiltron, deadly against cavalry attacks.

Wallace had used local familiarity with the River Forth estuary and its winding pockets around Stirling Bridge to confound the English, capture and kill Edward’s highest officers. His schiltrons worked. Cavalry collapsed in mud.

One year later, similar numbers, but wide open locale + added reach of Edward’s longbowmen. Scots slaughtered.

To make matters worse, Edward ‘Hammer of the Scots’ confiscated Scone’s sacred Stone of Destiny, took it by wagon to London installed it in Westminster Abbey—where it remained until returned to Scotland 1950.

Thirty Years of Burning Forests Embedded in Folk Memory

Caledonian Pine Forests Burn from Castle Country to North Sea Shore

Aberdeenshire royal forests were extensive. From Midstocket, Hazelhead, Foresterhill, Pitfodels within city limits, they extended to ancient Caledonian hunting groves under protection of local landowner-lairds like Irvines of Drum, Innes of Learney, Crathes, Birse, Forbes of Newe, Strathdon, Kildrummy (Earl of Mar), Corgarff & Huntly (Gordons) aligned with original (Roman and native) paved and unpaved drove roads to north (Moray) and south (Perthshire, rt above Dupplin), when Scone was capital (Alexander I); later Stirling on River Forth (Wallace and Bruce); currently Edinburgh. Stone of Destiny now resides in Edinburgh Castle when not needed in Westminster to crown a monarch.

From earliest annexe of the Pictish kingdom (above left Forres, ‘Sueno’s Stone’ said to show McAlpin takeover of Pictish ‘kingdom of Alba’ AD843), Scots coveted the wealth of hinterland streams and Buchan’s deep forests from mountain to coastal plain. Rich landholdings afforded longstanding family protection by the laird to all his people—the origin of ‘clan’; housing, smallholding crofts and fishing bothies guaranteed survival even through worst times. 

Guardian of Scotland, William Wallace kindled allegiances easily, had huge support unlike his peers, and Edward knew he had to go.  The English king offered a truce, but demanded he swear fealty. Wallace refused. Sometime between 1298 and 1305 he left Scotland for France, where Edward was persona non grata. Betrayed by pro-English Sir John Menteith on his return, he was arrested August 5th, 1305, taken to London and condemned as a traitor.  Three weeks later, August 23rd, he was executed in Smithfield (current meat market) his body hanged, drawn and quartered, each part sent in packages to remote regions of Scotland. 

Two years later it was Robert the Bruce who prepared to die.

Sharing Guardianship of Scotland with arch rival John ‘Red’ Comyn had ended in Brus stabbing Comyn to death—with a concealed dirk before the high altar in Greyfriars Church, Dumfries. Pope excommunicated Brus. Wounded, he proclaimed himself king in 1306. Yet defeat followed defeat, his former army fled, and the sick monarch spent three winter months 1307 hidden in a makeshift shelter near Slioch ‘in the Kingdom of the Garioch’ pron. Gee-ree.  Overwintering in a cave, gravely ill, without support of the army, the Brus believed he was going to die.

While westcoasters may argue location, the river-worn cave on the Don’s south bank outside Inverurie (former Slioch estate—RtheB ally) is the spider cave of legend, taught to children for another five centuries as rôle model of Scots perseverence and fortitude.

Bruce has Change of Heart, Burns his Way North—Herschip o’ Buchan

What greeted the (sick and ailing, aka disbelieving) self-crowned  king of Scots on awakening early May 23, 1308 from his Slioch hideout cave in Inverurie, was surprise arrival of troops in support of his claim to Comyn lands in Buchan and Banffshire.  After a brief skirmish on the fields East of Barra Castle (the battle), local Seton, Strachan and de Lamberton lairds scattered; Comyn retreated to the safety of Fyvie Castle.

It was the last straw. The Bruce army proceeded North, burning everything in its path.

While history records the cataclysmic loss of hunting forest, stream pollution and laying waste of productive arable acreage, it fails to mention Bruce’s act as a criminal, personal vendetta to destroy the offspring of his last rival—Black & Red Comyn Earls of Buchan and Badenoch—murdered in Greyfriars Church, Dumfries, 1306. By torching lands of neighbouring lairds—Herschip o’Buchan fires visible all day, all night for thirty years—he ensured no further rival claims for his kingship. He rendered the Buchan-Aberdeenshire triangle (half size of Switzerland) a scorched desert,  impoverished, disconnected, with desecrated wells and dead cattle everywhere.

Imagine NoCal  forest wildfires with no fire brigade to dowse flames—no end to roaring crackling through the night.

Bannockburn, 1314 came as a reward for his perseverance: milestone schiltron vs. longbow battle outside Stirling Castle, occupied by English, whom he routed. It was touted as his pinnacle. Or swan song.

Six years later, his Buchan legacy still flaming in public view, Comyn, Keith, Fife, Mar and Forbes abstaining, the fame was all Bruce’s.  It was shortlived. Edward II followed what the Hammer of the Scots had begun. Brus’ reign j[1306-1329] survived English domination; his nobles acquiesced—their collective signatures at Arbroath appealing to Rome for support. He even negotiated a truce with England, 1328. He died in his bed (in palatial surroundings, nevertheless: Cardross palace Dumbarton) June 7, 1329 aged 55. Not bad for an excommunicated felon.

 

Scottish wildcat's endangered habitat may be restored

CALEDONIAN FOREST REGENERATION, REWILDING, RESTORATION

Caledonian forest regeneration by private individuals and charitable groups brings back hope for endangered species: wildcat, speedwell

Think Like a Mountain Breathe Like an Ocean

Charity Trees for Life, Scotland: The Big Picture, and a phalanx of individual tree-planting/reforestation groups and landowners throughout Moray, Invernessshire, Aberdeenshire and the Mearns have found hope for a return to ancient habitat for Scotland’s (rare) red squirrel, (threatened) pine marten and (endangered) wildcat.

They join similar earth-and ocean-friendly associations of privately-funded and charitable umbrella organizations who, during a year of renewed growth and natural regeneration of wild spaces (without humans), have chosen EarthFirst contra pollution-growth-waste. We writerly types (insecure, successful or wannabe) applaud the move; would encourage personal plantings—begonia, thyme and catmint do well in cave-dweller LED lighting. Spider-friendly.

And Nature is good for us—thinking like a Mountain even better. Our Muse (privately) told us so.

Onward and upward. Happy height of summer. Look out Lammas—here we come.

©2021 Marian Youngblood

Barons of Scotland Pave Way for Declaration of Independence

Seals of Scotland’s bravest & finest: crests shown: Cheyne of Duffus, Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, and Gilbert de la Hay, Baron of Errol in Gowrie

BARONS OF SCOTLAND PAVE WAY FOR DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
700 Years since Declaration of Arbroath 1320: Food for Writerly Thought in 2020

For so long as there shall but one hundred of us remain alive we will never give consent or subject ourselves to the dominion of the English. For it is not glory, it is not riches, neither is it honours, but it is liberty alone that we fight and contend for, which no honest man will lose but with his life
Barons of Scotland, April 6th, 1320 Aberbrothock

Arbroath, former Aberbrothock, is an historic royal burgh (town), North Sea fishing port, and holiday resort in the county of Angus, Northeast Scotland. Dundee, home to RSS Discovery (Capt.Robert F Scott’s frozen Antarctic vessel),jute, jam and journalism, lies 15miles south. Aberdeen 50 miles north.

It is famous today for Arbroath smokies—or smoked haddock ‘kippers’. And for its mediaeval Abbey, once foremost (richest) cathedral church and chief Benedictine monastery in the realm.

Founded 1178 by King William the Lion for Thomas à Becket, Arbroath Abbey served by 14thC as both secular parliament and most revered religious hub

Arbroath Abbey, the richest and most influential religious center in the North, was founded in 1178 by King William I, the Lion, of Scotland, who chose to be buried there. The Declaration of Arbroath, asserting Scotland’s independence from English rule, was a letter written 700 years ago this week to the (French) Pope by Bernard de Linton, Abbot of Arbroath and Chancellor of Scotland.

It is one of the great icons of the Scots, written in Latin to the Pope in Avignon, and signed by eight earls and 31 barons of Scotland. They plead with him to rescind excommunication—which the Roman Catholic church had just imposed on the King of Scots along with his earls and nobles, based on claims by the English king Edward. They ask him to acknowledge Scotland as an independent nation—which eventually he does.

It has been claimed to serve as model for slave-owning American landowners in their 1766 Declaration of Independence, but history may dispute that.

Drafted by Bishop of Aberdeen, Alexander de Kininmund, (d.1380) from his Pictish Palace of Kineddar, near Burghead, Moray, it was signed by Nobles and Parliament at Arbroath Abbey—richest and most elite religious and secular center of the land. Those nobles unable to attend sent their seals by messenger to the Chancellor, to be affixed to the final document. The Declaration was then sent by sea from the small fishing port to Pope John XXII at his court in Avignon. It left the harbour—looking much as it looks today—in a small fishing vessel on April 6th, 1320, headed for Provence and the Mediterranean coast.

By then, as the nation’s supreme cathedral church, the Abbey was enlarged through 14th-16th centuries inkeeping with its grandeur. The Abbey church at that time boasted the nation’s largest known stained glass windows—in the south transept. It replaced nearby St.Vigean’s (Pictish 8thC heraldic/religious stone center) and was briefly home to Aberdeenshire‘s Monymusk Reliquary, believed to hold relics of St. Columba, now housed in National Museum of Scotland.

Cancelled Celebrations and Call for Loyalty in 2021
It is no surprise to learn that the City & Burghers of Arbroath have announced cancellation of their long-awaited “700 Years” Festival for this year, but have rescheduled festivities for 2021. Hurrah for the smokies!

Signatories included the Earl Marischal Robert Keith, Gilbert de la Hay Constable of Scotland, the Earls of Mar, Fife, Ross & Sutherland, & Lords of Brechin, Kincardine, Lovat & Saltoun. No seal represents the Comyn Mormaer of Buchan

Scots, wha’ hae wi’ Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome tae yer gorey bed,
Or tae victorie

Now’s the day, an now’s the hour:
See the front o’ battle lour,
See approach proud Edward’s power
Chains and Slaverie

Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha will fill a coward’s grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Let him turn an’ flee

Wha, for Scotland’s King and Law,
Freedom’s sword will strongly draw?
Freeman stan’, or Freeman fa’,
Let him on wi’ me…
Robert Burns, 1793, recently used as SNP anthem

Words put in the mouth of Robert I Brus, self-proclaimed king of Scots, on eve of Bannockburn, 1314. Reason for papal decress: Bruce, a west-coaster claiming royal lineage, had murdered last Pictish Earl and Mormaer, John “Red” Comyn of Buchan, 1306 on the altar of Greyfriars church, Dumfries. His army of followers subsequently put torch to all Comyn hunting lands in N.E.Scots landmass: Buchan——modern Aberdeenshire——and the people spoke of the Herschip o’ Buchan Caledonian hunting forests,”burning for 30 years” i.e. fires were still smoking during Bannockburn; Comyn’s descendants did not sign the Declaration, above left; no signature represents Buchan or half the landmass of NorthEast Scotland on the document.
[caveat:In 242 sq.miles of Buchan ‘Broch loons’ and ‘Doric quines’ still feel this way aboot R the B]

The Round O and Reid Lichties
We sympathize with all Scots at this time, particularly celebrants in the coastal town—so-called Reid Lichties*—for their temporarily-suspended Festival because of Corona virus precautions. Councillors and festival organizers have proposed April 2021 as the month they will be “ready to roll” once again.

Distinctive round window high in the 15thC south transept, top, was originally lit up at night as a beacon for mariners aiming for the North Sea port. It is known locally as the ‘Round O’. From this maritime tradition inhabitants of Arbroath are colloquially known as *’Reid Lichties’ (Scots reid = red). Not to be confused with any other red light district.<3

Earth Week now Earth Month
April, as we writing fanatics know, is A-to-Z Challenge month—2020 Challenge sign-up closes April 5th. So my writing cohorts, Insecure or otherwise may forgive me for sidestepping our usual first Wednesday blog-hopping ritual—and daily wordcount—in order to give precedence to Scotland’s historical milestone. I feel Arbroath deserves the mention. There are many American descendants of those noble families whose seals deck the document who may feel inspired to visit the great Abbey after all this medical stuff has blown over. I hope they will.

And we writers KNOW—when the Muse speaks, we listen. We ignore her at our peril. So what’s a few missed sentences between the centuries?

Post scriptum: On Christmas Day 1950, the Stone of Destiny—used in recent centuries for royal coronations—was removed from Westminster Abbey, London. On April 11, 1951, the missing stone was found lying on the site of the Abbey’s altar at Arbroath.
©2020 Marian Cameron Youngblood

Crop Circles and Ancient Lammastide

CROP CIRCLES AND ANCIENT LAMMASTIDE
A Crop Circle Reverie Ten Years On…

Overhead 360º view from within the simple swirled crop circle of August 24, 1995 at Culsalmond, Aberdeenshire

Crop circles are not new. The phenomenon is centuries-old, embedded in folklore in South Africa and China, achieving sparse comment from English academics in the 1600s; noted in police records and farming journals in 1890; by military and ‘classified’ sources through the 1950s and ’60s.

It was not until 1980, however, that the general populace began to notice them. Since 1990 size and intricacy have developed, mimicking computer fractals, fourth dimensional reality, esoterica known only to quantum physicists. Nearly 30 years after that Thatcherite time, discussion favours excitement over fear, anticipation rather than suppression, belief more than ridicule. The appearance of upwards of 10,000 reported ‘genuine’ crop circles in twenty-nine countries worldwide has brought the subject into the mainstream. It has become ‘cool’ to talk about what they might mean.

In the English countryside since 2005, designs have become so complex, it is natural to speak of codes and mathematical sequences and quantum physics and astronomical numbers. As simple ellipses expanded into trailing solar flares, hypercubes, calendrical geometry and astrophysical complexity, we became mesmerized by beauty in the summer landscape, breathless with anticipation of what would come next.

In 2009 the pick of the crop finished at the end of August. Fields in September were conspicuous by their absence.

They’ve got us where they want us: on the edge of our seats.

In a lull between September’s close and next year’s crop of never-before-seen designs, what have we learned? Why are we being gifted such inspiration?

What associative ideas do they generate? What emotions do they trigger? Where do they mostly appear?

Crop Circles as Seasonal Meditation and Earth Connection

White Horse and star guidance sextant crop circle, Alton Barnes solstice 2009

Many delving, however briefly, into this phenomenon would associate the random appearance of crop circles with that other kind of circle: the ancient and sacred stone circle. That the majority of designs in England has focused on the hallowed precincts of great sacred sites like Avebury and Sillbury Hill, Wiltshire, Rollright Stones, Oxfordshire and within sight of ancient burial mounds of Hampshire is no coincidence. The same is true for appearances near ancient ancestral sites in other countries: Holland, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Latvia; even the Serpent Mound, east of Cincinnati, Ohio. In all this exotica, it is easy to miss one particular circle of great simplicity but infinite importance in the farmland of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, which appeared at the end of Lammas, 1995.*

A little patience and we can find a context, a common link.

First off, like the siting of ancient stone circles, crop circle placement is not random.

Dowsers, diviners, engineers, television cameramen and aircraft pilots can all attest to electromagnetic anomalies occurring in cleared agricultural land where Neolithic and Bronze Age farmers placed their mounds, erected their trilithons, buried their dead. Feng shui proponents, who detect minute variations in electrical body pulses, have commented on the extraordinary fluctuations of energy contained within the relatively small area concentrated on Wiltshire’s sacred sites; Alton Barnes, with its twin village Alton Priors, rank high on the electromagnetic scale. It is not surprising, therefore, that this select valley houses not only the prehistoric White Horse, but was home to Milk Hill swallow configuration (2008) and multiple coded designs in 2009: whirling dolphins, star tetrahedron and the sextant (star navigational instrument) created in three stages; contemporary appearances at Alton Priors include – in perfect timing – the exquisite eight/infinity symbol of 08/08/08 (August 8, 2008) and the swallow with coded tail of June 2009.

Woven corn dolly centre at Sillbury Hill crop circle August 3, 2009

Woven centre, reminiscent of ancient corn dolly craft, Sillbury Hill August 2009

White Horse and Star Guidance sextant Crop Circle, Alton Barnes, Wiltshire

Overhead 360º view from within the simple swirled crop circle of August 24, 1995 at Culsalmond, Aberdeenshire

Annual horse fair and Travelling People’s Market, Aikey Brae, Buchan

Moving the Magnetic Matrix
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to watch your compass needle fluctuate wildly at Yatesbury, Wiltshire; a newly-charged car battery die on the edge of a field at Sillbury Hill, near Avebury or your camera spontaneously recharge in the centre of a newly-laid crop design at Alton Barnes. These magnetic phenomena are commonplace to students of ‘leyline’ energy meridians, with which the Wiltshire basin and Cotswold range are filled. But it is significant that Yatesbury was home to the dragonfly glyph of June 3rd and Phoenix of June 12th 2009. Sillbury Hill has always deviated instruments; its great chalk mound resisting man’s excavations to discover its secret; but it opened its fields to decoration of extraordinary complexity on August 3rd, 2009 when plain swirled circles were found to contain at their centres the intricately woven patterns reminiscent of the medieval corn-dolly craft.

According to a representative of the British Feng Shui Society, an area of Britain ranking second only to the Avebury-Yatesbury-Windmill Hill energy vortex is the largely forgotten agricultural plain of Scotland–lying between the 56th and 57thN parallel–in the counties of Angus, Aberdeenshire and Banff. World attention has focused on names like Bishops Cannings, the Roundway, and Chiselden. But how many have heard of Sunhoney, Easter Aquhorthies, Culsalmond or Old Rayne?

Among the excitement of first circles decorating Wiltshire and Oxfordshire in the 1990s, the contemporaneous appearance of a single swirled design in wheat in Aberdeenshire was overlooked. Yet their locations–within ancient sacred landscape, in proximity to prehistoric ritual sites of previously huge importance to a country population–and the time of year in which they appeared have a common link.

Reconnecting us to our Primeval Earth Calendar
In ancient times, the Celtic calendar revolved round the farming year: birds start to nest at Candlemas (February 2nd), Vernal Equinox fields are prepared for sowing; Beltane (May 1st) held a huge fire festival celebrating the seeded land; fire festivals were perpetuated ritually and with deliberate intent, until well after the Reformation. Only then did Church and State combine to desecrate such ritual, relegating it to the realm of pagan superstition (pagan = L. paganus = country-dweller), implication: simple country folk knew no better. Midsummer solstice was a time of rejoicing for the bounty beginning to appear in fruit and crops; Lammas (August 1st) marked the onset of harvest, usually over by autumnal equinox; and the Celtic Year ended and began anew with the festival of Hallowe’en/All Hallows Day. Christmas was superimposed on the earlier festival of winter solstice, when the land was in almost total darkness, with farming people praying for the return of the Light.

In an abundance of festivals, the greatest for agricultural and rural families was that of Lammas. While its pivotal date was August 1st, the festival coincided in a good summer with the actual harvesting of grain. In most communities it began three weeks before and continued until three weeks after that date–ending around August 24th. Through the medieval centuries, every community in the Land had a Lammas fair dedicated to the local patron saint, a Horse Fair, a fair to compete, display wares, buy and sell food, fruit and harvested bounty.

Annual horse fair and Travelling People's Market, Aikey Brae, Buchan

Aberdeenshire, like many of the southern counties was rich in such events. The names, if not the actual ethos of the celebration, linger in local names. Old Rayne has its Lourin’ Fair; annual Aikey Fair occurs at Aikey Brae near Old Deer. And Culsalmond had the greatest fair of them all: St Sair’s Fair. Named after one of the earliest Brittonic saints to spread Christianity in the North, St Serf was the patron of the St Sair’s Horse and Feeing Fair. Not only serving as a forum for employing (feeing) farm servants, it attracted horse and cattle fanciers from all over the kingdom. While Aikey and Lourin continue to show horses, St Sair’s Fair did not survive World War II.

The stance at Jericho on the Hill of St Sairs has dissolved into the sod of the Glens of Foudland, like the tiny chapel to St Sair which used to mark the spot. Even after such fairs were officially banned in 1660, St Sairs was going strong in 1722. Horses were being traded in 1917 on the hill. Change in farm practices and two wars were its undoing.

What is significant, however, is not that great stallions used to parade these hallowed slopes, but that St Sairs happened within a sacred enclave of ancestral ritual circles, burial mounds and avenues just like Avebury and Sillbury Hill. The Culsalmond recumbent stone circle lies buried among the gravestones of the ruinous pre-Reformation kirk; Neolithic carved stone balls were found on the farms of Jericho, St Sairs and Waulkmill, within a sacred avenue flanked by three stone circles and two burial mounds. Bronze Age urns from Colpy and Upper Jericho have, along with charred body parts and Neolithic carved stone ladles, found their way into museums in Aberdeenshire, Edinburgh and London. More than one hundred flint arrowheads and several hundred flint implements have disappeared from this ancient place–and the archaeological record.

It was here on the last day of Lammas 1995 that a crop circle sent a reminder—a simple swirled design in wheat—to trigger in this ancient landscape a memory of connection to its agricultural past and, perhaps, if we are listening, the key to our communal future.
©2009 Marian Youngblood

Lammas 2019 Update
Crop circles continue to amaze a wider world audience, with drone footage clearly making life easier on farmers, with fewer footprints to inflict crop damage.

Attracting an increase in human interpreters, crop designs seem to have elevated messages to the psychic/intuitive level — viz. the computer chip program crop circle at Chualar, Salinas, CA appearance of December 30, 2013.

The Windmill Coincidence
For the last thirty years crop circles have appeared, mostly in Wiltshire and the Chalk Downs of Salisbury and English southern uplands, but not exclusively so. Dutch crop circles have (happily) besieged windmills, man-made canals and tulip fields. Frequent Downs designs have appeared close to functioning windmills, highlighting ancient ways of life—but wait.

In just the last decade it has become clear to us that the harnessing of water and windpower is more urgent than we have ever known.

In hindsight, is it mere coincidence that the solitary Aberdeenshire crop circle of Lammas 1995, top, appeared on the Colpy-Culsalmond farming estate responsible for the pioneer (and largest) private wind-farm to power the North of Scotland, until the official opening (by Prince Charles) this week of the Beatrice Offshore Wind Complex, off Wick (Sutherland)?

Crop Circle Creators have been telling us all along. We just weren’t listening.
©2019 Marian Youngblood