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Overview
The Little Book of Scotland is a funny, fast-paced, fact-packed compendium of the sort of frivolous, fantastic or simply strange information which no-one will want to be without. Discover the most unusual crimes and punishments, eccentric inhabitants, famous sons and daughters and literally hundreds of wacky facts.
Geoff Holder's latest book contains historic and contemporary trivia including such gems as the real story of William 'Braveheart' Wallace, which king was murdered in a barn, and where the Second World War Commandos were formed. From Sir Walter Scott to Sir Sean Connery and Queen Victoria to Mary Queens of Scots, this is a remarkably engaging little book, essential reading for visitors and Scots alike.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780750956864 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 02/03/2014 |
| Series: | Little Book Of |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 5 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Little Book of Scotland
By Geoff Holder
The History Press
Copyright © 2014 Geoff HolderAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7509-5686-4
CHAPTER 1
PLACES – HERE & NOW, THEN & THERE
PREHISTORIC DAYS
The oldest calendar in the world was constructed by nomadic hunter-gatherers in Aberdeenshire 10,000 years ago. Twelve wooden posts set up at Warren Field near Crathes Castle mimicked the phases of the moon and recorded the lunar months, allowing the seasons to be followed. The Mesolithic device is almost 5,000 years older than the first recognised formal calendars known from ancient Mesopotamia.
Aberdeenshire contains approximately 10 per cent of all the 900 stone circles in Britain.
The Ring of Brodgar on the mainland of Orkney is the third largest stone circle in the world. The numerous prehistoric monuments in the area are collectively listed as a World Heritage Site known as the Heart of Neolithic Orkney.
Callanish on Lewis in the Western Isles is one of the most elaborate prehistoric sites in Britain. Featuring a stone circle with a cross-shaped series of stone rows, the complex is focused on the 18.6-year cycle of the moon across the heavens.
Lewis also has the tallest standing stone in Scotland. The Clach an Trushal monolith is over 19ft in height.
One of the most spectacular prehistoric sites is at Machrie Moor on Arran, where seven stone circles stand in close proximity to each other.
A prehistoric monument unique to Scotland is the broch, a cylindrical stone defensive/residential proto-castle that looks like a scaled-down power station cooling tower. Double-skinned, the walls were honeycombed with internal stairs and chambers. Brochs survive to a reasonable height in Lochalsh, Skye and the Western Isles. The best is at Mousa in Shetland.
The mysterious stone monuments of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages were still regarded with awe into the modern age. Many burial mounds were thought to be the home of fairies or spirits. Women visited various stones thought to promote conception and/or a safe childbirth at Darvel (East Ayrshire), Pitreavie (Fife), Dingwall (Ross & Cromarty, Highland) and Clach-na-bhan (Aberdeenshire). Such visits continued until at least the mid-nineteenth century.
WHAT DID THE ROMANS EVER DO FOR US?
Hadrian's Wall did not mark the limit of the Roman Empire. There are two (far less well-known) Roman frontiers further up Scotland: the Antonine Wall (AD 142–144), parts of which can still be seen on the narrow neck of land between Glasgow and the River Forth; and the Gask Ridge, a true 'Wild West' frontier of forts and watchtowers running from Camelon in Falkirk District north-east through Stirling District and Perth & Kinross to Stracathro in Angus.
Having been built between AD 70 and AD 80, forty-two years before the start of building works on Hadrian's Wall, the Gask Ridge is the earliest fortified land frontier in the Roman Empire. It effectively separated the fertile plains and important harbours of the Lowlands from the less valuable (and more difficult to control) Highlands – perhaps the first political recognition of the fact that Scotland has two distinct geographies. The tensions and differences between the Highlands and the Lowlands have remained a factor of Scottish life ever since.
In the first century AD the Roman army briefly penetrated even further north, reaching Aberdeenshire, Moray and as far as present-day Inverness.
The idea that everyone in Iron Age Scotland painted themselves with blue woad, lived a wild but free life and hated the Romans is a myth that has its roots in misguided nineteenth-century romantic patriotism. Some Lowland Caledonian tribes were more than happy to take bribes of silver and luxury Mediterranean goods (like wine) in exchange for not disturbing the Pax Romana. And a number of Lowland farmers did very nicely selling grain and other agricultural products to the hungry Roman troops. Even Hadrian's Wall wasn't the military exclusion barrier it has been portrayed as – many of its gates were open most of the time to allow the passage of goods and animals for market – goods and animals, that is, sold by the local tribes.
Roman influence in Scotland ebbed and flowed, depending largely on what was happening elsewhere in the Empire. After AD 211, with a few exceptions, the Romans largely withdrew to Hadrian's Wall.
In 1772 the pioneering traveller Thomas Pennant was given a Roman coin which had been found on the shore at Greshinish on Skye. The Romans never reached the area, leaving us to wonder how a denarius bearing the image of the Emperor Trajan (AD 98–117) reached this remote spot.
The belief that an entire Roman legion was annihilated in AD 117 somewhere in Scotland has inspired a number of works of fiction, notably Rosemary Sutcliff's 1954 novel The Eagle of the Ninth and the films The Last Legion (2007), Centurion (2010) and The Eagle (2011). The story, however, is nothing more than a modern myth: the supposedly vanished Ninth Legion was still in existence after the alleged Scottish battle, and it disappears from the records only after a later, unknown, conflict in the eastern part of the Roman Empire.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
You would think the name Scotland means 'the land of the Scots', the Scots of course being the indigenous people of the country that lies north of England. Nothing, however, is ever that simple.
To the Romans, the area north of Hadrian's Wall was called Caledonia, and at least some of the people who lived there in later times were known as the Picts. The Scots, meanwhile, were actually a tribe from Ireland, the Dal Riàta, who didn't arrive until the sixth century, long after the Romans left. Initially the Gaelic-speaking Scots only controlled the western seaboard of their new country, while most people still called the place Pictland. Had they not won their generations-long conflict with their Pictish neighbours, the Scots may well have disappeared from history and the national anthem would today be 'Pictland the Brave'.
But never mind the Scots coming from Ireland; Dark Age Scotland was nothing like the Scotland of our times. The south-west was part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde, stretching from north-west England as far as Glasgow, and home to a Brythonic (Celtic British) people who spoke Old Welsh. The south-east – including Edinburgh – was meanwhile occupied by the Angles of Bernicia (whose Anglo-Saxon language became the basis for the modern Scots variant of English). And the Northern and Western Isles were the stamping ground of the Vikings, who introduced numerous Norse-speaking settlements. With various ethnic peoples speaking Welsh, proto-English, Gaelic, Pictish or Norse, the idea of 'Scotland' as a unitary nation in the seventh and eighth centuries was ludicrous.
The Scots eventually became the dominant people in much of the central part of the country, creating a kingdom known as Alba. Pictish as a language and a cultural identity disappeared, replaced by the Gaelic culture and language of the new overlords. Over time, Alba of the Scots became referred to as Scotia, and by the early eleventh century there was finally a country which almost everybody called Scotland.
CASTLES
Conflict creates castles. If there are men with sharp pointy things coming to kill you, then it makes sense to defend yourself in the best way possible. There are records of perhaps 2,000 castles in Scotland, of which around 1,200 still exist today. Some 'castles' are really nineteenth-century luxury houses with twiddly bits, while others are the full-on medieval real deal.
The most common Scottish castle is not the vast, hugely expensive royal fortress such as those found at Edinburgh or Stirling, but the family stronghold, a relatively modest tower house designed to protect a small number of kinsmen from marauders.
Castles first make their appearance in the eleventh century, with the earliest stone-built castles dating from about 1200. This means that Macbeth (king from 1040 to 1057), for example, would have never walked a stone battlement or entered a great hall made from anything other than earth and wood. Filmmakers, take note.
The most visited castle in Scotland is Edinburgh Castle, which receives more than 1.3 million visitors a year.
Even if a castle is in ruins, there is usually one feature that survives: the garderobe, or toilet, which typically projects outward from the wall – and is often placed directly above the moat. You can imagine the consequences.
The most northerly castle is the sixteenth-century Muness Castle on the island of Unst in Shetland. Like most Scottish castles, it is modest in size, and its history is stained with blood.
Castles, of course, attract legends. When visiting ruined Duntulm Castle on Skye, for example, you might be told that the castle was abandoned because a nursemaid accidentally dropped the heir to the MacDonald chiefdom onto the jagged rocks below. You might even be informed that the window where the accident took place still exists, and that any young woman who looks through it will be cursed with a barren womb. Before swallowing this story hook, line and sinker, it might be worth knowing that exactly the same story is told of at least six other castles throughout Scotland.
Scottish castles are also famous for being haunted, and guides tend to get a bit fed up of being asked, 'Where are the ghosts?' Whisper it quietly, but some castles have been known to keep visitors happy by inventing the odd ghost or two ...
THE MARCH OF TIME – LOST COUNTIES
There are three certainties in life: death, taxes, and changes to local government boundaries. In Scotland, the many variations inflicted on the various county councils mean that names that were once part of the landscape and culture are now largely lost, and what used to be one place is now an entirely different place – which is confusing if you're trying to find the modern map location for somewhere mentioned in family history research, a historic document, or a Walter Scott novel.
To be fair, the situation before the reforms of 1890 was at times baffling and bizarre. There were thirty-four counties, some of which, curiously, had 'offshoots' in other counties, leading to all kinds of administrative craziness when it came to registering births and deaths, or paying taxes. The northern county of Cromartyshire, for example, was actually nine separate enclaves entirely surrounded (and separated) by the much larger Ross-shire. Nairnshire had colonies in both Inverness-shire and Ross-shire. Lewis was governed by distant Ross-shire, while Harris – part of the same island – was the responsibility of Inverness-shire. In the Borders, a tiny part of Selkirkshire nestled inside neighbouring Roxburghshire. And in the heartland, Clackmannanshire cut both Perthshire and Stirlingshire into two parts each, while Stirlingshire itself sliced Dumbartonshire in half. It was, frankly, a right pig's ear of a system.
The situation after 1890 became a little more sensible, but there were still some name changes to come. Haddingtonshire became East Lothian, while Linlithgowshire transformed into West Lothian. Forfarshire was now Angus, and Dumbartonshire changed one letter to become Dunbartonshire. Zetland, meanwhile, became Shetland.
In 1975 the thirty-three former county councils were reorganised into just twelve regions: Borders, Central, Dumfries & Galloway, Fife, Grampian, Highland, Lothian, Orkney, Shetland, Strathclyde, Tayside and the Western Isles. Some of the regions were ungainly, clumsy creations – Strathclyde Region, for example, stretched from the metropolis of Glasgow to the remote islands of Coll and Tiree, whose combined population would barely fill a Partick tenement. In 1996, when the regions were abolished in the most recent shake-up, Strathclyde Region was broken up into no less than twelve councils.
Although the regions were little loved as administrative units, their names (and catchment areas) are retained in official bodies such as Strathclyde Partnership for Transport or Tayside Fire & Rescue.
Several counties disappeared in the 1996 reforms. In the south-west, the names Dumfriesshire, Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire vanished, as did the Borders counties of Peebles-shire, Selkirkshire, Berwickshire and Roxburghshire, plus Nairnshire in the north. Banffshire and Kincardineshire became subsumed in greater Aberdeenshire. A large part of Perthshire was shifted into Stirling District, and then Perthshire was married to Kinross-shire to become Perth & Kinross. In practice, most people still use the original names – even the tourist board prefers 'Perthshire' to 'Perth & Kinross'.
There are currently thirty-three council areas in Scotland, and these are the ones referred to when indicating locations in this book.
In the south and south-west:
Dumfries & Galloway South Ayrshire
Scottish Borders
East Ayrshire
North Ayrshire
South Lanarkshire
In the Central Belt (the most populous area):
Inverclyde
North Lanarkshire
Renfrewshire
Falkirk District
West Dunbartonshire West Lothian
East Dunbartonshire City of Edinburg
h City of Glasgow
Midlothian
East Renfrewshire
East Lothian
In the Heartland:
Clackmannanshire Perth & Kinross
Stirling District City of Dundee
Fife
Angus
In the north-east:
Aberdeenshire Moray
City of Aberdeen
And in the north and west:
Argyll & Bute
Orkney Islands
The Western Isles Shetland Islands
Highland
The smallest county on the mainland is Clackmannanshire, where around 50,000 people live in just 60 square miles: hence the nickname, 'the Wee County'. The largest county by far is the Highland Council area – which is bigger than four of the next largest counties put together – so often a subsidiary, more usefully local name is appended, such as Caithness, Sutherland, Wester Ross, Cromarty, Skye, Lochalsh or Strathspey.
Just to muddle matters further, the administrative county known as 'Highland' does not include all of the geographical area known as 'the Highlands'. So you can be in the Highlands but not be in Highland. Yes, it's confusing – but that's local government for you.
I suspect that more local government changes of name and boundary await us in the future.
THE MARCH OF TIME – CHANGING FORTUNES
It wasn't until 1437 that Edinburgh became the capital. In fact, the city was not even in Scotland at all until the year 1020.
The Borders county of Berwickshire disappeared in the administrative shake-up of 1996. But it had lost its county town long before. After a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing in the wars with England, Berwick-upon-Tweed had been finally taken by the English in 1482, and to this day remains just south of the border. In 1596 the much smaller Greenlaw was designated as the new county town of Berwickshire. In 1661 the nearby town of Duns snatched the title. As being the county town had all kinds of advantages, not least financial, Greenlaw took it back in 1696. Duns and Greenlaw then argued about the matter for hundreds of years, and it was not until 1903 that Greenlaw finally lost its status as county town.
PLACE NAME PECULIARITIES
The longest place name in Scotland is the eighteen-letter Coignafeuinternich, which is an abandoned village in the Monadhliath Mountains west of Aviemore (Highland). The name is Gaelic, a language which cleaves to long words. Norse, in contrast, tends to be terse, and gives us the shortest village name in Scotland – Ae in Dumfries & Galloway – as well as uninhabited places like Aa and Ve (Shetland) and Oa (Islay).
You can have a Brawl in Caithness (Highland), meet Mavis Grind in Shetland, and walk through Muck (Inner Hebrides). Take care, however, when dealing with Hen Poo (Scottish Borders), Rotten Bottom (Dumfries & Galloway) or Tongue of Gangsta (Orkney).
The village of Dull in Perth & Kinross is paired with the Oregon town of Boring.
If you are in Aberdeenshire you could get some Blankets, call someone Fattiehead or Tarty, watch out for your Backside in case of Brokenwind – and then get Lost.
Other names to please or vex the tongue are Maggieknockater (Moray), Brainjohn, Easter Auquhorthies and Yondertown of Knock (Aberdeenshire), Slackend (West Lothian) and Puddledub (Fife).
With Zetland becoming Shetland in 1890, there are now only two places in Scotland beginning with the letter 'Z', and they're both called Zoar: one is in Forfar in Angus, and the other is a farmstead west of Hillswick on Shetland.
There are no places in Scotland beginning with X.
Balfron in Stirling District is occasionally visited by Star Wars fans seeking a connection with the fictional planet of the same name.
Should you wish to go overseas without leaving Scotland, you could head for New Orleans in Argyll or Moscow in East Ayrshire.
Beware pronunciation: Milngavie in Glasgow is pronounced 'Mulguy'; Findochty in Moray is 'Finechty'; Friockheim in Angus is 'Free-come'; Strathaven in South Lanarkshire is 'Straven'; Garioch in Aberdeenshire gets warped into 'Geerie'; Footdee in Aberdeen is 'Fittie'; Hawick (Scottish Borders) becomes the throat-clearing 'Hoyck'; Wemyss in Fife is 'Weems,' while nearby Kirkcaldy is rendered as 'Kir-cawdie'; and Kirkcudbright in Dumfries & Galloway trips off the tongue as 'Kir-coo-brie'. Why? Just because.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Little Book of Scotland by Geoff Holder. Copyright © 2014 Geoff Holder. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title,Dedication,
Illustrations,
Introduction,
1. Places – Here & Now, Then & There,
2. Scottish People,
3. From Lochs & Rivers to Ships & the Sea,
4. Wars, Battles & Rebellions,
5. Transports of Delight: From Horse to Hovercraft,
6. Food & Drink,
7. Culture,
8. The Natural World,
9. Scotland at Work,
10. Sports & Games,
Bibliography,
Copyright,