Category Archives: Scotland
Flat periwinkles (a pantoum)
Whenever I’m over in the west – as I am now – I walk the beach nearby the village and pick up shells. I am incapable of walking on any beach, anywhere, and not picking up shells. Being the west coast, the … Continue reading
An encounter with Captain Wedderburn
Yesterday I visited Rosslyn Chapel. It wasn’t raining, I wanted to get out of the city for a couple of hours and the chapel does, of course, have some of the finest and most characterful mediaeval stone carvings in Scotland, … Continue reading
On writing. And starting over.
I’m not the world’s best blogger, or twitterer, or Facebook user. People who’ve stumbled across this occasional blog, or seen me on FB or Twitter, will have realised this anyway. But I am online here, and elsewhere, sometimes and, dear reader of this … Continue reading
Selkies
It’s been a while since I posted on a folksong but I’ve had one going around in my mind for a fair time. It’s Child Ballad no. 113, The Great Silkie of Sule Skerrie. The version in my music collection … Continue reading
A land divided: songs and politics in Kidnapped
More thoughts of Scottish history remembered in song again this time. One of my favourite rainy day books (and today is a very rainy day) is Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886). It’s set in 1751, in the aftermath of … Continue reading
Blood in the borders
Very short post this one: a reminder that the United Kingdom hasn’t always been so, and may not be so again. History’s a bloody, messy thing and today’s a day to remember that. It’s the 499th anniversary of the battle of … Continue reading
Folksong and Fantasy 