A'tween Troup Heid and Gamrie Mohr

“a field naturally adapted for fancy to sport in”

If you look carefully at this photo you can seen St John's church - a grey ruin - in the middle distance. 

It is a place of beauty and one can walk up to it from the beach following the line of a little stream, but it has a strange history:

St John's Church

On a high cliff beside Gamrie-mor stands the old Church, said to have been built in 1004. It was dedicated to St John, and, according to tradition, it owed its erection to a vow made by the leader of the Scots in a conflict with the Danes, that if St John gave him the victory this monument of his gratitude would be raised above the foeman's landing-place.

Until the Church became a ruin three skulls were preserved fixed in niches in the wall on the east side of the pulpit. The story is that the defending Scots succeeded in gaining possession of the top of the hill, directly over the Danish main camp, and, by rolling down large stones upon the invaders, obliged them to abandon it and escape by the north-east brow of the hill where many were killed in the fight.

1004 A.D. – Castlehill of Findon/ Den of Afforsk

 “a field naturally adapted for fancy to sport in”  -  (A’tween Troup Heid & Gamrie Mohr 1968.)

  

You and I are sacrilegious in this very

Christian place and yet the thought of Danish invaders

Stabling their horses in the Church of Saint John

Out of spite to the saint favoured by the enemy,

Still shocks.  They regrouped and had another

Set-to with the Scots.  But the Thane had had enough.

So with rolled stones and drawn swords

They bore down on the Danes and

cut them to pieces to a man.

The skulls of the three sacrilegious chieftains

Were set, grinning, in the walls of the church

And the saint had the last, cruel laugh. 

© Sally Givertz 

I have a habit of standing just outside the front door each morning and looking up at St John’s; watching the weather, checking my thermometer and breathing the fresh air. There were rumours that one of the skulls was still on display at the Museum of Banff (MOB) but sadly these are unfounded.  The skulls seem to have been looted and lost but the church still stands and was being used as a burial-place until the last century.  It still holds a certain power - a sort of "stage presence" up on Mohr Head and we are pleased to see it there still. 

Next week I'll focus on some Scottish contemporary poets and the wonderful resource of the Poetry Archive. 

The Friendly Cow ....and other cattle

Is this what you expect?

Well, yes we do get these around here and they are very attractive, but there are so many others too.  All manner of cattle - my favourite herd grazes on a high meadow above Crovie in a shallow dip of land overlooking the sea.  Sadly I didn't get around to photographing them. 

But you are dying to know about the Turra' Coo so I'll put you out of your misery of suspense:

 

The Turra' Coo (The Turiff Cow) is a story about a white cow that was resident in the small Aberdeenshire town of Turriff in north-east Scotland in the early twentieth century which was involved in legal disputes over taxes and health insurance.  This is her centenary year.

Under the Liberal government of the 1910s, the Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George made national insurance contributions compulsory by employees for all workers between the ages of 16 and 70, through the National Insurance Act. This caused outrage among the farmers local to Turriff, who claimed that their contributions were too high and that as they were rarely able to be off work due to illness like industrial workers it was unfair for them to have to pay for a service they were unlikely to use.

In Turriff, popular protests were held in the Johnston and Paterson Mart, and Robert Paterson, a Lendrum farmer refused to stamp the insurance cards of his employees. This resulted in orders on 13 December 1913 for Turriff's sheriff George Keith to seize property to the value of £22 from Paterson's farm. However, this was more difficult than it seemed as officers could not move property without local assistance, and the locals refused to help in protest. The only way for Keith to follow his orders was to remove a piece of property which could move by itself, so they chose the Patersons' white milk cow, which was led to Turriff on foot.

The next day, the citizens of Turriff found the cow tied in the village square, decorated in ribbons and painted with the words 'Lendrum to Leeks' in reference to Lloyd George's Welsh origin, and representing the sheriff's and government's victory over the hostile farmers. The cow was put up for auction. The response was a near riot, and a 100-strong mob proceeded to pelt the sheriff's officers with rotten fruit and soot. The cow escaped in the chaos. 

The cow was eventually sold and the local community rallied together to buy back the cow for Lendrum, where the cow died six years later and was buried in a corner of the farmland.

It all provided a running joke at the authorities’ expense and has put the little town of Turriff firmly on the map.  There are even Youtube clips! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdHda8kWXI8

So where's the poetry in all this?

Well, when the cow was returned to Lendrum farm she was re-painted with the defiant words:

Free!! Didn't ye wish that ye were me

And since that splendid day the Turra' Coo (I've yet to learn her name - maybe you can help?) has inspired artists of all descriptions and there are stories, Bothie Ballads, and paintings featuring her.  Local people are very fond of her and her statue is much admired. Many traditions have sprung up and she  garlanded with flowers and notified about our weddings.  We even recite poetry to her.

On our wedding day we took a little trip from Banff to Turriff and I read the romantic lines that I had lovingly crafted earlier. It is an interactive poem and we performed it joyously! Please note the remarkable rhyme-scheme and moving sentiments:

A Weedin’ Vow 

from Sally Gray to Peter Gray on our weedin’ day

Here and now beside this cow

I make a vow

I say to you beside this coo

I will be true

And if you too

Will love me true…

Hold hands and mooooo!

Do you think it might catch on?

Finally a word about how to live and it was penned over a hundred years ago - what would poor W.H.D. think of life today?

W. H. Davies

Leisure

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

from Songs Of Joy and Others (1911)

We do have time to stand and stare and that's one of the great joys of living here. We also have some very charming sheep but I'd better move on to other subject areas in the next blog or I may lose you altogether...

Sally's Scottish Poetry Blog begins....

The beginning is always the hard part. Why blog?

I suppose I want to tell you - my English friends and others -  about north-east Scotland.

A few months ago I had no idea that this place was so full of riches: fertile land, natural beauty, the sort of light and changing skies that bring artists flocking; cheerful and confident people and of course, history. The terrible history of the Highland clearances, of lost communities and the end of the main livelihood of this area - fishing.

But people have adapted - as they always do - and new industries and communities have grown up here with a mood of optimism and good humour.

Poetry will loom large in this blog - you have been warned. Perhaps you will look away now and never come back but that can't be helped...

(I won't include complete poems by living poets as they deserve to maintain their copyright.  I publish extracts that might inspire you to seek them out.)

Kathleen Jamie goes first:

The Creel

Kathleen Jamie (b. 1962) 

(extract)

The world began with a woman,

shawl-happed, stooped under a creel,

whose slow step you recognize

from troubled dreams. You feel

obliged to help bear her burden

from hill or kelp-strewn shore,

........

creel: wicker basket for carrying fish, peat, etc on the back

thirled: enslaved

This poem is worth looking for (it gets more cheerful) and it is both a creation myth and a reminder that we are not as  important as we think we are and that the world will turn without us.  I've decided that hedonism is the way to go now that I am (slightly) older.

Something more colourful to end with...a view of part of my village.  

Seatown, Gardenstown.

Tourism is a major industry for this area and the village comes alive in the summer with visitors from all over the world. The internet has made so many new things possible here. Even Amazon delivers!! Not nearly as remote as you might think.