As we near the Scotland, the terrain begins to change from flat green pastures to some grand hills. We are entering the Scottish Highlands. The brownish color on the hills is heather. The rugged peaks of the Highlands were formed by glaciers. Before the glaciers arrived these lands were filled with forests. The glaciers killed the trees, and they decomposed into peat bogs, which makes for very fertile soil--perfect for raising sheep. Hairy cows also live here. Actually, they are so hearty, they can live anywhere. So the area produces high quality beef and wool.
Loch Lomand
We passed Loch Lomand while on the road. Here is the popular song in video. It appears to be a song of lost love. Historian Murray G. H. Pittock writes that the song “is a Jacobite adaptation of an eighteenth-century erotic song, with the lover dying for his king, and taking only the ‘low road’ of death back to Scotland.” It is one of many poems and songs that emerged from Jacobite political culture in Scotland.
The verse: "you’ll take the high road, and I’ll take the low road" alludes to the high road, meaning the bodies of the men that were going to be exhibited on a coach on the most important road in the country.
Loch Lomond is a much-loved song of pride of country. It is traditionally played as the last song of the night at Scottish parties.
Hadrian's Wall is sometimes viewed as the boundary between England and Scotland, but it is really further north. We didn't see the wall because it would have taken us way off course (so I am using a Google images photo instead). It was a dividing line that the Romans began building in 122 C.E. Tens of thousands of legionnaires were stationed along the 71-mile wall, which is the shortest width between England and Scotland.
Carlisle was one major garrison and a walled city. A ditch surrounded the town with wooden spikes next to the wall and a generous supply of boulders and vats for hot boiling oil were strategically placed in case of an attack. In actuality, the wall was only used for less than 100 years before it was abandoned.
The Romans stopped in the region where they built Hadrian's Wall because they didn't want to go any further north into the Highlands. They did, however, go on to Edinburgh and set up a trading post there. The stone of Hadrian's wall was used for other things. Some of it had Latin graffiti carved into the stone.
This area of Scotland was like the Wild West: untamed, lawless, and always in some kind of battle. Any attempts at making laws was futile because people refused to follow them.
Scotland was divided into four parts. The top half, the Highlands, was full of the ancient Celtic people who lived there since the second century B.C.E. They were scary people wild and ferocious. They were named "the painted ones" because they used blue war paint on their faces and bodies. They did this to separate themselves from their enemies in battle, because they looked more ferocious, and because the paint helped to heal scars they received in battle.
The bottom half of Scotland, the Low Lands, was held by the Romans. On the right half lived the Anglo-Saxons who served as mercenaries to protect the farmers who had settled all over England. On the left half were the Vikings. The Irish also lived in western Scotland.
Gretna Green
One of the first stops over the Scottish border is Gretna Green, a small village where English people used to go to get married in a hurry without the bride's father's permission. (It is even mentioned on "The Crown" when Princess Margaret and Tony Armstrong-Jones talked of getting married.)
The happy couple could go to the blacksmith shop (above), knock on the door, and a little ceremony over the anvil in front of a pastor and witness would make their marriage legal. Romantic novels like Jane Austen's would take place in Gretna Green. In the mid-1700s, this place was a popular marriage center, much like Las Vegas is in the United States, only without Elvis or the glitter.
Love statues
Gretna Green is also a little way station for shopping and eating. The Wee Big Shop was just one place that has many different food items to buy--as well as some love and food proverbs to share. Everything here is about love!
No comments:
Post a Comment