Lùnastal and Vikings (Yarr)

I haven't updated much recently so there's a bit of catching up to do...

Lùnastal was celebrated, and it was kind of an odd affair in some ways. We celebrated on time, getting the house in order and having a festive meal, making the bonnach Lùnastain:

Saining the house and playing some games, offering to Taillte and Lugh. All the usual stuff we do for Lùnastal.

It kind of snuck up on me, but now I'm more experienced I don't tend to take as much time planning and generally flapping and flailing about making sure everything's ready as I used to when I was just starting out. But over all the festival seemed more drawn out than usual. It's not unusual that we might take a few days to celebrate a festival, so we can fit everything in and get it all done without overdoing it, but this year Lùnastal was more drawn out than ever. I'd had an idea that we'd have a family celebration and then carry on with the festivities at my great-niece's first birthday party, which would involve lots of games and things for the kids to do that tie in with the festive theme, and that's what happened there (the kids had a great time at the party, in spite of the slightly disturbing giant Peppa Pig who came in with the birthday cake...). But although everything was successful and our offerings and songs seemed to be well received, there was a feeling that things weren't finished.

Usually, given the fact that it's a festival of first fruits, I like to incorporate that into the festivities and make it the major focus, and I never really felt much of a connection to Lùnastal until we moved here, to where we live now, and I was able to start a vegetable patch and put in some fruit bushes. Harvesting our own fruits and veg helped reinforce the significance of the festival, and bring it closer to home. But this year, I didn't have anything to harvest from the garden, really. The long winter and late spring we had seems to have put paid to any blueberries this year, and I decided against growing any vegetables because I had to admit to myself that I just can't manage it - there was too much work needed with replacing the containers and compost I've been using for the veg, and it was pointless trying to fudge it and do it anyway because the containers were clearly going to fall apart as soon as I touched them. I just decided to accept that we'd have to make do with a festive feast made with seasonal foods - the first new potatoes of the season, and that kind of thing - from the supermarket instead.

It's been a really warm and sunny summer this year, though, and that means the blackberries have been exceptionally early and there are tons of them, too, extra fat and juicy. I had an idea that the brambles were going to ripening earlier rather than later, but hadn't quite anticipated that they'd be ripe and ready well before the end of August. Usually they don't ripen until mid-September, but this year they ended up ripening by mid-August. So a couple of weeks after our Lùnastal festivities began, we were able to finish things off with the harvesting of our first lot of autumn fruits, which the kids insisted had to become a blackberry and apple crumble:

And if I do say so myself, it's the best one I've ever done. It didn't last long...

Harvesting the berries gave a sense of closure and the sense of rounding things off that had been otherwise lacking, and with hindsight I kind of wish I'd waited a few weeks and celebrated a little later. In between the start and finish, things just felt a bit up in the air. The kids had fun, though, and the heavily laden bramble bushes are just about the best thing ever as far as Rosie's concerned, especially. Free food. To her mind, it should be autumn all year round.

So that's Lùnastal all caught up. Then came a local festival at the end of August, celebrating the final defeat of the Vikings in Scotland (the decisive battle happening just down the road from us, where the festival takes place). So I dragged the kids along and they had fun at the fair, both of them choosing a bow and arrow set as a prize for Hook a Duck, having a run around one of those haunted houses and so on, and then we went to watch the re-enactors demonstrating some Viking "battle" tactics and fighting techniques. I think it's fair to use the term "technique" loosely there...

There were all kinds of stalls, too, and the kids got to stroke some owls at one of them:

Including Hedwig, I think?

And then we went to the Viking village, where the re-enactors do a bit of living history, demonstrating how they lived, slept, ate in those days, and so on. Rosie was fascinated by the wolf and fox skins on the bed:

And was torn between being sad at the fact that the animals were dead, and loving how soft and snuggly they feel. Check out the very authentic Viking wall hanging at the back there...

The kids also had the chance to have a go at some archery again:

Tom's enthusiasm makes up for his lack of expertise, I'm sure. He thought the target on the left was hilarious (it's a naked dude covering his "winky" with his axe. I've no idea where Tom got "winky" from...):

It was a good afternoon out and we brought Mr Seren some fudge back with us (he was working).

Now, as the autumn's well and truly under way, thoughts are inevitably turning to Là Fhèill Mìcheil and then Samhainn, which I might waffle on about in another post. Hopefully soon we'll have some more videos to post as well.

In which I left the house and Did Stuff

All last week I had some friends visiting, much to my excitement because it meant I got to Do Stuff With Grown Ups. Mr Seren graciously (in his own special way, i.e. with much good-natured whinging and moaning) took charge of the kids while I went off gallivanting around Scotland and all kinds of fun stuff. I finally got around to going to visit Paisley Abbey and spied the xenomorph carving:

Which was pretty high up so the picture is grainy because it's so closely cropped; I first learned about the xenomorph from some links that went viral a while ago and the abbey went on to my list of places to see and then I promptly forgot about it. But seeing as we were going to be nearby, at the museum, and had an hour to kill before that opened, the abbey was a good opportunity. There were some beautiful stained glass windows there as well (and a very talkative warden).

I'll start with our trip to Luss in Loch Lomond, though, and given the amount of pictures I took I'll probably spill over into a couple of posts after this. Loch Lomond was our first big day out (involving lunch and cake, naturally). I've been there many times now, but this time I had the chance to wander around a bit more and we visited the village church as well. The village itself is very picturesque (here's some I took from a previous visit, when it was sunny):

The church is really unusual, with the pulpit and font situated in the middle so everyone sits around it and can face each other. It's also beautifully done inside, but I didn't take too many pictures because the warden (or whoever he was) was very obliging in giving us a history and I didn't want to appear rude while he was talking. The font was originally removed sometime after the Reformation and buried under a cairn of stones not too far away, to protect it from being destroyed. It was eventually replaced after being discovered by soldiers, who brought it back to the church (which had been rebuilt by then). I didn't take a photo of it, but I did get a picture of the statue of St Kessog:

Who seems like a cheery fellow. He's said to have brought Christianity to the area over 1500 years ago, and according to the Wikipedia link he used to be the patron saint of Scotland before St Andrew took over; his name was also used as a battle cry. There's a wee trail behind the church that goes into the history, which starts off with a beautifully carved cross that spells out "coexist," which is a nice touch. And there are some beautiful views of the hills, that are still covered in bluebells at the moment:

You can kind of see the Celtic cross there as well. There are memorial trees planted all around the edges of the field and the guy we spoke to inside the church said they plant a fruit tree for each Christening they do, so they have an orchard as well, which is a nice touch. Some of memorials were for kids, which is just heartbreaking to see, with the teddy bears and kids' toys at the base of the trunk.

Back in the churchyard there's a Viking hogback - about tenth century in date, I think - lurking amongst the more recent gravestones:

They don't tend to have inscriptions so I'm not sure who it's for, and it seemed smaller than the ones I saw at Govan last year. I don't think I've ever seen one in situ before so maybe it just seemed wee by comparison, but I think it's sunk a bit and weathered a lot, going by the Canmore records.

Down at the shore there are some views of Ben Lomond, which marks the start of the Highland line:

And there's also a nice wee shop by the pier, with possibly the most talkative proprietor EVAR. Enter if ye dare... The shortbread's nice but you might never leave.

The next day we did Bute by car, so we got to see more than just the usual. In spite of the weather, which was a little changeable, it was a fab day, but I'll leave that for the next post. Or possibly two, because I kind of went to town with the camera that day.

Hogbacks (Vikings, yarr!)

Last Thursday my mother-in-law kindly took the kids off my hands for the weekend, and offered me her place at the official launch of the new museum display for the hogback stones in Govan. Not being one to sniff at things like that, I gladly accepted and off I went. I only got slightly lost trying to find my way there.

Govan is a very old part of Glasgow and is home to a fine collection of carved stones, mostly dating to between the ninth-eleventh centuries. The stones are housed in the old parish church (which still functions as a place of worship, in addition to being museum), and the display is comprised of a number of recumbent slabs, crosses, the Viking hogbacks, and a fine sarcophagus that is thought to have been made for St Constantine, son of Cinaed mac Alpin.

There's an old brochure you can look at here, which gives details of a lot of the stones, though it's in a different layout to the one I saw so I presume it's from the previous display. Now, just as you go in, you see the 'Sun Stone':

Which takes its name from the assumption that the boss at the top is a sun with serpent rays spiralling out from it. The other side has a guy on a horse and a cross:

The Sun Stone is situated to another impressive stone, also with 'dude on a horse':

The back of which has some really intricate knotwork going on:

Remember those Pictish carvings from last month? I think the similarities with those are very striking on this one. Many of the other carvings are in bad shape because they spent many centuries lying around outdoors, not being looked after. A lot of them were also recycled from around the seventeenth century onwards, and after being repositioned to mark someone's grave they were often engraved to commemorate their new host. This one's a good example of the weathering that many have suffered, and the engraving:

The hogbacks are collected together off to one side, and they get their name from the slightly curved shape their tops have. They're actually thought to represent Viking longhouses rather than pigs, and you can find them in parts of northern England as well – wherever the Vikings went, really. Behold!

This one is one of the largest. There were some very young Vikings happily posing amongst some of the smaller ones, too:

(Yarrrr!)

Finally, before I overload this post with way too many pictures, there's the sarcophagus:

See also: The Canmore record for the site.