This is the first time that we’ve released a seasonal Holiday Show rather than a Festival Holiday Show. The plan is to try and get a Holiday show out for the four seasons until Gary is well enough to get back to the Festivals. We’ve got an epic 18th century tale from Scotland that has had to be split into two parts – so you’re going to get two shows for the price of one – so to speak! There are three amazing pieces of music and the beginning of a small series about the Fey in the Celtic countries based on the work of W Y Evans-Wentz in Fairy-Faith in the Celtic Countries. Look out for part two of the story coming out very soon!

The Episode is available for subscribers on the feed, or you can download it or listen to it from our Episodes page. You can find the Shownotes for this episode in the Shownotes section.

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Pic:The Clanranald Trust

If you have listened to previous episodes of CMP. I’m sure you will remember music from the fabulously vibrant Scottish Band Saor Patrol  from SPO5a and SP06 Soar Patrol is the band Of the charity  The Clanranald trust in Scotland, and they have been given a wonderful  new gift. The BBC says:

Hollywood star Russell Crowe has arranged for a £60,000 prop from his new Robin Hood film to be given to a battle re-enactment group in Scotland.

The battering ram will be used by The Clanranald Trust in a medieval fort it is building in a forest near the Carron Reservoir in c The trust’s chief executive, Charlie Allan, became friends with Crowe during the filming of  Gladiator. He played the German warrior who held the severed head of a Roman negotiator.

Mr Allan said:

"Russell and I have kept in touch over the years and he knew a bit about the fort we’re building. "While we were on the set (of Robin Hood) near Farnham in Surrey he suggested trying to get some of the props.

I had my eye on some tents, which I thought would look good until we got our long houses built. He said he’d do what he could to help and the very next day he came to me with a huge grin on his face, grabbed me by the sleeve, pointed at the battering ram and said, ‘It’s all yours’."

Mr Allan said the Australian actor had spoken to the executive producer, Charles Schlissel, who said he would be delighted to help.

He added:

"It was a fantastic gesture. The battering ram, which we called Rosie on set, will be great for our fort."

The Clanranald Trust is a charitable organisation which aims to raise awareness of Scottish culture and heritage through interactive education. It is in the process of building a replica medieval Motte and Bailey Fort in the Fintry Hills, which
will serve as a an visitor attraction.

The idea is to provide an arena where groups and individuals can experience the
atmosphere of an authentic medieval working community. So far the trust has spent about £350,000 on the project but still needs to raise £250,000 to complete the fort.

Source

Pic: Women’s History @ About.com

The last heart rending letter sent by Mary Queen of Scots, was written at 2am on Wednesday 8th February 1587 at Fortheringay Castle, Northamptonshire England. Eight hours later Mary would suffer a horrific beheading at the hands of her Cousin Queen Elizabeth 1st of England. The letter was written to her Brother in law,  Henri III, King Of  France, who was the youngest brother of her first husband (Francois II of France). It wasn’t until 1587 that Mary’s Physician was able to return to France and pass the letter to Henri III.  The letter revealed that, just hours from death, Mary asked Henri to ensure her servants’ wages were paid.

 It was, however, left to Philip II of Spain to authorise, through his ambassador Bernardino Mendoza, the payment of wages and pensions to Mary’s servants.

Throughout the 18 years of her imprisonment, Mary symbolised the aspirations of the English Catholics hoping for the restoration of their country to Catholicism. In addition, the rival Catholic Kings of France and Spain each hoped to bring England within his own sphere of political and diplomatic influence by placing Mary on the English throne.

Although Mary had been found guilty and sentenced to death, Elizabeth hesitated to actually order her execution. She was fearful of the consequences, especially if, in revenge, Mary’s son James of Scotland formed an alliance with the Catholic powers, France and Spain, and invaded England.

She did eventually sign the death warrant and entrusted it to William Davison, a privy councillor. Later, the privy council, having been summoned by Lord Burghley without Elizabeth’s knowledge, decided to carry out the sentence at once before she could change her mind.

When the news of the execution reached Elizabeth she was extremely indignant, and her wrath was chiefly directed against Davison, who, she asserted, had disobeyed her instructions not to part with the warrant. The secretary was arrested and thrown into the  Tower of London. He was later released, after paying a heavy fine, but his career was ruined.

The English government insisted that the death of Mary was purely a political matter. However, as she conveys in her last letter, Mary herself believed she was dying a religious martyr.

But what concerned her equally when she wrote to the King of France, with whom she had corresponded regularly while in captivity, was the well-being of her household servants after her execution. In effect, few of these servants returned to their native lands of France and Scotland.

At Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, on 7 February 1587, Mary was told that she was to be executed the next day. She spent the last hours of her life in prayer and also writing letters and her will. She expressed a request that her servants should be released. She also requested that she should be buried in France.

The scaffold that was erected in the great hall was three feet tall and draped in black. It was reached by five steps and the only things on it were a disrobing stool, the block, a cushion for her to kneel on, and a bloody butcher’s axe that had been previously used on animals. At her execution the executioners (one of whom was named Bull) knelt before her and asked forgiveness. According to a contemporary account by Robert Wynkfield, she replied

"I forgive you with all my heart"

The executioners and her two servants helped remove a black outer gown, two petticoats, and her corset to reveal a deep red chemise—the liturgical colour of martyrdom in the Catholic Church. As she disrobed she smiled faintly to the executioner and said,

"Never have I had such assistants to disrobe me, and never have I put off my clothes before such a company."

She was then blindfolded and knelt down on the cushion in front of the block. She positioned her head on the block and stretched her arms out behind her.

In Lady Antonia Fraser’s biography, Mary Queen of Scots, the author writes that it took two strikes to decapitate Mary:

The first blow missed her neck and struck the back of her head, at which point the Queen’s lips moved. (Her servants reported they thought she had whispered the words "Sweet Jesus.") The second blow severed the neck, except for a small bit of sinew that the executioner severed by using the axe as a saw. Robert Wynkfield recorded a detailed account of the moments leading up to Mary’s execution, also describing that it took two strikes to behead the Queen. Afterward, the executioner held her head aloft and declared,

"God save the Queen."

At that moment, the auburn tresses in his hand came apart and the head fell to the ground, revealing that Mary had had very short, grey hair.  The chemise that Mary wore at her execution is displayed at Coughton Court near Alcester in Warwickshire, which was a Catholic household at that time.

It has been suggested that it took three strikes to decapitate Mary instead of two. . It has been postulated that said number was part of a ritual devised to protract the suffering of the victim.

There are several (possibly apocryphal) stories told about the execution. One already mentioned and thought to be true is that, when the executioner picked up the severed head to show it to those present, it was discovered that Mary was wearing a wig. The headsman was left holding the wig, while the late queen’s head rolled on the floor.  It was thought that she had tried to disguise the greying of her hair by wearing an auburn wig, the natural colour of her hair before her years of imprisonment began. She was 24 when first imprisoned by Protestants in Scotland, and she was only 44 years of age at the time of her execution.

Another well-known execution story related in Robert Wynkfield’s first-hand account concerns a small dog owned by the queen, which is said to have been hiding among her skirts, unseen by the spectators. Her dress and layers of clothing were so immensely regal, it would have been easy for the tiny pet to have hidden there as she slowly made her way to the scaffold. Following the beheading, the dog refused to be parted from its owner and was covered in blood. It was finally taken away by her ladies-in-waiting and washed.

Mary’s final letter is part of the National Library of Scotland’s manuscript collections and can be read online translated into several languages at  http://www.nls.uk/mqs/index.htm

(source1) (source2)

Pic: Gavatron

On 4th Jan 2010  we unwittingly credited this article to Dr Earl Smith. This was a mistake on our part. We would like to apologise to Sam Fleming for our error, and thank her for allowing us to keep this super article on our website. Originally published as “Murders and Unkindnesses” in the Samhain edition of “White Dragon”, 1998.

The Raven in Mythology

For centuries the corvids, ravens and crows in particular (corvus corax is the Latin name for the common raven and corvus corone for the carrion and hooded crows), have had a special place in the mythology of various cultures. In modern times this fascination has barely diminished. From Edgar Allen Poe’s literary classic to the film of James O’Barr’s cult graphic novel “The Crow”, these birds still exert a powerful hold over the psyche of a significant fraction of the population. The Goths who paint their faces with white make-up and the weekend warriors who expect Raven to take them to the Otherworld to meet the dead do not see the same animal as the farmers who set up decoys in order to shoot large numbers of them every year in late spring. This is, however, typical of a creature that presents a paradox wherever one looks. Corvids are sociable birds. They tend to form social groups, and this can be seen particularly in the case of rooks, which stay in their flocks all year round. Ravens, the largest of the family, reaching as much as 3 feet from beak to tail, form groups as juveniles, pairing off into lifelong monogamous and extremely territorial relationships at around the age of three. The courtship can involve such fun and games as synchronized snow sliding, and, of course, the synchronized flight test. The corvids can be found all over the world, and are the largest of the passeriformae, or songbirds. The common raven is widely distributed throughout the Northern hemisphere, and the adaptability and intelligence of this family have made it extremely successful.

As far as the mythology goes, the first confusion arises over the distinction between Crow and Raven, at least on the European side of the Atlantic. The two appear, in many instances, to be interchangeable, and the appearance of one or the other in a story depends as much on which author is transcribing it as it does on story itself. Whereas John Matthews gives Bran the raven almost exclusively, Miranda Jane Green ascribes to the God’s companion animal either the crow or the raven, much as both authors do for the Morrigan.

Pic: Waymarking

The confusion on the American side of the Atlantic is not so profound. There is a distinct geographical trend in the likelihood of Raven appearing in a story, and so we will start our examination there. Whereas ravens appear almost exclusively as signatory animals for deities in Europe, in the shamanic cultures of aboriginal North American tribes Raven appears as deity himself. From a dichotomy of cultures, we reach a dichotomy of characterization, for Raven in America, particularly the Northwest coast region, is both demiurge and trickster, both hero and villain, and often at one and the same time. Raven appears as simple Raven, as Dotson’ Sa (Great Raven), as Nankilstlas (He Whose Voice Must Be Obeyed) and also, in a Tlingit creation myth, as Nascakiyetl (Raven-at-the-Head-of-Nass, the Nass being a river). In nearly every single creation myth of the region I have encountered, Raven, in one of his guises, is either the actual creator of the world, or has a great part to play in it. In many, such as the Tlingit myth just mentioned, Raven appears in more than one of his guises – in this case both as Nascakiyetl, and as Yetl, the Raven.

Animals in Myths

This is possible because of the personification of the animal characters in the culture. Animals can take on human form without a second thought (although Raven is the greatest shapeshifter of them all, being able to change into anyone and anything to get what he wants), and can also lead human style lives. Orca, for instance, is the Chief of his own underwater city, and the drowned go to live there with the killer whales, according to the Haida people. Raven’s character is very similar to that of Coyote – indeed, the two appear in stories carrying out very similar roles, the former in the North, the latter in the South. Both Coyote and Raven are driven by greed: Raven’s for food, Coyote’s for more carnal pleasures. A Tlingit storyteller says that

Raven never got full because he had eaten the black spots off his own toes. He learned about this after having inquired everywhere for some way of bringing such a state about. Then he wandered through all the world in search of things to eat.

The journeys of Raven form the basis of most of the myths in the region, and he travels around meeting animals of all descriptions and usually succeeds in contests of wit with them, either destroying and eating them or driving them off and securing their food. The Haida people make a distinction between the first part of the Raven cycle, in which he is truly creative, and the latter part, which consists of stories of his more risible behavior. Young men are not allowed to laugh during the early part of the cycle, which is referred to as “The Old Man Stories”. The Old Man Stories take in the creation of the world, sometimes a complex tale such as in the Tlingit and Tsmishian versions, sometimes a simple one, as in the Haida:

Not long ago no land was to be seen. Then there was a little thing on the ocean. This was all open sea. And Raven sat upon this. He said, ‘Become dust.’ And it became Earth.

They also cover one of the most widely known Raven stories, how he stole the Sun, the Stars and the Moon, and also fire (reflecting on the corvine fascination for shiny objects), and the almost universal flood tale, which brought about the end of the Age of Animal Beings and brings about the Age of Men, for which Raven is invariably responsible.

The Great Raven amongst Indigenous Peoples

Pic: Indigenous Peoples.net

In this guise, as Great Raven, Dotson’ Sa, or Nankilstlas, the irrepressible greed is there, the sarcastic and laconic nature, the almost audible heavy sigh that starts off every conversation (see, for instance, Raven’s first words in the story of the whale transcribed by Joseph Campbell), yet he is a character to be admired and respected, to whom homage is deserving.

Although there is no evidence that Raven was ever worshiped, as such, it is said by some that the Northwest peoples did used to leave food out on the beaches for ravens. In this form he is capable of inspiring awe and terror, although always there is that twinkle in the eye and the knowledge that it can be only moments before he says something that will inspire laughter, albeit often irritated laughter as he hits the nail of truth well and truly, and sometimes uncomfortably, on the head. His creative nature usually shows itself through circumstance rather than intent, through the desire to satisfy his own needs, rather than any altruistic principles, but he seems genuinely fond of human beings, as related in “Raven finds the First Men”, amongst others. He is the great shapeshifter, creative magic personified. In his later, perhaps younger guise, Raven, or Yetl/Yelth, is often the butt of his own jokes; these are the stories in which Raven is often undertaking a position taken by Coyote in the desert and plains regions of the South. In this guise, Raven is at his most devious and tricky, is also cruel, with little thought for anyone or anything other than his own stomach. He will go to great efforts to satisfy his appetite, from tricking his cousin Crow out of his entire Winter’s food supply, to tricking Deer into leaping onto some rocks so that he may be devoured, and even tricking an entire tribe into being killed by an avalanche so that he might eat their eyes.6 He is the Raven at whom the young Haida men are allowed to laugh, but is also the Raven of whom to be most wary. He can be much crueler than his demiurge culture hero self. This Raven will have you in fits of laughter while he distracts you from the fact he is tricking you into doing something for him you may not actually want to do, and which may cost you dearly. This Raven is also a great shapeshifter, and uses his ability to aid him in deceiving others to do as he wishes. Some of the stories do have Crow as the main character, and the main difference appears to be that Crow stories concern the themes of justice rather than greed, even if justice is not always seen to be done, as in the story of Raven and Crow’s Potlatch, mentioned above. The only time at which Raven’s position in the Northwest coast culture bears any similarity to that in European culture is in his guise as one of the servants of the medicine lodge tutelary Baxbakualanuchsiwae, the Kwakiutl Cannibal Spirit, whose initiates practice ritual anthropology. This is a comparatively recent trend in the culture, and is not widely mentioned.

Odin’s Ravens, Huginn and Muninn

By comparison, the ravens of European mythology are invariably messengers, or an alternate shape for various deities and spirits, the most widely known being Bran and the Morrigan, and of course Odin.

We are once again confronted by a dichotomy of character when we look at ravens and crows in European culture. Turning first to Odin’s ravens. Huginn and Muninn, we see at once a split between active and passive roles. Huginn is Thought, and Muninn is Memory, and Odin sends these two birds off around the world at daybreak, to bring him the daily news. In Grimnismal, Odin says: For Huginn I fear lest he return not home, but I am more anxious for Muninn.

Pic: Sodahead

This suggests that Odin valued memory more than thought, the passive act rather than the active, but that is an altogether more complex discussion. Interestingly, Odin’s wolves were Geri (no Spice Girl this, however) and Freki, whose names meant ‘The Ravener’ and ‘The Glutton’ respectively. Both of these terms are extremely applicable to ravens – ravener derives from raven – and echo the character of Raven in the tales of the Northwest Coast we have already considered. Wolves and ravens have an old and close relationship in the wild. In countries where both animals live together, a great deal of a raven’s food comes from scavenging carcasses left by wolves, particularly in winter. Both animals would have been a common sight on the battlefield, scavenging on the bodies of the slain. Corvids were also connected with the Valkyries, as in “choughs of the Valkyries”. Whether chough means chough (Latin name pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax), in this case, or is an artistic rendering of raven, it is difficult to say. Valkyries may have been reflections of the “shield-maids” or skjald-meyer of the Huns, and it is worth pointing out that some sources state that the Irish battle Goddesses were not represented by ravens, but by the crow, particularly the hooded crow, or “scald-crow”.

Celtic Goddesses and the Raven or Crow

Many of the Celtic goddesses are linked with the raven or crow. In this mythology the goddesses are the aggressive deities, those associated with war and death. Badb, Macha and Nemain are all associated with crows and/or ravens, as is Nantosuelta, a Gaulish water and healing goddess. The wife of the Fomorian sea-god, Tethra, was said to be a crow goddess who also hovered above battlefields, and Scottish myth has the Cailleach Bheure, who often appeared in crow form. The association of the birds with death and war is an obvious reflection of its tendency to eat carrion, plenty of which is to be found in the aftermath of battle. This tendency led, eventually, to the persecution of the raven, as a harbinger of doom and destruction, and also to the common notion in modern European culture that the main attribute of Crow and Raven is their connection with the Otherworld. Upon Cuchulainn’s death, the Morrigan perched on his shoulder in the form of a raven.

Pic: Tale of Tales

The other main characteristic of Raven in Irish and Welsh myth is that of prophesy. The Morrigan was prone to prophesising, predicting the outcome of battle. King Cormac also came across the Badb as an old woman dressed in red garments (always a bad sign) who explained that she was washing the armor of a doomed king. Raven also acts as a messenger for the Irish/Welsh gods. Bran the Blessed (Bendigeidfran) is perhaps the best known of the Celtic gods associated with the raven, not least because of his association with the Tower of London, where ravens are still kept, wings clipped, in order to assure the safety of the realm. Bran’s head, which he ordered to be cut off after being mortally wounded in the foot, is said to be buried in the White Tower.

In “The Hawk of Achill” Cuchulainn’s father, Lugh, is spoken of in association with ravens and crows. Ravens warned Lugh of the Formorians’ approach. Ravens tended Cuchulainn when he was very ill, which is about the only time Cuchulainn appears to have had anything approaching a good relationship with the birds, save for when he was announced by two Druidic ravens on his entrance to Elysium. He was responsible for killing a flock of magical sea ravens, which were large and able to swim in the sea (it is possible, from the description, that the birds were, in fact, cormorants, and not ravens at all. Cormorants also have a certain mythology associated with them). Also associated with ravens is the son of Cerridwen, Afagddu, who was also known as Morvran, or Sea Raven. Cerridwen ’s intent had been to bestow the gift of Inspiration upon him. A rather bizarre association is that of ravens and chess. In the Welsh “The Dream of Rhonabwy”, Owain ap Urien and Arthur were playing a game which is thought to have been a chess equivalent. Three hundred ravens are mentioned in this tale as belonging to Owain, a gift from Cenferchyn. Arthur’s men attacked the ravens during play, and eventually Owain told them to retaliate, upon which they attacked Arthur’s men unmercifully. One of the pieces in chess is, of course, the rook, another member of the crow family (corvus frugilegus). In Cervantes’ “Don Quixote”, the hero says that Arthur was not killed at all, but was turned into a raven. Arthur is also sometimes associated with the cult of Mithras, which was popular with the Roman legions. The cult organisation was based upon seven ranks that a worshiper could pass through, and the first of these was Raven. The raven, reprising his most common role in terms of masculine European mythology, was Ahura-Mazda’s messenger and represented Mercury. Initiates are shown on frescoes and mosaics as holding a cup and the caduceus. Also along these lines, Lugus was a Gaulish god of intelligence, and a mighty warrior. A relief from Senlis shows Lugus with ravens and geese, and the ravens appear to be speaking to him. Both Lugus and Odin are also linked with the Roman Mercury, bringing us to the connection between ravens and the art of the healer.

The White Crow

In nearly all cultures, the raven or crow was originally white. In one of the Greek tales, Coronis, the daughter of Phlegyes was pregnant by Apollo. Apollo left a white crow (or raven) to watch over her, but, just before the birth, Coronis married Ischys. The crow informed Apollo of this, and Apollo was not impressed. He killed Coronis and Ischys, and turned the crow black for being the bearer of bad news. Luckily, Apollo retrieved the unborn child at the funeral, for the child became Aesclepius, the father of medicine.It is worth mentioning in passing Raven and Crow’s appearances in other cultures, if only briefly.

Pic: Malaysian Vets

 Dwarves that live on the slopes of Kilimanjaro its of meat roll down the slopes and turn into white-necked ravens. In Japanese mythology, the Karasu tengu, or minor tengu, is a supernatural being with the head and wings of a black crow. They serve Daitengu, which are fallen yamabuse (monks), tall men with big noses and red faces who can create tornadoes using fans of bird feathers they carry in their sandals. Raven appears as one of the forms of the god Ninsubur in Semitic tales, and the raven, crow and rook all appear in the flood tale of Siberian myth, not one of them returning to the ark, as they were far too busy eating carcasses of drowned animals. For this they were cursed, as the dove was blessed for bringing back a twig, although it seems obvious that there had to be land somewhere if there were carcasses lying around. The Russian Lapps tell tales of the Seide, which are invisible spirits that have the power, like the dead, of appearing in the form of birds. They relate how a Seide often flew up out of a chasm in the mountains in the shape of a raven. It seems obvious, taking all these things into consideration, that the reputation of crow and raven for being dark messengers of doom, and concerned solely with death and destruction and the more black side of nature is ill-deserved. They do serve as couriers, it is true – an old Scots metaphor for death is talk of someone as having gone “awa’ up the Crow Road” – but Raven has his wily beak into nearly everything, from the birth of medicine to the game of chess. The only thing you can be sure of with this character is that he is to be found at the extremities. In Haida mythology, it is even one of Raven’s guises who determines the length of life of a new-born child. The constancy of Raven is his quest to fulfill an appetite – whether this be food, news, the sight of the slain on the battlefield, spirits of the dead for the Underworld, healing or prophecies of the future. The appetite is sometimes Raven’s, sometimes that of the deity he signifies, but the appetite is always there. He is a creature of need, of want, of greed and gluttony, and can also demonstrate a possessive and jealous nature, but from that need and want, from the satisfaction of that appetite, great acts of creativity arise. Those acts of creativity, his greatest acts of magic, are not usually under his control, are not generally by his design, but arise through his attempts to satisfy the hunger he has. The animal seeking to sate his hunger on the dead, linking him with the Otherworld, is one and the same as that which tries to fill his belly with the farmer’s crops, linking him with the 12-bore shotgun. Raven can do almost anything, and will, but only if he gains by it. His smaller cousin, Crow, is a much more merciful and fair character. His concern is with justice, albeit oft times extreme justice, and he tempers Raven’s greed in the European myths. Raven, in particular, is a creature of paradox, and to take him at face value is to ignore his devious nature. One last point. The collective nouns for crows and ravens are murder and unkindness respectively. You have been warned. [Source]

Pic: Bronze Age Bressay

Bronze Age Bressay! was an ambitious and innovative project to reconstruct an eroding Bronze Age site on the island of Bressay, Shetland. The site, the Burnt Mound at Cruester, originally sat on the northwest coast facing Shetland’s capital, Lerwick. A previous excavation in 2000 revealed an impressive array of stone cells, together with a large hearth, a cistern, a stone tank and a sloping chute or passageway. These had all been built into a mound, formed from discarded stones that had been heated and then plunged into water.

Burnt mounds with structures within them are very rare, and the Cruester Burnt Mound is one of only a handful of known examples.

The project ran through June and July 2008 and involved the excavation and dismantling of the site, which was then transported to Bressay’s Heritage Centre where it was reconstructed. The replica structures, built at the same time as the reconstruction was carried out, were intended to be fully functioning so that they could be used as a centre for experimental work into these enigmatic structures. Volunteers were trained in drystone walling and a range of archaeological techniques.

The reconstruction will be open to the public and the finished site is being interpreted for the public with an on-site information panel, a leaflet, and a permanent exhibition at the Bressay Heritage Centre. The project also includes a twelve month education and outreach programme led by Bressay History Group and involving the local school and volunteers from all over Shetland. Events have so far included Open Days, a series of public lectures, Living History days, ancient technology workshops (such as pottery making) and Experimental Archaeology days.

A burnt mound is a mound of shattered stones and charcoal, normally with an adjacent hearth and trough. The trough could be rock-cut, wood-lined or clay-lined to ensure it was watertight. Radiocarbon dates vary quite widely, the earliest being late Neolithic, with clusters of dates between 1900 – 1500 BC and 1200 – 800 BC, with some outliers in the Iron Age. There are also some dates that go into the early Medieval period. The technology used at burnt mounds has much greater antiquity and is found from the palaeolithic onwards.

Pic: Bronze Age Bressay

The main explanation for burnt mounds is that they were cooking sites. However, there are problems with such explanations, not the least of which is the lack of any direct evidence of cooking. The process undoubtedly works; experiments were carried out in Ireland in the 1950s to show that a joint of meat could be fully cooked in about three to four hours through this method. However, bone is rarely if ever reported from burnt mound sites, which would be unusual for a cooking site. This has been explained as the result of the soils being too acidic for the bone to be preserved, but this is unsatisfactory. It would be rather unlikely that all of the soils relating to burnt mounds were so acidic that no bone survived, particularly as the pH of the soil will vary considerably from site to site. However, there are examples of burnt mounds that have been recorded on neutral or basic soils, without bone being apparent in the burnt mound material, Alternatives that have been suggested include saunas (where the intention is to create steam rather than cook anything), fulling, salt production, leather preparation etc.

The implication found in many accounts of burnt mounds in Britain gives the impression that they are found in Ireland and Scotland, but they also are found in Wales and in England. The Welsh examples tend to be upland and rural, as are many of the English ones, but there are also many found in the lowlying English Midlands. Barfield & Hodder’s interpretation of burnt mounds as potentially saunas arose from their various excavations of burnt mounds in the Birmingham area, while more recently forty mounds have been discovered in Birmingham . One example is in Moseley Bog where experiments were made in the late 1990s to asses the plausibility of the sauna hypothesis. [Wiki]

In order to replicate the burnt mound, it was decided to dig down and not build up, as a low hill lay on the reconstruction plot. A hole was dug that matched exactly the shape of the outer wall of the Bronze Age building.

Not only was the threatened Bronze Age building moved, we also built a second structure for conducting experiments in. This was built to the same dimensions as the original building, but using new stone. So far, we have built the hearth cell, the passageway, the tank and one of the side cells. In the future, dry-stone walling classes will be held and more cells will be added.

The replica stone structures were built with the aim of conducting experimental workshops to replicate a number of Bronze-Age style technologies. We also wanted to try to learn what burnt mounds were originally used for. Of course, there may have been a range of uses, and suggestions range from cooking, bathing, industrial processes and even making beer! Not only will we try different processes, we will measure the temperatures reached in the hearth cell and tank; record how long it takes to bring the water to boil; and see how many times we can use the same stones before they shatter.

The Project Team have not only done such marvellous work and promise much more but if you tour their site you will find many photographs of the various stages of re-building and  their experiments.  They promised more details of more detailed experiments in 2009 but as yet the site hasn’t been updated.

Go and visit the Bronze Age Bressay site for more details. Better still, go and visit the Visitor Centre on Bressay – one day, I’ll get there!

Pic: Bronze Age Bressay

News at the Scotsman.com reports that a Bronze Age structure thought to have been used as a sauna has been saved from destruction by the sea after a team of archaeologists moved the entire find to a safer location. The building, which dates from between 1500BC and 1200BC, was unearthed on the Shetland island of Bressay eight years ago. It was found in the heart of the Burnt Mound at Cruester, a Bronze Age site on the coast of Bressay facing Lerwick.

But earlier this summer (2008), because of the increased threat of coastal erosion, local historians joined archaeologists to launch a campaign to save the building and to move it somewhere safer. A third of the mound had already been lost to sea erosion.

The central structure was carefully dismantled and each stone numbered before being moved to a site a mile way next to Bressay Heritage Centre.

And today (23/8/2008), following the completion of the unusual removal scheme, the Bronze Age building will be officially opened at its new location by Tavish Scott, the MSP for Shetland. Douglas Coutts, the project officer with Bressay History Group, said the structure was one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever made in the Northern Isles.

The building was hidden in a mound of burnt stones and is thought to have been used for feasts, baths or even saunas. The structure comprises a series of dry-stone, walled cells, connected by two corridors. At the end of one corridor is a hearth cell, thought to have been used for heating stones, and at the other end is a tank sunk into the ground which is almost two metres long, more than a metre wide, and half a metre deep.

Pic:Bronze Age Bressay

Mr Coutts said:

Burnt mounds don’t usually consist of very much more than a hearth and a tank and a heap of burnt stones. But in Shetland, we seem to have much more complex structures with little rooms or cells leading off from a main passageway which connects the hearth and tank.

He added:

We think these cells may have originally been roofed over in a beehive shape. One theory is that these structures may have been used for cooking meat or tanning hides. But it is possible they could have raised steam by heating the water and that these little cells could have been used as saunas.

Tom Dawson, a researcher at St Andrews University who also worked on the removal project, said coastal erosion was threatening thousands of archaeological sites around Scotland.

The local group here came up with a novel idea for dealing with the problem. It is great to have had the chance to give new life to this particular site and make it accessible to future generations, while also learning something new, not just about Cruester, but about burnt mounds in general.

This structure is important in world terms. There are thousands of burnt mounds in Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia but only a handful are known to have structures within them.

Mr Scott praised the partnership between the local history group and outside archaeological bodies.

He said:

This exhibition will be a great asset for visitors to Bressay and local people. The more we understand about the past, the better informed we are about the future.

[Source]

Look out tomorrow for more details on how the re-construction of the Burnt Mound is helping Education in 2009.

Pic: Discovery News

Scotland’s foremost amateur archaeologist, Tam Ward of Biggar Archaeology Group, was guest speaker at the November meeting of Lanark and District Archaeological Society reported the Hamilton Advertiser. The subject of Tam’s talk was about the excavation work at Howburn Farm, near Elsrickle, which turned out to be the most important dig in Scotland this year.

Tam related how the site had been discovered through diligent field walking. Initially, Tam thought the site was early Neolithic but a talk with an expert in pre-history revealed the amazing fact that some of the tools that Tam and his team had discovered were about 16,000 years old (later Paleolithic). This was quite a revelation as nothing this early had ever been found in Scotland. What was also staggering was the fact that the people who came to Howburn actually walked across the area known now as the North Sea. The route would have been via the Dogger Bank which is the only bit left of the land route from Northern Europe. About 9000 years ago this route became flooded with the melting of the glaciers and the collapse of the Norwegian Trench which led to a devastating tsunami affecting Northern Europe.

Tools fashioned by the people of the palaeolithic period in Scotland were similar to those produced in Denmark, Northern Germany and Holland. They came to Scotland chasing the herds of migrating reindeer and living off their meat and utilising their hides for clothing. No reindeer remains were found was due to the high acidity of the Scottish soil.

Alan Saville, senior curator of Earliest Prehistory at National Museums Scotland, worked on the project. He told Discovery News that the toolkit find is "exciting" for two main reasons.

Firstly, it pushes back the earliest occupation of Scotland by some 3,000 years, and is the first real evidence for Upper Paleolithic open-air settlement occupation north of the English Midlands.

He said:

Secondly, it appears to represent a technological variant which has not been recognized anywhere else in Britain.

he added, explaining that the style of the tools matches hunting implements from southern Denmark and northern Germany.

It’s now believed people from those regions made their way to Scotland via a large land bridge called Doggerland, which connected the island of Great Britain to mainland Europe during the last ice age. The individuals in this case likely belonged to the Hamburg culture, known for its reindeer-hunting prowess.

Scientists unearthed the prehistoric tools in a field at Howburn Farm, Elsrickle, South Lanarkshire, in the southern part of Scotland. 

Tam Ward Archaeologists working at the Scottish farm site.

The tool types involve particularly a couple of tanged points (projectile heads), but also burins, end-of-blade scrapers, and a piercer of so-called Zinken-type, as well as there being evidence for a certain type of blade-core preparation technique known as en eperon.

Saville said.

A burin was a flaked rock tool with a chisel-like edge probably used to remove flesh from bone. "Eperon" means "spur" in French. Here it refers to a blade with a thick-ended butt at one end.

The toolkit suggests there were at least two major technologies in early Britain: Hamburgian and Creswellian. The latter was characterized by "Cheddar points," tools with trapezoidal-backed blades. (Source)

During question time after the lecture the domestication of reindeer was discussed as the palaeolithic people of Scotland needed something to assist with the transportation of flint from Northern Europe to Scotland. The interesting question was did they use the reindeer to do this – if so this would be the first time that animals were domesticated in the world.

Tam also said that investigations of what would have been a nearby lake had not revealed any evidence of the vegetation of the period. Maybe the vegetation such as it was would be similar to the Tundra in Lapland and the landscape would be treeless. He also indicated the glaciers returned to the Howburn area and that accounted for some of the flints being buried in what appear to be natural soil.

Upper Largie Footed Food Vessel Pic: Culture 24

Back in February 2008, Culture 24 reported on a discovery made in Upper Largie which provided exciting evidence of 4,000 year-old links between prehistoric Scotland and the Netherlands. Upper Largie is near Kilmartin in Argyll and Bute and the original excavations took place in 2005.

Analysis of the pots by Alison Sheridan, of National Museums Scotland, has revealed early international-style Beakers of the type found around the lower Rhine, which is the modern-day Netherlands and a strange hybrid of styles that suggest Irish and Yorkshire influences.

These finds are very rare.

said Martin Cook, the AOC Archaeology Project Officer, who oversaw the excavations in 2005.

I think there are three or four other examples that early in Scotland. We initially didn’t realise how unusual they were, as it is so unusual to find three beaker ceramic vessels in the same feature.

The actual structure was very unusual, there’s only been one other grave excavated like that in Scotland – you just don’t get features like that generally.

The excavations revealed two graves within a complex Neolithic and Bronze Age ritual landscape composed of monuments including an Early Neolithic cursus (long earthwork) and an Early Bronze Age timber circle.

The grave is so early and the style of ceramic is so rare for this period that it’s either an immigrant or a first or second generation descendant who still knows these techniques. The pots are made from local material which certainly suggests an immigrant or a second generation person.

Travel at this time would have been difficult with few established tracks and thick forests covering much of the British Isles – much of it populated by some dangerous wild animals. Seaward travel to or from Yorkshire and Ireland to pick up these influences would have been the slightly easier option.

I think it just re-emphasises the importance of Kilmartin as a centre during this time.

added Martin.

For more information about the work of AOC Archeology Group, see www.aocarchaeology.com

To read the full article, please go to Culture 24.

Pic: Amazon

A new book has been added to the fine collection of free texts that you can download from Project Gutenberg – An Historical Account of the Settlements of Sotch Highlanders in America (Prior to the Peace of 1783).  There is also a version that has been reprinted in 2008, which is previewed in Google Books. It was written by John P. MacLean with an original copyright date of 1900! 108 years later we still have access to this fascinating information – I think that is just brilliant. Anyway, what is in the book?

This is a reprint of J. P. MacLean’s celebrated study of the Scottish Highlanders in America, the first work devoted exclusively to the subject. It presents an interesting account of Highland emigration, giving first an overview of the Highlanders of Scotland and then a description of the events which led to the various emigration and resettlement schemes, subsequently detailing the history of Highland settlements in the American colonies and Highlander participation in the French and Indian Wars and the Revolution. And it is laced throughout with lists of early land grants, petitioners, and officers of Highland regiments. In addition, some forty-five pages of the book are devoted to biographical sketches of distinguished Highlanders who served the cause of either Great Britain or America during the Revolution.

The summary above comes from World Vital Records, a genealogical Records site. Obviously, this book contains vital information for those American Scots trying to trace their family trees.

The book, which is still available from Amazon at $35, is also available for your Kindle at $8 and contains trhe following chapters:-

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. The Highlanders of Scotland.
CHAPTER II. The Scotch-Irish in America.
CHAPTER III. Causes that Led to Emigration.
CHAPTER IV. Darien Scheme.
CHAPTER V. Highlanders in North Carolina.
CHAPTER VI. Highlanders in Georgia.
CHAPTER VII. Captain Lachlan Campbell’s New York Colony.
CHAPTER VIII. Highland Settlement on the Mohawk.
CHAPTER IX. Glenaladale Highlanders of Prince Edward Island.
CHAPTER X. Highland Settlement in Pictou, Nova Scotia.
CHAPTER XI. First Highland Regiments in America.
CHAPTER XII. Scotch Hostility Towards America.
CHAPTER XIII. Highland Regiments in American Revolution.
CHAPTER XIV. Distinguished Highlanders who Served in America in the Interests of Great Britain.
CHAPTER XV. Distinguished Highlanders in American Interest.
APPENDIX

An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America Prior to the Peace of 1783 Together with Notices of Highland Regiments and Biographical Sketches – J. P. MacLean. In the wake of the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the English victors dealt harshly with the Highlanders. Atrocities were committed against helpless families and much of their land was forfeited. Outraged by their pitiless oppression in Scotland, "it was but natural that the more enterprising, and especially that intelligent portion who had lost their heritable jurisdiction, should turn with longing eyes to another country. America offered the most inviting asylum…Between the years 1763 and 1775 over twenty thousand highlanders left their homes to seek a better retreat in the forests of America." This detailed work opens with a brief history of the Highlanders in Scotland, complete with accounts of the events that led to their emigration and resettlement in America, followed by an account of Highlanders in the Colonies. Other topics include the Darien Scheme, Scotch-Irish in America, settlement in North Carolina, settlement in Georgia, Captain Lachlan Campbell’s New York Colony, settlement on the Mohawk, the Glenaladale Highlanders of Prince Edward Island, settlement in Pictou (Nova Scotia), Highlander participation in the French & Indian War, Highlanders that served on both sides of the Revolution, and distinguished Highlanders in America, such as, General Alexander McDougall, General Lachlan McIntosh, General Arthur St. Clair & Sergeant MacDonald. (1900) reprint, 5.5 x 8.5, illus., append., index, paper, 478 pp.

[Source]

Pic: ‘Pictish Woman’, one of the Pictish Nation collection by F. Lennox Campello

There is a great blog written by an author of medieval biographies, Melisende, called Women of History. Here, I would like to point to a post that she made back in October 2008 in which she quotes from an article about the role of Pictish Women in Pictist Society. Melisende is probably better known for the superb Pages from History Wiki that she has set up and we’ll hopefully be highlighting in the future. She quotes from an article found in "British Archaeology" (Issue 3, April 1995) written by Dr Ross Samson, Editor-in-Chief of Cruithne Press, in which he says: The idea that women may have had unusually high status in medieval Pictish society has long been the subject of scholarly fascination – and dispute – even though there has never been much evidence on which to pin opposing views.

The idea started with the 8th century English historian, Bede, who wrote that, whenever the Pictish royal succession was in dispute, kings were chosen from the female royal line rather than the male. Although dismissed by some scholars as a myth, others have taken the absence of sons succeeding fathers in the Pictish king lists as supporting evidence for Bede’s words. Several scholars have gone further, arguing that if women had a decisive role in succession disputes, their power doubtless extended to other areas of society as well.

An entirely new line of evidence, however, may be provided by Pictish symbols. These are carved on rough boulders or cross stones, and about 400 examples survive. They have been taken, at different times, to represent inter-tribal marriage instructions, estate boundary markers, records of personal professions, Pictish `flags’, simple artistic expressions, even pagan altars–but never on the basis of much hard evidence. In my view, the symbol stones were memorial stones, and the symbols represent names – either the name of the dead person, or of the person who had the stone erected. Moreover, I believe that a fifth of the names belonged to women. Compared to other contemporary societies, this would represent a very high proportion– in Ireland, for instance, we know the names of about 10,000 men dating from before AD1000, but of only 200 or 300 women.

The symbols almost always appear as pairs, and in several contemporary societies names were produced from two themes. In Anglo-Saxon, for instance, we have Aethelgifu (`Noble-gift’), Aethelstan (`Noble-stone’), and Wulfstan (`Wolf-stone’).

I believe Pictish names may have worked in the same way, and that feminine endings on the Pictish carved stones were represented by the mirror and comb symbols that follow one in every five symbol pairs. A mirror and comb appear to the left of the only unmistakably Pictish woman represented on a cross stone – there are several biblical females – that from Hilton of Cadboll, dating from about AD800.

If this theory is correct, 20 per cent of Pictish stones were erected for or by women, which is between five and 20 times more often than in any other contemporary Celtic or Scandinavian society. One motive for commemorating the dead publicly is the statement it makes – I am inheriting this person’s wealth, power, authority and prestige. If women held 20 per cent of the power and wealth in Pictish society, it is no wonder Bede heard such stories about their dominant role in the royal succession.

To read the full argument, please let me refer you to the original post on Women in History.