Times Online tells us:  On Sunday BBC Scotland’s biggest, most expensive venture begins - the landmark, multimedia series Scotland’s History. For £2million plus - the price of but a few jokes from Jonathan Ross - the ten-part, two-year initiative sweeps 2,000 years of history, bringing a fresh perspective to what we think we all know. The series, which starts on BBC One Scotland with a network screening on BBC2 to follow, is being co-produced with the Open University and is linked with radio, the internet, an interactive game, audio walks, concerts and events going through to late next year.

Pic: Iguana Jo

“We are going into areas even a lot of historians don’t know,” he said. “It’s history with a small ‘h’. You can’t have THE history of Scotland, it’s A history and we think it’s the best.” said  presenter Neil Oliver

His approach, he says, is as a storyteller. “I’m an archaeologist and I’ve come across a lot of history but I’ve never had a lecturing style. It’s more, ‘I’ve heard something fascinating and let me tell you about it’. That’s the way I talk. And if I sound excited about something, it’s because I just found out myself.”

To illustrate that sense of changed perspective, he described how the crew went to Finlaggan, on Islay, to film the story of the head-to-head rivalry between the MacDonalds and the Stuarts. “You talk to people, you talk to Gaelic speakers, you do realise there’s another country up there that’s the other half of Scotland.” Continue Reading »

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Pic: Orkneyjar

Orkneyjar reports that it’s been a fine summer for stone age artwork in Orkney. After examples turning up almost daily at the Ness of Brodgar, now a large piece of decorated stone has been discovered at one of Orkney’s most threatened sites — the Links of Noltland prehistoric settlement, in Westray. Returning to Westray, for the Historic Scotland sponsored excavation, was a team from Edinburgh-based EASE Archaeology. The archaeologists concentrated, this year, on the unusual structure discovered last year.

The exterior of this building had been carefully “decorated” using neatly-laid horizontal bands of masonry. While other houses of the period tended to be created with function, rather than looks, in mind, the Westray structure was built using dressed stone and was clearly meant to look impressive from the outside.

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The BBC reports that underwater archaeologists are taking to Loch Tay to try to uncover more about a submerged prehistoric woodland. The stumps of about 50 trees were discovered in 2005 - some of them are thought to be about 6,000 years old. The experts are now aiming to find their root system and establish the depth to which the trees are buried.

Meanwhile, a campaign has been launched to help restore the reconstructed crannog, an ancient loch dwelling, which attracts thousands of visitors. Continue Reading »

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PUPIL numbers at Glasgow Gaelic School are at an all-time high.But the popularity of the school has landed education bosses with a problem - they cannot find enough fluent Gaelic-speaking teachers. This year the secondary school has around 62 students on the roll but next year that number is set to rise to 100.

Over 70 children will enroll in the primary school next term. Continue Reading »

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The BBC have just reported that a major archaeological investigation is getting under way at one of Western Europe’s most impressive prehistoric sites. The Ring of Brodgar in Orkney is the third largest stone circle in the British Isles, but little is known about it.

The project will involve the re-excavation and extension of trenches dug in 1973. Geophysical surveys will also be undertaken to investigate the location of standing stones.

Dr Jane Downes of the Archaeology Department, Orkney College, UHI, and Dr Colin Richards of the University of Manchester are the project directors.

Dr Downes said:

Because so little is known about the Ring of Brodgar, a series of assumptions have taken the place of archaeological data.

The interpretation of what is arguably the most spectacular stone circle in Scotland is therefore incomplete and unclear.

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Archaeologists and volunteers working at a Perthshire forest claim to have uncovered a “very exciting” find. Excavations have revealed a stone entrance to the Black Spout enclosure, which workers believe indicates an important local person lived there. Radiocarbon dating has also shown the site dates back to about 200 BC - it was originally though such homesteads were from the early centuries AD.

It is thought a large extended family would have lived there. Continue Reading »

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The Chicago Daily Herald tells us that on June 20-21 the Highland Games will be in full fling in Chicago. When it comes to celebrating Celtic culture around Chicago, people of Scottish descent always seem to be overshadowed by the Irish. There’s no national holiday like St. Patrick’s Day when “everyone is Scottish for one day.” It would also be impossible to dye the Chicago River plaid.

Yet Scottish culture and traditions strongly persevere locally, thanks to efforts of the Illinois St. Andrew Society, a nonprofit charity organization dating back to 1854. The society’s biggest and highest-profile event is the annual Scottish Festival and Highland Games, now celebrating its 22nd year.

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The Fairies of Scotland are represented as a diminutive race of beings, of a mixed, or rather dubious nature, capricious in their dispositions, and mischievous in their resentment. They inhabit the interior of green hills, chiefly those of a conical form, in Gaelic termed Sighan, on which they lead their dances by moonlight; impressing upon the surface the marks of circles, which sometimes appear yellow and blasted, sometimes of a deep green hue; and within which it is dangerous to sleep, or to be found after sunset. The removal of those large portions of turf, which thunder-bolts sometimes scoop out of the ground with singular regularity, is also ascribed to their agency.

Cattle, which are suddenly seized with the cramp, or some similar disorder, are said to be elf-shot, and the approved cure is, to chafe the parts affected with a blue bonnet, which, it may be readily believed, often restores the circulation. The triangular flints, frequently found in Scotland, with which the ancient inhabitants probably barbed their shafts, are supposed to be the weapons of Fairy resentment, and are termed elf arrow-heads.

The rude brazen battle-axes of the ancients, commonly called celts, are also ascribed to their manufacture. But, like the Gothic duergar, their skill is not confined to the fabrication of arms; for they are heard sedulously hammering in linns, precipices, and rocky or cavernous situations, where, like the dwarfs of the mines, they busy themselves in imitating the actions and the various employments of men.

The Brook of Beaumont, for example, which passes, in its course, by numerous linns and caverns, is notorious for being haunted by the Fairies, and the perforated and rounded stones which are formed by trituration in its channel are termed, by the vulgar, fairy cups and dishes.

It is sometimes accounted unlucky to pass such places, without performing some ceremony to avert the displeasure of the elves. There is, upon the top of Minchmuir, a mountain in Peeblesshire, a spring called the Cheese Well, because, anciently, those who passed that way were wont to throw into it a piece of cheese, as an offering to the Fairies, to whom it–was consecrated.

The usual dress of the Fairies is green; though. on the moors they have been sometimes observed in heath-brown, or in weeds dyed with the stoneraw, or lichen. They often ride in invisible procession, when their presence is discovered by the shrill ringing of their bridles. On these occasions they sometimes borrow mortal steeds; and when such are found at morning, panting and fatigued in their stalls, with their manes and tails dishevelled and entangled, the grooms, I presume, often find this a convenient excuse for their situation; as the common belief of the elves quaffing the choicest liquors in the cellars of the rich might occasionally cloak the delinquencies of an unfaithful butler.

Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales
by Sir George Douglas
[1901]

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The Daily Pilot reports about the 76th Annual Highland Gathering and Festival at the OC Fair and Expo on Sunday, along with many other clans. What a day this must have been! Daniel Telford, the correspondent says: The weekend festival invited a number of the major Scottish clans that have representatives in the U.S. to have booths and inform the public about their heritage. The booths lined the streets of the expo, offering information, T-shirts, trinkets and the chance for some to trace their genealogy. There were also Scottish bands and music, as well as boutiques and kilt stores.

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Pic: EASE Archaeology

The BBC reports that there are plans to excavate and reconstruct an historic but eroding burnt mound on Bressay that have been awarded more than £70,000 of funding. Bressay History Group’s plans at Cruester follow coastal erosion threatening the site.

Detailed plans have been made and, during June and July, archaeologists will excavate and dismantle what remains of the structures that make up the site.

The stones will be labelled and transported to a plot next to the heritage centre where the site will be reconstructed into a visitor attraction, a centre for experimental research, and offer an education programme.

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