Ghosts, Cathedrals and Castles

The third and fourth days in Dundee were even more exciting as the first two, if that were even possible.

Day three began with a lecture on Scottish literature since 1707. Why 1707? While the union of England and Scotland occurred in 1603, 1707 marks the year both the Scottish and English parliaments were dissolved and replaced with one parliament of Great Britain. According to Professor David Robb of Dundee University, this also marked a turning point in Scottish literature. The Scots became much more aware of their identity as an independent culture now that they were a less independent nation. Professor Robb listed many important and influential authors through the 18th to 20th centuries and how Scottish literature changed and grew over time. Overall, it was very focused on Scottish culture and identity, although some authors wrote in order to bolster the idea of the Scottish and English union like James Boswell and James Thomson. One of the more fascinating writers he told us about was Hugh MacDiarmid, which is the pen name of C.M. Grieve. MacDiarmid wrote his poetry in a hybrid form of Scottish and Gaelic languages from throughout history. The result is a charming linguistic effect that one can't possibly appreciate unless you hear a Scotsman him/herself say it.

Hugh McDiarmid (photo from http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/)

After our lecture and a quick lunch, we hopped on a bus to St Andrews for a ghost tour! The best part about this ghost tour was that our guide has been researching St Andrews since the 1980s and knows a ton about the city's history along with some heebie-jeebie inducing legends. My favorite, and the creepiest story involved a woman who escaped her fiance by running away to a nunnery. Once there, her fiance came to find her and rather than marry him, the woman mutilated her face by cutting out her own eyes, ears, mouth and nose. She died later from her wounds and her distraught fiance returned home and committed suicide. The legend is that she still haunts a tree next to the entrance to where the nunnery used to be, now a private school for ages 4-19.

Our tour guide telling us about the nun right where she haunts!

Our tour guide continued throughout St Andrews, telling us stories and showing us the incredible historical sights. My personal favorite was St Andrews Cathedral - a huge expanse of ruins of an amazing cathedral. From its initial construction in 1158, it has gone through many transitions from a church to a cemetery to a historical sight. Much of its destruction occurred during the Protestant Reformation of Scotland, but was once the largest church in Scotland. The ruins were absolutely stunning, and our group spent most of our short amount of free time there.

St Andrews Cathedral

As a history major, I'm incredibly biased. All the highlights of this tour in my mind involved any and all mentions of John Knox, the most prominent leader of the Reformation in Scotland. The Protestant Reformation is an incredibly fascinating time in history that brought about a massive shift in European culture, and consequently, many other cultures throughout the world in response. More on that later. But back to John Knox. Below is a photo of Liam and I hanging out on a staircase at St Andrews Cathedral that was once used to bring cannons to the top of this cathedral that were intended to blast John Knox to kingdom come in an adjacent Protestant castle.

Liam and I on the canon staircase at St Andrews Cathedral

When it comes to St Andrews, history is everywhere you look. I couldn't fathom that I was walking on ground that John Knox and Mary Queen of Scots once walked on too, or touching doors that they might have opened or even being in rooms they once resided in. Two other particularly historical parts of our tour included the first church John Knox preached in and Mary Queen of Scots's house. Her house! I couldn't believe it. Our tour guide made the clever joke that some say John Knox still haunts Mary's house, but one could argue he haunted it while he was alive and well, so there's not much of a difference. John Knox and Mary Queen of Scots (who was Catholic, mind you) had many meetings with John Knox, most of which were quarrelsome. 

The first church John Knox preached at in Scotland

Mary Queen of Scots's house!

Another highlight of the tour was a building that was once the Scottish Parliament, but later, when the Scottish parliament was dissolved in 1707 and became part of the British Parliament instead, was converted into a Protestant Church and remodeled. It's pictured below...

The old Scottish Parliament building

...Be sure to take note of the concave portions of the top half of the building where one would normally imagine a statue would sit. However, if you remember what kind of church this became, you will perhaps know why there are no statues in those spaces. One of the main tenets of the Protestant Reformation was a disdain for the worshipping of any sort of idol - something embraced by the Catholic Church. With a more literal reading of scripture, Protestants believe idolatry (the worship of any physical idol) is against God's word. Thus, to rebel against Catholicism, Protestants would often destroy statues of religious figures and any form of idol used by the Catholics for worship - an act called iconoclasm. The act of iconoclasm is part of the reason St Andrews Cathedral is simply ruins today. Thus, in their new church, the Protestants thought they were pretty clever, and decided to build a place for idols in their church, but very obviously not have them displayed. Those Protestants really know how to make a statement. 

Either way, St Andrews was an amazing experience, and I simply can't wait to return in a week!

Once we got back to Dundee, we stumbled upon an iconic spot! The building pictured below is the photo we were shown on our Fulbright website to advertise Dundee university itself, so we were very pleased to discover that our institute was in no way false advertising, and it really is a beautiful wee (a word used much more frequently here than I had thought it would) part of campus. 

The classic Dundee University picture and me very happy to have found it

By the next day we were beginning to get a hang of the structure of our trip: fascinating lecture followed by enthralling adventure. Who could ask for more? The next morning brought us to Dundee University's College of Life Sciences where we were given a wonderfully informative and fascinating lecture about their work in drug discovery by Mike Ferguson FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society) who is a Regius (granted by the Queen) Professor of Life Science. Dundee's college of Life Sciences is extremely impressive and world renowned. Professor Ferguson and his collegues walked us through the difficult but massively important work they do in drug discovery, especially highlighting his work with tropical disease. He noted that research and development concerning tropical diseases is often not a priority because companies couldn't make a profit from them seeing as it requires creating products for very impoverished populations that can't pay for them. I appreciated that Professor Ferguson walked us through this part of his industry since it reveals how science interacts with the economy and politics. One of his overall themes throughout the day was the importance of blending disciplines to create the best research and the best project. After the lecture, Professor Ferguson took us on an amazing tour of the Life Sciences facilities. We put on our lab coats and safety goggles and followed him around the labs in the basement as he pointed out the fascinating processes of drug discovery and the complex machines and tools associated with it. After touring the labs, he made sure to highlight all the departments within the building, again emphasizing that drug discovery is a multidisciplinary process involving biology, chemistry, data and computational processes. It was all very eye-opening and inspiring, even for a history major like myself. 

The Life Sciences building at Dundee University

After our lecture on drug discovery we hopped on a bus to tour our first castle! Glamis Castle (pronounced Glahms) was only about a 20 minute drive from Dundee - it seems a lot of amazing things are only 20 minutes from Dundee which has been very convenient. Glamis is stunning inside and out. Although I was unable to take any photos inside the castle itself, we snapped a few of the outside of course. If you'd like a visual, imagine Hearst Castle in California only much much much much much much older. This castle was built in the 12th century and nearly 30 generations have lived in it. The Queen Mother, the current queen's mother, spent her childhood growing up in the castle and thus it has a special place in the family's heart. Glamis actually hugely emphasizes its connection with the Queen Mother, so much so that they have an entire exhibition room in the first floor of the castle dedicated entirely to her and her life in the castle. The archivists who took the tour with us told us that the Queen Mother was much beloved by Britain and she was still a very important figure. Us folks from the States might better recognize her as Helena Bonham Carter in The King's Speech - or at least the real life queen she portrayed. In fact one of the rooms in the castle we saw was her husband, George VI's room where he might have worked on his wartime speeches. Throughout the tour, we were told all about the family that resided in the house - the Lyon family - and all of their stories. The name associated with Glamis Castle changed many times throughout its history for various reasons. My personal favorite was when one member of the nobility, a rather poor man, wanted to marry into the family, the family's conditions was that he would have to change his name to their family name. Family and heritage was a huge big deal to people in that time, so this was quite the decision. He did end up marrying the girl though, and thus the family name became Bowes-Lyon. There are so many stories in Glamis Castle, some wonderful and some quite chilling, that I cannot possibly write them all here and you will have to find me and ask me in person upon my return.

Fun fact: Glamis was also the inspiration of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth and one of the rooms in particular that we saw was supposedly the room that Macbeth killed Duncan in...at least in the play. 

Everybody outside of Glamis Castle

After our tour, we were taken on a private viewing of the castle's archives by the archivists themselves. Fulbright is such an amazing organization to be able to give us this opportunity. A few of us history nerds teared up a little as we laid our eyes on medieval documents like a Charter by William, King of Scots (William the Lion) written sometime between 1188 and 1198. Don't just skip over those dates like they're just numbers! 1188 and 1198 people!!! 12th century!! They were written in the most beautiful script and in Latin. We also read one of the family member's personal diary - again with the most stunning handwriting. My personal favorite document was a papal bull...why yes, I did say a papal bull...from 1375 stamped by Gregory XI himself! Everyone was beside themselves with amazement, although the non-history majors seemed to be most fascinated with the invitation to Princess Diana and Prince Charles's wedding and their seating arrangement that was also lying before us, which I must admit, is also pretty exciting. But a papal bull guys! 

As if the group and I couldn't be more satisfied, we ended our trip to Glamis Castle by spending some quality time with our good friends the highland cows. Highland cows are an important aspect of Scotland, and the Fulbrighters and I are quite passionate about them ourselves. I mean, look at those bangs!

Highland Cow, Bessie, Matt, Myself, Daniel and Liam - aka best friends for life

 Because I got behind on my blogging (do you blame me?), I will also quickly summarize our fifth day in Scotland so I'm all caught up.

This morning we had an incredibly captivating lecture by Billy Kay, an expert on the Scottish languages and the Scottish Diaspora (spreading of culture, people etc. throughout the world) who also makes radio documentaries at the BBC about Scottish Culture. This guy is legit. He was an excellent speaker who clearly was passionate and knowledgeable about all the content. Two interesting concepts he touched on were the differences in languages spoken in Scotland and Scottish Diaspora, particularly its impact in America. Firstly, he discussed the three languages spoken in Scotland: English, Scots, and Gaelic. Scots was the most fascinating one, which I will elaborate on since the other two are pretty straightforward. Mr. Kay told us that about 1.5 million people speak Scots and its mainly concentrated in the lowlands. He spoke a bit for us and it was a little like hearing half of a conversation but not the other half. Both Scots and English are descendants of Old English, however Scots is actually a little closer to Old English and has kept some phrases that regular English has weeded out. For instance, Scots still use the word doon (instead of down). There was something very poetic about hearing him speak Scots to us - it's clearly a language that is soaked with tradition and Scottish identity, and we were lucky to hear a true Scotsman speak it.

The second fascinating component of his lecture (although truthfully it was all amazing, but I simply cannot write it all down) was how Scottish culture has impacted the States so far. So in 1745 after the Jacobite Rebellion (Scotsmen fighting to get James back on the throne and against the union with England) highland culture was essentially banished, which led to emigration to North America! Kay did note that Scotsmen ironically sided with the loyalists usually during the revolutionary war and the confederates during the Civil War - unfortunately choosing the losing side both times. Unfortunately, a bit of an unfortunate legacy of Scots in the States is a certain clan that cropped up after the Civil War. Many Scots were involved in the creation of the Ku Klux Klan, hence the terminology of "Klan" used by the group. However, Frederick Douglass, a name chosen by himself, was chosen due to his reverence for Scottish culture, namely Sir Walter Scott.

Of course, the Scottish influence reaches much farther than North America, but again, you'll have to ask me if you'd like to know more!

Everyone with Billy Kay after our amazing lecture

After Mr. Kay's lecture, we headed to the Cairn O' Mohr winery for lunch and a tour. Cairn O' Mohr makes an abundance of fruity wines and ciders that are rather unconventional. It was fascinating to be walked through the process of gathering fruit, fermentation, bottling and the final product along with some economic and political aspects to wine-making as well. It was an all-around delightful winery and very informative experience.

Some of the gang and our favorite student ambassador, Keegan, waiting for our tour

We ended out day at a BBQ at the student union with some other Dundee students where we discussed some differences in US and UK politics. Apparently, the first-past-the-post system of election can be just as aggravating as a two-party system, so that was comforting...sort of. Everyone seems to be just as confused about the status of Scotland in terms of independence as we are in the states, but he was able to shed some light on the SNP sweep in Parliament - it was all a side-effect of the first-past-the-post system. The SNP got less than half the popular vote, but was still the highest percentage in each section of Scotland, so they won nearly all the seats. He also asked us about some political things in American like how we feel about our Congress and how surprised he was that the congressional deadlock last year was not more widely covered in the UK. 

That's all for now folks, but brace yourselves, this weekend we're going to spend some time with another creature of Scotland named Nessie. Until then, cheers!