The Romance of Scotland

Our route around Scotland

Rushing around the highlands of Scotland has made me notice my character defects more.  Over seven nights, we stayed in five different places: Pitlochry, Findhorn, Drumnadrochit on Loch Ness, Glencoe, and Loch Long (near Loch Lomond but I got mixed up with the location). Every place we go, I wonder if this is the best possible place we could be, if I am missing out on some other place that might be even better, and I second guess myself about whether a castle or a waterfall or an activity is the right one. Sometimes because of time constraints we skip something we had planned (for example, we had to get to the Findhorn tour by 2PM so we had to skip seeing the herd of reindeer in the Cairngorms) and then I wonder if the thing we skipped wasn’t “better” than the thing we skipped it for. Luckily, I can turn to Matthew and he will make a decision for us, so that I am not going back and forth in agony. I am not sure what the source of this defect is – it is an asset as well, because it makes me plan so many fun activities and book ahead for things and we do end up having a great time in the end after I chill out.

Speaking of fun, I have been thinking a lot about how Romantic Scotland is. It all started the first day I was in Edinburgh in 1985, as a grad student. I had a room at Pollock Halls, right by Holyrood Park. I had bought an old copy of Ivanhoe and was sitting by the open window, drinking a dram of Scotch and reading, when I heard the cry o’ the bagpipes coming across the moor – someone was practicing.  Then and there, I decided to learn to play, and that was the beginning of my “Romance” with Scotland.

looking for Nessie

I guess by Romance I mean an imaginary idea about what a place is like, something that has often been ramped up by stories and songs and pictures. Romancing Scotland seems like an easy thing to do – it’s so beautiful and picturesque, and the weather is so moody all the time, and the history so bloody.  I used to get really annoyed by the stuffed Nessies and fake kilts and bad bagpipers busking in the streets (I was taught to eschew them by my teacher) but on this trip, I have embraced it all – the whistling winds and misty rains, the babbling brooks through the glens, the craggy cliffs and mysterious ruined castles on islands in lochs. You may have noticed Matthew wearing his tweed cap and wild beard – he fits right in on the hillsides here!

Mysterious ruined castle

Our first stop was Pitlochry, where we attended the Highland Games. These events are still pretty macho and male-oriented, but this gathering included a woman who was a grandma;  she had been the first woman piper in Pitlochry in the 1950s, and was now marching in the band with three of her children and three of her grandchildren! And her hair was dyed blue, the color of the Scottish flag! There was another woman, an American named Heather from Colorado, who was participating in the heavy events: tossing the caber, throwing the shot put

and the hammer. She came in last (and couldn’t even carry the 130-plus pound, 18 foot long caber very far, much less throw it) but she was hugely popular with the crowd of several thousand, who shouted things like, “Good on ye, Heather!”

Nessies 

The evening after the games, we were in a pub called the Old Mill with a bunch of the members of various pipe bands, and another American couple was staggering around, greeting everyone. They were dressed like nightmare versions of American tourists in Scotland: she had on red leggings with the Royal Stuart Tartan and a “ Scotland” sweatshirt with a tartan Nessie on it; he was wearing a kilt paired with an Arizona Sun Devils shirt. But everyone welcomed them, shook their hands, and seemed to enjoy their over-the-top appreciation of Scotland. For once, I didn’t feel impatient or judgmental – I was happy they were having such a grand time.

The Findhorn community today

We spent an afternoon at the Findhorn foundation, which is a legendary intentional spiritual community – the first of its kind, I think, in the UK, founded in the 1950s even before the “hippie” movement inspired so many of these places. It’s the granddaddy of them all – visited by Andre Gregory, Deepak Chopra, and many others. Since we eventually would like to have a small spiritual retreat center of our own, it was important for us to see how it works, how it’s faring, meet some of the people and learn the history. It was very interesting and inspiring, but it has grown really large and in addition to the 150 or so “members,” there are a lot of hangers-on, people who are “attracted to the ethos” and live nearby. They contribute financially to the community and participate in events and such, but don’t have to make a full commitment. We couldn’t decide if this was watering down the original intention, but without these extra people, I am not sure the community would be viable in this day and age. They have a lot of holiday homes and campsites and eco co-housing and caravan parks now, and you can pay 25 pounds in order to join in the community for a day, or several hundred pounds to join in for a week, and so on. Read more about how to get involved in Findhorn HERE

After a night in an inn that was built in 1734

1734 Inn

(Matt was worried he would fall through the floor of the room and into the pub below, but they had some of the best scallops and mussels we had ever eaten), we traveled over to Inverness, filming a version of Macbeth (short) at the historic castles on the way. We also visited the battlefield of Culloden, another Romantic place, where the Jacobite uprising made its last stand.

The Jacobite rebellion is the subject of a lot of Romantic historical fantasy writing, including my own unpublished, unfinished novel Shona, My Love and my friend Anthony’s fabulous musical about the miser of Carlisle (a place where the Jacobites actually won a battle). More recently, I guess Outlander is all about that time period as well.  People love the idea of these doomed Highlanders sweeping through the countryside, loved by the simple country folk who adored Bonnie Prince Charlie – I mean, just the name itself is incredibly Romantic, conjuring up images of a girlishly handsome young man with soft blue eyes who fled, wounded from the battlefield and was sheltered by young Flora MacDonald before sailing back to France, ne’er to return. The heroines of these romances usually don’t fall in love with the prince himself – they fall in love with one of his strapping, large Highlanders – a rugged man with a hairy chest and a kilt. Of course, the romances themselves are often as doomed as the Jacobite cause itself and everyone ends up dying or deserting each other or sailing off to the colonies.

Queen Victoria and John Brown

Speaking of rugged kilt-hairy-chest-Highlanders, even Queen Victoria had a crush on one: her beloved servant, John Brown, who was her constant companion after Albert had died.  The Queen loved going on vacation in the highlands (they had their own castle there of course) and dressing up in a tartan ball gown at parties. When she died, she asked to be buried with a lock of John Brown’s hair in her right hand. Here's the preview of a great movie version of this called Mrs. Brown starring Judi Dench and Billy Connolly.

After the defeat of the Highlanders in 1745, some really strange things happened.  First of all, almost immediately, the bravest Highland soldiers who hadn’t died in the rebellion were recruited into the British army and became the fiercest fighters on behalf of the Empire in places like North America and India. This is pretty ironic, but not surprising. Second, the fiercest Highland lairds started hobnobbing with the British, and started clearing out their estates and putting sheep on them, which meant their tenants (whom they were meant to take care of) had no place to go, nothing to eat, and many starved to death. This was the famous “Highland Clearances,” themselves the subject of many haunting songs and poems and paintings.The ones who didn’t die had to go to America or Australia or Canada, which is why there are so many tourists from those countries today who come back looking for their roots. Third, and most weird in my opinion, these Highland Scots societies started springing up in London. I guess mostly displaced Jacobites wanted to preserve their culture, or what they kind of thought was their culture – these societies, which grew more and more popular in the 19^th century (what with Queen Victoria loving Scotland so much), created things like family clan tartans and highland games and Burns Night with the salute to the haggis, and all those things that evolved into the touristy Scottish stuff we have today.

Culloden battlefield

Writers like Sir Walter Scott also contributed to Scottish mania with poems about the Lady of the Lake and novels about Rob Roy and other mysterious, romantic figures. Burns wrote poetry in the Scots dialect and people ate it up. All the Romantic poets like the Wordsworths and Coleridge were also gallivanting around Scotland looking at waterfalls and writing poetry, so everyone wanted to go there. English aristocrats would go up to Scottish “hunting lodges” for the weekend and stalk around in the woods, looking for deer, and then dance at ceilidhs and sing Burns songs. It was super cheesy but everyone loved it – except for the poor crofters who were left up there, eking out a living. But today the descendants of those same crofters are making money on Air B and B and Nessie tours, welcoming people who want the authentic Scottish experience as much as they did two hundred years ago.

The matchless scenery of Glencoe

When we got to Glencoe, we stayed in a bunkhouse that was attached to a super ritzy hotel (like 450 a night). There were people staying there who were hiking on the West Highland Way, a walking path that takes you from Glasgow to Fort William, through some of the most gorgeous scenery in the world. Vans would take their luggage for them, and they would stroll along, stopping at these upscale hotels for the night to drink single malt Scotch and swap stories of their adventures in the glens. I didn’t mind these people, either – I was glad they were there with us, enjoying the Romance of Scotland. After all, we only walked a few miles on the trail ourselves, singing bits of the song “Massacre at Glencoe,” which recounts the underhanded murder of thirty-two members of the MacDonald clan who were a little late signing the loyalty oath to William of Orange.

Bonnie Prince Charlie died in Rome at the age of sixty-four, a sad and dissipated alcoholic. However, his fans will always remember him as that twenty-five year old would-be monarch, marching across the land, being cheered by the country folk, blue eyes sparkling in his handsome face. As we drove down the shores of Loch Lomond this morning on the way to our last stop, we sang “Ye’ll tak the high road and I’ll tak the low road,” not minding that it was cheesy and cliché. We have loved every minute of our journey through the Scottish Highlands.