Mouthy Mary

Four weeks after John-the-Baptist’s Day, the ecclesiastical calendar commemorates Mary Magdalen.  While John preached repentance; Mary Mags (if we believe she was the penitent prostitute) practised it.  There is a fabulous Rubens painting in the Scottish National Gallery, depicting Herodias spiking the tongue of John-the-B with a fork as his head is presented to her husband, Herod, on a dish by sumptuously-dressed Salome.  The symbolic message of the jabbing fork is clear: that will teach him to speak out.

The witch’s gag or ‘branks’ in the museum is another horrid symbol of how, in the past, women have been silenced.  Some of these awful contraptions had spikes that, when inserted into the mouth, would pierce the “gossip’s” tongue if she talked.  Whether these so-called witches, loose-tongued, or accursed women were truly evil, touched by spirits or just plain misunderstood is hard to say.  Jesus Christ was reported to say, ‘let the one without sin cast the first stone.’  Tell that to the tabloid journalists, 2000 years on.

Madeleine and the Minister

Quoth he: I’ll mak ye haud yer weesht,

an’ he straps the branks on ma heid.

Kens Ah’ve blether fir the baith o’ us;

gin Ah clype oan - he’ll be deid.

His creeshie words are sleekit as oil,

but it’s me wha greets an’ begs.

Ye’ll cry me a gossip, but hae a wee keek

at whit lies between his legs.

Buried Treasures

So we come to the third of this year's Fridays-the-Thirteenth - triply unlucky for those who believe in bad luck - and with it, as coincidence would have it, the thirteenth of my 26 Treasures from the National Museum of Scotland. I've already said I'm not superstitious, and I don't have a mind for numbers, but it kind of makes sense.  Any month that begins with a Sunday will have a Friday 13^th.  This year, an extra day in February means that, three months had Sundays-the-first; each three months apart and therefore, the Friday 13^ths were thirteen weeks apart. Ooh, scary?  No, just maths. 

What secret or subconscious power led me to post a 13^th sestude on Friday the 13^th? The simple fact is that 26 sestudes (yikes - that's 2x13!) in the space of a year is no easy task, especially when it involves finding, researching or even photographing one of the museum's vast array of Treasures every fortnight. Sometimes items have caught my eye; a story, or an over-heard snippet or random fact inspired me.  Mostly, it is serendipity or chance.

For today’s Treasure I could have chosen from a multitude of artefacts that symbolise luck or superstition. The ancient practice of burying treasure with the dead pre-supposed that it would be useful in the next life; and so, there are many items of symbolic meaning.  This gave me plenty of words to play with.  For that reason, I have chosen a string of glass beads, and formed my sestude out of meaningful words, half-randomly strung together in three contrasting tiers, to be read in any direction you – or fate – may choose.

What a Bore

When I started this project of 26 Sestutes for 2012, inspired by the 26 Treasures competition for the National Museum of Scotland, I had great plans and pretentions.  First, that I could write a mere 62-word snippet based on 26 of Scotland’s Treasures – displayed in a building I enjoy spending far too much time in – every two weeks for a year.  Believe you me: a ‘sestute’ is no easy discipline.

Second, that I would find time to look more deeply into issues of national identity, and explore what it means to be Scottish.  This is particularly hard for someone who pronounces words with a ‘posh’ (or at least, received) English accent.  And third, that I (while being chronologically-challenged) would find items to write about that might slot pleasingly into calendars of events, historical, personal, or ecclesiastical.

I managed to shoe-horn Corpus Christi into the mix; even Lent got a mention but, when it comes to the hagiographical calendar, I sadly forgot about Saint John-the-Baptist, whose date was handed to me on a plate, since I used to work for a church that bore his name if not his fore-running fame. So, with apologies to June 24 (and anything else that rhymes with ‘ore’) I will throw this one in, belated. 

Oh, and if you’ve never heard the wonderful and legendary John Kenny play this beast of an instrument, I urge you to look it up while you’re here on the internet.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVAWwWi0DbE

The War-Trumpet

I’m not quite sure

who bore the boar

on a John-the-Baptist dish.

A weapon of war,

adored and abhorred, a caricature, 

with bulging eyes and laughing lower jaw;

its sforzando roar let rip

with puckered lip

and petrifying embouchure.

Then, in a peaty grave and frore

was chilled by hoar-frost

and nature’s icy blast;

a silenced sacrifice,

heard – and feared –

no more.

This brass and bronze head of a carnyx - an Iron Age battle trumpet - was found at Deskford in Banffshire. It is the only surviving carnyx head from Britain. The carnyx was used sometime between 80 and 200 AD, and buried as a sacrifice to the gods. The head resembles that of a wild boar, a symbol of strength and fearlessness.

Choir Singing

Although the great delight of the Museum of Scotland is observing how the sunlight does different things to the building throughout the changing seasons (several of which can occur in one day in this city) sometimes, the museum treasures are not so well illuminated.  Some never see the daylight, which means that the humble mobile-phone camera cannot capture my chosen artefact.  So for today, the picture is from a shop-display in Glasgow (and elsewhere).  

Bob, Stitched-Up.

“I’ll sing for my supper,”

he said, peeling the potatoes.

“I’ll sew,” she replied,

winding the bob in.

He took the basso;

she tacked an upper line

on while the sewing-machine

chuckled and whirred a major third.

Closer harmony stirred.

Strands were spliced:

as the singer sowed another seed,

the potatoes stayed unsliced.

But at least they had wild oats for breakfast.

Somebody

One of the things l love to do is eavesdrop on people as they wander round galleries and museums.  Modern art is such that the responses of Joe Public are as valid an interpretation as the experts’.  Things ancient can be misconstrued also; here is a story of a small boy who didn’t quite ‘get’ the point of blessing the people with a piece of Jesus.

Today, the feast of Corpus Christi celebrates the institution of the Eucharist. But relatively few churches, Anglican or Roman Catholic, perform Benediction, let alone strew the streets with rose petals as they parade the Host in glorious procession.  More’s the pity, I say: it’s one of the greatest pieces of Street Theatre… and hugely entertaining to see the bemused faces and listen to the passers-by.

I guess we’re lucky that, nowadays, in this country, people are able to carry out their devotion in public, however weird it may seem to others.

Corpus Christi

They jostled into a hole.

The heather-priest screwed the stem onto his travelling chalice.

“Too late: no time.”  He grabbed the reserved sacrament.

“What’s that clock for?” the boy asked, perplexed.

“It’s a monstrance,” he said, as he placed the Host into the casement, and lifted up the Body of Christ.

“A monster!”

“Benedicamus Domino,” he pronounced, as protestant footsteps angrily approached.

Sporting Pride

So, the Olympic Torch has arrived, and today the Edinburgh Marathon

took place, thanks to the tram-works, mainly outwith the city. It

should have been called the East Lothian Marathon.  Yesterday I cycled
the route along the coast, stopping to take photos, scribble notes,
and eat a fish supper by the seashore; then ended the day with a pint
on Portobello Promenade as the pink sun sank through purple skies over
Fife.  Surely a better way to celebrate being in Scotland than running
for 26 miles!
           I care little for sport, so feel disinclined to write much about it.
But a quick glance around the Sporting Hall of Fame in the Museum of
Scotland demonstrates how Nationalism and sport are hard-wired into
the collective psyche.  Wouldn’t it be better to define these fine
people by their sporting prowess or achievements, rather than by their
Scottishness?  But there are rules; conditions of entry to such a
hallowed place: you have to be Scottish – whatever that means.

           Having recently read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, his story
about not quite walking the Appalachian Trail with an over-weight
reformed alcoholic called Stephen Katz, I thought it might be
interesting to ponder what Bryson might ask Captain Robert Barclay
Allerdice, whose claim to fame was pretty unimpressive on the surface.
He walked.  Well, I suppose, given Scotland’s unhealthy reputation, a
good walk wouldn’t be such a bad thing. 
           (and that’s from someone who just waxed lyrical about fish & chips 
and beer, albeit soaked in sunshine, if not salt & sauce….)

A Walk in the Woods?

“And what did you do?” inquired Bryson, post-mortal in the Hall of Fame.

“I walked, in the main.”

“Hey – me too! Did you do the Appalachian Trail?”

“No, the West Highland Way,” came Allerdice’s nippy reply.

“Any Bears?” asked Bill, hopeful.

“We’ve had no bears for 600 years. My dog was my only companion.”

“Ah. I had Katz,” said Bill, realising his mistake.

A Perigee of Creativity

It’s strange that when things are thought to be greatest they are described at being at their height; their apogee, perhaps.  Yet the moon, when at its perigee, that is, when it is lowest in the sky, looks greater, fuller, brighter, and generally lovelier to us on earth; who feel its pull on our tides, our blood, and the creative seeds of our unconscious.

Two years ago, I blogged a year-long sequence of poems about the moon.  Without wishing to revisit that theme, tonight the moon is what can be described as ‘super-full’ – as if there can be degrees of fullness.  Of course, we know there can; at least when it comes to the battle between the supposedly opposite poles of optimism and pessimism, which give us differing-sized half-glasses.  Six of one, half a baker’s dozen of the other. 

So it is with the hour-glass, which, when spent, can only have one of its chambers filled, and then, not even fully.  Sir Walter Scott used this half-hour-glass, apparently, to give himself a word-count-target for every turn of the time-piece.  Perhaps he should have attempted a simple sestute.  Here, then, is my 62-word attempt at a potted history of yet another great artist who died in poverty.