Scotching Scottish Clichés

 

DIRTY GHOST TOWN

 

The first morning that Théo and I open our eyes on Edinburgh, the Scottish capital is buzzing. 

On the high and mighty Royal Mile, tourist entertainments take over from the festivities.  Folk music is broadcast beyond the shimmering shop windows out onto the streets,.  From the main courtyard of Edinburgh Castle to Hollyrood Palace down below, guides hassle the passers-by.  Each of them promises the most haunted visit in Edinburgh, in Scotland and even in the World! Wearing immaculate Middle Age outfits, the employees at Mary King’s Close hand out gloomy leaflets.  The members of the City of the Dead’s tour pace the streets in front of massive signs with blood-red slogans.  On the steps of Tron Kirk, an actor from the Auld Reekie is bellowing in front of ten or so people.

 

- Well, good eveni’g ev’ry bodyyy! Welcom’ to the Old Town of Edi’burgh! Is there anyone wi’a hert condition?

 

- Nooooooooooo!!!!

 

PIPERS

 

- How do you feel?

 

- I'm terrified

 

- You still can't hear anything, eh?

 

- No

 

The rain is falling incessantly on Sauchiehall Street, a wide street in Glasgow's centre.  Despite this, it is full of people who've come to swap their Christmas presents.  Bundled up in their lovely, colorful raincoats, they stroll from one shop to another.  The New Year is off to a bad start.  I have been deaf for almost a week.

 

In front of an umbrella shop, a piper is giving it his all, and seems to be fighting a battle with the rain.  His yellow and black kilt is soaked and his bare knees are shivering above his woollen soaks.  I'm guessing from his downcast expression and the slowness of his fingers across the chanter that he is not playing a Jig.  I'm not totally deaf.  It's just that I can no longer hear bagpipes.  As soon as a piper enters my field of vision, my hearing apparatus detects him and shuts down immediately.  I'm beginning to get seriously worried.

 

MONSTERS INC.

 

There are some places where two parallel worlds coexist and never meet. The monster's world, and the tourists'.

This is true for Inverness, capital of the Scottish Highlands and generally considered as the most northern tip of the country by those who have never set foot there. For more curious strangers, it is the essential stop on their itinerary, from which they can watch the ripples made by an underwater monster on the surface of Loch Ness.

Curiously, the closer the tourists try to get to the animal, the greater the distance that sets them apart from it. Not that monsters are particularly inaccessible, but more because these summer visitors live on a strange and distant planet that protects them from anything that might disturb their annual rest. Luckily, monsters – and espeically underwater monsters – are a lot craftier than we might think.

 

SHEEP AND MEN

 

It was the Romantic authors of the 18th and 19th centuries who, more than any others, shaped our current vision of Scotland.  Many of those nostalgic souls hit the roads in search of a more romantic past, attempting to obscure the industrial present of their country.  On the way, they were struck by the wild and montainous beauty of the Highland landscapes, always quick to inspire their solitary walker's daydreaming.  The Romantics described their visions with such fervour, that for most of us who aren't Scottish, Scotland means The Highlands.

As the Romantics started clearing the way in people's minds for the tourist trails to come, the story of Scotland moved on, and with it, the economy.  Powerful land owners developed the wool trade and brought their own touch to those sentimental pictures, with numerous brushstrokes of an off-white colour.  The sheep.

Two centuries later in Scotland, postcards bearing the image of sheep holding court on undulating moors, like lords on their property, are sold by the thousands every year.

When travellers happen upon a real sheep they are almost surprised to see it move.  It is an unsettling feeling, I experienced first-hand, to realize that we don't know anything about the  daily life of Scottish sheep, nor of the people who raise them and look after them day and night.

 

 

CLAN-PACKED

 

"Bienvenue au Musée des Iles.  Cet audio guide en français vous mènera à travers l'exposition historique que nous vous présentons ici.  Appuyez sur le numéro correspondant aux panneaux d'approfondir un sujet en particulier.  Nous vous souhaitons une agréable visite."

 

Théo and I have been travelling across the Isle of Skye for almost a week.  We have found shelter at the Armadale museum on the Southern point of the Island, as the omnipresent sun that has been following us for days has started to become oppressing.  We keep close to the walls that bathe in refreshing shadow.  The museum is deserted and gives off a peaceful atmosphere.

 

" From the first to the eighth century Scotland was made up of four peoples.  The Picts of Celtic or pre-Celtic origin were the oldest people and fought off the Roman invasion.  Their kingdoms extended to the East and the North-East.  The Celtic Britons were set up towards the South-West.  The Germanic Anglo-Saxons from Northumbria lived in the South-East and the Scots, Celts from Ireland, set up in the West and the North-West.  In the eighth century, a fifth people came to join the four others.  These were the Vikings, who were found mostly in the Northern islands, from Orkney to the Hebrides.

For four centuries the Scots battled with the Picts, their arch enemies.  They were able to dominate thanks to Kenneth MacAlpin, who united the two kingdoms.  The territory was thereafter known as Scotia.  Its peoples had united.  They worked according to a tribal system which, little by little, became that of clans."

 

MORE THAN RAIN

 

Poets of long ago glorified the rain, comfortably settled in front of a good fire, never admitting that if the threat of rain poked its nose over the horizon, these poetic refugees would run for cover and shelter among their papers.

No need for them to defy the storms, when they could ramble on from their kitchen windows.  The first drops of rain showered upon them were sufficient celestial inspiration to flood whole books with ink.

Since the beginning of global warming, northern European countries have seen average annual rainfall increase by more than 60 mm.  We might thus think that for the storytellers there are many beautiful stories to come.

 

Not exactly.

 

The truth is that Scottish rain aggravates more than it inspires.

And it is its absence that annoys Théo and me the most.  For more than a week the sun has been tormenting us and following us around like a shadow.  Our legendary enthusiasm is waning and Théo's nose is peeling.

 

We carefully examine the mountain peaks of the Glencoe Valley, feeling like two discouraged microbes before the immensity of Mother Nature.  One particular summit grabs our attention, as we know that  Scotland's heavenly water is hidden away in the towers of its castle.  The rain is hiding behind large, silvery clouds, and we can hear it rumbling far off.

 

THE LITTLE TWEED SHOP

 

- What do we say to them?, I ask Théo.

 

- No idea

 

- What did you read on their website?

 

- C'est un magasin spécialisé dans le tweed pour la couture du sport et l'usure du comté;  qu'un large éventail de femmes et d'hommes en tweed est toujours en stock ainsi que les meilleurs agneaux en écharpes …, Théo rambles.

 

- What?

 

- I don't know! That's what the internet tranlator came up with, she replies defensively.I don't even know what tweed is!

 

- Well, this isn't going to be easy!

 

- OK OK we'll be fine.  Maybe it will help us for once.  At least we won't have any preconceived ideas on the subject.

 

Théo and I have been loitering in front of a tweed shop for an hour, waiting for the shop to open its doors.  After our Scottish shower in the Glencoe mountains, I had not only lost all my writing material, but also all of my books and notebooks.  With them I lost my research on kilts and all the names and addresses of the producers we were supposed to go and meet.

 

- Erm… is tweed really a cliché?, I suddenly asked.

THE ALCHEMISTS

 

Even those who only know that whisky is just some obscure beverage with dazzlingly high alcoholic content know it is the Gold of Scotland.  Superlatives abound to qualify it, and journalists around the globe have long since made it a success.  Everywhere, whisky makers are compared to alchemists.  The image, borrowed straight from the Middle Ages by those nostalgic of bygone times, is still terribly effective today.

 

Yet in Scotland the great whisky makers are not alchemists.  They don't always turn barley into single malt and certainly not lead into gold.  What they are really transforming is the taste of scotch, as they standardise it with caramel additives in order to sell it en masse to throngs of consumers.  The three giants Diageo, Pernod Ricard and Grants alone own 70% of all market shares, even as each bottle produced is imprinted with token Scottish clichés.  Ninety percent of the scotch produced by Scotland's 96 distilleries is sold abroad.  The yearly turnover of sales is £ 3.2 billion.  As for the Scots, well they can always count on the income from the tours they give to tourists.

 

And then you have the independent distilleries.  Among the plethora we could have chosen to tell you about, one especially intrigued us far more than the others.

 

CEILIDHS

 

For us French, Scottish dancing means lone dancers with their kilts swinging around their knees as they execute little bouncing steps- each one more complicated than its predecessor -, their arms in an arc over their heads to protect them from the rain.  In actual fact, Highland dancing is elaborate show dancing that is used only in performances and competitions reserved for the dancing elite.

 

All the while, the Scots come together at ceilidhs – a kind of informal ball open to everyone.  At its roots, the Ceilidh was any kind of social get-together and did not necessarily involve dancing.  A 'Ceilidh' was literary entertainment, an event during which stories, poems and ballads were told, and songs sung.  Today, the further south you travel in Scotland, the more often Ceilidhs are specifically for dancing.  In the 1950s these dances got back their role of social event and meeting place, and were started up all over the place.  The repertoire of dances is so vast that it is impossible to know them all.  They have their origins in Scottish country dancing, old-Time and sequence dances.  They are split into reels, jigs, hornpipes and strathspeys.  With time they have evolved, integrating also the barn dance, the polka, the two-step, the waltz, the fox-trot or the quick step, among others…

Ceilidh dancing reunites the young and the not-so young; Scots, Americans, French, Eskimos, experienced dancers and beginners.  You don't even need to know how to dance to take part, as long as you can put one foot in front of the other.

 

IN GOOD SPIRITS

 

The night is reaching the height of its murky darkness when, in the gloomy distance I can make out the enormous outline of a lanky yet elegant phantom.  He is accompanied by a deafening silence.  The only sound that can be heard is the slow and steady slapping of his wooden shoes as the apparition approaches.  On seeing the spirit, my heart begins to suffocate under the pressure of its own quickening beat.

After a few moments the shape seems more like a man than a ghost.  But he is disproportionately elongated, and reaches almost ten foot.  His leather boots cling to the curves of his legs which alone account for half of his height.  A pair of traditional, hodden grey peasant trousers and a distinguished jacket in brown tones give this spirit a look that could have been stolen from the dandys.  His soft childlike facial features are a contrast to the austerity of his soft-rimmed black hat.  Now standing right in front of me, the man crosses his arms and looks me up and down:

 

- Wh-who are you?, I mumble vaguely in his direction.

 

- I come from a little place called the Land of the Free, the Home of the Brave!1

 

- Ameeeeeeeeerica?

 

- NO, Scotland!!!

 

- Rooooobert Buuuuurns!, I whisper, stupefied, gazing up at him, towards the stars.

 

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Taken from Chiken Run, a british cartoon by Nick Park and Peter Lord released in 2000 and produced by Aardman Animations.