I was reading this week about Wick’s patron saint, an Irish bishop and missionary called Fergus the Pict (died c.730 AD). St Fergus didn’t confine himself to Caithness but founded a number of churches in north-east Scotland (the Aberdeen Breviary says he “occupied himself in converting the barbarous people”, still a fair description of Aberdonians to this day).
Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula) in said river
There used to be a sculpture of the saint in Wick parish church. During the Reformation, in 1613, Wick got a new archdeacon, one Dr Richard Merchiston of Bower. Merchiston was an iconoclast in the original meaning of the word, someone who believed that images smacked of popery, and one day smashed up the statue of St Fergus. This so annoyed the townspeople they waylaid Merchiston one evening and – perhaps a little extreme – drowned him in the river. When questioned about it later they swore they weren’t to blame, but said the saint himself had appeared and sat astride Merchiston in the river, holding his head under the water. Full marks, you’d have to say, for style.
Cheerful daffs
Meanwhile in gansey news, I am inching my way towards being about halfway down the second sleeve. Another week or so should see it completed, and then there’s just the anxious wait to see if it fits! Like so many gansey patterns, we won’t see what it looks like properly until it’s been washed and blocked; for now I keep on, in Yeats’s phrase, “dreading and hoping all”.
Fulmar
And now it’s Easter week, which means it must finally be spring (by which I mean it seems to’ve stopped snowing). It’s traditionally the season of rebirth and renewal, and also of chocolate rabbits and the eggs they lay from which baby rabbits hatch. In The Lord of the Rings the Lady Galadriel sadly contemplates a future in the Undying Lands without her beloved mallorn trees; I feel much the same way about heaven (assuming I’m lucky enough to get there, which currently feels like a long shot) and Hotel Chocolat easter eggs…
A very happy Easter to all our readers, from Gordon and Margaret!
Happy Easter to you both
Hello Alison – happy Easter to you too!
Happy Spring. Why are daffodils out in Scotland when they have barely budded here in Maryland?
or is that photo more of an icon than a record?
Impressive progress on the second sleeve.
Hi Tamar, it’s probably something to do with the Gulf Stream, which is the only thing stopping Britain having temperatures the same as Vladivostok. Not that I think it’s doing it’s job particularly well this winter, since there have been a few more Vladivostokian days than I could have wished!