I took a bus from Dumfries to Glasgow and got there around noon. I had a couchsurfing host set up but he wasn't going to be home to meet me until 4:00. That was perfect because I had an afternoon goal: visit every charity shop I could to find a wool Aran jumper. I went to probably a dozen shops and I did find one wool jumper that I liked plus a few pairs of jeans and a waterproof Marmot jacket that I thought would be useful for my upcoming weeks of working on the farm. I also stumbled across one of the few occult shops I've seen in the UK and had a cool conversation with the guy about sacred Arthurian sites of Scotland and the ancient remains of the Picts. I arrived at my couchsurfers house around 4:30. His name was Tony and he's a sound healer. Perfect! We spent afternoon and evening talking and also hung out with his new German roommate who had just moved to Scotland for Uni. We had a delicious Indian dinner and then Tony used singing bowls to do a sort of divination session on me. I had never seen anyone use sound healing to get information so I was curious to see what he could find out. He rang the bowls for about five minutes up and down my body and then correctly told me that my left knee had been hurting me, I was a bit worn out and needed a long term spot to get grounded, and that my vocal chakra was my most powerful offering to the world. Pretty good news for a singer! The next morning I did a reading for Tony and the he took me with him to meet a lot of interesting people throughout the day. First we went to a house near Edinburgh that belongs to a woman named Jenny. Jenny is a reiki practitioner and is definitely on a spiritual healing path. We had lunch and great conversations and enjoyed the beautiful views of her garden and fields. Next, we went to another woman's house who Tony was about to go to the island of Iona with. We played with her dogs for a bit before we moved on to see these giant statues of The Kelpies. Kelpies are giant seamonsters of Scottish folklore and look like giant evil horses that eat children. The sculptures are incredibly huge and amazing and the sun was making everything look wonderful. Finally, we stopped at a third house which was amazing. From the outside it looked like a small castle and the inside was just incredible. An early 1900's Arts and Crafts style house that looked straight out of a movie. The couple that owned it had used it as a B&B for many years but now we're retiring from that and so they were selling half the property. The woman was also a Reiki practitioner and avid meditator. We made plans to have a small gathering next month to do a Mabon Equinox meditation. Exciting plans and I felt that I was in the flow as my Scottish network of healers and interesting people was growing! The following day was dedicated to my quest. I headed for the Glasgow Cathedral which was important for my Merlin pilgrimage. The site that the cathedral sits on is the same site that St Mungo started the first church that kicked off the existence of Glasgow. Back then it would have been green fields, streams and hills. The site is also thought to be where Mungo would have baptized Merlin since there used to be a stream right there. Also, next to the church site is a huge hill, now called the Necropolis. It's a Victorian graveyard that is believed to be an ancient Druid site. From what I have read it seems that Mungo wished to break the Druid connection to the hill so he did a Christian burial there back in the 1500's. I guess it worked because now it's one of the most famous Christian graveyards in the UK. The Necropolis is also thought to be where Merlin continuously shrieked from and disrupted Mungo's church services. I spent some time up one the hill and did a little shrieking and a little singing myself. It offers a great view of the city and the cathedral and it's spooky with all the old looking graves. Inside the cathedral, there is a crypt where St Mungo has a tomb and a little shrine where people can pray to him. Mungo started the church there and was funded by Rhydderch Hael, the king of Strathclyde, who was also Merlin's twin sisters husband. Mungo has since become the patron saint of Glasgow and he can be seen on the town crest. Also on the town crest is a fish with a ring in its mouth. The story of this image is interesting to me because it comes directly from Merlin Lailoken's lifetime and speaks about Merlin's sister and her husband the king: The King of Strathclyde had given the ring as a present to his Queen, Languoreth. The Queen gave the ring to a knight and the King, suspecting an intrigue, took it from him while he slept during a hunting party and threw it into the River Clyde. On returning home the King demanded to see the ring and threatened Languoreth with death if she could not produce it. The Queen appealed to the knight who, of course, could not help and then confessed to St Mungo who sent one of his monks to fish in the river, instructing him to bring back the first fish caught. Miraculously, St Mungo cut open the fish and found the ring. He gave it back to the Queen and she then presented it to her husband and all was forgiven and forgotten. When the Bishop of Glasgow was designing his own seal around 1271, he used the illustration of a salmon with a ring in its mouth and this has come down to us in today's coat of arms. After the cathedral, I went next door and visited St Mungo's Museum of Religious life. It's a small museum dedicated to education and peace among all the worlds religions. It has interesting information and artifacts from half a dozen different religions and is fascinating. Next up, I wanted to visit Ardery street. Author Adam Ardrey, in his book Finding Merlin, came to the conclusion that the forest house that Merlin's sister built for him would have been in the woods around the area that is now Glasgow. Through his research, he concluded that the spot of the house is on the west side of Glasgow on a street called Ardery street. The street is tiny with only a few houses, a Masonic temple, and a wildflower field. I appreciated that the possible site of Merlin's forest retreat would have a field of flowers on it, almost begging us to remember that even when we are in a dense city such as Glasgow, we are still in nature. I thought the field was an appropriate natural monument to a man who lived wild in the forest for so long. Only a few blocks from there is the site of Partick castle. Nothing remains of the castle and it's currently a construction site but at one time it would have been one of the castles of Rhydderch Hael and the Strathcylde empire. It's most likely would have been where the story of the fish and the ring happened since it's right next to the river Clyde. The only indication at all of the ancient site of governmental power is the name of the neighborhood which also took the name of the castle; Partick. From the castle site I got on a ferry that took me across the Clyde. I wanted to see the Govan church that is famous for having a lot of ancient burial stones and Pictish stones. Unfortunately it was closed when I got there. I jumped on a train and headed back to Tony's house. He was leaving so I had the evening to myself. I relaxed! The next morning I took a train to Hamilton to see the site of Cadzow Castle which Adam Ardrey tells us is where Merlin Lailoken and his twin sister Gwyneth Langoureth would have grown up. Cadzow is where Morken, a chief of the Strathclyde Britons and Lailoken and Gwyneth's father, would have had his home. Lailoken and Gwyneth would have played as kids here. The place is still very beautiful. The castle ruins are in Chatelherault Country Park which is a beautiful series of forests, fields and paths. Not too far away from the castle ruins is an ancient earthworks that looks like a mini motte and bailey structure and has a few 500 year old oak trees living around it. I figured this would be the best place to try and meditate on young Merlin Lailoken since this earthwork would have still been there back in his time. Maybe he might have even played in its banks and dips. I know I did. As I pondered Merlin, I also reflected back on the entire three months that I had spent looking. I thought about all the people I had met, all the sites that I'd seen, and all that I'd learned. I only had one more night before my last stop. It was bittersweet. On one hand, I was about ready to be done with camping and traveling to a new city almost everyday. On the other hand, it was felt so good to have a purpose and goal that was so close to my heart. I had been really living my dream with no compromises this whole time and I had absolutely fallen in love with the landscapes that I had been visiting. Wales was wonderful, England was incredibly satisfying as usual, and Scotland... Scotland had unexpectedly stolen my heart and lead to me to so many interesting synchronicities and new friends. The trip has changed my life and I will never be the same. It has also made me an expert of the Merlin landscape and I look forward to getting back to my books and tying together everything I've seen with all the information that other scholars and story tellers have presented. All this and more passed through my head as I lay under a 500 year old oak tree. The night was clear and warm and I stared up at the stars as I fell asleep. The next day was my last day. It was also a Sunday which means the towns are quieter than usual. I took a train from Hamilton to Dumbarton which isn't very far at all. As soon as I got off the train, I could see my final destination, Dumbarton Rock, a natural rock fortification that was the location of Dumbarton Castle, home of the kings of Strathclyde among other things. I walked for about 20 minutes and eventually reached the water. Dumbarton Rock sits at the mouth of the River Clyde where it changes from a normal sized river to this huge body of water which connects to the Firth of Clyde and the ocean. When I got there the tide was out, so I took off my shoes and ran out as far as I could on the mudbanks so I could get a good picture of the front of Dumbarton Rock, the side that faces the water and the sun. Aside from being the site of the Strathclyde Castle, the rock, also know as Alt Clud, has been a military base and prison throughout the centuries. I paid to get in and then spent the next four hours exploring all the nooks and crannies, trying to figure out where I thought Merlin would have been living when he was imprisoned here during his mad years. I did a lot of singing and chanting and collected some of the loose stones that made up this giant hill. I meditated and gazed around at the 360 degree view. It was beautiful and you could see far. It was easy to imagine what the King of Strathclyde, Rhydderch Hael, would have been looking at from his castle because little has changed. You could look down the Clyde and see Glasgow in the distance. You could look the other way and see water, hills, forests, and bare land. Where Dumbarton is now was probably a sea port and trading village. It still has a lot of trade going on but now it looks like shopping centers instead of market stalls. I was hoping to sleep up there but since it was a national site with admittance and people working there I knew it wouldn't be possible. Instead I headed to a pub and had a tasty dinner and a pint of beer and waited for the sun to go down before I found a good grassy spot to set up my secret campsite. I did just that and slept in a little wooded area next time a golf course. My final night after 3 months of journeying and a year of planning; I was surround by rocks and beer cans and in the morning, kids were walking to school, old men were teeing off, and people were walking their dogs. Life goes on as usual. My next stop was a WWOOFing farm near Oban in the remote northwest of Scotland. I would be there for two weeks before returning to Dumfries and Moffat for 3 weeks. Even though the bulk of the quest was over, I still had some magical things to look forward to. I had a interview scheduled with author Adam Ardrey in Edinburgh. I had been invited to accompany the 80 year old author of The Quest for Merlin, Nikolai Tolstoy, up to Hart Fell spring to drink from its magic waters once last time. I planned another quick visit to Glastonbury and also Cadbury Castle which is the most likely site of King Arthur's castle of Camelot. I had my fingers crossed for an interview with Merlin author and scholar RJ Stewart. I also had lots of interesting things for me to do in my three weeks of returning to Dumfries. The main body of the quest was over but my new life was just beginning. And on to the farm to start....
