#scawlin

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Someone had fun writing this headline. XD

(Source, because you know you want to read about a Challenging Beast in a garden centre.)

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From a review of a biography of Margaret Tudor:

[James IV] himself emerges as a charismatic, capable and truly dedicated ruler - a rarity in an age of egotistical kings. He is a loving husband, if not a loyal one. Affable, intelligent and sensitive, the fact that he enjoyed picking up a needle and thread and partaking in embroidery alongside his wife makes him endearing at a distance of five centuries.

(BBC History magazine, Aug. 2024)

James IV really was a babe, wasn't he? 🥰 This isn't really my period, but every time I read anything about him I'm like, yeah, I can understand why he had all those mistresses. Every woman in Scotland was probably like "...okay, we'll share him." XD

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Sleet was still spitting down the wind, but the yellow bar of a low dawn edged the eastern sky, and as Phaedrus mounted the Crowning Stone, and with his left foot on the hide of the King Horse, set his right into the deep-cut footprint that had held the right foot of every king of the Dalriads since first they came from Erin across the Western Sea, the first sunlight struck the high snow-filled corries of distant Cruachan. Gault brought the spear of Lugh, and put it into his hand in place of the other that he had brought with him from the Place of Life. Conory knotted the sheath thongs of the King’s sword to his belt. Now they were loosening the bindings of the stallion head-dress, lifting it away. Tuathal the High Priest was standing on the horse-hide beside him, holding up a narrow circlet of fiery pale gold that caught the morning light for an instant in a ripple of white fire, like the leaves of the white aspen when they blow up against the sun. Phaedrus bent his head to receive it, felt it pressed down on to his brows. The bronze Sun Trumpets were sounding again; the deep earthshaking note booming out over the marshes and the hills and the high moors, to be caught up from somewhere on the very edge of hearing, and passed on, carrying the word from end to end of Earra-Ghyl that there was a Horse Lord again in Dun Monaidh. - The Mark of the Horse Lord, Rosemary Sutcliff

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‘Remarkable’ Pictish ring discovered by volunteer

The ring is thought to have lain undiscovered for more than 1,000 years at Burghead in Moray.

Oh no...

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Starting an archaeological monograph with the interpretation and description of the finds before describing the actual site and its environment, outlining the aims of the excavation and its process, establishing the chronology, or any kind of run-through of the collected data... sure is A Choice.

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I had an idea for a short story, so I've been doing a quick bit of research for the fictional castle which features in it, and happened upon this:

One of Kisimul’s most unpleasant reputed occupants, around the beginning of the 15th century, was Marion of the Heads, second wife of MacNeil of Barra, who ensured her own son’s succession by beheading her stepsons.

God forbid women do anything. 🙄

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Edinburgh Castle's Redcoat cafe name reviewed over 'offence to Scots'

Edinburgh Castle bosses are open to renaming the cafe after 32 years over its controversial historic links.

Um. These people are aware that plenty of Scots were redcoats too, don't they? They do realise that Scots formed a considerable part of the British Army, don't they? They do realise that the Jacobite rebellions were civil wars over who should occupy the throne of the United Kingdom, it wasn't some Scots vs. English thing??

If the arguments for renaming the café were due to objections over the role the British Army played in imperial atrocities overseas (which, btw, featured plenty of Scottish generals and governors slaughtering indigenous peoples), I could understand, but to object to it being ~offensive to Scots~ is dumb as fuck.

People, I am begging you. Put down Outlander and pick up a fucking history book for five minutes.