There's no place like home

2015--Upper Payette Lake

A trip to Scotland is not in the cards this Easter, sadly.  We console ourselves with the classic phrase from The Wizard of Oz. "There's no place like home."  

Our trip to visit our youngest in Arizona over the holidays more or less cemented the deal.  Out of fairness, we are balancing Arizona over the holidays with flying to Dayton next week to visit our oldest.  Or so we say.  Really, it's an excuse to see our nearly six month old granddaughter.    

A last hurrah, because afterwards there's more than enough work left undone around the homestead...what with adding rock (clearing the pasture) into the gabion stone wall, discing up a vegetable garden (which hasn't been used in nearly twenty years), replacing pine seedlings that succumbed to ground squirrels, finishing the greenhouse.  So it goes.  There's no place like home.

Even so, in its own right, we live in an interesting region here.  West of the Clearwater and east of the Snake.  Perhaps we take much for granted, giving short shrift locally.  The grass is always greener so to speak.

Historically, or archeologically, the area of Cottonwood, where we live, is a rather long-inhabited place.  Truth be told, as habitations go, it is easily on the scale of the Mesolithic sites in Scotland (e.g. the Oronsay shell & hazelnut middens which we have yet to visit).  Actually, it is older still--one of the oldest archeological sites in the whole of North America.  It dates to 16,000 years before present...to the Late Upper Paleolithic.  It is the oldest radio-carbon dated record of the human presence in North America. Indeed, the first samples tested were assumed to be in error.  Subsequent radio-carbon dates were coming back consistently as 16,000 years BP.

Charred hazelnuts in Mesolithic midden on Colonsay; source digiscotland

Located within a terrace at the confluence of Rock Creek and the Lower Salmon (only 11 miles south of Cottonwood), the Cooper's Ferry site was found to contain 189 stone artifacts (projectile points, blades, flake tools and bi-faced fragments); plus charcoal and many bone fragments of medium to large-bodied animals.  There was also evidence of a hearth, dug pits and a food processing station, suggesting domestic occupation...some 16,000 years ago.

Thus, Cooper's Ferry contradicts the "Clovis first" occupation theory which had assumed that the Clovis people were the first to migrate into North America.  It turns out they weren't...not by a couple thousand years.  Cooper's Ferry also challenges the theory that an ice-free corridor opened up to North America which then permitted migration.  True, since Cooper's Ferry finds in fact predate the ice-free corridor by two thousand years.

The Cooper's Ferry stone implements (specifically stemmed projectile points) are very similar, if not identical, to those that have been found in northern Japan dating ~21,400 to 16,200 BP (Late Upper Paleolithic).

2015--west view on The W

Following the Cooper's Ferry dig, a fledgling consensus is forming suggesting humans may have arrived in North America by sea, quite possibly from northern Japan, and then breached the continent's interior by traveling up inland rivers.  The first major northwest river on the continent that would be encountered from northern Japan happens to be the Columbia, of which the Snake and Salmon are major tributaries.  It is the "first off ramp" to get south of the ice.

The Cooper's Ferry site has been a decade in the digging by Oregon State University.  It has now wrapped up, with another decade or more in analyzing what has been uncovered thus far.  Traditionally, Cooper's Ferry is an ancient village known to the Nez Perce as Nipéhe.  On former Nez Perce land, now under federal management by BLM, oral tradition has it that Nipéhe was established by a couple after a flood destroyed their previous home.  Or rather, an avalanche did.  A young boy and girl survived to establish Nipéhe, the ancient settlement.  

2012--west view on The W

The tale alludes to the importance (or treacherousness) of snow and ice 16,000 years ago.  With a grain of salt (because a great deal of time separates the people originally involved from the present day), according to Nakia Williamson-Cloud, Nez Perce director of cultural resources, “Our stories already tell us how long we’ve been here.  This only reaffirms that. This is not just something that happened 16,000 years ago. It’s something that is still important to us today.”

As for pining after Scotland and its ancient standing stones and circles, that must wait another year. That said, this proves one need not travel quite so far to see history.  Sometimes it's in our own back yard.  

2019--east view from The W

  

 

Grand Canyon

With a finger or two of single malt (as I am wont to do at this time of year), I often ruminate about time... upon eternity and man's place in it.  For example, Christmastide is, of course, a mixture of pagan winter solstice rituals (dating from time immemorial) jumbled up with the Nativity's Christmas star.  Mortality meets the infinite, as it were.

December 24, 2024--Grand Canyon South Rim

But there is a certain longing, for lack of a better.  "For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."  Matthew 13:17  Many prophets and righteous people--generations upon generations before the advent of the Christ child--all longing for a heavenly future foretold.  

Or, generations who long to go back, to go back and modify what has passed, to correct sins perhaps.  Discounting the possibility of time travel, the problem is we can't go back.  Time is a river.  Rivers flow downstream.  We are in the moment.  We fish in the stream of time, to borrow from Henry David Thoreau..."It's thin current slides away, but eternity remains."

Speaking of Christmas, it was a slightly different affair this year.  Our youngest daughter and her husband have made their home in Arizona.  Time we visited.  So we did.  Weather was exquisite by north central Idaho's standards (until the day after Christmas at least).  On Christmas Eve day, we were treated to a "bucket list" item.  Our gracious hosts drove us out to see the Grand Canyon.  It was that which prompts my pensive reflection upon time.

December 24, 2024  Grand Canyon South Rim

It is not possible to view the Grand Canyon without at least a bit of awe and wonder at its vastness.  More, the chasm that opens before you exposes an inexpressible age.  The oldest rock at the basement of the Grand Canyon is said to be the Elves Chasm, over 1.84 billion years old (Ga), only a small part of which is exposed.  Being intrusive igneous rock, the Elves Chasm is plutonic; meaning, its shape, extent and in some cases composition are in doubt.  Further, "intrusive" is the operable word.  For it stands to reason the Elves Chasm intruded into even older rock which has yet to be identified. 

Elves Chasm aside, the canyon's basement of crystalline rocks is comprised of what are informally called the Vishnu Basement Rocks.  Nominally, these rocks span some 1.8 to 1.75 Ga.  The Colorado River's Grand Canyon exposure profile slices through it all, all the way down to this Precambrian rock.  It has exposed the earliest geological period in Earth's history.

December 24, 2024  Elves Chasm Gneiss example

The Precambrian spans the formation of the planet (about 4.5 billion years ago, give or take) to the beginning of the Cambrian Period (about 542 million years ago (Ma)).  During the Precambrian the continents formed and, more importantly, the atmosphere developed into an oxygen-based one.  (Prior to the Precambrian, the atmosphere was one of methane, and quite toxic to most life as we know it.) 

Early life did begin to evolve.  While the earliest bacteria micro-fossils are found to occur at 3.5 Ga (Archaean Eon) about a billion years after the planet formed, it was during the late Precambrian (Paleoproterozoic Eon) that eukaryotes (animals, plants, fungi, seaweed, and unicellular organisms) began to develop as methane gave way to oxygen.  The earliest animal fossils are found at the Precambrian/Cambrian interface, roughly around 542 Ma, when the various species of life began to explode in complexity.  

December 24, 2024 Grand Canyon

Again, the Grand Canyon is indescribable in age.  But I should say the rock strata in it are of indescribable age.  As opposed to the upper layers of rocks (the youngest being about 300 million years old), the age of the Grand Canyon itself is much more recent--dating to about six million years ago.  Under continuous hydraulic force to this day, the Colorado River has cut its course ever downward.  Given time (which humanity likely does not have), it may yet expose even more. 

Looking into the chasm of the Grand Canyon was quite a treat.  It has given me something to think about...the ultimate insignificance of mankind.  Transient and temporary.  Hubris saturated.  Chauvinistic both in time and self-assumed importance.

As for creationism, the origin of life is debatable.  ^"And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas”. And God saw that it was good," according to Genesis 1:9-13. 

"Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.  And it was so.  The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day."   

The crux of the matter turns on the length of a day in God time, I suppose.  What is beyond debate is that the Colorado and its tributaries have exposed nearly two billion years of strata, layer upon layer.  A truly remarkable view. 

December 24, 2024  Grand Canyon pinyon

December 24, 2024

I should interject that recently, based on South Australia finds, the earliest animal fossil to date (~555 Ma) is Quaestio simpsonorum, possibly one of the earliest animals known that was capable of movement.  Not that it matters whether we push the Precambrian/Cambrian interface 13 million years one way or the other.  Even showing up in the fossil record as early as 555 Ma, animal life is still a relative newcomer.  Further, research into the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is emerging to suggest that life can be dated (in models) to about 4.2 Ga--a relatively young age when Earth was still in the process of forming. 

I leave the "Why here of all places?  Why now?" to others to solve.  I am satisfied to call it "the intricate and intelligent design" of life, and leave it at that.  Though doubtless, with a good single malt and a little time on my hands, I am certain the mysteries of the universe will unfold, if not page by page then layer by layer perhaps.

The issue with cruise line tourism

April 13, 2022  Quiet before the arrival of the cruise tourist hoard

Recent headlines regarding the negative impact of the massive industrial-scale tourist cruise ships heaving up quayside in Scotland prompted a quick search back into the blog.  I knew I had addressed it.  See: https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2022/04/orkney-demographics-change-is-coming.html 

The original article dealt with Orkney's demographics, not cruise ships per se.  But, after witnessing the first of the annual exodus of massive cruise ships to dock in Kirkwall in 2022, I could not help but interject a  dismissive observation...namely, "A growing local debate is taking place as to whether the highly touted benefit of cruise ship visits to the local economy even offsets the costs." 

April 13, 2022  Polar exploration ship Spitsbergen opens the season at Kirkwall

Recent headlines reviewed the impact of the evermore massive cruise ships.  Last year, the report cited Carnival's fleet of 63 ships (the heavy weight in industrial-sized cruise lines) as being responsible for more sulfur oxide pollution in 2022 than all of the cars in Europe combined.  A billion cars.  That's a lot.  Carnival, the world's largest cruise line, was also responsible for producing more carbon dioxide than the entire city of Glasgow.  Startling data by any comparison.

But Miami-based Carnival is not by itself, of course.  There's also MSC Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Lines.  And there's also slightly more responsible cruise line companies like Hurtigruten and Disney Cruise.  There's profit in it no doubt; but to what effect?

Cruising is one of tourism's fastest growing sectors.  From a mere 21 vessels in the 1970s, the sector has exploded to 515 today...a 24-fold increase.  Ships themselves have more than doubled in size, and they're still growing.  Worse, the issue is not just air pollution; it's also sewage treatment and water quality, to say nothing of solid waste disposal.

Transport & Environment, Europe's leading advocate of clean energy, issued a damning report on the industry.  The cruise tourist system is stretched.  And it may be breaking in the not too distant future.  Venice, for example, has banned large cruise ships.  Several other ports are considering following suit.  The result, at least in Venice, was an 80% reduction in air born pollutants.  So it is possible to address the problems...if there is a will to do so.     

Personally, the market has all the appearance of being saturated.  Mature, in a word, to the point of being a routine boom-bust cycle.  In any case, what with 5,600 to 7,000 fellow tourists in tow, it's not exactly like "getting away from it all".  You sort of bring 'em with you.  Citing the earlier blog post, "It is becoming clear that "industrial scale tourism" is not all it has been cracked up to be." 

April 13, 2022  square wake leaving Kirkwall and the Spitsbergen on Earl Thorfinn

Merry Christmas to all

I wish to extend the warmest of Christmas greetings to our readers, with hopes for a prosperous New Year.  

The old year 2024 is fast winding down.  (Some say fortunately.)  Beyond doubt, many changes have occurred over the past year, the outcomes of which will only be made known by living the consequences of our respective choices as the future inevitably unfolds.  I am no soothsayer, and make no revelations. Let it be, in other words.

Meanwhile, it is appropriate to attach a photograph along with these greetings.  I chose one of the Nativity, taken of a carved oak panel found in the at Traquair House Chapel, Innerleithen, Scotland.  Hidden stairways and priest holes notwithstanding, the chapel at Traquair only dates from the mid-19th century with the passage of the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. 

April 3, 2023  Traquair Chapel panel

The panels (there are 12 of them), however, are of Flemish origin, dating to the early 1500s.  Brought back to Scotland by craftsmen touring the Low Countries, they are said to have first been installed in Bishop Lamb's chapel in Leith (i.e. "Queen Mary's Chapell in Leith"), Edinburgh, until they were supposedly acquired by the Charles Stewart, 5th Earl of Traquair (1697-1764) for 20 guineas.

The panels are said to have been whitewashed over, hidden during the Reformation period, though that seems unlikely given the late date.  In any case, the panels were not publicly displayed in Traquair Chapel until the late 1800s.  Scripture reminds us:  "Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket or under a bed, and not to be placed on a lampstand? For there is nothing hidden except to be made visible; nothing is secret except to come to light."  Mark 4:21-23.

That is a whole other story.  For now, though, may this be a joyous Christmas season filled with abundant blessings throughout the coming year.      

 

 

 

 

Reverse persecution--priest holes

April 23, 2019: Defaced cross, Lamlash Parish, Arran

Over the course of two millennia since its founding, the Church (or to be specific, the Roman Catholic Church) has had more than its ample share of initiating:  persecutions, inquisitions, excommunications, the rack...and burning at the stake.  So too, eventually, the Puritans with their iconoclasm...and witches.   

Considering damages done by the iconoclasts to precious religious artwork and sculpture, that is difficult to square by today's more enlightened standards.  It's a Taliban type of thing...iconoclasts, persecution and burkas.   

The first "official" inquisition (actually a synod condemning various heretics) was initiated in 1184 by Pope Lucius III.  As for inquisitions though, he did not live long enough to carry them out.  He only served about two years.  

April 16, 2019:  Defaced Kilmichael Cross, Kilmartin

The prize of instituting the first inquisition must go to one of his successors, Pope Innocent III, from 1209-1229.  The Papacy was beset by a constant flux at the end of the 12th century.  Destabilizing, in a word.  

Popes rolled over as quickly as the College of Cardinals could mint them--Pope Urban III (1185-1187); Pope Gregory VIII (1187, only two months); Clement III (late 1187-1191); Celestine III (1191- early 1198); and finally Innocent III, who served some 18 years (1198-1216) and is known, for better or worse, for expanding the scope of the Crusades...including the sack of Constantinople, a Christian albeit Eastern Orthodox empire.

Begun in Languedoc in present day southern France and known as the Albigensian Crusade, or Cathar Crusade, it quickly took on an air of mercenary adventurism.  Pope Innocent III declared a crusade against the Cathars, offering lands of Cathar "heretics" to any French nobleman willing to take up arms..."Thou shalt not covet" notwithstanding.  There were plenty of takers.   

The Cathar crusade expanded the French crown at the expense of neighboring Languedoc.  It was a power play of sorts--eliminate competitors.  Pope Innocent III claimed supremacy over Europe's Christian states, as the most powerful of all medieval Popes.  As a matter of routine, he used the interdict to ban or censure, to compel his decisions, get his way.  Yes, he solidified medieval canon law...but there is always a price. 

April 3, 2023 Queen Mary of Scots rosary; Traquair House

An inquisition was a systematic persecution of non-Catholic Christian religions in Europe.  Arguably, it might be said that the first true inquisition dates nearly a thousand years before Innocent III.  To the late 3rd century and Arianism (256-336 AD), which was declared a heresy.  (If truth be known, inquisitions probably date back to the Apostles themselves, ever bickering.)

April 3, 2023  The cradle that rocked future King James VI/I; Traquair House

But that a "reverse persecution" would eventually supervene in the form of Oliver Cromwell's iconoclastic Roundheads, during the English civil war (c. 1650s), almost makes one want to belt out a rousing stanza of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" (Julie Covington, "Evita" concept album, 1976).  Almost.

Suffice it to say that there were persecutions aplenty.  More than enough blame to go round.

April 3, 2023  A hidden church; Traquair House

This brings us to a period in Scotland when religious strife was tearing the country apart--Protestant vs. Catholic.  Over several decades under the Scottish Reformation, the divide would finally come out in the open.  The early death of Frances II, the Dauphine of France and husband to Mary Queen of Scots (a devout Catholic), set the stage for fierce internecine battles.  

After Frances II's death, and having no place in France's succession, Mary sailed for Scotland in 1561 to take up its crown.  But having been away in France for 13 years (ever since the age of 5), Mary was not exactly Scottish anymore.  Much had changed.

The root of the conflict, of course, had its start with the English king Henry VIII, who set aside Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn.  When the Pope (Clement VII) refused to grant an annulment, Henry split from the Catholic Church and founded the Church of England.  By the time Mary arrived from France in 1561,  Presbyterian lords held the reigns of power in Scotland. 

April 3, 2023  Priest's raiments; Traquair House

Despite apprehensions, Mary was actually fairly tolerant of the newly established Protestant ascendancy in Scotland.  It was one of self-interest perhaps, for it is said she had her eye on England's crown being the only surviving child of the Stuart King James V.  She did not wish to unnecessarily antagonize Protestant opinion south of Scotland's Borders.  But this put her at odds with Scottish Catholic parties, notably with George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly, who rose in rebellion in 1562 but was defeated at Corrichie, a one sided affair, on October 28, 1562...only a year after Mary had returned from France.

April 3, 2023  Inside family chapel; Traquair House

April 3, 2023  Priest Hole; Traquair House

Protestant Christianity, by the by, was not uniform (despite claims to the contrary) in its hostility toward the use of religious images and icons.  None other than Martin Luther taught of the "importance of images as tools for instruction and aids to devotion."  Luther was conservative.  His words, unfortunately, fell on the deaf ears of radicals.

Here perhaps a few words may clear up some confusion.  Though they were contemporaries, Mary Queen of Scots is not the same as Mary I, or "Bloody Mary" the eventual Queen of England. Born February 18, 1516 as the first born child and only survivor of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Bloody Mary was legitimate by all accounts.  The first undisputed Queen Regent of England from July 6, 1553 to her death November 17, 1558.  

"Bloody Mary's" reign is marked with a "vigorous" determination to reverse the Reformation, to return England back to Catholicism.  Once out, though, the genie is difficult to put back, after 20 years instituted by her father who first put aside Catherine of Aragon in divorce.  

Her sobriquet was well-earned--she burned 300 or more at the stake.  Protestants in England and Wales were summarily executed under legislation that punished any and all judged guilty of heresy against Catholicism.  Legislation particularly adopted burning.  Torture de rigueur, or avant-garde at any rate.  

April 3, 2023  Traquair House

Goes around, comes around.  It would then be Catholicism's turn to be a hunted faith with the death of Bloody Mary.  Her half-sister, Protestant Queen Elizabeth, came to the throne.  Given Catholic resistance early in Elizabeth's reign, her legislation became increasingly draconian.  And it would be priests who were imprisoned, tortured and killed as "pursuivants," or priest-hunters, sought those inclined to Mass.  

April 3, 2023  Priest Hole stair; Traquair House

"Priest Holes" were made in response.  Priest Holes were hiding places, typically built in houses of the wealthy in fireplaces, attics, building alterations, under the floor boards, and especially staircases from about 1570 until roughly 1605 with the death of Elizabeth I.  Pursuivants would measure the "footprint" of the house and compare outside versus inside measurements to see if they tallied, tapping the walls and floors for any hollow sound.  All in all, Priest Holes were fairly effective, given declining numbers of priests who were executed over the next several decades under Queen Elizabeth.  That, or they just lost interest in the exercise altogether.

April 3, 2023  Traquair House grounds

With this, we share a few photos regarding "priest holes" and Traquair House, Scotland.  It is appropriate to include a line from Psalm 73 (and the 1571 medallion of the Spanish Inquisition).  The olive branch symbolizes mercy; the sword punishment.

April 3, 2023  Traquair House hidden stairwell

Again, there is more than enough blame to go around, Protestant versus Catholic; Catholic versus Orthodox (and thus Celtic).  I leave to Almighty God the determination of the rightness or wrongness.  We have certainly made many martyrs over time.  Whether through direct affirmation or indirect apathy.  All too many...on all sides.  Aye then.  "Arise, Lord, and judge your cause".  

Damages

June 18, 1941:  Bren Carriers at Ring of Brodgar

It seems inconceivable to us now...war games in the Neolithic ruins of the Ring of Brodgar.  But the 9th (Donside) Battalion, Gordon Highlanders were maneuvering in Orkney--trying to close the training gap that saw Germany's experienced army seize most of Europe in the face of poorly trained opposing forces in the early days of World War Two.  

April 21, 2022:  Invergordon murals from the train

On June 18, 1941 (when the photo of Bren Carriers was taken) a real war was underway.  So an indulgence is merited in the protection of cultural heritage sites perhaps.  It was the least of their troubles. And how much damage the site sustained is subject to dispute.  Some of the tracks are still evident.

April 12, 2022:  Neolithic Ring of Brodgar

The Donside Battalion had sailed from Aberdeen for the Orkneys on September 2, 1940, the first year into the war.  The British were certainly under duress, having to hastily develop defense lines and organize called-up divisions in anticipation of a full scale invasion.  The 9th would garrison in defense of the Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow and Hatston Airfield about a mile northeast of Kirkwall--until October 11, 1941.   

April 23, 2022:  Invergordon murals from the train

Then in October, the 9th Battalion redeployed, arriving first at Alnwick to join the 216th Independent Infantry Brigade, ultimately being destined for India in January 1942.  On May 27th, 1942, it embarked from Glasgow, and was at-sea when it was re-designated the 116th Royal Armored Regiment, landing in Bombay July 27th, 1942.  Thus began several years of hard fighting in the Burma theater. 

On 14 August 1945, news was received that the war with Japan was over.  Official surrender of Japanese forces, however, was not received until September 12, which meant the Gordon Highlanders would be the last armored regiment to come out of action.  It was the last British armored unit to be engaged by enemy forces and, at the end of the war, the British regiment furthest from home. 

April 12, 2022:  Neolithic Ring of Brodgar

The 9th Highland Division's motto, ‘Bydand,’ is a Scottish word meaning ‘steadfast’.  Additionally, the 9th Battalion held the motto: ‘Laro Aur Larte Raho’--meaning ‘To Strike And Strike Again’ in the Urdu language.  (The 116th, armored with Shermans, was assigned to the 255th Indian Tank Brigade.)

Hatson airfield, incidentally, was the first with hard runways built in Britain, the first built on Mainland Orkney in the prelude to war and, given that construction began just prior to the war, it was also fully operational by the time war broke out in September 1939. The first aircraft to try out the tarmac landed on August 25, 1939--literally a matter of days before WWII began in earnest.

April 12, 2022:  Neolithic Ring of Brodgar

 

 

Another layer of faith

In the Borders it is customary for visitors to view its magnificent Abbeys--Kelso, Melrose, Dryburgh and Jedburgh. And they are impressive.  But there is also another layer of faith, if you will, throughout the Borders that is represented by the local church, or kirk.  The local parish.  

April 2, 2023:  St. Aidan's Church, Bamburgh

Take for example, St. Aidan's Church at Bamburgh, the Anglo-Saxon seat of power where Northumbrian kings are said to have been crowned.  The story of St. Aidan merits a few comments. 

April 2, 2023: Interior of St. Aidan's Church

In translation, Aedán, or Aodhán, means "little fiery one".  An Irish missionary,  Aidan is credited with converting the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity--preaching to both nobility and slave.  

More is known about Aidan's death (August 31, 651) than about his early years (born about 590).  He essentially enters history's pages from the Holy Isle of Iona (which was established by St. Columba about 563 AD).  

A bishop named Cormán was originally dispatched to the Scots, but his harsh methods at conversion left much to be desired.  [In deference to Cormán, it must be said that he had a significant impact on evangelizing the people of Northumbria.  He laid the groundwork in other words.] 

In any case, Aidan was sent from Iona in Cormán's stead and Aidan, not Cormán, is now considered the Apostle of Northumbria.  Aidan went on to found the priory on the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne with its access to the kings of Northumbria at Castle Bamburgh...until the coming of the Vikings.

April 2, 2023:  Aidan's Tomb

Interestingly, Aidan was a social reformer, in front of his time.  Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (Book III: Chapter V) states:  "whatsoever gifts of money he received from the rich, he either distributed them, as has been said, to the use of the poor, or bestowed them in ransoming such as had been wrongfully sold for slaves."  He evangelized against slavery and bondage, apparently taking it as his mission.

Aidan's tomb is found in Bamburgh's church.  But what exactly is entombed is disputed. 

After his death, Aidan's body was first buried at Lindisfarne, in the abbey he helped found.  Apparently, his remains were disturbed and broken up following the defeat of the ‘Irish’ faction at the Synod of Whitby in 664 AD, when Roman Catholicism became dominate at the expense of the Celtic Church.  In the 11th century, Glastonbury monks supposedly also obtained relics of Aidan--again partitioning his remains.  In fact, various locations today claim relics of his partitioned body.  He was not, in a word, at rest. 

April 2, 2023:  Aidan's Tomb at Bamburgh Church

In 2013, an elaborate tomb was built within Bamburgh's church.  It was dedicated by the Archbishop of York, presumably to finally put what remained of Aidan's remains at rest...or to memorialize them anyhow.  The tomb says:  "Quies Aidani" (Aidan at Peace).  A small window is inscribed:  “Not far from here, Aidan first Bishop of Lindisfarne, fell asleep in Christ.” 

April 2, 2023:  St. Aidan's Church, Bamburgh

March 27, 2017:  Holy Cross, Haltwhistle

One last comment regarding Aidan.  He was esteemed by the Scots.  Thus, local lore has it, in the border raids on Haltwhistle in the 1500s, the Holy Cross Church (dedicated to St. Aidan; dates 13th century) was unmolested whereas much of the town was burnt.  At an even earlier date, the church was immune when William Wallace was marauding the countryside in 1297 and 1298...though that may have to do with the fact that it belonged to a royal Scottish abbey...and the king would be sore displeased if it was harmed.   

Eden's Lawn, taken from the Celtic 'Llan Aidan,' is allegedly where Aidan ministered.  Ultimately, Holy Cross Church sprang from there.    

March 27, 2017:  Edens Lawn, Haltwhistle

Whether Aidan was the first to evangelize Northumbria is also debatable.  Aidan and his monks slowly restored Christianity to the Northumbrian countryside, so perhaps he should be considered more a revivalist in a way because, as far as is known, St. Ninian (himself a shadowy figure given a lack of written records) is to be credited with being Scotland's first saint. 

April 2, 2023:  Stained glass, St. Adian's

It is said that in 397 AD Ninian, a Briton, began his ministry to Scotland, predating St. Patrick by more than 30 years.  Ninian evangelized the southern Picts from his church at Whithorn on Burrow Head, Galloway, where St. Ninian had a white-washed stone church built; hence the name.  According to archeologists, it has "an atmosphere of spiritual antiquity" to it.

Ninian was born about 360 AD, died and was buried at Whithorn in Galloway at the age of 72 in 432 AD at the time St. Patrick began his ministry.  Here it is of interest that Patrick, in an epistle to Coroticus in which he condemned Coroticus for slavery, termed the Picts as "apostates"--meaning they had abandoned Christianity at some point in the early fifth century before being called back to the faith.  St. Ninian's initial efforts apparently were somewhat temporary.

Ninian is said to have evangelized his way up west Scotland's coast, possibly as far north as the Shetlands. However, Christianity at Whithorn was older than Ninian.  How much older is unknown, but it is probable that his appointment as bishop was in response to an organized local British community that was already established as a center of trade and power, within the sphere of Roman Carlisle. 

April 2, 2023: Veteran's memorial at Bamburgh Castle

In the statement of significance (Historic Environment Scotland), Whithorn is "rightly styled" as the Cradle of Christianity in Scotland and Northumbria--a veritable school for saints at the beginning of evangelization.  Archeologists have identified the remains of a Christian community at Whithorn, as well as a monument (the Latinus Stone--oldest known Christian memorial in Scotland) dating to the mid-5th century. In its earliest days before Whithorn was a priory, it apparently was a Christian site of some sort.  It has been suggested that it could have been a ceremonial meeting place for feasts, as archeologists found rare imported wine, exotic herbs and spices from Loire, France and numerous shards of fine colored glass drinking vessels, suggesting a Romanized Briton Christian secular settlement before Rome abandoned Britain in about 420 AD.  

April 2, 2023:  Weathered gravestone, St. Aidan's churchyard

Whithorn is on our visit wish list.  It has drawn many pilgrims through time, including King James IV of Scotland who annually visited the shrine until his death at Flodden Field; but also Robert Bruce (1329--to cure his leprosy), James V and Mary Queen of Scots (1563).  Today it is a part of the Whithorn Way, a 143 mile pilgrimage trail from Glasgow Cathedral to Whithorn.  Since at least the 600s...and counting...it has been a site of pilgrimage.  It is old.

April 2. 2023:  St. Aidan's

St. Ninian's shrine at Whithorn and St. Aiden's in Bamburgh are only two examples of the many layers of faith that can be found in Scotland.  You need not look far.  It is ever-present.  It is, in its way, the principle reason we continue to go back. 

April 2, 2023:  Bamburgh Castle, Northumbria