MORE OF SCOTLAND'S ICONS
Athole Brose, Jock Tamson's Bairns, Runrig, The High Road, Celtic Curse
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Athole Brose


Athole Brose
(Compiled by J. Douglas Ross from several sources,
including quotations from Page 71 of The Great Clan Ross, 3rd.Ed.)

In the Highlands, brose is a porridge, generally made from oatmeal and hot water. When it cools, it can be cut into squares and eaten by the hungry traveller or poacher. Athole refers to the mountainous area of Atholl in Perth, Scotland. As a combined term, Athole Brose, refers to a special drink served at Christmas and Hogmanay.

Queen Victoria and her Prince Consort Albert were treated to a dessert form of Athole Brose at the Cathedral on the north bank of the river Tay across from Dunkeld and near the site of Shakespeare's celebrated Birnam Wood. It was here that they were entertained by the Duke and Duchess of Atholl in 1842. The young queen was served a Royal Portion in a quart cup that had once belonged to Neil Gow, a local 18th century music composer and popular fiddler who had earned the patronage of the Dukes of Atholl.

On an occasion such as this, the origin of Athole Brose may have been explained by a tale of the Duke of Atholl capturing his enemy, the Earl of Ross, in 1475. Supposedly, the Duke filled a well, where the Earl liked to drink, with a mixture of oatmeal, honey and Scotch whisky. The Earl of Ross (and Lord of the Isles) drank heartily of this potion and was easily taken prisoner according to the legend. Nothing is known about the remainder of the well's contents, but it is hard to imagine that even a drop was wasted (this event being set in Scotland).

John, 10th Earl of Ross and 4th Lord of the Isles, "became as determined an opponent of the Scottish King (James II) as his father had been". Earl John retained the double title which his father, Alexander Macdonald 9th Earl of Ross and 3rd Lord of the Isles, bore before him. He led a rebellion as a sworn vassal of King Edward IV of England to subjugate the entire territories of northern Scotland. " The Earl of Ross continued his raids, and stormed the Castle of Blair where he dragged the Earl and Countess of Athole from the chapel of St. Bridget and carried them off as prisoners to the Isle of Islay." It is also recorded, that "Earl John made a 'voluntary' surrender to the Scottish Crown in 1475 of the Earldom of Ross, the lands of Kintyre, Knapdale, Urquhart, Glenmorriston, and others, with all the castles belonging thereto." Finally, the Earldom of Ross was subdivided. Thus Earl John was the last who bore the double title of Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles. He died a pauper in a common lodging house at Dundee in 1498 ... and probably never heard of Athole Brose.

Basic Ingredients
1/2 pound oatmeal [250 g]
4 cups tepid water [1 L]
1 cup liquid heather honey [125 ml]
4 cups Scotch Whisky [1 L]

A thick infusion of the oatmeal (not the quick variety) and water is prepared. This "paste" may be covered and left standing for any time from 30 minutes to 30 hours ... according to taste. Then strain the liquid into a separate container, using the back of a wooden spoon to press the oatmeal against the sieve until it is almost dry. The dregs of the oatmeal are thrown away. Mix the honey and whisky into the container with the liquid. Bottle it and keep cool until needed. The Athole Brose drink is shaken, not stirred, before serving.

As a dessert, a portion of the Athole Brose is placed in a fancy glass, topped with sweet thick cream and sprinkled with toasted oatmeal, ground nutmeg and possibly a few raspberries.

At the 9th Annual Burns Dinner in 2006, the Clan Ross (Manitoba Chapter) introduced a "Presentation of the Atholl Brose" to the traditional elements of the occasion. Participants observed that it was consumed with enthusiasm.


Just as I was about to conclude this dissertation about the Atholl Brose, I received a package from David A. Ross of Klamath Falls, Oregon, in the morning mail on November 12, 2010. No it wasn't some Atholl Brose, but it was equally delightful. The package contained unpublished tunes from the four Sullivan Ross' Manuscripts in both the original and the modern versions as compiled by Iain G. Millington from the Ross family files held in the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec. In his introduction, Iain Millington declared that some of the photocopies of the music "were extremely difficult to read. In a few cases, bars were missing and black ink was covering part of the page making interpretation difficult."

What caught my attention as I browsed through the book which David so kindly sent, were the tunes on pages 33 and 34 which were entitled The Famous Atholl Boose. If some ink did not fall on the title of the original copy, we have discovered another spelling of "Brose". As stated, there are two versions . . . CLICK HERE for the Old Version (OV) as written by Sullivan Ross and CLICK HERE for the Modern Version (MV) in the style used by today's pipers.


Ah. The story gets more interesting. Sullivan Ross was a collector of all manner of Scottish tunes . . . Reels, Strathspeys, Sword Dances, Marches, Jigs, Hornpipes, Quick Steps, Waltzes, etc. I decided to go back to the Restored Edition of Sullivan Ross - Volume I edited by Colin Blyth which was given to me on October 6, 2010, at a meeting of the Scottish Studies Foundation by Past-President and Webmaster David Hunter. At the top of page 55 of this book, I located a Strathspey, Athole Brose, composed by Abraham MacIntosh b. 1769). Notes at the back of the book state that the tune is also known as "Buckingham House". Whisky and honey are the only ingredients mentioned for the beverage, but we are told that the tune is commonly played for stepdancing in Cape Breton today.

You may CLICK HERE for the restored copy labelled 45 and including comments by Sullivan Ross.



JOCK TAMSON'S BAIRNS

Jock Tamson
(CRA-Canada Newsletter - November 2004 Issue) with added comments

There really was a Jock Tamson from whom the well-known saying "We're a' Jock Tamson's bairns" derived. To all Scots the saying has the general meaning that "we're all the same". Reverend John Thompson (1778 - 1840) was born at Dailly (South of Ayrshire), where he was minister in 1800 before moving to become the most distinguished 19th century minister at Duddingston Kirk from 1808 to 1840. At this church near Edinburgh, he referred to his congregation as "my bairns". He was a friend of Sir Walter Scott (1771 - 1832), who was an elder at Duddingston Kirk.

Thompson was also an excellent landscape artist, one of the first in Scotland, and he had a studio at the foot of the manse garden at the shore of Duddingston Loch, where the Thompson Tower now stands. Over the studio door he wrote the name "Edinburgh", so that his wife could honestly say to those who called on him on Mondays, his only day off, "I'm sorry, my husband's in Edinburgh today!" Thompson's paintings were a significant source of added wealth to his family. It is said that the rules of the game of Curling were committed to paper at this site.

Some suspect that the popularity of the Scottish bard Robert Burns and his egalitarian outlook influenced the phrase "Jock Tamson's bairns". His poem, A Man's A Man for a' That (1795), would support the fact that, since we were all born of the sexual act (in days of yore when in vitro fertilization and cloning were undreamed of), all of us are therefore equal. 'Jock' is straight Burnsian Scots for John, and 'Tamson' stands for Tom's son. Hence, the 'Jock Tamson' from whom all of us have sprung. I'd bet that Rabbie Burns was all too well acquainted with the 'cutty stool' (a 3-legged stool), upon which unmarried persons who had come to the notice of the Kirk as having committed 'houghmagandie' (illicit sex) were made to sit during the church service and be harangued by the minister in front of the congregation.

It is fitting that this discussion about "Jock Tamson's Bairns" should include a couple of observations by the late genealogist Sir Iain Moncreiffe, whose thoughts may be found in the introduction to Debrett's Guide to Tracing Your Ancestry. The first is that, if you go back 30 generations (a mere 800 to 1000 years) you have, theoretically, about 1,073,741,904 ancestors. [You have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, doubling the number of your ancestors for each generation for an estimated 30 years per generation. A calculator helps!] However, if you think about it, 30 generations ago, there were not that many people in the entire world, let alone in Scotland (or the British Isles for that matter). So it must follow that all native Scottish Highlanders must be related in some degree, and probably many times, because their forebears must have married cousins, probably over and over again. The second thing he states is that if one single one of your ancestors or ancestresses had married someone else, you would not be you, you would be someone quite different - the genes and the DNA would not be the same. So your ancestry is of very real importance, because who you are and what you are depends on it.

Obviously, mathematicians love to point out the many paradoxes in such calculations. Long ago, marriages often involved individuals from neighbouring parishes barely 2 km apart, but today it seems that many of us live in a global society. During good times, families in an agricultural society might have larger families compared to the smaller family units of recent years. Beyond a very few generations ago, life expectancy was shorter. If 20 per cent of the population at any given time neither marry nor have any children, does this have any bearing upon our calculations? When you factor in all of the wars, pestilence, plagues and famines, all of our ancestors have had a fair share of miracles for us to have existed at all.

Here's to "Jock Tamson's Bairns"!

[Just as a wee point of genealogical interest . . . if the entire history of Earth were likened to a single year, humans would have appeared on the scene at a few minutes after 8:00 p.m. on December 31. Human civilization would date only from about 42 seconds before midnight, and the age of machinery and industrialization and printed material would not fill up even the final two seconds of the year. Then the age of the computer chip would occupy a mere nanosecond before Hogmanay.]




RUNRIG, AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM & THE BAND

Compiled by Doug Ross from Several Sources

Runrig, the Agricultural System


Runrig farming was based upon a traditional method of land management, common in the Highlands until recent years. A rig is a strip of farmland and a run is a series of those strips called "lazy beds". The run-rig system of farming is no longer used, but the marks of it can still be seen particularly on Skye where the core of the band is from. The term "run-rig" is a Highland Scottish word. The Gaelic is "raon ruith". The disappearance of the system was entwined with the introduction of the Highland Clearances and the decline of the clan.

The strips of land were periodically reallocated to the people of the village, and as such were usually worked collectively. The reallocation also meant that each tenant would get their fair share of good and bad land, with no resentment of those with better land. The reallocation would often involve a six or seven year cycle, particularly in the Western Highlands and Islands.

Runrig, the Band


Runrig as a name for the band is a term Blair Douglas thought up when he was studying in Glasgow. Runrig have played a major part in bringing Scottish music up to date and reviving the Scottish folk scene, and interest in the Gaelic language. Its writers Calum and Rory MacDonald have revived the traditional gaidhlig (Gaelic) songs in the "village folk tradition" with predominately happy themes involving love, nature, the sea or sailing, and memories of the homeland. After failing to win a seat in the UK General Election of 1997, the lead singer Donnie Munro announced that he wished to follow a career in politics. His last concert with the band was in August 1997 at Stirling Castle. Donnie's replacement, Nova Scotian singer/songwriter Bruce Guthro, was announced in July of 1998.

Two of Runrig's songs with Canadian imagery are The Cutter and Rocket to the Moon.



The Cutter (Lyrics)

When you arrived in Canada you walked the streets
Out of work out of money, prospects bleak
Now the plane comes down from the morning sky
And you touch the land where the fire won't die
Johnny, you're home, man
It's a long road
You drove us down
It's only a moment
Since the diesels turned
Now the blade cuts clean through the island soil
The years roll back and the world grows small
You stand on the banks in the wind and the rain
And all of your money now can't hide this pain
So you hold your mother and you bless the air
With the tears of the emigrant, tongue of the Gael
And the plane takes off in a clear blue sky
Life's a long lost list of last goodbyes
The heath flame is burning bright
Burning every night
It's winter in Ontario
The wheels that turned us village kids
Still carry through the heaths
They no longer turn for you
When you arrived in Canada you walked the streets
Out of work out of money, prospects bleak
Now the plane comes down from the morning sky
And you touch the land where the fire won't die
Johnny, you're home, man
It's a long road
You drove us down
It's only a moment
Since the diesels turned
Now the blade cuts clean through the island soil
The years roll back and the world grows small
You stand on the banks in the wind and the rain
And all of your money now can't hide this pain
So you hold your mother and you bless the air
With the tears of the emigrant, tongue of the Gael
And the plane takes off in a clear blue sky
Life's a long lost list of last goodbyes
The heath flame is burning bright
Burning every night
It's winter in Ontario
The wheels that turned us village kids
Still carry through the heaths
They no longer turn for you


Rocket to the Moon (Lyrics)

Here hangs an open landscape
A wild and huge frontier
From a harsh and a barren wasteland
Through the grave to the promised field
You came, you trapped, you charted
You laid the railroads and the schemes
And you tamed this land by enterprise
And by the power of your dreams
From the olden coasts of Ireland
From the Hebridean shores
With the forgotten chosen ones
Running from Europe in droves
There's a town in Manitoba
They say the windows touch the sky
But across the brine the shipyards close
In this garden flowers die
Still the homelands divide us
Like your blood red brothers of the plains
But where they grieve a candle still burns
A prayer from a flicker to a flame
But you made this Clan great
And you made this nation bloom
And you rose
With your people through the new world
Like a rocket to the moon




THE HIGH ROAD

Compiled by Doug Ross from Several Sources

The High Road


The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond was written during the Jacobite uprising of 1745 in Scotland. In ancient Celtic lore, The Low Road was the underground spirit route by which you would return if you were killed away from your homeland.

Several wounded members of the army supporting Prince Charlie (and an autonomous Scottish kingship) were left behind in Carlisle near the Scottish border as they retreated north to Scotland, and they were thrown in the Carlisle jail by the English soldiers. The song tells of two Scottish prisoners during this period of history. One was to be set free, and the other was to be executed for the crime of rising against the Hanoverian king of England. The release and execution of the two were timed for the same hour.

The freed man would travel home to Scotland the conventional way, tramping wearily for many miles by The High Road. The condemned man, travelling with the speed of a spirit by The Low Road, would be transported instantly at the moment of death, and he would be the first to arrive home. So...

O ye'll tak' the high road, and I'll tak' the low road,
And I'll be in Scotland afore ye,
But me and my true love will never meet again,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond.


BOSWELL & JOHNSON
. . . And there is another, later connection in the literary tome by James Boswell, The Life of Johnson. A frequent butt of Samuel Johnson's acerbic witticisms is Boswell's own country. Setting aside any attempt at diplomacy, Johnson once remarked, "Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England". Since Boswell came from the Lowlands of Scotland, it was a wonder that he became friends with Johnson in view of the latter's prejudice against all things Scottish. A total conversion was impossible, but Johnson's attitude mellowed somewhat after his Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland in 1776.




THE CELTIC CURSE

Compiled by Doug Ross from Several Sources

The Celtic Curse


In an email on April 4, 2006, to a Scottish pal from Alabama who has his doctors befuddled over his several "blood disorders", I discussed the possibility of posting this article. I had discovered several stories pertaining to medical research papers about something called the mysterious "Celtic Curse" (among other things). Without becoming excessively hypochondriacal about the matter, it appeared to me that I had developed symptoms of every ailment and disease found in the Highlands. It was at this point that I wondered if my friend would like to trade ailments with me. All joking aside, there are indeed carriers of gene mutations for the "Celtic Curse" . . . and those at highest risk of being carriers invariably have Celtic ancestors. The consequences can be disastrous and unforgiving.

First, let us identify the people who might be afflicted with these mutations . . . i.e. the Celts. In prehistoric times, according to all evidence, these warlike, muscular, red-haired nomads came from the steppes of central Russia after separation from their even more ancient hominid origins. By 500 BC they were living in northeastern France, southwestern Germany, and Bohemia. The Celts, who were also called Gauls, continued to migrate in all directions. Only on the fringe of Europe (Brittany, Norway, the Isle of Man, Wales, Ireland and the Scottish Highlands) did the Celts manage to keep their distinctive traits and languages. Traces of Celtic culture still survive in folklore there and in the Breton, Manx, Welsh, Erse, and Gaelic languages.

The "Celtic Gene Mutation" may also be called the "Viking Gene", but modern medical scientists identify the problem as hereditary haemochromatosis, also known as "iron overload disease". The excess iron is deposited in the liver, the pancreas, the heart and the pituitary gland, causing a number of symptoms. These include a bronzed skin pigmentation, diabetes, liver enlargement, arthritis, heart failure and Dupuytren's contracture. Researchers already know that the number of cases increased with latitude.

The symptoms usually show up between 40 and 60 years of age but can rarely occur during the teens (and shorten life considerably in either case). For these individuals, taking iron tablets without a doctor's advice can be dangerous. Even iron-enriched cereals or bread can be devastating in active cases. In this biological equivalent of rusting, toxic levels of iron accumulate in the vital body organs causing: chronic fatigue, diabetes, early menopause, impotence, infertility, arthritis/joint replacement, heart disease, hypothyroidism, liver cirrhosis (with or without a history of alcohol consumption), liver cancer, or premature death. With early detection and appropriate treatment, all of these problems can be completely avoided. Blood Tests can identify serum iron/ferritin, total iron binding capacity, and DNA testing by PCR. [Standard treatment is by the act of giving blood or, as medieval as it may sound, by employing leeches for bloodletting, which forces the body to use up the iron that it has stored in the various organs of the body.]

A quick review of the literature shows other conditions related to haemochromatosis, such as multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, cystic fibrosis (CF), some breast cancer genes, seborrheic dermatitis and melanoma are all associated with Celts. We should never forget our Celtic past, and how its inheritance continues to affect us to this day. "The blood is strong." Perhaps this is one Highland icon or characteristic which is unwelcome when compared to many more favourable ones, but knowledge is power.

Scotland's five medical schools are joining forces in a £4.4m project examining genetic diseases. This ground-breaking Genetic Health Initiative is being funded by the Scottish Executive. In December of 2004, Dr. Blair Smith of Aberdeen University stated, "It's the next exciting step following the mapping of the Human Genome and will put Scotland at the forefront of medical research."


POSTSCRIPT: Both my friend's final email and my response were dated Tuesday, April 4, 2006. This article was posted on the Clan Ross - Canada website on Saturday, April 8, the same day that my young pal died at 9:00 AM aged 62. His brother said that he was the youngest of his parent's children. He was at their home on Friday, and his Mother reported that he was "being his jovial self". My friend is survived by his wife, three sons and 6 grandchildren (including triplets).


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