Michael Scot in Walter Scott's 'Lay of the Last Minstrel'

How many people nowadays would read a long narrative poem? Students of literature, compelled by reading lists? Maybe people interested in history? Seems likely such poems are a minority taste nowadays but when Walter Scott published The Lay of the Last Minstrel in 1805 it was an instant best seller. With the further poems that followed it generated wealth and fame on the scale of a bestselling airport novelist nowadays.

We studied some poetry in school, of course. I enjoyed Tam O'Shanter but The Lay of the Last Minstrel is much longer. I don't believe I've ever read such a long story in rhyming form before - quite a new experience for a scientist. However it's the starting point for much of the more modern Michael Scot lore so I felt more or less obligated. A visit to the Old Bank Bookshop in Wigtown yielded a lovely old volume of Scott's poetry and I was set to go. There are digital versions available online but a physical book seems much more ... amenable. And look at that beautiful gothic font!

The Lay of the Last Minstrel tells a story of romance and conflict in the 16th century Scottish Borders, with added supernatural elements. It borrows heavily from real events and characters so Scott provided detailed notes fleshing out the historical underpinnings. I believe these notes have become a Michael Scot starting point for many people. They also include Scot stories and legends of the Border country. Some of these lack any written source. Where exactly Scott knew them from is unclear, at least to me. Perhaps they were stories everybody knew at that time, or that he heard from old people. I guess he may have invented some of them himself. I believe he was eager to see this renowned character as a forbear. Perhaps he wasn't above embroidering the historical tales in a way that suited his purposes.

In James Hogg's novel, Three Perils of Man, Scot is a major character, physically present, malign, powerful in magic, scary. In The Lay of the Last Minstrel, set a couple of centuries later, he's less a character, more of an all-pervading presence. He has two well-defined appearances. The first occurs fairly early when he is more or less dead, lying in 'a secret nook' in Melrose Abbey. We shouldn't open any coffin but his is particularly forbidding:

Within it burns a wondrous light,
To chase the spirits that love the night:
That lamp shall burn unquenchably,
Until the eternal doom shall be.

In the Notes Scott recalls old tales of such 'eternal lamps, pretended to have been found burning in ancient sepulchres.'

Dead for centuries, he is nonetheless remarkably well-preserved:

Before their eyes the Wizard lay,
As if he had not been dead a day.
His hoary beard in silver roll'd,
He seemed some seventy winters old;
A palmer's amice wrapp'd him round,
With a wrought Spanish Baldric bound,
Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea;
His left hand held his Book of Might;
A silver cross was in his right;
The lamp was placed beside his knee:
High and majestic was his look,
At which the fellest fiends had shook,
And all unruffled was his face:
They trusted his soul had gotten grace

Michael Scot - the real Scot, not the 'wizard' - first appears unambiguously in history in Toledo, Spain. He had joined the group of scholars translating works of classical Greece from Arabic into Latin and thus making them accessible to Christendom. Perhaps his garb here makes contact with this historical reality, hinting at years spent acquiring esoteric knowledge on mainland Europe. In the poem he is supposed to have died within living memory, an impossibility that Scott freely admits in the Notes: 'By a poetical anachronism, he is here placed in a later era.'

Why trouble this long-dead mage? His 'Book of Might' has been buried with him to keep it safe from all prying eyes, 'save at his Chief of Branksome's need.' The coffin is opened by the Abbott and the knight Deloraine to retrieve this book, at the request of the Lady of Branksome who believes it will help her divine the outcome of the forthcoming conflict. Here Scott is connecting Michael Scot to his personal family mythology, of the Border Scotts. It seems likely that 'Michael Scot' is just 'Michael the Scot', his origin distinguishing him from other Michael's among the scholars and savants of his time. There is no sound reason to believe he is related to anybody in Scotland with the surname Scott, or indeed that he would have regarded any high Lord or Lady in Branksome tower as his 'Chief'.

Anyway the scenes in Melrose Abbey are spectacular. Nowadays we might suspect Scott of writing with the film adaptation in mind. Deloraine takes the book from the dead wizard - 'He thought, as he took it, the dead man frown'd' - and it is free to play its role in subsequent events.

Michael Scot's second appearance, late in the poem, is equally insubstantial but also accompanied by dramatic scenes, thunder and lightning, apocalyptically dark clouds and blackness - a substantial damper on a happy wedding celebration.

It was not eddying mist or fog,
Drain'd by the sun from fen or bog;
Of no eclipse had sages told;
And yet, as it came on apace,
Each one could scarce his neighbour's face,
Could scarce his own stretch'd hand behold.

Gilpin Horner, the Earl of Cranstoun's mischievous goblin page, has sneakily taken possession of the Book of Might earlier in the tale. He is now zapped by a lightning bolt, heard across the whole of the Border country, and disappears completely. Some wedding guests think they glimpse an insubstantial presence:

Some heard a voice in Branksome Hall,
Some saw a sight, not seen by all;
That dreadful voice was heard by some,
Cry, with loud summons, 'GYLBIN, COME!'
And on the spot where burst the brand,
Just where the page had flung him down,
Some saw an arm, and some a hand
And some the waving of a gown.

The knight Deloraine glimpses beyond doubt the same wizard from whom he had taken the book in Melrose Abbey; a chilling experience. Poor Deloraine, implacable warrior though he is, doesn't have a good poem.

(An aside: I was sure some bored student of Scottish literature would have created a 'Gilpin Horner' internet presence. The malevolent goblin page is amusing, possibly even a role model for some anarchic characters, and I felt sure he would have caught somebody's imagination. But there is no Gilpin Horner on Twitter even although most Harry Potter characters, for instance have accounts; there are several Vanessa Ives; etc. Cthulhu of course is all over the place, a cult no longer. Facebook and Instagram are similarly Horner-free. I think this confirms my feeling that these long narrative poems of Scott's are very little read nowadays.)

There's less to say about Michael Scot than for Three Perils of Man because there is much less of a characterisation. There's no interaction with this Scot; he has more of the character of a feature of the natural world, something bigger than humans and with untameable power. Nonetheless his appearance in this - hugely popular - tale clearly caught many people's imaginations, no doubt contributing to an awareness of this medieval scholar, skewed possibly, that persists to the present day. The Notes certainly underlined this awareness. The folk tales are fun, even if their origins are obscure. They show how famous Scot still was in Scotland hundreds of years after his death. But Scott confounds the astrologer Michael Scot (~1175 - ~1235) with Michael Scot of Balwearie who flourished later in the 13th century and, unlike our Michael Scot, played a significant role in Scottish affairs.

I was wary of this tale but I mostly enjoyed reading it. Some of the most atmospheric scenes gain greatly from the poetic retelling. Again, what we learn about the real Scot is strictly limited, provisional, but I think it would make a great cult movie!

The Michael Scot trail: Melrose

Did Michael Scot ever actually visit Melrose? Nobody knows for sure. There is a tradition that he lived at Aikwood Castle, only twelve miles away by modern roads, but there is no telling where it came from. There is a tomb in Melrose Abbey but it was certainly erected centuries later and it is doubtful if his remains actually lie there. Nonetheless many old tales connect him with this corner of the Scottish Borders and they've been renewed and enlarged by Walter Scott, James Hogg, even the makers of Shoebox Zoo. He definitely spent time in Toledo, Bologna and Palermo; alluring destinations all but Melrose is a MUCH easier trip. So we'll start there. It's a very famous place but I had never visited before.

The Abbey was of course our first port of call. Stonework repairs make the interior inaccessible for now and temporary fencing additionally keeps you away from some sections; half-price entry fee in consequence. "There's a stone here for Michael Scot, is that right?" I asked the lady on the desk. "Is that the wizard?" she replied, adding that his tomb was inside the church, out of bounds for now. The lady from the back office joined in, producing an old picture of the tomb. She told us that the stone head from that tomb, supposedly a representation of Master Michael Scot himself, can still be seen in the upstairs floor of the Abbey museum.

The back office lady was at first quite definite that Scot himself was buried in the tomb inside the church but as we discussed this she added a note of scepticism - "maybe an invention of Walter Scott". The Abbey church seen now dates from after 1384, when the original church was sacked by the English. Scot had already been dead for 150 years by then. I doubt very much that he is buried in Melrose Abbey. There is no convincing evidence that he came back to Scotland. A person of so very long ago, many details of his life long forgotten, becomes fair game for all sorts of imaginings, fancies, fantastic literature. Personally I would like to work toward as much sense of the real person as we can manage, at this enormous remove, but that doesn't mean we can't also enjoy the stories. Just don't believe them.

We spent a lot of time enjoying the Abbey church. We were very lucky to have such beautiful, sunny weather for our visit, even if it was pretty raw and cold. The south side is elaborately decorated with all sorts of gargoyles, heads, creatures - quite a medieval bestiary. The church is now a ruin, of course, having fallen into greater disrepair after the Reformation, but an extremely beautiful one. We have to deal with the building we find now, with all the extra layers of meaning it has acquired since its time centuries ago as a working church. Even if the connections to Michael Scot are nebulous it serves as a bridge to his time.

The Abbey museum is housed in the Commendator's House, a building originally constructed in the 1400s. It contains a wonderful collection of artefacts from domestic life in the Abbey and several architectural fragments.

Sure enough, on the first floor there are a couple of stone heads removed from the church building, one of which looks exactly like the pictures online of the 'wizard's tomb'. Did Michael Scot look anything like this? Dante, placing him in the eighth circle of hell, provides the only words anywhere that come close to a physical description, calling him 'spare in the flanks' - skinny. Dante probably didn't mean these words literally but as a comment on Scot's character (see J Kay, 1985, Dante Studies no. 103, pp 1 - 14). So, even in the unlikely event we consider this a plausible likeness of Michael Scot we shouldn't worry if it seems inconsistent with these words of Dante's. Perhaps we can be proud of our countryman, the only Scot to have attained the necessary level of infamy to merit a mention.

For those in pursuit of Michael Scot, Melrose offers only phantoms. But they're entertaining phantoms so let's continue to chase them.

The Eildon Hills are not big mountains, even by Scottish standards, but they tower over Melrose. There are three summits. Eildon Hill Mid is the highest, 422 m above sea level. It's the rightmost summit in this picture which looks over the Tweed from just north of the town. Eildon Hill North is at left. From the town itself you only ever see two at most but the three-peaked range is a famously pretty sight from spots not far away. In the notes to his epic poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Walter Scott recounts a tale. Michael Scot was trying to keep a troublesome demon occupied by setting it tasks. One of these was to cleave the single conical summit of the Eildon Hills into three. Sadly this occupied the demon for only a single night so Scot had to find further tasks for it but the Eildons were left as we see them now.

The day after visiting Melrose Abbey we enjoyed a walk over the Eildon Hills in brilliant, sunny, but still very cold weather. I've spurned most of the lovely views to include this photo, taken from the summit of Eildon Hill Mid. It shows Eildon Hill West, the third summit, the one invisible from the town below.

From the Mid hill we retraced our steps for a bit then climbed to the top of Eildon Hill North. Continuing on downhill we were met by these vistas looking north and east. Note the cultivated fields between the village of Newstead and the viaduct, to the upper left. These are the site of the Roman camp which was occupied here from about 80 - 180 AD, a major outpost at the far northwest edge of the Roman Empire.

The Romans named their fort here 'Trimontium' from the form of the Eildon Hills. 1,000 years before Michael Scot they already had their triple-peaked appearance. After all I guess he played no role in shaping them.

Trimontium was one of the locations listed by Ptolemy in his book Geographia, a compilation of the geographical knowledge of the 2nd century Roman Empire. Ptolemy was certainly one of the greatest scholars of his time. His books on astronomy and geography remained influential for centuries. However the great works of antiquity, of e.g. Aristotle, Ptolemy, Galen and the knowledge and thinking they represented lived on through the Middle Ages not in Europe but in the world of Islam.

Standing by Trimontium, known to Ptolemy, I thought of Michael Scot. More than 1,000 years after Ptolemy, in a time when his brilliance had been forgotten, young Michael set out to mainland Europe, possibly from this very part of Scotland. By 1217 he had joined the Toledo translators, a group of scholars translating the great texts of antiquity, Ptolemy's among them, from Arabic into Latin, reintroducing them to European thinking. What potent historical resonance there is in this landscape, even once we discard the tales of wizardry.

We were in Melrose for just three days. We'll certainly be back - still so much to enjoy. But on the Michael Scot trail, it's next stop: Toledo!

Difficult terrain

Even the dourest may act in a spirit of optimism. The ridge in front of us looks pinnacled, exposed. We take it in for a few minutes, put the scary comments from the guidebooks to the back of our minds and press on going, "We'll be fine!" Eventually we find ourselves somewhere challenging. The climbing moves are tricky, on small holds, in exposed situations where it's difficult to move freely. For a while we are uncomfortable, unsettled by exposure, feeling at or beyond the limits of our competence. Difficult terrain. But we press on, feeling tested and a bit scared and nothing terrible happens.

I've been reading about Michael Scot. I was intrigued by this Scotsman who made his way to Continental Europe and became one of the leading intellectuals of the 13th century, court astrologer to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Through translations from Arabic and Hebrew texts he was important in re-introducing the works of Aristotle to Europe, and promoting the commentaries on them that came from the Arab world. From our modern perspective this may have been his most important role in the history of ideas. Scottish border country legend remembers him as a wizard and he features in works of Walter Scott and James Hogg, in particular using malign magic to split the Eildon Hills in three.

We know some of what Michael Scot did from his books but the man himself remains mysterious. He was born, probably, about 1175 and died around 1235. He clearly thought of himself as Scottish and he probably was. There is a stone in his memory in Melrose Abbey but he is probably not buried there. He is embedded so firmly in folklore that one feels he must have returned to Scotland but there is no real record of this and he may equally well have died in Italy, where he also features in popular tales of wizardry. He first pops up unambiguously in 1217, among the community of scholars in Toledo who were translating works from ancient Greece and the Arab world into Latin. We can only speculate about precisely where he was educated, what journeys he'd been on before this point.

I thought Michael Scot might be useful in talking with Scottish people about astronomy. Rooted in place and people, stories from history are a great way to lead in to scientific ideas. With grown-up humans I think we should be discussing scientific ideas in their cultural context. In this case we're talking so long ago that astronomical knowledge was not yet detached from the worldview of astrology but that's OK; perhaps we could use him to discuss the emergence of scientific ideas, what makes an idea "scientific", mathematics in science... So I've been delving into Michael Scot history, in particular reading a book called just Michael Scot, written in 1965 by Lynn Thorndike.

Looks great, doesn't it? I got it second-hand from a bookshop specialising in occult topics!

Professor Thorndike's book is scholarly, detailed and academic. The chapter on "early life" for instance avoids unfounded speculation and looks for hints in Scot's own writings, e.g. an instructional anecdote about an impoverished young man whose education was being paid for by a supportive uncle: was this autobiographical? Translations from the original Latin are used to discuss his beliefs under several headings: "The Universe", Meteorology, Medicine, Sociology, Physiology and Physiognomy, etc. Reading these chapters as a scientist in the 21st century I feel I'm tackling the pinnacly bit of the ridge, or maybe negotiating the boggy peat hags: difficult territory. I knew I was meeting somebody from a time very long ago when people thought very differently but this detailed discussion, very close to primary sources, really rubs your nose in how differently. Astronomy is just part of the practical knowledge underlying astrology, which in turn is a central ingredient of a theological view of the universe and the people within it. Matters now regarded as belonging to different domains of science are all jumbled up together. The moral, theological and natural worlds are conjoined. There are large doses of numerology.

Some fairly random examples: under "Universe" we read

In the Paris manuscript such celestial virtues are compared not to columns supporting edifices reared by the exercise of mechanical art, but to suspending cables and the action of the magnet. It is further stated that the four cardinal winds are said by the sages of the world to be four such virtues.

and

Michael believed further that demons could not endure the sound of harmony and fled from music, whether vocal or instrumental, or from the songs of birds. He thought that the ninth sphere [of the Aristotelian universe] was silent as well as starless, but that the eighth sphere of the fixed stars revolved melodiously 'with smoothest sound and sweetest voice', because outside itself it had an essence (i.e. the ninth sphere) by which this sound was reflected.

and

Besides the twelve feathers in a bird's tail and twelve signs of the zodiac, there are twelve prerequisites for any art: what it is, of what material, genus, parts, what workers, what the office of the art and of its masters, what its purpose, utility, goal, instrument, why so called, and to what part of philosophy subordinated. Scot lists twenty-eight kinds of divination in his prologue, and there are twenty-eight mansions of the moon. The statement that God made twenty-two creatures in the six days of creation seems derived from Isidore, Etymologies XVI, 26, 10, who in turn borrowed from Epiphanius, Liber de ponderibus et mensuris. Scot, however, lists eight creatures for the first day against Isidore's seven, the latter omitting fire of the four elements, while Isidore counts four on the third day against Scot's three; but they cover the same things. ...

Do we do better with a familiar topic like "Meteorology"? Let's see:

Intemperate air ...[may arise from]... change of air from the seasons of the year, such as a winter which was hot and dry, that is, not rainy, and summer contrariwise, that is, cold and wet. And if in its quality it shall be hotter or colder than an even temperament, this happens in five ways. First, by reason of the time of year. Second, from the rising and setting of the great stars by their distance from or nearness to the sun, as Alabor and the bear's tail. Third by reason of the winds, for the north wind prolongs life and adorns men's bodies. The south wind does the opposite, and the like in the case of women, whence the south wind is good for women. And all this is apparent in winter by men being improved and women deteriorated, and the opposite in summer....

"Intemperate" air, by the way, is defined by how people feel in its presence.

Sociology:

A lunar person tends to mediocrity in occupation, as that of a sailor, runner, letter carrier, common crier, courtier, jester, weaver, gardener, shepherd, guard of city or castle, servant of lord or lady, ruffian, prostitute if she be female, petty salesman or peddler, fisherman, wanderer from one house to another. He may sew chasubles and underwear, that is shorts and drawers, wash linen, sweep house and street, draw water to sell, steal garden fruit, indulge in vain glory and so be pleased, if praised for beauty or probity.

How is this "sociology"? The word is Professor Thorndike's, of course, not Scot's but the point is that the place filled by the person in society and his or her interactions with others are ultimately determined by the character of the person, which in the medieval world view is astrologically determined. Those long lists, by the way, occur quite often - apparently it would not have done to give a general characterisation, as modern writers might do, and just a few examples.

From the time of Copernicus the writers on scientific questions sometimes seem surprisingly modern, even although they still respect astrological ideas. People can find passages that suggest they pay only lip service to the practice of astrology - as well as passages suggesting the opposite. But Scot was 250 years earlier than Copernicus, at the height of the Middle Ages. The "leading intellectual in Western Europe during the first third of the thirteenth century" (Thorndike's words) he may have been, but he was still a representative of a profoundly different world view from ours, from a time in which our procedures for asking questions about the world were still mostly undeveloped.

Although he was a major figure of his time, no paradigm was shattered by his hand. His historical importance rests probably in his promotion of and influence on the work of others. Why do we remember him in Scotland? As a close advisor to the Emperor Frederick II he occupied a position of great importance in medieval Europe; a spectacular example of "local boy done good". He certainly wrote about demons, necromancy, etc., although the opinion of both Professor Thorndike and Dante is that he did not practice himself. It's not hard to imagine how the stories of wizardry might arise, adding to his legend.

Can we rescue him for modernity, tie him into some modern story? No. But there probably are great stories to be spun from this material, of world views and how they change and evolve. Starting those stories in familiar, Scottish places will help to coax listeners through the door. For now I'm still clinging to the pinnacles, conscious of the vertical drops at my back, but soon I'll be on flatter terrain and I can start to think about putting those stories together.

Kerrera

In an outside pocket of my rucksack, crumpled and slightly weatherbeaten, I found a copy of the London Review of Books. I'd completely forgotten I'd stuck it in there when we headed off to the island of Kerrera. Kerrera is very quick and easy to reach from Oban but feels remote and undeveloped - no mobile phone reception, at least where we were. It seemed the perfect place for a couple of nights' getaway and the ultimate contrast with the megacity of São Paulo where I'd been working for a couple of weeks.

The weather was rather dreich after the first evening but that didn't stop us enjoying the island. Gylen Castle (above) is famously scenic and the wee tearoom is a treat for daytrippers but the whole island is really rewarding to explore. Just a couple of dozen people live there now but the population was substantially greater in the past, closer to 200 at the start of the 19th century.

I didn't get round to opening that copy of the LRB because I found I was enjoying Kerrera: Mirror of History by Hope MacDougall of MacDougall. Miss MacDougall was one of the family who have been the owners of Kerrera since the 13th century, younger sister of Coline MacDougall who was Chief of the Clan. Her book deals with many aspects of Kerrera life over the last few centuries: community, church, schools, mills, sheep, ferries, etc. It's quite scholarly, sometimes leaving the story to the original sources, but she also writes with some warmth about events and people she clearly knew personally or from first-hand accounts; a very nice combination of learning, personal involvement and indeed humane concern. The island, its inhabitants and its owners become a lens - or as she says, a mirror - offering a particular view of key events and big trends in Scottish history. We didn't sit about reading that much on Kerrera but I've finished reading it since coming back.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter on "schools", perhaps because it reminded me a bit of my own experiences in a rural, one-teacher primary school. (I say, "a bit" because I don't think my teacher was as nice to her pupils as the Kerrera teachers). A school was first established on Kerrera about 1757, partly through the agency of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge. There are accounts of the teaching in the 19th and early 20th century, of drilling in mental arithmetic, spelling, scripture, but also sewing (presumably only for the girls?), singing and natural history. In 1904,

A new feature this year was the Botany class, and great eagerness was shown by all in the work … one little girl alone exhibiting and knowing as many as 302 of the Island's wild flowers

. In 1917 the Educational Inspectors found

a very happy little school, characterised by an excellent tone … the children are frank and alert, and seem eager to do well. Their oral response is good and they are willing to think. The ordinary subjects are supplemented by a fine variety of practical and recreational activities, all admirably fitted to compensate for the isolation of the place.

There are accounts of nature rambles, identifying plants, seashore creatures, excitement at visiting waxwings and a lovely story of the whole school going to see an octopus that had been stranded on a nearby shore:

They put it in the sea, and watched it swim away.

One is left with an impression of a schooling that developed intellect as well as the person more broadly, together with understanding of and sympathy for surroundings.

Back in Glasgow I rediscovered that copy of the LRB and turned eagerly to Jenny Turner's review of K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher. Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism was a big influence on me as I tried to understand what was being done to us in DACE, and why. I don't know where my copy is. Did I thrust it into your hand, possibly invigorated by a beer or two, going, "you need to read this!!!"? Maybe losing the book is a good sign - it didn't languish on the shelf.

LRB articles are usually more than just brief reviews of the book at hand and this one provides an overview of key Mark Fisher themes: "there is no alternative", the bleaching of cultural identity by capital, the meaningless bureaucratisation of work, mental illness (he himself suffered and his death in 2017 was by his own hand). He worked for some time in a Further Education College and also - I'm sure I read somewhere - taught in a university continuing education department. He, too, has things to say about education, but in a totally different time and setting from early 20th century Kerrera:

His [FE College] students … knew perfectly well that their prospects were poor, and that there was nothing they could do about it: they studied or didn't bother studying, attended or didn't bother attending, in a state that he calls 'reflexive impotence', a bored, depressed, withdrawn suspension.

This bumps up against another Fisher theme: the rising incidence of mental health problems, particularly among young people. These statistics for England show even primary school age children slowly becoming more likely to suffer from mental health problems. The problem becomes even more pronounced when we reach late teens. In universities particularly, 'over the past 10 years there has been a fivefold increase in the proportion of students who disclose a mental health condition to their institution' (IPPR report, 2017). Everyone who works in a university knows about the rocketing demand for counselling services, something most institutions can now barely cope with.

Mark Fisher sees this as an inevitable result of capitalism, particularly the version that has operated in the last few decades: the 'privatisation of stress'. 'Instead of being the only social system that works,' he wrote, 'capitalism is inherently dysfunctional, and the cost of it appearing to work is very high.'

Part of his perspective on his own mental health difficulties is particularly worrying for anybody aiming to promote social mobility. 'Someone who moves out of the social sphere they are "supposed" to occupy is always in danger of being overcome by feelings of vertigo, panic and horror,' he wrote, perhaps a more heightened description of what gets laughed about as 'impostor syndrome'. These ideas came initially from the writings of David Smail, described in the LRB article as a 'radical anti-psychotherapist' (I'm not sure what this means!), who believed that '...the injuries of class are "indelible" and always ready to take over.'

I do not know if children on Kerrera would have been educated until 14 (the school leaving age after 1901) in the same school, or if they would have crossed to the mainland for a couple of years, to a secondary school in Oban. At any rate they were younger than the people Mark Fisher met in FE. In their small community, with a small range of well-defined roles in front of them, their world posed different challenges from those facing young people nowadays, physically harder, closer to poverty but perhaps more manageable. They knew each other, and each others' families, and the teacher no doubt knew every one of them very well. Humane concern grows naturally between the members of such a small community - as indeed do petty jealousies, spites, personal conflicts, etc., but everything operates on a manageable scale between people. Compare that situation with a typical urban primary school now of say 1,000 pupils, an organisation concerned with its place in the league tables, with the management of dwindling resources in a time when government wants continually to drive down costs, with showing that it can manage its available human resources effectively; and in a time when fruitful niches in the world post-school look like they will be harder and harder to find. The world of the Kerrera young people was so different in most respects from the modern one that there may be no useful comparison to be made; they may touch only in the contents of my weekend rucksack. Or perhaps the useful comparison is less the circumstances they met in their education, but the political systems around them that shape how that experience is going to work; time then to put the nature and potential of every human, a concern for their growth and wellbeing, back at the centre of thinking.

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(pictures are copyright me, by the way!)

Only sky

Only sky is what's in this picture (and a little sea). I took it at Westport. Look west from Westport and the sky stretches to Newfoundland.

Only Sky is also the title of a very beautiful record by David Torn; one man, electric guitar and oud, an effects rack and a deep musical sensibility. It's always good to look up.

A maths problem

A very rare sort of alfalfa sprout is highly valued in the health food shops of the world. We discover that it grows wild on a remote, uninhabited Scottish island and set out to make lots of money. On our first visit we harvest one tonne. However the sprout population does not completely recover from harvesting and we soon discover that each harvest yields only 96% of the mass of the previous one, so that the second harvest gives us 0.96 tonnes, the third one 0.96² = 0.9216 tonnes, etc. Supposing we could go on indefinitely, what is the maximum total amount of sprout we could ever harvest from this island?

Tycho Brahe, Great Britain, internationalism

Last week we marked the end of this year's Access programme in the normal way, with a "presentation evening". We invite everybody who's completed Access to come along, with pals, parents, partners, children if they wish. There is a little ceremony in which they are each presented with a certificate testifying to their completion of Access and the grades they achieved - one of this year's students has shared a photo of his certificate on Instagram. At the end I made just a few concluding comments, leading to the most important points: "well done, and good luck for whatever comes next!"

To fill out the concluding comments I drew on some tales of Tycho Brahe, the 16th century Danish astronomer. These tales are not in short supply. Tycho must be the prototype of the gothic horror movie philosopher wizard in his castle, surrounded by an array of lurid courtiers. The real castle was called Uraniborg, designed according to thoroughly thought-out philosophical principles and constructed on the island of Hven, in the Øresund between Denmark and Sweden. It no longer exists but woodcuts and prints from the time show a most amazing building. He maintained a substantial household there, assistants and visiting students, as well as cooks, servants, estate workers, a lutenist and indeed a dwarf jester called Jeppe. Some more of the more lurid Tycho tales are recounted here.

The Brahes were one of the ruling families of Denmark and Tycho was born to power and influence. Most Brahes became soldiers or statesmen; the Church would have been a more normal route for an intellectually inclined child. Clearly Tycho was a strong character who forged his own path, but his high birth meant that no path was closed off to him. Now many, many more people are able to work at studying, understanding and advancing knowledge.

In 1590 the histories of Scotland and of Astronomy collided briefly when King James VI sailed across the North Sea to collect his new bride, Anne of Denmark. During his stay in Denmark he visited Uraniborg, "the spot to which the eyes of all the learned men of Europe were directed", and took great delight in the intellectual discussion he enjoyed there. Tycho corresponded regularly with other learned men across the continent, exchanging and developing ideas, and his name was widely known (and yes, they were "men" - sorry, that's the way it was). Scots visitors to Uraniborg were not so terribly unusual and Tycho knew people in Scotland. Before he left Denmark King James granted Tycho a 30 year copyright on his works in Scotland, and presented him with two large guard dogs.

I wanted to use this story to illustrate the international character of academic research, and in particular to emphasise that this has been the case for hundreds of years. I wanted also to make a further point about the value of meeting people from other countries and cultures, as one will in higher education, and the importance of making them welcome, irrespective of one's voting preference in the EU referendum. I was happy that everybody in the room, as far as I could see, wanted to applaud at this point.

King James VI, of course, also became James I of England shortly, although it took a further century for the Parliaments to follow where simple heredity had first led. With the integrity of the United Kingdom once again up for discussion, this incident from four centuries ago seems to resonate in several respects with the worrying modern world.

Scotland

"....Scotland as a damp, brooding place in which man's nobler instincts are invariably forced to confront a recurring cycle of evil brought on by politics and financial gain. Even the Christian institution of marriage is portrayed as a breeding ground for insanity and death,....." I edited out the word "medieval" at the beginning. Didn't seem necessary, really. Naughty me. These words are from http://www.mondo-digital.com/tess.html, by the way.

"Looking at the night sky" - 2015

Only a few months since I used that title in a blog posting. This one is almost identical, deals with the planned Astronomy weekend in the Highlands next autumn, 13 - 15 November 2015. Mark your diaries now!

I'm using the blog as a place to assemble some bits and pieces of information about the Astronomy weekend being offered by the Centre for Open Studies, in cooperation with the Scottish Youth Hostel Association. On the weekend of 13 - 15 November 2015, Douglas Cooper and I will be tutors for a weekend titled, Looking at the night sky. Here's the course description from the Open Studies course programme (or at least the one we used last year):

We will introduce the night sky, stars and constellations, telescope usage and first steps in astrophotography. Our venue will be Loch Ossian Youth Hostel, a beautiful setting distinguished by its remoteness and consequent dark, star-filled skies. Workshops, computer activities and games in the event of unsuitable weather. See Centre for Open Studies website for details.

So, a weekend introducing Astronomy, in a dark, remote location. Here are some more details:

Where is this place? Loch Ossian is at the eastern end of Rannoch Moor, marked on this map. No public road goes there. Unless you're up for a long walk from the nearest public road (which would be lovely, for those who enjoy such challenges), you get there by train to Corrour station. Corrour station is on the West Highland line, the train line that goes from Glasgow (Queen Street station) to Oban or Fort William. People coming from further south might prefer to leave a car at Rannoch or Bridge of Orchy stations, from where Corrour is just a couple of stops along the West Highland line. The Youth Hostel is about 20 minutes' leisurely walk along a "well made track" from the train station. We'd definitely encourage people to bring their own equipment - telescopes, binoculars, cameras - but you should assume you will need to bring it on the train and then in your rucksack along that well-made track.

Why go there? At left I've included a map showing the amount of artificial light experienced across Europe (from http://www.lightpollution.it/dmsp/). Light pollution now spoils most Europeans' views of the night sky. You'll notice on that map that the biggest remaining dark areas in the continent are in Norway or Scotland. We'll be in the middle of the Scottish dark area, and a long way from even small towns. As long as the weather cooperates we will enjoy very fine views of the beautiful but elusive sights of the night sky. The Milky Way will be obvious. We'll be able to spot the Andromeda Galaxy with our naked eyes.

There are many more luxurious places one could stay in the Highlands. The sheer remoteness of Loch Ossian will be an additional pull for some.

We're going to the Highlands of Scotland in November. Let's be honest: the weather could be awful! No telescope that you look through with your eyes can compensate for rain and clouds. Even if this happens we'll still be able to discuss the night sky, some modern ideas of planets, stars and the Universe, and telescopes and astrophotography in a remote and beautiful setting.

More on Scottish dark skies here; of course there is now a Dark Sky Park in Galloway, and the island of Coll has been designated a Dark Sky Island.

Youth hostel The SYHA website has more information on Loch Ossian Youth Hostel. You can see that it is comfortable and well managed with due attention to sustainability in a potentially fragile location. We should mention that accommodation will be in its two shared dormitories. No single rooms - sorry. We will supply more hostel information to anybody who signs up.

By the way, just in case there's any doubt, you don't need to be a "youth" to use a Youth Hostel!

What will we be doing? On the Friday and Saturday nights we will look at the sky, clouds allowing, with our own eyes and with telescopes and binoculars, and take some first steps at astrophotography. Douglas and I will help you in this. As we look we can discuss the nature of what we're seeing - some of the best conversations I've ever had about stars, planets, galaxies etc. have been as a wee group of people viewed them in a telescope. If the night is clear we'll keep going until people run out of steam, and start slow and lazy the next morning if necessary.

Bring many layers of warm clothing. Douglas and I will have a couple of telescopes with us so don't worry if you don't have anything appropriate yourself, or if it's too difficult to bring it to Loch Ossian.

During the day we'll look at a variety of telescopes and discuss their pros and cons, talk about what's in the night sky just now, how the sky changes, how to plan an observing session, and have a couple of wee talks on modern astrophysics, the natures of the objects we can see, straying a little into big or exotic topics like black holes and the Big Bang. We'll try to respond to suggestions and questions. We'll also have a close look at our very own nearest star, the Sun - "daytime astronomy" (My own research is on the Sun. Solar astronomers talk about "night-time Astronomy", meaning the whole of the rest of the subject!). We'll bring a couple of ideas for astronomical games, etc., for light relief - especially if the clouds do not cooperate and we're stuck inside in the evenings.

Fee Last year the fee was £130. It might go up a bit; we'll have it fixed exactly very soon - before the brochure goes to press this year. The fee includes accommodation, all meals and tuition. You are responsible for getting there yourself. There are enrolment instructions at this link but you can't enrol yet - soon! Bookmark our website, maybe keep an eye on our Twitter or Facebook.

Tutors I work in the Centre for Open Studies, University of Glasgow. Among other duties I teach and organise courses for the public in Astronomy and Physics. I've been doing this job for a long time so I've heard lots of questions and worked out my answers to them. I believe I can speak understandably with all sorts of different people and you can maybe judge that from some of the other posts on this blog (this one, for example, or this one).

Douglas Cooper is a mainstay of several Central Scotland Astronomical societies and a skilled astrophotographer (i.e. photographer of objects in the night sky). You can see some examples of his images here and here. Some of his images of the aurora and noctilucent clouds have been featured on spaceweather.com.

I hope this sounds interesting and indeed exciting and that we might meet at Loch Ossian. I might update and refine this posting over the next couple of weeks. If you have pressing questions you can always email me.

Credit for the light pollution map: P. Cinzano, F. Falchi (University of Padova), C. D. Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, Boulder). Copyright Royal Astronomical Society. Reproduced from the Monthly Notices of the RAS by permission of Blackwell Science.

"Looking at the night sky"

This time I'm using the blog as a place to assemble some bits and pieces of information about the Astronomy weekend being offered by the Centre for Open Studies, in cooperation with the Scottish Youth Hostel Association. On the weekend of 20 - 22 November, Douglas Cooper and I will be tutors for a weekend titled, Looking at the night sky. Here's the course description from the Open Studies course programme:

We will introduce the night sky, stars and constellations, telescope usage and first steps in astrophotography. Our venue will be Loch Ossian Youth Hostel, a beautiful setting distinguished by its remoteness and consequent dark, star-filled skies. Workshops, computer activities and games in the event of unsuitable weather. See Centre for Open Studies website for details.

So, a weekend introducing Astronomy, in a dark, remote location. Here are some more details:

Where is this place? Loch Ossian is at the eastern end of Rannoch Moor, marked on this map. No public road goes there. Unless you're up for a long walk from the nearest public road (which would be lovely, for those who enjoy such challenges), you get there by train to Corrour station. Corrour station is on the West Highland line, the train line that goes from Glasgow (Queen Street station) to Oban or Fort William. People coming from further south might prefer to leave a car at Rannoch or Bridge of Orchy stations, from where Corrour is just a couple of stops along the West Highland line. The Youth Hostel is about 20 minutes' leisurely walk along a "well made track" from the train station.

Why go there? At left I've included a map showing the amount of artificial light experienced across Europe (from http://www.lightpollution.it/dmsp/). Light pollution now spoils most Europeans' views of the night sky. You'll notice on that map that the biggest remaining dark areas in the continent are in Norway or Scotland. We'll be in the middle of the Scottish dark area, and a long way from even small towns. As long as the weather cooperates we will enjoy very fine views of the beautiful but elusive sights of the night sky. The Milky Way will be obvious. We'll be able to spot the Andromeda Galaxy with our naked eyes.

We're going to the Highlands of Scotland in November. Let's be honest: the weather could be awful! No telescope that you look through with your eyes can compensate for rain and clouds. Even if this happens we'll still be able to discuss the night sky, some modern ideas of planets, stars and the Universe, and telescopes and astrophotography in a remote and beautiful setting.

More on Scottish dark skies here; of course there is now a Dark Sky Park in Galloway, and the island of Coll has been designated a Dark Sky Island.

Youth hostel The SYHA website has more information on Loch Ossian Youth Hostel. You can see that it is comfortable and well managed with due attention to sustainability in a potentially fragile location. We should mention that accommodation will be in its two shared dormitories. No single rooms - sorry! We will supply more hostel information to anybody who signs up.

By the way, just in case there's any doubt, you don't need to be a "youth" to use a Youth Hostel!

What will we be doing? On the Friday and Saturday nights we will look at the sky, clouds allowing, with our own eyes and with telescopes and binoculars, and take some first steps at astrophotography. Douglas and I will help you in this. As we look we can discuss the nature of what we're seeing - some of the best conversations I've ever had about stars, planets, galaxies etc. have been as a wee group of people viewed them in a telescope. If the night is clear we'll keep going until people run out of steam, and start slow and lazy the next morning if necessary.

Bring many layers of warm clothing. You can also bring your own wee telescopes or binoculars, if you want - as long as they'll go on the train! - but Douglas and I will have a couple of telescopes with us.

During the day we'll look at a variety of telescopes and discuss their pros and cons, talk about what's in the night sky just now, how the sky changes, how to plan an observing session, and have a couple of wee talks on modern astrophysics, the natures of the objects we can see, straying a little into big or exotic topics like black holes and the Big Bang. We'll try to respond to suggestions and questions. We'll also have a close look at our very own nearest star, the Sun - "daytime astronomy" (My own research is on the Sun. Solar astronomers talk about "night-time Astronomy", meaning the whole of the rest of the subject!). We'll bring a couple of ideas for astronomical games, etc., for light relief - especially if the clouds do not cooperate and we're stuck inside in the evenings.

Fee The fee of £130 includes accommodation, all meals and tuition. You are responsible for getting there yourself. There are enrolment instructions at this link. If you go straight to enrolment, the title of the weekend is Looking at the night sky and the course code is 16973.

Tutors I work in the Centre for Open Studies, University of Glasgow. Among other duties I teach and organise courses for the public in Astronomy and Physics. I've been doing this job for a long time so I've heard lots of questions and worked out my answers to them. I believe I can speak understandably with all sorts of different people and you can maybe judge that from some of the other posts on this blog (this one, for example, or this one).

Douglas Cooper is a mainstay of several Central Scotland Astronomical societies and a skilled astrophotographer (i.e. photographer of objects in the night sky). You can see some examples of his images here and here. Some of his images of the aurora and noctilucent clouds have been featured on spaceweather.com.

I hope this sounds interesting and indeed exciting and that we might meet at Loch Ossian. I'll probably update and refine this posting over the next couple of weeks.

Credit for the light pollution map: P. Cinzano, F. Falchi (University of Padova), C. D. Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, Boulder). Copyright Royal Astronomical Society. Reproduced from the Monthly Notices of the RAS by permission of Blackwell Science.