Both Scotland and Wales were once rivals of England, but subjugated. Scotland even more so than Wales. Culturally both have fought to keep a separate identity and language. Welsh is probably spoken today by fewer than 600,000 people. Even then to what ends? I saw appeals everywhere we went to ”use it or lose it.” In reality, it’s probably already lost, though the road signs are in English and Welch. The Scottish Gaelic is related to the Irish but even such an important word as whisky or whiskey is spelled differently in the two countries. I think it is fair to say that in both Scotland and Wales and Ireland, and India, for that matter, English is triumphant. For all that, there are still Welsh and Scottish cultures.
Wales is really small. Yet the next in line to the throne, Prince Charles is still known as the Prince of Wales. Respect must be given to the past. In the Industrial Revolution, Welsh coal was the key commodity. Richard Llewelyn’s How Green Was my Valley best describes what life in those coal mines was like. John Ford made a beautiful film of that novel. Less famous is Llewelyn’s None But The Lonely Heart. Filmed by Clifford Odets, starring Cary Grant and Ethel Barrymore. A magnificent rendering of a young mans relationship with his mother.
I stood in front of the Cardiff Concert Hall concentrating only on the fact that His Majesty, The Prince, would open the concert season in four days. Completely forgetting that the hottest bass-baritone in the world, Bryn Terfel (last year’s Met sensation), won the Lieder Prize in the 1989 Cardiff Singer of The World contest. He only won the Lieder Prize. The first Prize (or the opera prize) went to the benan baritone Dimitri Hvorostovsky – it was a very good year. 1989. At that time I was probably in the Soviet Union.
Scotland maybe even more than Ireland is the land of romance. The Highlands gave birth to Rob Roy and Edinburgh gave us Braveheart: Robert the Bruce. Rob Roy MacGregor was probably a free booter who cared for nothing but loot. Yet Sir Walter Scott has made him a Robin Hood and/or a patriot. I personally have never forgiven Sir Walter for what I feel is anti-semitism in Ivanhoe, but he is the romantic writer. His books have probably inspired more Italian operas than anyone but Shakespeare.
In Edinburgh his statue was being repaired. It literally could not be photographed and looked as if they were crating it for shipment elsewhere. Born in Edinburgh his father had been a writer to the signet (lawyer, thank you). and his mother traced her descent to the border clans. Due to financial difficulties he had to undertake the novels, though his bent was in that direction anyhow. Here only a partial catalogue can suffice. Besides Ivanhoe and Rob Roy, there are Kenilworth, Quentin Durnard, and Red Gaunter. It should also be noted that he wrote on witchcraft and demonology.
We stayed on The Royal Mile, where you can walk to Edinburgh Castle. It is said some 250 witches were burned there. In fact, we ate in a restaurant (quite pricey) known as The Witchery. Anyhow, some enterprising young women, at 5£ a person, take you through scary alleys and walkways of the witches. We didn’t go. but we saw one. She had a staff and a Shakespearean voice. About 100 tourists. mostly Italians followed her. Her makeup was incredible. We later saw witch tours in Chester and Leeds, England but if you take one, take it in Edinburgh. Those Scotch witch tours are the “real thing”.
Robert Louis Stevenson was also born in Edinburgh. We have a picture of Deacon Brodie. born September 28. 1741, executed October I. 1788. It seems the Deacon was respectable by day and a licentious thief by night. The Deacon was the model for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Mystery does hang over that magnificent city.
I hate to digress for tourist activities. but don’t miss the Scottish National Gallery. It is not Scottish at all but world class, with Cezanne’s, Van Gogh’s, Gaugin’s – you name it. In the Highlands we saw a castle where Robert Donat was taken in Hitchcock’s The Thirty-Nine Steps. Don’t miss it.
Let us close with “Auld Lang Syne.” Every New Year, Bobby Burns, we don’t forget you. Only 37 when you died. The deadly drink and monetary failure. But a man’s a man for all that. Maybe Scotland remembered a little too late – but we love you anyhow. Oh! and we learned that there was a border war and two Scots were captured. One was condemned to death and one was freed. The low road is the road of death. The high road is the road through the Highlands. The doomed says to the freed: “You take the high road and I’ll take the low road, and I’ll be in Scotland afore you.” Unspoken is the fact that he’ll be dead.