A LETTER from a Scottish correspondent, published in London in the Morning Chronicle in the New Year of 1819, recorded a legend nurtured over many centuries. ‘From time immemorial,’ suggested the writer, ‘it has been believed among us here, that unseen hands brought Jacob’s pillow from Bethel and dropped it on the site where the palace of Scoon now stands.’ The Old Testament ‘pillow’ in question was a block of pale-red sandstone: the Stone of Scone.
Few geological specimens in the British Isles exude more powerful symbolism than the Stone of Scone; few have attracted a richer palimpsest of legend and lore. ‘As long as fate plays fair, where this Stone lies the Scots shall reign,’ the Aberdeenshire chronicler John of Fordun asserted in the second half of the 14th century in his five-volume account of Scotland’s early history, Chronica Gentis Scotorum. Events would mostly disprove Fordun’s rallying cry, yet this unyielding boul- der, in 1902 acclaimed by Queen Victoria’s Scottish son-in-law, the Duke of Argyll, as ‘the Stone of Wonder’, has featured in both Scottish and British history, a symbol of power, kingship and nationhood. For more than a millennium, the Stone of Scone—also called the Stone of Destiny—has played its part in coronations, first of kings of Scotland; then, afterwards, the Kings and Queens of the United Kingdoms of Scotland and England.
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin August 23, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin August 23, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
A tapestry of pinks
THE garden is now entering its season of vigour and exuberance.
Bringing the past to life
An event hosted by COUNTRY LIFE at WOW!house is one of the highlights of a programme that features some of the biggest names in interior design
This isle is full of wonder
GEOLOGY? A bit like economics, the famously boring science? I confess I suffered the prejudice—agriculture and history being my thing, both of them vital in every sense— but Robert Muir-Wood’s voyage through the past 66 million years of the making of the British landscape has biblical-level drama on almost every other page. Flood, fire, ice… or, perhaps, the formation in rock, sand, mud and lava of these isles is best conceived of as fierce poetry.
Empire protest
Without meaning to issue a clarion call for independence, E. M. Forster perfectly captured the rising tensions of the British Raj. One hundred years later, Matthew Dennison revisits the masterpiece A Passage to India
Hops and dreams
A relative of marijuana, hops were a Teutonic introduction to British brewing culture and gave rise to the original working holiday
Life and sol
The sanctuary of the Balearic Islands has enchanted a multitude of creative minds, from Robert Graves to David Bowie
'Nature is nowhere as great as in its smallest creatures'
Giving himself neck ache from constantly looking upwards, John Lewis-Stempel makes the most of a sunny May day harvesting ‘tree hay’ and marvelling at the myriad wildlife including flies and earwigs–that reside on bark
'Plans are worthless, but planning is everything'
Country houses great and small were indispensable to D-Day preparations, with electricity and sanitation, well-stocked wine cellars, countesses to run the canteens and antique furniture to feed the stoves
The darling buds of May
May Morris shared her father’s passion for flowers, embroidery and Iceland, but was much more than William’s daughter. Influential both as a designer and as a teacher, she championed the rights of workers, particularly women, as Huon Mallalieu reveals
Achilles healed
Once used to comfort the lovelorn or soothe the wounds of Greek heroes, yarrow may now have a new starring role in sustainable agriculture
