I have always thought that wars are stupid as well as evil, because they don't prove which side was right, only which is the stronger. Consequently, I have little interest in military history and have never understood the concept of military strategy, which to me seems a bit like sudoku with weaponry. However, I agreed to accompany my daughter-in-law, aka Eleanora the Donside Witch, to a 'reenactment' of the 1562 Battle of Corrichie, where Mary Queen of Scots and her half brother, the newly enobled Earl of Moray, defeated the Earl of Huntly, understandably miffed as Moray had pinched his other title. (Aside: why is it 'Mary Queen of Scots' and not 'Elizabeth Queen of English'?) Poor old Huntly survived losing the battle only to fall off his horse dead.
Eleanora was representing Janet, the tame witch of lady Huntly – presumably in the mid-16th century witches weren't persecuted to the extent that happened under James VI, although they were not exactly welcome in polite society – and Janet assured her mistress that Huntly would 'lie that night in the Aberdeen Tolbooth without a wound on him'. True, as he had died of natural causes. Whether this economy with the truth was to spare the lady's feelings we don't know, but when she discovered the truth Ms Huntly was not amused.
She should have remembered that soothsayers are notoriously addicted to double meanings. The oracle of Apollo at Delphi reassured Xerxes the Persian Emperor that if he attacked Greece he would destroy a great empire – which turned out to be his own. Poor old Oedipus was equally caught out by killing his father and marrying his mother – although for someone apparently so smart that he could solve the riddle of the Sphynx, one might have thought that marrying a lady 20 years older was not a sensible move. Moral: don't trust a soothsayer even if he's the chief astrologer for the
Daily Rubbish…
Magic powers?
Surprisingly – or maybe not – Eleanora had a stream of visitors interested in witchcraft today. I suspect at heart many people are Pagan in the Jungian sense that we are all part of the 'world soul' of psychic energy. The Catholic Church has tended to be more sympathetic to this panentheism viewpoint and in the past commandeered existing gods and goddesses to become saints, whereas the early Protestants like the Earl of Moray tended to regard God as a masculine, aggressive warlord who required no assistance from saints and angels. The Gaia movement, and the renewed concern for a world that we are only a small part of, has made the Pagan movement attractive to many who are uncomfortable with triumphalist Christianity.
In the event, the actual reenactment was a bit of a damp squib as it consisted of two or three horse riders on each side waving swords at each other, although the chap playing Huntly did an impressive slide off his horse dead, only to pop back again for round two of the battle in the afternoon. And as a nice gesture, the horses were introduced to the audience. My granddaughter and I were especially taken with Lucrezia, who despite her Italian name came from Bradford, as did her equine acting colleagues. They were all very professional and seemingly without the ego problems of their human equivalents.
Animals emoting – part two
I suggested recently that it would be obvious to anyone who has spent time with animals that they have in most cases a significant range of emotions. Like many other rescued cats, Freddy le Chat has emotional baggage and for weeks after coming to stay with me he would only sleep on my bed, yet would make a dash for the door every time he saw a chance to escape. Now he has a cat flap to come and go, he mainly stays in the garden, possibly as there are dogs each side of us and his relationship with Shorty across the road is still rather frosty.
But given Freddy was one of three cats abandoned by the previous owner, is he lonely and missing his chums? He spends a lot of time asleep, but then his predecessor, Sir Ernest, would disappear all day in summer and only return for meals, so he may well have spent most of the day dozing. I have considered getting a feline companion for Freddy, but the trouble is, like humans, there is no way of knowing if they would get on and a house full of fighting felines would not be a relaxing experience…
In praise of boredom
Like my son, my granddaughter is an only child and although she is generally imaginative at thinking up games for her Barbie collection (currently it's schools and Olivia is the very bossy teacher: I'm sure her own are far more empathetic). There's one doll who looks to me like an over made up rock chick, but apparently that's what young girls like, and I don't suppose my taste as a child was any better.
When I have been minding Olivia during the school holidays while her parents are both working, there is the odd complaint that 'I'm bored'. This is a challenge for me as I have never been very good at thinking up children's games or activities. My late husband was, and so is my son, but when the latter was a small child his favourite game was taking all the pots and pans out of the cupboard and putting them back. He had lots of expensive toys but predictably they were less interesting. He also managed to take to pieces things I didn't know came to bits, only to forget how to reassemble them.
I have always been slightly sad that neither my son or granddaughter has been interested much in reading, which for me has always been the antidote to boredom – indeed, my son, who is slightly dyslexic, finds reading a chore and has only read two books in his life –
The Catcher in the Rye (good for teenage angst) and that awful misery memoir
Sunset Song which he had to read for Higher English. Because I could read relatively fluently at age four, probably my only claim to precocity, I have, like Nicola Sturgeon, always enjoyed reading, and like T E Lawrence, I can usually 'tear the heart out of any book in an hour'. Still, I may be a dying breed, as in the future Artificial Intelligence will probably do all our reading for us.
Dr Mary Brown is a freelance education consultant
