Kenneth Roy
My exchange of emails
with the new Tory
leader in Scotland
The Cafe
Anti-capitalist?
Stuart Kelly
Scotland might be about to
enter the world. Will our
writers want to see it?
Life of George
Lunchtime in the mall
Jill Stephenson
Let the young live
with their parents.
I’m staying put
The Cafe 2
Gaelic and money
Alan Fisher
Obama may be
going down to defeat.
But to whom?
The Cafe 3
Gay marriage
Andrew Hook
Even Alice and Humpty
Dumpty have been
corrupted now
The Cafe 4
Sectarianism
03.11.11
No. 474
Jill Stephenson
Kenneth Roy’s amusing piece (1 November
Certainly, universities award doctoral degrees to individuals who are deemed to have made an outstanding contribution in some field or other. I can think of obviously meritorious candidates, such as the author Muriel Spark and the singer Jessye Norman, who have been so honoured at my university.
It is true that – more recently – some people who can more accurately be termed ‘celebrities’ (ie, whose public profile is high but whose merit is less evident) have received honorary degrees. But, whoever they are, they have not received an honorary PhD degree. I will not say that such a degree has never been conferred, only that I do not know of an instance of its being conferred.
The honorary doctorates that are conferred tend to be the DLitt (doctor of letters), DSc (doctor of science), DD (doctor of divinity) or the Dr hc (doctor honoris causa – ie, for being meritorious but not being associated with a particular area of academic discipline).
In continental universities, the Dr Univ (doctor of the university) is sometimes used. I recall, decades ago, complaining to a professor of medicine that people with the degrees of MB, ChB (bachelor’s degrees) insisted on calling themselves ‘Dr’, when they did not have a doctoral degree. My vested interest was that I had recently received my PhD degree, after writing a thesis that would nowadays be well over the word limit for this degree. He was a proper doctor – he had an MD (doctor of medicine) degree that he had earned. His reply to me was: ‘You only have a PhD, so you’re a phoney doctor’.
Kenneth Roy replies
Friends of the Scottish Review
Click here
Today’s banner
Children at dusk, Monifieth, Angus
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
Faces of Scotland
A month of character studies by Islay McLeod
3. The smoker
The minister of
Aberfoyle, carried away
into fairyland
Barbara Millar’s person of the week
Aberfoyle, with its population of fewer than 700, is a small village on the River Forth, just 27 miles north-west of Glasgow. It once boasted slate quarries, which operated from the 1820s until the 1950s, and also had ironworks and a lint mill. Now, dependent on tourists, it describes itself as ‘The Gateway to the Trossachs’, luring sightseers into the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park and on to Loch Katrine, the setting for Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem ‘The Lady of the Lake’, published in 1810.
But Aberfoyle was famous long before then. In 1691 – 320 years ago – a book was written which purported to reveal another world, a world of intelligent spirits, with light, changeable bodies ‘somewhat of the nature of a condensed cloud, best seen at twilight’. The spirits could make their bodies appear or disappear at will, were heard to ‘bake bread and strike hammers’ and lived in houses that were ‘large and fair’ with lamps and fires, ‘without fuel to support them’. But also forced to ‘remove to other lodgings at each quarter of the year, travelling until Doomsday’.
The author of these supernatural stories was a local church minister, the Reverend Robert Kirk, and his book, ‘The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies’ still draws people to Aberfoyle and especially to the minister’s pine, a tree on Doon Hill, where his body is still believed, by some, to remain imprisoned.
Kirk was a native of Aberfoyle, born in the manse in 1644, the youngest and seventh son of Rev James Kirk. His parents were extremely poor. Nevertheless, he was able to go to the high school in Dundee and on to Edinburgh University, graduating with a master of arts degree in 1661. He was then granted a bursary by the presbytery of Dunblane, which he used to study divinity at St Andrews University, becoming a doctor of divinity when he was just 20.
Initially he became a minister at Balquhidder, and, in 1670, he married Isobel Campbell, daughter of Sir Colin Campbell of Mochester, having two children before her death in 1680. One of these children, Colin, went on to become Writer to the Signet. Kirk subsequently married for a second time, his wife being a daughter of Campbell of Fordy, and they had a son who later became a minister at Dornoch. Kirk, a Gaelic scholar, is known to have provided the first translation of the Bible into Gaelic in 1684. The following year he moved to Aberfoyle, where he took over his father’s church.
Kirk had been researching fairies for a long time – he did not believe the study was incompatible with Christianity – and in 1690 he started to put together a book of personal stories of people who believed they had encountered them. He was also convinced that Doon Hill in Aberfoyle was the gateway to the ‘secret commonwealth’ or the land of the fairies. It was a place he often visited, talking walks from his manse. He spent night after night there, lying down, his ear to the ground, listening to what he believed were the noises emanating from the fairy realm, made by the ‘people of peace’ as he called them, and only leaving when his wife, anxious about her husband’s nightly escapades, came to get him. And it was there – on Doon Hill – that he met his death – or did he?
On 14 May 1692 Kirk went out for his usual walk to Doon Hill, dressed only in a nightshirt. He collapsed on the hill, was eventually found and brought home, dying shortly afterwards, aged just 51.
Kirk had written that fairies wore the apparel and speech ‘of the people and country under which they live, so they are to be seen to wear plaids and variegated garments in the Highlands. They speak little, and that by way of whistling, clear, not rough…their bodies are so pliable by the subtlety of the spirits that agitate them, that they can make them appear or disappear at pleasure’. He said that the fairies ‘live much longer than we do, yet die at last, or at least vanish’. They also disappear ‘whenever the name of God or Jesus is invoked’ and are particularly frightened by metals – with nothing scaring them more than iron. ‘They are seen by men of second sight to eat at funerals and banquets…and to carry the bier or coffin with the corpse to the grave’.
On 14 May 1692 Kirk went out for his usual walk to Doon Hill, dressed only in a nightshirt. He collapsed on the hill, was eventually found and brought home, dying shortly afterwards, aged just 51. He was buried in his local kirkyard, although local legend has it that the fairies took away his body and replaced it with stones in his coffin. They were, apparently, so angry with Kirk for going into the domain of the ‘unseenlie court’, where he had been warned not to go, and for revealing their secrets, they decided to imprison him.
The Rev Patrick Graham, one of Kirk’s successors in the early 19th century, recounted another legend connected with the minister in his book ‘Sketches of Picturesque Scenery’. Soon after his funeral, Graham wrote, Kirk appeared to one of his cousins, Graham of Duchray, and told him he was not dead. He had fallen into a swoon on the hill and had been carried away to fairyland. His release could be obtained, however, at the baptism of his posthumous child. He predicted he would appear at the baptism and, when he did so, Duchray should throw a dirk over his apparition, to free him from captivity. At the appointed time Kirk appeared, but Duchray failed to throw the knife – either in terror or surprise – and Kirk disappeared.
His son, Colin Kirk, Writer to the Signet, kept a copy of his father’s book in manuscript form, although the first known publication of it was not until 1815 – when it was discovered by Sir Walter Scott, who visited Aberfoyle. A copy of one of the first 100 printed books is in Scott’s library at Abbotsford.
As for Kirk, he is trapped forever in the fairy realm, some believe…the so-called minister’s pine on the top of Doon Hill is visible for miles around because of its darker foliage, and continues to be a site of worship. Trees around it are decorated with pieces of brightly coloured material and votive messages – and many people leave behind cards, carrying their wishes, in the hope that the fairies will – one day – make them come true. Of Robert Kirk there has never been another sign.
Barbara Millar is a tour guide and trustee of the Institute of
Contemporary Scotland
with their parents.
I’m staying put
The Cafe 2
Gaelic and money
Alan Fisher
Obama may be
going down to defeat.
But to whom?
The Cafe 3
Gay marriage
Andrew Hook
Even Alice and Humpty
Dumpty have been
corrupted now
The Cafe 4
Sectarianism
03.11.11
No. 474
Jill Stephenson
Kenneth Roy’s amusing piece (1 November
Certainly, universities award doctoral degrees to individuals who are deemed to have made an outstanding contribution in some field or other. I can think of obviously meritorious candidates, such as the author Muriel Spark and the singer Jessye Norman, who have been so honoured at my university.
It is true that – more recently – some people who can more accurately be termed ‘celebrities’ (ie, whose public profile is high but whose merit is less evident) have received honorary degrees. But, whoever they are, they have not received an honorary PhD degree. I will not say that such a degree has never been conferred, only that I do not know of an instance of its being conferred.
The honorary doctorates that are conferred tend to be the DLitt (doctor of letters), DSc (doctor of science), DD (doctor of divinity) or the Dr hc (doctor honoris causa – ie, for being meritorious but not being associated with a particular area of academic discipline).
In continental universities, the Dr Univ (doctor of the university) is sometimes used. I recall, decades ago, complaining to a professor of medicine that people with the degrees of MB, ChB (bachelor’s degrees) insisted on calling themselves ‘Dr’, when they did not have a doctoral degree. My vested interest was that I had recently received my PhD degree, after writing a thesis that would nowadays be well over the word limit for this degree. He was a proper doctor – he had an MD (doctor of medicine) degree that he had earned. His reply to me was: ‘You only have a PhD, so you’re a phoney doctor’.
Kenneth Roy replies
Friends of the Scottish Review
Click here
Today’s banner
Children at dusk, Monifieth, Angus
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
Faces of Scotland
A month of character studies by Islay McLeod
3. The smoker
The minister of
Aberfoyle, carried away
into fairyland
Barbara Millar’s person of the week
Aberfoyle, with its population of fewer than 700, is a small village on the River Forth, just 27 miles north-west of Glasgow. It once boasted slate quarries, which operated from the 1820s until the 1950s, and also had ironworks and a lint mill. Now, dependent on tourists, it describes itself as ‘The Gateway to the Trossachs’, luring sightseers into the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park and on to Loch Katrine, the setting for Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem ‘The Lady of the Lake’, published in 1810.
But Aberfoyle was famous long before then. In 1691 – 320 years ago – a book was written which purported to reveal another world, a world of intelligent spirits, with light, changeable bodies ‘somewhat of the nature of a condensed cloud, best seen at twilight’. The spirits could make their bodies appear or disappear at will, were heard to ‘bake bread and strike hammers’ and lived in houses that were ‘large and fair’ with lamps and fires, ‘without fuel to support them’. But also forced to ‘remove to other lodgings at each quarter of the year, travelling until Doomsday’.
The author of these supernatural stories was a local church minister, the Reverend Robert Kirk, and his book, ‘The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies’ still draws people to Aberfoyle and especially to the minister’s pine, a tree on Doon Hill, where his body is still believed, by some, to remain imprisoned.
Kirk was a native of Aberfoyle, born in the manse in 1644, the youngest and seventh son of Rev James Kirk. His parents were extremely poor. Nevertheless, he was able to go to the high school in Dundee and on to Edinburgh University, graduating with a master of arts degree in 1661. He was then granted a bursary by the presbytery of Dunblane, which he used to study divinity at St Andrews University, becoming a doctor of divinity when he was just 20.
Initially he became a minister at Balquhidder, and, in 1670, he married Isobel Campbell, daughter of Sir Colin Campbell of Mochester, having two children before her death in 1680. One of these children, Colin, went on to become Writer to the Signet. Kirk subsequently married for a second time, his wife being a daughter of Campbell of Fordy, and they had a son who later became a minister at Dornoch. Kirk, a Gaelic scholar, is known to have provided the first translation of the Bible into Gaelic in 1684. The following year he moved to Aberfoyle, where he took over his father’s church.
Kirk had been researching fairies for a long time – he did not believe the study was incompatible with Christianity – and in 1690 he started to put together a book of personal stories of people who believed they had encountered them. He was also convinced that Doon Hill in Aberfoyle was the gateway to the ‘secret commonwealth’ or the land of the fairies. It was a place he often visited, talking walks from his manse. He spent night after night there, lying down, his ear to the ground, listening to what he believed were the noises emanating from the fairy realm, made by the ‘people of peace’ as he called them, and only leaving when his wife, anxious about her husband’s nightly escapades, came to get him. And it was there – on Doon Hill – that he met his death – or did he?
On 14 May 1692 Kirk went out for his usual walk to Doon Hill, dressed only in a nightshirt. He collapsed on the hill, was eventually found and brought home, dying shortly afterwards, aged just 51.
Kirk had written that fairies wore the apparel and speech ‘of the people and country under which they live, so they are to be seen to wear plaids and variegated garments in the Highlands. They speak little, and that by way of whistling, clear, not rough…their bodies are so pliable by the subtlety of the spirits that agitate them, that they can make them appear or disappear at pleasure’. He said that the fairies ‘live much longer than we do, yet die at last, or at least vanish’. They also disappear ‘whenever the name of God or Jesus is invoked’ and are particularly frightened by metals – with nothing scaring them more than iron. ‘They are seen by men of second sight to eat at funerals and banquets…and to carry the bier or coffin with the corpse to the grave’.
On 14 May 1692 Kirk went out for his usual walk to Doon Hill, dressed only in a nightshirt. He collapsed on the hill, was eventually found and brought home, dying shortly afterwards, aged just 51. He was buried in his local kirkyard, although local legend has it that the fairies took away his body and replaced it with stones in his coffin. They were, apparently, so angry with Kirk for going into the domain of the ‘unseenlie court’, where he had been warned not to go, and for revealing their secrets, they decided to imprison him.
The Rev Patrick Graham, one of Kirk’s successors in the early 19th century, recounted another legend connected with the minister in his book ‘Sketches of Picturesque Scenery’. Soon after his funeral, Graham wrote, Kirk appeared to one of his cousins, Graham of Duchray, and told him he was not dead. He had fallen into a swoon on the hill and had been carried away to fairyland. His release could be obtained, however, at the baptism of his posthumous child. He predicted he would appear at the baptism and, when he did so, Duchray should throw a dirk over his apparition, to free him from captivity. At the appointed time Kirk appeared, but Duchray failed to throw the knife – either in terror or surprise – and Kirk disappeared.
His son, Colin Kirk, Writer to the Signet, kept a copy of his father’s book in manuscript form, although the first known publication of it was not until 1815 – when it was discovered by Sir Walter Scott, who visited Aberfoyle. A copy of one of the first 100 printed books is in Scott’s library at Abbotsford.
As for Kirk, he is trapped forever in the fairy realm, some believe…the so-called minister’s pine on the top of Doon Hill is visible for miles around because of its darker foliage, and continues to be a site of worship. Trees around it are decorated with pieces of brightly coloured material and votive messages – and many people leave behind cards, carrying their wishes, in the hope that the fairies will – one day – make them come true. Of Robert Kirk there has never been another sign.
Barbara Millar is a tour guide and trustee of the Institute of
Contemporary Scotland
03.11.11
No. 474
Jill StephensonCertainly, universities award doctoral degrees to individuals who are deemed to have made an outstanding contribution in some field or other. I can think of obviously meritorious candidates, such as the author Muriel Spark and the singer Jessye Norman, who have been so honoured at my university.
It is true that – more recently – some people who can more accurately be termed ‘celebrities’ (ie, whose public profile is high but whose merit is less evident) have received honorary degrees. But, whoever they are, they have not received an honorary PhD degree. I will not say that such a degree has never been conferred, only that I do not know of an instance of its being conferred.
The honorary doctorates that are conferred tend to be the DLitt (doctor of letters), DSc (doctor of science), DD (doctor of divinity) or the Dr hc (doctor honoris causa – ie, for being meritorious but not being associated with a particular area of academic discipline).
In continental universities, the Dr Univ (doctor of the university) is sometimes used. I recall, decades ago, complaining to a professor of medicine that people with the degrees of MB, ChB (bachelor’s degrees) insisted on calling themselves ‘Dr’, when they did not have a doctoral degree. My vested interest was that I had recently received my PhD degree, after writing a thesis that would nowadays be well over the word limit for this degree. He was a proper doctor – he had an MD (doctor of medicine) degree that he had earned. His reply to me was: ‘You only have a PhD, so you’re a phoney doctor’.
Friends of the Scottish Review
Click here
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
But Aberfoyle was famous long before then. In 1691 – 320 years ago – a book was written which purported to reveal another world, a world of intelligent spirits, with light, changeable bodies ‘somewhat of the nature of a condensed cloud, best seen at twilight’. The spirits could make their bodies appear or disappear at will, were heard to ‘bake bread and strike hammers’ and lived in houses that were ‘large and fair’ with lamps and fires, ‘without fuel to support them’. But also forced to ‘remove to other lodgings at each quarter of the year, travelling until Doomsday’.
The author of these supernatural stories was a local church minister, the Reverend Robert Kirk, and his book, ‘The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies’ still draws people to Aberfoyle and especially to the minister’s pine, a tree on Doon Hill, where his body is still believed, by some, to remain imprisoned.
Kirk was a native of Aberfoyle, born in the manse in 1644, the youngest and seventh son of Rev James Kirk. His parents were extremely poor. Nevertheless, he was able to go to the high school in Dundee and on to Edinburgh University, graduating with a master of arts degree in 1661. He was then granted a bursary by the presbytery of Dunblane, which he used to study divinity at St Andrews University, becoming a doctor of divinity when he was just 20.
Initially he became a minister at Balquhidder, and, in 1670, he married Isobel Campbell, daughter of Sir Colin Campbell of Mochester, having two children before her death in 1680. One of these children, Colin, went on to become Writer to the Signet. Kirk subsequently married for a second time, his wife being a daughter of Campbell of Fordy, and they had a son who later became a minister at Dornoch. Kirk, a Gaelic scholar, is known to have provided the first translation of the Bible into Gaelic in 1684. The following year he moved to Aberfoyle, where he took over his father’s church.
Kirk had been researching fairies for a long time – he did not believe the study was incompatible with Christianity – and in 1690 he started to put together a book of personal stories of people who believed they had encountered them. He was also convinced that Doon Hill in Aberfoyle was the gateway to the ‘secret commonwealth’ or the land of the fairies. It was a place he often visited, talking walks from his manse. He spent night after night there, lying down, his ear to the ground, listening to what he believed were the noises emanating from the fairy realm, made by the ‘people of peace’ as he called them, and only leaving when his wife, anxious about her husband’s nightly escapades, came to get him. And it was there – on Doon Hill – that he met his death – or did he?
On 14 May 1692 Kirk went out for his usual walk to Doon Hill, dressed only in a nightshirt. He collapsed on the hill, was eventually found and brought home, dying shortly afterwards, aged just 51. He was buried in his local kirkyard, although local legend has it that the fairies took away his body and replaced it with stones in his coffin. They were, apparently, so angry with Kirk for going into the domain of the ‘unseenlie court’, where he had been warned not to go, and for revealing their secrets, they decided to imprison him.
The Rev Patrick Graham, one of Kirk’s successors in the early 19th century, recounted another legend connected with the minister in his book ‘Sketches of Picturesque Scenery’. Soon after his funeral, Graham wrote, Kirk appeared to one of his cousins, Graham of Duchray, and told him he was not dead. He had fallen into a swoon on the hill and had been carried away to fairyland. His release could be obtained, however, at the baptism of his posthumous child. He predicted he would appear at the baptism and, when he did so, Duchray should throw a dirk over his apparition, to free him from captivity. At the appointed time Kirk appeared, but Duchray failed to throw the knife – either in terror or surprise – and Kirk disappeared.
His son, Colin Kirk, Writer to the Signet, kept a copy of his father’s book in manuscript form, although the first known publication of it was not until 1815 – when it was discovered by Sir Walter Scott, who visited Aberfoyle. A copy of one of the first 100 printed books is in Scott’s library at Abbotsford.
As for Kirk, he is trapped forever in the fairy realm, some believe…the so-called minister’s pine on the top of Doon Hill is visible for miles around because of its darker foliage, and continues to be a site of worship. Trees around it are decorated with pieces of brightly coloured material and votive messages – and many people leave behind cards, carrying their wishes, in the hope that the fairies will – one day – make them come true. Of Robert Kirk there has never been another sign.
Contemporary Scotland
