Burns, haggis and the story behind The Bore Stone
I love a bargain and always make a beeline for the reduced shelf. The day after Burns Night is great for cheap haggises (or should that be haggi?).
However, I once bought so much haggis that I permanently put my wife off it and she now denies the existence of Burns Night and I am forced to eat it on my own!
Anyway, when Burns was in Stirling he visited The Bore Stone and was so moved by it that he eventually composed Scots Wa Hae, one of the best Scottish poems ever written. Now, in Scotland‘bore stones’are where armies met and The Bore Stone (note the capitals) is supposed to be where Robert the Bruce mustered his troops on day one of the Battle of Bannockburn.
The stone was progressively destroyed by people chipping bits off but was a lump of bedrock with a round hole in it. Because The Bore Stone was there, mapmakers drew the line of the Roman road through Stirling near it - Bruce’s position straddled the road - in turn because of the Roman road and The Bore Stone the area became a focus for commemoration and celebration.
Which in turn led the National Trust for Scotland to save it for the nation and to create a brilliant interpretation centre…fabby!
However, if you actually stand on Monument Hill there’s no way a Roman road would have been built there and why on earth would Bruce drill a hole in bedrock to plant his standard? In fact The Bore Stone is more likely to be a rough-out for a mill stone!
I do think that day one of the Battle of Bannockburn took place in that rough area but not at The Bore Stone. However, does any of that matter when you visit the monument complex and think of those stirring lines and a big plate of haggis?