Celebrating city’s history with poetry
DIGGING INTO THE PAST with Dr Murray Cook
So before Netflix, TV and radio there was very little to do other than talk to each other and attend performances of plays and poetry (there was always drinking of course…but that’s always best done with others too!).
Now this can sound a bit dull in comparison to what we have today, but if you really want to understand Stirling’s past it is worth thinking about its poetry.
James IV, V and Mary Queen of Scots all employed poets and playwrights, these were clever people who entertained but also shaped opinions and raised morale.
Their presence indicated that the court was sophisticated.
Of course there were also poets for us (the lower orders), bards who told their tales in pubs and fairs.
This Friday, May 26, from 6.30pm to 8pm, I and my friend Dr Valentina Bald will be leading a tour of Stirling linking location and history to poets and poems that celebrated these locations.
We’ll cover over 1500 years of poetry all about Stirling and its free to attend…just email me cookm@stirling.gov.uk
Now central to this will be the tale of John Damian de Falcus, the Italian alchemist employed by James IV who infamously tried to fly from the castle using chicken feathers.
As you know he ended up in the castle midden…but was this cutting Scottish research into flight or flyting, a poetical jousting where ridicule is poured out onto your rival to entertain the cackling courtiers?
We’ll also describe a raid on Stirling from Galloway around 600AD and George Buchanan’s (James VI’S tutor) furious and angry retort to being tortured by the Spanish inquisition at the instigation of an academic rival!
Scott and Burns will feature, but best of all Dugald Graham, a hunchback from Raploch who followed Bonnie Prince Charlie and wrote all about the ’45.
How can you possibly resist?