So how’s life? What have you done lately–tell us about your adventures—-there are over 2600 people signed up for this blog…come on tell OUR readers that this isn’t the only adventure you’ve had in ages.
To quote Solzhenitsyn:“To destroy a people you must first sever their roots.” The reverse must then also be true, to strengthen a people, you must discover their roots.
Wayne Laurence, N.Z.
and then there’s my Scottish half (or more–Grandmother’s name was Scot–Great Grandmother McCellan, My maiden Swann (Gunn clan originally Viking from the Orkneys) and there’s so much more–grew up in the mountains from near Cameron (also Scottish name) which reminds me a lot of Scotland…
Here are a couple of deleted scenes you might enjoy–both with a Russian sub titles no less!
and click here for music to read by
I grew up in a place where everybody was a storyteller, but nobody wrote. It was that kind of Celtic, storytelling tradition: everybody would have a story at the pub or at parties, even at the clubs and raves. Irvine Welsh
So why do I want to run away from the US to the UK? Because it’s my roots–Based on the names of my “people” as they referred to your ancestors when I was growing up—my grandmother and one of my many relatives would be talking and someone would come into a gathering and she’d say that’s so and so, such and such’s son–and when the relative wasn’t as knowledgeable as my grande mere, she’d say–his people are from—you know they lived over on Fish Creek or up that hollow near the such and such family before his mom married that man from and moved to Pittsburgh, which was quite exotic in that small, safe place in a long winding valley in the foot hills in northern W.VA. and then she’d say but his people were mostly from Calhoun County—and then she would begin a genealogy that would impress a history teacher or any old testament author.
And though I grew up in the 40’s and mostly 50’s I grew up in a country where you were sheltered from the encroachments of the modern era…They still had outhouses and some of the houses didn’t even have electricity yet. And when we moved to Michigan where they were in the 20th century I was in cultural shock—which was relieved somewhat by returning to WV every summer until I was 16—how I missed those summers, I still do. And though we are in different countries I relate to a lot of the old world and the long names in Outlander for instance…..that’s how I knew my great grand mother’s maiden names from the middle names of my grandfather for instance Roy McCellen—just like they do in Outlander, my father was Benjamin Henry for his mum’s maiden.
Parts of Wales and Scotland so remind me of WVA or at least how it use to be—it is fast fading and they are fragging the area where I was born–my brother is selling out farm which has been in the family for well over 100 years and I will sorely miss it…last time I was in the area I didn’t even go there. While my brother lives on the property the house that my grandfather grew up in and both my mom and I were born in, is not habitable, but set in disrepair I should sadly imagion. My brother sold off the barn, that at one time was both a mill and an undertakers–my grandfather told of the baby’s coffin left behind and since the spill way was allowed to fill in the basement flooded seriously. Someone with much more money than necessary to survive both the barn for the weathered wood which he was using to build some summer place along one of the creeks (creeks for those who didn’t grow up in odd places like me is a small stream).
England and Scotland were formally unified in 1707. The Gaelic speaking clan society of Scotland’s Highlands was destroyed after the
rebellion of 1745. Ireland was also incorporated into the United Kingdom in 1801.
Today, some Celtic culture lives on in some of the British Isles and in Ireland.
The Ancient Celts – Kelley Heckart
I am Sarren; I am of the old people, the ancient ones. Through my blood runs the blood of the Celts, the Picts and the peoples who left the stones scattered around this haunted, enchanted isle like great child’s toys. And through my blood runs the magic of the land and the blood of other more mythical and mysterious dwellers and wanderers who are as much a part of this place…..
……
My name is Sarren: I am the child of what the Romans called Britannia. My roots reach deep into its earth and I have seen and known the man, the magi and the sorceress and I have loved them all and so I am the one who must tell this tale.
THE INTRODUCTION TO AN DOWRA–THE FIRST IN MY TRIOLOGY: AN DOWRA, AN BROYOW, HA’N PYSTRI
A “FICTION” AS told by a reliable source of King Arthur and those that brought him to power and have kept him there for tho these many years.
