Leszeck Kolakowski wrote: "It may well be that the impossible at any given time can become possible only by being stated at a time when it is impossible". Thomas the Rhymer was a medieval Scot, shown three roads by the Elf Queen. One is beset with thorns and leads to heaven. One is fair and lovely and goes to hell. One is green and leads to the faerie lands. But, in the words of Don McLean, "all roads lead to where I stand". The interest is in the travelling not the arriving!
Why Rhymers and Reivers?
Both Rhymer and Reiver relate to the border country of Scotland, where my family originally came from.
Rhymers is a self-evident assertion of the value of the intuitive, with Thomas the Rhymer being the most famous - also known as Tam Lin.
Reviers were raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border for 300 years from the 13th to 16th centuries.
"The clans and families of the Borders were able to endure the struggle for survival due to their strength of character and their bonds of kinship. They were both the inflicted and the inflictors. It was they who were responsible for the lawlessness but not the cause of it. As one generation of reiving families followed another, the skills of rustling and raiding were refined until they became an art of which the reivers were proud. It was a profession to be admired. A way of life."
My own family are described as "the biggest reivers of them all" and "a notorious reiving family and one of the few to remain intact and retain their status and their lands in spite of serious quarrelling amongst themselves."
Pity I didn't inherit any of it - I'll just have to settle for the intuition from TtR.
Rhymers is a self-evident assertion of the value of the intuitive, with Thomas the Rhymer being the most famous - also known as Tam Lin.
Reviers were raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border for 300 years from the 13th to 16th centuries.
"The clans and families of the Borders were able to endure the struggle for survival due to their strength of character and their bonds of kinship. They were both the inflicted and the inflictors. It was they who were responsible for the lawlessness but not the cause of it. As one generation of reiving families followed another, the skills of rustling and raiding were refined until they became an art of which the reivers were proud. It was a profession to be admired. A way of life."
My own family are described as "the biggest reivers of them all" and "a notorious reiving family and one of the few to remain intact and retain their status and their lands in spite of serious quarrelling amongst themselves."
Pity I didn't inherit any of it - I'll just have to settle for the intuition from TtR.
Reivers
Romanticised image of a revier ('Auld Wat of Harden' by Tom Scott, RSA)
Blog Archive
About Me
- Ian
- I'm supposedly semi-retired but interests conspire to more than fill the time available. After a career working in areas the mainstream finds difficult, I still look for ways to expand my own and society's horizons - hence the quote from Leszek Kolakowski. This blog is part of my personal journey, with no specific destination - it will always be a 'work in progress'.
No comments:
Post a Comment