Blaeu Atlas of Scotland, 1654
Name: | Blaeu, Joan, 1596-1673 |
Title: | Nova Fifae Descriptio. Angvsia, Angvs |
Pagination: | 82-83 |
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Translation of text:
a partridge, is very eagerly eaten in the month of July. Scouts are smaller than a duck, of the same colour, with tough flesh; yet they lay eggs bigger than those of geese, which, boiled and made hard, are best eaten with vinegar and parsley; the shells are of a green colour, with black spots. It was once a seat and part of the Priory of Pittenweem, and paid an annual tax to it. King Charles gave it in feu to Ian Cuningham, granting him the island with the right of building a lighthouse on it, to display a light to ships passing at night; so he built there a tower 40 feet high, on all sides at the top arched and covered with stones, where throughout the whole year a fire of coals shines as above; for this right sailors are bound to pay a halfpenny per ton. The first builder of this, Alexander Cuningham, when in winter going from the island to Fife to his home Barns, near Crail, perished in a shipwreck. Ten years later witches from Crail (5) admitted that they had done this with the help of the devil; for that storm did not even last half an hour, and he alone of all was driven ashore by the waves with his boat. On this Alexander Scot, first Professor of Humanity at St Andrews, composed the following:
Barns placed watchful lights on a tower,That the sailor might safely take his way on the sea.
Though a star was fortunate for neither Sidonians nor Pelasgians,
Nor does any now shine from the chorus of heaven,
Between ship-breaking Carr and the harsh rocks of the Bass,
Lo, May has a light that brings safety.
Yet here alas, the chief and author of such a boon,
Where the bark joyously touched its own harbour
And did not pale at the setting of Arcturus or the rising of the Goats,
Himself died shipwrecked in the billowy firth.
Men of the Forth, what was the cause? Who in such a crime
Enviously bound up your waters?
The stars brought a cruel fate on Barns,
Perhaps because he was the creator of a star on land
Which overcomes the flames of Amyclae with perpetual light,
And does not set or at any time become hidden by a cloud.
Perhaps too the South Wind from Aeolian halls planning
Revenge, moved his brothers to arms,
Because now, thanks to Barns, sailors despise
His vain blasts and strengthless threats.
Or rather the race of Nereus and powers swimming in the sea
(If it is permitted to say so) have malice
Lest above Glaucus and above Ino’s Melicertes
He should now be worshipped in Caledonian waters.
Or else some fearful Erichtho, lurking in a city
On the coast, has worked magic rites,
And onto his dear head had moved all of Styx from the depths,
Predicting ruin with the host of Acheron.
Whatever it was, for I do not unseal the adamantine-closed
Laws of the fates, let Heaven have its rights.
Often to great men, who have given clear examples,
It has befallen to suffer the pain of death among the waters.
Thus pious Aeneas, author of the Roman name,
Was seized in the flood with his progeny scarcely born.
Thus too father Fergus, from whom Britain has undiminished
Sceptres through innumerable grandsons.
And victorious in Armenian lands, the Roman prince
Frederick, hope of Latium and fear of Asia;
And innumerable others: Ceyx; the boy Icarus once;
And the leader Tiberinus who gave his name to the waters.
Your life therefore, Cuningham, was not seized by stars, or winds
Or by gods of the sea or of Tartarus;
But God, making you equal to the greatest heroes,
Made firm the work by the very death of its creator,
That the fire of May may shine like those in the heavens
And the virtue of Barns be dearer with its own fire.
Nay, the sea, not daring to hand such a sacred meal to the fishes,
Lamented for you and restored you to your own.
Others died in obscurity and are tossed in the waves,
The same death, but the honour of a tomb was not equal.
Hence, since you saved many citizens by your light,
A civic crown blesses you in the light of heaven.
I shall add at this point the witty poem by Charles Geddes on the light or Pharus of May, in whose pentameter the numerical letters point to the year in which the tower was built:
So that blasts should not harm, nor floods, lights by MayWere offered, and the island lit up in the midst of the waters.
1635 (6)
The island of Inchkeith is one mile in length, belongs to the Lord of Kinghorn, and in French history is called the Island of Horses, for it brings horses to the peak of condition in the space of two months. There was a very strong castle there, of which ruins survive. At the time of Queen Mary’s minority, the French who had occupied it were driven out and it was destroyed by act of Parliament. There are many rabbits there.
The island of St Columba, Inchcolm, was once called Aemona; there was once an abbey; it had many estates, granted in feu, after the destruction of the monasteries, to James Stuart, Lord of St Colm: now it has come by purchase into the hands of the Earl of Moray. It grazes 20 sheep. The island is no more than two miles distant from Aberdour.
Inch Garvie, the walls and arches of the great fortress there still survive, they are now hidden by posts, and there are some soldiers as garrison, they can reach either shore with their guns, so that the river cannot be navigated against their will.
ANGUSIA, ANGUS
FROM CAMDEN (Section Note)
At the Firth of Tay and beyond to the River North Esk, Angusia, in the vernacular Angus, to genuine Scots Aaneia, spreads out fields growing wheat and every kind of corn, ample hills, lochs, woods, pastures and meadows, adorned with very many fortresses and castles. Right on the threshold from Gowrie is Glamis, castle and barony of the family with the surname Lyon, which came to prominence when J. Lyon, much in favour with King Robert II, received it and the dignity of Baron with the Barony of Kinghorn, as dowry with the King’s daughter, and at the same time, as it is written, the surname of Lyon, with a lion in his coat of arms on a lilied field, as the Kings themselves bear, but with different colours [the shield argent, the lion and tressure flory]. So Patrick Baron Glamis, whose son John now flourishes, very recently gained the honour of Earl of Kinghorne from King James VI.
Forfar is close by, where law is dispensed by the Barons Gray, hereditary Sheriffs, who derive from the Greys of Chillingham in the county of Northumbria, and came to Scotland with James I when he returned from England; on the first of them, Andrew, with his wife Helen Mortimer, he bestowed with royal munificence the Lordship of Foulis. [Lord Gray, having only one daughter, and being much oppressed by borrowing, in order that his debts should be repaid and that one daughter and heir should be placed with an honourable young man, he has betrothed her to the son of Lord William Gray, a citizen of Edinburgh, who has repaid the debts, and after the death of his father-in-law will by royal infeftment have the Lordship of Gray.
Arthur Johnston wrote thus on Forfar (Section Note):Forfar, the ruins of a royal building adorn you,
And a loch, and fields of much fertility.
Your orchards are, I admit, limited, yet wide
Was the power that ancient Scotland gave you.
The rods that you carry are acknowledged by the land of Angus,
And remote places present themselves to your forum.
The leaders of the people dispense law, the populace practises the art
By which it prepares and continually increases slight wealth.
There are for it hides taken from strong oxen,
And leather which conceals virgin feet.
This has given sandals to the light soles of Umbrians,
And shoes to your companions, rope-bearing[?] class.
Lest you be damaged by snow or ice in winter-time,
This makes boots for you, country crowd.
This fitted the old Achaeans with stout greaves,
And Greek matrons sought shoes hence.
The people fitted their legs with tragic buskins,
And the sock was the noble discovery of this.
Let not Rome hereafter raise its strength to the skies,
Nor proud Sparta its warlike hands.
They have placed a yoke on the necks of the people,
This crushes legs and feet with strong bonds.]
Near the mouth of the Tay sits Dundee, called formerly Alectum, by others Taodunum [J. Skene, On the meaning of words; Hector Boece], certainly a famous town, whose Constable is in his own right Standard-bearer of the Kings of Scots. [Dundee in the recent civil wars was attacked by Montrose with his army, but when a few houses had been burned he was bravely driven off by the men and women. After that it was fortified with wall and ditches by the inhabitants.] But the name Dundee is jestingly interpreted as Gift of God by Hector Boece, a native of the place, who at the Renaissance elegantly wrote a history of Scotland, and that from such remote antiquity that in his writings Paulus Jovius was amazed that there was a tradition of more than a thousand years from these remote places, Hebrides and Orkneys, when in Italy, the nurse of genius, for so many centuries after the expulsion of the Goths there were no writers. But on this place J. Johnston, born not far from it, writes (Section Note):
Where the South Wind blows gently with melodious breaths,There Tay and Ocean peacefully come together.
This place, receiving arriving ships on an easy shore,
Divides the wealth of the huge world among its people.
Often tested by wiles and exercised by the losses of war,
It still stands whole with unbeaten spirit.
Its old fame grew at the Reformation,
And the pure splendour of light flashed hence on others.
Alectum they once called it; if you look at its great
Advantages, you might perhaps say it is Gift of God.
You, eternal distinction of race and city, Boece,
Tell of the other blessed gifts of your homeland.
[And thus Arthur Johnston:
Ancient city, to which appears the mouth of the billowy Tay,
And soil which badly covers the bones of the Cimbrians.
Genoa, looking at you, laughs at its own monuments, the mass
Of the Pyramids is valued at naught by barbarian Memphis.
Gargara rightly despises its own harvests,
And the Liburnian land condemns the ships it rules.
And the people of Venice complain of their poverty,
Nor does Cnidus boast as before of its sea-going hosts.
If one wishes to compare, Spartan youth yields to your young men,
Toga-clad Rome yields to your consuls.
Let he who gives you a name borrowed from the Tay’s flood,
Be believed to be lacking in intelligence and skill.
As you can rightly be seen to be built by the hands of Gods,
Rightly your country calls you Gift of God.]
From here one can see the castle of Broughty-crag, which for several months an English garrison defended [1547], when, in desire of a lasting peace, they sought the promise of a marriage between Mary of Scotland and Edward VI of England and tried to gain the promise by force, and finally gave it up of their own accord. [Broughty-craig belongs to Lord Gray; there is a very fine salmon fishery here, below at the castle walls.]