Return to Rosslyn

Time number 3 for me, and by far the most evocative.

It's been a great weekend, despite the timing of thingsome day; fab company, a meat fondue, champagne, talk through the night, and then to Rosslyn Chapel, a serious relief for me and my Foot of Vengeance.

Indoor photos are prohibited, because it's still a working chapel, but seeing it by candlelight was dreamlike. Dan Brown and Tom Hanks did a lot for the place, still, The Da Vinci Code movie also did it a disservice by making it appear so much larger than it is; A visitor might be disappointed by not finding it to be a cathedral of mystery. But Rosslyn's magic is in the minutiae, the detail and the stories.

Also now open is the original part used for services while masons ('they think they own the place' sniffed our guide) built the splendour above. I would always recommend that anyone who visits pays attention to the short talk given half way through a session, because you can't help but miss something, be it the designs that seem to be based on American plants (Rosslyn Chapel was built in 1446) or the Green Man growing from youth to death as you circumnavigate, or the transposition of greed with charity among the vices and virtues, the upside down bound angel, the later seraphim, the legend of the Murderous Mason, etc, etc. The grail is not mentioned because there's no real evidence of it resting here as such, and the whole Templar connection is played down but a strong St Clair/Templar association would seem indicated by floriated crosses of a kind connected with that knight order carved within the heraldic cross of the family. And the legend of something special buried here has been around for a very long time.

I didn't know about the actual crypt that lies beneath the chapel, thought to have been partially filled in hundreds of years ago. No-one knows what's down there, though Sir Walter Scott appears to have had a fine idea in his head:

Seemed all on fire that chapel proud,
Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffined lie;
Each Baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply.

Seemed all on fire within, around,
Both vaulted crypt and altar's pale;
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,
And glimmered all the dead-men's mail.

Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair—
So still they blaze when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high St. Clair.

There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
Lie buried within that proud chapelle;
Each one the holy vault doth hold—
But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle!

And each St. Clair was buried there,
With candle, with book, and with knell;
But the Kelpy rung, and the Mermaid sung,
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.

There's much more to The Lay of The Last Minstrel, but the above covers two of the great legends, that 20 barons of the line lay beneath the stone floor, and that whenever a St Clair dies, the chapel will appear to be on fire, though it remains untouched. Having said that, this is how the place is lit up, so it would be hard to make out any signs of a St Clair's imminent demise these days.






We sat listening to the tales as the rain fell and the night grew chill, and the chapel door creaked open of its own accord. We all stared for a moment, and then someone closed it to keep the warmth in. It was deliciously shudderful, yet as comfortable as the story of William the chapel cat, who remains the most missed and modern hero of the place. Then we came back, wandered into Edinburgh, and stuffed our faces with steak and cocktails.

All in all, pretty fabulous.