Rosslyn

[smokingboot]

Mate came to visit, cue too much excellent food, booze and conversation, aided by horror movies, some of which were less than classic, and a bit of brilliant D&D. The dream team rides on!

There was a trip to Edinburgh and a trip to Rosslyn Chapel. And because you can't just not talk about Rosslyn chapel, here I go:

It would be rude if there wasn't some mysterious mysteriosity about the place, if the Sinclairs were just trolling the world with an avalanche of symbols from the 14th century to drive us all mad with conspiracy theories. Maybe the founder Sir William 'the Seemly' detested minimalism, or just wanted to chuck money at his legacy. There's an irony in him disinheriting his eldest, William 'the Waster,' in favour of his second son Oliver who certainly showed more financial acumen than his brother; for a start, he refused to spend his inheritance on extending the chapel as his father wished. So what we have is what we have. Fortunately, it's enough.

There are many notable bits and pieces like the mystery of the Indian corn carving; while plant life from Africa and Asia is featured, the maize is a puzzle because the chapel precedes Columbus' voyage. Legends tell of an earlier trip to the new world with two Venetian sailors and Henry Sinclair, the founder's grandfather. Of course the carvings could be mere foliage stylisations, but I refuse to give weight to any explanation so boringly rational as that.

Then there's the whole seven deadly virtues/ seven deadly sins oddity, where some carver appears to have got things mixed up, and greed appears among the virtues while chastity appears among the sins.

There's the Latin inscription which translates as 'Wine is strong, a king is stronger, women are stronger still but the truth conquers all.' Why it's there or what the context is is lost; I'm not even going to go into the cubes that make music cos I still don't get it, or the whole apprentice pillar and master pillar legend. Before the Georgian period the pillars were called the Earl's Pillar, the Shekinah and the Prince's Pillar. I've no clue what the Shekinah is doing there.

But the mystery that intrigued me most was that of the hairy angels. There they were, little carvings that plainly replaced others as they were just a tad more crisp in outline than those around them. They were figures with wings but thicker of limb and distinctly hirsute. I tried to dismiss the idea of flying sloths from my mind, and found the guide who referred me back to the Book of Genesis;

Chapter 6

1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

The Nephilim were these mighty children, and their carvings were not far from another interesting one, that of an angel bound upside down with no unseemly shagginess to make us question its celestial origins. The upside down angel is original, the hairy angels are suspected to be the work of 18th/19th century masons, who also had their creations making gestures with their arms, probably some clever masonic symbolism. If the masons are responsible for half the architectural bragging they're blamed for, they're deeply tiresome people. It might well imply that they considered themselves to be the inheritors of the Nephilim, the men of renown. Another irony; we have no idea of who these carvers were. Renown was not their fate.

Due to social distancing we couldn't go down into the bare room below, which may have been used by the original masons and was probably the remains of an earlier church. I wanted to, though I was reassured it was just a bare room, that the interest was all above. Perhaps I should have enquired about the gestures of the hairy angels/flying sloths and why the central pillar was called the Shekinah, but I didn't want to weary the guide any further for I had taken up a lot of her time.

'It's all right, ' she reassured me with a lovely smile, 'that was how you could tell the Nephilim apart; they were the ones who asked questions.'

We went out into the daylight, leaving the Holy Grail/Time Portal/Templars' Treasure/Masons' Mystery/ Whatever it is for sunshine and beer. And because one is not allowed to take photos of the inside of Rosslyn, here is a comparatively benign Rosslyn gargoyle.