God Save the King

 TO A FESTIVAL FIT FOR A KING

Hi Everyone,

One of the knights fighting for the King and honour!

Well that is what the advertisement for the “Bruce Festival” said.  Bruce who?, well King Robert the Bruce of course the national hero of Scotland.  He was proclaimed King of Scotland at Scone Castle in Perthshire in 1311.  But here in the small town of Dunfermline, in the beautiful Abbey is where the remains of Robert the Bruce lies.  The Earl of Elgin, Chief of the Family of Bruce and one of the festival’s biggest supporter’s lives just outside of Dunfermline said “It is important that people can sample the harsh touch of medieval Scotland and understand what life would have been like 700 years ago.”  And that is what we did.

We enjoyed a day of watching craftsmen and women do a variety of things.

Basket weaving

This man was making fencing sections.

Calligraphy

Stone carving

Cooking

Blacksmithing

Robb tried his hand at throwing an AXE- he hit the target 6 out of 10 attempts and even cut a piece of the target off- the photo’s don’t do it justice.

The little white thing on the ground is a piece of the target he cut off on one of the throws and in this photo the axe is right in the middle!!

 We attended a concert that was held in the Abby

The final treat of the day was a medieval dinner that was served and prepared as it would have been 700 years ago.

  The menu

 A pottage of barley with wild herbs and nettles served on a trencher

Roast hog from the spit with onion sauce and wild greens salad

Fresh fruits in season and dried fruits and nuts

As you would expect at all good medieval banquets – Claret and Ale will Flow

We enjoyed the meal, tried to eat the bread trencher and found we could if it was soaked in the ale or wine.  I don't know how they could have eaten them without the liquid they were rock hard.

And I close with a quote about Robert the Bruce,

Love from my own King Robert and I

It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom- For that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.  But from these countless evils’ we have been set free, by the help of him who though he afflict yet heals and restores, by our most tirless, Prince, King and Lord, the Lord Robert.