DUNDEE: THE GIFT OF GOD
When we look into the name “Dundee,” we find that some derive it
from the Latin “Donum Dei” (the “gift of God”). Evidently those who
designed the town arms accepted this etymology, for above the two
griffins holding a shield is the motto “Dei Donum.” Yet beneath their
intertwined and forked tails is the more cautious motto, perhaps
meant to be regulative,--for “sweet are the uses of adversity,” in
learning as in life,--“prudentia et candore.” While prudence bids us
look forward, candor requires honesty as to the past. So the diligent
scholarship and editorial energy of modern days delete the claims
of local pride, as belated, and declare them “extravagant,” while
asserting that so favorable a situation for defence as has Dundee
antedates even the Roman occupation.
Others, not willing to abandon the legend savoring of divinity, find
the name in the Celtic “Dun Dha,” the “Hill of God.” The probabilities
are, however, that Mars will carry off the honors, and that the modern
form is from the Gaelic name “Dun Tow,” that is, the “fort on the Tay”;
of which the Latin “Tao Dunum” is only a transliteration. All Britain
was spotted with forts or duns, and the same word is in the second
syllable of “London.”
The name “Dundee” first occurs in writing in a deed of gift, dated
about A.D. 1200, by David, the younger brother of William the Lion,
making the place a royal burg. Later it received charters from Robert
the Bruce and the Scottish kings. Charles I finally granted the city
its great charter.
In the war of independence, when the Scots took up arms against
England, Dundee was prominent. William Wallace, educated here, slew the
son of the English constable in 1291, for which deed he was outlawed.
The castle, which stood until some time after the Commonwealth, but
of which there is to-day hardly a trace, was repeatedly besieged
and captured. In Dundee’s coat of arms are two “wyverns,” griffins,
or “dragons,” with wings addorsed and with barbed tails, the latter
“nowed” or knotted together--which things serve as an allegory. In the
local conversation and allusions and in the modern newspaper cartoons
and caricatures, the “wyverns” stand for municipal affairs and local
politics.
Such a well-situated port, on Scotland’s largest river, Tay, must
needs be the perennial prize of contending factions and leaders. But
when, after having assimilated the culture of Rome, the new struggle,
which was inevitable to human progress, the Reformation, began, and
the Scots thought out their own philosophy of the universe, Dundee
was called “the Scottish Geneva,” because so active in spreading the
new doctrines. Here, especially, Scotland’s champion, George Wishart,
student and schoolmaster (1513–46), one of the earliest reformers,
introduced the study of Greek and preached the Reformation doctrines.
Compelled to flee to England, he went also to Switzerland. In
Cambridge, he was a student in 1538. It is not known that he ever “took
orders,” any more than did the apostle Paul. He travelled from town to
town, making everywhere a great impression by his stirring appeals.
Instead of bearing the fiery cross of the clans as of old, Wishart held
up the cross of his Master.
Patriotism and economics, as well as religion, were factors in the
clash of ideas. Cardinal Beaton stood for ecclesiastical dependence
on France, Wishart for independence. Beaton headed soldiers to make
Wishart prisoner. Young John Knox attached himself to the person of
the bold reformer and carried a two-handed sword before Wishart for
his defence. After preaching a powerful sermon at Haddington, the
evangelist was made a prisoner by the Earl of Bothwell and carried to
St. Andrew’s. There, at the age of thirty-three, by the cardinal’s
order, Wishart was burned at the stake in front of the castle, then the
residence of the bishop. While the fire was kindling, Wishart uttered
the prophecy that, within a few days his judge and murderer would lose
his life. After such proceedings in the name of God, it seems hardly
wonderful that the mob, which had been stirred by Wishart’s preaching,
should have destroyed both the cathedral and the episcopal mansion.
Was Wishart in the plot to assassinate the cardinal, as hostile
critics suggest? Over his ashes a tremendous controversy has arisen,
and this is one of the unsettled questions in Scottish history. There
was another George Wishart, bailie of Dundee, who was in the plot.
Certainly the preacher’s name is great in Scotland’s history.
One of the relics of bygone days, which the Dundeeans keep in repair,
is a section of the old battlemented city wall crossing one of the
important streets. This for a time was the pulpit of the great
reformer. With mine host of the Temperance Hotel, Bailie Mather, who
took me, as other antiquarians, poets, and scholars did also, through
the old alleys and streets, where the vestiges of historic architecture
still remain from the past, I mounted this old citadel of freedom.
On the whole, the Reformation in Dundee was peacefully carried out,
but in 1645, during the Civil War, the city was sacked and most of its
houses went down in war fires. In 1651, General Monk, sent by Cromwell,
captured Dundee, and probably one sixth of the garrison were put to the
sword. Sixty vessels were loaded with plunder to be sent away, but
“the sailors being apparently as drunk as the soldiery” the vessels
were lost within sight of the city. “Ill got, soon lost,” said Monk’s
chaplain. Governor Lumsden, in heroic defence, made his last stand in
the old tower, which still remains scarred and pitted with bullet marks.
Dundee rose to wealth during our Civil War, when jute took the place
of cotton. Being a place of commerce rather than of art, literature,
or romance, and touching the national history only at long intervals,
few tourists see or stay long in “Jute-opolis.” Nevertheless, from
many visits and long dwelling in the city and suburbs, Dundee is a
place dearly loved by us three; for here, in health and in sickness,
in the homes of the hospitable people and as leader of the worship
of thousands, in the great Ward Chapel, where he often faced over a
thousand interested hearers, the writer learned to know the mind of the
Scottish people more intimately than in any other city. Nor could he,
in any other better way, know the heart of Scotland, except possibly
in some of those exalted moments, when surveying unique scenery, it
seemed as if he were in the very penetralia of the land’s beauty; or,
when delving in books, he saw unroll clearly the long panorama of her
inspiring history.
Among the treasures, visible in the muniment room of the Town House,
are original despatches from Edward I and Edward II; the original
charter, dated 1327, and given the city by Robert the Bruce; a Papal
order from Leo X, and a letter from Mary Queen of Scots, concerning
extramural burials. Then the “yardis, glk sumtyme was occupyit by ye
Gray Cordelier Freres” (Franciscan Friars, who wore the gray habit and
girdle of St. Francis of Assisi) as an orchard, were granted to the
town as a burying-place by Queen Mary in 1564. The Nine Crafts having
wisely decided not to meet in taverns and alehouses, made this former
place of fruit their meeting-place; hence the name “Howff,” or haunt.
My rhyming friend Lee, in his verses on the “Waukrife Wyverns” (wakeful
griffins), has written the feelings and experiences of his American
friend, who often wandered and mused among the graven stones, as well
as his own:--
“’T was Sabbath nicht, the clinkum-bell
Tauld o’ harangues on heaven and hell--
I read a sermon to mysel’
Frae off the stones.
* * * * *
Vast meeting-place whaur all are mute,
For dust hath ended the dispute;
These yards are fat wi’ ither fruit
Than when the friars
Grew apples red for their wine-presses--
And stole frae ruddier dames caresses,
Else men are liars.”
It is not historical to call or think of Claverhouse himself as the
original of “Bonnie Dundee.” The city is greater than the man, for
Sir Walter Scott borrowed the hint for his refrain from an old song
which refers solely to the town. Like the phrases “William the Silent,”
“Mad Anthony Wayne,” and other names which catch the popular ear, the
whole literary line of suggestion is posthumous and anachronistic. Once
having heard a good story, “the public” is like a child who wants the
first fairy tale to be told over and over again, in exactly the same
phrase. To do otherwise offends vanity and savors of that very dreadful
“higher criticism” which is so terrible to tradition-mongers.
Wonderful improvements have taken place in the city of Dundee since I
first saw it, in the early nineties, when the place was full of things
unsavory and unsightly. But these have been cleared away, along with
some old edifices that had historic associations, such as the castle,
the mint, and the convents. All of these measures of abolition have
greatly improved the public health and the appearance of the city.
Some old-time Dundee politics were amazingly similar to the style
sufficiently fashionable in America--some time back. The local poet in
his “Wakeful Griffins” (the “Waukrife Wyverns”) pictures the reality
as the two of them, with their knotted tails, “hung ower the wa’” and
discussed municipal affairs:--
“O lang and lang I’ve lookit doon
On bonnie, dirty Dundee toon,
And see i’ council knave and clown.
But sic a crew
O’ rowdy, ranting, roaring fellows--
Sae scant o’ sense, sae sound o’ bellows--
I never knew.”
When, further, in applying the city’s motto of prudence and candor, one
of the tailed mentors proposed special chastisement of a notable public
sinner, the poet cried “Hurrah”:--
“At once there came
A whir o’ wings, a clash o’ scales,
An awesome wallopin’ o’ tails,
A flash of flame.”
Then the tower bell boomed the hour of twelve.
Seeing Dundee often and in the year before the Great War, we noted its
broad thoroughfares adorned with flowers, and so full of activity and
happy bustle by day and brilliantly lighted by electricity at night,
we made favorable comparison with the best streets of Scotland’s two
larger cities. Since Queen Victoria’s charter, bestowed in 1889,
Dundee’s chief magistrate has been designated as the “Lord Provost.”
One of the commonest expressions in Scotland for the meadow alongside
of a river is “the carse.” There are plenty of these carses in the
valley of the Tay, and at Dundee “the carse” is that one, of course,
which is near the city.
“The Carse of Gowrie” is somewhat over twenty miles long. Four
miles from the city post-office, over the carse, is the village of
Invergowrie, where we enter Perthshire. Here, in a stately home,
we spent many days. We cross a burn, which runs across the turnpike
road, and enter a village called Milnefield Feus, the water making the
dividing-line between the counties. At Invergowrie we see “the Gows of
Gowrie,” the Paddock Stane, and the quarries of Kingoodie, with the old
Dargie church, surrounded by an ancient graveyard near the shores of
the Tay River. Between the kirkyard and the railway are the “Gows” or
large boulders, famous in the prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer:--
“When the Gows of Gowrie come to land
The day of judgment is near at hand.”
Another famous rock is the Deil’s Stone, concerning which there is a
legend illustrating the activity of His Satanic Majesty. The village
of Invergowrie was originally named the Mylnefield Feus--a relic of
Scottish feudalism.
[Illustration: THE VALLEY OF THE TAY]
I noticed many odd features, common to most old Scottish towns,
especially those with markets, during my numerous rambles in the valley
of the Tay. Each had of old for its equipment, suiting the needs of
the times, the cross, with the “jougs” attached, and the “tron,”
or weighing-machine used for securing honest weight of oatmeal and
other produce brought to the market for sale. The canny Scot, like
other human beings, has that proverbial “touch of nature,” which
scale and measures serve partly to correct. There was also a penfold
for impounding stray animals. A joug, as one might guess, from the
Latin “jugum,” was an instrument for the punishment of those who were
already stiff-necked offenders. It is probably the original of our
slang word “jug,” meaning a prison. An iron collar enclosing the neck
of the criminal, which was fastened to a wall, tree, or cross, by an
iron chain, was the chief feature and implement. This piece of public
jewelry went out of use, some time after the Reformation. Often the
old town crosses, when broken, dilapidated, or removed, are rebuilt as
public ornaments or memorials of the past.
Even dragons had their lairs in Scotland, where the behavior of these
monsters seems to have been the same as that noticed in their kind
all over the world. Their appetites, for example, showed a similar
eagerness for plump maidens. The Japanese and Korean stories of these
creatures, which are conceived of as cosmic forces--an encyclopædia
of all the powers of offence and destruction with which nature has
furnished animals--intimate that their digestion was much improved by a
diet of lovely girls. Now at Kinnoul Hill, not far from Dundee, in the
face of the precipice, is a small cave popularly called “The Dragon’s
Hole.” Here in early times--dragons always lived in ancient times
only--dwelt a scaly monster, who kept the country in continual terror,
because neither fish nor cattle, nor old women, nor indigestible
males, but only tender virgins suited his alimentary canal. It was
when they were young and pretty that the damsels were particularly
desirable and digestible. Dragging them off to his den, the monster
enjoyed his meals with the leisure of a gentleman. Yet, however pure
and spiritually minded, the young women themselves could not break
the spell of the destroyer. Only holy monks had such desirable power.
One shaveling monk made a specialty of prayer and charms, and after a
terrible conflict slew the dragon--much to the relief of parents who
had charming daughters.
In another place I saw an artificial ruin, constructed about a century
ago, but now so completely overgrown with ivy that ages seemed to have
passed over it, so that one might imagine that romance must linger
in its stones. When first seeing this hoary pile, I was tempted to
unfold the pinions of fancy and imagination for a long flight; when,
suddenly, I remembered the poem by Eugene Field. He tells us, in his
mellifluous verse, how when in Amsterdam of the Netherlands, he saw
an imposing piece of furniture which fired his imagination. It was a
bedstead, of remarkably feudalistic and baronial suggestion. Field
pictured to himself the ancient castle in which that bedstead, “seat
of rapture, seat of pain,” had stood. He saw in perspective of fancy
the richly robed lords and ladies, that had sought repose upon it.
The dreams that they dreamed, in the days of falconry and cavalcades,
of tournaments and cloth of gold, must have been as brilliant as his
own. Yet, before paying the purchase price, the western poet glanced at
the back of the headboard and read the words, “Made in Grand Rapids,
Michigan.” “One touch of nature,” etc.