The Fortingall Yew
We arrived in Fortingall late on a dreich afternoon, lights already on.
What a handsome place this Perthshire village is! Its arts-and-crafts thatched cottages look more like a chocolate-box English village than the more usual grey boxes of Scotland, setting their faces against the weather.
The church site is old. Monks from Iona preached here in Pictish times. The reason this site was chosen for a church seems obvious. The surrounding area of Glen Lyon is rich in prehistoric remains, with Fortingall the focal point, its ancient yew tree a likely fetish object for the old time pagan religion. And the early Christians liked to repurpose existing sacred sites - it made the adoption of the new religion much easier.
A stone in the path leading to the yew says 'imagine those who have passed this way before'. The yew tree is estimated to be 5,000 years old and the oldest living thing in Europe. That is a lot of imagining! Landlords and industrialists, clansmen, knights and ladies, Gaels, missionaries, Picts, Romans, metal workers, farmers...
Inside the yew:
There is a legend about Fortingall - it would be a shame for such an ancient place not to have one. Fortingall, so the locals say - other localities dispute this - was birthplace of Pontius Pilate, the Imperial Roman governor who condemned Jesus Christ to death. If the legend is true, he may be the first named Scotsman to travel abroad to find his fortune - but he certainly was not the last.
What a handsome place this Perthshire village is! Its arts-and-crafts thatched cottages look more like a chocolate-box English village than the more usual grey boxes of Scotland, setting their faces against the weather.
The church site is old. Monks from Iona preached here in Pictish times. The reason this site was chosen for a church seems obvious. The surrounding area of Glen Lyon is rich in prehistoric remains, with Fortingall the focal point, its ancient yew tree a likely fetish object for the old time pagan religion. And the early Christians liked to repurpose existing sacred sites - it made the adoption of the new religion much easier.
A stone in the path leading to the yew says 'imagine those who have passed this way before'. The yew tree is estimated to be 5,000 years old and the oldest living thing in Europe. That is a lot of imagining! Landlords and industrialists, clansmen, knights and ladies, Gaels, missionaries, Picts, Romans, metal workers, farmers...
Inside the yew:
There is a legend about Fortingall - it would be a shame for such an ancient place not to have one. Fortingall, so the locals say - other localities dispute this - was birthplace of Pontius Pilate, the Imperial Roman governor who condemned Jesus Christ to death. If the legend is true, he may be the first named Scotsman to travel abroad to find his fortune - but he certainly was not the last.
Comments
Many of our best loved examples today started out as someone's vision with the look of the place faithfully adhered to down the generations. It wouldn't take much, in money and commitment, to add a few more.