Skip to main content

Wishing Everyone A Happy St Mungo's Day

It’s St Mungo’s Day and all throughout the former lands of the Kingdom of Strathclyde church bells are ringing, choirs are singing and bakers are selling the traditional Mungo cake shaped like a bird.[1] Down in the Clyde valley the sound of festivity has begun while even up in the moors the ghosts of the Covenantors can be heard wishing each other a Happy Completely Ordinary Saturday Day.

OK, St Mungo’s Day isn’t really a thing, though it should be said Glasgow Churches Together do run a fun St Mungo’s Festival in partnership Glasgow Life and the City Council. But when you name your blog the Alt Clud Review of Books it almost feels wrong not to do something on the feast day of Alt Clud’s patron saint, though what exactly "to do" is an interesting question.

St Mungo and a Teeny-Tiny Jesus

I guess this is a good opportunity to say what’s the point of my recent blog rebrand and more regular updates. Well the later point is the easiest to explain. Basically I have a number of writing projects I would like to start at some point, but like most people who’ve been trained by academia to write in a particular way, I realise I’m out of practice writing for a more general audience. And since the only way to get good at something is lots of practice, ideally with feedback, I thought an interesting experiment for 2024 would be to write a review for all books I read this year. (I’m only committing to one year since all good projects should be time limited – also I’m totally going to be flexible on the definition of “all books” so don’t expect any reviews on the HTML textbook I’m currently working through!)

Regarding why I decided to rebrand the blog – the answer is that I always felt calling my blog something along the lines of “Stephen Watt’s Blog” or “The Watt Blog” was both very boring and a bit self-centred. The whole point of writing is communication, first between author and the text on the paper, and then from the text to the reader and so I felt the blog needed a more expansive name to signify that. Originally the idea was to go for something that sounded vaguely pub themed – such as The Sleeping Unicorn – as that would create the idea of a safe, chilled space for intelligent conversation. But when I sat down to edit the blog, just after having written my first review, the idea of calling it something “Medieval Kingdom” Review of Books came upon me via some passing Muse and the idea of the Alt Clud Review of Books was born.[2]

Alt Clud (Ystrad Clud) and its neighbours back in the day

Though the interesting thing about naming things is that often they shape the direction of the thing they signify. Say to yourself at the beginning of the day that it’s going to be a good day and you’ll probably have a better day then if you woke up and said “today will be a miserable day.” Likewise refer to Saint Mungo as Saint Kentigern (his actual Brittonic name) and you will probably think of a much more stern and aristocratic individual the jolly old St Mungo as the extra syllable and harsh “K” sounds very different from the warm round sounds of Mungo. (It would be very interesting to see whether there was any difference in church style between those dedicated to St Mungo and those to St Kentigern.) Likewise if you name your blog like it’s a the literary magazine of a medieval Kingdom you probably shouldn't be surprised when suddenly you’re thinking – hey maybe I should write something because it’s St Mungo’s Day!

Anyway leaving nominative deteriminism to one side, do have a great St Mungo’s Day. Perhaps one day a folk custom of bird shaped cakes might actually arise in the Clyde Valley - I guess if 2024 is the year of the blog, perhaps 2025 might be the year for inventing new folk traditions!



[1] From the famous rhyme about St Mungo:

“There’s the tree that never grew,

There’s the bird that never flew,

There’s the fish that never swam,

There’s the bell that never rang.”

[2] Ald Clud was the early Medieval Britonnic Kingdom based in Dumbarton and whose heartlands was the Clyde Valley. While often associated with the Kingdom of Strathclyde these days scholars refer only to the kingdom as Strathclyde after 870 AD when the Britonnic Kingdom’s capital moved to Govan after Dumbarton was devastated by the Vikings.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

"Herein starts the much-promised blog by Mr Stephen J Watt MA, of origins from the Parish of Fraserburgh in the old County of Aberdeen. Universally loved for his humble wisdom and reserved persona, he has kindly deigned to come out of obscurity by allowing the publication of his thoughts on this here blog. The editors of the blog would, therefore, wish to publicly thank him for his dedication to this task, and the willingness he has shown to sacrifice his time and effort into this endeavour. Furthermore, they can only hope that this blog shall be a testament to the character of the Scottish nation and a source of inspiration for all future generations."               -Stephen Watt (Chair of The Watt Blog Committee), 2019 ... ... ... Right presumably  I've lost most potential readers with that pretentious introduction and so I can now address  you, the sole remaining reader, directly. I assume you have some questions? Actually,...

Where The Referendums Never Stop - A Review of "Why Switzerland?" by Jonathan Steinberg

Why Switzerland? by Jonathan Steinberg is a 1996 non-fiction text that aims to answer the question of why Switzerland culture and political structures are so unique compared to its European neighbours. Why did I read Why Switzerland? that’s simple – I’d always heard that Switzerland was famously decentralised and used referendums all the time, but barely knew anything about the country other than chocolate, clocks and banks so I wanted to find out more. But why Why Switzerland? in particular? That’s even easier, it was the only English language book I could find that covered the topic without being either a travelogue or a very dry political science treatise. It seems that Switzerland, if Glasgow libraries are to be believed, is a rather obscure country. But anyway, onto the review! Why Switzerland? is in many ways a very old-fashioned attempt at summarising the essence of a country in a book. Its aim is to summarise why Switzerland exists and what makes it uniquely Swiss. It does t...

Fairies and Shamans in My Scotland? – The Secret Commonwealth by Robert Kirk

The Secret Commonwealth or A Treatise Displaying the Chief Curousities among the People of Scotland as they are in Use to This Day by the Reverand Robert Kirk is a famous study on 17 th century folk beliefs where Kirk sums up many of the beliefs around faeries and the second sight prevalent amongst his parishioners in 1690s Aberfoyle. It’s a book I remember hearing about during my undergraduate at Aberdeen, but at the time the only copy was in the Heavy Demand section, and so it was only this year that I finally managed to get a hold of a copy of the Folklore Society edition edited by Stewart Sanderson from my local university library in Glasgow. Or at least, I thought that I had taken out the Folklore Society version – what I had actually taken out was the edition by ceremonial magician and occultist R J Stewart . Realising I had made a mistake I did eventually take out the Folklore Society version as well, so in a rare treat the Alt Clud Review of Books is reviewing two books for...