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.
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| 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!
“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.
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