Assemblage at Dandaleith / by Alex Williamson

At Dandaleith one takes

And climbs up the back of

A history which, alas, is lost to us

 

         Where a fragment of a church

Is visible

With fishings on the Spey

And other pertinents

Leased, with consent

Small teinds and vicarages

[Regality of Spynie]

Then dwelling and pitifully plundered

A good mile west

 

This is a castle

I can learn nothing whatever about

And yet

The lady of the castle died

The letting of the blood awoke

Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk

[The dell of the monks]

Below which, by the railway,

This old chapel was carried away

By the Spey

To those who make a study of stone circles

 

A vicarage depending

It is said, on the parson

B.R.I.C.I.U.S

[The first of our Bishops]

Mother of

Sister of

[Eleven times they intermarried]

Two hundred Douglases

Feued by a James Ogilvy

For the support of the poor

And a Sang School

 

From the Kirdals one has a lovely run

But for the scenery

One sees the last vestige

A roughish road

Worth traversing

Not so very long ago

 

 

Cut up poem taken from Chapter XVI of HB Mackintosh’s ‘The Pilgrimages of Moray’. From my project Pilgrimages.