The legend of the thistle becoming the national emblem of Scotland begins on a beach in North Ayshire, just before the Battle of Largs
It is reported as certain, that the King of Denmark, together with the King of Norway, with a large flotilla, has cast anchor off the further islands of Scotland, but whither they propose to turn is not yet certain, hence it is to be feared that danger is impending over these regions of which I have spoken.
Extracted from a letter of 1263, sent by R. de Neville to Walter of Merton, chancellor to Henry III
PART ONE
Herald in the kine & cattle
Nightfall flames with drinking
Men of seafjords, men of battle
Sharpen broadswords as dice rattle
Over game boards, clickle-clattle,
Hailing Haaken king!
Into the Hall from Scotland strides
Sir Gillespie Campbell
Master of his Clackmannan hides
With him Boar Dairmad’s blood abides
Who’d row’d the waters, winds & tides,
Borders to settle.
“When Alexander man became,
Whom all good Scots obey,
A lion grown from cubling tame…”
Old Haaken scoffs to hear the name
Those isles, to me, shall, all the same,
Suzerainty pay.”
The Knight looks Haaken in the eye,
Delivers what was told,
“The King of Scotland wants to buy
Mull, Jura, Lewis, Harris, Skye,
Cantyre & Arran, bountify
Thy coffers with gold.”
Once more the lord of Norway laugh’d,
“But I am rich in hoards
Now leave this land!” Sir Campbell left,
King Haaken holds his arms aloft,
Whom Odin’s halls have always lov’d,
Vikings striking swords!
“Send messengers, King Haaken seeks,
Trondheim to Finmark’s fields,
Wielders of weapons, within weeks
From Herdla-ver we’ll furrow beaks,
When, banding, under Scotland’s peaks
Flaunt pur spears & shields.”
As north, as east, the spearstorms stirr’d
The hosts of Haaken meet
More massive army none have heard
That Norway left, upon the third
July day, anchors hoist, as spurr’d
On fantastic fleet!
As vassal vessels Kirkwall reach
Authorities impos’d
The Lord of Orkney found the beach
“Ye & thine island chiefs I’ll teach
Hard lessons,” Haaken gave this speech
Just as supper clos’d…
On sliding to the open seas
Topsails fluttering free,
Main-skimming with a skillful ease,
The fleet flew on a steady breeze,
Whose long-bench’d boats, hewn from oak trees,
Glisten’d splendidly.
Ships round Cape Wrath St Lawrence Day
Scuff Asleifs-wick’s haven,
Pass Lewis of the druids’ brae,
& Rona’s fjord-like felspar bay
To Skye’s deep sound, there anchors lay
Hard by Carlinstone
Magnus of Man was waiting there,
South all row’d together,
Beyond Iona’s sacred share,
& Jura’s paps that scrape the air
To Gigha, on a day so fair
With summer’s weather
Marauders order’d north & east,
“Tarbet harry! & Bute!”
To Haaken’s court, as chiefs increas’d,
Homage was paid for lands they leas’d,
& fine-faced lasses laced the feast
With wines, meats & fruit
& all the while they sang & din’d
The Tarbet of Cantyre
Was fill’d with Norseman most unkind
Who took such fee as each could find
& every homestead left behind
Flickering with fire
As Birds of Odin westwards flew
Sable ravens soaring
The dryad Druids circlets drew
While supplicating priests renew
Deep vows, even bishops eschew
Gambling & whoring
In tide & wind do Norsemen toil
Cantyre’s shores to carry
‘Til west winds in the Straits of Moyle
Like Danaan songs around sails coil
Sends ships to Arran’s sand & soil
To land, & harry!
Dark Arran’s mountains of the sea
Sheer to the skies uprise
Where folds of foaming purity
Do charm bedrock immensity
Where, hunting with propensity,
A gold eagle flies
Bloodlust assaults Lochranza’s keep
Nothing could appease it,
Then off across the briny deep
They found the Bute men sound asleep
Their castle enter’d, creek & creep
& easily seiz’d it
The Norse king rows round Cantyre’s mull
Upon great crossing ship
Whose dragon’s head hewn from the hull
Prods Lamlash Bay, with galleys full,
& knocking back a drinking skull
Haaken wipes wine lip
& says, “yon St Molaisse’s isle
King Alexander waits
But let him suffer yet, a while,
First, Rudri, Stirling’s plains defile
Then, press’d under a pressure pile,
He’ll open his gates”
PART TWO
The King sits in Dunfermline town
Drinking his wine blood red,
In came a knight with heavy frown
“The Northmen ravage up & down
Both sides the Clyde…” wiping his crown
Alexander said…
“Send freckl’d Ballioch, in Ayr,
Writ, there, to assemble
My Alban army to his care,
Where I’ll proceed when weather fair,
To lead a force those Norse to scare,
Aye! Make them tremble!
Walter Stewart, with his brother,
Scotland’s High Steward, Sir
Alexander, shar’d fair mother,
Whom actively manufacture
Quarrels, ten per arbalester,
& scrape spears sharper.
King Alexander Ayrwards rides
Where sets the Arran sun
Each passage halt his realm provides
Accommodation, succor, guides
While gliding, hooded, by his sides
Friars Dominican
These barefoot brothers cross the Firth
For kings to bring to peace
As well befits his regal birth
Haaken assesses each word’s worth
For once refrains from regal birth
Wanting war to cease
He sends his own ambassadors,
Men like Andrew Clubfoot,
Bishop Henry of the Orkneys
& Gilbert of Hammar, “Yours is
All north of the Roman wall,
But not the isles a-butt.”
“But not the isles this side Cantyre!”
Yells Alexander, stern,
As Haaken’s embassies retire
To Lamlash, with them went a friar
Hoping with parley to inspire
God’s peace to return
As fro & to flows beseeching
The days bumbaz’d & terse
Embassies in boats were beaching
For the feastings & the fleeching
&, as days to weeks were reaching
The weather dreich’d worse.
As hinterlands heaped up the hairst
Atween the two cumbraes
Went Haaken & his dauntless host
Whose ravens soaring swords do thirst
With cloven beak & talon thrust
To gouge scottish eyes
But first, let intercessions sound
& peace, try, carousel
Of monks & knight have gather’d round
Asseverations converse drown’d
Debating status to the ground
As before befell
Came on the day when from the far
Firthside Lothian shore
Arrives the Grand Earl of Dunbar
With yarring arms about his star
King Haaken told, ‘the Scottish are
Not for peace, but war!
About the maw-gape of the Clyde
Haaken orders pillage;
Marauders slaughter’d far & wide
Strew burnt-out ruins either side
A goblet’s worth of genocide
Toasted each village
October comes, whose denizens
In awe of ocean gales
When storm clouds nest on Arran’s bens
Then madly dance along the glens
Tear mist to shreds, with lashings cleanse
Heather, thrashing flails
King Haaken lay Cumbraes among
In his ship, Kross Clinker,
‘Twas thirty seven benches long
Of plated gold, of oak built strong,
But from the west, wild weathers wrong
Gathers to sink her
Wails the wind as unforgiven
Souls in a serpent’s train
Stout-oar’d ships from moorings driven
Roaring surf, to darkness given,
Rages, rolls, & swallows heaven
Earth’s eternal bane!
In waxes terrible tempest
Terrific blows the gale
As dragging anchors dash’d & toss’d
Founder’d in fragments on the coast,
Whose frowning seamen, drowning lost
Lives in violent hail
Ten hulls packed full with victuals
Strand-casteth in the murk
By little Largs – Haaken wrestles
His fleet of sleet-hamper’d vessels
Into cohesion, then nestles
In St Colm’s safe kirk
After a mass by candlelight
For Mary vigils kept
& Jesus too, whose divine might
Thro’ Haaken kept the world aright
Who prayers spoke so soft, so light,
All who heard them wept
But sorceries were working well
Ignoring Haaken’s pleas,
Distracted by a Celtic spell
Entranced by a Franciscan bell
God spat the storm & swip’d the swell
Which fell on those seas
PART THREE
Upon Larg’s shore a warlike crew
Lands to protect their ships
Where bumman Scots, aye, not a few
Loose arrows, dripping death each flew
Back to beach’d ships the Norse withdrew
Each to sea-surf slips
King Haaken heard the stressful news
Ships vital with supply
Were stranded for Albans to use
So banded he ten warshield crews
Watches them drift in ones & twos
From larger Cumbrae
As local folk both old & young
Gather to strip the boats
One moment from the ambush sprung
Norse warriors to weapons clung
Stood on thick thistles, as them stung
Pain drain’d straining throats
King Haaken is an awkward thorn
Plung’d in Alba’s islands
To pluck it out brave men Scots born
Have heard the Earl of Mentieth’s horn
& stirr’d this day, hours to adorn
With gore & violence
Awake! Alert! Alarum rang
Amang those stood on sand
Whom, eagerly, to action sprang
Up climb the hill-ridge, line alang,
Swords whacking shields with warlike clang,
Scots together stand!
King Haaken told the beach was won
But Scots still poise too near
When, with the skirl-storm blown & gone
The skies drew clear, the starnies shone
Their swords, men order’d to sharpen
Like warriors should
As rapturing, swings dawn divine
Took, Haaken, solemn mass
When with the weather hinting fine
Leaves Cumbrae leading out a line
Of oaken ski-steeds of a brine
That smooth was, like glass
Six horn-bow’d ships the shingle grip
Lung-loud their war braves cheer’d
As alligators lick their lip
Of victuals these barks they strip
& bit-by-bit the beach’d long ships
Slowly, all, are clear’d
That morning’s grand tranquility
By Ogmund Crowdance torn
Who, with a handsome company,
Upon a hillock high could see
The Scots oncoming, urgently
Blows his warning horn
The Scottish blossom with the day
From Cunninghame & Kyle
The mightiest fighting array
Alba’d e’er gather’d for the fray
Led by Lord Stewart, on his grey
From Dundonald pile
On comes the bloody reckoning
Kings, summer all, had shied,
For isles that form a storm-thrash’d ring
Round Scotland’s rocks, toss’d in the ring
Like lots, to each, or either king
Let violence decide
When Haaken’s liegemen with him plead
”Sire, leave this safeless beach!”
The King unhappily agreed
Him rais’d with Norway’s warlike breed
Who, now, would Scottish spear & steed
Harsher lessons teach
With Scots one sling-shot from the war
Of sword-blades they’ll take stock –
Men comfier upon the moor
When night bids sleep, whose scabbards store
Sharp instruments of slaughter-gore,
If Death runs amok
Ogmund knew Aesir gods shun those
Whom force of arms divide
So orders shields in steady rows
Down to the beach, each Scotsman throws
A rock – by stone-pelt shock’d, pace slows
Down the damp hillside
Then camst the long-tress’d Scots on fast
Grimacing with power
In strength & spirit unsurpass’d
Those whom the Romans hordes bypass’d
Whose arrow, spear & stone sky-flash’d
In lethal shower
Men sank to knees, flooded the ground
With blood that left them dead
So, harder, down the slopes Norse bound
All slippery with rainfall – frown’d
Their comrades on the beach, who sound
Rout, by shouts misled,
& fled for ships, but for single
Warriors here & there-
Men whom with their brethren mingle
As, at last, they’ve reach’d the shingle
From that hillock – where, fair Fingal
Pictland once did swear
As to the strand the Scots descend
Once more the warblast howl’d
Thro’ charge & countercharge men fend
Off skaithful blows, til fatal end,
Where destiny did thread suspend
Death with scissors prowls
With fatal strife this weary fight
Wide scatter’d cruel dismay
Haaken of Stein, in armor bright
Fought hard, while flourishing with might
Perus de Curry Norse did smite,
Til thrust blades both slay
PART FOUR
As ‘neath death-beffs the lifeless fell,
Blood spairges, flush’d by spears,
With one-voice, Norse, for Odin yell
Enforcing Scotsmen up the hill
There onslaught wrought most terrible,
‘Til Lennox appears
Who, with bold horsemen drove Norse back
To that beach, at sunset
Oer which, ridge-nail’d in solid stack
Stood hardy Scots, not to attack
But guard their patch, Haaken’s wolf pack
Hardest lessons teach
As Norse surfwade, then sail away
Down slips the solemn sun
That shone upon a famous fray
Whose living fought another day
While slain, those, shall there ever stay
Whether lost or won
But those who won & those who lost
Nobody, quite, was sure –
Molaisse’s bay’s counting the cost
Of battle, fortune’s blight imposte,
Of but four ships the sea-waves wash’d
None could more endure
As Haaken hunts the heath & crags
Of Arran, for supplies
On trapping rabbits, shooting stags
They stuff’d the holds & rais’d the flags
& sail’d away in war-torn rags
As the dream there dies
While far away, sea-ravens steer
Across the waves in Ayr
King Alexander shed a tear
Those Acts of God shone deep & clear
While Scotland’s people all appear
Merry at the fair
With salutations unsurpass’d
To God’s grace Scots gave praise
United by a common past
When facing Vikings held they fast
Whom, Cantyre’s mullpoint, milling, past
Vanish’d into haze
Valkyries swatted with a swipe
The Scots can ease their breath
Whose druids sat & smoke a pipe
Whose priesthood pens with scribal type
‘King Haaken wasn’t worth the hype
Let swords peaceful sheath.’
As capernoited seawolves tack
To Kirkwall, thro’ the fog,
King Haaken barks & harkens back
To every grievance, wrong & wrack
& promising a fresh attack
Men watch’d on agog
As tempers ill-born blew & blew
Old heart beats awfa’ fast
Til with a fainting, bent askew,
Collaps’d, bed-ridden, Haaken knew
His living life full circle drew
& all of it past
He mumbles bitterness in bed
& curses Scotland’s king
By leeches daily was he bled
His throat swells up refusing bread
&, at the last, as last rites said
No seraphim sing
The very second he expir’d
A prince of Scotland born
By good Queen Margaret he was sired
Who, flush with love, a-sweat, but tired
Him Alexander named, inspir’d
By glories this dawn
The news from Kirkwall soon descends
& doubles Scotland’s joys,
The threats of wars impending ends,
Banquets, bells, games & feasts with friends
Expand as Alexander’s gens
Paints this handsome boy
King Magnus sits in Tromso town
Drinking his dove-white wine
Inheriting his father’s crown
Thro’ peace & justice wins renown
‘Lawmender,’ in an ermine gown
Jesus cross did sign
Ambassadors from Scotland came
Royal writs repeating
& there stood tall, recote the same
Offer made Haaken, who’d exclaim
He’d Alexander’s passions tame,
Quashing conceiting!
This time a peaceful treaty triall’d’
From the Day of Venus
The Sudreys all were reconciled
With Scottish law, ‘those islands wild,’
Claims Holyrood, ‘man, woman, child,
Blood blends between us
Lord Askitinus, Bergen born,
Low-bow’d departed Perth
& with him goes the Nordic thorn
That from its plot had Scotland torn
Where thistle-clips by all were worn
On God’s Scots’ green earth
Eight centuries by-drifted nigh
Since Largs name known for fame
If ever conquerors imply
Scotland be theirs, they’ll hear the sigh
Old Haaken made, tears in each eye
Sailing hame in shame.
So endeth, here, four duans worth
Of Scotland’s poetry
Whose heaven’s haven drapes the earth
Whose folk unbroken, free by birth,
Watch Vikings flight take, firth to firth,
Back, in history
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