The Seventh Tapestry: Arthur's Seat

Even as I work on plotting and character sketches (without writing a single scene!), starting this new story, The Seventh Tapestry, is fun.

Today you'll find some possible scenes around Edinburgh that just might appear in my new story.

First, my intrepid heroine, Sandra Robertson, art appraiser/curator transplanted from San Francisco to Edinburgh, loves to hike. So wouldn't she follow that slow, steep walkway up Arthur's Seat just past Holyrood Abbey?

Arthur's Seat (Image Wikipedia)

In 2009, as part of researching Standing Stones, Allen and I spent a month in Edinburgh. How we loved the view from the stop of Arthur's Seat, looking back over Edinburgh. Arthur's Seat, a very popular site for hiking and rock climbing, was rumored to be the site of King Arthur's Camelot or perhaps that place where a dragon once landed for a nap and never woke up.

View from Arthur's Seat (Camp 2009)

Would Sandra (as we did) meander the afternoon away, sidestepping those who climb the sometimes treacherous rocks of what was once, millions of years ago, a volcano. Would she discover the ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel?

Ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel (Camp 2009)

Perhaps she would follow the trail down the back side of Arthur's Seat, to a small lake, complete with geese.

Path down from Arthur's Seat (Camp 2009)

Scottish Geese at Arthur's Seat (Camp 2009)

The Seventh Tapestry jumps ahead to the 21st Century, so these photos I took visiting Scotland nearly ten years ago, inspire me to think about the neighborhoods we visited and what Sandra Robertson might see and do where we once walked.

In the next few blog posts, you'll find other neighborhoods we explored, including Holyrood Palace/Abbey, Lawnmarket, and New Town. If you've visited Edinburgh, what was your favorite place and why?

Read more about Arthur's Seat at The Scotsman (Seven Facts . . . )

The unicorn . . .

A maiden waits in leafy bower
in quiet repose, bound in terror,
long hours gone, her forehead gleams
white, her eyelids droop in dreams
asleep, her hand falls open.
The unicorn, of jeweled eye and jeweled horn,
approaches slowly. With bated breath,
hunters watch the maiden sleep, a little death.
Is she virgin, the hunter hisses. The unicorn
will know: Its nostrils flare,
he dips his head, once, twice he circles lady fair,
then settles down beside her thighs,
thus ensorceled to amazed cries.
As hunters rush the sacred circle,
the maiden wakes to dreams banished;
the unicorn's white, white flesh vanished.



Yesterday we visited the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the current residence of the Queen here in Edinburgh, and its exquisite abbey. As we walked into the central courtyard, a majestic fountain greeted us, embellished with mythical animals, a lion, griffin, deer, and a unicorn. This castle and accompanying abbey date from the 12th Century. The lion and the unicorn, their past history together uncertain, are paired everywhere, well washed with gold and glitter.

I've long been a fan of Tracy Chevalier's The Lady and the Unicorn, but her book leaves the relationship of the lion and the unicorn unsolved. Once we went to England, we saw the lion and the unicorn everywhere as symbols of royal power. I learned last night that Stirling Castle (just north of Glasgow) has a team of master weavers working on the Hunt of the Unicorn, a set of tapestries, perhaps inspired by the famed 14th Century tapestries currently at the Musee de Moyen Ages, or Cluny, in Paris, the Lady and the Unicorn. Legend suggests these tapestries once were at Stirling Castle. I hope we can go there before our last three weeks in Scotland end.