Ancient Lothian: Historic Edinburgh and South-East Scotland

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Our stories make up our histories, and sometimes quite literally so. After all, the word "story" comes from an older meaning of historia itself — which later gives us "hi-story" per se (just so's to thicken the plot). But realising this, we might well wonder what the real difference between "fact" and "fiction" really is, especially when it comes to the past. And the further back in time we go, the more the edges blur. The laugh of it all is, though, that what historians quite traditionally dismiss as mere "folklore" sometimes turns out to be better history than the "histories" themselves. Of course, our oldest hi-story-tellers would find all of this an amusing twist in the tale, but perfectly human at that in its flaws. So you never can tell (perhaps the proof's in the telling), but in this section, you'll find "stories" of many kinds, including the highest "hi-stories" and other tall tales. Tales told in and around and about Lothiana and her illustrious children, often by them, and on all sorts of things — so let our pageant of pages begin...

The Oldest Sources
Geographia: excerpts, Ptolemy (c. 150)
The Book of Aneirin, Aneirin (c.600+)
The Ravenna Cosmography: excerpts, Anon. (c. 700)
Gorohoffet, Gwalchmei ap Meilyr (C12th)
Lothian Lore
The Prophecie of Thomas Rymour, Thomas of Erceldoune (C13th+)
Thomas the Rhymer, Anon. & Walter Scott (Trad. & Romantic)
Saints of Lothian
The Life of Saint Cuthbert, Bede (C8th)
The Life of Saint Kentigern, Jocelyn of Furness (c.1180)
Songs of Saint Kentigern, Anon. (c.1300)
The Old North Context
The Life of Saint Serf, Anon. (?C12th)
The Life of Saint Ninian, Ailred of Rievaulx (C12th)
The Life of Saint Gildas, Caradoc of Llancarfan (C12th)
The Laws Among Britons and Scots, Anon. (?C12th)
Religions Old and New
Dæmonologie, James VI (1597)
The Political Stage
Essay Against the Nobility, Mary, Queen of Scots (?1566+)
Account of a Conversation, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (1704)
United & Separate Parliaments, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (1706)
The Poetic Muse
Select Poems, Mary Queen of Scots (C16th)
Select Poems, James VI (C16th)
A Short Treatise on Poetry, James VI (1584)
Local Antiquarian Heroes
Vestiges of the Roman Wall, Robert Sibbald (1699)
Account of the Parish of Uphall, David Steuart Erskine (1781)
The Cat-Stane, Edinburghshire, James Young Simpson (1862)
From Nature to Science
The Gard'ners Kalendar, John Reid (1683)
Hand-Made in West Lothian, Scotland