Hiya, I'm Bruce Fummey. The Patron Saint of Scotland, seems obvious doesn't it? The Saltire's a St Andrew's Cross, we celebrate St Andrew's Day, around the world Scots meet in St Andrew's Societies, but what if I were to tell you that when
Robert the Bruce went to battle at Bannockburn, he had the name of another Patron Saint on his mind, on his lips, and his relics to the fore. I'll be honest, this episode goes far enough back, that the character and some of the information is difficult to tie down, but if I were to say
that St Andrew didn't become the Patron Saint of Scotland until after the Battle
of Bannockburn, in fact, until another date of significance to Scots in 1320. If I were to
tell you that the use of his flag didn't become officially accepted until a Parliament later
even than that in 1383. If I were to tell you that St Andrew's Day is actually an American
invention created by the world's first ever St Andrew's Society of Scots in South Carolina
in 1729. Would these things surprise you? Of course the cult of St Andrew was strong
in Scotland way before that. Seals had been made with his cross. His cross had been significant since its miraculous appearance in the sky before the Battle of Athelstaneford. Margaret Canmore, St Margaret, Queen Margaret had organised the Queen's Ferry to ship folk taking the pilgrimage
from Lothian to Fife to visit the relics of St Andrew, but the choice of Patron Saint
wasn't a done deal, and there was another candidate. If you're interested in the people, places
and events in Scottish history, then click the subscribe button at the bottom right and ring the notification bell to find out when I publish new videos. In the meantime, let me tell you the story of the original Patron Saint of Scotland. One of the churches in the next village
to me in Perthshire, is named after him, so is one in Comrie and one in Callander. The town of South Kessock, North Kessock and a bridge in the Highlands, this boy got aboot (around), but he's best known here on the banks of
Loch Lomond. Now we can't be 100 per cent certain about his date of birth, but we think 460 A.D. Like
many early Scottish Saints and Missionaries he came across the Irish Sea. Actually I made a video about the better known Irish Missionary to the Picts St Columba, and obviously there's going to be a link at the end to that video. It's crucial to understanding Scotland's history. Like St Columba, this Saint came from the Emerald Isle. Like St Columba, he was the child of a royal family, in fact one of the earliest stories that we have about him was as a child of the royal house at Cashel in Munster. Now neighbouring royal families were visiting the Munsters, no and whilst the parents were doing the royal pageantry and negotiating or whatever the stuff that they do, the young Princes went off to play. Now I don't picture a medieval Sir Lancelot Court of Norman fables. In 6th
Century Celtic Ireland, I'm picturing a much more like a wedding where the adults are lubricating social cogs with uisge (whiskey) of the beatha variety. A round face bloke called Davie Cormack is in the corner playing his accordion, surrounded by his band members. There's hoochin, there's teuchin (drinking) and there are wee boys in wee kilts that have lost the formality of their wee jackets and
wee elasticated bow ties, and they're chasing wee girls in satin dresses and sliding across
the dance floor in as many permutations as possible. That was just a test to see if you were
Scottish. If that brings back memories then you passed. If you were the wee boy whose kilt was swirling then you passed with flying colours. Anyway the dance floor must have been near a river or a lochen (small loch) or something like that because there was an accident, and several of the wee Princes drowned. The music stopped with a bone juddering jolt! Accusations fly, safety, security, hospitality,
personal responsibility, clan loyalty, and a return to camp for weapons drawn. As the night dawns its dark cloak of ill omen, the wee Munster Prince takes the lead, and he spends the small
hours in prayer for his little companions, and the next morning they wake like
Lazarus returned. It's a miracle, a miracle to be stored in the memory and oral
tradition til many years and generations later when it'll be perfectly recalled as if it were
yesterday by folks who swear that they were there, but that's all in the future. In the meantime at
school Kessog's Careers Advisor says, 'Have you ever thought of becoming a miracle-working Monk? You seem to have the attributes'. Now the pay and conditions don't quite match that of royalty, but once you're trained up, there are always looking for missionaries, and you'll never be short of
work, oh and there's travel opportunities as well. Guided by St Patrick himself, he headed off to a monastery and then his travels brought him here to Loch Lomond, but I don't want you to think of the tourist trap of today, I want you to think of Loch Lomond at the cusp of the 5th and 6th Century. If you watch my video, 'How Scotland got its Borders', there should be a white tab up there that you can come back to, to click, if you watch that you'll see that this is smack bang on the border between three peoples who were regularly at war with each other. This was like passing your banking exams and being told you're being sent to manage the branch in Baghdad, Mogadishu, Kandahar or Michigan. Choose the city that's got a civil war going on at the time that you're watching. The Picts held pretty much everything from the other side of the loch to the east. Here you're on the edge of
Argyll and the territory of the Scots, and just south of us is Dumbarton, Dun na Bhreatan, the fort of the Britons. St Kessog built his monastery on this island
on Loch Lomond now called Inchtavannach, the Island of the Monk. He founded a church here in 510 A.D. That was before St Columba was born Now this is the modern church of St Kessog.
There's an effigy of our Saint inside. Now the Scots of Dalriada may have been Christian at the time that we're talking about, but that wouldn't necessarily have been the case for their Pictish or British neighbours. The churches, bridges, and place names that I mentioned earlier, show that from this base he travelled far and wide, indeed he must have ministered to the Picts before Columba. He must have made pagan enemies as well as friends though, and he was apparently murdered by pagans on the shore by his island down there in March 520 A.D., but in some ways that's where his
story begins. They say that around the site of St Kessog's burial grew verdant flowers, and of course in the Gaelic tongue, a flower is lus, and that's how this picturesque village on the banks of Loch Lomond got its name. Now when Robert the Bruce fled west after the Battle of Methven, he attributed his survival to get to, then across this loch and out to the Hebrides, to the grace of two Saints in particular, St Fillan, who'd a shrine and a cult over at Loch Earn, and of course our St Kessog, who helped what's left of his band to survive when he crossed over here. So in June 1314, a King facing overwhelming numbers, men, equipment and mounted cavalry in what should be a one-sided battle that's not in his favour, a king who's been excommunicated by the Church of Rome and is looking to bring
together a disparate nation with differing languages and cultures, it's not entirely
surprising that he should choose a Saint from the crossing point of the three kingdoms that formed Scotland here, not from the Roman Church, but the original Celtic Church, in which the nation was rooted. A Saint, who at this King's lowest point had taken care of him and seen him safe to the other side. Maybe that's why at Bannockburn the cry was for St Kessog, whose relics were
held aloft, who truly has a claim to be the first Patron Saint of Scotland, but don't leave it at
that click this link to find out about St Columba, the Monk who made Scotland. Tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.
