Do you like Harry Potter? Do you love Scotland?
Then this videos for you. I m in Edinburgh.
It s where Harry Potter was invented. From the Grassmarket here you
can see the Elephant tearooms where JK Rowling would sit and write.
On the other side of these buildings is Greyfriar s Churchyard where you
can visit Tom Riddel s grave. Victoria St there is Diagonally.
Look up and you can see the original quidditch stadium
but it was a visit to the National Museum of Scotland
that made me think of a link between the Harry Potter books
and our magic kingdom. If you re interested in
the people places and events in Scottish history, then click the subscribe button
at the bottom right of the screen and ring the notification bell
to be told when I upload new videos. In the meantime, let me tell you a story.
In the summer of 2023 I have no idea how long
this YouTube thing s going to last. I was walking along Chamber St here.
I d just made a video in Edinburgh Castle with my buddy and Edinburgh tour guide Ross Leslie.
I was on my way to see the Declaration of Arbroath on display in the museum.
Let me know in the comments section if you know about the Declaration of Arbroath.
It s kind of important to the video. About here I met two guys going
in the other direction. They told me they were from
Ayrshire, that they watched the channel, and they enjoyed the videos.
Hopefully they re watching now, to see they helped inspire one.
I said I was on my way to see the Declaration, and they told me they had just been.
Then they started talking about how wonderful the experience was and how emotional they felt.
Now I m going to be honest with you. I get enthused about stuff,
but I m not really one for gushing emotion... like when your wife expects more than a firm
handshake on your anniversary. I mean control yourself Agnes.
I hid my scepticism, smiled, nodded and
reminded them that if they lived in Ayrshire I was doing my live show, Stories of Scotland in
Harbour Arts Centre on 7th October and they could get a ticket
by clicking top right, and that there was a link
in the description below for information on all my upcoming tour dates and tickets.
I think you get the point. Then I waved them a fond farewell.
I went into the museum here and climbed the stairs to see the Declaration.
OK, I took the lift So long as but 100 of us remain alive, never
am I climbing those bloody stairs again. The point is that when I looked down at
the declaration something hit me.
Here was a 700-year-old piece of parchment, etched with the ink of holy men.
Scribes who d set down the history of our nation to that time... as they told it...
How we d come to be, why our nation existed,
why it had the right to exist,
and what we would do to ensure its existence in the future.
Then, adorned with the seals of men of yore who s deeds are written in history and legend...
it survived the centuries... since the time that it passed through
the hands of Robert the Bruce..... for me to look upon it now.
I m not going to lie, I got emotional.
Pull yourself together Bruce. I sat down on one of the benches
in the display room and watched as folk filed by to take their turn.
Each in turn seemed as transfixed as I was. To camera in front of building
I tried to rationalise it. When it was written it was just a letter,
a sales pitch, you might even say a propaganda piece.
It hadn t taken on the immensity of symbolism that it carries today.
People hadn t memorised parts of it. It wasn t quoted on T-shirts.
It hadn t inspired other documents... all that happened over time.
Seven hundred years of life, history and nationhood
had changed that piece of parchment into something else.
Something more than its physical chemistry. It s almost like over seven hundred years
the people of Scotland had poured the soul of the nation into this object.
It's a horcrux! Yes, yes, yes,
I m finally getting to the Harry Potter bit... I immediately came outside the museum,
stood here
and made an Instagram and Facebook video to ask folk what would be Scotland s seven Horcruxes...
I think I should explain. Let s go for a coffee
If you watched the Harry Potter films, or read the books, then you ll know about horcruxes.
If not, then a horcrux is an object that can be used
to store part of the soul of a witch or wizard...;
in the Harry Potter books the Dark Lord Voldemort.
He Who Must Not be Named created seven horcruxes
by placing part of his soul into a variety of different objects.
It was like an insurance policy against him being killed....
Even if one horcrux was destroyed he d still have six left
so at least part of his soul would survive. The horcruxes...
objects that The Dark Lord used to store elements of his soul were...
his boyhood diary, his grandfather s ring, Salazar Slytherin s Locket,
Helga Hufflepuff s Cup, Rowena Ravenclaw s Diadem and his snake Nagini.
Now you might say: Hold on, that s only six...
but of course part of his soul was stored in himself...
goes without saying. That makes seven...
Actually he also accidentally made Harry Potter a horcrux when he killed Harry s mum,
but that s detail for...
well for folk who are more interested in Harry Potter than Scottish history.
Those folks might also want to dwell on the fact that to make a horcrux
you have to go through some traumatic event that is enough to rip the soul apart...
The point is that as I sat in the National Museum of Scotland looking at it The
Declaration of Arbroath It felt like a horcrux.
Like a thing from history that stored part of the very soul of Scotland.
So that got me thinking: What would be the seven
horcruxes of the Scottish nation? ... obviously, like He Who Must Not be Named
one of them would be the living breathing nation itself...
so that leaves six.
We ve got The Declaration of Arbroath, so that means five more.
What would they be? A standard carried
by a standard bearer in a common riding, the oldest set of bagpipes in Castle Menzies,
Lewis Chessmen, relics of St Andrew or Columba, a Norse helmet of the Guyser Yarl at Up Helly aa,
the coin used when an Aberdonian gave a tip once,
a Scottish tenner that was once accepted in an English shop.
Obviously the last one s a joke. It has to be something that actually exists.
I tell you what HAS to be a horcrux... the stone of Destiny.
Unless you re a grandmother who s protein deficiency came about because you d
never learned how to suck eggs, there s no need for me to tell you
about The Stone of Destiny... but I think that s the point.
That s what makes it our horcrux... That when I mention it everybody in
Scotland knows what I m talking about. Now I hope you re thinking of your seven,
but I m pretty sure these first two have to be in anyone s list.
But we need four more... When I made the short
video for Facebook, a comment from John MacIntyre suggested the seven should be:
The National Anthem (Flower of Scotland), The Diversity of our People,
The Scenery, The Diversity of our music, the Enterprising nature of our people,
Engineering inventions and creativity. Now that s good John, but I m guessing
you re one of those who hasn t read or watched Harry Potter.
These are laudable ideas. ...but they re not objects...
they need to be physical things.
In the case of The Dark Lord s snake it was an actual living breathing sentient being...
so in at three it has to be the Loch Ness Monster.
Nessie has got to be one of the horcruxes of Scotland.
I did think about the Unicorn, and you can let me know in the comments,
but I just think Nessie feels more like a touchstone of Scottish culture,
heritage and national imagination than our beast of heraldry does.
Who doesn t love Nessie? Three to go...
Two of them were suggestions made by contributors that I think are brilliant!
At number four it s That Traffic Cone....
The fact that when I say that traffic cone ... every Scot knows the traffic cone I m talking
about... tells you that it s a horcrux. A modern day, iconic, piss taking, undaunted,
defiant, immovable, antiestablishment, national soul containing... horcrux.
For the benefit of our international viewers, in Royal Exchange Square in the centre of Glasgow
there s a statue of the Duke of Welllington on his horse.
At some point in the past, I don t know when,
some drunk, on their way home from the pub, stuck a traffic cone on top of old Welly Boot.
Now I don t know if he was drunk driving a cherry picker home from the pub that night,
or if he was a really strong juggler doing a homer for a friend.
One way or another the cone reached the head of a life-sized statue of a man on a horse,
which itself sat atop a plinth the height of a tall man.
Somebody had gone to quite an effort to poke fun at the pomposity
of a former Tory Prime Minister.
It goes without saying that the council took it down...,
but before you know it..., it was up again. It became a battle of wits,
with the council taking the cone down every time the drunken juggler put it up there.
Over time it became clear that the determination of irreverent Glaswegians
surpassed the ingenuity of Glasgow City Council...
and there the cone permanently remains... a horcrux of Scotland.
Now don t get me wrong it s only that traffic cone.
I once saw a traffic cone on the head of the James Braidwood statue on the Royal Mile
and I was furious. There was a man who established
the world s first municipal fire service, undoubtedly saved lives and property, and
eventually gave his own live fighting a fire. Anyone that puts a traffic
cone on a statue like that wants to take a look at themselves...
but bringing down the authority of a Prime Minister a peg or two...
That seems pretty Scottish to me. Number five...
Now number five caused a bit of controversy.
You see my wife and my videographer Matt s wife both came up with the same suggestion.
One of the key horcrux related items in Harry Potter was the sword of Gryffindor
and they both suggested William Wallace s sword, famously taken on his capture and held
at Dumbarton Castle for centuries before being moved to The Wallace Monument.
But the sword of Gryffindor wasn t a horcrux. It WAS a magical heirloom,
but it was used to destroy three of the horcruxes.
Don t get me wrong, Wallace s sword is an iconic part of Scottish history
and eminently suited to a horcrux... but what really sung to me, and made me smile
was a suggestion somebody made on the wee Instagram video.
Are you ready?
The football boot worn by Archie Gemmill when he scored that goal against Holland in 1978.
Now I m really sorry, I can t remember who sent it in,
but YES, YES, YES, YES, YES! BRILLIANT!
I m not going to say any more about this. I m just going to leave you to enjoy the goal.
Now you might be like my missus Fiona,
Agnes was a made up name... or Matt s missus Jodie who think
that this is only of interest to folks of a certain age, who are home grown Scots...,
and they have to be interested in football. What?
Have you never seen Trainspotting? Were you alive in 1978 and didn t see this goal?
Even if you ve been born since you must have seen it?
Just in case I ll show you it again!
Now, that leaves one more horcrux... but because that previous option
might cause a bit of a debate, I m going to leave the last choice up to you.
What s your suggestion for the final horcrux... Maybe you d have preferred Wallace s sword for
the penultimate one. Maybe you have ideas
for a different seven all together. Let me know in the comments section below.
Remember it has to be a moveable object that chimes in the heart of every Scot
and holds just a little bit of the soul of Scotland.
This video was inspired by the Declaration of Arbroath
and there s a video with an interesting way to look at that document coming up on screen.
Watch it. The easiest way to Support the channel
is with a thumbs up, but if you have the means then please click top right to become a Patreon
member, or buy me a coffee in the description below.