This video is going to be very different from the other videos on this channel, the reason why? Today
I'm going for a day of living Scottish history at a unique medieval village in the Carron Valley near Denny.
At Duncarron Medieval Village, they believe that people learn history best when they can see it,
and you know what? I kind of agree with them, so today I'm going to see how much of Scotland's story
we can experience in their 'Travellers in Time Weekend'. I'm really excited about it, so if you're
interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history, then click the subscribe button
at the bottom right hand side of the screen. In the meantime, let's let them tell us a story.
Now obviously we've got to do a wee drivey bit in order to get there, so whilst we're doing that
it's probably worth pointing out that if you'd like to get the whole history of Scotland in a
stand-up comedy show, then I've got a DVD called 'A History of Scotland; the Rise of the Ginger' and
you can buy that along with two other of my theatre stand-up history shows in the shop
at www.scotlandhistorytours.co.uk/shop and there's mugs and t-shirts and stuff like
that. See you when we get there. This is Duncarron Medieval Village along the beautiful Carron Valley.
more than 5,000 wooden posts to construct a palisade, a lookout tower, long house, cabins
and workshops all built by volunteers using traditional medieval construction skills.
They've managed to acquire props used in the filming of blockbuster Hollywood
films like Robin Hood and Outlaw King, authentic replica weapons, costumes and equipment, and I'm
gonna see if we can tell the story of Scotland through the displays that they have here today.
When we arrived, we knew we were at a medieval Scottish village, because we were confronted
by two warriors screaming their battle cry 'chibs oot' (sharp weapons ready). You can imagine the trepidation, until
the ferocious barbarian in the right said his name was Liam, and he watches my videos!!
Panic over. Jings, (wow) that was a narrow escape, eh? Now we can delve into Scotland's history.
I suppose the first written history was when the Roman, Tacitus, wrote about Agricola's
invasion in the first recorded battle on Scottish soil at Mons Graupius.
These guys would have been there, and clearly had more advanced tactics and equipment.
Hold on, there's something out of place here. Roman soldiers with beards! That's better.
Although now that I've put a shadow across his face, it looks like he's in one of those porn
mags where a Roman legionary comes around to fix your washing machine, and then an orgy ensues!
The Roman's called the indigenous people Picts. Hold on, I think I saw that guy in a Pictish porn mag.
That's better, a tattoo parlour. That's what Picts are famous for. Pictae was a Roman name for
painted people. It was a disparaging term that the Romans used for those Britons that hadn't become
civilized Romans. You see, when the Romans arrived in Britannia, everyone was painted. Of
course the Romano-British people down south, had become Romanised, but this guy on the left still
runs a tattoo shop in Perth today. When the Romans left, there were influxes of other folk; Angles,
Saxons, and Vikings. Now these are nice Vikings. They're Polish Vikings. You see we tend to think
about Vikings because the Norse raided our coasts and the Danes raided English coasts. It's easy to
forget that they also went east across land to the Black Sea and attacked Constantinople,
and got involved with some Slavs along the way. That's how you got Polish Vikings.
Obviously not these guys, they're plumbers in Airdrie, but you know what I mean.
This guy, on the other hand, is a Viking maker of coin. Much later, when coins became standardised
people would cut a little slice off the edges of lots of coins and melt all the little bits down
to make new ones, and they'd strike those coins. This was called forging.
Now eventually, Vikings settled down to farming, leather making, and trading,
but as the medieval period continued, the one thing that was a constant,
was fighting. Fighting never stopped. Of course, the fashion changed somewhat over the generations,
and one job that became more and more important was that of a blacksmith.
Duncarron village is so authentic that we even had a black Smith. His name was Patrick.
Now if you're thinking, hold on, he doesn't fit in medieval Scotland, then you're right. He's American.
If you're thinking, no it's the colour I'm worried about, then you're also right. They don't know
how to spell it. Do you think you should point out that's a spelling joke, rather than a race joke? Nah
those people have switched off anyway, besides I've got bigger problems. Remember the Vikings? Well some
of them also invaded France, and now these Norsemen are Norman. Then they invaded England, subdued the
Saxons, some Saxon royalty fled north, and the children of that Saxon Queen and our Scottish King,
went back south, and long story short, the English are now Normans, and have you ever seen a trebuchet?
So the Scots, who were Celtic, but became a bit Norse and a little bit English, were then taken
over by the Norse-English, who were technically descended from a Saxon and a Celt, have now been
invaded by the English-French who are descended from the Norse. There's a baddie called Edward
Longshanks, and he's got a trebuchet. It's the actual trebuchet that Edward used in the film Outlaw King.
So Edward Longshanks is an actor? No Christopher Pine's an actor, Edward Longshanks is an evil
English overlord. Anyway a bunch of proud Scotsmen, who are heroic Celtic-French-Normans have to save
us from the evil English overlord French-Normans, who have trebuchets. We don't have trebuchets, we
do have men like Sir John de Graham, who's very good with children. William Wallace, who's got a
YouTube channel called 'East Coast Highlander, and Robert the Bruce, a valiant Scotsman, who,
might have been born in London, but trains brave Scotsman to fight and move in shilterns, so they
can defeat Edward the Second at the Battle of Bannockburn and give us a song to sing at the rugby.
For a few years, we were the top dog in the playground,
and then a third Edward came and invaded, before he got caught up in 100 Years' War. That didn't
actually last 100 years, but it did involve Joan of Arc. She was actually a bit shorter than that.
We know because we helped her out when we had a fight with the English in France over herons.
That's a story for another time. Anyway there was a Renaissance and a Reformation, and a
civil war spanning three kingdoms, and a lot of kings called James, and somebody invented guns.
During that big civil war thing, the English army started to wear red tunics, so we have English
soldiers in red uniforms, who became British soldiers in red uniforms, who defeated Highlanders
and kilts, who if they wanted to keep wearing the kilts had to join the men with the red uniforms.
We built colonies for them, and then one of those colonies
refused to pay their taxes. Remember Patrick? I knew there was something dodgy about him.
Anyway, that didn't go so well, and the tax dodgers got away with it, and then they started fighting
amongst themselves. Oh that was a messy business. They spent four years fighting against each
other, and then they've spent the last 150 years arguing about what was they were fighting about.
Either way, there were Scots fighting on both sides, and everyone thinks that they were in the right.
Meanwhile, we had more wars where we thought we were in the right,
but this time we weren't Scotland but Britain. Now if you're a pedant, don't worry, that mistake was
for convenience, the others were accidental, apart from the ones that I did to annoy you.
Oh i forgot to mention, we'd also colonised India. As a tour guide, I've always found
Indians to be the most hard-nosed and aggressive when it comes to negotiation.
I think it's because the first time they came in contact with the British,
we got curries and they got cricket, and they're still trying to recoup their losses.
Anyway it turns out that other European countries wanted colonies as well, which led to yet more
fighting, but on the plus side, somebody had invented Girl Guides and a ready supply shortbread, so
swings and roundabouts. Nevertheless, we fought two wars. It wasn't just us, the Canadians cut
wood. They're very good at cutting wood apparently. The Americans had become friendly again, and they
got involved, eventually, and of course we can't forget the Romans. Of course at home, don't tell
them Pike! (Dad's Army reference). I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it was a good day out at Duncarron village and I've
only given you a snippet to scratch the surface. If you'd like some more snippets of my history
tours, then please click the video coming up on screen now. Tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh.
Tiorridh an drasda.