National Symbols of Scotland

Hello! It's nice to be back on track with my blogging for the time being (there may be another delay this weekend when we go on our IFSA paid/planned trip to the Argyll forest).  Today was a pretty uneventful day.  I went to my seminar this morning (for my EUC class).  It was pretty interesting.  We just discussed the film that we're currently studying (Germany, Year Zero directed by Roberto Rossellini if you're interested).  The Phd student who led it was awkward again and I sat through my first Scottish class presentation.  In this class we have to do a class presentation on a selected movie clip.  The first girl went today.  It was interesting to say the least.  She didn't stand up, she didn't have an introduction, she played the PowerPoint (which had way to much text) on her computer, and she babbled.  Everyone seemed to think this was pretty standard.  At Butler, this girl would have been crucified (especially in the Communication Studies department).  Now, I figure I have 2 options for my presentation.  One,  I can go all out American style and do exactly what I want to do, how I want to do it or two, I can tone it down...way down.  My presentation isn't for another month, so I have some time to observe some other presentations and see how others do their's.

Then, I had my 2 hour lecture for LEI with Snape.  It was just as boring as I thought it would be.  People got up and left just like they did last time.  I think this is going to be the slowly diminishing class.  Probably by the time it's the last lecture there will only be a handful of people still coming to class.

Well, since I had a pretty uneventful day (My friends and I did go back to our fried pizza place for dinner tonight.  It was just as good as I remembered.)  I'm going to explain the national symbols of Scotland.  Now, before you think this is going to be really boring, let me just explain that most Scottish love one thing above everything else (kilts and rugby included); battles in which they won (hints the love for William Wallace aka Braveheart.  Not to bash the Scottish or anything, but these battles that they won back in the day are few and far between.). This means that pretty much every symbol (except for the national animal, but I'll explain that later) revolves around a Scottish victory.

So, the first symbol is the national plant of Scotland; thistle.

Here is some authentic Scottish thistle fresh off of Google.  

Here is the legend of the thistle (there isn't any actual historical evidence that this story is real, but hey it's a nice story).  The story goes that a Scottish army was asleep in a castle that was surrounded my thistle.  The Vikings were fast approaching their castle, when the army came across this field of thistle.  Since the Vikings were barefoot, they had to walk through the field of thistle to reach the castle of sleeping Scotsman.  The cries of the Vikings stepping on the thorny plant woke up the Scottish army inside the castle and they were able to prepare themselves for the attack of the coming Vikings.  Thus, they won the battle.  So, you can see why the Scottish chose thistle as their national plant.  It stands as a symbol of protection and has for over 500 years.  

Next is my favorite Scottish symbol; the unicorn.

Here is an example of a Scottish Unicorn.  You can see the Scottish flag in the background.

Now, you may be thinking "but wait, the unicorn is a fictional animal", and well you're right.  However, it is the national animal of Scotland. (This one is kind of perplexing because most national animals are ones that you can actually see within the country.)  The unicorn stands as a symbol of innocence, purity and joy (isn't that nice?).  Nobody really knows when exactly the unicorn became the national animal, but it is also featured in the UK coat of arms.

The lion is the symbol of England the Unicorn the symbol of Scotland. (I guess Northern Ireland and Whales just don't matter?)

Lastly, I'm going to talk about the flag of Scotland.

Here is a picture of the flag that I got off of Google.

It is called the Saltire also known as the cross of St. Andrew. (This comes from the Bible.  St. Andrew didn't feel worthy of dying on the same style of cross that Jesus died on, so he was crucified on a Saltire, or diagonal cross.)  The rest of the legend as to how this became the flag of Scotland involves another battle that Scotland won.  The legend goes that before the Pictish Kind Agnus II went into battle against the English (see another thing the Scottish really like are battles that they won against England), he had a dream where St. Andrew promised him a victory.  Then, the next morning the troops saw a huge Saltire in the sky.  They later won that battle.  The Saltire has been the Scottish flag (for good luck) ever since.

Ok, so I have one last tidbit of information that I find really interesting.  Now, maybe everybody already knew this but me, but I find this really interesting.  First, look at the UK flag (the Union Jack).

You can see in the background (the blue background and the kind of awkward farthest back white cross), the Saltire of Scotland.  The red X is the flag of Northern Ireland and the red cross of England.  (the red X is also kind of the flag of Whales.)  The symbol together is the unity of those four areas to make one country.

I hope everyone throughly enjoyed their explanation of Scottish symbols (I at least find them interesting).  Tomorrow I have 1 class and 1 seminar. (But at least this time I won't have to search for the rooms.  I feel like such a pro.)