Editorial by Jennie
Rare books about magic, Rosslyn Chapel, and the works of Hans Christian Andersen are among the collecting features in the first print issue of Textualities, due out in May. There will also be a generous selection of previously unpublished creative work from writers ranging in age from six to sixty. More details soon.
Rosslyn Chapel used to be an oasis of solitude and contemplation when I first visited it, years before its apotheosis into tourist target number one, courtesy of Dan Brown. It always seemed a miracle that there were so few other visitors when I was there. You could tread its chilly flagstones alone, allowing the petrified ribcage of dreams to imbue your consciousness its echoing mysteries. As I wandered around the chapel, I would often think of the sealed space beneath, where ancient nobles from the St Clair family are buried – without coffins, which they considered suitable only for the lower orders.
When their vault was opened in the nineteenth century, their skeletons were discovered, clad in vestiges of red velvet and fur. Nowadays they have an unquiet grave, disturbed by constant footfalls. Quietness is a thing of the past. All day long, gouts of humanity are extruded by air-conditioned buses and, under the watchful eyes of angels, gargoyles and green men, visitors cluster around the Apprentice Pillar or stare at the ornately carved stone, in palpable expectation of spiritual revelation. The word ÔgrailÕ rises like a trail of incense to the arched roof.
The Rosslyn Chapel section of Textualites will include: a sequence of essays by Mark Oxbrow, co-author of the authoritative book, Rosslyn and the Grail; poems by Kathryn Berthelsen, from a delightful sequence about the chapel; an article by archaeobotanist Brian Moffatt (who heads the excavations of a mediaeval monastery at Soutra Hill in the Scottish Borders) identifying the stone-carved plants that so luxuriantly embellish the chapel; and a meditation by poet and plant folklorist Tess Darwin on the inspiration Roslin Glen holds for her.