Dunadd 2

 25th July 2014

At Dunadd where my book is set and where I am staying just now, the Scottish Trust has mounted new plaques describing more of the history of the place. Good timing, I say - look at this one with an artist's depiction of how Dunadd might have looked in the time period I am writing about.

V

Well, it's only an artist's imagination, and my imagination didn't put a large building on the top, though everything else is pretty much the same. On the top of my 8thC Dunadd, is Sula the druidess's house, because their pagan religion was more than likely woman-centered, even though they would have allowed the men to hold positions of apparent power. This is the way matriarchal societies work, keeping it quiet who is really ordering the way things play out. DH Lawrence wrote a wonderful short essay about this called, "Cocksure men, hensure women." At the glass doors of my Dunadd cottage are five brown chickens waiting for me to scatter another handful of oats. They are all female. You can't have cockerels around holdiay cottages because they start crowing at ungodly hours of the morning. They are male and like to strut their stuff. As long as men are allowed to strutt their stuff, everything goes along smoothly and they won't question the real policy makers. That's why I put Sula the druidess in the highest poistion - she was up there looking out for her people.