Working The Trapline — Biathlon, Boers & The Jacobite Supernatural

What a biathlon season it has been. Through Biathlon World, I’ve been able to watch a fair bit of competition. Last week, it all wrapped up with Johannes Thingnes Bø of Norway and Lisa Vittozzi of Italy claiming big crystal globes as total score champions.

Biathlon inspires me. Combining intense exertion — over a series of races in each competition and over a long season — with consistent shooting is a feat I can appreciate. I try to apply it in my own kettlebell-and-shooting workouts, which I hit about four days a week. There is no way to make the podium if you don’t shoot well. The champions ski fast and shoot fast and accurately.

It’s just a beautiful thing.

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Years ago, Lady Marilyn and I took a long walk through Chelsea to get to the National Army Museum. We’d already spent hours at the amazing Imperial War Museum, and we almost gave this a pass. I didn’t want to spend all of our time in London on military history. Well, that’s kinda not true; I would happily spend days in London exploring military history. But it wasn’t just about me. Turned out, Marilyn was down for it (cuz that’s how she rolls) and man, I’m glad we took the time. It’s an outstanding museum, and the displays on the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 were worth the price of admission all by themselves.

I recently discovered a series of National Army Museum lectures, including this very fine overview of the Boer War.

The Boer War — and the frontier history of South Africa and Rhodesia generally — has long been and remains a primary interest in these parts…

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While we’re in Africa…

Came across a shot of Osa Johnson I had never seen before. She was a wonder. Martin and Osa Johnson —  American adventurers and naturalists— traveled in the South Pacific and East Africa from the 19-teens through the 1930s, hunting and filming and leaving a remarkable record of a life well-lived. Dig that Winchester Model 1895… That’s a hard-kicker for a small woman, especially in buff caliber, almost certainly .405 Winchester.

Osa was up to it.

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John Rigby & Co. sure knows how to strum the right chords in my rifle-besotted heart. Bastards.

Rigby has a podcast. You can catch it here. Clever title.

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I am a great admirer of Paul Macdonald of Macdonald Armouries. He is a sword maker and a historian of arms, and has worked with Tom Langhorne extensively on the wonderful Fandabi Dozi YouTube Channel, which explores Highland martial culture and outdoor survival. He is a student of the historical martial arts of Scotland. He has excellent whiskers.

Macdonald has also crafted a line of authentic reproductions of the legendary Fairbairn-Sykes Commando Knife of World War II fame.

So, when Paul Macdonald says a book is excellent from start to finish and highly recommended, I take notice. When that book rides out to Fennario… well… you know I can’t leave it alone.

No time and place is more loaded with the folklore of Fennario than 18th Century Scotland. Just ask Diana Gabaldon.

 

So… Yeah.

The Jacobites and the Supernatural offers a whole new perspective on the well-known Jacobite period and also allows the reader to explore the battlefields and other sites of the period in a completely new way. Here are tales of witchcraft, spirits, psychic powers, portents, prodigies, magical talismans and potent curses. Bonnie Prince Charlie practices the healing magic of “touching” for the King’s Evil and “impresses” his good looks onto an unborn child. A queen attributes her pregnancy to a saint. Rocks split at the moment Culloden is lost. We meet angels, demons, fairies, guardian Black Dogs and other otherworldly beings. The cast of human characters includes John Graham of Claverhouse, ‘Bonnie Dundee’, said to have sold his soul to the Devil and then been killed by a silver bullet; the “Galloping Earl” of Dilston whose phantom is said to still ride through his Northumbrian estate; and the gentle Lord President Forbes, who had a vision of the slaughter at Culloden months before the Jacobite dream was extinguished on that terrible day.

As well as setting the occult beliefs in the religious, political and military contexts of the Jacobite Risings of 1689, 1715, 1719 and 1745, this book gives a site-by-site guide to all the battlefields and buildings associated with the Jacobites and the supernatural. The battles of Culloden, Sheriffmuir, Killiecrankie, Dunkeld, Glenshiel, Falkirk and Prestonpans are well represented, but there are also allegedly haunted castles and hotels, plus everything from an English vicarage (home to a Jacobite poltergeist) to a Highland loch and a Hebridean beach. Sites across Scotland and England are comprehensively described, with a full history of their ‘supernatural’ events and descriptions of on-site access and facilities.

It looks like a UK order, which is a pain, and may force me into trade with the East India Co., but I must have it, by Crom!