Once upon a time there was an old courtier and after a
lifetime fighting for the ecosystem he was known as Sir Ecosystem. He had also
been the first to win a minor skirmish for the sake of Ecosystem it had taken
place near the site of a much older battle that also reminds us of Old
Mortality, Nelson’s mistress and a founding father of the USA who died in a
duel. For winning this skirmish Sir Ecosystem was known as Wonnie.
When it became time to have a eulogy for Sir Ecosystem
there was only one choice. This man had not merely won a skirmish he had very
nearly won the war. Former King Alan stood up and he told a story not merely
about Wonnie, he told a tale about former Queen Nancy and former King Paul who
were skulking at the back not quite sure if they were welcome or not.
For film enthusiasts it was like the scene in How green
was my valley in the church.
Your sins have found you
out, and now you must pay the price of all women like you.
Alan said looking directly at Nancy, but Nancy did not
come forward.
Prayer is wasted on your
sort. You shall be cast forth into the outer darkness till you have learned
your lesson. Nancy, do you admit your sin?
But still Nancy didn’t admit any of her sins. She just
looked at King Hārūn ibn ʿImrān as if he could save her from Alan’s wrath and
the fact that everyone in the church knew precisely what her sins were, both the
older sins and the newer sins.
I did my best said Hārūn ibn ʿImrān. I tried to make
it a crime to say anything nasty about you. I tried to have trials where there would
be only one person deciding the verdict and that person would be specially
trained to give the verdict that was wanted.
Too late, said Nancy. We had him hook line and sinker,
but he got off the hook and now it has opened a whole can of worms.
It was indeed a fishy business. But you see when a tree
has its roots in sin it will form branches that are equally in sin because it
has grown out of original sin.
A bow a branch an unformed
twig of a bow a branch a twig. And of all the forgotten passwords.
It wasn’t the forming of the branch that was at the
root of Alan’s denunciation. It went further both forward from the original sin
and backwards too.
'I'll gie you a
pennyworth o' preens,
That's aye the way that love begins;
If ye'll walk with me, leddy, leddy,
It was perhaps such a tempting offer almost as
tempting as pulling the fruit from the branch formed from the tree of knowledge.
But it was precisely knowledge that Nancy was trying
to prevent even as everyone in the church knew how Nancy had herself denounced
King Alan in order to banish him into outer darkness and bar linen trousers
from his wardrobe forever more.
Everyone in the church knew how Nancy had taken her
fiery cross and gathered the clans to tell of all that Alan had done. But the
light from the fiery cross was not allowed to fall on the faces of any of the
clans and the names of each clan were as proscribed as that which had been “altogidder
abolished” in 1603.
But those in the church knew the names and knew where
they had really been when they were supposed to be somewhere else. Knowing the
names was key to seeing the frame rather than only the picture. The congregation
and the family’s being able to see the frame was the reason why former King
Alan was standing up in front of all of them.
"I'll buy you a braw
snuff box
Nine times opened, nine times locked
If ye'll gang alang wi' me m'dear, if ye'll gang alang wi' me?"
Once you go down the road of dishonesty, there is no
obvious place where you stop. This is why sometimes a mother would take her
child back to the Woolworths to apologise for it having stolen one of the sweeties.
But what Nancy had tried to do was rather worse than steeling sweeties. To bar
linen was a cruel and unusual punishment for merely being an opponent who had
to be got rid of.
But Nancy got away with it. Everyone in the church
knew what she had done to King Alan, but no one said a word. You see despite
being tempted by preens [pins], despite being tempted by braw snuff boxes,
women could never lie. It was a myth to suppose they gave into temptation or
ever told an untruth. It was not Eve. It must have been Adam.
"You can hae your silken goon
Wi' nine stripes up and nine stripes doon
For I'll never gang wi' you m'dear, I'll never gang wi' you."
But everyone in the church knew that Nancy lied. She
lied each year that next year there would be a Pole, but after a year it always
turned out that there was no Pole and instead a Hungarian. But everyone in the
church lied about this too and lied about Nancy’s honesty and virtue while
knowing what she had tried to do and knowing also what she had gone on to do.
Having gotten away with the picture framing business
without the pictures, Nancy wondered what else she could get away with.
"I'll gie you a kist o' gold
Tae comfort you when you are old
If ye'll gang alang wi' me m'dear, if ye'll gang alang wi' me?"
If there was to be no Pole, then it was necessary to
think of another future. The key to future prosperity is to obtain things that
keep their value. Stocks and shares go up and down, property prices rise and
fall, but gold is perhaps the best hedge against inflation. There is also
nothing on a lump of gold to tell you who bought it. There is nothing to stop
it being moved somewhere else.
"These are fine words you say
So mount up lad you've won the day
I'll gang alang wi' you m'dear, I'll gang alang wi' you."
Once you begin to lie, once you begin your dishonesty,
then why not go with the laddie for a kist o’gold? This is the connection
between the branch forming into a twig and the root of the sin which was the picture
framing business with out the picture that used the impossibility of the clans
lying and it being forbidden to tell who they were to prevent everyone except
those in the church from knowing what Nancy did when she was constructing
picture frames.
It was the fact that we were not allowed to talk about
what Alan did or did not do, that enabled Nancy to continue on the path of dishonesty
and everyone in the church was complicit in this, because they preferred the
chance of a Pole arriving rather than a Hungarian than telling the truth.
But this changed when it became clear that there would
never be a Pole, because the highest court of all had forbidden Poles from migrating.
Only then did the church turn on Nancy.
They'd scarcely gone a mile
Before she spied his cloven heel
"I rue I come wi' you" she says, "I rue I come wi' you."
"I'll grip ye hard and fast,
Gold won your virgin heart at last
And I'll no part wi' you m'dear, I'll never part wi' you."
She may rue it indeed that she got on a horse with the
devil, but it is an open secret that everyone in the church knows and though this
congregation has been very good at keeping secrets it now no longer wants to.
When Nancy tried to destroy Alan, we were left
guessing about who did what and when and who knew it and when. Nobody could
tell the truth because that would mean admitting that a myth was not a myth.
But now the tree of sin that has its root in this, is festering as it forms new
branches, twigs and leaves and we likewise are not allowed to tell about it. We
have only fairytales.
And as they were galloping along
The cold wind carried her mournful song
"I rue I come wi' you" she says, "I rue I come wi' you."
Rue away Nancy. It’s too late. Too many know. The eulogy was for Wonnie, but for you it will be for Lossie. Your lost jewels, your lost gold, your lost liberty, your lost Ecosystem.
