The Falls of Dochart

Monty Python’s Michael Palin is featured in the book, discussing the Falls of Dochart in Killin. Killin is the ancestral home to Clan Macnab, with many of the clan’s chiefs buried on the island situated in the falls – Innis Bhuidhe.

You can read Palin’s piece below, and for more information on the burial island you can read my report from the Macnab chief’s memorial which was held in 2013.

Michael Palin

It’s hard to know where to begin. Scotland is so richly endowed with great landscapes, breathtaking views and fine cities that picking out a favourite place seems unfair to all the others. But if I had to narrow my focus and forget the Forth-Clyde canal walk in Glasgow, the Bruichladdich Distillery on Islay and the King’s House Hotel in Glencoe, I’d settle for the Falls of Dochart in Killin. They’re dramatic without being fierce and the way the water twists and tumbles over the rocks is pleasing rather than awesome. They’re accessible too. You can get close to them. Thrilling for a child, I should think, and not intimidating to an oldie like me. I’d call them the friendly falls.

So much of what is beautiful about Scotland has water at the heart of it, whether it’s the rivers and streams, or the lochs and Sounds and Firths into which they flow. One of the great delights of a visit to the Falls of Dochart is their location. From whichever direction you approach the landscape is magnificent. From the west the valley of the Dochart leads you towards the Falls, with Ben More the sentinel to the south, rising over 1,100 metres. Coming at them from the east the road runs, for 14 glorious miles, beside the silver finger of Loch Tay with the dark flanks of the Ben Lawers range rising over 1,200 metres on the far side. Powerful, mysterious, hugely impressive highland scenery.

I think though that a favourite place has to be something more than just an aesthetic choice. There have to be personal elements. And so there are with me and the Falls of Dochart. In my mid-teens I’d met a girl on holiday in Suffolk, and we’d got on very well and the next year we’d met up again by the chilly grey North Sea and our holiday romance blossomed again. The year after that she wasn’t there and I was, for a while, very sad, as I never expected to see her again. Two years later, through the letter-box, came one of those significant communications that can change the course of a lifetime, like unexpectedly good exam results or a successful job application. In my case it was a postcard with a picture of the Falls of Dochart on the front.

On the back was a message from the girl I’d never expected to see again. She was on holiday up in the Highlands and had heard via a friend that I had got into Oxford University. This was followed by some snide reference to the fact that they must have lowered their standards, which, as humour had always been at the heart of our relationship, I found deeply reassuring. 
Reunited by the Falls of Dochart, we later met up and the holiday romance has developed into a 46-
year marriage.

Was it predestination or just plain good fortune that led me to another relationship that was to shape my life, and which was to bring me to see the Falls of Dochart for myself? Whilst at Oxford I met and started to write with a Welshman from Esher in Surrey called Terry Jones. A few years later, by way of The Frost Report and Do Not Adjust Your Set, he and I teamed up with three fellow writers and performers from Cambridge, called Idle, Cleese and Chapman. Joined by an American animator named Gilliam, we became Monty Python’s Flying Circus. After a few years of television we wrote and produced our first film, Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Among many other things it featured a killer rabbit that lived in the terrifying Cave of Caerbannog.

The film was almost entirely shot in Scotland and the home of the killer rabbit was on the hillside overlooking Loch Tay. Which is how, on 6 May 1974, on an afternoon free of filming, I first saw the Falls Of Dochart for myself. I was with John Cleese and we sat on the rocks with the water spilling around us and talked about the future of Python and John’s urge to be free of his obligations to the group. When the time came to go, my hired car wouldn’t start and John helped me push it up the hill to Killin’s only garage.

In 2005, Terry Jones and myself returned to Scotland to film a short video of our search for the Holy Grail locations which was to be included in a new DVD release. By now, just over 30 years after John had expressed his frustrations with the group, the Holy Grail had been a huge international success and transformed the outlook for 
Python. We had stayed together, on and off, for two more films, the 
Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life.

Before Terry and I went on our quest to rediscover the location of the Cave of Caerbannog I insisted that we stop at the Falls. I stepped carefully out onto a rock in the middle of the river, sat down, took my shoes off and dangled my feet in the cool fast-flowing waters of the Dochart. I thought about my life and how this place had come to mean so much to me.

Seven years has gone by since then. John Cleese has just got 
married, for the fourth time, Terry Jones and I are meeting for a drink tomorrow and my wife has just rung to check on our three-year -old grandson who has come down with what he calls chicken 
pops. And a few hundred miles north the river will be bubbling and swirling down the Falls of 
Dochart.

© Michael Palin from My Favourite Place, which is being distributed throughout Scotland as part of Book Week Scotland

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Monty Python have a lot to thank the Vikings for according to the Danish Ambassador

For over two centuries, Vikings colonised, traded and raided their way through much of Britain before disappearing form the pages of history completely. That’s not to say they didn’t leave behind a legacy that’s still able to be seen and heard to this day. Over one thousand years since the raiders from the north landed on these shores, place names still ring with the sounds of Norse, and archaeological artifacts left behind are still being found.  Now sarcasm, understatement and irony can apparently be traced back to the Viking era too.

Earlier this month the story below which originally appeared in The Telegraph reported on comments by the Danish Ambassador to the UK, who said the similar sense of humour between the two countries originates from shared cultural heritage. Read on…

It may be the bedrock of British humour, but sarcasm was actually brought to the UK by the Vikings says the Danish Ambassador.

The British use of understatement and satire is thought to originate from the Vikings, typically noted for raping and pillaging throughout history, when they brought trade from across the world to British shores.

This led to exchanges with Britons, and the Vikings influencing them with the words and expressions they used. These eventually became part of everyday language, seen in some of the words and place names we use today, and ultimately in our caustic sense of humour.

Sarcasm, irony and understatement are part of the “common heritage” between Denmark and the UK says Claus Grube. He also claims there are traces in comic tales used in the later Old Norse sagas, such as Orkneyinga Saga where an Earl goes out disguised as a fisherman, to help a farmer.

These sagas, largely from the thirteenth century and known for their “laconic humour, detail examples of comedy in the face of adversity, and also contain the roots of some Danish and English words showing more similarities in how we communicate.

Sarcasm is very much inherent in British humour,” Mr Grube told the Telegraph.

He cites contemporary episodes, particularly the “extreme popularity” of Monty Python in Denmark as an example of the shared sense of comedy between the two countries which he says shows evidence of a common cultural heritage.

“It has always struck me that in the UK we have the same sense of humour as in Denmark,” he added.

“We use sarcasm and irony, and we also like understatement.

“I think this forms part of our common heritage, stemming from the Vikings and some of the legacy they have left.

“I think this legacy forms part of the way we express ourselves and the way we interact and the way you use language.”

Mr Grube cites a typical British use of sarcasm, describing something as “it could have been worse”, as humour particular to both countries that he believes could stem from expressions brought to the UK from the Vikings.

“It was not all about raping and pillaging, the Vikings were trading as well,” said Mr Grube, who has been in the UK for six months but said he has been struck by the similarities in British and Danish comedy.

“You have a more open attitude to the world around you if you are living from trade.”

Mr Grube said trading led to exchanges with the Vikings and the inheriting of expressions and body language, which influence comedy today.

He added: “Humour is actually an important part of the way you express yourself.

“The use of sarcasm and irony is quite distinct from other countries. For example if you use that in France and Germany it will often be taken literally, and the humour lost.”

Mr Grube said this difference adds to his belief that humour in the UK and Denmark dates back to our shared history.

He also cites Dane Law as an influence on words in Britain. He added: “Words were inherited, especially in the geographical sense under what you would call Dane Law. But it’s not only geography, this introduced a legal system as well.”

Dr Matthew Townsend, an expert in Old Norse from the University of York, said examples of influences on English humour can be seen from a range of periods in history, including in Old Norse sagas which were largely written in the thirteenth century – three centuries after the Viking settlement of England.

He said: “Anglo-Saxon texts also show a fondness for terse understatement, often of a humorous kind: so, for example, the poem Beowulf declares of the haunted mere where Grendel and his mother live, ‘that is not a pleasant place!’

“So one would be hard pressed to demonstrate that such understatement is a Viking import to England, rather than a common tradition.

“But it’s certainly true that the Old Norse sagas offer abundant examples of laconic humour, often in the face of adversity. My favourite comes in Grettir’s Saga : the hero’s brother, Atli, is stabbed fatally through the stomach, whereupon his dying words are (more or less) ‘I see that broad spears are in fashion this year’.”

Ivar Berg, a postdoctoral fellow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said while there were close interactions between Scandanavians and the English, he did not believe the Ambassador’s statement. He said: “There are parallels, of course – sarcasm and understatements are well known and highly regarded also in Scandinavia, but to pinpoint a direction of influence seems futile.”

Dr Ragnhild Ljosland, a lecturer in Nordic Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands, said rather than one source, it was likely English humour had been subject to a range of influences over the last 1,000 years. Dr Ljosland said: “I believe that the English have developed and refined their sense of humour through the ages and that it draws on a range of sources of cultural contact, as well as being their own, of course.

“Personally, as a Scandinavian living in the UK, I find the English understated and sarcastic sense of humour hard to understand. It often completely passes me by.”

In the chapter ‘Poetry and fishing’ in Orkneyinga saga, humour is used to describe how an Earl manages to hide his identity from villagers by pretending to be a fisherman. The Earl, dressed in a cowl, goes fishing with a farmer and gives all his haul away, before climbing a slope where “his feet shot from under him where the rain had made it slippery and he tumbled down to the bottom of the slope.”

The passage is followed by a comic verse recited by the Earl, where he reveals his identity:

“Wittily the woman
mocks my wear
but she laughs overlong,
and may not laugh last.
Early I sailed out,
eagerly, and all fully
furnished for fishing
Who’d figure me for an earl?”

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Inveraray Castle – Downton Abbey

Inveraray Castle – Downton Abbey

Featured in the nail-biting finale to the third season of Downton Abbey, the stunning Inveraray Castle in Argyll has also been home to Clan Campbell since the 17th Century. In the episode the Grantham family and staff travel north to the home of their cousins, the Marquess and Marchioness of Flintshire in their mythical Scottish home, ‘Duneagle Castle’. The Inveraray Estate boasts 16 acres of highland charm including formal gardens and woodland walks that attract thousands of visitors each year. The castle has also seen its fair share of Downton-inspired storylines over the years – it was inhabited by the eccentric 10th Duke of Argyll in the 1920s, and was home to the rather promiscuous Margaret Campbell during the 1960s.

Castle Stalker – Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Highlander: Endgame

Castle Stalker - Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Highlander: Endgame

This wee gem of a castle located in Argyll is most well-known from the final scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Castle Stalker is known in the film as “The Castle of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh”, where John Cleese taunts Arthur from its battlements before launching an attack. It also appeared briefly in the film Highlander: Endgame. Castle Stalker was built as a small fort by Clan MacDougall around 1320, with it’s present form dating from around 1440. Stalker is said to have been lost by the MacDougalls to Clan Campbell in a drunken bet in 1620, with the castle changing hands between the two clans until 1820 when Clan Campbell abandoned the castle for good when it lost its roof. You can view the Python scene in all its glory by clicking here.

Glenfinnan Viaduct – Harry Potter Series

Glenfinnan Viaduct – Harry Potter Series

Perhaps one of the most magical landscapes featured in the Harry Potter series, the Glenfinnan Railway Viaduct is passed over by Harry and his pals en route to Hogwarts at the beginning of each school year/film. The 21-arch single track viaduct was one of the largest concrete engineering feats undertaken when construction began in 1897. Today the route acts as a part of the West Highland tourist trail, with the steam engine operating along the line called ‘The Jacobite’. The engine had a starring role in the Harry Potter films, playing the role of the Hogwart’s Express, which you can view here.

Rosslyn Chapel – The Da Vinci Code

Rosslyn Chapel - The Da Vinci Code

Rosslyn Chapel was founded as a Catholic church by William Sinclair, 1st Earl of Caithness of the Sinclair Family in the mid-15th Century. According to some accounts, the descendents of Jesus Christ and members of the Knights Templar existed within the Sinclair family. Dan Brown used this theory in his 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code, with the chapel being used as a location in the film version which was released three years later. Despite being dismissed by historians and the Catholic Church, the novel has sold over 80 million copies worldwide.

City of Edinburgh – The Illusionist

City of Edinburgh - The Illusionist

This hand-drawn animated French film is perhaps one of the most beautiful filmic depictions of Edinburgh, and one of the reasons I fell head over heels for this magnificent city. The film brings to life locations such as Arthur’s Seat, Princes Street, Jenners Department Store, The Cameo Theatre, Waverley Station and the glorious cobbled streets, presenting them as they were in the late 1950s. Jonathan Meville of The Scotsman wrote: “Edinburgh’s skyline has never looked so good, and if the city didn’t exist it would be hard to believe somewhere so beautiful was real: if locals aren’t inspired to take a walk up North Bridge or down Victoria Street after this, they never will be. You can view a clip featuring Edinburgh as depicted in the film here.

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