Little Edgar Transcript (Scotland: A Scottish History Podcast)
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Scotland - A Scottish History Podcast
Episode 45 - Little Edgar
MICHAEL PARK: It is 1815. A ghoulish presence in a mortarboard glides among the graves.
It glances over the shoulders of the smaller figures crouched in front of headstones, scratching away at something clutched in their little hands.
The early morning mist hasn’t quite lifted as people bustle by, ignoring the figures squinting in the smirry rain, desperately trying to finish their work before they end up soaked to the skin.
This is Scotland, a podcast about history and where we made it. I’m Michael Park.
As you stop to look in on the boys of the Kirkgatehead school engaged in their familiar, if weird, activity of copying out the inscriptions of the churchyard’s gravestones as practice for their handwriting.
Everyone knows that the graves are ornate, beautifully and lovingly carved by Irvine’s finest stonemasons to give the dead of the town a fitting send off. The schoolmasters know that a lot of the inscriptions are so finely written that it’s better than buying in a load of expensive poetry books.
So there the wee boys sit, most of them probably not more than 6 or 7, copying down epitaphs.
And cut off from the group, distant both literally and figuratively, sits alone gazing at the grave which you’ve seen him at countless times before.
GRAVESTONE: “To William Crooks, captain of the ship ‘Abyss’, who perished at sea 26 November 1791 aged 22
Pray, gentle reader, drop a tear
At his untimely fate;
You like to him may dread no fear,
And dangers you await.
He that did give can take away
That life which was his own,
Either on the briny sea
Or land in frozen zone,
He here lies anchored with his fleet,
Companions not at strife,
In hopes his Saviour, Christ to meet
So reader, lead a sound life.”
MICHAEL PARK: The little American boy always looked so sad. Even though his adoptive cousin, one of the Galt boys, always took him round and looked after him he never seemed at ease. His eyes always looking elsewhere, barely speaking, invariably scribbling and if the rumours are to be believed, often crying.
They said his parents died in Virginia and he’d been adopted by a wealthy merchant who couldn’t have children. That’s where he’d picked up the Allan in his name.
They’d come to Scotland. His adoptive father John Allan was well known in Irvine, part of a large family. They hadn’t been here long before they went off to London to conduct some business down there, sending the wee boy back along with his cousin to attend the parish school in Irvine.
The one they’re about to tear down and replace with a new grammar school. He’ll go there for a wee while too.
The little boy. Always so troubled, obsessed with death and separated from the woman he relied on, from the woman he called mother.
He will eventually leave for London but while he’s in Ayrshire he immerses himself in this graveyard. He wanders around at night - you’ve seen him yourself. He didn’t understand why old McGill was out there one night, sitting watch over a freshly buried corpse.
OLD MCGILL: “Why, laddie! We dinna want the wee besom tae rise frae the grave!”
MICHAEL PARK: He said the boy’s eyes were wide with fear… and excitement. Since Old McGill was actually keeping an eye out for bodysnatchers it probably made perfect sense to the boy that he’d be out there stopping the dead coming back to life.
Little Edgar Allan, but the boy always insists on his parents name too. Edgar Allan Poe.
So unhappy. Eventually he’d be reunited with his family in London and sail back to America, but no-one lives on this coast with its rugged coastline, tales of darkness, tales of horror and violent shipwrecks, an imperceptible predisposition to the fantastical without it having some kind of affect...
EDGAR ALLAN POE: Alone, by Edgar Allan Poe
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were — I have not seen
As others saw — I could not bring
My passions from a common spring —
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow — I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone —
And all I lov'd — I lov'd alone —
Then — in my childhood — in the dawn
Of a most stormy life — was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still —
From the torrent, or the fountain —
From the red cliff of the mountain —
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold —
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by —
From the thunder, and the storm —
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a daemon in my view
CREDITS
You’ve been listening to Scotland, it was written and produced by me, Michael Park and is a production of Be Quiet Media.
This episode is dedicated to my Dad who told me that Edgar Allan Poe went to the same school as him with such a deadpan delivery that I was convinced he was lying. Sorry Dad.
Additional voices for this episode were by Chris Moriarty & Mitch Bain.
The music for every episode of Scotland is by the human substitution cipher, Mitch Bain, you can check out more of his work at mitchbain.bequiet.media
Jamie Mowat does stunning illustrations for us which you can see in our episode art. See more and buy prints at tidlin - t i d l i n - .com.
Scotland is supported by Chris Lingwood and listeners like you on Patreon. Get involved and chuck us a couple of bucks at: patreon.com/scotlandhistorypodcast
You can find out more about the show on our website, thisisscotland.co and on twitter, facebook and instagram by searching Scotland - Scottish History Podcast.
Thanks for listening, we’ll see you next time.