Outnumbered & Abroad: Greta Green (Part 18)
Gretna Green, Scotland (Monday, October 1, 2018 - Day #7) - Sleeping in late actually happened today! I have no idea if it means that tI’ve gotten use to these crazy firm mattresses here or if it’s that I have finally gotten some sort of semblance of the time change here. I am also so thankful that the mold-in-the-rooms situation has finally gone away.
The breakfast was terrible and, in a theme I am noticing outside of England/London, is the coffee was terrible. Which is such a shame because it’s International Coffee Day! Of all the days to have a good cup of Joe is today. Also, I’m a baby with my coffee. Warren Clayton thinks the black bean water is “fine.”
As we drove along towards Scotland, Randi played her “I Spy” card on a town called Gretna Green. She likened it to the Las Vegas of the United Kingdom, but the quaint cottages and the blacksmith anvils didn’t seem very much like our bright light city.
The place was bustling with Japanese tourists and, somewhere between the small gift shop and the large gift shop, Nicole and I lost the Johnson’s. Figuring they were just shopping, Nicole and I meandered around and, in the process, I learned what exactly Gretna Green was: Las Vegas!
Here’s how it works: England created a rule that said you couldn’t get married under the age of 21 unless approved by your parents. What I found most shocking was that this was in the mid-18th century. I felt like that age was quite high to be honest!
The Scottish law was much simpler: You could marry on the spot via declaration or hand fasting ceremony which required two witnesses and assurances from the couple that they were free to marry.
There exulting case was that thousands of couples fled to marry over the border at the first Scottish town; Gretna Green.
I think the best part of these thousands of elopement stories was the thought that they were almost always chased by an angry father-of-the-bride! They had to marry in haste, typically a Lord’s daughter to a “scoundrel.” This created the “Anvil Priests” who would marry the two for a small sum.
The hammering of the anvil became symbolic of wedding bells for the elopers. The romantic symbolism behind it is that, like the metals he forged, the Blacksmith would join the couple together in the heat of the moment, but bind them for eternity.
These infamous Blacksmith shops were conveniently located at the “headless Cross” of five different roads. Their man form of money was shoeing horses and fixing carriages or farm equipment.
I so wish that the gift shop had had a book with the collection of stories so I could delve deeper into what was sure to be both romantic and humorous. Some of the stories we heard about in the walkabout were:
An elderly Lord who dressed as a woman to go undetected.
A Lord’s daughter who married a scoundrel, was denounced from her family, but whose timing and hardworking, placed herself about her father/family’s/her prior standing.
A girl who was abducted and convinced to marry a pirate or robber (depending on the story) of some sort, but that the court overruled it - this was as long ago as the 1800’s.
Little Emma: A girl who so intrigued a couple at Gretna Green that they purchased her from her parents and they then raised her as their daughter. She was one of six from a very poor family and, with her new family, was raised as an Aristocrat in the highest levels of society.
I did find some awesome things in the gift shop! A bottle of Scottish Whiskey that had a golf ball on a tee inside of it - a perfect gift for the grandparents! Then, i found something for myself and I still feel guilty about this. I had long decided at this point that I am bringing gloves back into fashion! I had described the three types of gloves that I am hunting for and one of those types was in the gift store. Black leather gloves with a fur cuff.
After much consulting with myself, I got them! The brand name was Barbour and I could have definitely splurged all of my money on their products. Nicole got this amazing Russian fur like hat that I would have also got on of it if it had come in black instead of plaid or oilskin. Every time I found a jacket or item in the store, it was the same brand. Always. Whatever this Barbour brand was, it moved me. So much so that I actively started to formulate exactly what I could say in an email to the company to discuss some sort of influencer opportunity. I’m not one to do that, but I could make an exception for this brand.
When we went to leave Randi really wanted to go through the Lover’s Maze. No one else really wanted too, but I remembered something Randi had said, when we were at the house in Oregon, that she had never been and really wanted to go through a corn maze. I willingly told her I would do it as when would we ever be back?
The maze was short and fun! It didn’t take us much time at all to conquer it and Nicole with Warren Clayton by her side stood on the scaffolding overlooking it so as to watch the entertainment of us trying to solve the maze.