Three months in St Andrews!

It is hard to believe it is three months since I first arrived in Scotland on 15 September, 2011! I often walk down the street (Market street, as it is called) I walked on that day, and look for an angel who stepped out of Martyr's Church and struck a conversation with me right away! I must have looked bewildered and hopelessly lost, and certainly not attractive after the long ride and the seemingly endless walk in France's Charles de Gaulle Airport! He led me down South Street and back again along Market Street to help me find the shop that would give me a free map of St Andrews! As I walked and chatted with Mr. Harrison (sadly, I've forgotten his firt name :( ), I silently wondered if I would ever be able to get round these streets on my own!! Today, I walk (and sometimes run) along these streets which are no longer alien to me, but have become, in so short a time, familiar, like the lines on the palms of my hands.

I feel proud that my invisible footprints have intermingled with those of thousands of other students (and, MAYBE, with those of HRH Prince William and HRH, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge!) who have trudged or pranced (depending on the success of their assignments! :D) on these roads ever since the inception of the University. I have laughed (out loud), cried bitterly (I was disappointed with the result of an assignment), slid (I didn't fall!) on the thin sheet of frost that formed on the pavement (it was -1 last night), and run (to the library for printer credits) on these pavements! I am sure, if those pavements, if those streets, could talk, they would have the most amazing, most poignant, most hilarious, most ridiculous tales to tell!!!

I have learnt a lot about the rich history of this beautiful coastal town in the three months I have lived here. I would like to share it with you (I will make it brief, I promise!). To begin with, St Andrew, one of the disciples of Jesus, is the patron saint of Scotland (since the 10th century). Here's why. Legend has it that the bones (from the wrist and fingers, if I am correct) of this saint were brought to Scotland by a monk (Irish, though some say he was Greek) called St Rule. He was told in a dream to take the bones of St Andrew from Constantinople (where St Andrew was buried) to a distant place to protect them. This monk did as he was told, and set sail. En route to the distant shores, a storm blew (I now know what a storm is like; we've had two of them in the past week!) and the ship was wrecked in the Pictish settlement on the East Coast of Scotland, which came to be called St Andrews (well, it was distant enough for St Rule then)! Where those relics are today, I don't know! But this town was a pilgrim centre for centuries, because of the relics of St Andrew, and a tower, which lies among the ruins of the cathedral today, is named after St Rule! The Scottish flag bears the sign of St Andrews Cross (below), which is shaped like an X (it is called Saltire), because when St Andrew was crucified, he thought he was not worthy to die on a cross shaped like the one on which Christ was crucified!

The flag of Scotland

Cucifixion of St Andrew

St Rule's Tower

Another reason why St Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland is because on the eve of a battle, Óengus II, the King of Picts in the 9th century, prayed for divine intervention and promised that if they won the battle, he would make St Andrew the patron saint of Scotland. The next morning he saw clouds in the sky shaped like the cross of St Andrew, and with renewed faith and hope, they fought and won the battle (this is why the Scottish flag is blue with a white saltire).

There! Didn't I tell you it would be brief! Well, I hope you enjoyed your lesson in Scottish history as much as I enjoy delving into it :)!