#Mull

[zhalfirin-binds]

Backing a book with mull

While pretty much any cloth supports the spine area of a binding the starched mull often used by bookbinders has a few specialties.

Unlike pretty much EVERY other material the mull is used with the warp thread across the spine, not parallel to it!

This is to further increase the stability of the spine construction and also helps with the book opening nicely. There are different qualities to be found with the open weave mull I use. The simplest one is: 1 warp | 1 weave thread the next stronger one: 2 warp | 1 weave thread and the strongest one (afaik) 3 warp | 1 weave thread

This allows the mull to be torn to size easily along the weave thread.

Now when I have mull all along the spine it can happen to 'peek' out under the endpapers after casing in and pasting down. To avoid that I cut the ends at a slight angle. It's really not much but that will hide the edges of the mull and give a clean look all around the endpapers.

[dansnaturepictures]

On St. Andrew’s Day, looking back on some amazing memories from the Scotland trip we went on in April; Lapwing at Lochindorb, view at Loch Eil, Slavonian Grebe at Loch Ruthven, view at Lossiemouth, Osprey, Otters on Mull, scurvygrass at Burghead, Dipper, Wheatear on Mull, view on Mull, view at Troup Head and Red Grouse at Lochindorb.

[dk-thrive]

The cud of thinking: by the evening my jaw aches.

— Vera Pavlova, "Heaven Is Not Verbose: A Notebook." Translated by Steven Seymour. (via Poetry Foundation)

[quordleona03]

flower glass

[digitalfashionmuseum]

White Mull Dress, 1820s.

Augusta Auctions.

[idlesuperstar]

Kilvickeon Beach, Mull, April ‘23

[aestheticallypleasinganimeboys]

Mull - Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana

[dreebo]

Mull.

[dailystreetsnapshots]

Tobermory, Scotland

[scotianostra]

21st May 1872 saw the death in Bunessan on Mull of the Gaelic poet Mary MacDonald.

Mary is a  little-known Gaelic poet who wrote a classic!

The first thing to say is that Mary Macdougal Macdonald should not be confused with another Mary, who was born a MacDonald and became a MacPherson. That was Màiri Mhòr nan Òran or Great Mary of the Songs

Mairi Dhughallach was born at Brolas near Ardtun on Mull in 1789, though her exact birthdate was not known. Nor is there any Church of Scotland record of her birth and christening, for Mary was born into a Baptist family and she followed that faith devoutly all her life.

Her father was Duncan Macdougal, who was both a farmer and a Baptist preacher. The family all spoke Gaelic and Mary never spoke any more than a smattering of English. Instead, like other family members, she learned Gaelic poems, songs and hymns.

Mary married a crofter, Neil Macdonald, and moved to his croft at Ardtun – not far from Bunessan, the largest village on the Ross of Mull. I was unable to find any trace of children but it was remembered locally many years later that she sang while spinning, and at some point she began to write poems and compose hymns for use by her fellow Baptists.

Perhaps because she performed her works from memory, very little of her output survives, though she did once compose a satirical poem on tobacco to chastise her husband for his smoking.

Maddeningly we do not know when she composed her most famous work or the circumstances which brought it about. We do know that she wrote the hymn Leanabh an àigh and set it to a local tune. It was a beautiful lilting tune which some say was brought to Mull by a travelling Gaelic musician, and Mary’s Gaelic words were perfectly set to that tune.

The hymn appears to have been popular within the Baptist community but the hymn might never have been sung outside of the Gàidhealtachd had it not been for Lachlan Macbean (1853-1931) who was a Gaelic scholar and a journalist who for some time edited the Kirkcaldy-based Fifeshire Advertiser.

Macbean made it his task to gather Gaelic hymns and also published at least two books on learning Gaelic. The most successful were his Elementary Lessons in Gaelic (1889) and a Guide to Gaelic Conversation and Pronunciation (1895). He also published two collections of Gaelic hymns, The Sacred Songs of the Gael (1886) and Songs and Hymns of the Scottish Highlands (1888). Mary Macdonald’s hymn, published 16 years after her death, was in the latter book and though it was not precise, Macbean gave us a beautiful translation, a hymn that is sung to this day.

Here is the Gaelic version of Leanabh an àigh, child of wonder.

Leanabh àigh, an Leanabh aig Màiri

Rugadh san stàball, Rìgh nan Dùl;

Thàinig do’n fhàsach, dh’fhuiling ’n ar n-àite

Son’ iad an àireamh bhitheas dhà dlùth!

Ged a bhios leanabain aig rìghrean na talmhainn

An greadhnachas garbh is anabarr mùirn,

’S geàrr gus am falbh iad, ’s fasaidh iad anfhann,

An àilleachd ’s an dealbh a’ searg san ùir.

Cha b’ionann ’s an t-Uan thàinig gur fuasgladh

Iriosal, stuama ghluais e’n tùs;

E naomh gun truailleachd, Cruithfhear an t-sluaigh,

Dh’éirich e suas le buaidh o ùir.

Leanabh an àigh, mar dh’aithris na fàidhean;

’S na h-àinglean àrd’, b’e miann an sùl;

’S E ’s airidh air gràdh ’s air urram thoirt dhà

Sona an àireamh bhitheas dhà dlùth.

Here’s the three verses Macbean left us:

Child in the manger, infant of Mary,

Outcast and stranger, Lord of all,

Child who inherits all our transgressions,

All our demerits on Him fall.

Once the most holy Child of salvation

Gently and lowly lived below.

Now as our glorious mighty Redeemer,

See Him victorious o’er each foe.

Prophets foretold Him, infant of wonder;

Angels behold Him on His throne.

Worthy our Saviour of all our praises;

Happy forever are His own.

Macbean also gave the hymn’s tune a name – Bunessan after the settlement close to Macdonald’s home, and within a few years it had become a popular Christmas carol.

After Mary’s passing on May 21, 1872, the co-author of the 1926 English hymn book Songs of Praise noted that Child in the Manger to the tune Bunessan had been include in the Revised Church Hymnary. Percy Dearmer loved Bunessan and for the second edition of Songs of Praise published in 1931, he asked English writer Eleanor Farjeon “to make a poem to fit the lovely Scottish tune”.

Farjeon duly delivered her work, and Morning Has Broken has delighted children and adults ever since. In 1972, the singer Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam released his version as a single. Morning Has Broken duly became a worldwide hit and subsequent cover versions have been produced by the likes of Neil Diamond, Nana Mouskouri and Daniel O’Donnell, though whether they knew it was a folk tune from Mull and originated as Mary’s hymn is unlikely.

Mary Macdonald is commemorated by an obelisk near where she lived on the A849 road on Mull. The monument describes her as a “poetess” who was “born Brolas 1789” and who “died Ardtun 1872”. Below that inscription are the first lines of Leanabh an àigh, translated as “Child in the manger, infant of Mary”.

The video has the words in Gaelic with English below them.

[everythingbap]

📲 moonjongyeup Instagram update:

역시 홀리방 X.O.X challenge . . . #MoonJongUp X #HolyBang #XOXChallenge #문종업 #Mull #뮬 #Lo_A #로아 #SOME #XOX #challenge @morevision.kr @play_holybang

As expected, Holy Bang X.O.X challenge . . . #MoonJongUp X #HolyBang #XOXChallenge #MoonJongup #Mull #Mull #Lo_A #Lo_A #SOME #XOX #challenge @morevision.kr @play_holybang

[dansnaturepictures]

Some memories from the phenomenal Scotland trip we went on last year, which we began travelling to a year ago tomorrow. I don't know where that year has gone! What a fantastic and wild time it was. The photos in this set are a mixture of some I still hadn't got around to processing and did so this evening and some key ones from the trip that I processed at the time, each bringing back fond memories. The photos are of; Corn Bunting at Banff in Aberdeenshire, view at Findhorn Bay and Long-tailed Duck at Burghead Harbour one of the birds of the trip both in Moray, another of the star species of the trip and one of the main ones we wanted to see Otter at Dervaig on Mull, a view on the Aberdeenshire coast, Lapwing at Lochindorb, Black Guillemot on Loch Eil and view on Mull.

[heres-to-all-that-is-mine]

Mull and Crispin refs! Including Crispin both undamaged and damaged, and some examples of them in their regular clothes :]

[brianmchenry]

After Peter Seddon: Memories construct a different picture

In the 1980 the artist Peter Seddon created a series of large scale pastel drawings based on the Highland Clearances that explored themes such as history, memory and cultural difference.

These were included as part of the 1986 exhibition ‘As an Fhearann/ From the Land’ organised by An Lantair Gallery in Stornaway to mark the centenary of the Crofting Act. I visited the exhibition when it first came to Glasgow and it had a huge impact on not only my practice but also how I was to view the Highlands and Islands of Scotland that I would be living in for the next fifteen or so years of my life.

The following images and notes are the start of an attempt to explore the themes that I first came across in Peters work and to place them in a personal context.

Essie Stewart is playing the accordion again for Richard Burton'

The drawing takes it’s subject matter from Tim Neats’ book ‘The Summer Walkers’ about the pearl fishers and travelling families of Scotland.

‘Bill Travers is looking across the Firth of Lorne again’

There’s a point in the film ‘Ring of Bright Water’ when the main character first travels north and gets off the old Calmac bus to look across the Firth of Lorne towards Mull in the distance.

Of course the movie takes vast liberties with both the book and the story of Gavin Maxwell himself but somehow for me, with that scene it all gets forgotten.

Ben Buie, Sgur Dearg, Dùn da Ghàoithe are in front of him like incomplete notes, each a hesitant beginning to something that isn’t there anymore.

Each a grace note

and I am sitting there in Fishnish all those years later.

[quordleona03]

sunset over Salen pier

[aishatonu]

The Isles of Mull, Iona, and Staffa

A long day lay ahead of me on the weekend I decided to go see the Islands of Mull and Iona.  For one thing, the tour left from Glasgow, so I had to take an impossibly early train, which meant I’d have to leave even earlier to walk the mile to the train station.  And when I got there, the ticket machine couldn’t locate my e-ticket, and the ticket counter was dark and closed.  So I wound up having…