ian skidmore

There was a Merrie England and it was well documented. Athur was an historic figure for whom there is much written evidence and there is some evidence of Alfred being set to cook. Only nations which have failed, like Scotland and ,sadly, Wales need to mythologise. Sadly since the Scotch (historically correct usage) have taken over the governance of England w will soon stand in need of a Walter Scott

john

The Arthurian tradition reflects, in a rich and complex way, the maturing religious and aesthetic perspectives of mediaeval Europe. I would agree that equating it with any old discreditable myth might seem a little careless.

Paul Marley

Can someone just un-invent them.

Alex Greer

Sadly Scottish history is presented either by romantics, or by skeptics. The best book, and the most objective work, I have read on Scottish history of the modern era is Arthur Herman's "How the Scots Invented the Modern World." Herman puts romanticism aside, but he points out that the Scots have been disproportionately represented in many areas.

John McCarthy

The Scotch are nothing more than Irishmen who never learnt to swim!

jon livesey

There's a bit of bait and switch here. You start off talking about debunking Scotland's self-serving myths about being a peace-loving country with an aggressive neighbour.

Then you veer off into Ossian and Trevor-Roper land and conclude Ossian is no worse than King Arthur.

That's fine, but Scotland today isn't about Ossian. It's about self-serving myths concerning a peace-loving country with an aggressive neighbour.

As well as being completely false - Scotland really was riven by civil wars, and most battles with England took place inside England, which is odd if England was always the aggressor - these myths are playing into a kind of extreme nationalism we would all reject in a Serbia.

But we don't reject it in the case of Scotland. Why not? Because of self-serving myths about a peaceful country with an aggressive neighbour.

Scotland's "history" is a wholesale invention and we tolerate and pander to it in ways we would never do with other countries.

Paul Potts

I was once on holiday in Scotland, having travelled from Dorchester, Dorset. Edinburgh festival and all that. As a present to my aunt, I bought a box of Scottish bicuits ("with real butter"}. On my way home, I discovered that they had been made in, er, Dorchester, Dorset.

Paulo

Alison Bell

Dear me- Specatator readers do seem to be paranoid about the Scots!
Were we a peaceful nation? No more than any other pre-modern state - although it has to be said that our internecine conflicts rarely achieved the scale and savagery of the Baron's wars or the Wars of the Roses! Do we have "self-serving myths" that have helped to create some part of our sense of identity? Yes, of course - and what else is Sir Francis Drake's game of bowls? As Linklater rightly points out, most of the ealtic twilight nonsense has long since been rejected by Scottish historians.
Did we have an aggressive neighbour? Of course we did! From the English point of view, the existence of Scotland and its potentially dangerous links to France was a perennial thorn in the flesh which successive monarchs from Edward I on sought to eradicate by force or diplomacy.The only real difference between our position and that of Wales and Ireland was that we managed to hold out long enough to get ourseves a decent deal!

Edward Three

"For the myths that the Scots tell about themselves are surely no worse or no more fraudulent than those with which any small nation sustains itself."

I think this is called moral equivalence and it is regrettable to come upon it in this rag.