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Books

Weaving Scotland's history

What messages are threaded through Alistair Moffat's Great Tapestry of Scotland - and Alexander McCall Smith's commentary?

14 December 2013

9:00 AM

14 December 2013

9:00 AM

The Great Tapestry of Scotland Alistair Moffat and Alexander McCall Smith

Berlinn, pp.318, £30, ISBN: 9781780271606

A couple of years ago, while tracking down paintings for the Public Catalogue Foundation in the far north of Scotland, I had the chance to see a rarely displayed sequence of banners, created in 1993, telling the story of Earl Rognvald’s epic voyage to Jerusalem in 1151. Suspended between the pillars of the shadowy nave of St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, the 14 huge paintings, the work of four different artists with words by George Mackay Brown, had an extraordinarily powerful and moving effect.

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