“Burns’ supper” is celebrated around the world about 25th of January every year. Then it’s time to eat haggis, drink whisky and preferrably recite some poems of Scotlands national poet Robert Burns. He lived in the latter half of the 1700s and wrote about politics, but also everyday life and of course of love, in a way people could understand and relate to.
Best known around the world is probably “Auld Lang Syne”, but his most iconic poem many would say, is “Tam o’ Shanter”. It tells about Tom, who is riding home in a heavy rainstorm and comes across the Devil himself and a gang of witches dancing. It ends with the witch Nannie and the whole lot setting after Tom. Nannie manages to grab a hold of the mare’s tail just as it jumps upon a bridge. And thereby saves Tom and herself, because: “A running stream they dare not cross!”. But back on the riverside, Nannie stands with the mare’s tail in her arms.
To honour Robert Burns, we held a “Burns’ supper”, corona-restricted to just a couple of friends. Next day we went for a photo shoot. Firstly, we needed a horse. After some thinking we checked the market online for rocking horses and soon enough could pick up one almost for free.
As a suitable bridge, we had read about Trondheim’s possibly oldest bridge: Stokkbrua, a nice, vaulted stone bridge. Knut even went to check out the bridge beforehand.
The crossing between “Gamle Jonsvannsveg” and Stokkbekken, as described, was easy to find, but the bridge had lost some of it’s former glory:
… where the construction of the new road had removed the vault. Somewhat disappointing, but right below it, we discovered a small walking bridge that was quite suitable:
… and even a nice bath tub between these two bridges.
So we took our scissors to cut of the mare’s tail and found a describing posture:
While we changed clothes for the bath, a familiy with a small girl came by. Since the horse had served our purpose, we gave it to them and they could continue their Sunday walk happy, but slightly confused, with a rocking horse and a disconnected tail in their hands.
Even though the bathing spot worked nicely, we are not sure we will recommend it. We both thought there was an unpleasant smell in Stokkbekken. Nothing to do with the haggis the previous day!
Afterwards, we have found that we had visited a (nameless?) bridge on what the map says is called “Gamle Jonsvannsveg” today, while Stokkbrua is under what now is a gravel walking path a couple of hundred meters further upstream. This gravel road was an even older version of “Jonsvannsvegen”. And the real Stokkbrua is still intact in all it’s glory! And most likely built during Burns lifetime!
Happy birthday, Robbie!