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Ossetians to Scottish: You are us, We are you
Hundreds of years ago, Ossetians roamed all over Western Europe, from the Caucasus to Scotland. As BBC revealed, the folk memories of these wanderings have lingered down the centuries, so that it can be hard to tell where myth ends and history begins.
When the nights draw in in the high Caucasus, when the flocks are gathered in the shadow of the ancient stone towers that dot the wooded hillsides, and there is no sound outside but the chattering of the fast streams that run down from Ossetia towards Georgia, there is nothing the people like better than to settle down on the settee to watch an old DVD of Braveheart.
Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson's portrayal of William Wallace strikes a chord with Ossetians
Mel Gibson is very big in these remote parts. Though not as big, of course, as the real-life hero he played in that film, William Wallace.
So much do Ossetians love that 13th Century Scots patriot, that one told me he had made a pilgrimage to Edinburgh, only to find Wallace's statue disappointingly small and unimpressive.
It is not hard to see why they identify with a ruthless fighter, romantically cruel, who defended his small mountainous homeland against a more powerful southern neighbour.
For King Edward I of England, think President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia. He attempted back in August to regain control of the separatist-held territory of South Ossetia, but was beaten back by Russia, assisted by Ossetian volunteers who cast themselves as modern Bravehearts.
But the Ossetians are not just like the medieval Scots. As far as they are concerned, they are the Scots. And the Scots are them.
Name that place
Centuries ago, possibly during the great migrations of the Dark Ages, some of their ancestors went down from the Caucasus and set sail through the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and arrived eventually in a landscape they recognised: Caledonia.
Map of North and South Ossetia
In fact, though, they did not just occupy Scotland. They occupied the whole of Western Europe on their fast horses, spreading the chivalrous respect for women that is originally an Ossetian concept.
And how do we know they reached Britain? Easy: place names.
Sitting over a pile of flat, greasy Ossetian cheese pies in a smoky cafe in Vladikavkaz, capital of Russian-ruled North Ossetia, and again later, sampling a cup of young, home-made wine in a war-damaged house in Tskhinvali - the capital of the much-disputed south - I am asked where I am from.
"London," I say. "And what does the name mean?" I am asked.
Of course, I do not know. But my hosts do. In Ossetian, London means "standing water".
Belfast, in Ossetian, could be "broken spade".
Orleans in France is "stopping place", because the Ossetians stopped there. And England's greatest national hero, King Arthur, was Ossetian too, apparently. His name means "solar fire".
Understanding our ancestry
Toponymy, the study of place names, has never been an overriding passion of the English.
Indeed, the more you travel, the more you realise that one of the more unusual things about people in the British Isles is their comparative lack of interest in their national origins.
London
The name London means "standing water" in Ossetian
Some children are taught about the arrival of the first Saxons, or Frisians, Hengist and Horsa. Very few know the story of our legendary Trojan ancestor Corinius and his battle on the cliffs of Cornwall with the giant Gogmagog.
Ossetian children know all about their forefathers' wanderings around Europe and how eventually their territory diminished again to those two little pockets on either side of the great Caucasian watershed, the southern one of which we heard so much about, so briefly, in August.
But the Ossetians, in their glory days of continental mastery, were not known by that name. They were sometimes Sarmatians, and sometimes Alans.
Every third Ossetian you meet now seems to be called Alan, and the north Ossetian republic, within Russia, is officially "Alania", as satisfying, I suppose, for Alans as it would be for me to live in Timia.
"If you are living in Bristol, Hove, Crewe or another place whose name you cannot instantly explain, I should start worrying"
Meanwhile, the Alans in the south now live, supposedly, in an independent state, a miniscule country of 50,000 people, recognised only by Russia, Nicaragua and Somalia.
The rest of the world insists it is still part of Georgia, though the people I met there said that since the war they could never again live in one country with Georgians.
What some dream of is a greater Ossetia, uniting north and south, a place where their ancient Iranian-linked language and swashbuckling culture can flourish, free of Georgia or Russia.
And if they achieve that, they may want to expand still further to their older, wider stamping grounds.
Those of you living in Ox-ford, New-castle, Red-bridge and anywhere else with an obvious derivation can sleep easy in the knowledge that you have a right to be there.
But if you are living in Bris-tol, Hove, Crewe or another place whose name you cannot instantly explain, I should start worrying.
The Alans are very mobile, and they have long memories. //11.01.08
When the nights draw in in the high Caucasus, when the flocks are gathered in the shadow of the ancient stone towers that dot the wooded hillsides, and there is no sound outside but the chattering of the fast streams that run down from Ossetia towards Georgia, there is nothing the people like better than to settle down on the settee to watch an old DVD of Braveheart.
Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson's portrayal of William Wallace strikes a chord with Ossetians
Mel Gibson is very big in these remote parts. Though not as big, of course, as the real-life hero he played in that film, William Wallace.
So much do Ossetians love that 13th Century Scots patriot, that one told me he had made a pilgrimage to Edinburgh, only to find Wallace's statue disappointingly small and unimpressive.
It is not hard to see why they identify with a ruthless fighter, romantically cruel, who defended his small mountainous homeland against a more powerful southern neighbour.
For King Edward I of England, think President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia. He attempted back in August to regain control of the separatist-held territory of South Ossetia, but was beaten back by Russia, assisted by Ossetian volunteers who cast themselves as modern Bravehearts.
But the Ossetians are not just like the medieval Scots. As far as they are concerned, they are the Scots. And the Scots are them.
Name that place
Centuries ago, possibly during the great migrations of the Dark Ages, some of their ancestors went down from the Caucasus and set sail through the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and arrived eventually in a landscape they recognised: Caledonia.
Map of North and South Ossetia
In fact, though, they did not just occupy Scotland. They occupied the whole of Western Europe on their fast horses, spreading the chivalrous respect for women that is originally an Ossetian concept.
And how do we know they reached Britain? Easy: place names.
Sitting over a pile of flat, greasy Ossetian cheese pies in a smoky cafe in Vladikavkaz, capital of Russian-ruled North Ossetia, and again later, sampling a cup of young, home-made wine in a war-damaged house in Tskhinvali - the capital of the much-disputed south - I am asked where I am from.
"London," I say. "And what does the name mean?" I am asked.
Of course, I do not know. But my hosts do. In Ossetian, London means "standing water".
Belfast, in Ossetian, could be "broken spade".
Orleans in France is "stopping place", because the Ossetians stopped there. And England's greatest national hero, King Arthur, was Ossetian too, apparently. His name means "solar fire".
Understanding our ancestry
Toponymy, the study of place names, has never been an overriding passion of the English.
Indeed, the more you travel, the more you realise that one of the more unusual things about people in the British Isles is their comparative lack of interest in their national origins.
London
The name London means "standing water" in Ossetian
Some children are taught about the arrival of the first Saxons, or Frisians, Hengist and Horsa. Very few know the story of our legendary Trojan ancestor Corinius and his battle on the cliffs of Cornwall with the giant Gogmagog.
Ossetian children know all about their forefathers' wanderings around Europe and how eventually their territory diminished again to those two little pockets on either side of the great Caucasian watershed, the southern one of which we heard so much about, so briefly, in August.
But the Ossetians, in their glory days of continental mastery, were not known by that name. They were sometimes Sarmatians, and sometimes Alans.
Every third Ossetian you meet now seems to be called Alan, and the north Ossetian republic, within Russia, is officially "Alania", as satisfying, I suppose, for Alans as it would be for me to live in Timia.
"If you are living in Bristol, Hove, Crewe or another place whose name you cannot instantly explain, I should start worrying"
Meanwhile, the Alans in the south now live, supposedly, in an independent state, a miniscule country of 50,000 people, recognised only by Russia, Nicaragua and Somalia.
The rest of the world insists it is still part of Georgia, though the people I met there said that since the war they could never again live in one country with Georgians.
What some dream of is a greater Ossetia, uniting north and south, a place where their ancient Iranian-linked language and swashbuckling culture can flourish, free of Georgia or Russia.
And if they achieve that, they may want to expand still further to their older, wider stamping grounds.
Those of you living in Ox-ford, New-castle, Red-bridge and anywhere else with an obvious derivation can sleep easy in the knowledge that you have a right to be there.
But if you are living in Bris-tol, Hove, Crewe or another place whose name you cannot instantly explain, I should start worrying.
The Alans are very mobile, and they have long memories. //11.01.08
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