Talk:Barns of Ayr

Proposed deletion
I have removed the proposed deletion as it has historical significance. Newm30 (talk) 01:12, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

What historical significance? I think it is pretty well established that this is an unhistorical incident, although I realize I may have some responsibility to produce sources for this. You could still argue that it is a notable unhistorical incident, but is that what is being argued? PatGallacher (talk) 00:09, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I still query the accuracy of this article. Crome's work looks like a coffee table book, not a serious work. There is no mention of this incident in e.g. Peter Traquair's Freedom's Sword. PatGallacher (talk) 14:50, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

OK, the consensus is to keep, but I suggest it needs to be rewritten, to make it clear that we are dealing with a notable unhistorical incident, as with e.g. Battle of Jericho. Maybe Wallace did attack Ayr at some point, but the mass killing of Scots nobles never happened, and it is not possible to reconcile the chronology in Braveheart with known events of the time. PatGallacher (talk) 14:26, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, PatGallacher: Your edits have improved this article nicely. Question: Riddy's chapter leaves open a sliver of doubt. Or maybe not - the sliver is that she suggests that certain elements cannot be entirely dismissed, not necessary this event. Would it be an improvement to add "almost certainly" before "unhistorical"? This might conform to Riddy's message slightly more exactly, and I wonder if the general reader would find the allusion to weight of evidence both more credible and more interesting than a "binary" dismissal? Here is the quote (initially put forward by Brianann MacAmhlaidh) - Felicity Riddy's chapter Unmapping the Territory: Blind Hary's Wallace, in Edward Cowan's The Wallace Book (2007, ISBN 978-0-85976-652-4), is a scholarly discussion on Blind Hary's account of Wallace. She notes the 'Barns of Ayr' a couple times saying "In general, Wallace’s activities were greatly elaborated by Hary, who also inserted additional battles (such as that at Biggar) for his hero to win, or English atrocities (such as the Barns of Ayr episode) for Wallace to revenge." and "Unfortunately – as is commonly pointed out but insufficiently appreciated – none of Hary’s information can be believed without independent corroboration. His technique was to pack his story with authentic-seeming episodes and names that mostly turn out to be anachronistic plagiarisms from Barbour’s, Wyntoun’s and Bower’s narratives of post-Wallace Anglo-Scottish warfare; the purpose was to give the strongest impression of verisimilitude and reliability – but only in the way that including real events and people in modern thrillers does. Hary’s account of Wallace’s kin cannot, therefore, be accepted uncritically, as has happened so often, especially regarding Elderslie; yet nor can it be automatically dismissed. Consider, for instance, Sir Reginald Crawford. He is not mentioned by Gesta Annalia II, Wyntoun or Bower, but occurs in Barbour’s Bruce as being hanged in a barn at Ayr – which gave Hary a famous but fictitious story. Barbour, however, did not call Crawford sheriff of Ayr, so Hary obtained that, correct, detail elsewhere – probably from Crawford’s heirs, the Campbells of Loudon. But does that mean Hary was correct about Crawford’s relationship with Wallace? Perhaps – but equally possibly he invented the relationship to flatter the Campbells." It is perhaps interesting and encyclopedic that factual elements were counterfactually inflated, plagiarized and reorganized. (Totally and wildly off topic, there is a movie about Katyn in which Polish officers are executed one by one as they walk into a room. I can't remember if it was in English or Polish, but this story reminded me of it.)FeatherPluma (talk) 21:10, 18 February 2015 (UTC) - I decided to add a few words to amplify these concepts, but please revert if you think this is undue emphasis, or academic / boring. FeatherPluma (talk) 21:13, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I add a further quote from Riddy p. 115 "There was no atrocity committed by the English in the 'Barns of Ayr'". PatGallacher (talk) 16:24, 25 May 2015 (UTC)