Fiona Campbell-Howes
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fortrenn.bsky.social
Fiona Campbell-Howes
@fortrenn.bsky.social
2.4K followers 600 following 1.4K posts
PhD student at the University of Glasgow, researching the early medieval Moray Firthlands in Scotland. Live in Penryn, Cornwall. FSAScot. Posts about early medieval Scottish history and archaeology. Blog: https://fortrenn.ghost.io
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fortrenn.bsky.social
Post an image that always makes you laugh
Liz Truss and Keir Starmer at Queen Elizabeth II's funeral. Liz is curtseying with a weird look on her face and her hat looks like a witch's hat. Keir Starmer stands behind her looking like an automaton waiting to be activated.
November 14, 2025 at 1:26 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
After wrestling with some difficult sources, I'm quite excited about my paper next Saturday at the Scottish Place-Name Society conference. New research on the cult of Curetán/Boniface in the Black Isle, and the possible layout of early medieval Rosemarkie. Details here: spns.org.uk/spns-autumn-...
Abstract for my paper at the SPNS Autumn Conference. Title: 'Kincurdy, Cuthilcurdy, Hill o’ Hirdie: The Scotticisation of an eighth-century saint?’ Abstract: 'The area around Rosemarkie on the Black Isle has long been noted as a cult centre for St Curetán, a bishop who is reliably attested as being active in the Moray Firthlands around the turn of the eighth century. Three Black Isle place-names appear to preserve his name in Scotticised form: Kincurdy, Cuthilcurdy and Hill o’ Hirdie, suggesting that his cult survived into the late Middle Ages or later. This paper will examine whether these names do contain Scotticisations of Curetán, and what they can tell us about the longevity of Curetán’s cult.' Ordnance Survey 25-inch first edition map of Rosemarkie (c.1872), site of an early medieval monastery and bishop's see. The 'Court Hill' is prominent and will be discussed in my paper. Signage at the Munlochy Clootie Well, which reads: 'For centuries, visitors have left offerings at the small well here and hoped for healing. The well is associated with the 7th-century bishop St Curitan (who is also known as Boniface). In earlier pre-Christian times, a goddess or nature spirit may have been associated with the well.' Aerial view of Kincurdie near Rosemarkie, copyright NOSAS, from the James Sloan Bone collection: https://www.trove.scot/image/2106396
November 2, 2025 at 12:02 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
A photo by Dimitar Dilkoff via AFP and Getty Images of French police surrounding a truck with a hydraulic extending ladder outside the Louvre in Paris. A scene from Arrested Development, with a prisoner in orange jumpsuit escaping from prison via the Bluth Company stair car (a vehicle with a set of stairs for boarding a plane).
October 19, 2025 at 5:59 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
More great research help from Google AI Overview.
Screenshot of a Google search query and Google's AI Overview response. I have searched for 'cowan the post-columban church', as I'm looking for an article called 'The Post-Columban Church' by Ian B. Cowan. AI Overview responds: '"Cowan" appears to be a typo for Columban, referring to Saint Columbanus, an Irish monk who was a pivotal figure in the early Middle Ages, evangelizing and establishing monasteries in Europe and founding Bobbio Abbey. There are many churches and parishes named after him, such as St. Columban Parish in Cornwall, Ontario, which was founded in 1829." Mmm, useful.
October 7, 2025 at 3:34 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
My new laptop has a special Copilot button - I think I can safely say that's never going to be pressed.
Dell laptop keyboard with a button with the Microsoft Copilot logo between the Alt Gr button and the left arrow button.
October 4, 2025 at 5:32 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
Just paid THREE POUNDS THIRTY NINE for a takeaway peppermint tea in Wolverhampton train station. It's barely more than a cup of hot water!
A takeaway coffee cup (with mint tea in it), balanced on a suitcase on a station platform.
October 2, 2025 at 1:54 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
This one: Portmahomack cross-slab TR1.
September 26, 2025 at 1:14 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
Now with alt text...
The first four paragraphs of an FT story from earlier today (Thursday 25th September 2025). The headline is: "Keir Starmer has no plans to attend COP30 climate summit in Brazil". The first four paragraphs read: "Sir Keir Starmer has no plans to attend the UN COP30 summit in Brazil in November, despite having branded Rishi Sunak’s absence from the world’s top climate conference a “failure of leadership” just a few years ago. Although a final decision has yet to be made, three people familiar with discussions told the Financial Times that the UK prime minister was not at present expected to be at the COP30 leaders’ summit in the Amazonian port city of Belém. One Labour figure said there was a “big fight inside the government” between some officials pushing Starmer to make the trip to underline Britain’s commitment to climate action and others wanting him to focus on domestic issues. The latter believe “Reform [UK] voters don’t think climate is important and the Mail and Sun [newspapers] complain that Starmer has spent a record number of days overseas”, he said."
September 25, 2025 at 12:06 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
FFS
September 25, 2025 at 11:56 AM
fortrenn.bsky.social
As might have been predicted, Academia dot edu has rowed back on its incredibly over-reaching new Terms of Service. It now no longer wants perpetual irrevocable rights to your voice and likeness! Damage is probably done by now, though.
Comment from Richard Price of Academia.edu on The Nous website: We updated terms on Academia.edu last week, and there were a number of questions online in relation to that paragraph about voice, likeness etc. Today we removed reference to voice, likeness etc, and refined that paragraph to the following: “By creating an Account with Academia.edu, you grant us a worldwide, revocable, non-exclusive transferable license to display your profile information (e.g., your name, city, institutional affiliations, and areas of interest) to other Academia.edu accountholders, including in connection with promoting Academia.edu’s services and features. It does not give Academia.edu any ownership rights in your profile information, which remains yours.” What we clarified: The license applies only to displaying your profile information to other Academia.edu accountholders—for example, to help people discover relevant researchers and features on Academia.edu. Our intention has never been to sell or commercialize your likeness or voice. The purpose is simply to facilitate features like citation alerts and profile sharing. The terms now state explicitly that nothing in them gives Academia.edu ownership rights in your profile information or your papers.
September 24, 2025 at 12:19 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
Today's fortuitous realisation: a 20-minute conference paper basically equates to a 3,000-word blog post. This means I can publish my talk from next weekend's Highland Archaeology Festival conference as a blog afterwards, hurrah.
My title and abstract for my Highland Archaeology Festival conference paper. The title is: Agrum qui Airchartdan nuncupatur: Evidence for early ecclesiastical activity in Urquhart, the Aird and Strathglass. The abstract reads: "In his Life of St Columba, written c. 700, Adomnán of Iona shows Columba demonstrating his holy powers at identifiable locations on Loch Ness, from Urquhart Bay to Bona. Yet there is surprisingly little evidence for a Columban cult in this area. This paper looks at why Adomnán might have taken care to place Columba in these specific locations, and compares his account with what we can infer about the early church in Urquhart, the Aird and Strathglass from place-names, textual evidence and sculpture."
September 20, 2025 at 9:08 AM
fortrenn.bsky.social
These are oyster shells that @davidpetts1.bsky.social and his Durham Uni archaeology students have just dug up at Lindisfarne. Deposited in the seventh century!
An archaeologists' finds tray of seventh-century oyster shells, looking much as they probably did when they were deposited.
September 12, 2025 at 12:57 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
I was almost convinced the whole thing was a wind-up when I saw their tagline - but it seems to be a real agency that has Dominic Raab in it.
September 5, 2025 at 4:02 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
Why had I never seen the Lion of St Mark from the Echternach Gospels before? What a fabulous sproingy beast.
A colourful manuscript illustration of a lion from the Echternach Gospels of c.690. He is a skinny, sproingy beast with a fine curlicued mane, yellow tail curved into an S-shape, a bright eye, beautifully-manicured claws and a protruding tongue.
September 3, 2025 at 12:00 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
It's from a Pictish context according to @northernpicts.bsky.social on Facebook.
Facebook comments on the find of a glass bead in the Burghead Pictish fort in Moray. Martin Carruthers (director of the Cairns dig in Orkney) says 'Oh a beautiful Guido 13 'Northern Spiral'! Almost identical to one from Mine Howe. Prof Gordon Noble replied 'yes perhaps a heirloom in what appears to be a Pictish building!'.
August 28, 2025 at 9:15 AM
fortrenn.bsky.social
Hopefully this has the intel you need.
A small, sunny town square with throngs of people in the street enjoying the annual town fair. In the picture are an old-time carousel, bunting, a tree in leaf, and a gold Dalek viewed from the side, its plunger turned towards a group of fair-goers.
August 27, 2025 at 5:52 AM
fortrenn.bsky.social
August 16, 2025 at 11:55 AM
fortrenn.bsky.social
I'm giving an online lecture later this month on the eighth-century church in the Moray Firthlands - featuring brand new research on the 'shadowy' St Curetán (fl. 697), among other things. Booking link in the reply.
Flyer for my upcoming Groam House Museum lecture. The title is 'Rosemarkie and Ross in the time of Curetán: Bishops, abbots and churches in the early medieval Moray Firthlands'. The speaker is me, Fiona Campbell-Howes, PhD researcher at the University of Glasgow. The lecture is on Zoom at 7.30pm on Tuesday 26th of August. The online booking link is at https://groam-house-museum.arttickets.org.uk.
August 9, 2025 at 7:04 AM
fortrenn.bsky.social
Writing quite a lot about the LunaNet (lunar internet) project for my day job, and it keeps giving me flashbacks to this ancient Spectrum game.
Cassette insert for the 1983 ZX Spectrum game Luna Crabs, in which you basically have to shoot at waves of advancing crabs on the moon.
August 4, 2025 at 2:41 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
Morthen is a hybrid OE/ON 'moorland-thing' according to the EPNS Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire (below).
MORTHEN Mordinges 1164-81 Lewes 25d, Morthinges 1202-8 Ass Morthyng, -ing, Morj5ing 13 Lewes 295, 1200-10 YCh vi, 1240-50 Bodl 104, 1246 Ass 13d, 1297 LS, 1. 13 BM, 1342 FF, 1345 YD xiii, 73 et passim to 1588 WillY, -inge, -ynge 1342 YD xiii, 44, 1607 FF Morhing a. 1218 YCh viii (p) Mordhingg 123o P Morhtheng 1253 YD xiii, 72, Mortheng' 1323 MinAcct 21 Morthehing 1323 BM Morni(n)g 1285 KI, Morning(e) 1550 WillY, 1621 FF, Morthinge in the Morninge, Morthinge als. Morninge 1583, 1604 FF The two isolated forms with -eng can carry no weight against the persistent and earlier forms in -ing; any connexion wit% ON eng 'meadow' (coupled by Goodall to OE mor ' murder ') is therefore highly improbable, for eng always retains that form in the twelfth and often in the thirteenth centuries (cf. Phonol. § 13). The evidence points to an original Morthing, and, in view of the fact that the name is also that of a district (v. Morthen 101 supra), Moorman and Ekwall are certainly correct in deriving it from OE, ON mor 'moorland' and OE, ON ping 'an assembly', hence 'moorland district with a common assembly'. The hill at Morthen itself was probably the meeting-place. Some confirmation of the tradition is provided by the name of Tourneberg (1345 YD xiii), which means 'hill where the tourn or sheriff's court for the wapentake was held' (v. beorg) and which was described as being in Whitstan and Morthyng field'. The spelling Morhing is AN (cf. IPN o), and the later spellings Morning are analogical from the common word morning.
July 22, 2025 at 6:02 AM
fortrenn.bsky.social
I added simple cross-incised stones to my public distribution map of early medieval sculpture in Scotland. I just love this curved distribution on Rum, Eigg, Muck and Canna (the Small Isles).
Detail of a distribution map showing the locations of five cross-incised stones on Rum, Eigg, Muck and Canna (aka the Small Isles), just south of Skye in the Hebrides. The locations describe a graceful curve around the edges of the islands.
July 21, 2025 at 11:50 AM
fortrenn.bsky.social
I mean, I also experience this quite regularly (with early medieval history, not quantum physics), but for me it comes from doing actual research in actual sources and having real thoughts with my own human brain. Travis Kalanick should try it sometime.
A quote from a Gizmodo article about ex-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick thinking he can make scientific breakthroughs using ChatGPT or (god help us) Grok. Kalanick is quoted as saying: 'I’ll go down this thread with [Chat]GPT or Grok and I’ll start to get to the edge of what’s known in quantum physics and then I’m doing the equivalent of vibe coding, except it’s vibe physics. And we’re approaching what’s known. And I’m trying to poke and see if there’s breakthroughs to be had. And I’ve gotten pretty damn close to some interesting breakthroughs just doing that.'
July 19, 2025 at 7:24 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
On which note, I was highly entertained by this post on our local history Facebook group today. (NB I am not suggesting Cornwall is in 'England'.)
Detail of Facebook Group post titled 'Penryn Museum' with a painting of the centre of Penryn (a medieval market town with its townhouse in the middle of the street). The text reads: 'DID YOU KNOW THAT THE TOWN OF PENRYN HAS A HISTORY OF MORE THAN 800 YEARS, 400 MORE THAN FALMOUTH?'
July 18, 2025 at 8:23 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
Re. the Salt Path, I've just seen this comment on LinkedIn and it's a very good point about Cornwall. (I'm not putting the name of the person, as it was a reply to someone else's post and they may not want to draw attention to themselves.)
Text of a comment on LinkedIn: "We were let down very badly by Raynor Winn when she agreed to be the headline speaker at TEDx Truro and then didn’t show on the day - so I’ve never been a fan. But this was pretty shocking. I think the best thing to take from it is how generous and kind people were to them during the walk. If you need help it’s out there in Cornwall at least. Just a shame those two probably didn’t need it as much as they made out."
July 8, 2025 at 5:29 PM
fortrenn.bsky.social
Ahhh, my old childhood haunts! I grew up in this cottage. We had friends up the hill in Regoul and we spent a lot of time at the ponds (before it was a trout farm). Happy times.
June 15, 2025 at 3:43 PM