Màiri Campbell ~ Seanachaidh
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Pt 8 David and Ragnhild

9/2/2014

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Picture
The Dancing Bear 

On the 28th April, 1893, a baby brother arrived and completed the family. He was christened Mario Rognvold Gregersen in Volosca. I remember the christening vividly, more for the dancing bear than for anything else.

The padre, the grown-ups surrounding him, Aunt Irma holding the yelling infant, the cakes, sweets and ice-creams on the tables, all were forgotten when I looked through the window. In the garden I saw a rough-looking Rumanian leading a huge shaggy beast on a stout chain. The beast was lurching clumsily along beside him on the gravel path towards our villa. A strong muzzle covered his big mouth.

Hugo and I silently left the christening party. On the sunlit terrace at the rear of the house a little crowd had assembled, consisting among others, the gardeners, the cook, the maids, Ilka and the Padre’s coachman; they formed a circle round the spot where the bear was to perform. The Rumanian was wearing a white shirt that had become distinctly off-white. A heavy, brass-studded, broad leather belt over trousers tucked into soft leather boots, and a shaggy fur cap over his bearded, grinning face. He threw the sack that he carried over his shoulders onto the ground and produced from somewhere a large tambourine.

After these preparations he led the big brute, tethered until then to a shady tree, to the centre of the clearing, released him from the strong chain and took off his muzzle. The spectators made as if to scatter and I felt Hugo's arm tighten round my waist.

The tough Rumanian and his dancing bear were now ready to perform. Standing facing the bear, he gave a vigorous shake to the tambourine, all its bells jangling, and described a big circle in the air, hitting the tambourine a resounding blow with his fist as it completed the circle. Thereupon the bear got up. Standing at full-height he would have been a fearsome sight, but for his reassuring smile… or was it a smile? He started on his dance, clumsily shifting his big body from one short hairy leg to the other, advancing a few steps, and then going backwards shaking his head from side to side. He looked so grotesquely funny that the spectators, by now reassured, burst out laughing. He had many other amusing turns, such as somersaults and rolling round and round on the ground, which delighted both children and adults for almost an hour. All this went on to the barbaric sound of the tambourine.

At the end of the performance the Rumanian passed his fur cap round to collect the coins. Then he put the sack in the bears paws for him to collect his well-deserved reward: bread, fruit, lumps of sugar, vegetables (mostly carrots), which the cook produced from the kitchen. By way of thanks he raised his huge paw, with its menacing claws, to the side of his face, close to his small, twinkling, wicked eyes.

The arrival of baby Mario caused a major upheaval in the household. Mother was unable to feed him, he needed a wet nurse. Dear Ilka had to go; there was no longer any need for a nanny. We were disconsolate and down-hearted after Ilka left and refused to cooperate with the new governess, a pretty, eighteen-year-old, dark-haired, dark-eyed Italian girl, Elvira, who was to prepare us for school and teach us Italian. Mario's wet nurse was soon to become the most important member of the staff. She bullied everyone. She had to be humoured, as too much depended on her. If she was upset the precious infant was sure to be upset too, which in its turn upset mother; and all father wanted was to have peace in the house. All this, she quickly realised and exploited, to the full advantage that her unique position secured for her in the household. Her meals had to be served in the nursery. She scorned the milk-forming diet of potato-soup and iron-forming spinach prescribed by the doctor. She preferred spicy dishes made with red paprika! She refused to wash nappies and panties and spent her time ironing her own elaborate fineries, blouses and aprons.

I do not remember anything personal about her, her name, where she came from or the language she spoke, but all the same I shall never forget that robust, vital young woman. All eyes turned when she wheeled baby Mario down the main street of Fiume, proudly displaying the richly embroidered, stiffly-starched frills round her neck and the sleeves of her white blouse, tucked into a black satin bodice, with the short sleeves protruding. The wide, red-printed skirt was partly hidden by a white frilled apron. She was pretty enough in a countrified way, with high cheek bones, deep-set eyes, and a lovely milk and rose complexion. Her auburn hair, parted in the middle, was crowned with a pearl and bead embroidered head-dress, twisted in a figure eight, while below that, at the back, a red-print scarf reached well below her waist. She wore a pair of bright gold earrings but there was no plain gold ring on her fourth finger.

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Pt 7 David and Ragnhild

2/2/2014

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PictureTop of a church in Budapest
My first spiritual experience 

The first concerns my earliest spiritual experience at the age of three. Ilka, our nanny, walked up the broad steps of the Greek Orthodox Church in Budapest, on the shore of the Danube one Easter Sunday. She was carrying my small brother Hugo in one arm and leading me by the other. The crowd on the porch made way for the young woman with two small children. Soon she wormed her way through the dense congregation, up to the railings separating the altar from the nave.

A stately, white-haired, white-bearded man was facing us. He was standing in front of the flower-bedecked altar in a shaft of sunlight, amid white clouds of incense and the light from the flickering wax candles in huge silver candlesticks. A tall mitre encrusted with precious stones crowned his head, above black bushy brows and large grey eyes. He was robed in sumptuous vestments of white and gold brocade, and was attended by richly dressed priests in white brocade holding lighted candles. There he stood at the very centre of the Easter splendour. He waited for the rich, massive sound of the organ and the sound of hundreds of voices singing ‘Alleluyah’ to cease, then he raised his hand to give the Easter Blessing.

Never having been anywhere like this before, I was overwhelmed. I tugged at Ilka's skirt; pointing at the Archimandrite with his raised arm.

“Ilka,” I asked, “is that man God?”

She put her index finger on her pursed-up lips and said, “Hush.”

Thus the image of God imprinted on my mind, is that of a handsome, benign, white-haired, white-bearded father, not unlike those symbols of the Godhead depicted by the old masters of the renaissance.

A few months after this incident, in 1891, the family left for Fiume on the bay of Quarnere at the uppermost tip of the Adriatic. My father was to be in charge of the construction works of the new harbour; a big contract that my grandfather secured from the Government. So the next thing I remember is a terrifying incident that happened in Fiume, on the very first day of our arrival.

Ilka took me for a walk. Suddenly I stopped and refused to move. I was transfixed at the sight of a savage-looking dark-skinned man, standing in a chemist’s doorway. He had black hair, black mostaccio, and a black beard; his flashing white teeth looked threatening under a Cossacks huge fur cap. He was shooting with a Flit gun at large cockroaches flying around his head.

I loosened myself from Ilka's grip and wanted to run for my life, but I was unable to move and stood there shaking with fear.

“Don’t be frightened, my pet,” said Ilka. “It is not a real man but only a card-board advertisement stuck to the glass door.”

To look at the figureheads on the prows of the old-fashioned sailing-boats in the harbour was a constant delight to me. Those fantastic heads, crudely carved and painted with gaudy colours, were strangely alive and expressive. They fascinated me. I could stand there gazing at them forever. There were a great many, and each one was different. A Blackamoor and a bearded, turbaned Turk carved in wood stared at me with an evil countenance. One I liked particularly was a baby-faced sailor boy, wearing a yellow straw hat with streamers and a navy blouse, his big, blue painted eyes ever fixed on some distant non-existent shore. A ferocious wild beast glared at me with yellow glass eyes from the prow of another boat, showing huge fangs in an everlasting snarl.

I was frightened. Ilka, noticing this, pulled me quickly to the next schooner, the ‘Flora’, to look at a handsome blonde, smiling serenely and garlanded with flowers, having one shapely bosom bare, the other only just covered by wooden daisies, marigolds, and roses. Here I felt at home and happy.

“That's Auntie Irma!” I said.


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Pt 6 David and Ragnhild

1/2/2014

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PictureFiume
Happy Childhood ~ Ragnhild

My life started with an intensely happy and colourful childhood, like a radiant spring-time morning. Within a few years however, clouds gathered. My father had a serious accident which left him completely paralyzed and he had to move from Fiume to Budapest. As a result of this, my childhood formerly spent in lovely surroundings, mostly in the open air on the shores of the blue Adriatic. Was now hampered by the cramped surroundings of a grey city apartment.

I was nine years old at the time and felt this keenly. I am going to give only a brief sketch of these early' years, just enough to provide a glimpse of the background, family milieu, and character of the girl who caught Davie Campbell’s eye. I shall do this by way of a few separate but significant cameos.



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Pt 5 David and Ragnhild

26/1/2014

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PictureQueen Ragnhild circa 800
Ragnhild ~ My first childhood memories

Born twenty years earlier, a baby girl was born in Budapest (1888), on a sunny morning during the coldest winter within living memory. The Danube was frozen over and the land lay white beneath the snow.

“There is only one name for that child - Ragnhild,” said her Norwegian grandfather, Gulbrand Gregersen, after a look at the sturdy infant.

Ragnhild was the name of the most famous queen of ancient Norway - famous for her prophetic dream that her country would be unified. Norway was still divided at that time, 800 A.D., into many small kingdoms, perpetually at war with one another. Queen Ragnhild dreamt one night that she was standing in her orchard and took a thorn out of her shift. As she was holding the thorn in her hand, it grew into a big tree, one end of which struck down into the earth and became firmly rooted, while the other end grew very high into the air and became so dense with foliage that she could not see through the branches. The lower part as red like blood, the trunk was fresh and green, and the branches were as white as snow. There were so many branches that it seemed to her that they covered the whole of Norway.

She asked a wise man to explain this dream. He told her that a son of hers would united Norway and rule over it. In due course the Queen bore a son who was given the name of Harald after he was sprinkled with water. He soon grew strong and remarkably handsome. He swore he would never cut his hair or shave his beard until he had fulfilled the dream. Hence the name Harfragre, meaning ‘with the beautiful hair’. He fought and defeated all the other kings in a series of battles in the year 872 A.D. and Norway has remained one kingdom ever since. Whether he cut his hair afterward is not recorded.


Picture
This is the Queen that  Lady Ragnhild was named after.
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Pt 4 David and Ragnhild

19/1/2014

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PictureBudapest Parliament Bldg
Budapest: the turning-point in Davie's life

Some apparently unimportant event often turns out to be the decisive factor in shaping the course of a man’s life. So it was with Davie Campbell when he accepted an invitation to spend a few months abroad. Though he little realised it at the time, this was to be the turning point of his life.

In the late spring of 1914, Professor Lumnitzer, an eminent surgeon from Budapest, approached the University of Edinburgh with an invitation for a student to give English lessons to his son who was to study medicine there. Davie Campbell was the one who accepted.

And so, one fine day, Davie Campbell arrived in Budapest. He looked round the crowded Central Station. Sándor, his pupil, was supposed to meet him but was nowhere to be seen. ‘He must have forgotten,’ thought Davie. Deciding not to wait, he took his suitcase and climbed into a cab, handing the address written on a piece of paper to the cabby. The cabby, of course, did not speak English.

Meanwhile, the Lumnitzer family sat down to a late lunch. They were waiting for their guest’s arrival from England. At last the two young men turned up at the same time but not from the same place. Sándor had gone to meet Davie at the Western Station.

The family consisted of the surgeon himself, his sister and his two children, who affectionately referred to their aunt, as did everyone else, as ‘Enyi Mama’. That charming 1ady looked after Sándor and Manci after their mother's death, and loved them as a mother would have done. She took to the young Irishman at once, making him feel at home, and a member of the family. Professor Lumnitzer, the surgeon at the Red Cross Hospital, included the two students in his daily round of visits at the hospital and allowed them to observe his operations. This afforded them a great opportunity to gain practical medical experience. Sándor and Davie soon became good friends and the summer started in a happy round of work and fun.


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    Màiri Campbell lives in WA with her husband and their three dogs

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