In the Scottish town of Saint Andrews, by the railings of the Hope Park Church, is a large stone with a strange blue patch. The stone wasn’t always beside Hope Park Church, it once rested at Magnus Muir where Knights of Scotland used to swear their oaths.
The legend behind the Blue Stane of St Andrews suggests that the devil (or an angry giant, according to others) threw it there from Blebo Craigs. Why? The devil was angry at the presence of Saint Rule and threw the stone to try and hit him.
Some suggest that the blue mark on the stone is the devil’s fingerprint. The word “stane”, of course, is the Scottish inflexion of “stone”.
St Rule (also known as Saint Regulus) was a monk who was told in a dream by an angel that the bones of Saint Andrew needed to be moved from their resting place Constantinople to the ends of the earth. St Rule obeyed, taking a tooth, some fingers, a kneecap and an arm bone of St Andrews all the way to the edge of the known world. The edge of the known world, at the time, was Scotland.
It is said that St Rule landed in Scotland at an East Coast settlement – a place which was to become known as St Andrews.
Getting to St Andrews
St Andrews has no airport. The nearest airports are Edinburgh Airport and the small Dundee Airport. Most visitors either catch the bus from Glasgow or Edinburgh (a trip which takes a few hours) or take the train from Edinburgh Waverley station (a trip which takes just over an hour).
In Pure Spirit
Have you passed Hope Park Church and wondered what the significance of the large stone was? Why not post links to any photographs you took of your trip?
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