Glasgow may be the name on everyone’s lips at the moment - even if not everyone is pronouncing it correctly - but while the world leaders visiting COP26 are looking to the future, let's take a look into the city's past.
And if a prominent - if controversial - amateur archaeologist from the 1930s is to be believed, the entire city is a Pagan monument to the moon and its various gods.
Legendary urban prehistory expert Ludovic McLellan Mann claimed that rather than ‘dear green place’, the generally accepted translation of Glasgow, the city is actually named after an old pagan moon deity. He argued not only that the word 'gow' was one of the names given to the moon in early pagan writings, but that the Celtic word 'Glas' properly translates to 'a soft, grey thing'.
"It thus fairly well describes the mellow glow of the moon, so different from the blinding glare of the sun", he suggested.
But that wasn't all - he also believed that Glasgow used to be home to a lunar temple "on the rising ground nearest to the apex on the river’s bend and above the flood plain."
Although he rarely gave details as to exactly how he came up with his theories - which was one of several reasons they have been discredited - he did suggest that this old pagan belief was still reflected in the city's place names...
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