text:
Kenneth Anger

Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927 – May 11, 2023) was an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and writer. Working exclusively in short films, he produced almost 40 works beginning in 1937, nine of which have been grouped together as the "Magick Lantern Cycle". Anger's films variously merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult, and have been described as containing "elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle". He has been called "one of America's first openly gay filmmakers", with several films released before homosexuality was legalized in the U.S. Anger also explored occult themes in many of his films; he was fascinated by the English occultist Aleister Crowley and an adherent of Thelema, the religion Crowley founded.

Anger was born into a middle-class Presbyterian family in Santa Monica, California. He began making short films when he was 14 years old, although his first film to gain any recognition was the homoerotic Fireworks (1947). The work's controversial nature led to his trial on obscenity charges, but he was acquitted. A friendship and working relationship subsequently began with pioneering sexologist Alfred Kinsey. Moving to Europe, Anger produced a number of shorts inspired by the avant-garde scene there, such as Eaux d'Artifice (1953) and Rabbit's Moon (1971).

Returning to the U.S. in the early 1950s, Anger began work on several new projects, including the films Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), Scorpio Rising (1964), Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), and the gossip book Hollywood Babylon (1965). The latter became infamous for various dubious and sensationalist claims, many of which were disproved, though some remain urban legends. Getting to know several notable countercultural figures of the time, Anger involved them in his subsequent Thelema-themed works, Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) and Lucifer Rising (1972). After failing to produce a sequel to Lucifer Rising, which he attempted through the mid-1980s, Anger retired from filmmaking, instead focusing on Hollywood Babylon II (1984). In the 2000s he returned to filmmaking, producing shorts for various film festivals and events.

Anger described filmmakers such as Auguste and Louis Lumière, Georges Méliès, and Maya Deren as influences, and has been cited as an important influence on directors like Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, and John Waters. Kinsey Today argued that Anger had "a profound impact on the work of many other filmmakers and artists, as well as on music video as an emergent art form using dream sequence, dance, fantasy, and narrative."

1927–1936: Early life
Kenneth Anger was born as Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer on February 3, 1927, in Santa Monica, California. His family was Presbyterian, but he became more interested in the occult. His father, Wilbur Anglemyer, was of German ancestry and was born in Troy, Ohio, while his disabled mother, Lillian Coler (the older of the pair), had English ancestry. Anger's parents met at Ohio State University and after marrying had their first child, Jean Anglemyer, in 1918, followed by a second, Robert "Bob" Anglemyer, in 1921. That year they moved to Santa Monica to be near Lillian's mother, Bertha Coler, who had recently moved there. There Wilbur got a job as an electrical engineer at Douglas Aircraft, earning enough money that they could live comfortably as a middle-class family.

Kenneth Anger, their third and final child, was born in 1927. Growing up, he did not get along with his parents or siblings. His brother Bob later claimed that as the youngest child, Kenneth had been spoiled by his mother and grandmother and became somewhat "bratty". His grandmother Bertha was a strong influence on the young Kenneth and supported the family financially during the Great Depression. It was she who first took Kenneth to the cinema, to see a double bill of The Singing Fool and Thunder Over Mexico. Bertha encouraged his artistic interests and later moved into a house in Hollywood with another woman, Miss Diggy, who also encouraged Kenneth. He developed an early interest in film and enjoyed reading the movie tie-in Big Little books. Kenneth later said, "I was a child prodigy who never got smarter." He remembered attending the Santa Monica Cotillion, where he met Shirley Temple, with whom he once danced.

Anger claimed in Hollywood Babylon II that he played the Changeling Prince in the 1935 Warner Brothers film A Midsummer Night's Dream, but the character was played by a girl named Sheila Brown. Anger's unofficial biographer, Bill Landis, remarked in 1995 that the Changeling Prince was definitely "Anger as a child; visually, he's immediately recognizable".

1937–1946: First films
Anger's first film was created in 1937, when he was ten years old. The short, Ferdinand the Bull, was shot on the remains of 16 mm film that had been left unused after the Anglemyers had made home movies with it on a family vacation to Yosemite National Park. In Ferdinand the Bull, which has never been made publicly available, Kenneth dressed as a matador, wearing a cape, while two of his friends from the Boy Scouts played the bull. His second work, created when he was 14, was Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat (1941), which Anger has often called his first proper film. It was made from footage of children playing during the summer, accompanied with popular songs by bands including the Ink Spots. The next year, he produced another amateur film, Prisoner of Mars, which was heavily influenced by Flash Gordon. In this science fiction-inspired feature, in which he played the protagonist, Anger added elements taken from the Greek mythological myth of the Minotaur and constructed a small volcano in his back yard as a homemade special effect. Many of these early films are considered lost, with Anger burning much of his previous work in 1967.

In 1944, the Anglemyers moved to Hollywood to move in with family, and Kenneth began attending Beverly Hills High School. It was here that he met Maxine Peterson, who had once been the stand-in for Shirley Temple, and he asked her – alongside another classmate and an older woman – to appear in his next film project, which was ultimately titled Escape Episode. Revolving partially around the occult, the picture was filmed in a "spooky old castle" in Hollywood and was subsequently screened at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles. Around this time, Anger also began attending screenings of silent films at Clara Grossman's art gallery, through which he met a fellow filmmaker, Curtis Harrington, with whom he formed Creative Film Associates (CFA). Harrington is said to have introduced Anger to the work of English occultist Aleister Crowley. Crowley's philosophy of Thelema exerted a profound influence on Anger's career. CFA was founded to distribute experimental or "underground" films, such as those of Maya Deren and John and James Whitney, as well as Anger's and Harrington's.

Anger's interest in the occult deepened in high school. He first indirectly encountered the subject through reading L. Frank Baum's Oz books as a child, with their accompanying Rosicrucian philosophies. He was also interested in the works of the French ceremonial magician Eliphas Levi, as well as Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough, although his favorite writings were Crowley's; he eventually converted to Thelema, the religion Crowley founded.

1947–1949: Fireworks and early career
Anger discovered his homosexuality at a time when homosexual acts were illegal in the United States, and he began associating with the underground gay scene. At some point in the mid-1940s, he was arrested by police in a "homosexual entrapment", after which he decided to move out of his parents' home, gaining his own apartment largely financed by his grandmother, and abandoning the name Anglemyer in favor of Anger. He started attending the University of Southern California (USC), where he studied cinema, and also began experimenting with the use of mind-altering drugs like cannabis and peyote. It was then that he decided to produce a film that would deal with his sexuality, just as other gay avant-garde filmmakers like Willard Maas were doing in that decade. The result was the short film Fireworks, which was created in 1947 and exhibited publicly in 1948.

Upon Fireworks 's release, Anger was arrested on obscenity charges. He was acquitted after the case went to the Supreme Court of California, which deemed the film art, not pornography. Twenty years old when he made Fireworks, Anger claimed to have been 17, presumably to present himself as more of an enfant terrible. A homoerotic work lasting only 14 minutes, the film revolves around a young man (played by Anger) associating with various navy sailors, who eventually turn on him, stripping him naked, beating him to death, and ripping open his chest to find a compass inside. Several fireworks then explode, accompanied by a burning Christmas tree. The final shot shows the young man lying in bed next to another shirtless man. Of this film, Anger said in 1966: "This flick is all I have to say about being 17, the United States Navy, American Christmas and the fourth of July." He continuously altered and adapted the film until 1980. It was distributed on VHS in 1986.

One of the first people to buy a copy of Fireworks was the sexologist Alfred Kinsey of the Institute for Sex Research. He and Anger struck up a friendship that lasted until Kinsey's death, during which time Anger aided Kinsey in his research. According to Anger's unofficial biographer Bill Landis, Kinsey became a "father figure" whom Anger "could both interact with and emulate." In 1949, Anger began work on the film Puce Women, which unlike Fireworks was filmed in color. It starred Yvonne Marquis as a glamorous woman going about her daily life; Anger later said: "Puce Women was my love affair with Hollywood ... with all the great goddesses of the silent screen. They were to be filmed in their homes; I was, in effect, filming ghosts." Due to lack of funding, only one scene was ever produced, eventually released under the title Puce Moment. That same year, Anger directed The Love That Whirls, a film based on Aztec human sacrifice; because of the nudity it contained, it was destroyed by technicians at the film lab who deemed it obscene.

1950–1953: France, Rabbit's Moon and Eaux d'Artifice
In 1950, Anger moved to Paris, France, where he initially stayed with friends of his who had been forced to leave Hollywood after being blacklisted for having formerly belonged to trade union organizations. He later said he traveled to Paris after receiving a letter from the French director Jean Cocteau in which he told Anger of his admiration for Fireworks (shown in 1949 at Festival du Film Maudit in Biarritz). Upon Anger's arrival, the two became friends, with Cocteau giving him his permission to make a movie of his ballet The Young Man and Death, although at the time the project had no financial backers. In Paris, Anger continued producing short films; in 1950 he started filming Rabbit's Moon (also known as La lune des lapins), about a clown who stares up at the Moon, where a rabbit lives, as in Japanese mythology. Anger produced 20 minutes of footage at the Films du Pantheon Studio before he was rushed out of the building, leaving the film uncompleted. He stored the footage in the disorganized archives of the Cinémathèque Française and retrieved it in 1970, when he finally finished and released the film. Cinémathèque Française head Henri Langlois gave Anger prints of Sergei Eisenstein's Que Viva Mexico!, which he attempted to put into Eisenstein's original order.

In 1953, Anger traveled to Rome, Italy, where he planned to make a film about the 16th-century occultist Cardinal d'Este. To do so, he began filming at the garden of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, in which a lady in 18th-century dress walked through the gardens, which featured many waterfalls (an allusion to the fact that d'Este allegedly sexually enjoyed urination), accompanied by the music of Vivaldi. This was supposed to be only the first of four scenes, but the others were not made; the resulting one-scene film was titled Eaux d'artifice. Landis remarked, "It's one of Anger's most tranquil works; his editing makes it soft, lush, and inviting. Eaux d'Artifice remains a secretive romp through a private garden, all for the masked figure's and the viewer-voyeur's pleasure."

1953–1960: Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome and Hollywood Babylon
In 1953, soon after the production of Eaux d'Artifice, Anger's mother died, and he temporarily returned to the U.S. to assist with the distribution of her estate. During this return, he began to once more immerse himself in California's artistic scene, befriending the filmmaker Stan Brakhage, who had been inspired by Fireworks. The two collaborated on a film, but it was confiscated at the film lab for obscenity and presumably destroyed. Around this time, two of Anger's friends, the couple Renate Druks and Paul Mathison, held a party with the theme "Come As Your Madness"; Anger attended dressed in drag as the ancient Greek goddess Hekate. The party and its many costumes inspired Anger, who produced a painting of it, and asked several of those who attended to appear in a new film he was creating, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. Inauguration, which was created in 1954, is a 38-minute surrealist work featuring many Crowleyan and Thelemite themes, with many of the various characters personifying various pagan gods such as Isis, Osiris, and Pan. One of the actresses in the film was Marjorie Cameron, the widow of Jack Parsons, the influential American Thelemite who had died a few years earlier. Anger played Hekate. He subsequently exhibited the film at various European film festivals, winning the Prix du Ciné-Club Belge and the Prix de l'Age d'Or, as well as screening it in the form of a projected triptych at Expo 58, the World Fair held in Brussels in 1958.

In 1955, Anger and Kinsey traveled to the derelict Abbey of Thelema at Cefalù in Sicily to film a short documentary, Thelema Abbey. Crowley had used the abbey for his commune during the 1920s, and Anger restored many of the erotic wall paintings that were found there, as well as performing certain Crowleyan rituals at the site. The documentary was made for the British television series Omnibus, but was later lost. The next year, after Kinsey's death, Anger decided to return to Paris; he was described at the time as being "extremely remote and lonely".

In desperate need of money, Anger and ghostwriter Elliott Stein wrote a book, Hollywood Babylon, in which he compiled gossip about celebrities, some of which he claimed (with no corroboration or citing of sources) he had been told, including that Rudolph Valentino liked to play a sexually submissive role to dominant women; that Walt Disney was addicted to opiates (reflected in the character of Goofy, who's perpetually stoned on cannabis); and the nature of the deaths of Peg Entwistle and Lupe Vélez. The work was not published in the U.S. initially, and was first released by the French publisher Jean-Jacques Pauvert. A pirated (and incomplete) version was printed in the U.S. in 1965, with the official American version not published until 1974. In response to a lawsuit Gloria Swanson filed against Anger and his publishers, he sent her a foot-long, sugar-filled coffin with "Here lies Gloria" painted on the lid and lined with a paper printed with Hebrew letters spelling "shalom". The coffin is preserved at the University of Texas Harry Ransom Center collection. After obtaining some financial backing from the publication of Hollywood Babylon, his next film project was The Story of O; it was essentially a piece of erotica loosely based on the novel of the same name featuring a heterosexual couple engaged in sadomasochistic sexual activities, although it refrained from showing any explicit sexual images.

1961–1965: Scorpio Rising and Kustom Kar Kommandos

In 1961, Anger once more returned to the U.S., where he lived for a time with Marjorie Cameron. He began work on a new feature, Scorpio Rising, about the biker subculture. For this, he employed a biker named Richard McAuley, and filmed him and some of his friends messing around, adding to it scenes of McAuley, or "Scorpio" as he became known, desecrating a derelict church. Anger incorporated more controversial visuals into the piece, including Nazi iconography, nudity, and clips of the life of Jesus Christ taken from the Family Films' The Living Bible: Last Journey to Jerusalem, images of Jesus which are intercut with those of Scorpio. The film has a soundtrack of popular 1960s songs, including "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton, "Torture" by Kris Jensen, and "I Will Follow Him" by Little Peggy March. Anger called the film "a death mirror held up to American culture ... Thanatos in chrome, black leather, and bursting jeans." It immediately became popular on the underground cinema scene but was soon brought to court on obscenity charges. The jury ruled in favor of the prosecutors and Scorpio Rising was banned; the ban was overturned on appeal to the California Supreme Court.

Now living in San Francisco, Anger approached the Ford Foundation, which had just started a program of grants to filmmakers. He showed the foundation his ideas for a new artistic short, Kustom Kar Kommandos, which they approved of, giving him a grant of $10,000. Anger spent much of the money on living expenses and alterations to some of his films, so that by the time he actually created Kustom Kar Kommandos, it was only one scene long. The homoerotic film involved various shots of a young man polishing a drag strip racing car, accompanied by a pink background and The Paris Sisters' song "Dream Lover". Soon after, Anger struck a deal that allowed Hollywood Babylon to be officially published for the first time in the U.S., where it proved a success, selling two million copies during the 1960s. Around the same time Anger also translated Lo Duca's History of Eroticism into English for American publication.

1966–1969: The hippie movement and Invocation of My Demon Brother
The mid-1960s saw the emergence of the hippie scene and increasing use of the mind-altering drugs Anger had been using for many years. In particular, the hallucinogen LSD, at the time still legal in the U.S., was very popular, and in 1966 Anger released a version of Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome he called the "Sacred Mushroom Edition", which was screened to people while taking LSD, thereby heightening their sensory experience. By this time, Anger had become well known in the American underground scene, and several cinemas screened his better-known films all in one event. With his growing fame, Anger began to react to publicity much as his idol Crowley had done, for instance calling himself "the most monstrous moviemaker in the underground", a pun on the fact that British tabloids had labeled Crowley "the wickedest man in the world" in the 1920s.

Anger's underground fame allowed him to increasingly associate with other celebrities, including Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, who named Anger godfather to his daughter Zeena Schreck. Despite their differing philosophies, Anger and LaVey became good friends and remained so for many years. But Anger also resented some celebrities, such as Andy Warhol, who at the time was achieving success not only in the art world but also in the underground film scene. In 1980, Anger threw paint on the front door of a house Warhol had recently moved out of.

In 1966, Anger moved into the ground floor of the William Westerfeld House, a large 19th-century Victorian house in San Francisco also known as the "Russian Embassy". Around this time he began planning a new film, Lucifer Rising, echoing his Thelemite beliefs about the emerging Aeon of Horus. He tattooed Lucifer's name on his chest and began searching for a young man who could symbolically become Lucifer, "the Crowned and Conquering Child" of the new Aeon, for the film. While living at the Russian Embassy, he met and lived with various young men who could fill the role, eventually settling on Bobby Beausoleil. Beausoleil founded a band, the Magic Powerhouse of Oz, to record the film's soundtrack. In 1967, Anger said the footage he had been filming for Lucifer Rising had been stolen, accusing Beausoleil, who denied it. Landis quotes Beausoleil as saying, "[W]hat had happened was that Kenneth had spent all the money that was invested in Lucifer Rising" and that he therefore invented the story to satisfy the film's creditors. Beausoleil and Anger fell out, with the former getting involved with Charles Manson and the Manson Family. Beausoleil later tortured and murdered Gary Hinman in a drug robbery gone wrong, for which he is serving a life sentence as of 2023.

In the October 26, 1967, issue of The Village Voice, Anger publicly reinvented himself by placing a full-page ad declaring, "In Memoriam. Kenneth Anger. Filmmaker 1947–1967". He soon publicly reappeared, this time to claim he had burned all of his early work. The next year he traveled to London, where he first met John Paul Getty, Jr., who became Anger's patron, and also met and befriended Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, members of The Rolling Stones, as well as actress/model Anita Pallenberg. Anger decided to use much of the footage created for Lucifer Rising in a new film, Invocation of My Demon Brother, which starred Beausoleil, LaVey, Jagger, Richards, and Anger, the music for which was composed by Jagger. It was released in 1969 and explored many of the Thelemic themes Anger had originally intended for Lucifer Rising. Author Gary Lachman believes the film "inaugurat[ed] the midnight movie cult at the Elgin Theatre." The story of the film, its making, and the people involved inspired Zachary Lazar's novel Sway.

1970–1981: Lucifer Rising
Having used up much of the footage originally intended for Lucifer Rising in Invocation of My Demon Brother, Anger made a second attempt to complete Lucifer Rising. He persuaded the singer and actress Marianne Faithfull to appear in the film, and unsuccessfully tried to convince Jagger to play Lucifer; instead he offered his brother Chris the part. Anger subsequently filmed eight minutes of film and showed it to the British National Film Finance Corporation, which agreed to provide £15,000 for Anger to complete it – something that caused a level of outrage in the British press. With this money he could afford to fly the cast and crew to both West Germany and Egypt for filming.

Anger befriended Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page around this time, the two sharing a great interest in Crowley. At Page's invitation, he traveled to Page's new home in Scotland, Crowley's former residence Boleskine House, to help Page exorcise the building of what Page believed to be a headless man's ghost. Page agreed to produce the soundtrack for Lucifer Rising, and used the editing suite in his London home to shape the music. Anger later fell out with Page's partner, Charlotte, who kicked him out of the house. In retaliation he called a press conference in which he ridiculed Page and threatened to "throw a Kenneth Anger curse" on him. Page's music was dumped from the film and replaced in 1979 by music written and recorded by the imprisoned Beausoleil, with whom Anger had reconciled.

Meanwhile, Anger, who had moved to a small apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side, took the footage he had filmed for Rabbit's Moon in the 1950s, finally released the film in 1972, and again in a shorter version in 1979. Around the same time he also added a new soundtrack to Puce Moment and rereleased it. Also around this time, the publisher Marvin Miller produced a low-budget documentary film based on Hollywood Babylon without Anger's permission, which upset Anger and led to a lawsuit. Anger also created a short film, Senators in Bondage, available only to private collectors and never made publicly available. He had plans to make a film about Aleister Crowley titled The Wickedest Man in the World, but this project never got off the ground.

In 1981, a decade after starting the project, Anger finally finished and released the 30-minute Lucifer Rising. Based upon the Thelemite concept that mankind had entered a new period known as the Aeon of Horus, Lucifer Rising was full of occult symbolism, starring Miriam Gibril as the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis, Donald Cammell as her consort Osiris, Faithfull as Jewish mythological figure Lilith, and Leslie Huggins as Lucifer. Anger once again appeared in the film, as the Magus, the same role he played in Invocation of My Demon Brother.

1982–1999: Retirement
Soon after the release of Lucifer Rising, a PBS documentary about Anger and his films, Kenneth Anger's Magick, was made. It was directed by Kit Fitzgerald, who later recalled interviewing Anger in his Manhattan apartment on a very hot July evening, during which he revealed that he was so broke that he had been forced to sell his air conditioner. Anger himself considered producing other films that would continue on from Lucifer Rising in a series, and he began calling his finished film Part I: Sign Language, to be followed by two further parts. But those projects were never finished, and Anger did not produce any further films for nearly two decades. In need of money, he released Hollywood Babylon II in 1984, as well as continuing to screen his films at various festivals and universities and continuing to attempt to produce Lucifer Rising II; around this time he began wearing an eyepatch to these public events, likely due to having been beaten up and getting a bruised eye, a story he told in various interviews, although partly changing the assailant in various versions.

A notorious incident occurred when Anger was invited to appear on Coca Crystal's television show in 1984. Upon arriving at the studio he demanded that somebody pay for his taxi ride there, and when they refused, he attacked talent coordinator Maureen Ivice and tried to drag her into his taxi before she was rescued by other members of staff. Anger reportedly escaped the scene by flinging a $100 bill at the cab driver and screaming, "Get me out of here!"

In 1986, Anger sold the video rights to his films, which finally appeared on VHS, allowing them to have greater publicity. The next year, he attended the Avignon Film Festival in France, where his work was being celebrated in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Fireworks. Soon thereafter, he appeared in Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon, a BBC documentary directed by Nigel Finch for the Arena series. In 1991, he moved to West Arenas Boulevard in Palm Springs, California, living in what was formerly the estate of his friend Ruby Keeler, where the British Film Institute sent Rebecca Wood to assist him in writing a never-produced autobiography. Instead, in 1995, Bill Landis, who had been an associate of Anger's in the early 1980s, wrote an unofficial biography of him. Anger condemned Landis's book, calling Landis "an avowed enemy".

In 1993, Anger visited Sydney and lectured at a season of his films at the Australian Film Institute Cinema. In an interview given at the time to Black and White magazine, he said he was staying in King's Cross and putting the finishing touches on the final treatment of a feature film about Australian artist and occultist Rosaleen Norton. This project was unrealized.

2000–2023: Return to filmmaking and final years
In 2000, Anger began screening a new short film, the anti-smoking Don't Smoke That Cigarette, followed a year later by The Man We Want to Hang, which comprised images of Crowley's paintings that had been shown at a temporary exhibition in Bloomsbury, London. In 2004, he began showing Anger Sees Red, a short surrealistic film starring himself, and the same year also began showing another work, Patriotic Penis. Anger soon followed this with a flurry of other shorts, including Mouse Heaven, which consisted of images of Mickey Mouse memorabilia; Ich Will!; and Uniform Attraction, all of which he showed at various public appearances. Anger's final project was Technicolor Skull, with musician Brian Butler, described as a "magick ritual of light and sound in the context of a live performance", in which Anger plays the theremin and Butler plays the guitar and other electronic instruments amid a psychedelic backdrop of colors and skulls.

Anger made an appearance in Nik Sheehan's 2008 feature documentary about Brion Gysin and the Dreamachine, FLicKeR. He also appeared alongside Vincent Gallo in the 2009 short film Night of Pan, written and directed by Brian Butler. In 2009 his work was featured in a retrospective exhibition at the MoMA PS1 in New York City, and the next year a similar exhibition took place in London.

Anger finished writing Hollywood Babylon III but did not publish it, fearing severe legal repercussions if he did. Of this, he said: "The main reason I didn't bring it out was that I had a whole section on Tom Cruise and the Scientologists. I'm not a friend of the Scientologists." Despite withholding legal action against the highly critical 2015 film Going Clear, the Church of Scientology is known to sue those making accusations against it.

Anger died at a care facility in Yucca Valley, California, on May 11, 2023, at the age of 96. The announcement of his death was delayed until May 24 while his estate was being settled.

Themes
Several recurring themes can be seen in Anger's cinematic work. One of the most notable is homoeroticism, first seen in Fireworks (1947), which was based on Anger's own homosexual awakening and featured various navy officers flexing their muscles and a white fluid (often thought to symbolize semen) pouring over the protagonist's body. There is similar homoerotic imagery in Scorpio Rising (1963), which stars a muscled, topless, leather-clad biker, and Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), where a young man sensually polishes a car, with close-up shots of his tight-fitting jeans and crotch. Images of naked men also appear in Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969), where they are eventually filmed wrestling, and Anger Sees Red (2004), in which a muscled, topless man performs press-ups.

Another recurring theme in Anger's films is the occult, particularly the symbolism of his own esoteric religion, Thelema. This is visible in Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Invocation of My Demon Brother, and Lucifer Rising, all of which are based on the Thelemite concept of the Aeon of Horus and feature actors portraying pagan gods. Anger linked the creation of film to the occult, particularly the practice of ceremonial magic, something of which Crowley had been a noted practitioner. Anger once said, "making a movie is casting a spell."

One of the central recurring images in Anger's work is flames and light; Fireworks has various examples, including a burning Christmas tree. This relates to Lucifer, a deity to whom Anger devoted one of his films, whose name is Latin for "light bearer".

In many of his films, heavy use is made of music, both classical and pop, to accompany the visual imagery. In Scorpio Rising he makes use of the 1950s/1960s pop songs "Torture" by Kris Jensen, "I Will Follow Him" by Little Peggy March, and "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton. He first used music to accompany visuals in the 1941 work Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat?, which uses tracks by the Mills Brothers. His use of popular music to accompany his films has been cited as a key influence on the development of music videos and MTV, although he stated his dislike for the music video industry. On one occasion the band Combustible Edison asked Anger to direct a video to accompany its song "Bluebeard"; he declined, believing that while music could be used to accompany film, it was pointless to do it the other way around.

Awards

 * Maya Deren Award, 1996
 * Silver Lake Film Festival Spirit of Silver Lake Award (2000)
 * San Francisco International Film Festival Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award (2001)
 * Los Angeles Film Critics Association Douglas Edwards Independent/Experimental Film/Video Award (2002), "for his body of work"; tied with Michael Snow, for *Corpus Callosum
 * Anthology Film Archives, Life Achievement Award (2010)

Personality and beliefs
Anger was known for his reclusive nature and had been called an "extremely private individual", although he gave various interviews over the years, including one with Rocco Castoro of Vice. In such interviews, he refused to discuss his name change from Anglemyer to Anger, telling one interviewer: "You're being impertinent. It says 'Anger' on my passport. That's all you need to know. I would stay away from that subject if I were you." But in a 2010 interview, he said: "I just condensed my name. I knew it would be like a label, a logo. It's easy to remember."

Anger once joked that he was "somewhat to the right of the KKK" in his views about black people, opening him up to criticism for racism, though some theorize it was a "Crowley-esque joke". He supported the Tibetan independence movement.

Anger was a Thelemite and belonged to the main Thelemic organization, Ordo Templi Orientis. He viewed many of the men he associated with as living embodiments of Lucifer, a symbol of the Aeon of Horus in Thelemic philosophy, and had his own name inked onto his chest with the Lucifer tattoo. Anger showed an interest in various other religious movements, particularly those that related in some way to occultism. For instance, he was a lifelong friend of Anton LaVey from before the founding of the Church of Satan in the 1960s, even living with him and his family during the 1990s. LaVey also appeared in Anger's Invocation of My Demon Brother as a devilish priest. Anger called himself a pagan and did not consider himself a Satanist. He has called Wicca a "lunar", feminine religion in contrast to Thelema's "solar" masculinity.

title: Kenneth Anger


text:
Dana Scully

Dr. Dana Katherine Scully, M.D., is a fictional character and one of the two protagonists in the Fox science-fiction, supernatural television series The X-Files, played by Gillian Anderson. Scully is a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent and a medical doctor (MD), partnered with fellow Special Agent Fox Mulder for seasons one to seven and seasons 10 and 11, and with John Doggett in the eighth and ninth seasons. In the television series, they work out of a cramped basement office at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC to investigate unsolved cases labeled "X-Files." In 2002, Scully left government employment, and in 2008, she began working as a surgeon in Our Lady of Sorrows, a private Catholic hospital – where she stayed for seven years, until rejoining the FBI. In contrast to Mulder's credulous "believer" character, Scully is the skeptic for the first seven seasons, choosing to base her beliefs on what science can prove. She later on becomes a "believer" after Mulder's abduction at the end of season seven.

Scully has appeared in all but five episodes of The X-Files, and in the 20th Century Fox films The X-Files, released in 1998, and The X-Files: I Want to Believe, released 10 years later. The episodes in which she does not appear are "3," "Zero Sum," "Unusual Suspects," "Travelers" and "The Gift" (excluding archive footage). The eleventh season marked Anderson's final time portraying the character.

Background
Dr. Dana Katherine Scully was born on February 23, 1964, in Annapolis, Maryland, to William (Don S. Davis) and Margaret Scully (Sheila Larken), into a close-knit Catholic family with Irish ancestry. She has an older brother, Bill Jr., an older sister, Melissa, and a younger brother, Charles, who is never seen on the show except in flashbacks. In the canonical 2016 comic book series, published by IDW Publishing, the two-part issue "Ishmael" revealed Scully had a paternal half-brother, named Tam Minh Nguyen. Scully's father was a navy captain, who died of a heart attack in early January 1994. Dana Scully grew up in Annapolis, Maryland and later in San Diego, California. As a young girl, Scully's favorite book was Moby-Dick and she came to nickname her father "Ahab" from the book, and in return, he called her "Starbuck." Due to this, she named her dog Queequeg.

Scully attended the University of Maryland, and in 1986, received a Bachelor of Science degree in physics. Her undergraduate thesis was titled Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation. Just out of medical school at Stanford University, she was recruited by the FBI; she accepted the agency's offer of employment because she felt she could distinguish herself there. After two years in the bureau, Section Chief Scott Blevins assigned her to work with agent Fox Mulder.

Storylines
Upon being partnered with Mulder, Scully maintained her medical skills by acting as a forensic pathologist, often performing or consulting on autopsies of victims on X-Files cases.

In season two, Scully was kidnapped by an ex-FBI agent turned mental patient named Duane Barry, and then taken from Barry by a military covert operation that was working with the alien conspirators, but was later returned. In season three, she found out that a super hi-tech microchip had been implanted in the back of her neck. After having it removed, she developed cancer in the fourth season and was hospitalized after the cancer became terminal. She was saved after Mulder broke into the Department of Defense to retrieve another chip to be implanted back into her neck. At the time, Scully was also undergoing experimental medical treatments and was having a dramatic renewal of her faith.

Scully was pronounced infertile during the fifth season. In the season five episode "Emily," Scully discovers that she unknowingly mothered a daughter during her abduction (in season two). Her daughter Emily was adopted by another family. Emily died shortly afterwards, and they were unable to further investigate after Emily's body went missing. In the seventh-season finale, "Requiem," Scully mysteriously became pregnant. The child, named William, after her own father, as well as Mulder's father, was born at the end of the eighth season. The show did not initially reveal the cause of Scully's pregnancy, but later episodes and movies would see Mulder and Scully call William "our son"; the pair had unsuccessfully tried for a child through in vitro fertilization. Around this time, Mulder was fired from the FBI by Deputy Director Alvin Kersh, and Scully left the field to teach forensics at Quantico. William was placed for adoption during the end of the ninth season after Scully felt she could no longer provide the safety that William needed. William was a "miracle child," of some importance to the alien conspirators. He demonstrated extraordinary powers, including telekinesis.

In The X-Files: I Want to Believe, she is shown working as a medical doctor at the Our Lady of Sorrows, a private Catholic hospital in Virginia. Early on in the film, Scully is contacted by the FBI, who are looking for Fox Mulder in the hope that he will assist them with the investigation of a missing FBI agent. In exchange for his help, the charges against him will be dropped. Unlike Mulder, Scully was apparently not considered a fugitive by the FBI. However, she did continue to maintain her romantic relationship with Mulder throughout the six years that he was on the run from the American government. In the movie, they are shown to be living together in a secluded house.

In the first episode of season 10, "My Struggle" (2016), Scully is still working as a doctor for Our Lady of Sorrows hospital, now performing surgeries on children with severe birth defects. She has extraterrestrial DNA, as the test that she performs on herself confirms. After the FBI reopens the X-Files, 14 years after their closure, she rejoins the bureau. In "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster," Scully jokes that she often enters dangerous situations alone due to the immortality she seemingly obtained during the events of the episode "Tithonus." At the end of "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster," Scully steals a dog from an animal control center, named Daggoo, which is named after yet another character from Moby-Dick. In "Home Again" Dana's mother, Margaret Scully, dies after suffering a heart attack. In the show's 10th-season finale, "My Struggle II," Scully is in a race against time to save humankind, creating a vaccine from her own extraterrestrial DNA.

Characterization
Throughout the series, Scully's Catholic faith served as a cornerstone, although a contradiction to her otherwise rigid skepticism of the paranormal. Due to her career in science and medicine, she drifted from her Catholic Christian upbringing, but remained somewhat entrenched in her religious beliefs.

Scully almost always wears a gold cross necklace. Two conflicting stories exist of how Scully received the necklace. After Scully's abduction in season two, Scully's mother told Fox Mulder she gave Scully the necklace as a 15th birthday present. In season five, Scully recalls receiving the necklace as a Christmas present. Scully's sister, Melissa, also receives a similar necklace on that occasion. When she was abducted by Duane Barry, a self-proclaimed alien abductee, it was the only item left behind in Barry's getaway car. Mulder wore it as a talisman of her until Scully miraculously reappeared in a Washington, DC, hospital. After she recovered from the trauma of her abduction, he returned the cross to her.

The abduction visibly tested the limits of her faith – Mulder believes that Scully was taken aboard an alien spaceship and was subjected to tests. Because of Scully's skepticism, though, she believes she was kidnapped by men, not aliens, and subjected to tests. She believes she could have been brought there by Barry, and she began to exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder on a case involving a murdering fetishist named Donnie Pfaster. This psychological re-victimization continued after Pfaster escaped from prison five years later and again attempted to kill her in her home, ending only after she fatally shot him. She struggled with what motivated her actions to kill Pfaster, and questioned whether it was God compelling her to kill him, or "something else."

Sometime after her recovery from cancer, Scully began to regularly attend mass again. At the request of Father McCue, Scully got involved in a case concerning a paraplegic girl who was found dead in a kneeling position with her palms outstretched and eye sockets charred. After Scully discovered the girl was a quadruplet and two more were murdered, Father McCue shared with her the story of the seraphim and the nephilim, which Scully interpreted as a possible explanation for the deformations and deaths of the girls. Scully continued to have visions of Emily, and when the last girl died, Scully believed she was returning the girl to God. Upon her return to Washington, DC, she went to confession to gain peace of mind and acceptance for Emily's death. In confession, she regretted her decision of letting the girl go. This suggests Scully had doubts about her faith.

In the sixth-season episode "Milagro," Agent Scully's vulnerability is exposed. In this episode, the murderer takes the victim's heart out. The suspect, a writer named Phillip Padgett, has a particular interest in Scully and is fascinated by her beauty and personality. When she goes to a church to observe a painting, the writer is there and talks to her about the Sacred Heart of Jesus. During the conversation he says she visits the church because she likes art, but not as place of worship. Scully doesn't say otherwise and later she says to Agent Mulder the writer told her her life story. All this suggests that Scully isn't a devout Roman Catholic, although she attempted to approach again the Catholic community and the Catholic faith to which she was devout in her youth, after handling the strange case presented in "Revelations" and also after dealing with life-threatening cancer during the fourth season.

Relationships
While in medical school, Scully carried on an affair with her married instructor, Dr. Daniel Waterston, who may have been the "college boyfriend" mentioned in "Trust No 1." In the show, whether or not the relationship became sexual is never indicated. According to Anderson in the episode's audio commentary, Scully came very close to having an affair with the married Waterston, but left before she could break up his marriage. The end of her relationship with Waterston came about following her decision to go into the FBI. After her entrance to the FBI's Academy at Quantico, Scully began a year-long relationship with her Academy instructor, Jack Willis, with whom she shared a birthday.

Towards the end of the series, her previously platonic friendship with partner Fox Mulder developed into a romantic relationship. When Mulder was injured in a boat crash, he awakened in a hospital and told Scully that he loved her. In the season six episode "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas," a ghost that seems to know the inner workings of Scully's mind suggests that her source of intimacy for Mulder comes from her desire to always prove him wrong. By the end of the sixth season, Mulder and Scully were increasingly shown enjoying more light-hearted activities together, such as practicing baseball, using FBI funds for a "night out" during a movie premiere, and watching a movie at Mulder's apartment. In the season seven episode "all things," Scully is shown getting dressed in Mulder's bathroom, while Mulder sleeps, apparently naked, in the bedroom. In "Trust No 1" a man reveals to Scully that he works for a new Syndicate like-organization, and his job requires him and a few other colleagues to spy on her around the clock. Due to this he knows intimate details of Scully's personal life, right down to her "natural hair color" (Titian, as later confirmed by Chris Carter). It is suggested by this man that Scully ultimately initiated a sexual relationship with Mulder, as he remarked that he was very surprised when she invited Mulder "into her bed." The last scene of the series finale featured Mulder and Scully holding each other on a bed, facing an uncertain future together in love.

In the film, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, which takes place six years later, Mulder and Scully are still in a relationship. Scully was concerned that Mulder's continuing pursuit of the unknown was taking its toll on their relationship, and they could not be together if he could not "escape the darkness." However, the film ends with the couple sharing a passionate kiss, and in the "secret ending" after the majority of the credits, a happily-smiling Scully is seen in a small rowboat with Mulder, both clad in swimwear, in a tropical sea, having taken him up on his offer to run away together. In the 10th season, Scully and Mulder are no longer a couple, as she chose to leave him. At the end of the season, Scully gets a vision, which is revealed to have come from her son, William, at the beginning of season 11. Over the course of season 11, Scully and Mulder search for William. Skinner learns from the Smoking Man that the Smoking Man, who is Mulder's father, also artificially impregnated Scully, thus is William's father, as well. In the third episode of the 11th season, "Plus One," Scully and Mulder are intimate again. In the season 11 finale, "My Struggle IV," she reveals to Mulder that she is pregnant with his child.

Conceptual history
Chris Carter named Scully after his favorite sportscaster, Vin Scully of the Los Angeles Dodgers. John Doggett was likewise named after Vin Scully's longtime broadcasting partner, Jerry Doggett. Scully's character was also inspired by Jodie Foster's portrayal of Clarice Starling in the film The Silence of the Lambs.

The casting for Scully caused a conflict between Carter and the Fox network. Carter had chosen 24-year-old Gillian Anderson, whom Carter felt was perfect for the role. Of her audition, Carter said, "she came in and read the part with a seriousness and intensity that I knew the Scully character had to have and I knew [...] she was the right person for the part." However, Fox executives had wanted a more glamorous "bombshell" for the part (in a 2008 interview Anderson stated that Pamela Anderson had actually been the network's first choice), hoping that this would lead to the series involving a romantic element. This led Carter to insist that he did not want the roles of Mulder and Scully to become romantically involved. Carter decided Scully would be the skeptic to play against established stereotypes; typically on television the quality was attributed to a male. Because Duchovny was much taller than Anderson, during scenes where Mulder and Scully stand or walk next to each other Anderson stood on "the Gilly-Board," an apple box named after her.

Scully appears in every episode of the 11-season series with the exceptions of "3," "Zero Sum," "Unusual Suspects," and "Travelers." She has appeared outside The X-Files on numerous occasions, the most notable being in the Millennium (also created by Chris Carter) episode "Lamentation," in which the main character, Frank Black, visits the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and Mulder and Scully are briefly seen descending a stairway. In fact, they are Duchovny and Anderson's stand-ins.

An animated version of Scully, which featured the voice acting of Anderson, appeared on season eight of The Simpsons, in the episode "The Springfield Files," as well as Canadian animated series Eek! The Cat, on the episode "Eek Space 9." The animated television series ReBoot featured characters Fax Modem and Data Nully, obvious spoofs of Mulder and Scully, in the episode "Trust No One." Anderson provided her voice work for the episode, but co-star Duchovny declined.

Reception
Anderson won many awards for her portrayal of Special Agent Scully during the ten seasons of The X-Files, including an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1997, a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Drama Series in 1997, two SAG Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series in 1996 and 1997 and a Saturn Award for Best Actress on Television in 1997. In total, Anderson received for the role, four Emmy nominations, four Golden Globe nominations, nine SAG nominations and eight Saturn nominations.

Film critic Scott Mendelson, writing in The Huffington Post, cited Scully as an example of strong female characters on television, calling her "one of the most iconic characters in the science-fiction genre." Radio Times Laura Pledger also named her as a strong TV woman, placing her at No. 1. Rebecca Traister of Salon.com opined that Scully had a better character arc than Mulder. She wrote, "The very fact that her character was such a hard sell made her repeated brushes with the supernatural all the more powerful. Mulder's desire to believe was so expansive, his credulity so flexible, that it's not as though he was ever going to have either shaken from him. But Scully's surety was solid, stable, rigid; every time she saw something she thought she'd never see, we saw it crack, sparks fly from it. She was forced to question herself, grow, change." She praised her for being more "rational, resilient, [and] mature" than her partner and for their mature relationship. In a review of "Irresistible," Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club wrote that it was a cliché to put Scully in danger, as "Scully is [the show's] heart, and any time she's in danger, it feels like the show itself is about to be stabbed through the heart."

The character of Scully has become something of a sci-fi heroine due to her intelligence and resilience, frequently appearing on lists of important female science fiction characters, such as Total Sci-Fi Online's list of The 25 Women Who Shook Sci-Fi, where she came in fourth. TV Squad named her the thirteenth greatest woman on television, while the site also listed her among the most memorable female science fiction television characters. She is also often cited as being an unlikely sex symbol, frequently being included in lists of sexy TV characters. She was listed in AfterEllen.com's Top 50 Favorite Female TV Characters. The pairing Mulder/Scully was ranked number 15 on Sleuth Channel's poll of America's Top Sleuths.

Angelica Jade Bastién of Vulture emphasized the importance of Scully's character in popular culture by listing all the strong female characters she inspired or may have influenced in some aspects, including: Temperance "Bones" Brennan of Bones, Peggy Carter of Agent Carter, Veronica Mars of Veronica Mars, Olivia Moore of iZombie, Dr. Maura Isles of Rizzoli & Isles, Olivia Benson of Law and Order: SVU, Joan Watson of Elementary, Sydney Bristow of Alias, Abbie Mills of Sleepy Hollow, Zoë Washburne of Firefly, Stella Gibson (another character portrayed by Anderson) of The Fall and Olivia Dunham of Fringe. Jade Bastién wrote: "Do all the characters Scully has influenced live up to her? Definitely not. Gillian Anderson's performance and her chemistry with David Duchovny aren't exactly elements that can be replicated. But these characters prove that Scully isn't only the heart of The X-Files, but also the character who had the most profound influence on popular culture."

Indiewire's Liz Shannon Miller ranked Scully as the No. 1 most important character of The X-Files, writing: "Scully's legacy is so important in so many ways, from giving us the gift of Gillian Anderson's acting, to inspiring an entire generation of young women to pursue careers in STEM. Intelligent, loyal, flawed and brave, Scully was the show's beating heart and saving grace even in its lowest years. As Chris Carter himself has said: 'It's Scully's show'."

"The Scully Effect"
The character is believed by some to have initiated a phenomenon referred to as "The Scully Effect," as the character's role as a medical doctor and FBI Special Agent inspired many young women to pursue careers in science, medicine, engineering, and law enforcement, and as a result brought a perceptible increase in the number of women in those fields. At the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con International, Anderson noted that she has long been aware of "The Scully Effect" and stated: "We got a lot of letters all the time, and I was told quite frequently by girls who were going into the medical world or the science world or the FBI world or other worlds that I reigned, that they were pursuing those pursuits because of the character of Scully. And I said, 'Yay!'" Anne Simon, a biology professor and a science adviser for the series recalls: "I asked my Intro Bio class back then how many of them were influenced by the character of Scully on The X-Files to go into science and half of the hands in the room went up. That's huge! That was saying that the show was really having an effect." "The Scully Effect" remains a subject of academic inquiry.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Dana Scully


text:
Cupar

Cupar (Cùbar) is a town, former royal burgh and parish in Fife, Scotland. It lies between Dundee and Glenrothes. According to a 2011 population estimate, Cupar had a population around 9,000, making it the ninth-largest settlement in Fife, and the civil parish a population of 11,183 (in 2011). It is the historic county town of Fife, although the council now sits at Glenrothes.

History
The town is believed to have grown around the site of Cupar Castle, which was the seat of the sheriff and was owned by the earls of Fife. The area became a centre for judiciary as the county of Fife and as a market town catering for both cattle and sheep.

Towards the latter stages of the 13th century, the burgh became the site of an assembly of the three estates – clergy, nobility and burgesses – organised by Alexander III in 1276 as a predecessor of the Parliament of Scotland.

Although written information of a charter for the modern town was lost, evidence suggested that this existed as one of the many properties owned by the Earls of Fife by 1294.

During the middle of the 14th century, the burgh started to pay customs on taxable incomes, which probably meant that royal burgh status was granted sometime between 1294 and 1328. The oldest document, referring to the royal burgh, was a grant by Robert II in 1381 to give a port at Guardbridge on the River Eden to help boost trade with Flanders. This grant was officially recognised by James II in 1428.

Governance

Cupar is represented by several tiers of elected government. Cupar Community Council is the lowest. Its statutory role is to communicate local opinion to local and central government. Fife Council, the unitary local authority for Cupar based in Glenrothes, is the executive, deliberative and legislative body responsible for local governance. The Scottish Parliament is responsible for devolved matters such as education, health and justice while reserved matters are dealt with by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Cupar area supports three multi-member wards with eleven councillors sitting on the committee of Fife Council. County Buildings on Catherine Street are the main headquarters for the east region of Fife Council, which deals with administrative, planning and agricultural issues.

Cupar forms part of the North East Fife, electing one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom by the first past the post system. The constituency is represented by Wendy Chamberlain MP of the Liberal Democrats. For the purposes of the Scottish Parliament, Cupar forms part of the North East Fife constituency. The North East Fife Scottish Parliament (or Holyrood) constituency created in 1999 is one of nine within the Mid Scotland and Fife electoral region. Each constituency elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) and the region elects seven additional members to produce a form of proportional representation. The constituency is represented by Willie Rennie for the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

Prior to Brexit in 2020 it was part of the pan-Scotland European Parliament constituency which elected seven Members of the European Parliament (MEP)s using the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation.

Demography
The 2001 census reported a population of 8,506, which increased slightly to around 8,980 in 2008. The demographic make-up resembles the rest of Scotland. The 30–44 age group formed the largest portion of the population (22%). The median age of males and females was 39 and 43 years respectively, compared to 37 and 39 years for the whole of Scotland.

Reported places of birth were:

 * 95.81% in the United Kingdom (including 81.64% from Scotland)
 * 0.51% in Ireland
 * 1.60% in other European Union countries
 * 2.09% in the rest of the world

The economic activity of residents aged 16–74 was 42.20% in full-time employment, 12.32% in part-time employment, 5.89% self-employed, 3.10% unemployed, 2.96% students with jobs, 3.94% students without jobs, 17.68% retired, 4.83% looking after home or family, 4.35% permanently sick or disabled, and 2.72% economically inactive for other reasons. Compared with Scotland's average demography, Cupar has a lower proportion of immigrants, but a higher proportion of over-75s.

Landmarks
The Old Gaol was designed by James Gillespie Graham and built 1813–14. After closing as a prison in 1844, it was used by the Fifeshire Militia, later the Fifeshire Artillery Militia. It was purchased by William Watt (seedsman) in 1895 and occupied by that firm until 1988. It operated as Watts of Cupar, a bar and restaurant, until it closed and was sold to developers at the end of 2019.

The historic town centre is the junction of Bonnygate and the Crossgate. This is where the town's mercat cross, is located with the original shaft being supported by a unicorn. It dates from 1683. To the east is St Catherine Street, home to the burgh chambers and county buildings, both designed by Robert Hutchison. The Category B listed Cupar Burgh Chambers, built between 1815 and 1817, contains a three-story bow street corner and a doric entrance. The adjacent county buildings built between 1812 and 1817 are unique in Fife as the only example replicating the style of buildings in the New Town of Edinburgh. The Category B-listed Corn Exchange tower can be seen across the town skyline.

At the east end of St Catherine Street is the Category B-listed Cupar War Memorial in a classical Greek style overlooking the Cart Haugh, one of several designed by John Kinross with assistance from leading contemporary sculptors, for the exception of the Victory statue which was done by Henry Snell Gamley. The memorial was first unveiled by Field Marshal Earl Haig in 1922 and then again for the addition of the World War II memorial in 1950 by the Earl of Elgin. Nearby on Coal Road is a Category B-listed classical style former prison building built between 1813 and 1814.

On the Bonnygate, the Category A-listed Preston Lodge built by the Laird of Airdrie is the town's second oldest building. The house was built in 1623 and is inscribed on a stone on the west wall. The house was extended in 1702 by James Preston and was remodeled by London goldsmith William Preston, in 1765. Later, the Reverend Sir James Preston occupied the house between 1775 and 1791, when he was the minister of the Cupar Old Parish Church. The original design of the building is believed to have been inspired by Culross Palace in Culross. Situated at the corner of the Crossgate, the Category C listed Duncan's Institute by John Milne, which was built 1870–71 as a mechanics' institute for the "working classes of Cupar" by Mrs Duncan. The building, a mixture of Gothic, Scottish and Flemish styles is recognised in the town for its twisted spire. On the Kirkgate is the Parish Church of Cupar Old and St Michael of Tarvit, designed by the architect, Hay Bell. This consists of the Category A-listed Parish Church tower dating from 1415 and the Category B-listed main church building from 1745. The tower is the only surviving piece of the old Cupar parish church, founded by the priory of St Andrews.

To the south of the town on the A914 and A916 is the Category A-listed Hill of Tarvit mansion house and nearby scheduled monument Scotstarvit Tower. The Hill of Tarvit was formerly known as Wemyss Hall, designed by Sir Walter Bruce around 1692. When the house was sold in 1904, Robert Lorimer was commissioned to design a bigger house compared to the existing Wemyss Hall to be able to hold the owner's French architecture. This was completed around 1907 and 1908, granting the present name Hill of Tarvit. The house's interior showcased the owner's love of antique furniture ranging from Flemish tapestries; Louis V; Louis XI; English and Scottish have been considered to be Lormier's best work. The service accommodation showcases the range of rooms and equipment used by a family, prior to the First World War. Situated between the Tarvit and Walton Hills, is Scotstarvit Tower, a well-preserved simple L-plan early 17th century tower house of five stories and an attic. To the north of the town is Hawklaw, which operated as a Government Radio Receiving Station between 1942 and 1988.

Economy
Fife Council is the largest employer in the area. Many people are employed in food and drink.

The larger employers are Kettle Produce (fruit and vegetable producer) and Fishers Services Ltd. Other employers include the SRUC Campus at Elmwood College (Fife education); Quaker Oats Ltd (food and drink) and Fisher & Donaldson (food and drink).

The main shopping facilities are located between the Bonnygate and Crossgate, including family-owned businesses and some smaller chain stores. The town also has a Business Park, Trading Estate and Industrial Estate.

Cupar Retail Park

In November 2021, the South Road retail park was completed. Shops include Burger King, Costa Coffee, B&M, Card Factory, Indigo Sun, Baynes the Baker and Nimbus Beds.

Leisure
Cupar has an unusual golf course on the side of a hill to the South of town at Hill of Tarvit. The club was founded on 7 November 1855. Cupar Golf Club is rich with history and is probably the oldest nine-hole club in the world.

The Kingarrock course at Hill Tarvit Mansion house uses hickory shafted clubs, in the original style.

Cupar Sports Centre has a 25-metre swimming pool, badminton courts, squash courts and a fitness suite. The swimming pool is the base for Cupar and District Swimming Club. Cupar is home to Cupar Cricket Club, founded in 1884. The club is celebrating its 125th anniversary in the 2009 season.

The Castlehill Community Association is home to local groups including Cupar Camera Club, Cupar Art Club, Cupar & District Model Railway Club. They operate from the Old Castlehill Primary School and from 11 St Catherine Street.

Cupar also plays host to the biennial Cupar Arts Festival.

Education
Cupar is home to one additional needs school, one secondary school, two primary schools, a nursery school and a playgroup.

Cupar Pre-school Playgroup was opened around 1985. As of March 2022, their website shows that they have closed.

Ferryfield Playgroup was opened in 1967 by Isobel Blair in her home at Ferryfield. In 1976, it was moved to building at Castlehill (not to be confused by Castlehill Primary School).

Westfield Family Nurture Centre was opened in 1981 as part of Castlehill Primary School, but was made independent at some point. It is Cupar's only nursery.

Castlehill Primary School opened to pupils on the present site in 1975 and is located on the town's outskirts and has enrollment of 420.

St Columbas R C Primary School was opened in 2006. It serves the Catholic community of Cupar and the surrounding area. It also enrols non-catholic pupils.

Kilmaron School caters for pupils that have complex additional support needs. It was built in 1964, and takes in pupils from the ages of 3–18 years.

Bell Baxter High School located on Carslogie Road, serves both the town and surrounding villages. Bell Baxter was originally situated at Westport between 1890 and 2010. In 1962, Bell Baxter started to move to Carslogie Road, with just the Senior Pupils going at first. In 2010, the Westport site was completely closed. The School roll was recorded in February 2009 and was estimated at 1620 pupils.

SRUC Elmwood (formerly Elmwood College) has three main campuses situated in the town and surrounding area. The college has been praised as a centre for excellence in golf-related studies and specialising in land-based education. Local businesses benefit from the work of the SRUC Rural Business Centre.

Transport
An express bus service connects the town every hour between Edinburgh and St Andrews and also between Glasgow and St Andrews. Other services run less frequently from Stirling and various local villages through Cupar to St Andrews. An express service also runs via the town from Kirkcaldy to Dundee. A railway station can be found to the south-east of the town centre. The station is situated on the East Coast Main Line, served by ScotRail and CrossCountry with regular services running between Edinburgh Waverley and Aberdeen. Nearby stations are located to the north-east of the town at Leuchars and to the south of the town in neighbouring Springfield (limited service) and Ladybank. The nearest major international airport is Edinburgh airport with the nearest ferry sea port at Rosyth being 42 and 35 mi, respectively.

Military
Yeomanry House, a drill hall completed in 1890, is home to 'C Squadron' of the Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry. The SNIY provides a Light Cavalry capability and have travelled to Germany and the United States on training and on operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cyprus. They previously operated the FV107 Scimitar, FV105 Sultan and FV103 Spartan light armoured vehicles in the a reconnaissance role. They are paired with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards based at Leuchars Station (formerly RAF Leuchars).

The Army Cadet Force and Air Training Corps 571 (Cupar) Squadron are also active in the town.

Notable people

 * Adam Cairns (1802–1881) Presbyterian minister, emigrated to Melbourne.
 * John Finlayson (disciple) (1770–1854) millennium cultist
 * John Laird (1811–1896) Presbyterian minister and Free Church moderator.
 * Colonel Robert Hope Moncrieff Aitken VC (1826–1887), recipient of the Victoria Cross during the Indian Mutiny, was born in Cupar.
 * Henrietta Keddie, who wrote as Sarah Tytler, was born in Cupar in 1827.
 * Sir Thomas Russell, 1st Baronet (1841–1920), politician, temperance campaigner and agrarian agitator
 * Lady Henrietta Gilmour (1852–1926) pioneer photographer, lived at Denbrae House north of Cupar and is buried in Cupar Cemetery.
 * Robert Robertson FRS, chemist and former the government chemist, was born in Cupar in 1869.
 * Jane Stocks Greig, physician and public health specialist, was born in Cupar in 1872.
 * Alexander Nimmo (1783–1832) civil engineer and geologist active in early 19th-century Ireland was born in Cupar.
 * Rab Noakes, singer-songwriter, is from Cupar.
 * Rory Douglas-Speed, actor, who was born in Cupar in 1992.
 * Caroline Baird MBE (formally Innes), Paralympic athlete, is from Cupar.

title: Cupar


text:
User talk:Builder

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them;

 * How to edit a page
 * How to write a great article
 * Naming conventions
 * Manual of Style

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Tip: you can sign your name with ~

snoyes 18:12, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Images
Hello, what is the copyright status of the images you have uploaded: Image:24_small.jpeg, Image:Frontshot.jpeg, and Image:Sepe a4446b72.jpeg. Did you personally take them? Do you personally own them? If not, did you receive permission from the images' owner(s) to upload them here? They seem fairly professional, and without explanation, I'd have to assume their presence here is a copyright violation. A clarification would be very helpful. Thanks, Minesweeper 06:11, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Ooops! I admit - somewhat ashamed - that I hadn't been checking that out properly. I now have switched the Anders Graneheim photo (Image 24_small) into another photo of Anders Graneheim (DSC0047) which I today have got the photographer's (Alexander Danielsson) permission to use in the article. Concerning the other two, I have contacted their official websites, and I hope I will get permission and/or photographer/copyright info within the coming week or so. If I don't get it, I will remove those photos. Sorry about this, remember I'm pretty new here... Btw: Can someone remove the following photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dsc_0047.jpg It was an unsuccessful attempt to upload the Graneheim photo and doesn't have to be saved. Thanks in advance.

 * Replied via email. I've deleted failed upload for you. --Minesweeper 09:05, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)

I now have got permission from the photographer for the Prandi photo. Copyright info added. The Frank Sepe website hasn't answered, so I have removed the photo of him.

License tagging for Image:MATUS1.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:MATUS1.jpg. Wikipedia gets thousands of images uploaded every day, and in order to verify that the images can be legally used on Wikipedia, the source and copyright status must be indicated. Images need to have an image tag applied to the image description page indicating the copyright status of the image. This uniform and easy-to-understand method of indicating the license status allows potential re-users of the images to know what they are allowed to do with the images.

For more information on using images, see the following pages:
 * Image use policy
 * Image copyright tags

This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. If you need help on selecting a tag to use, or in adding the tag to the image description, feel free to post a message at Media copyright questions. 15:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Image:Dsc0047.JPG
Thanks for uploading Image:Dsc0047.JPG. I notice the 'image' page specifies that the image is being used under fair use, but its use in Wikipedia articles fails our first fair use criterion in that it illustrates a subject for which a freely licensed image could reasonably be found or created that provides substantially the same information. If you believe this image is not replaceable, please:

 * 1) Go to the image description page and edit it to add , without deleting the original Replaceable fair use template.
 * 2) On the image discussion page, write the reason why this image is not replaceable at all.

Alternatively, you can also choose to replace the fair use image by finding a freely licensed image of its subject, requesting that the copyright holder release this (or a similar) image under a free license, or by taking a picture of it yourself.

If you have uploaded other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified how these images fully satisfy our fair use criteria. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on [ this link]. Note that any fair use images which are replaceable by free-licensed alternatives will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Chowbok  ☠  05:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Frontshot.jpeg
I have tagged Image:Frontshot.jpeg as replaceable fair use. If you wish to dispute this assertion, please add to the image description page and a comment explaining your reasoning to the the image talk page. Calliopejen1 18:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Replaceable fair use Image:MATUS1.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:MATUS1.jpg. I noticed the description page specifies that the media is being used under a claim of fair use, but its use in Wikipedia articles fails our first non-free content criterion in that it illustrates a subject for which a freely licensed media could reasonably be found or created that provides substantially the same information. If you believe this media is not replaceable, please:

 * 1) Go to the media description page and edit it to add, without deleting the original replaceable fair use template.
 * 2) On the image discussion page, write the reason why this image is not replaceable at all.

Alternatively, you can also choose to replace this non-free media by finding freely licensed media of the same subject, requesting that the copyright holder release this (or similar) media under a free license, or by taking a picture of it yourself.

If you have uploaded other non-free media, consider checking that you have specified how these images fully satisfy our non-free content criteria. You can find a list of description pages you have edited by clicking on [ this link]. Note that even if you follow steps 1 and 2 above, non-free media which could be replaced by freely licensed alternatives will be deleted 2 days after this notification (7 days if uploaded before 13 July 2006), per our non-free content policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Ricky81682 (talk) 22:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs
Hello Builder! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created  is tagged as an Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. If you were to bring this article up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current Category:All_unreferenced_BLPs article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the unreferencedBLP tag. Here is the article:

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 05:54, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Frank Sepe -

title: User talk:Builder


text:
Burgh

A burgh is an autonomous municipal corporation in Scotland, usually a city, town, or toun in Scots. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burgh status was broadly analogous to borough status, found in the rest of the United Kingdom. Following local government reorganisation in 1975, the title of "royal burgh" remains in use in many towns, but now has little more than ceremonial value.

History
The first burgh was Berwick. By 1130, David I (r. 1124–53) had established other burghs including Edinburgh, Stirling, Dunfermline, Haddington, Perth, Dumfries, Jedburgh, Montrose, Rutherglen and Lanark. Most of the burghs granted charters in his reign probably already existed as settlements. Charters were copied almost verbatim from those used in England, and early burgesses usually invited English and Flemish settlers. They were able to impose tolls and fines on traders within a region outside their settlements. Properties known as Burgage tenures were a key feature, whose tenants had to be of the Burgher class, known as a "Burgesses", and therefore eligible to participate in trade within the town, and to elect town officials. Most of the early burghs were on the east coast, and among them were the largest and wealthiest, including Old and New Aberdeen, Berwick, Perth and Edinburgh, whose growth was facilitated by trade with other North Sea ports on the continent, in particular in the Low Countries, as well as ports on the Baltic Sea. In the south-west, Glasgow, Ayr and Kirkcudbright were aided by the less profitable sea trade with Ireland and to a lesser extent France and Spain. Burghs were typically settlements under the protection of a castle and usually had a market place, with a widened high street or junction, marked by a mercat cross, beside houses for the burgesses and other inhabitants. The founding of 16 royal burghs can be traced to the reign of David I (1124–53) and there is evidence of 55 burghs by 1296. In addition to the major royal burghs, the late Middle Ages saw the proliferation of baronial and ecclesiastical burghs, with 51 created between 1450 and 1516. Most of these were much smaller than their royal counterparts. Excluded from foreign trade, they acted mainly as local markets and centres of craftsmanship. Burghs were centres of basic crafts, including the manufacture of shoes, clothes, dishes, pots, joinery, bread and ale, which would normally be sold to "indwellers" and "outdwellers" on market days. In general, burghs carried out far more local trading with their hinterlands, on which they relied for food and raw materials, than trading nationally or abroad.

Burghs had rights to representation in the Parliament of Scotland. Under the Acts of Union of 1707 many became parliamentary burghs, represented in the Parliament of Great Britain. Under the Scottish Reform Act 1832, 32 years after the merger of the Parliament of Great Britain into the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the boundaries of burghs for parliamentary elections ceased to be necessarily their boundaries for other purposes.

Types
There were several types of burgh, including;

 * Royal burgh, founded by royal charter.
 * Burgh of regality, granted to a nobleman or "lord of regality".
 * Burgh of barony, granted to a tenant-in-chief, with narrower powers.
 * Parliamentary burgh or burgh constituency, a type of parliamentary constituency.
 * Police burgh, a burgh operating a "police system" of town government.

Modern history

Until 1833, each burgh had a different constitution or "sett". The government of the burgh was often in the hands of a self-nominating corporation, and few local government functions were performed: these were often left to ad hoc bodies.

Two pieces of reforming legislation were enacted in 1833: The Royal Burghs (Scotland) Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 76) and the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 46).

The Royal Burghs (Scotland) Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 76) provided for the election of magistrates and councillors. Each burgh was to have a common council consisting of a provost (or lord provost), magistrates (or bailies) and councillors. Every parliamentary elector living within the "royalty" or area of the royal burgh, or within seven statute miles of its boundary, was entitled to vote in burgh elections. One third of the common council was elected each year. The councillors selected a number of their members to be bailies, who acted as a magistrates bench for the burgh and dealt with such issues as licensing. The provost, or chief magistrate, was elected from among the council every three years. The Royal Burghs Act was also extended to the 12 parliamentary burghs which had recently been enfranchised. These were growing industrial centres, and apart from the lack of a charter, they had identical powers and privileges to the royal burghs. Royal Burghs retained the right to corporate property or "common good". This property was used for the advantage of the inhabitants of the burgh, funding such facilities as public parks, museums and civic events.

The Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 46) allowed the inhabitants of royal burghs, burghs of regality and of bBarony to adopt a "police system". "Police" in this sense did not refer to law enforcement, but to various local government activities summarised in the act as "paving, lighting, cleansing, watching, supplying with water, and improving such Burghs respectively, as may be necessary and expedient". The act could be adopted following its approval in a poll of householders in the burgh. Burghs reformed or created under this and later legislation became known as police burghs. The governing body of a police burgh were the police commissioners. The commissioners were elected by the existing town council of the burgh, not by the electorate at large. The town council of a burgh could by a three-quarters majority become police commissioners for the burgh. In many cases this led to the existence of two parallel burgh administrations, the town council and the police commissioners, each with the same membership, but separate legal identity and powers. Further legislation, the Police (Scotland) Act 1850 (13 & 14 Vict. c. 33), allowed "populous places" other than existing burghs to become police burghs.

In 1893, most of the anomalies in the administration of burghs were removed: police commissioners were retitled as councillors and all burghs were to consist of a single body corporate, ending the existence of parallel burghs. All burghs of barony and regality that had not adopted a police system were abolished. Councils were to be headed by a chief magistrate using the "customary title" of the burgh. In 1900, the chief magistrate of every burgh was to be known as the provost – except in burghs granted a lord provost.

The last major legislation to effect burghs came into effect in 1930. The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 (19 & 20 Geo. 5. c. 25) divided burghs into three classes:
 * "Counties of cities": the four largest royal burghs, they combined the powers of a burgh and county council.
 * "Large burghs": independent of the county council except in major services such as police and education.
 * "Small burghs": performing minor local government functions such as street-cleaning, housing, lighting and drainage..

The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 (c. 65) formally abolished burghs. Section 1(5) of the act stated: On 16 May 1975, all local government areas existing immediately before that date, that is to say, all counties, counties of cities, large burghs, small burghs and districts, shall cease to exist, and the council of every such area shall also cease to exist. The use of the title continues in informal use, however.

The common good properties and funds of the royal burghs continue to exist. They are administered by the present area councils, who must make "have regard to the interests of the inhabitants of the area to which the common good formerly related". The use of these assets are to be for the benefit of the inhabitants of the former burgh. Any person or body holding the honorary freedom of any place... formerly having the status of a city, burgh or royal burgh continued to enjoy that status after the 1975 reorganisation.

Provost
The chief magistrate or convener of a burgh, equivalent to a mayor, was called a provost. Many different titles were in use until the Town Councils (Scotland) Act 1900 standardised the term as "provost", except in cities with a lord provost. Since 1975 local authorities have been free to choose the title of their convener and provosts are appointed to chair a number of area and community councils.

Bailies
Under the provost were magistrates or baillies who both acted as councillors, and in the enforcement of laws. As well as general tasks, they often had specific tasks such as inspecting wine, or ale, or other products sold at market. The title of bailie ceased to have any statutory meaning in 1975, although modern area councils do sometimes make appointments to the office on a purely ceremonial basis. For example, Glasgow City Council grants the title in an honorary capacity to senior councillors, while Stirling Council appoints four bailies to act in lieu of the provost in specific geographical areas.

Burgesses
A resident granted the rights of a "freeman" of the burgh, was styled a burgess (pl. burgesses), a title also used in English boroughs. These freemen and their wives were a class which did not include dependants (e.g. apprentices) and servants, though they were not guaranteed to be wealthy.

Dean of Guild
This was a title held by one of the bailies of the burgh who presided over a Dean of Guild Court which was given the specific duty of building control. The courts were abolished in 1975, with building regulation transferred to the relevant local authority. Appointments to the office of Dean of Guild are still made in some areas: for instance the Lord Dean of Guild of Glasgow is described as the "second citizen of Glasgow" after the Lord Provost although the appointment is in the hands of the Merchants House of Glasgow, and not the city council.

Trading privileges
Early Burghs were granted the power to trade, which allowed them to control trade until the 19th century. The population of burgesses could be roughly divided between merchants and craftsmen, and the tensions between the interests of the two classes was often a feature of the cities. Craftsmen were usually organised into guilds. Merchants also had a guild, but many merchants did not belong to it, and it would be run by a small group of the most powerful merchants. The class of merchants included all traders, from stall-holders and pack-men to shop-holders and traders of considerable wealth.

Etymology
As used in this article, the Scots language word burgh is derived from the Old English Burh. In Scotland it refers to corporate entities whose legality is peculiar to Scotland. (Scottish law was protected and preserved as distinct from laws of England under the Acts of Union of 1707.) Pronunciation is the same as the English language word borough, which is a near cognate of the Scots word. The identical English word Burgh (in place names such as Bamburgh, Carrawburgh and Dunstanburgh) sounds exactly like the Scots Burgh, with the emphasis on the 'r'. Another variant pronunciation,, is heard in several Cumbrian place names, e.g. Burgh by Sands, Longburgh, Drumburgh, Mayburgh Henge.

The English language borough, like the Scots Burgh, is derived from the same Old English language word burh (whose dative singular and nominative/accusative plural form byrig sometimes underlies modern place-names, and which had dialectal variants including "burg"; it was also sometimes confused with beorh, beorg, 'mound, hill', on which see Hall 2001, 69–70). The Old English word was originally used for a fortified town or proto-castle (e.g. at Dover Castle or Burgh Castle) and was related to the verb beorgan (cf. Dutch and German bergen) 'to keep, save, make secure'. In the German language, Burg means 'castle' or 'fortress', though so many towns grew up around castles that it almost came to mean city, and is incorporated into many placenames, such as Hamburg, Flensburg and Strasburg.

The word has cognates, or near cognates, in other Germanic languages. For example, burg in German, and borg in both Danish and Swedish. The equivalent word is also to be found in Frisian, Dutch, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese. Burgh in placenames is found in its greatest UK concentration in the East Anglia region of southern England, where also the word has taken the form bury, as in Canterbury.

A number of other European languages have cognate words which were borrowed from the Germanic languages during the Middle Ages, including brog in Irish, bwr or bwrc, meaning 'wall, rampart' in Welsh, bourg in French, borgo in Italian, and burgo in Spanish (hence the place-name Burgos).

The most obviously derivative words are burgher in English, Bürger in German or burger in Dutch (literally 'citizen', with connotations of middle-class in English and other Germanic languages). Also related are the words bourgeois and belfry (both from the French), and burglar. More distantly, it is related to words meaning 'hill' or 'mountain' in a number of languages (cf. the second element of iceberg).

Toponymy
Burgh is commonly used as a suffix in place names in Great Britain, particularly Scotland and northern England, and other places where Britons settled, examples:

England
Examples:

 * Alburgh
 * Aldeburgh
 * Bamburgh
 * Barnburgh
 * Bawburgh
 * Blythburgh
 * Burghfield
 * Carrawburgh
 * Chedburgh
 * Dickleburgh
 * Drumburgh
 * Dunstanburgh
 * Fleggburgh
 * Flookburgh
 * Grundisburgh
 * Happisburgh
 * Hoo St Werburgh
 * Ickburgh
 * Kettleburgh
 * Longburgh
 * Mayburgh Henge
 * Newburgh (disambiguation)
 * Oxburgh Hall
 * Rumburgh
 * Ryburgh
 * Shuckburgh
 * Smallburgh
 * Southburgh
 * St Werburghs
 * Tasburgh
 * Whinburgh
 * Winfrith Newburgh
 * Yarburgh

Scotland

 * Branderburgh
 * Dryburgh
 * Edinburgh
 * Fraserburgh
 * Helensburgh
 * Jedburgh
 * Leverburgh
 * Maryburgh
 * Musselburgh
 * Newburgh (disambiguation)
 * Osnaburgh
 * Roxburgh
 * Salsburgh
 * Winchburgh
 * Williamsburgh
 * Kingsburgh, Skye

Other

 * Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
 * Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States
 * Greenburgh, New York, United States
 * Hamptonburgh, New York, United States
 * Plattsburgh, New York, United States
 * Newburgh, New York, United States
 * Edinburgh, Indiana, United States
 * Edithburgh, South Australia
 * Enosburg Falls, Vermont, United States
 * Louisburgh, County Mayo, Ireland

And as a placename on its own, in the West Germanic countries:

 * Burgh, Renfrewshire, Scotland
 * Burgh (Netherlands) - a town in the Netherlands in the municipality of Schouwen-Duiveland.
 * Burgh, Suffolk, England
 * Burgh by Sands, Cumbria, England (pronounced Bruff by Sands)
 * Burgh Castle, Suffolk, England
 * Burgh le Marsh, Lincolnshire, England
 * Burgh on Bain, Lincolnshire, England
 * Burgh Island, Devon, England
 * Burgh next Aylsham, Norfolk, England
 * Burgh St Margaret, Norfolk, England
 * Burgh St Peter, Norfolk, England
 * Burgh Hill, (Wealdon), Sussex
 * Burgh Hill, (Rother), Sussex
 * Burgh Heath, Surrey

title: Burgh