Today is the day to pretend to be Scottish, ROBBIE BURNS DAY

[Stan]

Time to be Scottish, or pretend

The plowman poet wrote for the common man; the language is obscure but the humanity is universal

Richard Helm, Canwest News Service

Published: Saturday, January 24, 2009

If it's not entirely true that we all have a bit of Scotland in us, more of us do than you might imagine.

But whether you are very Scottish, somewhat Scottish or not Scottish at all, the 250th anniversary of Burns' birth is something worth celebrating. A new book, A Night Out with Robert Burns: The Greatest Poems (McClelland & Stewart, $29.99), brings the plowman poet to the party with a selection of his work that should satisfy both those new to Burns and diehard fans.

About 4.2 million Canadians claim heritage ties to Scotland, so it's no surprise that there are a dozen statues erected to Burns across the country. After all, Canada's first two prime ministers were Scots.

Every year at this time, hundreds of thousands of whisky-lovers from St. John's to Victoria come together to celebrate the poet and his work at thousands of noisy Burns Suppers across the land. But you need not be a single malt fan to claim some affinity with the bard. Anyone who has ever sung Auld Lang Syne on New Year's Eve, or contrived to give their love "a red, red rose," or heard a coach or commentator utter the words "do or die," has been touched by Burns' verse.

Douglas Gibson is the Scottish-born Canadian publisher of the new Burns collection and president of The St. Andrew's Society of Toronto. It was in that twin capacity that he was set to host the "highest Burns Supper in the world" this weekend atop Toronto's CN Tower.

Gibson says there's little mystery to the enduring popularity of a poet who sprang into history right out of central casting. Burns died young, at just 37; he was also routinely penniless, an alcoholic and a scandalous rake.

"He has become, almost uniquely among poets, associated with good times," Gibson said in an interview.

"You can't imagine going to a Tennyson evening and thinking 'this will be roaring good fun!' Can you imagine anyone publishing, say, Taking Tea With Wordsworth?

"To have a poet associated with fellowship and equality and fun is a terrific thing. And the fact he led a rock star life with a dozen illegitimate kids, since contraception was not highly advanced in 18th century Ayrshire, just makes him more lovable and more obviously human."

More than just fun, Burns could also be a biting satirist. Famously contemptuous of the old rigid formalities of rank and class, he wrote with a social conscience and a great sympathy for human weakness.

"If you are a writer in what was approximately English at the end of the 18th century and you wanted to become an international figure, you would want to be a product of Scotland," Gibson said. "At that point, Scotland was famously literate, the vast majority of people were book lovers, and also they were flooding out across the world. And when they headed out into the world they tended to take two books with them. One was the family Bible and the other was the works of Robert Burns."

But history, of course, has played a terrible joke on Burns, Gibson said, acknowledging that for many of his would-be readers, some of the writing in the old Scots tongue might as well be in Swahili.

"Burns, like Wordsworth, decided that the right way to write poetry, to make it accessible, was to write it in simple everyday speech that everyone would understand," Gibson said.

"And it worked beautifully for the people around him but unfortunately our world has gone away from that everyday Scotch speech, so that what had been intended by him to be a gateway to ordinary people has become a barrier. The modern reader now has some trouble with some of the poems because they are written in what to him, was ordinary, everyday speech."

Even those who know little of Burns likely know of his Address To A Haggis. Most of the Scottish banquets held to mark his birth on Jan. 25 are opened by someone reciting the poem, then plunging a knife into the traditional dish. Starting with the opening line -- Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face (Greetings and good luck to your honest, cheerful face) -- Gibson recently performed a literary public service of sorts, by penning a translation of just what the heck the person "addressing" the haggis at all those Burns suppers has actually been saying.

"I make no claim that it is definitive, since many of the lines offer alternative versions that also make sense," Gibson said.

But he certainly can lay claim to a strong devotion and expertise, having grown up among farming folk in Ayrshire -- more commonly known as "Burns Country." He also studied the poet at the University of St. Andrews, and survived countless Burns suppers over the years.

- - -

[Stan]

Haggis, Vegetarian style

[Stan]

I believe it was the Scottish Catholic Regiment, that defeated the invaders from the South and burned down a white house. When I read that years ago I was surprized at them being Catholic, as I thought they were all Presbyterians.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

From "To a Louse," by Robert Burns

"Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us to see oursels as other see us!", 1785

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

I believe it was the Scottish Catholic Regiment, that defeated the invaders from the South and burned down a white house. When I read that years ago I was surprized at them being Catholic, as I thought they were all Presbyterians.

It was the northern Highland Scottish clans who tended to be Catholic, while the lowland Scottish clans tended more toward the Presbyterian way of thinking.

[Stan]

Doug

It was the war of 1812 when the folks south of both what was called Upper Canada, and Lower Canada, were invaded British North America. After they were defeated, they retreated and the Canadian/British burned down the White House in DC. Twice it was burned down, and then they made it out of mostly brick.

2000 of the troops from England who successfully fought off that invasion when down to Louisiana, and most of them lost their lives.

Stan

PS google that and you will find out a lot more.

[aldona]

Haggis, Vegetarian style

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can we buy this in Australia, or import it here?

(devious church-potluck-practical-joker brain goes into overdrive yet again)

(other ClubAdventist members make a memo to self - stay away from Rowville-Lysterfield (Melbourne, Australia) SDA church potlucks)

aldona

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

Just can't make myself eat haggis, even vegetarian ones. Bleah - cleaned out intestines stuffed with meat (or even fake meat and intestines~~~)

Aldona has very devious streak in her...

[Gail]

Stan, Scottish Catholics should not surprise you... Remember Mary, Queen of Scots?

My girlfriend Louise immigrated here from Scotland and she was brought up Catholic.

[Gail]

If the vegetarian one was truly vegetarian, I would give it a go just to say I've done it. But I'm not too interested in organs and things.

[Gail]

Uh, no she didn't. Bloody Mary, Mary Tudor, her cousin, reigned England for a bit but after her came the Protestant Elizabeth. It was Elizabeth who ordered Mary Queen of Scots' execution.

Interestingly, it was James, Mary, Queen of Scots' son, who took the English throne after the death of Elizabeth. I think it was under him that the King James Bible came into being.