Genius and Humour of Rabbie Burns
My first introduction to the poetry of Rabbie Burns, Scotland's national poet, was doubly intimidating. Born in Londonderry to parents engaged in evangelical endeavour with the British Sailors' Society, I had travelled the world with my parents and younger sister . My father's calling had brought us to the British Sailors' Society hostel at Rosyth, at that time a royal naval base.
My education continued at Dunfermline High School, where Mr McCluckey, the English teacher, introduced his class to the verse of the Ayrshire Bard. Mr McCluckey was heavily built, and carried around with him a leather strap, or tawse, as the Scots called it. The tawse was rolled up into a tight coil and was kept secure in the long sleeve of Mr McCluckey's black gown. In tribute to the famous American boxer, Mr McCluckey referred to his "belt" as the "brown bomber."
If an English lesson imparted under such circumstances was not intimidating enough, I lacked any facility with Lowland Scots, or Lallans, the language of Rabbie Burns's poetry. Reading aloud to the class was equally intimidating and marked me out as a stranger within the gates.
There my memories of Burns and his poetry might have languished, just as our interest in science, history or physical education could well have been stunted or even extinguished altogether by some equally off-putting experience in the gym or classroom.
Years later, though, I encountered a Scotsman from Ayrshire at a conference in England. Neither of us was all that much at home in our surroundings, and out of that fellow-feeling a great friendship blossomed.
Matt Browning has many fine attributes and gifts, and he is equally at home lecturing on the spiritual depths to be found in Handel's "Messiah" or the hidden cadences in Rabbie Burns's poems. In Matt Browning I had found an inspired authority on the poetry of Burns, whose love and enthusiasm for this short-lived eighteenth-century everyman awoke my own interest and feelings for verse, which that distant schoolmaster had failed to do.
Rabbie Burns's genius is finely expressed in the range of his poetic accomplishments. Beyond the love poetry and his enthusiasm for reworking the lays and verses of the Scots people, he was capable of giving voice to deep patriotic sentiments, as in "Scots Wha Hae Wi' Wallace Bled", words that ever after have echoed in the hearts of Scots folk.
Though he led a wayward life, his poems could also express a profound understanding of the ordinary piety and biblical faith of the folk around him. We are reminded of that in "A Cottar's Saturday Night".
There is a simple tale which holds a clue to Burns's fellow-feeling for his neighbours and others he encountered in life. While on his travels, Burns stopped off at a tavern in Cumberland. Three locals, seeing Burns at the tavern door, shouted, "Come in, Johnny Peep". He spent the evening in their company. They agreed on a little competition to end their evening together. Each would place half-a-crown under a candlestick, and write a verse. The lines composed would be judged by all, and the winner would receive the prize under the candlestick.
Burns's response was full of humour and self-assurance. He won the prize:
Here am I, Johnny Peep:
I saw three sheep
And these three sheep saw me.
Half-a-crown apiece
Will pay for their fleece,
And so Johnny Peep gets free.
Burns Suppers are becoming ever more popular across Ulster. According to those who go looking, all the kilts for hire locally are generally booked up well in advance of Burns Night. Venues range from the Europa Hotel, where there is usually a very grand occasion organised by the South Belfast Ulster-Scots Heritage Society, to much humbler suppers held in local pipe band halls. Few seem to be able to put an estimate on the actual number. An air of spontaneity prevails.
The essentials of the "Burns Supper" are well known. Traditionally, because such occasions are steeped in tradition, the staple fare of the Scottish peasantry, haggis, accompanied by neeps (turnips, or swede to the English) and tatties, is offered to the guests as the main course. The haggis is piped into the room with due ceremony and honour. Before the meal is served, the Selkirk Grace is recited.
I know of one delicious moment at a Rangers Supporters Club Burns Supper some years ago, when the printed programme contained a printer's error and read "Celtic Grace". Pandemonium ensued! However, assuming that the Grace is offered prayerfully, the next item on the programme is the "Address to the Haggis", which must be carried off with due aplomb and dignity.
Rabbie Burns wrote these lines for his Masonic Lodge at Tarbolton:
Fair fa' yer honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin' race!
The genius and humour of Burns are revealed in the simple thought of addressing an ode to a "puddin'" (used in the same sense as in "black pudding" and "white pudding"). Unfortunately, haggis can vary greatly in quality, so be sure you know your puddin' before tucking in, or it won't only be lines from Burns that repeat throughout the evening!
After the meal, the entertainment that ensues centres on the songs and poetry of the bard. "My love is like a red, red rose" is unsurpassed when sung well, and there is an unforgettable spookiness about "Tam o' Shanter" that conjures up dark, lonely churchyards and unwelcome visitations from another world.
People in Ulster have had a long and distinguished association with the poetry of Burns, and indeed the man himself. The Linenhall Library has a superb collection of Burns material, though the history of that collection contains its own footnote of intrigue and retrieval.
It is, though, in the attitudes of ordinary people to this extraordinary poet that we see his hold over the affections. From the distant times when some of what we term the "Weaver Poets" from Ulster would journey to Ayrshire to converse with the bard himself, to the continuing work of the local Burns Associations seeking to honour the memory of the man born on the twenty-fifth of January 1759, the "Star o' Rabbie Burns" has been in the ascendant.