Robert Burns

The order of service for a proper Burns supper

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

Burns Night is a jolly occasion to eat haggis, read poetry and drink whisky, but there is more to it. If you want to go the whole hog here’s a traditional Burns Night order of service, poetry recitals and all

Celebrated on the Bard’s birthday (that’s Robert Burns to the uninitiated), Burns Night is a jolly occasion to eat haggis, read poetry and drink whisky, but there is more to it. If you want to go the whole hog here’s a traditional Burns Night order of service, poetry recitals and all.

  1. Gathered celebrants mingle, catch up on gossip, pore through their Burns editions, and peruse the whisky selection. The host may make some introductions, assign some readings, or deliver a few opening remarks. This may be a little different this year…
  2. Welcome Grace Celebrants are called to the table. The host offers an opening grace – traditionally The Selkirk Grace, and the soup course is served.
  3. Parade the haggis: the evening’s highest moment of pomp. The chef, carrying in the haggis, follows the piper – playing Brose & Butter, or some other appropriate tune – in a procession through the hall. The chef lays the haggis, on its groaning trencher, before the host at the high table.
  4. Address the haggis: a previously designated reciter reads a poem over the haggis. A ‘guid whisky gill’ is offered to the piper, chef and reciter, and with alacrity the haggis is sliced open with a ceremonial dirk (though any old knife will do). The meal is then served with all its composite courses and copious helpings of guid ale and whisky.
  5. Interval: after the meal there is a brief interval while the table is cleared or the celebrants retire to another room for the rest of the evening’s festivities. The host needs to keep the guests focused and facilitate the flow of the songs, toasts and poetry that are to follow. Time to refill your glasses!
  6. Song: a good warm-up for the Immortal Memory. Ask a musically inclined guest or two to sing a Burns song.
  7. Immortal Memory: the host, or designated speaker, delivers the Immortal Memory address. This should be a serious and careful consideration of the life and art of Robert Burns. It may be a general, biographical sort of speech, or address a specific aspect of the Bard’s work that is relevant to the particular group. This speech should be long-winded enough to remind the guests that this isn’t the office Christmas party, yet not so long as to induce cramping, dry-mouth, or ringing in the ears (about 25 minutes). This speech always ends with standing guests, raised glasses and an offered toast to the immortal memory of the Bard of Ayr.
  8. Songs, music and readings: Now follow the other poems, toasts, songs and addresses of the evening. Celebrants who have arrived with selections to read take their turn. It always helps if the host has some readings selected for guests who have arrived unprepared. Anything that honours the immortal memory and spirit of the Bard is welcome. These include stories and anecdotes pertaining to Burns and his time, poems and songs by other Scottish poets, and original works composed by the celebrants.
  9. Toast To The Lassies: this toast should be a light-hearted lampoon of the lassies’ (few) shortcomings. Illustrations from Burns, or from first-hand knowledge of the subject, may be used.
  10. Reply From The Lassie: always delivered with grace, charm and wit, this savaging of the men is always accepted with good humour by the menfolk present.
  11. Tam o’ Shanter: No Burns Night is complete without a recitation of the great narrative poem.
  12. Songs and Poems: The host may play it by ear and keep the readings going as long as the guests are willing. Alternatively, the evening may evolve into a bacchanal of music, song and dancing.
  13. Closing remarks from the host: When an end to the festivities has finally arrived the host should thank the guests. A few reciprocal remarks, or a toast, may be made by one of the celebrants and a vote of thanks offered.
  14. Auld Lang Syne: The traditional end to any Burns Night – indeed, an appropriate end to any evening spent among the company of friends. It always helps to have the correct lyrics printed out for the, by now, groggily satisfied guests.

Source: The order of service for a proper Burns supper

Kathleen Ferrier – Ca` the Yowes

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

There are traditional songs that can restore to me a sense of  centeredness, calm – even gratefulness in stressful times such as these. The Scottish traditional song  Ca` the Yowes is one of these. The words are by Rabbie Burns. The voice belongs to the legendary Kathleen Ferrier.

1789 lyrics Robert Burns
Ca’ the yowes to the knowes,
Ca’ them where the heather grows
Ca’ them where the burnie rows,
My bonie dearie.

Hark! the mavis’ evening sang
Sounding Cluden’s woods amang,
Then a-fauldin let us gang,
My bonie dearie.

We’ll gae down by Cluden side,
Thro’ the hazels spreading wide,
O’er the waves that sweetly glide
To the moon sae clearly.

Fair and lovely as thou art,
Thou hast stown my very heart;
I can die—but canna part,
My bonie dearie.

Ca’ the yowes to the knowes,
Ca’ them where the heather grows
Ca’ them where the burnie rows,
My bonie dearie.


Kathleen Ferrier

“The greatest thing in music in my life has been to know Kathleen Ferrier and Gustav Mahler – in that order.” That’s what the conductor Bruno Walter wrote after Ferrier’s death from breast cancer in 1953, at the age of just 41.

[Wikipedia] Kathleen Mary Ferrier was an English contralto singer who achieved an international reputation as a stage, concert and recording artist, with a repertoire extending from folksong and popular ballads to the classical works of Bach, Brahms, Mahler and Elgar.

Her death from cancer, at the height of her fame, was a shock to the musical world and particularly to the general public, which was kept in ignorance of the nature of her illness until after her death.

Dick Gaughan sings Burns’ “Westlin Winds”

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment
Dick Gaughan’s classic version of Robert Burns song

And the moon shines bright, as I rove by night,
To muse upon my charmer.

This is one of Burns earliest songs, although he revised it later for publication. Written in 1775 at the time of Burns’ infatuation with Peggy Thomson of Kirkoswald.

`I spent my seventeenth summer,’ he wrote in his autobiographical letter to Dr Moore in August 1787, `on a smuggling [coast] a good distance from home at a noted school, to learn Mensuration, Surveying, Dialling, etc … I went on with a high hand in my Geometry; till the sun entered Virgo, a month which is always a carnival in my bosom, a charming Fillette who lived next door to the school overset my Trigonometry, and set me off on a tangent from the sphere of my studies.’

Later, he tried out a modification of this early song in honour of Jean Armour; no known copy survives. Going back to the same song, Burns then sent a version which has a number of Scots words in place of the original English diction to be printed in `The Scots Musical Museum’ (vol. iv, 1792, no. 351). Unusually for a love-song, `Now westlin winds’ includes four lines of protest against the `slaught’ring guns’ of sportsmen (ll 21-4). [source: Robert Burns’ poems and songs]

Lyrics:

Tune: I had a horse, I had nae mair

   Now westlin winds, and slaught’ring guns                     western

      Bring Autumn’s pleasant weather;

   The moorcock springs on whirring wings,

      Amang the blooming heather:

   Now waving grain, wide o’er the plain,

      Delights the weary farmer;

   And the moon shines bright, as I rove by night,

      To muse upon my charmer.

   The paitrick lo’es the fruitfu fells;                      partridge

      The plover lo’es the mountains;

   The woodcock haunts the lonely dells;

      The soaring hern the fountains:                             heron

   Thro lofty groves, the cushat roves,                          pigeon

      The path o man to shun it;

   The hazel bush o’erhangs the thrush,

      The spreading thorn the linnet.

   Thus ev’ry kind their pleasure find,

      The savage and the tender;

   Some social join, and leagues combine;

      Some solitary wander:

   Avaunt, away, the cruel sway!

      Tyrannic man’s dominion!

   The sportsman’s joy, the murd’ring cry,

      The flutt’ring, gory pinion!

   But Peggy dear, the ev’ning’s clear,

      Thick flies the skimming swallow;

   The sky is blue, the fields in view,

      All fading-green and yellow:

   Come let us stray our gladsome way,

      And view the charms of Nature;

   The rustling corn, the fruited thorn,

      And ilka happy creature.                                    every

   We’ll gently walk, and sweetly talk,

      While the silent moon shines clearly;

   I’ll clasp thy waist, and fondly prest,

      Swear how I lo’e thee dearly:

   Not vernal show’rs to budding flow’rs,

      Not Autumn to the farmer,

   So dear can be, as thou to me,

      My fair, my lovely charmer!

Visiting Edinburgh? The Writers’ Museum is must-see

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment
May be an image of castle and outdoors
Photo by Keith Foley

The Writers’ Museum celebrates the lives of three giants of Scottish Literature – Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson.

Home to portraits, rare books and personal objects including Burns’ writing desk, the printing press on which Scott’s Waverley Novels were first produced, and the rocking horse he used as a child. We have Robert Louis Stevenson’s riding boots and the ring given to him by a Samoan chief, engraved with the name ‘Tusitala’, meaning ‘teller of tales’. There is also a plaster cast of Robert Burns’ skull, one of only three ever made.

This free museum is easy to locate just off the Lawnmarket, the top part of Edinburgh’s historic Royal Mile, in Lady Stair’s Close.

With a wide range of stories and objects this museum has something for everyone to enjoy, whether young or old, local resident or visitor. You don’t need to have read these writers’ works to enjoy the fascinating life stories told in the Writers’ Museum.

Collection Highlights include:

The Writers’ rich collections include books, manuscripts, portraits and fascinating personal items relating to Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. Highlights include a first edition of Scott’s novel Waverley and Stevenson’s beloved classic, A Child’s Garden of Verses. Manuscripts include Burns’ draft of Scots wha hae (‘Bruce’s Address to his troops at Bannockburn’). There is also the press on which Scott’s Waverley Novels were printed, a chair used by Burns to correct proofs at William Smellie’s printing office, and Stevenson’s wardrobe made by the infamous Deacon Brodie whose double life may have inspired the novel The strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.