Burns Supper
Well today is non other than the 25th of January – the birthday of a famous Scottish poet, Robert [Rabbie] Burns.
Robbie Burns
Robbie Burns was born on the 25th January 1759 just south of Ayr (on the Scottish west coast) and is widely regarded as Scotland’s national poet. He was born into poverty and hardship, a farmers son. He had no formal education and what he learnt came mainly from his father, who did his best to teach his children reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and history.
By the age of 15 the responsibility of his father’s farm had fallen to Rabbie and it was during the harvest of 1774 that he was inspired to write, ‘O, Once I Lov’d A Bonnie Lass’
In the summer of 1775, he was sent to finish his education with a tutor at Kirkoswald, where he met Peggy Thomson, to whom he wrote two songs, Now Westlin’ Winds and I Dream’d I Lay.
Robbie Burns was notorious for his casual love affairs and his first illegitimate child, Elizabeth Paton Burns (1785-1817), was born to his mother’s servant, Elizabeth Paton (1760-circa 1799), as he was embarking on a relationship with Jean Armour. She bore him twins in 1786, and although her father initially forbade their marriage, they were eventually married in 1788. She bore him nine children in total, but only three survived infancy.
During a rift in his relationship with Jean Armour in 1786, and as his prospects in farming declined, he began an affair with Mary Campbell (1763-1786), to whom he dedicated the poems The Highland Lassie O, Highland Mary and To Mary in Heaven. Their relationship has been the subject of much conjecture, and it has been suggested that they may have married. They planned to emigrate to Jamaica, where Burns intended to work as a bookkeeper on a slave plantation. This plan never came to fruition due to the death of Burn’s Jamaican contact. That summer, he published the first of his collections of verse, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish dialect, which created a sensation and has been recognized as a significant literary event.
As the years passed Burns continued to write and publish his works until his death was caused by bacterial endocarditis exacerbated by a streptococcal infection reaching his blood following a dental extraction in winter 1795.The funeral took place on 25 July 1796, the day his son Maxwell was born. A memorial edition of his poems was published to raise money for his wife and children, and within a short time of his death, money started pouring in from all over Scotland to support them.
Burns Supper
The format of Burns suppers (which takes place on or as near to Burn’s birthday as possible) has not changed since his death in 1796. The basic format starts with a general welcome and announcements followed with the Selkirk Grace. After the grace comes the piping and cutting of the haggis, where Robert’s famous Address To a Haggis is read and the haggis is cut open. The event usually allows for people to start eating just after the haggis is presented.
haggis
Just another teuchter in Canada 