Robert Burns portrait. [Public domain] / wikimedia
Who was Robert Burns?
Burns was born 25 January 1759 in Alloway, Scotland, the eldest of seven children. His parents were farmers, but to ensure their children had an engagement, joined with neighbours in hiring a tutor for them, and later sent them to school. [1]”Along with four neighbours, [they] hired the private tutor John Murdoch (1747–1824) to tutor Robert and Gilbert. When Murdoch eventually moved on, Burnes himself tutored his sons until such time as they were able to attend Dalrymple school in 1772. In 1775, at the age of sixteen, Robert attended Hugh Rodger’s school in Kirkoswald, fifteen miles from Mount Oliphant.” —The University of Glasgow. Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Who was Robert Burns? Module 1.8. Accessed January 2021 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/13/steps/955391
Robert Burns was born in this cottage, typical for its time, on 25 January 1759. Anne Burgess / geograph.org.uk / 1975 / CC BY-SA 2.0
In 1786, at age of 27, he published his first book, “Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect.” [2]The University of Glasgow. Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Who was Robert Burns? Module 1.7. Accessed January 2021 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/13/steps/955391. In 1788, at the age of 29, he married a woman named Jean Armour. [3]”Burns always returned to Jean Armour (1765–1834) whom he met in 1785 and eventually married in the spring of 1788.” Ibid.
In the same year, 1788, he and Jean rented a farm in Dumfriesshire. After a few years of running the farm there, he secured himself a post with a stable, predictable income as a government excise man and moved into the town of Dumfries proper. [4]”On the 18th of March 1788, the bard signed the lease for Ellisland, a 170 acre farm in Dumfriesshire. In addition to his farming endeavours, Burns trained as an Exciseman, prompting him to give up Ellisland in 1791 and move his family to the town of Dumfries. As a government employee, Burns enjoyed a regular salary for the first time in his life, beginning at £50 per annum and increasing with each promotion.” Ibid.
On 21 July 1796, he died very young at the age of 37, possibly from rheumatic fever. [5]”A careful review of Robert Burns’s terminal illness, especially as documented in his correspondence, supports the widely held contention that death may have been due to subacute bacterial endocarditis secondary to chronic rheumatic heart disease. However, it is also possible that death have been caused by brucellosis or some non-infectious process such as malignant lymphoma. There is no evidence that Robert Burns suffered from either chronic alcoholism or venereal disease.” Buchanan, W W, and W F Kean. “Robert Burns’s illness revisited.” Scottish medical journal vol. 27,1 (1982): 75-88. doi:10.1177/003693308202700118
He managed in his short time to write books of poetry and songs. He is now celebrated for these writings, particularly on Robbie Burns Day.
Events on the day centre around a meal (called a “supper”) and highlight his poetry, traditional Scottish food and often other Scottish party activities such as Scottish country dancing.
Burns Day celebrations can be formal and earnest, or filled with much hokum and merriment. They can be formally organized by organizations and held in public venues, or held informally in homes.
Some people only know Burns as “the haggis guy” owing to the tradition of serving haggis, which most people feel is de rigeur.
Everyone stands as the haggis is brought into the room, accompanied by music from a piper walking along with it.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Pipes and Drums Band piping in the haggis at their annual Burns Supper. Glenlarson / wikimedia / 2013 / CC BY-SA 4.0
The haggis needs to be addressed first with Burn’s “Address to a Haggis” before it can be served with whisky. It’s likely owing to this poem by Burns that haggis became and has remained the centre-piece of the event.
Addressing the Haggis. Kaihsu / wikimedia / 2004 / CC BY-SA 3.0
After or before the meal depending on the club there is the Loyal Toast to the Crown (after which guests may be told they can relax a bit and remove their jackets), then some of Burn’s poems are read out loud. Not everybody actually understands the language his poetry was written in, which is in fact not English nor Gaelic but rather Braids Scots (in fact, in his Ayrshire dialect of it even.) With enough whisky, however, people soon get into the spirit of things.
At the end of the evening Auld Lang Syne is sung.
The haggis is usually served with turnip and potato.
Haggish with mashed potato and mashed turnip. Bernt Rostad / flickr.com / 2011 / CC BY 2.0
“Ecclefechan Tarts” (butter tarts) are often served as well at a Burns Supper.
Many celebrations now may deviate from the traditional whole haggis being served, and choose instead to spotlight Scottish nouvelle cuisine, or present the haggis as a terrine.
In Vancouver, Canada, some people celebrate “Gung Haggis Fat Choy” Day, on the 25th January, which celebrates both Robbie Burns Day and Chinese New Year at the same time. Foods served include haggis wontons (deep fried, perhaps as a nod to the modern Scottish side), and lettuce wraps with haggis, as well as traditional slices of haggis. The event has now spread to Seattle.
#RobbieBurnsDay
Robbie Burns Day and Women
Robbie Burns clubs were traditionally all male-clubs and thus women were banned from attending Robbie Burns suppers.
Burns himself founded an all-male club in his time, when he was 21:
“In 1780, Robert Burns founded the Tarbolton Bachelors’ Club, a debating society, along with his brother Gilbert and several of their Ayrshire acquaintances. The club held its first meeting on the 11th of November at John Richard’s Alehouse in Tarbolton. Members of the Tarbolton Bachelors were expected to abide by the club’s ‘Rules and Regulations’, one of which states that, ‘Every man proper for a member of this society must have a frank, honest, open heart; above anything dirty or mean; and must be a professed lover of one or more of the female sex’. The club met regularly until 1784 when Burns left Tarbolton, and carried on for several years thereafter. The Bachelors’ was one of several male societies to which Burns belonged [Ed: he later belonged to many Freemason societies].” [6]The University of Glasgow. Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Who was Robert Burns? Module 1.8. Accessed January 2021 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/13/steps/955391
Some people assume that there was a woman present at one of the very first Burns suppers held in 1801, after Roberts’ death, but that is based on a misassumption about the name “Primrose”:
“One of the attendees of the first supper in Alloway in 1801 was Primrose Kennedy. Some have suggested that this offers grounds for believing that the first supper acknowledged the role of women in Burns’s life and work by according them a place at his table. However, Primrose Kennedy was Captain Kennedy, a well-known military hero in Ayrshire.” [7]Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Burns Suppers. University of Glasgow: Future Learn. Accessed January 2019 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/0/steps/11633
Burns Suppers have long featured a “Toast to the Lasses” speech, though it was reputedly often ribald.
The irony exists that women have probably very often been present at Burns Suppers in inns and restaurants, but in roles of preparing and serving the food and refreshments of course.
It would not be until well into the 1900s that, in an attempt to open up the Burns tradition to women, women’s clubs began to be formed.
“The years between the two world wars saw the foundation of many Ladies Burns clubs in an attempt to address this issue: Shotts boasted an all-female club in 1920, and Annan Ladies Burns Club (which is still going today), dates from 1928. The strength of feeling was apparent to all in these years: while some male-only clubs held compensatory Ladies Nights with polite games to entertain their guests, a columnist in the Scotsman newspaper noted in 1929: … surely women have even more reason to remember the great poet who paid them so much homage more than he ever did to his own sex. Burns, indeed, might be claimed as the patron saint of women, if they have not one already.” [8]Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Burns Suppers. University of Glasgow: Future Learn. Accessed January 2019 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/0/steps/11633
Some Burns Clubs in Scotland still do not allow women at a Burns Supper — or indeed any meal they hold. One such club as of 2019 was the Arbroath Burns Club (founded 1888) in Arbroath, Angus, Scotland (Arbroath is also home to the famed Arbroath Smokies.) In 2019, citing the need to prepare for inevitable change, they invited a woman, Dr Karen McGavock, to the supper as a speaker in order to take up the challenge of replying to the Toast to the Lassies. [9]Jeffay, John. Men-only Robert Burns club in Arbroath to allow woman in for first time in its 131-year history as chiefs hail ‘pleasant inevitability’. Glasgow, Scotland: The Scottish Sun. 24 January 2019.
For the record, Burns had relations with many women, and it inspired much of his poetry:
“Burns’s poetry, song and correspondence makes many references to different women, and while it is impossible to know exactly how many women the poet was associated with during his short life, or indeed exactly how many children (both legitimate and illegitimate) the poet sired before his premature death at the age of thirty-seven, we know that he fathered at least twelve children with at least five women.” [10]The University of Glasgow. Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Who was Robert Burns? Module 1.8. Accessed January 2021 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/13/steps/955391
History
The first recorded celebratory gathering to honour Robbie Burns was held on 29th January 1801 in Burns Cottage, Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland according to Professor Rab Houston (School of History, St Andrew’s University):
“Even before his death, Burns’ cottage in Alloway, Ayrshire, had been sold to the incorporation of shoemakers of Ayr, one of whose members turned it into an alehouse. It was here, on 29 January 1801 (they got his birthday wrong), that soldiers of the Argyll Fencibles (militia) met to hear their band play – and to use the services of his cottage in its new role.” [11]Houston, Robert Allan and Rab Houston. Scotland: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press: Oxford. 27 November 2008. Page 129.
The first recorded actual Supper was held in July 1801 in Burns Cottage, Alloway, Scotland when a few friends gathered to remember his death five years previous in July 1796 :
“The first recorded Burns Supper took place at Alloway in [1801], but on the anniversary of his death (21st July). It involved a speech and multiple toasts; to eat there was haggis (which was addressed) and, a mercifully lost tradition, sheep’s head; given the social status of those present, refreshment was probably wine and ale rather than whisky. Present were nine friends and patrons of Burns. Among them was a lady, though thereafter the Suppers were mostly (sometimes militantly) all-male affairs until far into the twentieth century: a curious slant on Burns’ own life as well as on the first dinner. The ‘toast to the lasses’ was traditionally thanks for the cooking and an appreciation of the women in Burns’ life, only later degenerating into a sexist (often misogynistic) rant.” [12]Houston, Rab. A Very Short History of Burns Suppers. Oxford University Press Blog. 22 January 2009. Accessed January 2019 at https://blog.oup.com/2009/01/burns
“Arguably, the first Burns supper was held in Alloway, the poet’s birthplace, in July 1801, when nine guests sat down to a meal of haggis and sheeps’ head. (I say arguably, as it was actually designed as a memorial dinner.) The idea of commemorating the bard in this manner had been the brain child of John Ballantine, a former Provost (mayor) of the town of Ayr, but it was Reverend Hamilton Paul — a clergyman and later the author of The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (1819) — who organised this most memorable evening that would have a long-lasting legacy.” [13]Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Burns Suppers. University of Glasgow: Future Learn. Accessed January 2019 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/0/steps/11633
The third recorded Burns event, and second actual Supper, was held on 25th January 1802 in Greenock, Scotland, this time on the correct date of his birthday, setting the date for the event to what it is now today:
“The first Burns Supper was held on January 29, 1802, to celebrate what the club believed was Burns’ birthday. However, in 1803, a search [in] the Ayr parish records resulted in the bard’s date of birth being confirmed as January 25, 1759.” [14]”Congratulations Greenock Burns Club”. The Robert Burns World Federation Limited. 26 January 2010. Accessed at webarchive.org at http://www.worldburnsclub.com/newsletter/0107/greenock_burns_club.htm
For several years, both the birth and the death date commemorations seem to have been observed, but by 1809 the (correct) birthday date eventually won out:
“These events, attended by many of Burns’ friends, were both held for several years until the January date was settled on, reportedly because it was a fallow period for local farmers.” [15]McCafferty, Ross. Burns Night traditions and their origins. Edinburgh, Scotland: The Scotsman. 8 January 2018.
“Celebrations were held twice yearly until 1809, when participants settled on 25 January, because this fell in a slack period of the agricultural year.” [16]Scotland: A Very Short Introduction. Page 129
The first two Burns clubs were in Greenock, Scotland (1802) and Paisley, Scotland (1805). [17]Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Burns Suppers. University of Glasgow: Future Learn. Accessed January 2019 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/0/steps/11633
A Burns Supper was held in Oxford in 1806; in 1810, the first one was held in London. By the mid-1800s, Burns Clubs were being formed wherever the Scottish diaspora went: Dunedin, New Zealand (1861), London (1868), and New York (1871). A Burns Federation was formed in 1885 to unite the Burns Clubs around the world. [18]Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Burns Suppers. University of Glasgow: Future Learn. Accessed January 2019 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/0/steps/11633
The event and the clubs that sponsored them helped to affirm Scottish cultural identity in the growing multi-cultural British Empire at the start of the Victorian era:
“In an increasingly commercial age, and when the encroachment of ‘Anglicised’ tastes threatened to erode much that was left of distinctive Scottish cultural practice, Burns clubs, with their annual suppers, offered a way of reaffirming Scottishness.” [19]Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Burns Suppers. University of Glasgow: Future Learn. Accessed January 2019 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/0/steps/11633
In some countries, Burns Suppers are organized by St Andrew’s Societies or Caledonian Societies. [20]Leitch, Gillian I. St. Andrew’s Societies in Canada. The Canadian Encyclopaedia. 19 December 2016.
Literature & Lore
Address to a Haggis
In his poem, Robert Burns wants to provide strong, positive images of Scotland, at a time when the English were looking down on Scotland. In it, he says that a haggis might be rustic food, but that it raises bold, strong warriors.
“‘To a Haggis’ is a somewhat jocular text, but it also makes a serious point. It responded to the prejudice in some quarters that Scotland had little in the way of resources. A strong strand of anti-Scottish prejudice followed the Union of Parliaments in 1707, and was even evident in attitudes towards everyday customs such as diet, with Dr Samuel Johnson in his famous dictionary, for instance, defining oats as a foodstuff suitable for horses and Scots to eat:
‘A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people’.
‘To A Haggis’ makes the point that simple, nutritious food is what counts, and that it is on the consumption of such foodstuffs that Scotland has bred its hardy warriors.” [21]The University of Glasgow. Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Was Burns a Patriot? Module 1.8. Accessed January 2021 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/13/steps/955392
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the Puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang’s my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o’ need,
While thro’ your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see Rustic-labour dight,
An’ cut you up wi’ ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
[Ed: At this point, the haggis is stabbed for slicing]
Stabbing the haggis. Kim Traynor / wikimedia / 2012 / CC BY-SA 3.0
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!
Then, horn for horn they stretch an’ strive,
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit hums.
Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad stow a sow,
Or fricasee was mak her spew
Wi’ perfect sconner
Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view
On sic a dinner?
Poor devil! See him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro’ bluidy flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade, [strong hand]
He’ll mak it whissle;
An’ legs, an’ arms, an’ heads will sned, [cut off]
Like taps o’ thrissle. [tops of thistle]
Ye Pow’rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o’ fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware,
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!
It’s also customary to recite the “Selkirk Grace” at some point, usually early in the evening:
“Some hae meat and cannae eat
And some wad eat that want it:
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit!”
Sources
Hutcheon, Paul. Salmond under fire for role at all-male Burns clubs. Glasgow, Scotland: The Herald. 20th July 2013.
Scott, Kirsty. The lassies who cannot honour Burns. Manchester: The Guardian. Saturday, 24 January 2004.
Scots actor Brian Cox blasts clubs for banning women from Burns suppers. Glasgow, Scotland: Scottish Daily Record. 24 January 2012.
References
↑1 | ”Along with four neighbours, [they] hired the private tutor John Murdoch (1747–1824) to tutor Robert and Gilbert. When Murdoch eventually moved on, Burnes himself tutored his sons until such time as they were able to attend Dalrymple school in 1772. In 1775, at the age of sixteen, Robert attended Hugh Rodger’s school in Kirkoswald, fifteen miles from Mount Oliphant.” —The University of Glasgow. Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Who was Robert Burns? Module 1.8. Accessed January 2021 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/13/steps/955391 |
---|---|
↑2 | The University of Glasgow. Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Who was Robert Burns? Module 1.7. Accessed January 2021 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/13/steps/955391 |
↑3 | ”Burns always returned to Jean Armour (1765–1834) whom he met in 1785 and eventually married in the spring of 1788.” Ibid. |
↑4 | ”On the 18th of March 1788, the bard signed the lease for Ellisland, a 170 acre farm in Dumfriesshire. In addition to his farming endeavours, Burns trained as an Exciseman, prompting him to give up Ellisland in 1791 and move his family to the town of Dumfries. As a government employee, Burns enjoyed a regular salary for the first time in his life, beginning at £50 per annum and increasing with each promotion.” Ibid. |
↑5 | ”A careful review of Robert Burns’s terminal illness, especially as documented in his correspondence, supports the widely held contention that death may have been due to subacute bacterial endocarditis secondary to chronic rheumatic heart disease. However, it is also possible that death have been caused by brucellosis or some non-infectious process such as malignant lymphoma. There is no evidence that Robert Burns suffered from either chronic alcoholism or venereal disease.” Buchanan, W W, and W F Kean. “Robert Burns’s illness revisited.” Scottish medical journal vol. 27,1 (1982): 75-88. doi:10.1177/003693308202700118 |
↑6 | The University of Glasgow. Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Who was Robert Burns? Module 1.8. Accessed January 2021 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/13/steps/955391 |
↑7 | Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Burns Suppers. University of Glasgow: Future Learn. Accessed January 2019 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/0/steps/11633 |
↑8 | Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Burns Suppers. University of Glasgow: Future Learn. Accessed January 2019 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/0/steps/11633 |
↑9 | Jeffay, John. Men-only Robert Burns club in Arbroath to allow woman in for first time in its 131-year history as chiefs hail ‘pleasant inevitability’. Glasgow, Scotland: The Scottish Sun. 24 January 2019. |
↑10 | The University of Glasgow. Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Who was Robert Burns? Module 1.8. Accessed January 2021 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/13/steps/955391 |
↑11 | Houston, Robert Allan and Rab Houston. Scotland: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press: Oxford. 27 November 2008. Page 129. |
↑12 | Houston, Rab. A Very Short History of Burns Suppers. Oxford University Press Blog. 22 January 2009. Accessed January 2019 at https://blog.oup.com/2009/01/burns |
↑13 | Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Burns Suppers. University of Glasgow: Future Learn. Accessed January 2019 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/0/steps/11633 |
↑14 | ”Congratulations Greenock Burns Club”. The Robert Burns World Federation Limited. 26 January 2010. Accessed at webarchive.org at http://www.worldburnsclub.com/newsletter/0107/greenock_burns_club.htm |
↑15 | McCafferty, Ross. Burns Night traditions and their origins. Edinburgh, Scotland: The Scotsman. 8 January 2018. |
↑16 | Scotland: A Very Short Introduction. Page 129 |
↑17 | Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Burns Suppers. University of Glasgow: Future Learn. Accessed January 2019 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/0/steps/11633 |
↑18 | Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Burns Suppers. University of Glasgow: Future Learn. Accessed January 2019 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/0/steps/11633 |
↑19 | Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Burns Suppers. University of Glasgow: Future Learn. Accessed January 2019 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/0/steps/11633 |
↑20 | Leitch, Gillian I. St. Andrew’s Societies in Canada. The Canadian Encyclopaedia. 19 December 2016. |
↑21 | The University of Glasgow. Robert Burns: Poems, Songs and Legacy. Was Burns a Patriot? Module 1.8. Accessed January 2021 at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/robert-burns/13/steps/955392 |