Scotland’s National Poet
Every year on 25th January, people all over the world celebrate Burns Night (sometimes referred to as Robert Burns Day), usually with a Burns Supper. The occasion is more than just a meal. It is a celebration of the life and works of Robert Burns.
Both informal and formal Burns Suppers include haggis as the centre piece of the proceedings, usually served with neeps (swede) and tatties (potato). There will be speeches, readings of poems and bagpipes – the latter usually to accompany the guests as they arrive and the haggis as it is brought into the hall. Traditionally, toasts will be accompanied by whisky.
But what’s so special about 25th January? How did Robert Burns come to be celebrated on this day?
Robert Burns was born on 25th January 1759 in Alloway near Ayr. He was born in a house built by his tenant-farmer father, which is now the Burns Cottage. Eventually the family moved to Mount Oliphant Farm. The eldest of seven children, Burns’s early life was full of hardship and poverty. Despite this, his father was determined that Burns and his siblings learn to read and write. When the children weren’t assisting with farm work, they received an education.
Burns started to display his poetic talents at a young age, but it would take until 1786 for him to find fame with the publication of his first collection of poems. Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (also known as the Kilmarnock Volume) cemented Burns’s reputation among Scotland’s literary elite.
Within this first volume was one of Burn’s best known poems, “To a Mouse.” Burns is said to have composed this poem on the spot after accidentally destroying a mouse’s nest while ploughing a field. He would continue to use his own experiences as inspiration for his work.
Despite his popularity, Robert Burns would never earn enough in his lifetime to write as a full time professional. He continued to labour for a living and also worked as an excise officer for a time. However, the money from his published poetry did allow him to travel around Scotland, including to Edinburgh where he was well-received. It was here that he met and made a lasting impression upon a then 16 year old Walter Scott.
Scotland’s National Poet
Over the next few years, Burns would continue to produce more poems and even started writing songs. He would take existing Scottish folk melodies and set them to words. He also collected and edited Scottish folk songs, often expanding them with his own contributions.
Burns was inspired by the Scottish landscape, Scottish history and also the people and stories he encountered on his travels. Perhaps the most distinct element of his work was that he wrote predominantly in the Scots language. Burns is credited with aiding the preservation and promotion of Scots long after his lifetime.
Among the works that remain familiar to most Scots, and perhaps people all over the world are “Auld Lang Syne”, “Tam O’ Shanter”, “A Red, Red Rose” and “A Man’s a Man for A’ That.”
There is also the song “Scots Wha’ Hae” written as an address from Robert the Bruce to his men before the Battle of Bannockburn. In the first line, William Wallace is referenced. It is no surprise that Burns himself would eventually be considered equal to these great figures of Scottish history.
Unfortunately Robert Burns would enjoy his productive writing career only briefly. In the 1790s his health began to fail and he died of a long term heart condition on 21st July 1796. He was only 37 years old.
Burns’s funeral took place soon afterward on 25th July. His widow Jean Armour gave birth to a son on the same day. Burns and Armour had a complicated relationship as Burns had pursued other women even while involved with Jean. Nevertheless Jean Armour bore nine of Burns’s known children, with three surviving infancy.
Burns had at least three additional children by three other women. Through his five children that lived into adulthood, Burns has over 900 living descendants as of 2019. No doubt there may have been more children not acknowledged by Burns, meaning the number of descendants could be greater still.
Burns Night
A memorial supper for Robert Burns was held by his friends on the fifth anniversary of his death in 1801. Burns Clubs were also established to remember Burns and his work.
What we would recognise as Burns Night can be traced back to 29th January 1802, which the group of friends believed was Robert Burns’s birthday. It was later discovered in parish records in 1803 that Burns was in fact born on 25th January 1759. Burns Night has been celebrated on 25th January ever since.
“The Selkirk Grace”, which is attributed to Burns, will be said prior to any food being served. “Address to a Haggis”, also written by Burns, is recited before the main course and more of his poetry and songs may be performed.
The National Wallace Monument
Burns is further memorialised in numerous locations throughout Scotland, including the Hall of Heroes in The National Wallace Monument. The marble bust of Robert Burns was one of the first to be installed in the Hall of Heroes alongside King Robert the Bruce in 1886.
The rationale behind the Hall of Heroes can perhaps be summed up by a quote from an address by David Masson, given at the then latest unveiling in July 1891: “It was a good thought, however, that within the monument there should be gathered gradually, for the inspection of closer visitors, miscellaneous relics illustrative of the Scottish past, and especially that in one of its halls there should be portrait-busts, or other sculptured remembrances, of a selection of the more eminent Scotsmen of successive generations”
To the Victorians the Hall of Heroes was meant to be a way of connecting the triumph of William Wallace to other great figures of Scotland’s past. Having been inspired by both Wallace and Robert the Bruce, then himself becoming a key figure in the preservation of Scottish literature, Burns certainly earned his place among heroes.
