January 25th marks Burns Night, the night of the Burns Supper, when the children of Scotland and their descendants and those who love them, gather as they have for a couple of hundred years, to celebrate the life and work of the poet Robert Burns (1759 – 1796), who helped establish vernacular Scots as a literary language and conjured up wonderful songs celebrating the nation’s deeds and their doers, good and ill.
His friends chose to remember him after his death by drinking, eating, conversing, and reading poetry as he would have in life – lightly and freely.
As holidays and traditions often do, it has become more formalized over the years, so that a Burns Supper begins with a bagpipe welcome and a few choice remarks on the part of the master of ceremonies, then a reading of Burns’s own, Selkirk Grace:
Some hae meat and cannot eat.
Some cannot eat that want it:
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.
The supper then starts with the soup course. Normally a Scottish soup such as Scotch Broth, Potato Soup or Cock-a-Leekie is served. Then everyone stands as the main course is brought in, which is always a haggis on a large dish. It is brought in by the cook, generally while a piper plays bagpipes and leads the way to the host’s table, where the haggis is laid down. At the end of a spoken poem, “Address To a Haggis”, a whisky toast will be proposed to the haggis. Then the company will sit and enjoy the meal.
Finally the host will wind things up, calling on one of the guests to give the vote of thanks, after which everyone is asked to stand, join hands, and sing Auld Lang Syne which brings the evening to an end.
Burns suppers are most common in Scotland, but they occur wherever there are Burns clubs, Scottish Societies, expatriate Scots, or lovers of Burns’ poetry. The object is to have a great time and share a bunch of laughs. Slainte’!
January 25, Burns Night, Scotland, Robert Burns, Selkirk Grace, bagpipe, haggis
