A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle

22 November 1926

On this day in Scottish history, the poem A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle by Hugh MacDiarmid (Scotland's Greatest Twentieth Century poet) was published. MacDiarmid was the principal character in the forming of the Scottish Renaissance of the inter-war years and a founder member of the National Party of Scotland.

There's plenty more about the thistle and its connection to Scotland in Scottish Miscellany, available now from Skyhorse Publishing.

For example, did you know that the Scots or Scotch thistle is more commonly known as the cotton thistle, or, to give it its Latin name, Asteraceae Onopordum. However, there are other contenders for the title of Scots thistle. Among them are the spear thistle, the musk thistle, the melancholy thistle, the stemless thistle and Our Lady’s thistle.