Even More Fascinating Facts about the Ploughman Poet

Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796) - known in Scotland simply as 'The Bard' - was a poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated right around the world.

But did ye ken...?

Tarbolton Bachelors' Club was founded by Robert Burns on 11th November 1780 with seven companions. The rules, drawn up by Burns, stipulated 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".

At a time when men of the peasantry cut their hair short, and the upper classes wore wigs or styled their hair as if they did, Burns "wore the only tied hair in the parish" according to David Sillar.

On 4 July 1781 Burns was initiated as a freemason, in St David's Lodge, Tarbolton, No. 174, and passed and raised on 1 October the same year. He was elected Depute Master of St James's Lodge on 27 July 1784, a position he held till 1788 when he removed to Dumfriesshire.

You can find out much more about the Ploughman Poet in Scottish Miscellany - Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scotland the Brave, coming soon from Skyhorse Publishing.

Yet More Fascinating Facts about the Ploughman Poet

Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796) - known in Scotland simply as 'The Bard' - was a poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated right around the world.

But did ye ken...?

Robert's father was born at Clochnahill near Dunnottar,
Kincardineshire, trained as a gardener like his father before him, and worked in Edinburgh before moving to Ayrshire in 1750.

The poet's mother was the eldest of six children born to Gilbert Brown and Agnes Rainie.

Robert was the eldest of a family of seven.

You can find out much more about the Ploughman Poet in Scottish Miscellany - Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scotland the Brave, coming soon from Skyhorse Publishing.

The Macbeth Files - The Son of Life

Most people are aware that the Macbeth of Shakespeare's play was very different from the real man, although some of the events in the play were based on actual, historical incidents.

Since Scotland was just coming out of the Dark Ages and the region in which Macbeth lived was in the far north, in Morayshire, his origins are obscure. However, interestingly - for someone who is portrayed in the play as a psychopathic tyrant - his name mac-Bethad actually means 'Son of Life'!

You can find out more about the real life inspiration behind Shakespeare's Macbeth in Scottish Miscellany - Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scotland the Brave, by Jonathan Green.

More Fascinating Facts about the Ploughman Poet

Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796) - known in Scotland simply as 'The Bard' - was a poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated right around the world.

But did ye ken...?

The first poem of Burns to make its debut in a newspaper was 'Address to a Haggis' which appeared in the "Caledonian Mercury" on 20 December 1786.

Hounded by the Armour family, Burns resolved to emigrate to Jamaica. To raise the fare he decided to publish his poems, mostly written in 1785 but including pieces going back a decade.

The most prolific period of his life was the nine months from July 1785 to March 1786 when he wrote over 50 poems and songs.

The only letter written by Burns in the vernacular was sent from Carlisle on 1 June 1787, addressed to William Nichol in Edinburgh.

You can find out much more about the Ploughman Poet in Scottish Miscellany - Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scotland the Brave, coming soon from Skyhorse Publishing.

Fascinating Facts about the Ploughman Poet

Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796) - known in Scotland simply as 'The Bard' - was a poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated right around the world.

But did ye ken...?

Robert Burns fathered thirteen children, of whom five were born out of wedlock, and a further four by Jean Armour before Burns acknowledged her as his wife.

Dear-bought Bess was the first of three daughters who were baptised Elizabeth. The others were born to Ann Park (31 March 1791) and Jean Armour (21 November 1792).

Burns met his future wife in April 1785, when he was crossing the Mauchline drying green and his puppy trampled on linen which Jean was drying.

You can find out much more about the Ploughman Poet in Scottish Miscellany - Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scotland the Brave, coming soon from Skyhorse Publishing.

10 Things You Didn't Know About the City of Edinburgh

1) Edinburgh, is the capital of Scotland and, like the city of Rome, was built on seven hills.

2) The City of Edinburgh is 100 square miles in area (26113 hectares).

3) Edinburgh was the first city in the world which had its own fire-brigade.

4) Like Chicago, Edinburgh is also known as the "Windy City".

5) Edinburgh is twinned with Dunedin in New Zealand. Dunedin is the Gaelic form of Edinburgh.

6) Edinburgh has three Universities; the University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University, and Napier University.

7) The population of Edinburgh includes 222,020 women but only 196,894 men!

8) The first animal to be bought by Edinburgh Zoo was a gannet, which cost 18p and now appears on the crest of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.

9) A full-scale model of Edinburgh Castle, used in the late 1990s when the Capital’s Tattoo visited Wellington, is still in storage in New Zealand.

10) The world-famous Mound linking the Old Town and New Town is an artificial hill begun in 1783. It contains 1,501,000 cartloads of earth from the foundations of Princes Street.

There is a chapter about the city of Edinburgh in Scottish Miscellany - Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scotland the Brave. Pre-order your copy today!

Did ye ken...?

Ever wondered how Scotch tape got its name?

Originally it was called cellophane tape but in 1921 the 3M Company hired Mr Richard Drew as a lab technician and put him to work at improving their products.

One day, Mr Drew was watching a painter spraying a car on which he had used gummed Kraft paper to cover up the details he didn't want painted. However, when the man attempted to remove the gummed paper, it stripped the paint away with it.

Drew promised the painter that he'd work on an adhesive which would leave a clean demarcation line. In time he produced a 2 inch wide masking tape with adhesive on each edge which he delivered to the auto painter.

While testing Mr Drew's first product the painter watched it fall off as he was preparing to apply the second color of a two-tone car. The tape came loose because it was not fully coated with adhesive. It had only a 1/2" wide strip of adhesive along each edge - a money saving measure.

The painter angrily told Mr Drew, "Take this back to your stingy Scotch bosses and tell them to put more adhesive on it." This ethnic slur regarding Scottish thrift may have been unjustified, but it eventually got him the stickier tape he wanted. And the name "Scotch" stuck.

Did ye ken...?

Lossiemouth RAF base in Scotland could be launching tourists into space within the next five years! Sir Richard Branson's UK Space Agency has identified Lossiemouth as the 'ideal' location to launch a spaceflight from.

You can find out more about this story here.