By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Robert Burns’s poem ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ follows the titular hero, an Ayrshire farmer fond of drink and spending time with his mates, and not so fond of getting home to his increasingly impatient wife. The name of the tea clipper the Cutty Sark comes from this poem (it’s the nickname of Nannie Dee in Burns’s poem), while the name of the poem’s hero (if ‘hero’ is quite the word) has been applied to the hats or caps worn by Scottish men ever since.
Tam o’ Shanter
‘Of Brownyis and of Bogillis full is this Buke.’
Gawin Douglas.
When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate,