Friday night was Burns night.
All Scottish school children have spent the last few weeks learning poems in the native Scots tongue, some are Burns poems and some are not, and on Friday they will have recited their poem to the rest of their class. They don’t only have to learn the words; they need to learn the correct dialect and the meaning of all the unfamiliar words. Burns night is celebrated all over the world, traditionally a Burns night supper is Haggis, tatties (mashed Potatoes) and neeps ( mashed Swede) and a Burns night celebration takes the form of a Scottish Ceilidh ( pronounced Kay-Lee)
Ceilidhs are great fun, good explanation of them here
All the information on Ceilidh here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9ilidh
All the information you could ever want on Burns here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns
bit of an impromptu ceilidh going on here
example of a Scottish poem, Lament for a lost dinner ticket by Margaret Hamilton
Burns to music
And an old favourite of mine
Runrig
Since I'm am American of Scot/Irish descent this was interesting. Gilmore and Crawford ancestors.
ReplyDeleteI remember as a child that we did round dances in where I went to school. I love doing them.
The song is just lovely.
thanks, yes i like the song, its very...'Scottish', for want of a better word. :-)
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ReplyDeletesorry removed because of typos
DeleteI think there were Burns Night events around here although I never went to any. Its good to have a bit of a knees up every so often, they happen here but less predictably I think, so its especially good that people in Scotland have something to paln for every year. Nice to hear a bit of Celtic music, but I particularly liked the poem 'Lament for a Lost Dinner Ticket' translating it in my head as it goes along. My favourite Burns poem is 'To a Louse: On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church' that contains that immortal propostion....
ReplyDelete"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!"
Great......thanks for your Burns Night salute to Scotland and one of its greatest sons Loretta ...Sláinte!
thanks Aaron..................I think Burns night is celebrated all over the world.............maybe you could start a traditional 'Shakespear night', with quotes, rybald songs and hearty food such as a yard of ale and barley bread with pottage :-))
DeleteIt's great that folk and literary traditions are still so strong in Scotland and that school kids get in touch with both culture and language. Here's a link on a Robert Burns legacy in my own own home state of Oregon.
ReplyDeletehttp://countrytraveleronline.com/2012/03/23/the-robert-burns-burns-oregon-connection/
Thanks for the link Doug, I knew Burns was celebrated far and wide, but I didn't know he had an American town named after him.
DeleteThanks for the pronunciation explanation, Loretta. I don't know if I've mentioned the friend that I had from Glasgow. He was generally intoxicated and I never understood hiim unles he spoke Spanish. LOL
ReplyDeletecan't help thinking that Spanish with a Glasgow accent must be just as hard to undesand as the original Gasgow accent.........:-))
DeleteSure wish I could view the videos. My connection is too slow to view them, or listen to music. I do love Burns though, does that count? lol
ReplyDeleteIt's always very interesting to learn of other cultures. I'm glad you gave the pronunciation of Ceilidh because I never would have guessed it was pronounced that way. I would have said "seal id" lol. I will come back in the morning and listen to the music as I am off to bed and up way too late already !
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