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Quote by Robert Fergusson

“Ye wha are fain to hae your name Wrote in the bonny book o fame, Let merit nae pretension claim To laurel'd wreath, But hap ye weel, baith back and wame, In guid Braid Claith.”

Quote by Robert Fergusson

Book:Poems of Fergusson
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Poems of Fergusson

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Robert Fergusson

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“When I left home, I faithfully carried my copy of Sunset Song onward into life. Each reading brought a new layer and deeper understanding, but it was the notion of Two Chrisses that always echoed in my soul. Through Chris Guthrie, I understood the inferiority complex I felt as a working-class Scot as I began to move in different circles. I remember arriving at drama school with Doric words in my mouth, as other students looked blankly at my attempts to find an English equivalent. I'd then return home and feel 'posh' amongst my Scots speaking family. I was part of two worlds, but felt like I belonged in neither. The feeling persistently lingered but surfaced in earnest during the pandemic. At that time, I was working with the Scots Language Centre on their 'Scots Wark' project, and I was asked to deliver a creative learning resource. My offering was called 'The Twa Chrisses: A Love Letter to Sunset Song', a cathartic and empowering story to scrieve, but it also made my fingers itch to write a full theatrical adaptation. Somehow, gorgeous synchronicity ensued when Andrew Panton, Artistic Director of Dundee Rep, and Finn den Hertog contacted me with this very idea.”

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“Ye ken, man laird, while I just dive richt to the bottom o a linn, and set doon there; ye'd think it was the inside o the Fairy Hill. Trooties, ye ken, and saumon, and they awfu pike, a comin round ye, and they bits o water weeds, waggin aboot like lairch trees in the blast. I mind ae time I stoppit doon nigh aboot half an hour. Maybe no just sae much, ye ken, but time gaes awfu quick when ye're at the bottom o a linn.”

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Book:The Scottish Sketches of R.B. Cunninghame Graham
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“Win Ower hill an brae He comes tae play, The rantin roarin Win; He cowps the trees An lachs tae hear the din, He sweels the spate The deil's ain gate Oot ower the feckless banks. An Tilly's stooks Furl roon like deuks Wi panic i the ranks! Wi jaggit shears The duds he tears Aff lines she filled sae croose, An reek an flaws Doon lums he ca's A' steerin throwe the hoose. Ower yard an closs. A sair-like loss He spreads o hay an strae; The hens he blaws Like feather ba's Tae gie his humour play. An neist he's aff Tae tig an daff Wi' quinies fae the skweel; Like sails o ships He fulls their slips - Syne dooks them i the peel! Ower hill an brae He comes tae play, The rantin roarin Win; An grannies tell His pooers sae fell, An dra their airmchairs in.”

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Book:A' Ae 'Oo'
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“Wee Wullie Waggletail, what is a' your stishie? Tak a doup o' water and courie on a stane: Ilka tree stands dozent, an' the wind without a hishie Fitters in atween the fleurs and shogs them, ane be ane. What whigmaleerie gars ye jow and jink amanf the duckies, Wi' a rowsan simmer sin beekin on your croun; Wheeple, wheeple, wheeplin like a wee burn owre the chuckies, An wagglin here, an wagglin there, an wagglin up an' doun.”

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Book:Seeds in the Wind: Poems in Scots for Children
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“But now to begin about the jaunt. When a'thing was put in an order, me and the guidwife, with Clemy, your lady mother, after an early breakfast, steppit into our own carriage, whereto, behind, divers trunks were strappit; and we trintlet awa down the north road, taking the airt of the south wind that blaws in Scotland. At first it was very pleasant; and I had never been much in the country in a chaise, I was diverted to see how, in a sense, the trees came to meet us, and passed, as if they had been men of business having a turn to do. ...we journeyed on with a sobriety that was heartsome without banter; for really the parks on both sides were salutory to see. The hay was mown, and the corn was verging to the yellow. The haws on the hedges, though as green as capers, were a to-look; the cherries in the gardens were over and gone; but the apples in the orchards were as damsels entering their teens. When I was nota-beneing in this way, your grandmother consternated a great deal to Clemy, saying she never thought that I had such a beautiful taste for the poeticals, and that I was surely in a fit of the bucolicks. But I, hearing her, told her I had aye a notion of the country; only that I had soon seen fallen leaves were not coined money, which, if a man would gather, it behoved him to make his dwelling-place in the howffs and thoroughfares of the children of men.”

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“Wan decade frae wir last self-defeatin referendum, we're close tae hae the centenary ae MacDiarmid's masterpiece, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle. Oan the man's daith, Norman MacCaig said they should observe twa minutes' pandemonium. Fine description ae MacDiarmid himself, as much as whit he unleashed. MacDiarmid wiss Scotland's ultimate political poet. We winna rehearse the man's mony faults here - "problematic", says Heaney. Aye. And in spite ae this, MacDiarmid's mair important tae the cause ae Scots and Scotland than ony ither poet frae the previous century. "My job, as I see it, has never been to lay a tit's egg, but to erupt like a volcano, emitting not only flame, but a lot of rubbish." And that's hou Mount MacDiarmid maun be regarded: tempted as we may be tae tak oot the rubbish, we canna thraw the hail lot awa, as wull shairly be settin the bins ablaze. An whit's mair self-defeatin nor a bin fire?”

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“When my grandmother makes a mistake, she says 'Ah tell a leh'... But I feel the same whenever I use conversational English picked up after fourteen years at Oxford. Or whenever I lapse into a full-throated Dundonian Scots at home and someone announces, 'Ye've no lost yir accent'. Herbert speak with forked tongue.”

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