"Tam o' Shanter" is a narrative poem written by the Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1790, while living in Dumfries. First published in 1791, it is one of Burns' longer poems, and employs a mixture of Scots and English.
The poem describes the habits of Tam, a farmer who often gets drunk with his friends in a public house in the Scottish town of Ayr, and his thoughtless ways, specifically towards his wife, who is waiting at home for him, angry. At the conclusion of one such late-night revel after a market day, Tam rides home on his horse Meg while a storm is brewing. On the way he sees the local haunted church lit up, with witches and warlocks dancing and the devil playing the bagpipes. He is still drunk, still upon his horse, just on the edge of the light, watching, amazed to see the place bedecked with many gruesome things such as gibbet irons and knives that had been used to commit murders and other macabre artifacts. The witches are dancing as the music intensifies and, upon seeing one particularly wanton witch in a short dress he loses his reason and shouts,`Weel done, cutty-sark!' (cutty-sark: "short shirt"). Immediately, the lights go out, the music and dancing stops and many of the creatures lunge after Tam, with the witches leading. Tam spurs Meg to turn and flee and drives the horse on towards the River Doon as the creatures dare not cross a running stream. The creatures give chase and the witches come so close to catching Tam and Meg that they pull Meg's tail off just as she reaches the Brig o' Doon.
A tam o' shanter (in the British military often abbreviated to TOS) is a name given to the traditional Scottish bonnet worn by men. The name derives from Tam o' Shanter, the eponymous hero of the 1790 Robert Burns poem.
Military use
In the First World War, a khaki Balmoral bonnet was introduced in 1915 for wear in the trenches by Scottish infantry serving on the Western Front. This came to be known as the 'bonnet, tam o' shanter', later abbreviated among military personnel to 'ToS'. It replaced the Glengarry – which was the regulation bonnet worn by Scottish troops with khaki field dress at the start of the war. Originally knitted, the military tam o' shanter subsequently came to be constructed from separate pieces of khaki serge cloth.
If it is Scotch, it has to be from Scotland, the land known for whisky ...Drop the e when you talk of Scotch ... 9 ... 3 ... 1 ... Inspired by Robert Burns’ poem, Tam O’ Shanter, Usquabae firmly believes that the pursuit of drinking whisky is a saintly and noble quest.
... for his great supernatural poem, Tam o’Shanter; and a cast of his skull – made by a phrenology enthusiast after Burns’s body had been exhumed in 1834 – kept at Glasgow University’s Hunterian Museum.
Swamp Bar Pop-Up ... The bar is open Wednesdays through Saturdays starting at 5 p.m. When. Jan ... When ... There will be bagpiper performances throughout the evening from Memphis Pipes and reciting of “Address to a Haggis,” "Tam O' Shanter" and other Burns poems.
Tam o’ Shanter is a poem by Robert Burns, written in both Scottish and English and published in 1791. In the poem, we meet Tam (Scottish for Thomas), a ne'er-do-well fellow who often drinks with his ...
Who wants to hear anybody recite a poem? Because I really can't act, I'll never get to say Shakespeare on a stage and in front of an audience ... You have to be careful because I know “Tam O'Shanter,” which takes me 25 minutes to recite.
Scotland’sNational Poet immortalized the bridge in his poem “Tam O’Shanter“. Tam and Meg (his horse) escape the clutches of the witch Nannie by galloping over the Brig O’Doon... Here, a slice of his poem, “Immigrant Blues”..
Featuring the storybook-style architecture of Hollywood set designer Harry Oliver, the Tam O'Shanter was named after the famous Robert Burns poem and decorated throughout with Scottish decor ... The Tam O'Shanter is located at 2980Los Feliz Blvd.
... of Robert Burns’ epic poem Tam o’ Shanter, which shows Tam riding his mare with the witch Nannie in pursuit, and had been placed in the Burns museum in his birthplace of Alloway, reached £10,000.
Burns, an 18th-century tenant farmer who became an excise collector, wrote passionately about his country in vivid poems and songs including Tam o’ Shanter, Auld Lang Syne and Address to a Haggis, which is recited at commemorative Burns suppers ... .
"They say Tam O'Shanter is a walking poem so you walk to the beat along this river and that's the rhythm that you say Tam O'Shanter to," she said ... the poem with you.".
There’s also the cobbled Brig O’ Doon, the bridge across which, in his Tam o’Shanter poem, Burns’s protagonist and his horse Meg are chased by fearsome witches after a drinking binge in Ayr goes badly wrong.
Victoria Advocate
17 Mar 2022
Victoria Advocate
17 Mar 2022