Learn about Scotland with a Scottish poet

Hello. I'm Gill at engVid, and today's lesson is going to be about a poem, and you may have

seen some of my videos before about poems. This time it's a little bit different because

we... We're lucky enough to have the actual poet with us who wrote the poem, so that's

really nice. And also just to mention that the poem is a Scottish poem, and the poet

is a Scottish poet, so Scottish people have a different accent, which you may have heard

before, but don't worry if you find the accent a little bit difficult at first to follow.

Do keep watching, and you'll sort of tune your ear to the accent, so don't worry if

the poet's accent sounds a bit difficult at first. You'll hopefully get used to it. So

we're also going to be hearing a bit, apart from the poem, hearing a bit about the history

of Scotland and about two different Scottish languages, Scots and Gaelic, which our guest

is going to be telling us all about. So I think now I'd like to introduce you to Hugh.

So welcome, Hugh. Hugh Macmillan.

Hello, hello. How are you?

I'm fine, thank you. How are you today?

Not too bad at all, thank you.

Okay, lovely. Thank you for being with us. It's great to see you. And Hugh is a Scottish

poet, and we will be sharing a couple of links to his website and to his YouTube channel,

which you'll be able to have a look at after this video. So I think first, Hugh, perhaps

we could start. It may be a very basic question, but for our viewers in other countries who

may not be so familiar with the geography over here around the UK, can you sort of explain

very simply to viewers in distant countries, where is Scotland and how does it relate to

the UK and England?

Okay, well, Scotland, I'm going to show you a very primitive educational aid here. Scotland

is the landmass on top here. It's quite large. England is underneath here, and there's another

country called Wales, as well as Northern Ireland. So this is called the British Isles.

A lot of people who are abroad make the mistake of thinking the whole island landmass is called

England, which it isn't, of course. So Scotland, the Scottish border is here. So Scotland is

a large country of more than 900 islands in the North Atlantic, and England is our southern

neighbour. And a mountainous country, but with large sort of swathes of arable land

as well, a reasonably rich country as well, much oil wealth, and has had an independent

history or had an independent history for nearly a thousand years, until we joined voluntarily

with England in the Treaty of Union in 1707, and so became part of the United Kingdom.

Up until recently, we didn't have a parliament, but we've formed a devolved parliament, and

we now have a parliament sitting in Edinburgh, but we are still part of the United Kingdom.

So Scotland has a parliament, Wales has a parliament, Northern Ireland has a parliament.

The only part, in fact, of the British Isles that doesn't politically exist anymore is

England. That's not a joke, that's true.

So that's interesting. Wow. Yes, yes. Oh my goodness. And of course, also these four separate

countries that make up the United Kingdom, each country has its own flag, doesn't it?

And that flag sort of gets merged together to get the Union Jack flag.

Yes, the Saltire or St Andrew's Cross of Scotland is part of the Union, the Union Jack. The

Union Jack was formed from the Irish cross, St Patrick's Cross, the St George's Cross

for England, and the St Andrew's Cross, the Saltire. The blue and white flag, there's

one on my wall here, hold on, I'll shift it around.

Ah, there it is. So there's the Scottish flag.

People might see that, you know, we've been having some, well, you know, football matches

from time to time, and there's a Scotland football team, isn't there? There's an England

football team. So all the fans will be going round the streets with holding up the Scottish

flag, won't they? Or wearing it on their clothes or whatever, so.

And the British coat of arms has the Lion of England on one side and the Unicorn of

Scotland on the other side. Unicorn is Scotland's kind of symbolic animal.

Oh, okay. But I believe we're the only country in the

world that's got a mythical beast as our national animal.

Yes, that's amazing. Wow. Okay, so thank you. That's very helpful to know, and thank you

for the map as well. Okay, so I think now I will share my screen

and we will have a look at the poem. So this is a short poem written by Hugh called

The Spider's Legend of Robert the Bruce, and it was published in a book, as you can see,

in 2009, a book called The Spider's Spin on It. So here is the poem, and it's a short

narrative poem, which means it's telling a story. So don't worry if you're not quite

sure what it's about at first. Don't worry, because some of the words are rather unusual.

The ones highlighted in yellow are actually Scottish dialect words, which will be explained,

and I've also put explanations on the right-hand side as well. And then some of the other words

are spelt in a slightly different way from the usual spelling to kind of suggest the

Scottish accent. So don't worry if you don't fully understand the poem the first time around,

because, you know, we will gradually get the meaning out of it as we go along and as Hugh

and I discuss it. So don't worry if it seems a bit difficult to follow at first. So, Hugh,

I wonder if you'd be kind enough to read your poem out loud for us.

Yes, yes, I certainly will. I will, first of all, take a bit of issue on a couple of

things you've said there, which are quite important issues, I think. I mean, you used

the word 'dialect'. To say that Scots is a dialect of English is as inaccurate as saying

English is a dialect of Scots, because we are sister languages, we have the same roots,

but through from early medieval times took different channels, took different roots with

our languages. And so in actual fact, Scots is a language and people, it's a very political

thing in Scotland, but we have three languages here. We have English, we have Gaelic, which

is spoken up the northwest of Scotland, and we have Scots, which is spoken by, in the

last census, 65% of people in Scotland said they spoke a bit of Scots kind of thing. So

it's a language in itself, not a dialect.

Okay, I apologise.

No, no, no, it's totally fine, totally fine. It's a complete, it's a general sort of misconception,

you know, in Scotland itself as well. But we would say that Scots is a language and

some of the words that are here are in actual fact words which we have in common with the

English but which we've preserved or changed or have been influenced by Dutch and French

words and so on. And it's altered. When I read Scots poetry to people down south, sometimes

they say that sounds like Middle English, that sounds like the language of Beowulf and

so on. And that's true. That's, you know, we have these common roots. And these words,

in a sense, Scots is a kind of historically enshrined form of English. So it's a complicated

situation, but it's not a dialect. We do have Scots, we do have dialect poetry up here,

but it's more kind of phonetical writing, phonetical speaking. And we have some very

famous poets like Tom Leonard who spoke Glaswegian and who do Glaswegian poetry, which is kind

of phonetical accent dialect poetry. But Scots poets would murder you for saying they were

writing or speaking in dialect because, you know, it is a language. It's a thing for me

because my mother was a Gaelic speaker from Morvan up the northwest of Scotland. My father's

folk were all miners from Ayrshire who spoke Scots. I'm an English speaking poet mostly

because I remember my mother saying to me English is the language of the scholar. This

is why it's kind of political issue here that Scots and Gaelic has been suppressed in preference

to English. And this is really why, you know, there's so much movement towards rediscovering

or encouraging Scots and Scoles and Gaelic and Scoles and so on. These are our historical

languages. This poem, The Spider's Legend of Robert the Bruce, is a kind of hybrid Scots

poem. There are English words, there are Scots words and so on. So it's not what I would

probably say is a full on Scots poem. I'm editing just now the works of a Scots language

poet called Josie Neale, who is an Ayrshire poet. She's 86 and still lives in Dumfries.

And I don't know whether you would indulge me to, after I've read this, maybe later on,

to read one of her poems as contrast to this, because that would be a very interesting experience

for perhaps you and your students. But anyway, this is a kind of, I would say, hybrid Scots

words. So The Spider's Legend of Robert the Bruce. I got scunnered trying to spin a web

for dinner. The stain was a slistery. I couldn't get a grip. I was half stirred by the end,

not even a midge to clouft. Then a big lugger man come in, raggedy, right dosser, me hung

up looking the knee, started eyeing me up. I thought I'm off. Swung like Tarzan out the

cave on a thread thick as a wain's wrist. Seemed to cheer him up.

That's lovely. Thank you. That sounds fantastic with your, you know, with your accent.

It's based on a, it's based on a very famous Scottish historical tale. I don't know if

you're going to ask me about what his background is.

Please explain. Yes, the story behind it.

In the 13th and 14th centuries, the English Plantagenet King, Edward I, attempted to sort

of, you know, his job was to create an English empire in France and in the British Isles

and so claimed the throne of Scotland. So there were these wars called the Wars of Independence.

And Robert the Bruce, who was the Scottish King from 1306 onwards, fought against Edward

I and his son Edward II. At some point, Bruce was defeated to begin with and was hiding

in a cave, so the legend goes, and was about to give up and saw the spider trying to spin

a web on the wet side of the cave. And he kept trying, kept trying, kept trying. And

Bruce, so the story goes, saw this wee spider and said, well, you know, if that spider can

make it, if that spider can do it, then we will try, try and try again, he said, and

then went on to defeat the English. Complete nonsense, of course.

So it's a legend rather than a historical fact.

It's a legend rather than a historical fact. I mean, I think Bruce was saved by the fact

that Edward I died of dysentery and his son wasn't quite as good a general.

That's not such a good story, though, is it?

No, it's not. No, I think it's full of legends like, you know.

Let's keep with the spiders.

Yes. So it's an inspiring story because, you know, it can inspire other people to try,

try, try again.

That's the idea.

Don't give up first time, pick yourself up and try again.

To say it was a hybrid poem, if it was a proper Scots poem, we wouldn't have the word spider,

which is an English word we would have. There are two Scots words for spider. One is an

ettercap, which comes from sort of Middle English, and the other one is a wabster, which

I particularly like, a webster, something that works in webs, a wabster.

A web maker, I suppose. Wow. Amazing. And, and also Robert the Bruce, for any viewers

who, you know, may not have heard of him, the film Braveheart, I gather he appears in

that, that there's a, you know, the character of Robert the Bruce appears in the Braveheart

film that, of course, Mel Gibson is famous for being William Wallace, but Robert the

Bruce is in that film as well.

So Braveheart always causes a great controversy in Scotland because the thing about Scotland

is some people inside Scotland really don't really wish us to have an independent history.

You know, it's a political issue. History, like language, is a very, very political issue.

I loved Braveheart. Scottish people slag Braveheart off because they say it doesn't represent

the real history, you know. It has the Battle of Stirling Bridge and there's not a bridge

anywhere in sight. They paint themselves blue, which they never did. They have tartan on,

which Wallace as a lowlander and Bruce as a lowlander would never have worn plaid or

tartan. So there's all sorts of historical inaccuracies, which, you know, the Scots,

or some Scots, used to rubbish the film. But basically, it was the very first proper film

treatment of an issue of Scottish history, you know, and it was tremendously popular

in Scotland. I remember when Braveheart premiered in Dundee, and I was in Dundee in the cinema

on the first night, and I've never known an atmosphere like it. At the end of the film,

everybody in the cinema, which was packed, everyone in the cinema was up cheering and

howling and shouting and stamping. I've never seen anything like it. And the reason for

that is because Scottish history has been quite neglected, you know, in terms of its

treatment in the media, in terms of our own schools, even. Our own schools in Scotland

really haven't taught very much Scottish history until relatively recently. And because we

are part of the United Kingdom and part of Britain, the media, the BBC, magazines, newspapers,

films, and so on, tend to show English history rather than our history. A very famous journalist

called Ludovic Kennedy in Scotland described our relationship with England as like being

in bed with an elephant, which actually does sum it up. You know, you talked about football

earlier on. If you watch the BBC or ITV coverage of the football, they do mention Scotland,

but it's all about England. It's all about, well, 90% of the population of these islands

are English, so that is perhaps natural. But, you know, when you're Scottish and in Scotland,

you notice these things and you think, this isn't fair, you know. So Braveheart was a

great thing. And its historical inaccuracies, you know, were one thing, but its power in

representing neglected Scottish history was fantastic. You cannot underrate its impact.

No. So, okay. So that's a fantastic background then to the poem. So maybe now we could just

go through it line by line. And I've put on the right hand side, a few sort of translations

if you like. So, Scummit, I think you told me, so I've used the information you've given

me previously, meaning fed up or is it tired? I got tired. This is the spider speaking.

So he got tired trying to spin a web.

Yes, we're kind of fed up, Scunner. It's a bit, you know, it comes, I think, from, it's

akin to the English word scared in its origin, but it's kind of middle English as well, dates

from the 14th century, the word scunner. So it's appropriate for this poem, which is set

in the 14th century. But that's the idea, scunner means to get fed up. And, you know,

the next word trying, which is an apostrophe after it, this is another sort of a point

of contention amongst Scots is the apostrophe stands for the fact that in English there's

a G there. Right. But in Scots, we would say trying, we wouldn't say trying with a G. And

the fact that an apostrophe there, some Scots say, well, that's an apologetic apostrophe.

Why are we apologising for not having a G? Because in Scots, we don't have Gs. So therefore

it should be trying. So if I was writing this poem again nowadays, I wouldn't have an apostrophe

there. I would have trying.

Ah, OK. OK. And I should also mention that the interesting thing about the poem is that

it's from the spider's point of view, whereas, you know, in literature, usually it's written

from the main, supposedly main character's point of view. So for you to write your poem

in the voice of the spider, I think is a really, you know, neat thing to do.

I called it the spider spinning it, which is clever, isn't it?

Yes. The spider's story. It took me five years to sign that up, yeah.

Yeah. And spin a web for dinner because the spider gets its dinner by, you know, insects

getting caught on the web, doesn't it? So that's the idea of spinning a web for dinner

because that's how it catches its food. So that's a nice, nice way of putting it.

And then the stain was our slaystery.

Stain was our slaystery. I get an apologetic apostrophe there. Slaystery is another word

meaning slippery or slick. It could be playstery. The Scots word for slaystery is also playstery.

It's the same kind of, same kind of word in different parts of the country. But the stain

was our slaystery or playstery meaning slippery or slick or slidy.

So that would make it harder to get the cobweb to stick, to stay in.

It's a very onomatopoeic language. So you have a lot of words which, which suggest the

meaning just by, by, you know, its spelling.

Yes, yes. So the onomatopoeic language making a sort of sound effect, slippery, slaystery.

It sounds like something slipping, doesn't it?

So English, English is the same, of course, yeah. And ah, the next line, ah, Scots for

I is ah, E-H. Okay. So, okay. And couldn't is couldn't as

I've put there. So he couldn't get it to stick. And okay. Let's carry on to the next line.

So half-starved, half meaning... Now, what would that mean, half-starved?

Half-starved means just half-starved, you know, hungry. Again, again, the E-D in Scots

is a T mostly. So, you know, if I was writing this properly in Scots, it would be I was

half-starved, S-T-A-I-R-V-T. So instead of E-D, we have T.

Okay. Again, that's a, that's a going back to Middle

English, I think. Okay. Yes. Okay. And then the next line.

No, even a midge to clout. Clout is a, it's like the English word clutch. So it's a Scots

version of that. So not even a midge. You know what midges are, anybody who's, but it's

a very, very, very tiny insect, isn't it? A tiny insect that bites you to death, strips

your skin off. Yeah. Oh no, horrible. No, I'm only joking there, but no, well, actually

not completely joking there. But anyway, so clout means to clutch. Yeah. Okay. Lovely.

And then, then the moment when Robert the Bruce walks in to the cave. He comes in. So

a big lug or a mon, right? So a big, a lug is kind of like a figure of a man, comes in.

Raggedy, it's like ragged. Yeah. So his clothes are ragged. He's got sort of poor clothes

on, damp, sort of ripped and torn, perhaps from the battle or something. If we're saying

right, it says, but if we're doing that properly in Scots, it'd be right rather than right.

Dosser's not actually a Scottish word. That is the one word in this poem that is a slang

dialect word. Dosser's a Glasgow dialect for a. Yes. I don't think it's just in Glasgow,

is it? I think in the North of England, they use that word as well. Oh yes. I hear it used

dosser in, in England for someone who, I mean, it's to do with sort of sleeping rough. Yeah,

that's right. Dossing, dossing down means to lie down and sleep, you know, but in a

rather rough way. So yes, definitely. I think we hear it in, in England as well. Yeah. Okay.

And then the next, next line. So mares more hungered, hungry, looking than me.

Again, that would be, if I was writing that properly, the next line, if we're starting

sterted, it should be stertet or stertet. Yeah. The T rather than the E D. Eye in me.

That shouldn't be, there shouldn't be a G there. Eye in me up. Ah, okay. And the next line,

I thought, that should be thought if I was writing that properly in Scots. Okay. I'm off.

I'm going, I'm going. I'm away. Yes. Swung like Tarzan. Everybody knows who Tarzan is, eh?

One like Tarzan. Yeah. Put the cave out of the cave. Own, that should be O-N, a thread.

Thick as a wain's wrist. A thread of the cobweb. A thread, yes. A wain, I don't know whether that's,

that's an English word as well, but a wain, a Scots for child. So thick as a child's wrist.

So very thin, very thin wrist. Yeah, yeah. And then the next line should be seamt,

that should be, because all E Ds in Scots are T, to cheer them up. So it's seamt to cheer them up.

So it's, it's a hybrid, it's a hybrid poem. So I'm taking the mickey a wee bit.

From the point of view of the spider, the spider's quite glad to escape the clutches of Robert.

That's really funny at the end, because to say, it's sort of very light, lightweight, isn't it?

Seamt to cheer him up. And what, the other side of the legend from Robert the Bruce is that it was

such an inspiring experience watching the spider, that it won him a kingdom, you know, a really big

thing. But just to the spider, oh, I seamt to cheer him up, you know, very sort of disillusioned.

Very sort of dismissive in a way. So that's really funny. I like that. It's a great ending

to the poem there. So, so okay, so I think we'll come back to that and hear it again a bit later.

But I think if, if we just come back to just having a chat about it and about writing in,

in a sort of Scottish style in general. So I guess quite a lot of Scottish poets write in,

in a style like this, or in their own sort of form. I still think the majority, I still think

the majority of Scots poets write in, write in English. There are, there are Scots language

poets, and there are vehicles for Scots language poetry, and there's big government encouragement

now for Scots language writing. I think in actual fact, you can now take Scots as a qualification

in school. Now, Gaelic, obviously, there's always been the capacity to take that in school. And now

we have Gaelic language teaching. So that in actual fact, in schools in Glasgow and further

north, you get all your subjects taught in Gaelic. Right, so, so Gaelic is the medium,

the language medium for the entire school. And I think Scots language activists would like the

same thing to happen in terms of Scots, you know, that Scots would be the medium for education.

And that Scots, you wouldn't just get qualifications in Scots in school,

you would get your entire education in Scots. Okay, interesting. But to do that, to do that,

there's a big, I'm maybe giving you more detail than you need here. But there's a big controversy

in Scotland just now about standardisation of Scots, right, about having an authoritative

dictionary, because how can you teach Scots in school, if, you know, there are 10 ways of spelling,

you know, it was. And so you need, but that's that's a sort of current controversy. But,

but there is definitely big movements in government to try to try and encourage Scots

and Gaelic, of course, which is a dying language. Scots is a kind of minority.

Scots, probably most people would admit to speaking bits of Scots. And so therefore,

you know, it's got something going for it. But Gaelic is in need of preservation more than Scots,

as I would say. Okay, so, so obviously, Scotland has very much its own style and identity,

and so on, you know, I think you'll, you'll know that you'll know, there's, there's big sort of

movement in Scotland to become independent. Although, you know, perhaps it's, it's deadlocked

just now between those who want independence and those who don't want independence. But part of the

part of this sort of, you know, fight for independence really has to do with identity.

And identity is kind of wrapped up in language. You know, once upon a time when I was younger,

it was enough to, you know, if people asked you, what does it mean to be Scottish? All you could

answer was, well, you know, it's not being English. That was the, that was the definition.

But now, you know, people are looking for, for, for, you know, for linguistic reasons, you know,

for, for, for linguistic identity. You know, we're Scots because we speak a different language,

or we speak two different languages. So that's the political impetus between, behind, you know,

this, all these movements. Yes, yes. So, so, after all these years, you know, since 1707,

Scotland's been part of the UK, but maybe half, half the population of Scotland could vote for

independence, and the other half could vote against independence. But I think currently,

it's kind of, it's a kind of divide. It's a 50/50 divide. But when we had the last referendum in

2014, when we went into that referendum, something like 22% of people supported independence,

and at the end of it, it was 43%, you know. So activists for independence would say, you know,

if we were able to present the case properly in a second referendum, then we would almost

certainly win. I don't know whether that's the case. Certainly young people in Scotland

are, by all accounts, much more in favour of independence. It's the kind of over 60s who are

trenchantly against it, you know, and the older you get, the more against it you are, sort of

thing, you know. I think it's people who were, who lived in that post-war sort of time, if you were

born in the 1940s, 50s, and so on, then you do have a better sense of Britishness, I think,

than young Scots today. I think young Scots today would like to have a crack at being an

independent little country full of, you know, a little social democratic country in the north

of Europe, you know. We would like to have a go at it. Not that I'm young. I'm an exception. I'm

an older person who completely wants independence. Oh wow, okay. So I guess it's a case of whether

a second referendum will be allowed, because the UK government is supposed to be the one that

either allows it or not. So, as you say, it's a bit of a, you know, things are stuck at the moment

where Scotland wants another referendum. I think the longer that the UK government,

the longer the British government says things like you're not allowed, you know, the more

support goes on to the independence movement. Yes, absolutely. So, maybe we could talk a little

bit about kind of popular references to Scotland, you know, things that some of our viewers may be

familiar with, like another film which was based on a book, a film called 'Trainspotting',

which maybe gives a rather, you know, because it's about drug taking and drug addicts, it's a rather

depressing, perhaps, view of, but it's settings in Scotland when I think some viewers may have

seen it because it's been such a popular film. So, I don't know if you have any thoughts about

that film. Well, we do, we do have vibrant contemporary films, but I don't know if you

have vibrant contemporary literature, you know, we do have some great urban writers like Irvine

Welsh who wrote 'Trainspotting', Alan Warner, Duncan Maclean, we have, you know, the recent

Booker Triesman or Shuggy Bain, you know, and so on. We do have vibrant urban sort of writers,

so, and we do have immense poverty in our inner city areas, very much like, you know, you would

have in the Midlands of England as well, for that matter, and so 'Trainspotting' was a extremely

funny film, I thought, but it was a no holds barred representation of sort of drug culture

in Leith and other parts of Edinburgh, you know, it was set in Edinburgh. Yeah, I mean, you know,

we are represented, I think, abroad as a country of heather and mountains and whiskey and so on,

but we're a modern urban country with modern urban problems. Absolutely. So, yes, and also,

I think, visually, I think something like this sort of what's called the tartan pattern, this

is a red and black one, but they come in different colours, don't they? But they're very distinctive,

that you've got lines going in both directions like this. So, this is a Scottish, I guess it's

a Scottish tartan. It's invented by Walter Scott, the tartan. It's another kind of sort of English

invention tartan. Oh, so it's an English invention, it's not even Scottish then. Well, in the 19th

century Scotland, just to give another little bit of background, I don't know, I'm probably

talking too much and giving you too much kind of detail, but we joined up with England in 1707

in the Treaty of Union. The Scottish Parliament voted itself out of existence, but it was a time

when very few people had to vote. I think something like eight percent of the people of Scotland had

to vote at that time. It was, you know, only rich people had to vote. Anyway, we had this thing

called the Jacobite Rebellion, which many folk will know about. Bonnie Prince Charlie is one of the

iconic figures of Scottish history, and the Jacobite Rebellion was to restore the Stuart

monarchy, but it was also, one of the strands of it was to abolish the Treaty of Union, and Bonnie

Prince Charlie wanted to become King of Scotland and King of England, like his Stuart forebears

had done. In other words, have two separate countries, with him as King of both of them. Now,

the Jacobite Rebellion was a failure, and at the Battle of Culloden the Jacobites were crushed,

and after that you had a campaign of near genocide in the Highlands, where, and it's not just the

English to blame for this, it was Lowland Scots who were Protestant, whereas the Highland Scots

were Catholic. We had a campaign to crush the Highland way of life, and we had after that

massive depopulation from the Highlands, emigration to the New World, so people in Canada

and New Zealand and Australia who have Scottish forebears will possibly have these ancestors

because of what happened after the Jacobite Rebellion, and when you go up north you will see

scattered walls, homesteads, empty villages, and so on. Even where I live in the southwest of

Scotland, there were five times as many people in 1600 live here then as they do now, so depopulation

is the kind of Scottish story, and it was politically and economically motivated. People

wanted to get rid of the Highland clan system because it was politically inconvenient,

but they also wanted a way of making money out of land sort of thing. So anyway, so then,

then in the 19th century, you know, having had a hundred years or so of being part of

the British Isles or part of the United Kingdom, suddenly this kind of Highland way of life was

it was romanticized, and Walter Scott and people like that reinvented the idea of Scottishness.

Now it's Walter Scott's anniversary this year, so the big thing in Scotland about Walter Scott,

a great Scottish writer and somebody who wrote and used the strands of Scottish history

to invent stories and so on. A great, a great writer, but he kind of reinvented this idea of

the savage gale, the northern Highlander, the heroic sort of Highland, and King George came up,

was invited by Walter Scott up to Edinburgh, and he's a descendant, of course, of the Hanoverian

kings who, you know, conducted this campaign of genocide. But then, you know, this is a reinvention

of Scottishness, and if you're a posh Scot, then you would start wearing the tartan. The kilt was

never worn in Scotland. It was invented in the 19th century by these posh Scots who were looking

at the kilt, which is like a skirt that men wear. Yeah, nobody wore that. Nobody wore that in

Scottish history. I mean, they did wear a kind of blanket which they wrapped around themselves and

would use to sleep in and things like that, but it was never tartan. Tartan's an invention

of the 19th century posh Scot and English. So, there was this massive reinvention of Scottish,

of the Highland gale. Now they were crushed, now they were destroyed, they could reinvent them as

great heroic figures, you know, and people started going on their holidays there and so on. Queen

Victoria got her place at Balmoral, you know, and all this kind of stuff. It's part, you know,

it's kind of like classic behaviour of the people who conquered folk, you know, to the people that

had been conquered, to patronise them, you know. Sorry, I'm going across as very radical here,

aren't I? I'm not really like that at all. >> Interesting. So, and also, I think you've

given us some very useful links for people to look at if they'd like to find out more about Scotland.

So, we'll be giving our viewers the links to Electric Scotland and Hidden Scotland and something

about literature, Scottish literature. So, thank you very much for those. >> No bother, no bother.

>> Extended links, that's great. Okay, so that's all fascinating. And I just wanted to check with

you, Hugh, something from earlier that you were talking about two different languages, the Scots

language and the Gaelic. And so, I wonder if you could say a little bit more. And I gather Gaelic,

it's like the Irish word Gaelic, only in Scotland, you pronounce it Gaelic, but it's spelled G-A-E-L-I-C,

just as in Ireland. So, can you just give us a very brief summary of what the Gaelic language is?

>> Well, I said earlier on that Scots and English were kind of sister languages, but Gaelic's a

completely different language altogether. I mean, before the Roman occupation of Britain,

nearly all of the British Isles, Britain's a Roman word, Britannia, the whole of the British

Isles spoke Celtic languages. And in the south, and in the south of Scotland for that matter as

well, people spoke Brythonic languages, Welsh, basically. I live very close to a place called

Carlavric, which is a Welsh word, Carlisle's a Welsh word. We're surrounded by Welsh words

down here in the south of Scotland, as well as Norse words, as well as English words,

and as well as Gaelic words. Dumfries, where I'm close to, is a Gaelic word. So,

we have all these influences from different cultures and so on. But, you know, once upon a

time, most of the people in Scotland, as in most of the people of England, spoke a form of Welsh.

Now, when the Romans invaded and went away again, then various different tribes came into

both Scotland and England, and the major invasion in the south was from Germany,

from the Anglo-Saxons, speaking English, and they chased out all the Brythonic Welsh-speaking

people, and some residue of them went into what we now call Wales, which is why it's called Wales,

why Welsh people speak Welsh, because that is where, you know, that is the sort of fugitive place

for Welsh tribes in the south. And these Anglo-Saxons came into Scotland too, and also from

Ireland came Gaelic-speaking Scots, right, and they settled in the west of Scotland and the north

of Scotland, and they spoke, they brought with them Gaelic. So, we had, after the Romans went

away, basically a situation in Scotland where we had Welsh speakers in the south of Scotland,

Gaelic speakers in the north and west of Scotland, English speakers in the southeast of Scotland,

and in the north of Scotland, these are people that your students won't have heard about,

the Picts, these fascinating sort of people who predated all these other folk. Picti,

which is Latin for 'painted people', you know how in Braveheart Mel Gibson got his face painted

blue and white? That would never have happened in the Middle Ages, but the Picts were meant

to have tattooed themselves or painted themselves in wood or blue and so on. So, Scotland's this

amazing sort of strange medley of different sorts of cultures and so on, and the Welsh speakers in

Scotland disappeared or merged with the Gaelic speakers. The Picts vanished altogether, a great

historical mystery what happened to them, but they didn't have a written language, although

they had beautiful sort of carved stones which they left all over Scotland, until eventually we

only had Gaelic and Scots as the two languages in Scotland, and Gaelic remains or remained up in the

north and the west of Scotland, whereas Scots, you know, became the linguistically important

language in Scotland. Although they spoke Gaelic in the court of Scotland, the kings of Scotland

spoke Gaelic until the 14th, 15th century, was still the court language, you know, with French,

but then eventually became sort of Scots. Okay, wow, so that's a really… Anyway, I'm here all week.

No, but that's what language is like, isn't it? It's all to do with the movements of people and

from place to place and things getting merged. Yeah, but we're always boasting that we're a

mongrel nation, because we basically come from five different cultures, you know, with Norse as

well. I mean, I've got a mountain close to me called Triffle, Crow Mountain in Norse, you know,

we have that kind of great sort of heritage of being in amalgam of places, whereas the English,

they're just English. Oh, wow. They're just Anglo-Saxon with a bit of Viking. Yes, well,

even in England, you know, we've got this sort of dividing line between where the Vikings invaded,

but, you know, it goes partway down the country, but the southern part, it's slightly different.

So, you know, I think it happens in a lot of different places, all these…

You had the Danes, they were more born than the Norwegian Vikings. We had the Norwegian Vikings,

they were better. Ah, okay. So, well, that's fascinating. Thank you for that. And so,

I think it would be rather nice now, I think, if we go back to the poem and it would be lovely now

that we've… we understand so much more, me included, about the background to this poem

and the background to the languages in it. It would be lovely to hear you read it again

and we can just enjoy the story and understand what's happening this time. So, over to you.

Okay, Spider's Legend of Robert the Bruce. I got scunnered trying to spin a web for dinner.

The stain was a slistery. I couldn't get a grip. I was half stirred by the end,

not even a midget to clout. Then a big lug of mon came in, raggedy, right dosser.

Mere hungert looking on me, started eyeing me up. I thought I'm off. Swung like Tarzan

out the cave with a thread thick as a wain's wrist. Seemed to cheer him up.

Lovely. Thank you very much. That's fantastic.

Can I do that? I know you're maybe not going to include that, but can I do it for your own

interest? Can I read this Josie Neil poem to show you what a proper full-on Scots poem is like?

Yes, please. Yes, lovely. Thank you.

All right. It's called My Feather. It's about a feather.

His hair was like coarse grass before rhyme had settled. Lines ran in deep shucks to his moo,

but the ean were skinkling. This is me, held out his erm, made his veins stone out like wire,

and this, heaven is hurt. He's been gone this twelve months, yet thrice I've seen him traking

by, he'd into the wind. The last time he came that near hawn, I held my breath.

He turned the ean in me, and smiled, and gaed on till murk.

Oh, wow. Okay. I got about 15% of that. Interesting. Lovely.

She writes in the Ayrshire Scots. Like Gaelic, Gaelic is kind of associated in a sense with a

culture that was dying, you know, the rural sort of land in the North West. Likewise in rural Ayrshire

and mining Ayrshire and so on, that Scots is associated with a culture that's also, I'm afraid,

died out, whether it's the mines closing or whether it's through, you know, the land use changing and

so on. So, you know, it's like a dying culture as well, but she's a kind of, she's a brilliant poet

and deserves more to be heard, more of, yeah. Right. So, that's wonderful. Thank you, Hugh.

And again, just to mention Hugh's website, do have a look. You'll be able to see this poem and

other poems by Hugh on there. And also on Hugh's YouTube channel, where he is hosting a lot of

other poets. So, you can hear other poets reading their poems on Hugh's YouTube channel. So, do have

a look at those. Yeah, some Scots, some Gaelic, some Gaelic poets on there too, reading in Gaelic,

some Scots poets reading in Scots and people from America and New Zealand and all sorts of things.

Lovely. So, just a mixture, some Scottish poets and some from other places as well then. So,

that's great. So, that's wonderful, Hugh. It's been lovely and fascinating hearing all about

Scotland and Scottish poetry and language and everything. So, thank you so much for being here

today. And thank you to the viewers for being with us and listening and following the poem with us.

I hope you've all enjoyed it. So, that's it for today on this lesson. So, from me and from Hugh,

bye for now, and see you again next time. Bye.

Bye.