Scots Scriever Shane Strachan. Photo credit: Neil Hanna
This article was originally published in 'Discover' magazine, issue 48, summer 2023.
Words: Shane Strachan.
As this year's Scots Scriever, I've relished searching through the Library's archives, particularly those in North East Scots (Doric), of which I’m a native speaker and published author.
The main project I'm working on is the creation of new stories set in 1990s Aberdeenshire linked with the ballad repertoire of Anna Gordon Brown, many of which are collected in two manuscripts in the Library, one in her nephew’s hand in 1783 and one in her own in 1800.
Alongside this, I've also been working on poems and performance pieces inspired by non-fiction archives in Scots.
The creative manipulation of real-life material, or verbatim, has long been part of my practice and has resulted in a novella inspired by Muriel Spark's time in southern Africa, based on her archive at the Library ('Nevertheless'), a verbatim theatre project inspired by conversations overheard on Aberdeen’s Union Steet ('The Shelter'), and 'The Bill Gibb Line', a podcast, film and exhibition partly inspired by real fashion reviews of the Aberdeenshire fashion designer’s work.
It may seem strange to place so much emphasis on reshaping and refashioning the pre-existing words and narratives of others, but this was common practice for medieval writers of Scots such as Robert Henryson and William Dunbar, who were not referred to as authors and poets (that was reserved for the long-dead writers of Greek and Latin such as Aristotle and Virgil), and were instead known as Makars, hence our modern-day national Makar title currently held by Kathleen Jamie. Referring to writers as Makars placed emphasis on craft and technique rather than authority (hence 'author') and metaphorically compared crafting with words to the construction of a building.
Overall, a Makar's job was to make authoritative sources accessible to a wider audience, rather than our modern-day emphasis on creating anew.
This is the role I see for myself in the production of the following poems based on two real petition letters from around 1706, which are largely opaque to the modern reader due to their inconsistent spelling and their unusual mixture of older forms of English and Scots with Gaelic influences. Sent to the commissioners Queen Anne appointed to negotiate the proposed Union of Parliaments in 1707, the letters take opposing views to the union for differing reasons connected to the writers’ individual industries.
They also relate the anxieties felt by folk at this time around how a union would help or hinder their livelihoods and communities. Voices from the labouring class, especially in Scots, are rarely found in print at this time in our history, so it felt particularly important to highlight these through my role as Scriever to a wider readership.
The first poem, 'Fain tae Hear of this Eenion', is based on a letter most likely written collectively by a group of Aberdonian weavers who are all women (another rarity in print at this time) and who see the Union as an opportunity to expand the market for their goods – plaids, shanks (stockings) and fingreens (a variant of fingering, a kind of woollen cloth) – not just into England, but to far off continents through colonialism, regardless of the violence that entails.
The second, 'An Onion petween Twa Kingdoms', voices the concerns of Highland fishermen – most likely working along the Moray Firth coast and beyond – in relation to the impact that increased customs on salt will have on preserving fish and meat, and the knock-on effect this will then have on their immediate community in the Highlands right up (or rather down) to Lowland lairds.
The interesting mixture of Scotland's three languages express how the North East was a hotbed for language transfer after English swept up the country to compete with Scots and Gaelic in the preceding century following the Union of the Crowns in 1603 and the publication of the King James Bible in 1611.
For example, the modern day 'f' for 'wh' in Doric words like fit, far and fan (what, where and when) – expressed as 'ph' in the weavers’ letter – is thought to be language transfer from Gaelic. Another Gaelic influence can be seen in the pronunciation of the letter 'p' for 'b' in the fishermen's letter, such as 'Pairns to Peg' for 'Bairns to Beg', which is rare to see in printed text outside of dialogue in Walter Scott’s novels, where it is often used for comedic effect at a Highlander’s expense.
This marks these fishermen out as native Gaelic speakers who have learned Scots and English as additional languages, along with far fewer Scots words in their letter besides those they share with the Aberdonian weavers, such as pairns/bairns (children) and muckle (many/large).
The weavers include many more Scots words which they may have believed were also in use in England, or they didn’t know the English equivalent for, such as affagates (means of sale), wame (stomach), aldfarane (a variant on auld-farrant meaning old-fashioned). A quick search on the Dictionary of Scots Languages – will provide meanings for any others you don’t know.
The unusual pronunciations and spellings of words, along with the random capitalisations, makes for a somewhat surreal experience when reading these letters for the first time.
As well as making the spelling more consistent – in my bid to shape them into a more accessible form for modern readers – I transformed the verbatim material into two narrative poems comprised of five-line stanzas, which I hope makes the original letters more digestible and memorable.
I selected specific sections of the text where vivid and emotive imagery are used and reordered them into a more logical narrative flow with growing tension and drama.
I resisted the temptation to use rhyme so that the authenticity of their voices shines through, but I have fichered with the stress patterns to make the metre more iambic (tee-TUM, tee-TUM) and flowing, as you would expect in poetry from this period.
Be warned – they won't sound quite like anything you've heard before, but that’s what makes them even more special to me!
The 12-month Scots Scriever residency is hosted by the Library and funded by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
An Onion petween Twa Kingdoms
Ta Her Majesties high Commissioner,
te Address far te Highland coast Fishers,
farstanding mony Tings o great Weight
to pe well considered pefore a Mariage
or an Onion petween te twa Kingdoms.
Seven Years after te Onion, te sam
Custom on Salt sall pe Payed as in England:
Four and Twenty Mark on te Pow. To pay
Therty Shilling a Peck wad fash folk
and Rer Few will Venture to pring it hame.
Tho she can Eat Meat wit as little Salt
as her Neighbours, without Salt she canner mak
her herring py which she wins her Preed,
and a good quantity too – Salt upon Salt,
and Salt upon te top of Salt again.
Te Fresh Herring will spoil py darth of salt
and cows willna sell at te Ladner time;
where’s te Equety makin a poor Man
who takes meat Wen he may have it chapest,
pay 6 times as much to preserve te meat?
Tat Excise is no less a great purden –
it will mak much less Corn consumpt upon
and without muckle use for so much corn,
tis shall touch your Laland Lairds, and in turn
come pack to us Highlanders wit a Vengance.
Ale will pe dear to Drunkards, and her ane sell
cannot well want dearer Usquabae.
With Ale peing dear, we’ll not afford
a cooler, and salt peing natural hot,
tis Excise on Salt wil dry us all up.
To put havy Taxations on Mens Laburs,
and Customs on such Goods are as Wasted
as Consumed py folk wit Money to spare,
used out of Vanity or oter vice,
such as Drinks, dainty Meats and Praw Claes.
Then Salt Herring will not pe poor Folks Food,
put only for Greening Wives and Daintise.
We may purn our Nets and Pirlins, and go
to te Plantations, or take on to pe soldiers,
leaving our Wives and Pairns to Peg.
Her ane sell does not well Farstand, so leave
tese kitle Points to pe Judged pe Grit Lords
and the Duniwassals in Parliament
wha are able te give petter Judgement
in having muckle mare te loss ten She.
If England designs noting put equal dealing,
tey must alter tis Article pon Salt.
Whither the English seek an Onion
wit Scotland for kindness or for self ends,
tis alteration sall pe a Touchstane.
Fain tee Hear of this Eenion
The Heemble Petition of Aberdeen’s
peer Shank Workers and Fingreen Spinners
who are right fain tee hear of this Eenion,
and the Wisdom tee carry away the wool
of this Kingdom tee other Quintries.
Oor breid Benison light upon ye all
for this guid deed and grit incouragement
to us peer things, who are fain to warble
and wark late for bits of Breid tee oor Mooths
and the Mooths af oor peer Babies and Bairns.
We mak meickle Work oot of litle Wool,
but mony times cannot get the Guids sold
unless oor Merchants mak their Vantage of oor
needcessity, phil in the mean time we sit
with mony Hungry Wames and slight Meal ate.
The Cheeper Lads say if they carry Shanks
and Fingreens and other Guids we mak
into England they’d double their money
by sick Guids as they’d bring back – far an Ell
of Fingreens, twenty poonds af Tobaco.
According to the Chapmen’s Proverb,
all the Winning lyes in the first buying.
Abjections we cannot mak Chaper Cleath
than England are not worth a Fig; we Work
as fare as any shee that bears Fingers.
Short sighted and peer filly things as we are,
we’re as lordly selling oor Guids as any
Bony Lass with half a Dozen Wooers.
In oor hands, we’d yield three times the Silder
in a foreign Mercat, if not meikle mare.
We’re informed by a gey aldfarane Carle,
of a Quintry far aff called the Affrican
phar Seamon can exchange their Killimeers
and Plaids for Goud Dust and iliphan teeth,
inkiraging tee English trade thither.
If people there wrong and Cheat her Subjects,
Her Majesty will send o’re meikle Ships
with great Guns and destroy the Sea Coast Toons
of these Quintries pha dare abeese her ain
till full amends is made for the wrang deen.
In a long Summer Day, we could not tell
the Eenion’s mony other Vantages –
great affgates for oor Linnen Cleath and Lint,
a great Fishing set up, and Mony Ships
imployed in Trading free this Kingdom.
But having said mickle mair than we thought,
we gee you oor Benison o’re again,
and prays ye hastan the Eenion with Speed,
for we lang mickle for that happy sight
as we langed te be Wed phan we were Brides.
Read the full 'Discover' issue:
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'Discover' issue 48 pages 1 to 21 (PDF) (4.17 MB; 21 pages)
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'Discover' issue 48 pages 22 to 36 (PDF) (3.34 MB; 14 pages)