Showing posts with label Burns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Burns. Show all posts

January 25 - Burns Night in Scotland

 Posted on January 25, 2021


Today is the birthday of the poet Robert Burns, and many people in Scotland and around the world will be holding a Burns Supper to celebrate his life and works.
 


(Actually, a Burns Supper can be held on the anniversary of the poet's death, July 21, or any time during the year. This is the most popular date for the event, however.)


Robert Burns lived from 1759 to 1796. Considered the national poet of Scotland, Burns wrote in the Scots language and in English. Some of his most famous pieces are “Auld Lang Syne” (sung by many worldwide on New Year's Eve), “A Red, Red Rose,” and “Tam o' Shanter.”

There is a standard format for a Burns supper:

  • Guests gather and mix informally.
  • The host gives a welcoming speech, and the event is declared “open.” Then the guests sit and a special grace (originally delivered by Burns) is said:
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.
  • The soup course is served: Scotch broth, potato soup, or Cock-a-Leekie.
  • Everyone stands as the main course, a haggis, is brought in to the accompaniment of bagpipes.




  • The host or another recites Burns' poem “Address to a Haggis.”
It starts like this (with sonsie meaning jolly or cheerful):

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
You know what a haggis is, right? It is a sheep's heart, liver, and lungs minced up with onion, oatmeal, suet, and spices and simmered in broth in the sheep's stomach for three hours. It's supposed to be really delicious...
(I'm not positive that I buy that, though...)
  • After the poem is recited, the haggis is toasted and everyone sits down and eats. Additions to the haggis (the dark stuff pictured here) on the traditional Burns Supper menu are tatties (mashed potatoes, appearing their normal cream color here), mashed neeps (rutabagas, appearing yellow or pale orange here), and dessert.


  • After supper, people give speeches and toasts. First, everyone toasts the Queen, then guests remember Burns' life or poetry with either humorous or super-serious speeches, and everyone toasts Burns. Next there is often a short speech and toast “to the Lassies”—in other words, to women, followed by a Toast to the Laddies (AKA men).
  • Guests often sing songs written by Burns—or are entertained by singers hired for the event. There is often dancing.


  • Closing; the host calls on guests to “give the vote of thanks,” stand, join hands, and sing “Auld Lang Syne.”
Read some of Burns' works, available under “Poems and Songs” here.

Notice that Scots words you may not know are hyperlinked to translations in several languages...Also, there are LOTS of other things to read at that website!

Find a family tartan (or plaid pattern), or explore the many established tartans here. Or you can design your own tartan!



Recipes and printables (coloring pages and puzzles) are available here. More Burns Night for kids stuff is available here.



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July 28 – Happy Birthday, Lucy Burns

Posted on July 28, 2016


Remember, women couldn't vote everywhere in the United States until after the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1920.

1920! Not even 100 years ago!

We can thank Lucy Burns and lots of other brave and active women for the fact that women finally were given the right to vote.

Remember the conundrum of a disenfranchised minority or other group: you cannot vote to give yourself the right to vote...because you cannot vote!

So you have to beg the powers-that-be to give you the right to vote!

“Please, sir, mightn't I have the opportunity to cast a vote?”

So what did women do to obtain suffrage?

They made speeches on street corners, organized groups to work on the issue, organized parades, talked to lawmakers, wrote opinion pieces to newspapers...

Lucy Burns started her fight in the United Kingdom, even though she was American (she was born in Brooklyn, NY, on this date in 1879). She'd been going to graduate school in Germany, and visiting the U.K., she ran into Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters. She was so impressed with their struggle to earn the right to vote, she quit school and joined their efforts.


Burns met another famed American suffragist, Alice Paul, in England. You'll never guess where....at a police station! Both women had been arrested for taking part in demonstrations, and Paul noticed an American flag pin in Burns's lapel. They soon were good friends, and when they returned to the U.S., the two women joined the national women's suffrage organization. Later they worked together to form a Congressional Union and the National Woman's Party.

They created banners, held rallies, lobbied Congress, published articles, taught women, and supplied reporters with news bulletins. They picketed the White House.

And they were sometimes arrested.

When Paul and Burns were in jail, they organized protests with the other prisoners, and they held hunger strikes while stating that they were political prisoners, in an effort to draw attention to their cause.

Of all the well-known American suffragists, I read, Burns spent the most time in jail.

Finally, after a decade of work and suffering-for-suffrage, Burns saw the 19th Amendment pass and become ratified. Women could finally vote everywhere in the United States.

If you imagine Burns being overjoyed, you'd apparently be wrong. Apparently she was pretty bitter towards the great majority of women, who hadn't done anything to win the right to vote, and she was sick and tired of fighting. She said, “I don’t want to do anything more. I think we have done all this for women, and we have sacrificed everything we possessed for them, and let them fight for it now. I am not going to fight anymore.”

And she quit politics, raised her orphaned niece, devoted herself to the Catholic Church, and lived to be an old lady. She died in 1966.

I hope that she became happy when she saw so many women, not just voting, but holding office. 

I hope that she would be even happier if she could see women achieving in politics today – including, I hope, a woman becoming a president less than a century after she and other suffragists won for all American women the right to vote!




Also on this date:














































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January 25, 2010

Burns Night – Scotland

This is the birthday of the poet Robert Burns, and many people in Scotland and around the world will be holding a Burns Supper to celebrate his life and works. (Actually, a Burns Supper can be held on the anniversary of the poet's death, July 21, or any time during the year. This is the most popular date for the event, however.)

Robert Burns lived from 1759 to 1796. Considered the national poet of Scotland, Burns wrote in the Scots language and in English. Some of his most famous pieces are “Auld Lang Syne” (sung by many worldwide on New Year's Eve), “A Red, Red Rose,” and “Tam o' Shanter.”

There is a standard format for a Burns supper:

  • Guests gather and mix informally.
  • The host gives a welcoming speech, and the event is declared “open.” Then the guests sit and a special grace (originally delivered by Burns) is said:
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.
  • The soup course is served: Scotch broth, potato soup, or Cock-a-Leekie.
  • Everyone stands as the main course, a haggis, is brought in to the accompaniment of bagpipes.
  • The host or another recites Burns' poem “Address to a Haggis.”
It starts like this (with sonsie meaning jolly or cheerful):
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
You know what a haggis is, right? It is a sheep's heart, liver, and lungs minced up with onion, oatmeal, suet, and spices and simmered in broth in the sheep's stomach for three hours. It's supposed to be really delicious...
(I'm not positive that I buy that, though...)
  • After the poem is recited, the haggis is toasted, and everyone sits down and eats. Additions to the haggis (the dark stuff pictured here) on the traditional Burns Supper menu are tatties (mashed potatoes, appearing their normal cream color here), mashed neeps (rutabagas, appearing yellow or pale orange here), and dessert.
  • After supper, people give speeches and toasts. First, everyone toasts the Queen, then guests remember Burns' life or poetry with either humorous or super-serious speeches, and everyone toasts Burns. Next there is often a short speech and toast “to the Lassies”—in other words, to women, followed by a reply to the toast to the Lassies (AKA the Toast to the Laddies).
  • Guests often sing songs written by Burns—or are entertained by singers hired for the event.
  • Closing; the host calls on guests to “give the vote of thanks,” stand, join hands, and sing “Auld Lang Syne.”
Read some of Burns' works, available under “Poems and Songs” here.
Notice that Scots words you may not know are hyperlinked to translations in several languages...Also, there are LOTS of other things to read at that website!

Find a family tartan (or plaid pattern), or explore the many established tartans here. There's even a way to design your own tartan!

Recipes and printables (coloring pages and puzzles) are available here.

More complicated (and cooler) coloring pages, meant for older kids, are available here...again, along with a lot of other neat stuff!

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