Why was Rabbie Sexy?

Tags

Burns night, Burns supper, His Judas Bride, Robert Burns, Scotland, The Black Wolf of Lochalpin

Very well, it’s not actually Burns Night. That’s tomorrow. But dates aren’t  my strong point and I’m kind of busy tomorrow. Boy does that make a change….not. 

I don’t know if you’ve seen my doodling buddy, Elzabeth M Valey’s blog. It’s got absolutely sod all to do with Rabbie. But there’s a fun quiz,  http://inadreambeyond.blogspot.com/2014/01/tntconfidential-author-spotlight-on_23.html?spref=tw  It’s on the jewel thieves. Which one are you?

Sapphire, Pearl, Ruby, Amber, Jade, Splendor or Diamond? Also, one must share one’s news. Her ladyship is coming out in print.

     Tres exciting and a big thank you to my publisher, Etopia Press.  Tails and chasing? Been doing it all week! So Rabbie…. Why is he Sumexy?

What is a Burns Supper as opposed to a fish supper….?

 Why do we have them, not just in Scotland, but worldwide? Especially when the food  is……

YES. You are seeing that….

                           (Saying nowt….with regard do quizzes what it might be)

……..except  I always avoid the food.

AND finally, what can we expect at a supper to take our minds off that food?

Well, let’s be clear Robert Burns was a total babe magnet. Just look at him in the shades.

Okay. So there were no shades around in his day, fifty or Ray Ban,  just the naff sideburns. But. despite being dirt poor,  he was a clever, educated guy. And when you consider the average farm labourer of his day, you could see why the ladies dropped their drawers for the sumexy Rab.

What was more he liked women.  He wrote them nice poems and he knocked up his ma’s servant, while courting his later wife. Move over Mr Byron!

But men liked Rabbie too. And not just cos he  wrote love letters for yir average tongue in knots local to give their amour.

Men liked a drink with Rabbie, his easy understanding of human ways. You know to me that’s the mark of a truly sumexy person. Male, or female, both sexes like you.  When he died rock bottom broke, at the tender age of 37, 10.000 people came to pay their respects. Imagine that amount. His friends held a night on the anniversary of his death to remember him. That’s the origin of Burns Night, except they got a bit mixed up as to when his death was and celebrated it in July….

What can we expect? Well… I’m getting a few characters from my hottie Scottie book, His Judas Bride to show us Burn’s Night Kara and Callm style….. Which ones would I choose and why…..

Okay…..Firstly before author Anne Lange runs off screaming, I need to clear up the confusion caused by the lovely author, Sharon Struth. Dug really looks like this

Yes, don’t you fall for that other  eyelash batting cur one bit. Given that the real Dug would tear the haggis and half the guests to bits, she will have been skilfully locked up, not for the first time,  by Kara.

even if she and the Wolf cross swords about it. So the first item is the howling –oops—piping in of the guests. Shug would do that, he’s the musical one of the live together die as one  Wolves.  

Followed by the Selkirk Grace. NO. That is not some weird sister. Some hooker either.  The Selkirk Grace is the Selkirk Grace.  Only this being Lochalpin, I think we can forget anything religious. I think we can probably forget the soup too, if that dinner party that was thrown in Kara’s honor is anything to go by….

If she was able to get her teeth into the fossilized chicken leg Ulla now set before her, it would be a miracle on a par with the loaves and the fishes

  SO let’s head up to the piping in of the haggis.

No. I said the HAGGIS.

Not Ewen McDunnagh even if he is one. Certainly not Ewen McDunnagh  when the Wolf is going to do the address to the haggis.

 Trenching your gushing entrails bright,

In fact whose idea was it to give Callm that knife when he won’t be happy unless he attacks it from 30 paces, attacks Ewen too? Then chops both up in a frenzy.

Next up? The whisky toast. So now there’s a rammy over that, Ewen refusing to part with a drop.  Lastly the  official toasts..

The Immortal Memory

to Rabbie’s life and memory, except now Ewen’s scoffed the whisky I doubt we’ll be having that and unless it’s all about him he won’t want to listen either.

The toast to the lassies

Well, if Ewen’s giving it, I doubt any one will want to listen.

The reply from the lassies

Who gave Kara that knife? ……Right? Fallon…it was you, what a surpise.

  I think we can all agree that asking Kara and the Wolf to run a supper would be a mistake.

Personally when it comes to replies from the lassies… and I’ve twice done them,  I like the notion of this one.

And whaur do you   suppose was Kate
When market days were wearin’ late.
While Tam frequented wretched dives
And fooled around with landlord’s wives.
And rode poor Meg through mud and ditches
And had an eye for handsome witches.
Played ‘Peepin’ Tam’ at Alloway
And yelled and gave the himsel’ away
And fled from there amid the din
While Maggie barely saved his skin!
Whaur was Kate?-

Next up Scottish literary giants……..

It’s very nearly Rabbie’s Day

Tags

Burns night, Etopia Press, Flora Macdonald, His Judas Bride, Jenny Geddes, Kate Barlass, Mary Queen of Scots, Mary Slessor, Robert Burns. Scots

And being a good Scot’s lass–ok mixed ancestry but hey– to celebrate I am going to be looking at certain things Scottish over the next few blogs. Sharon Struth,  can we just get the kilts out the way now, please thank you…

Kara and the Wolf –my hero and heroine of His Judas Bride — will give you their own Burns supper. Yes. Ewen and Dug may even attend doing the toast tae the dugs.  (Anne Lange WILL like that).  I want to look at who I believe are the best Scots literature giants and their creations…. Scottish films…  Then there’s Scots royalty…

SO do tune in.

To start with I am reblogging some Scottish women…ones who absolutely knew their place in life as Scottish women do,  but that will be it for the reblogs. Besides  I know there are those who are yet to read…….

Kate Barlass.

Looking incredibly noble here for someone about to have their arm snapped….let’s see how good she looks after eh?…. did Kate sit mutely doing her embroidery, saying I know my place,  when assassins arrived to kill James 1^st of Scotland?  A quite common occurrence for a Scottish king, by the way. No. Kate’s place was at the chamber door, sticking her arm through the staples, while the King fled into a sewer tunnel. Now, if she had spent all these hours embroidering tapestries and bed sheets, would she have had the eyesight to see the bolt had been removed?  She didn’t save the king by the way, but it wasn’t for want of getting her arm broken for her trouble.

Jenny Geddes

Jenny certainly knew her place in that she went to church. Yes. But as for sitting quietly there, Jenny wasn’t for having Charles 1^st’s new prayer book. ‘Daur ye say mass in my lug?’ Jenny enquired, turfing her prayer stool at the minister.  Before we go thinking Jenny did this entirely from a desire to keep her ears unblemished, she, and a number of other women had been paid to disrupt the service. Would any man have done that if he thought woman were meek and mild?  Jenny’s stunt sparked a riot, which led to a war, which led to the execution of a king, Charles 1st. Who says only the Scots did that? Mind you he was of Scots’ descent.

Flora Macdonald

Well, what list of Scottish women would be complete without Flora?  When the Bonnie Prince fled Culloden, more or less landing up on her doorstep with his tattered hopes and dreams,  a price on his head, did she say, I’m awfie sorry Charlie, but I wouldnae be kenning my place if I let you in the night?

Absolutely not. Flora did time for taking the Prince, disguised as a maidservant, by boat, over the sea to Skye.

Mary, Queen of Scots

Again, the list would be incomplete given the way Mary blazed through life. Imprisoned at the age of 25, by which time she’d lived a lifetime, widowed twice, a son she would never see again, a ruinous marraige to the kidnapping, allegedly rapacious, Bothwell, Mary had a lot of time to learn her place. But the feisty queen preferred to spend her time escaping, allegedly writing letters implicating her in her second husband’s murder and getting involved in various plots. All leading to her place eventually being on the executioner’s block – in a dark red petticoat no less.

 Mary Slessor

Mary would hardly be commemorated on Scottish banknotes today if she’d known her place. At that time in Dundee? You would have to be mad. Mary was soon saving hundreds of sets of twins in Calabar – a place said to be less rough than Dundee Hilltoon on a Saturday night – nursing, teaching, and generally gaining a respect unknown for a woman there. it wouldn’t have happened if she’d worked in a Dundee jute mill.

NEXT UP. On their first Burns Night together just how  will Kara and the Wolf, not to mention Dug,  fare……?