Robert Burns Night: A Traditional Scottish Celebration

Story by Joan McLendon Budd and Marian Carcache

Many southerners can attribute much of their culture and tradition to Scottish ancestry – a subject we hope to explore more in depth in a later issue. But for now, we’re focusing on a very special Scottish tradition – Robert Burns Night - considered Scotland’s second national day, St. Andrew’s Day being the fi rst. For over 200 years, Burns Night has been celebrated on his birthday (January 25th) and usually includes an evening of dining and merry making, which often can get a little raucous as the evening wears on with the recitation of Burns’s poems and tributes, and the refreshing of drams of Scotch whiskey.

But while Burns Night is clearly a national Scottish tradition, it’s also celebrated annually around the world. Many of you may have even hosted a Burns Night dinner … or at least been privileged to attend one. And while this writer has never had the privilege of either, the publisher and editors of Magnolia and Moonshine were treated to a formal Scottish dinner last summer in a remote Scottish country house located in the Cairngorms mountain range in the eastern Highlands of Scotland. That magical evening became the inspiration for this article.

If you’ve never attended a Burns Night, then you should know that the occasion has a prescribed order of events that are customarily followed.

The evening begins with a bagpiper in traditional Scottish attire (including kilt, sporran, and ghillie brogues), piping the guests into the dining room. When all have arrived, the hosts’ welcome is followed by Burns’s own words as the offi cial blessing for the meal: “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.”

publisher and editors of Magnolia and Moonshine were treated to a

Then, the actual celebration begins. The haggis (the real star of the evening and possibly Burns’s favorite dish) is piped in on a silver tray carried by the chef and placed on the table before the host. A guest then recites Burns’s famous address “To a Haggis.”

Immediately following the recitation, the haggis is ceremoniously stabbed to signal the official start to the meal. A typical Burns Night meal includes a nourishing supper of cock-a-leekie soup (broth with leeks, spices, and a thickener such as pearl barley, oatmeal or rice), followed by haggis (a pudding containing sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs, onion, oatmeal, suet, and spices mixed with stock), neeps (turnips), tatties (mashed potatoes), and drams of Scotch whiskey. Following the meal, cranachan the traditional dessert (made from crunchy oats, raspberries, butter, sugar and double cream) is served. In addition to the meal, many activities surround the observance, including ceilidhs (Scottish dancing), singing, toasts, and readings from Burns’s work.

Chef Mark Heirs presents dinner during the formal Scottish meal. Pictured is the formal dining room at the Candacraig House. The room decorated and covered in traditional Scottish tartan fabric.

While Magnolia and Moonshine’s dinner was not a true Burns Night, many of the traditional dishes were on the menu – prepared by internationally renowned private chef, Mark Heirs.

If in the future you find yourself at a Burns’ Night celebration, it might be prudent to remember the following lines from “To a Louse” by the famous Scottish bard himself:

“O, wad some Power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

It wad frae mony a blunder free us,

An’ foolish notion.”

English translation:

“Oh, would some Power give us the gift

To see ourselves as others see us!

It would from many a blunder free us,

And foolish notion.”

Above: Katrina Stratton with her family, Colin Morrison and Olivia Morrison, on Lonach Day for the Highland Games. Colin is seen in Forbes clan highland regalia - one of the two clans at Lonach. At right: Scottish dish of haggis, neeps and tatties served traditionally on Burns night.

A Scottish bagpiper pipes in the haggis. Opposite: The Robert Burns Monument at Brig O Doon, Alloway, Ayr, Ayrshire in Scotland.

AUTHENTIC CLOOTIE DUMPLING

As most of the recipes can be found online or in specialty cookbooks, we choose to leave you with a very special recipe from Audrey Stratton of Aberdeen Scotland, our Scottish friend Katrina Stratton’s mum. We were thrilled when she offered to share her authentic, Scottish recipe for Clootie Dumpling with us. Katrina explained to us that a “clootie” is a piece of muslin cloth.

Clootie Dumpling

1 lb sieved plain flour 1 tsp baking powder 2 tsp mixed spice 6 oz breadcrumbs 20 oz mixed dry fruit 2 cooking apples grated 1 carrot grated 2 eggs whisked Zest and juice of 1 lemon 8 oz brown sugar 8 oz shredded suet 8 oz treacle Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together with milk. Place the muslin cloth in boiling water and then wring out. Lay cloth flat and flour well. Place the mixture in the centre of the cloth then gather up the sides and tie securely with string leaving some space for the pudding to swell. Place in a pan of boiling water and simmer for 5 hours. Remove from pan and plunge in cold water for 10 seconds. Place in a bowl untie the muslin place a plate on top of the bowl and invert.

ROBERT BURNS, NATIONAL POET OF SCOTLAND

Story by Marian Carcache

Born January 25, 1759, in Alloway, near Ayr, in the southwest part of Scotland, Robert Burns had minimal education before his family’s financial concerns required that he find work as a farm laborer. It was during his farming period that his first love, Nelly Kirkpatrick, encouraged him to write poetry and song. Burns, like his father, was a tenant farmer - not unlike many early southern farmers of Scottish ancestry.

The relentless work of farming taught Burns to take pleasure where he could, and also to have disdain for moral codes set forth by the well-to-do. The charming young man had quite a reputation with wine and women, as well as with poetry and song. He fathered at least eight children with five different women. He did marry Jean Armour, who is the mother of his twins, in 1788.

At one point, Burns planned to leave the rough farm life behind in favor of a new life in the West Indies, but his growing popularity in the U.K. as the unschooled “Ploughman Poet” influenced him to choose Edinburgh instead. A short time after relocating there, he was embraced by society and feted as a luminary.

Unfortunately, his celebrity status did not bring financial independence, and Burns was forced to take a job as a tax collector in order to pay his bills. He did, however, continue to write. He also edited an edition of Scottish folk songs to which he contributed over 100 of his own works.

Though he wrote over 500 poems, he is best known, perhaps, for having written “Auld Lang Syne,” “Red, Red Rose,” “Tam O’Shanter,” and “To a Mouse.”

On July 21,1796, Burns died at the young age of 36 of rheumatic heart disease, a malady he had suffered with since childhood. He was buried at St. Michael’s in Dumfries, supposedly while his wife was giving birth to his ninth child.

Now considered the National Poet of Scotland, the unschooled poet’s influence has been farreaching. The title of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men was inspired by Burns’ line about how “the best laid plans of mice and men” so often go awry. More recently, Bob Dylan credited Burns with inspiring his own creative work. Michael Jackson was quite interested in Burns’ work before his own untimely death. According to a reliable source, Jackson had planned to write a musical about Burns’ life, but later decided to turn the poet’s work into show tunes.

Mark Rikard is a farrier, photographer, and philosopher. Pictured are several pieces of his work.

farr ier and artist JUXTAPOSITION OF SKILLED LABOR AND FINE ART

Story by Mary Dansak

When my girls were young, we adopted a horse named Charcoal. Charcoal lived out at the farm where I’d grown up, and his owner Mark was mighty generous to give us full access to his horse. The girls called Mark a cowboy; he looked and acted the part. I might have called him a farmhand. In reality Mark was a farrier who was just starting his business. We were all disappointed when that business picked up and took him, and his horse, away from the farm to the big city of Birmingham.

Soon after I received a Christmas card. It featured an elegant line drawing of a horse with a red nose. “Merry Christmas, from Mark,” I read. He hadn’t just sent it, he’d drawn it. As I turned the card over in my hand, a realization began to dawn on me. Mark was not your typical farmhand, cowboy, or farrier.

There’s not much more fun than smashing stereotypes, is there?

Today I’m happy to introduce you to Mark Rikard: farrier, photographer, philosopher.

He’d scoff at that last word, though he’s drawn to the philosophy of the Stoics of Ancient Rome. And when I told him I wanted to chat, he asked that I call him after 8:00 pm to talk. “I’m not philosophical until after 8,” he joked.

I particularly wanted to talk to Mark about the juxtaposition of his art and his work as a horseshoer. While I can only assume he’s a brilliant farrier based on his successful business, I can attest that Mark’s photographs are beautiful. From romantically inclined insects to sunlit city skylines, he captures the harmony and beauty, hidden or on full display, wherever his lens lands.

“Talk to me about how your artistic eye aff ects your work,” I began, not sure how our conversation would go.

“It’s a blessing and a curse,” he said immediately. “A blessing in that horseshoeing, like design, is all about balance. You’re working with symmetry, shapes, and precision. But it’s a curse because as an artist, it’s hard to know when to stop.”

“You want everything to line up,” he said, “you want to force perfection on the horse.”

But as we all know, horses and other beasts have their own biomechanics, their own genetic codes, their own individual bodies. I understood Mark’s tension, with the artist eventually giving way to the biology of the horse. “At that point I just have to say I’ve done my best. The horse is comfortable.”

The balance of the shoe on the hoof, the balance of the hoof and the animal, the balance of the artist and the farrier all work together throughout the Birmingham area in barns where the light streams in through wooden slats and lights up a kitten sitting on an anvil, or where mornings are so cold the breath from the horse hangs in the air. I imagine it gets downright crowded in Mark’s mind.

Mark didn’t set out to become a farrier. Following in the footsteps of his graphic designer parents, he studied art and design at Auburn University. After his fi rst year of college, he worked at the stables at Callaway Gardens for a summer job. “It was there I got bit by the horse bug, plain and simple,” he said. “I fell in love with the whole lifestyle.”

After graduating, Mark entered the world of art as graphic designer, fi rst in a graphic design studio and then at West Point Stevens, all the while creating political cartoons that got him in trouble with the locals.

While he enjoyed his entry into the art world, he had a strong sense that he was in the wrong time, the wrong place. It crystallized one night when one of his farmer friends said to him, “You’re a graphic artist? I thought art was something you did on the back porch to entertain the children.”

It was then that Mark developed a lasting cynicism about the lack of acceptance of art.

When West Point Stevens off ered to send Mark to New York City he turned them down, fi nding work in a saddle shop in Seale, Alabama instead. The owner of the saddle shop was also a farrier, which provided him a steady income.

Mark was inspired. “I thought if I could be around horses and make a good living then what the heck?” With that, Mark was off to Montana to horseshoeing school.

Within two years, his business, Horseshoeing Unlimited, had a full clientele. With his area of expertise in Hunter/Jumpers, Eventing, and Dressage disciplines, Mark works with all types of horses except “gaited, draft, and those with bad manners.”

Despite his success as a farrier, he never put the camera away. Admittedly, this sometimes interferes with his job. “I’m all right brained,” he explains. “Sure there’s steel and biomechanics, but my brain is focused on form and shape. Then there’s my ADD yelling, ‘Hey! There’s a bird!’ Or maybe the sun’s coming down lighting up the horse’s silhouette. The shoe can wait.”

“If you had to do it all over again, would you become a farrier?” Usually when you ask this question, folks gush and say they wouldn’t change a thing. It took me aback when Mark said no.

“It’s hard on your body. Most farriers have short careers.” Mark’s been kicked and bitten, he’s tripped backwards over a dog and knocked himself out hitting his head on an anvil; he’s had carpel tunnel surgery and should have had elbow surgery.

If he had to do it over, he’d pursue professional photography, working for a publication like National Geographic. “When you grow up in a world with no mentors for your dream job, in my case photography, no one to show you the ropes, it remains a dream,” he said.

There was no bitterness in his voice, no wistfulness or trace of sadness, just a matter-of-fact description of a dream he’s turned into a beautiful hobby.

Day after day, Mark balances his work and his photography, as well as a myriad of projects including restoring his late grandparents’ house and building furniture, with pragmatism and grace, embracing the tenets of the Stoics whether he realizes it or not.

To see more of Mark’s photography, and get a bit of philosophy as well, you can follow him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ mark.rikard.

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