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The twentieth-century Scottish Renaissance saw a sudden and dramatic change in Scotland’s literary landscape. Beginning in the 1920s, Scottish writers increasingly engaged with contemporary social and political issues, and with questions of national identity. An integral part of this development was the radically new literary status accorded to the Scots language.

MacDiarmid’s immediate predecessors had introduced modern themes and linguistic experimentation to Scots poetry; and though MacDiarmid is the unquestioned central figure in the great poetic revival, he rode a rising tide. He and the poets who paved the way for him represent the first wave of the Scottish Renaissance. The second wave contains the extraordinary company of poets who wrote under his direct inspiration.

On any showing, the scale and quality of this movement is a phenomenon rarely paralleled in literary history. A Kist o Skinklan Things contains a selection of the best work from this great period.

J. Derrick McClure recently retired after forty years of teaching in the English department of Aberdeen University. He has written four books and over a hundred articles and conference papers on Scottish literary and linguistic topics, including many on Scots as a language of translation. 

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CONTENTS

Introduction 

Pittendrigh MacGillivray (1856–1938) 

   Mercy o’ Gode 

Lewis Spence (1874–1955) 

   The Wee May o’ Caledon 
   The Unicorn 
   The Lost Lyon 
   Mistral 

Sir Alexander Gray (1882–1968) 

   Babylon in Retrospect 
   Persuasion 
   December Gloaming 
   The Wanderer 

Helen Cruickshank (1886–1975) 
   The Ponnage Puil 
   A Lang Guidnicht 
   Corstorphine Woods 
   Epistle for C. M. Greive 
   Sea Buckthorn 

Bessie MacArthur (1889–1983) 
   Bethink Ye What Will Come o’t? 
   Nocht o’ Mortal Sicht 

Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978) 
   The Sauchs in the Reuch Heuch Hauch 
   To the Music of the Pipes 
   The Parrot Cry 
   Lourd on my Hert 
   To Alasdair Mac Mhaighistir Alasdair 
   Old Wife in High Spirits 

Nan Shepherd (1893–1981) 
   Caul’, caul’ as the wall 

William Jeffrey (1896–1946) 
   George Bannatyne (1545–1608) 
   Allars of Heaven 
   The Refugees 
   Sea Glimmer 

William Soutar (1898–1943) 
   Apotheosis 
   Birthday 
   The Makar 
   The Thistle Looks at a Drunk Man 
   The Auld House 
   Hal o the Wynd 

Albert Mackie (1904–1985) 
   Elegy 
   Sea Strain 
   Thunder Sky 
   To Hugh M’Diarmid 

Robert McLellan (1907–1985) 
   Winter 
   Nicht Watch 
   The Lanely Fisher 

J. K. Annand (1908–1993) 
   Arctic Convoy 
   Vivat Glenlivat 

Alex Galloway (1908–1998) 
   The Labourers 

Robert Garioch (1909–1981) 
   “…That is Stade in Perplexite…” 
   Garioch’s Repone til George Buchanan 
   The Bog 
   Weill-Met in Buchan 
   And They Were Richt 
   Scottish Scene 

John Kincaid (1909–1981) 
   Til our Reid Intelligentsia 
   A Glesca Rhapsodie 

Olive Fraser (1909–1977) 
   Benighted in the Foothills of the Cairngorms: January 
   A Gossip Silenced: The Thrush and the Eagle 
   All Sawles Eve 

T. S. Law (1916–1997) 
   Cauld Comfort 
   Miners’ Melodie 
   A Hauf a Croon o Devolutioun 
   Renewal 
   The Free Nation 

Douglas Young (1913–1973) 
   For Alasdair 
   Whiles 
   Ice-Flumes Owregie their Lades 
   Sabbath i the Mearns 
   Hielant Colloguy 

George Campbell Hay (1915–1984) 
   A Ballad in Answer to Servius Sulpicius Rufus 
   Lomsgrios na Tìre 
   Oor Jock 
   Scots Arcadia 
   Tìr Thàirngire 
   Solan 

Sydney Goodsir Smith (1915–1975) 
   In Gránada, in Gránada 
   Prolegomenon 
   King and Queen o the Fowr Airts 
   The Grace of God and the Meth-Drinker 
   A Bairn Seick 
   Dido 

Edward Boyd (1916–1989) 
   The Niddity-Noddin’ Chesbow 

Maurice Lindsay (1918–2009) 
   At the Cowal Games, Dunoon 
   On Hearin a Merle Singan 
   Milk 

Tom Scott (1918–1995) 
   Orpheus 
   Ceòl Mòr 
   Fergus 
   Brand the Builder 
   Villanelle De Noël 
   La Condition Humaine 

William J. Tait (1918–1992) 
   Change o the Muin 
   Aubade 
   The Seal-Wife 

Thurso Berwick (1919–1981) 
   Whit Wey’s the Road? 
   Brig o Giants 
   Til the Citie o John MacLean 
   Scots Wha Hae 

Hamish Henderson (1919–2002) 
   Billet Doux 
   The Flytin o Life an Daith 
   Goettingen Nicht 
   Epistle to Mary 
   To Stuart – on his Leaving for Jamaica 

Alexander Scott (1920–1989) 
   Coronach 
   The Gallus Makar 
   Haar in Princes Street 
   Mouth Music 
   Dear Deid Dancer 
   Grace Ungraced 

William Neill (1922–2010) 
   Kailyard and After 
   A Lament for Alba Moroon 
   Drumbarchan Mains 
   The Flyting of Jamie and Seumas – A Linguistic Problem 

David Purves (1924–2014) 
   Hard Wumman 
   Resurrection 
   Brierilaw 

Alastair Mackie (1925–1995) 
   The Shepherd 
   On Brinkie’s Brae 
   Pietà 
   Weet Kin 
   Châteaux en Écosse 
   In Memoriam Hugh MacDiarmid 

Eric Gold (b. 1927) 
   Scottish Spearman Afore Flodden 
   Dunbar’s Maen 

George Todd (1927–2009) 
   Weeda’s Sang 

Duncan Glen (1933–2008) 
   The Heid o Hecht 
   My Faither 

George Hardie (b. 1933) 
   Lanarkshire Landscape 

Ellie McDonald (b. 1937) 
   Itherness 
   Pathfinder 
   For Hamish Henderson on his 80th Birthday 

Donald Campbell (b. 1940) 
   A Lang Sleep Ower 
   Arthur’s Seat 
   Cuttag 
   Thon Nicht 
   Cougait Revisited 

Kenneth Fraser (b. 1944) 
   The Things frae Inner Space 

Kate Armstrong (b. 1944) 
   Pantoum fer Winter 
   This is the Laun 
   Mary 

Daibhidh Mitchell (n.d.) 
   Rann 
   Invitacioun 
   For My Host 
   Mod & Gammon 

John Samuel (n.d.) 
   Hership 

Notes on the poets and poems 
Glossary 
Acknowledgements 
Bibliography

Cover design: Mark Blackadder.