I will agree it’s fun to give haggis a little kick in the hurdies* from time to time. A sausage made from chopped and cooked sheep’s lung, kidney and heart (with onions, salt, pepper, suet and oats), stuffed inside a sheep’s stomach which is then boiled for three hours sounds pretty horrible, definitely an acquired taste. I wish the NYT Editorial, A Night of Food and Song, had not grouped Burns’ poems in the same category.
I’m an American English speaker who likes Robert Burns works. I have read a couple Burns biographies, memorized a dozen of his poems, and have hosted a Burns supper each January for three years, now. I am a typical college-educated American adult with no special training in Scots dialect (or poetry in general for that matter). Though off-putting at first, with several re-readings and a glossary at hand, it didn’t take long to get the hang of Burns’ language. I can now read and enjoy Burns with relative ease.
I wish you had used the anniversary of Burns birth to encourage people to read the works of one of the great poets of the last several hundred years instead of writing them off as too difficult, full of “thorns and brambles.” Burns had a keen eye for the human condition. What he wrote about love and life, truth and hypocrisy, and so much more rings true today and is, even with some unfamiliar Scots terms, accessible. It’s one reason I hold a Burns Supper: to help friends and family become familiar with the life and work of this remarkable man.
My suggestion? Don’t worry about developing a taste for haggis but instead, open a book of (or click a link to) Burns’ poems and songs. Spend a few minutes getting to know some of what he wrote. You’ll be surprised how easy it is, how worth it, and how few thorns and brambles there actually are.
* Hurdies is Scots for buttocks. See Burns’ poem, “To a Haggis”
