The deil's awa

The Wee Yin's homework last night was a comprehension about Rabbie Burns - and it's not even January! The pleasure was rather taken out of this unusual excursion by the teacher's (Miss Trying-not-to-laugh's) egregious mistakes. Funny fact: Scottish people (we're in a major Scottish city here, folks) - Scottish people celebrate Burn's [sic] death [sic] with a special supper of haggis and whisky. Managed to convince Wee Yin that we celebrate his birthday, and (taking down the Dorling Kindersly Chronicle of the World) that he died in July. At eight, she is able to appreciate that the printed word has more authority than Miss Trying-not-to-laugh. In fact, went to some trouble to re-establish authority of Miss Trying-not-to-laugh - I hope she will take Wee Yin's attempts to put her right in the correct spirit, i.e. (as threaped to Wee Yin by Female Parent), if you don't acknowledge that you've made a mistake, you lose the chance to correct it.

Male Parent pointed out, apropos of homework, that no actual examples of Burns' (or Burns's - he's a pedant and can't understand that usage is changing on this point - resulting in him confusing Wee Yin, I think, about the Burn's [sic] situation) - no actual examples of Burns' work. So I had a rummage around and found a CD of an Ayrshire lass singing some Burns favourites, not very well, and with some ghastly pronunciation mistakes (expect rant some other time). I must splash out and try to get the definitive Jean Redpath collection of Burns' songs. The only one I've been able to get (second hand) has mostly bawdy stuff on it - "Can you labour lea?" has a certain resonance. So resorted to couthy Ayrshire lass. Bored Wee Yin a bit, but the poor wee soul is always happy to see any sign of marital harmony between Female Parent and Male Parent, so she entered into the spirit of things, and consented to read the lyrics while we listened and sang along. For me, Burns song is folksong, and the Bard was the only educated person who could ever touch it without ruining it. But looking for midi's of our favourites on the Internet turned up a diverse range of sites that identify with Burns song: Scottish Radiance (an American magazine) The deil's awa wi th'exciseman, Contemplations from the Marianas Trench (a Canadian folksong site) Ye banks and braes o bonnie Doon, the International Federation for Choral Music (France) The Lea Rig, and Classical Midi with Words hosted by the REC Foundation (another individual USA site) John Anderson my jo

Wee Yin gamely fended off attempts to translate for her, needing only the odd word, which was nice. Apparently she was the only one in her class who could give the meaning of Scots words. (Miss Trying-not-to-laugh thought ee'in might mean 'eating', with a glottal stop presumably.) Female Parent is very relieved about this, as good intentions about passing on linguistic heritage seem to have disappeared off the bottom of the priority list somehow. What they were using in class appears to have been Susan Rennie's Animal ABC: A Scots Alphabet. So for that, good on the school, and the teacher, I say.