Paris Alston: This is GBH's Morning Edition. This week in cities around the world, people will gather and drink a little more than their fair share of whiskey, sing some very old songs, and read poetry to a savory pudding. Sounds a little curious? Well, it is.

Jeremy Siegel: It also sounds a little fun. And luckily here to explain everything we are curious about and talking about is the guy behind GBH's Curiosity Desk. Maybe today, GBH's fun desk: Edgar B. Herwick, III. Welcome, Edgar.

Edgar B. Herwick III: Hey, thanks. It's great to be here. Yes. What you have just described is, of course, part of the festivities of a typical Burns Supper. And this is an annual event that, you know, kind of happens in places all over the world, in honor of Robert Burns.

Siegel: So I'm going to be perfectly honest, Edgar, Robert Burns was not a name I was familiar with until this morning. But he's a Scottish poet?

Herwick: Scottish poet, collector, and writer of songs. He was working and writing in the 1700s. He died young, at the age of 37. And he's considered today by many to be essentially the national poet of Scotland. He's a huge, enormous figure in Scotland and kind of an avatar in ways for Scottish culture. He was sort of a man of the people. And a lot of why he's embraced today is, you know, his work and his life is viewed as these themes of like fairness, justice, liberty, passion, humor — these are all things that come out in his work. And another thing that's kind of a big deal is he wrote much of his stuff in the Scots language, the Scots dialect of English, which is sort of a big deal because at the time it was sort of considered a little, like, lower class people would speak in Scots, but like the fancy people would speak proper English. And so the fact that he was writing in this more common tongue is also kind of a big deal.

Alston: Yeah. I mean, in some spaces he's described as a lyricist, right? So maybe a rapper of his time, I don't know.

Herwick: Yeah, you could see it that way.

Alston: So like, he was definitely a lover, not a fighter. I was reading a little bit about Mr. Burns here, maybe a little bit of a womanizer. And we mentioned that fair share of whiskey was an indulgence for him. So with all of that, what happens on Burns Night? It has me curious.

Herwick: Yeah. So a Burns night or a Burns supper, it's traditionally — everybody kind of does it differently, but it stretches way back to the fact that on the fifth anniversary of his death, oh, you know, many, many years back, some friends of his got together and in this sort of small cabin where he had grown up, and they did a thing where they were going to celebrate him. Right? So they read some of his poems and they sang some of his songs, and they drank some whiskey, and they sort of said, this is to you. And this sort of tradition stuck. And now it happens kind of every year all over the place. So one thing that is common to most of these is that haggis is eaten. Haggis, which is sort of like a savory pudding. And it's, kind of made, lots of different ways, but sheep's head or sheep's brain is often involved, right? And one of his works that almost always gets read is something that he wrote called 'Addressed to a Haggis,' which is this poem which is basically about why haggis is such a great food. Here's a little taste of what it sounds like. Not a taste of haggis, but a taste of what this poem sounds like.

[Previously recorded]: His knife see Rustic-labour dight, An’ cut ye up wi’ ready slight, Trenching your gushing entrails bright, Like onie ditch; But then, O what a glorious sight, Warm-reekin, rich!

Siegel: I'm convinced.

Herwick: Yeah. There you go. So that's him talking about cutting into the haggis and how beautiful it is when you cut into it. So. Yeah.

Alston: Splitting sheep's brain.

Herwick: It's a celebration. There's usually speakers, there's singing, there's poetry and there's drinking of whiskey. So that's your kind of typical Burns Night. Now, I was thinking we go a little deeper into Burns with some quick true and false, if you all are game.

Siegel: I love some curiosity desk true or false. Let's do it.

Herwick: All right. So true or false? True or false? There are more than 60 statues of Robert Burns in cities and towns around the world, including Saint Louis, Winnipeg in Canada, Auckland in New Zealand, the nation of Estonia, and right here in Boston, so 60 plus statues of Robert Burns around the world. True or false?

Alston: I'm going to go with true.

Siegel: I'm going to say false. I mean, it seems like he's a big deal. He's got these suppers named after him, but 60 statutes is a lot.

Herwick: Yeah. It is, in fact, true. Actually, Paris was right there. Yeah. And in fact, it's often said that, for non-religious people, only Christopher Columbus and Queen Victoria have more statues around the world. There's more statues of him in America than any American writer. And of course, there is one here in Boston. There's also one in Quincy.

Alston: Oh, in Boston. Where in Boston?

Herwick: So the one in Boston. It's a funny story. So it's in the Fens, and it went up in 1920, which is when a lot of these statues went up. I mean, Burns at one point was incredibly popular, right? It goes up in 1920, and then in the 1970s, it just disappeared one night.

Siegel: Sounds like someone had a really, really intense Burns Night.

Herwick: No, but it turns out they were redeveloping Winthrop Square, and there was supposed to be a statue of Winthrop that went down there, but that statue got damaged. So somebody was like, grabbed the Burns statue. And they just, like, took it down there. And it was there for a long time. It came back to the Fens in 2019.

Alston: I love it. Just like, borrow a statue.

Herwick: Yeah, it's a weird story. All right, one more. One more true or false? All right, here we go. So Burns was born in Scotland, right? But he was living and working in Jamaica when he first published his works. That debut was so successful, it earned him enough money that he could move back to Scotland and write full time, which is how he lived out his life. True or false? True or false?

Alston: I'm going to say true because when I was finding out about who he was, I found out why he was in Jamaica, you get what I'm saying? Another reason he was in Jamaica.

Siegel: I was thinking I was going to say false, but now — How would he get to Jamaica in the first place if he doesn't have money to return? I'll go with Paris here.

Herwick: It's actually false. However, it's very close to true. And the reason why I wanted to bring this up and what Paris is alluding to is the fact that, so he had signed on to go to Scotland. It turns out that he published before — or I'm sorry, he had signed on to go to Jamaica. It turns out he hit fame before he had to go to Jamaica, and he ended up staying in Scotland. But the point is, when he was going to Jamaica, he had signed on to work at this sugar plantation, which of course had slave labor. And so this is a little bit of a challenging thing for folks when they look back at Burns, because he has this legacy. It's a lot like I think of, you know, a number of the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence. So he's writing about liberty and justice and freedom. And yet this fact that he was about to go work at a place that had slave labor is problematic for some folks. You know, he also, as part of his legacy, there's a work that sometimes is credit to him. It's called "The Slaves' Lament." Now, there's a little bit of, and this is like a poem that's written in the first person of somebody who had been taken from Africa into slavery. Some people say he didn't write that, though, so there's a little bit of question about that. And as you pointed out, Paris, you know, the look at him and his relationship with women ranges from, oh, he really liked the ladies to no, actually, that was really problematic relationships that he had with the ladies. So that's a part of the legacy too. I will say all of this stuff. I would recommend this. We obviously don't have time to whatever, but if you get a chance, there's a wonderful hour documentary called "Angelou on Burns," where Maya Angelou, who was deeply impacted by Burns as a young woman, goes to Scotland and they get into a lot of this stuff, her and Burn scholars, and it's a wonderful hour. So if you're interested in Burns, check that out.

Alston: There we go with that is Edgar B. Herwick III of the Curiosity Desk, which is funded by Emerson College. Edgar, thank you so much.

Herwick: Thank you.

Siegel: You're listening to GBH news.

Tonight, in cities around the world, people will gather and drink a little more than their fair share of whiskey, sing some very old songs and read poetry to a savory pudding.

Robert Burns.jpg
Robert Burns
Wikipedia Wikipedia

The festivities are part of the Burns Supper, a tribute to 18th Century Scottish poet Robert Burns.

“He’s considered today by many to be essentially the national poet of Scotland,” Edgar B. Herwick III of GBH’s Curiosity Desk told Morning Edition co-hosts Paris Alston and Jeremy Siegel. “He's a huge, enormous figure in Scotland and kind of an avatar in ways for Scottish culture. He was sort of a man of the people.”

Burns died in 1796. The tradition of a Burns Supper, sometimes called Burns Night, began five years later.

“Some friends of his got together and in this sort of small cabin where he had grown up, and they did a thing where they were going to celebrate him,” Herwick said. “They read some of his poems and they sang some of his songs, and they drank some whiskey, and they sort of said, this is to you. And this sort of tradition stuck.”

Burns is known for writing the New Year’s anthem "Auld Lang Syne,” which was based on a previous Scottish folk tune. He also wrote about themes of “fairness, justice, liberty, passion, humor,” Herwick said.

“He wrote much of his stuff in the Scots language, the Scots dialect of English, which is sort of a big deal because at the time it was sort of considered a little, like, lower class people would speak in Scots, but the fancy people would speak proper English,” Herwick said. “The fact that he was writing in this more common tongue is also kind of a big deal.”

Despite the messages of freedom and fairness in his work, Burns’ life was not always in line with those values, Herwick said. When his work started garnering attention, he had already signed on to a job working at a plantation in Jamaica, where people were enslaved.

“It turns out he hit fame before he had to go to Jamaica, and he ended up staying in Scotland,” Herwick said. Still, he said, “This is a little bit of a challenging thing for folks when they look back at Burns, because he has this legacy.”

Herwick recommended the 1996 documentary “Angelou on Burns,”in which poet Maya Angelou, who was heavily influenced by Burns, goes to Scotland and talks to scholars about Burns’ legacy.

Burns remains hugely influential today, Herwick said. There are about 60 statues of him worldwide.

“For non-religious people, only Christopher Columbus and Queen Victoria have more statues around the world,” Herwick said. “There's more statues of him in America than any American writer. And of course, there is one here in Boston. There's also one in Quincy.”

The Boston statue is located in the Fens.

“It went up in 1920, which is when a lot of these statues went up,” Herwick said. “And then in the 1970s, it just disappeared one night. … It turns out they were redeveloping Winthrop Square, and there was supposed to be a statue of Winthrop that went down there, but that statue got damaged. So somebody was like, grab the Burns statue. And they just, like, took it down there. And it was there for a long time. It came back to the Fens in 2019.”

To celebrate Burns night, people read his works, drink whiskey and dig into some haggis, the Scottish dish Burns memorialized in his work “Addressed to a Haggis:" "His knife see Rustic-labour dight, An’ cut ye up wi’ ready slight, Trenching your gushing entrails bright, Like onie ditch; But then, O what a glorious sight, Warm-reekin, rich!”