William Dunbar was a Scottish makar, or court poet, active in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. He was closely associated with the court of King James IV and produced a large body of work in Scots distinguished by its great variation in themes and literary styles. He was probably a native of East Lothian, as assumed from a satirical reference in The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie. His surname is also spelt Dumbar.
"John Barleycorn" is an English and Scottish folk song listed as number 164 in the Roud Folk Song Index. John Barleycorn, the song's protagonist, is a personification of barley and of the alcoholic beverages made from it: beer and whisky. In the song, he suffers indignities, attacks, and death that correspond to the various stages of barley cultivation, such as reaping and malting.
Richard Holland or Richard de Holande was a Scottish cleric and poet, author of the Buke of the Howlat.
Beer is one of the oldest human-produced drinks. The first chemically confirmed barley-beer – from the area of Mesopotamia, part of modern-day Iraq – dates back to the 5th millennium BCE. The written history of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia records the use of beer, and the drink has spread throughout the world; a 3,900-year-old Sumerian poem honouring Ninkasi, the patron goddess of brewing, contains the oldest surviving beer-recipe, describing the production of beer from barley bread, and in China, residue on pottery dating from around 5,000 years ago shows that beer was brewed using barley and other grains.
Middle Scots was the Anglic language of Lowland Scotland in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 15th century, its phonology, orthography, accidence, syntax and vocabulary had diverged markedly from Early Scots, which was virtually indistinguishable from early Northumbrian Middle English. Subsequently, the orthography of Middle Scots differed from that of the emerging Modern English standard. Middle Scots was fairly uniform throughout its many texts, albeit with some variation due to the use of Romance forms in translations from Latin or French, turns of phrases and grammar in recensions of southern texts influenced by southern forms, misunderstandings and mistakes made by foreign printers.
A Satire of the Three Estates, is a satirical morality play in Middle Scots, written by makar Sir David Lyndsay. The complete play was first performed outside in the playing field at Cupar, Fife in June 1552 during the Midsummer holiday, where the action took place under Castle Hill. It was subsequently performed in Edinburgh, also outdoors, in 1554. The full text was first printed in 1602 and extracts were copied into the Bannatyne Manuscript. The Satire is an attack on the Three Estates represented in the Parliament of Scotland – the clergy, lords and burgh representatives, symbolised by the characters Spiritualitie, Temporalitie and Merchant. The clergy come in for the strongest criticism. The work portrays the social tensions present at this pivotal moment in Scottish history.
"The Taill of the Uponlandis Mous and the Burges Mous", also known as "The Twa Mice," is a Middle Scots adaptation of Aesop's Fable The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse by the Scottish poet Robert Henryson. Written around the 1480s, it is the second poem in Henryson's collection called The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian.
The Bannatyne Manuscript is an anthology of literature compiled in Scotland in the sixteenth century. It is an important source for the Scots poetry of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The manuscript contains texts of the poems of the great makars, many anonymous Scots pieces and works by medieval English poets.
"The Taill of the Cok and the Jasp" is a Middle Scots version of Aesop's Fable The Cock and the Jewel by the 15th-century Scottish poet Robert Henryson. It is the first in Henryson's collection known as the Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian. The Cok and the Jasp is framed by a prologue and a moralitas, and as the first poem in the collection it operates on a number of levels, and in all its parts, to introduce the larger cycle.
"The Taill of Schir Chanticleir and the Foxe" is Fabill 3 of Robert Henryson's cycle of thirteen Morall Fabillis composed in Scotland in the later fifteenth century. It is the first of the fable in the poem to be based on Reynardian and beast epic sources rather than on any strictly Aesopian original, although the closest match from Aesop might be The Dog, the Cock and the Fox.
William Stewart was a Scottish poet working in the first half of the 16th century.
The Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo or The Tretis Of The Twa Mariit Wemen and the Wedo is a narrative poem in Scots by the makar William Dunbar.
Ane Ballat of the Fenyeit Frier of Tungland, How He Fell in the Myre Fleand to Turkiland is a comic, satirical poem in Scots by William Dunbar composed in the early sixteenth century. The title may be rendered in modern English as A Ballad of The False Friar of Tongland, How He Fell in the Mire Flying to Turkey.
"The Twa Cummeris", also rendered as "The Twa Cumeris", is a short humorous poem in Scots written at an unknown date by William Dunbar
Remonstrance to the King is a Scots poem of William Dunbar composed in the early sixteenth century. The Remonstrance is one of Dunbar's many appeals to his patron James IV of Scotland asking for personal advancement. In this particular case, the unseemly personal pleading is combined with more dignified subject matter; lavish praise and pointed criticism of the King's court is delivered in an open manner.
"The Wife of Auchtermuchty" is a Scots poem of the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries.
The Thrissil and the Rois is a Scots poem composed by William Dunbar to mark the wedding, in August 1503, of King James IV of Scotland to Princess Margaret Tudor of England.
He Is Na Dog, He Is A Lam is a poem by William Dunbar addressed to Queen Margaret Tudor of Scotland.
How the First Helandman of God Was Maid is an anonymous comic poem in Scots preserved in the Bannatyne Manuscript of the sixteenth century.
Quha Hes Gud Malt And Makis Ill Drynk is a brief, anonymous Scots poem of the sixteenth century which praises skillful brewers and curses unskillful ones. Throughout the poem, the brewers are assumed to be female. The poem is found in the Bannatyne Manuscript.
