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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Tam o' Shanter
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(1791) Poem by Robert *Burns, telling the story of Tam o' Shanter, a farmer who spends a drunken evening in a tavern on market day at *Ayr. Riding home on his grey mare, Meg, he passes the church at *Alloway and sees witches dancing in it. He calls out to the only pretty one, wearing a 'cutty sark' (a short shirt or shift), and to his terror she pursues him with all her cronies behind her. If he can reach the bridge over the Doon he will be safe, for witches will not cross a running stream. He is over just in time, but poor Meg is not entirely so. Her tail is still on the wrong side of the key-stone, and Cutty Sark pulls it off. Tam's circular woollen bonnet, with a bobble in the centre, was a common headdress in Scotland and has since become known as a tam o' shanter (from later illustrations to the poem, for Burns gives Tam only a 'gude blue bonnet').
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