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The Author’s Only Pet Yowe: An Unco Mournfu’ Tale

First printed in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786.

As MAILIE, an’ her lambs thegither, together

Was ae day nibblin on the tether, one day, chewing

Upon her cloot she coost a hitch, hoof, looped

An’ owre she warsl’d in the ditch: over, floundered

5 There, groanin, dying, she did ly,

When Hughoc he cam doytan by. walking/staggering

Wi’ glowrin een, an’ lifted han’s staring eyes

Poor Hughoc like a statue stan’s;

He saw her days were near hand ended,

10 But, wae’s my heart! he could na mend it! woe, not

He gaped wide, but naething spak. nothing spoke

At length poor Mailie silence brak: — broke

‘O thou, whase lamentable face whose

Appears to mourn my woefu’ case!

15 My dying words attentive hear,

An’ bear them to my Master dear.

‘Tell him, if e’er again he keep

As muckle gear as buy a sheep, much money

O, bid him never tie them mair, more

20 Wi’ wicked strings o’ hemp or hair!

But ca’ them out to park or hill, call/drive

An’ let them wander at their will:

So may his flock increase, an’ grow

To scores o’ lambs, an’ packs o’ woo’!

25 ‘Tell him, he was a Master kin’, kind

An’ ay was guid to me an’ mine; good

An’ now my dying charge I gie him, give

My helpless lambs, I trust them wi’ him. with

‘O, bid him save their harmless lives,

30 Frae dogs, an’ tods, an’ butchers’ knives! from, foxes

But gie them guid cow-milk their fill, give, good

Till they be fit to fend themsel; themselves

An’ tent them duely, e’en an’ morn, tend

Wi’ taets o’ hay an’ ripps o’ corn. small amounts, handfuls

35 ‘An’ may they never learn the gaets, ways

Of ither vile, wanrestfu’ Pets — other, restless

To slink thro’ slaps, an’ reave an’ steal, gaps in dykes

At stacks o’ pease, or stocks o’ kail. plants

So may they, like their great forbears,

40 For monie a year come thro’ the sheers: many

So wives will gie them bits o’ bread, give

An’ bairns greet for them when they’re dead. children cry

‘My poor toop-lamb, my son an’ heir, tup/male

O, bid him breed him up wi’ care! with

45 An’ if he live to be a beast,

To pit some havins in his breast! conduct

An’ warn him, what I winna name, would not

To stay content wi’ yowes at hame; ewes

An’ no to rin an’ wear his cloots, run, hooves

50 Like other menseless, graceless brutes. unmannerly

‘An’ niest, my yowie, silly thing; next, ewekin/female baby

Gude keep thee frae a tether string! from

O, may thou ne’er forgather up, make friends

Wi’ onie blastet, moorland toop; any, blasted/damned

55 But ay keep mind to moop an’ mell, always, nibble & mix

Wi’ sheep o’ credit like thysel!

‘And now, my bairns, wi’ my last breath,

I lea’e my blessin wi’ you baith: leave, with, both

An’ when you think upo’ your Mither, mother

60 Mind to be kind to ane anither. one another

‘Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail, do not

To tell my Master a’ my tale;

An’ bid him burn this cursed tether,

An’ for thy pains thou’se get my blather.’ thou will, bladder

65 This said, poor Mailie turn’d her head,

An’ clos’d her een amang the dead! eyes, among

This poem fuses an actual experience at Lochlea, subsequently recorded by Gilbert Burns, with Burns’s awareness of the tradition of comic animal monologue as integral to the eighteenth-century Scottish vernacular revival. As Burns noted, Hughoc was an actual neighbouring herdsman though, in reality, the sheep was freed from the strangling tether and survived. Its ‘poetic’ death is necessary to the comic pathos of the poem. The literary tradition of burlesquing animal poetry commenced with William Hamilton of Gilbertfield (c. 1665–1751) whose rhetorical greyhound’s death-speech parodies Blind Harry’s Wallace. Burns would also be aware of the so-influential Robert Fergusson’s very funny parody of Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling (1771) with his Milton-burlesquing The Sow of Feeling (1773). As we saw in the Introduction, Mackenzie never forgave Fergusson’s lachrymose porcine parody. The tone of Burns’s poem is more subtle since the mother’s dying warnings to her children, particularly against keeping the wrong sexual company, are a mixture of his satirising snobbery and prudery with genuine sympathy towards a mother’s natural, protective love. Burns, indeed (see Address to a Young Friend), often displayed a genuine paternal care, which revealed a desire to preserve his varied dependants from the dangers inherent in his own licentious excesses.