Saturday, January 04, 2014

This year the Scots will vote on leaving the Union or remaining yoked to England and Wales. The Scots have their own languages, one of them developing from the language of the Northumbrian Angles. This poem of the early 16th century is an example of the old Scots tongue, and holds up English ancestry claims to mockery. It would be interesting to know what the author believed his origins to be. I'll try to find William Dunbar's version of the Highlanders' creation story for comparison.
Incidentally, the Scots' own name for the language of this poem was 'Inglis', while the Gaelic of the Highlanders was call 'Erse' or Irish. There was, before the Union, no language called 'Scots'.

ANE ANSER TO ANE INGLIS RAILAR PRAYSING HIS AWIN GENALOGY
(An Anonymous Scot)

Ye Inglische hursone suntyme wil avant
Your progeny frome Brutus to haif tane
And sumtyme frome ane angell or ane sanct
As Angelus and Anglus bayth war ane.

Angellis in erth yit hard I few or nane
Except the feyndis with Lucifer that fell
Avant yow villane of that Lord allane
Tak thy progeny frome Pluto prence of Hell

Becauss ye use in hoillis to hyd your sell
Anglus is cum frome Angulus in deid
Aboive all uderis Brutus bure the bell
Quha slew his fader howping to succeed

Than chus you ane of thais I rek not ader
Tak Beelzebub or Brutus to your fader.

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