Tam O' Shanter (poem)

Tam O' Shanter (poem)

"Tam o' Shanter" is a narrative poem written by the Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1790.

First published in 1791, it is one of Burns's longer poems, and employs a mixture of Scots and English. It tells the story of Tam, a farmer who gets drunk with his friends in a public house and then rides home on his horse Meg. On the way he sees the local haunted church lit up with witches and warlocks dancing and the devil playing the bagpipes. He creeps into the churchyard to watch and on seeing a pretty witch in a short dress he shouts,`Weel done, cutty-sark!' (cutty-sark : "short shirt"). Having drawn attention to himself the dancing stops abruptly and the witches chase him and Meg to the River Doon. The witches cannot cross the water but they come so close to catching Tam and Meg that they pull Meg's tail off just as she reaches the bridge over the Doon.

The name is probably based on the Scottish forename "Tam" followed by "mishanter" (misfortune, ill-luck, the devil). See The Scots Dialect Dictionary (Waverley Books Ltd, 2000).