It’s Burns Night tonight so I have allowed myself a little indulgence, show-casing this very particular object, which is not exactly a common period feature but is interesting all the same.
It’s the diamond tipped ‘pen’ which Rabbie himself made so he could indelibly inscribe his verses on other peoples’ windows. On his highland tour in 1787 he left a trail of graffiti starting with this, at the Cross Key’s Inn in Falkirk, – a plea for men who treat women well to be rewarded with a good night’s sleep:
‘Sound be his sleep and blythe his morn,
That never did a lassie wrang;
Who poverty ne’er held in scorn,
For misery ever tholed a pang.’
Very happy Burns Night with or without the haggis!
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