Makars Quotes

Consider it warly, reid oftar than anys;
Weill at a blenk sle poetry nocht tane is. ~ Gawin Douglas

WINTER

Puir laboureris and busy husbandmen,
Went wet and weary in the fen;
The silly sheep and their little herd-groomis
Lurkis under lea of bankis, wodes, and broomis,
And other dantit greater bestial,
Within their stabillis sesyt into stall,
Sic as mulis, horsis, oxen and kye,
Fed tuskit boaris, and fat swine in sty,
Sustainit were by manis governance
On harvest and simmeris purveyance. ~ Gawin Douglas

Historically, the language we call Scots was a development of the Anglian speech of the Northumbrians who established their kingdom of Bernicia as far north as the Firth of Forth in the seventh century. This northern Anglo-Saxon language flourished in Lowland Scotland and emerged into a distinct language on its own, capable of rich expansion by borrowing from Latin, French and other sources with its own grammatical forms and methods of borrowing. By the time of the Makars of the fifteenth century it was a highly sophisticated poetic language, based on the spoken speech of the people, but enriched by many kinds of expansion, invention and 'aureation'. Distinct from literary English, but having much in common with it, literary Scots took its place in the late Middle Ages as one of the great literary languages of Europe. ~ David Daiches