Witche's broom On a winter's night, Burns' night, what better way to celebrate than with Tam o Shanter and a tot of drambuie. Now it's spring and Burns' haunting poem poses more and more questions.
The crux of the drama is set in the ruin of Auld Alloway Kirk where Tam encounters the devil playing the bagpipes as witches dance wildly. The young witch, Nannie, is an enchanting figure who throws off encumbering clothes and dances only in her cutty sark. A shift, a shortie nightie. Nannie is the enduring emblem of the poem.
The crux of the drama is set in the ruin of Auld Alloway Kirk where Tam encounters the devil playing the bagpipes as witches dance wildly. The young witch, Nannie, is an enchanting figure who throws off encumbering clothes and dances only in her cutty sark. A shift, a shortie nightie. Nannie is the enduring emblem of the poem.
Tam has been drinking heavily before he sets out to ride home on his horse Meg so when he comes to Kirk Alloway he has false courage and is more curious than afraid. He's taken with the fetching Nannie and as she dances he cheers her on, 'Well done, Cutty Sark.' At that, all the witches turn on him and he flees the scene, spurring on Meg to leap the river (witches can't cross water) and to bring him safely home. Meg leaps for the keystone of the bridge just as Nannie grabs the horse's tail which comes off in her hand- but Tam is home safe.
That emblem, Nannie, the scantily clad young witch with a rope of horse-hair in her hand, became the carved wooden figurehead of the Tea Clipper Cutty Sark whose adventures in the Opium Wars must have rivalled Tam o Shanter's wild ride. The Cutty Sark was built at Dumbarton so Scottish connections are strong.
Burns wrote Tam o Shanter when his friend, Francis Grose, included an illustration of Auld Alloway Kirk in his book of Scottish Antiquities. Burns' father and sister are buried at the Kirk which is strange, given the lurid scene Burns conjures. Tam's midnight ride is full of dark images and hapless wayfarers come to grief but Tam has a charmed life and the poem rollicks along in a rollercoaster of a ride, riddled with irony where nothing is quite what it seems.
Nannie the Witch is the good luck charm (odd!) of the Tea Clipper Cutty Sark and there she is, a carved wooden figurehead on the bow of the ship, wearing not a lot and clutching the rope of Meg's tail in her hand.
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