50 Fun Facts About Robert Burns

Robert Burns was born in 1759 in which Ayrshire village, two miles south of Ayr?

His birthplace cottage now anchors the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum.

Burns Night is celebrated every year on which date?

It marks his birthday and is more widely observed in Scotland than St Andrew's Day, the official national day.

Burns's father William Burnes was a tenant farmer originally from Dunnottar; what was his mother's name?

Robert was the eldest of their seven children.

The cottage where Burns was born was built by his father in 1757 from what materials?

It later spent a spell as a pub before the National Trust for Scotland restored it.

In 1780 Burns and his brother Gilbert founded a debating society in their local village known as what?

He had joined a country dancing school the year before, to his father's disapproval.

On 4 July 1781, aged 22, Burns was initiated at St David's, Tarbolton, into which fraternal order?

He remained active in the craft, and his membership opened doors among Edinburgh's gentry.

Jean Armour, whom Burns married in 1788, belonged to a group of local girls known as what?

Her father was a stonemason; she bore Burns nine children, only three of whom survived infancy.

In 1786 Burns accepted a plantation book-keeper's job in which colony before his poems kept him home?

The £30-a-year post would have made him an assistant overseer of enslaved workers, a plan he later described bluntly.

The Highland lass Burns may have pledged himself to by exchanging Bibles in 1786 was really named what?

She died of typhus at Greenock that October, and he later wrote 'To Mary in Heaven' for her.

Burns's first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, was published in 1786 in which town?

Printed by John Wilson, it sold for three shillings.

How much did a copy of Burns's first book of poems cost when it appeared in 1786?

It contained 'The Twa Dogs', 'To a Mouse', 'The Cotter's Saturday Night' and 'Address to the Deil'.

In 'The Twa Dogs', from his first book, the dog Luath was modelled on Burns's own pet of what breed?

A life-size statue of Burns with Luath stands in the Back Bay Fens in Boston.

The famous 1787 portrait of Burns, the basis for almost every later image of him, was painted by whom?

Publisher William Creech commissioned it as the frontispiece for the Edinburgh edition.

In his letters to Agnes 'Nancy' McLehose, Burns signed himself with which pen name?

She was 'Clarinda'; their final meeting in 1791 inspired 'Ae Fond Kiss'.

Burns contributed enthusiastically to which song collection edited by Edinburgh engraver James Johnson?

He also wrote for George Thomson's rival collection, which commissioned settings from Haydn and Beethoven.

After Edinburgh, Burns took a 1788 lease on which Dumfriesshire farm beside the River Nith?

He gave it up in 1791 and moved into the town of Dumfries.

Alongside farming, Burns trained for and in 1789 was appointed to which government job?

The work meant long rides in all weathers and detailed bookkeeping.

Burns's narrative masterpiece 'Tam o' Shanter' was written in November of which year?

It first appeared in print in Francis Grose's Antiquities of Scotland in 1791.

In 'Tam o' Shanter', what is the name of Tam's grey mare?

The witches pull off her tail just as she reaches the bridge over the Doon.

In 'Tam o' Shanter', who is playing the bagpipes at the witches' dance in the haunted kirk?

Tam blows his cover by shouting encouragement to a witch in a short shirt, a 'cutty-sark'.

Tam escapes the witches by racing for the bridge over the Doon because they cannot do what?

The dancing witch who leads the chase, Nannie, gets close enough to grab the horse's tail.

Which tea clipper is named after the short shirt worn by the witch Nannie in 'Tam o' Shanter'?

The word means 'short shirt' in Scots.

Which 1937 John Steinbeck novel takes its title from a line in Burns's 'To a Mouse'?

Burns wrote the poem in 1785 after his plough turned up a mouse's nest at Mossgiel farm.

According to his brother Gilbert, Burns composed 'To a Mouse' while doing what?

The poem's full title dates the nest-turning incident to November 1785.

Which J. D. Salinger novel's title comes from misreading Burns's 'Comin' Through the Rye'?

Holden Caulfield imagines himself catching children before they fall off a cliff.

Which singer-songwriter named Burns's 'A Red, Red Rose' in 2008 as the lyric that most affected his life?

The 1794 song became world-famous set to the traditional tune 'Low Down in the Broom'.

Burns's 'A Man's a Man for A' That', written in Dumfries, drew on the ideas of which political writer?

The song was sung at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.

Burns's 'Scots Wha Hae' (1793) is a speech by which Scottish leader before Bannockburn?

He set it to the tune 'Hey Tuttie Tatie', said to have been played by the army at Bannockburn.

Burns's 'Auld Lang Syne', sent to a song collection in 1788, has a title meaning roughly what?

He described it as an old song of olden times that he had taken down from an old man.

The music now sung to 'Auld Lang Syne', attached to the words in 1799, is best described as what?

It was probably originally a sprightly dance played at a much quicker tempo.

The tune of 'Auld Lang Syne' served as the national anthem of which country until 1972?

South Korea also used the melody for its anthem in the 1940s.

Burns's 'Address to a Haggis' favours the dish over the cuisine of which country?

It was first printed in an Edinburgh newspaper in December 1786 as 'Address to a Haggice'.

At a Burns supper the haggis is traditionally served with 'neeps and tatties', meaning what?

Dessert may be cranachan or tipsy laird, a whisky trifle.

The Scots-language thanksgiving usually said before the meal at a Burns supper is known by what name?

It was already known in the 17th century as the Galloway or Covenanters' Grace before Burns recited it for the Earl of Selkirk.

The very first Burns supper was held by his friends at Burns Cottage on 21 July 1801, marking what?

The Greenock club then held one on 29 January 1802, having got his birthday wrong by four days.

Burns died in Dumfries on 21 July 1796 at what age?

He was given a military funeral, with three volleys fired over his coffin.

What is thought to have been the underlying cause of Burns's early death?

A bacterial infection, possibly from a tooth abscess, may have made it worse; tales of heavy drinking are thought exaggerated.

In 1795, to prove his loyalty and protect his job, Burns enlisted as a private in which unit?

Members provided their own uniforms and served without pay, close to the town.

How many of Burns's 12 children survived to adulthood?

His widow Jean Armour was buried beside him in the Burns Mausoleum in 1834.

In a 2009 STV poll for greatest Scot, Burns narrowly beat which historical figure?

A bust of the poet sits in the Hall of Heroes at the National Wallace Monument in Stirling.

Which country was the first in the world to honour Burns with a commemorative postage stamp?

The USSR issued it in 1956, having elevated him as the archetypal poet of the people.

The oldest statue of Robert Burns anywhere in the world stands in which country?

It is in the town of Camperdown, Victoria, which holds an annual Burns festival around it.

The Bank of Scotland's £5 note issued from 2007 shows which bridge made famous by 'Tam o' Shanter'?

The note also pictures the Burns statue that stands beside it.

In 1985 a crater named in Burns's honour was designated on which planet?

Craters on that planet are named after artists, writers and composers.

Burns's use of Scots followed Allan Ramsay and which Edinburgh poet who died in 1774?

Burns paid for a headstone on his predecessor's unmarked grave in Canongate Kirkyard.

The Edinburgh literati patronisingly labelled Burns with what phrase, downplaying his education?

In fact he had been tutored in Latin, French and mathematics by the schoolmaster John Murdoch.

Which Vancouver festival, held since the late 1990s, fuses Burns Night with Chinese New Year?

It is one of countless Burns celebrations run by clubs and societies around the world.

Burns's radical sympathies were aired at which Dumfries pub, where he met fellow radicals?

He was ambivalent enough about the French Revolution to alienate some acquaintances, though he stayed loyal enough to keep his post.

Burns's first child, a daughter nicknamed Bess, was born in 1785 to which woman?

He was already beginning his relationship with Jean Armour at the time.

Burns is generally classed as which kind of poet, an influence on Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley?

His themes ranged from republicanism and anticlericalism to poverty, sexuality and Scottish identity.