Carolina Oliphant, later Lady Nairne, was born on 16 August 1766 at Gask House in Perthshire, into a family whose private memories were inseparable from one of Scotland’s most public historical wounds. She died on 26 October 1845, also at Gask, after a life of seventy-nine years in which she became one of the most accomplished and widely loved writers of Scottish song. For much of that life, however, the public did n…
“If Mr. Purdie will in some way obliterate that drinking song of Burns', the work will do credit to all parties.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Political Poets, Scottish Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
Jean Elliot, often called Jane Elliot in later accounts, was born in April 1727 at Minto House in Teviotdale, Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Borders, and died on 29 March 1805. She is remembered above all for “The Flowers of the Forest,” one of the most moving lyrics in the Scottish tradition. The apparent smallness of her surviving body of work has sometimes obscured the scale of her achievement. Elliot did not leav…
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Folk & Ballad Poets, Scottish Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
