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The Fair Maid Of Perth
''The Fair Maid of Perth'' (or ''St. Valentine's Day'') is an 1828 novel by Sir Walter Scott, one of the Waverley novels. Inspired by the strange, but historically true, story of the Battle of the North Inch, it is set in Perth (known at the time as Saint John's Toun, i.e. John's Town) and other parts of Scotland around 1400. Composition and sources By the time he finished the first series of ''Chronicles of the Canongate'' on 16 September 1827 Scott had been discussing his next work of fiction for several weeks. He was originally minded to embark on a successor to ''Quentin Durward'', which was eventually to become ''Anne of Geierstein'' (1829), but in the event he settled on a second series of the ''Chronicles''. Like the first, this was envisaged as a collection of short stories, and it seems likely that by mid-November Scott had written a long Croftangry introduction to match the opening chapters of the first series. On 3 December he completed 'My Aunt Margaret's Mirror', an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (novel), Rob Roy'', ''Waverley (novel), Waverley'', ''Old Mortality'', ''The Heart of Mid-Lothian'' and ''The Bride of Lammermoor'', and the narrative poems ''The Lady of the Lake (poem), The Lady of the Lake'' and ''Marmion (poem), Marmion''. He had a major impact on European and American literature. As an advocate, judge and legal administrator by profession, he combined writing and editing with daily work as Clerk of Session and Sheriff court, Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire. He was prominent in Edinburgh's Tory (political faction), Tory establishment, active in the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, Highland Society, long a president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1820–1832), and a vice president of the Society o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Of Fordun
John of Fordun (before 1360 – c. 1384) was a Scottish chronicler. It is generally stated that he was born at Fordoun, Mearns. It is certain that he was a secular priest, and that he composed his history in the latter part of the 14th century. It is probable that he was a chaplain in St Machar's Cathedral of Aberdeen.William Ferguson, ''The identity of the Scottish nation: an historic quest,'' Edinburgh University Press, 1998, The work of Fordun is the earliest attempt to write a continuous history of Scotland. Fordun undertook this task because his patriotic zeal was roused by the removal or destruction of many national records by Edward III of England. He travelled across England and Ireland, collecting material for his history. Collectively, this work, divided into five books, is known as the '' Chronica Gentis Scotorum.'' The first three are unverified historically, which therefore casts doubt on their accuracy. Yet they also form the groundwork on which Boece an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, through later folk traditions, has become a significant cultural, religious, and commercial celebration of Romance (love), romance and love in many regions of the world. There are a number of martyrdom stories associated with various Valentines connected to February 14, including an account of the imprisonment of Saint Valentine of Rome for ministering to Christians Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, persecuted under the Roman Empire in the third century. According to an early tradition, Saint Valentine restored sight to the blind daughter of his jailer. Numerous later additions to the legend have better related it to the theme of love: an 18th-century embellishment to the legend claims he wrote the jailer's daughter a letter signed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armourer
Historically, an armourer is a person who makes personal armour, especially plate armour. In modern terms, an armourer is a member of a military or police force who works in an armoury and maintains and repairs small arms and weapons systems, with some duties resembling those of a civilian gunsmith. There is increasing evidence that companies specializing in the manufacture of armoured vehicles or applique armour for application onto vehicles of all types (cars, boats, aircraft) are referring to themselves as armourers; such as the UK company OVIK Crossway - which describes its services as Armourers and Coach Builders. In some ways, this is a reversion back to the original meaning of the term insofar as these companies forge, adapt or integrate physical armour onto platforms in order to protect human life. The title is also used in Olympic sport of fencing (the foil, the épée and the sabre) to refer to those who repair fencers' weaponry, safety equipment, fencing-strips, scor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as both Irish and Manx, developed out of Old Irish. It became a distinct spoken language sometime in the 13th century in the Middle Irish period, although a common literary language was shared by the Gaels of both Ireland and Scotland until well into the 17th century. Most of modern Scotland was once Gaelic-speaking, as evidenced especially by Gaelic-language place names. In the 2011 census of Scotland, 57,375 people (1.1% of the Scottish population aged over 3 years old) reported being able to speak Gaelic, 1,275 fewer than in 2001. The highest percentages of Gaelic speakers were in the Outer Hebrides. Nevertheless, there is a language revival, and the number of speakers of the language under age 20 did not decrease between the 2001 and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edinburgh Edition Of The Waverley Novels
The Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels by Walter Scott appeared in thirty volumes between 1993 and 2012. Published by Edinburgh University Press, it was the first complete critical edition of the novels. History On 22 June 1983 Archie Turnbull, the Secretary of Edinburgh University Press, announced that his Press Committee had authorised him to investigate the feasibility of undertaking a critical edition of the novels and related fiction of Walter Scott and to welcome expressions of interest. On 17 February 1984 a group of scholars and other interested parties met at a conference organised by David Daiches, making the decision that (in principle) the new edition should be based on early editions rather than the revised texts in the final 'Magnum' edition of 1829–33, and that David Hewitt of the University of Aberdeen should be Editor-in-Chief. After three years' detailed research the early-text policy was confirmed at a further conference in January 1987, with David Nordloh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Pinkerton
John Pinkerton (17 February 1758 – 10 March 1826) was a Scottish antiquarian, cartographer, author, numismatist, historian, and early advocate of Germanic racial supremacy theory. He was born in Edinburgh, as one of three sons to James Pinkerton. He lived in the neighbourhood of that city for some of his earliest childhood years, but later moved to Lanark. His studious youth brought him extensive knowledge of the Classics, and it is known that in his childhood years he enjoyed translating Roman authors such as Livy. He moved on to Edinburgh University, and after graduating, remained in the city to take up an apprenticeship in Law. However, his scholarly inclinations led him to abandon the legal profession after he began writing ''Elegy on Craigmillar Castle'', first published in 1776. London and publications In 1781, Pinkerton moved to London, where his full career as a writer began in earnest, publishing in the same year a volume of ''Rimes'' of no great merit, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Adamson
Henry Adamson (1581–1637) was a Scottish poet and historian. Adamson was the son of James Adamson, Dean of the Merchant Guildry and Provost of Perth, Scotland, baptised on 11 November 1581. Henry set out to train as a priest, after his uncle Patrick Adamson, but instead became a schoolmaster in his home city. He died before July in the year 1637. His friend William Drummond encouraged the publication of his most famous poem: ''Muses Threnodie: of Mirthful Mournings on the death of Mr Gall'', (Edinburgh 1638 – see 1638 in poetry). The poem is an important document for its general account of Perth in the seventeenth century. Adamson is credited with first using the word ''curling'' in 1620. He related that his friend, Mr Gall, "a citizen of Perth, and a gentle-man of goodly stature, and pregnant wit, much given to pastime, as golf, archerie, curling and jovial companie". It also records the playing of Golf on the South Inch: It is also particularly noted for its obse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Hume Of Godscroft
David Hume or Home of Godscroft (1558–1629) was a Scottish historian and political theorist, poet and controversialist, a major intellectual figure in Jacobean Scotland. It has been said that "Hume marks the culmination of the Scottish humanist tradition." Confusion is possible with David Hume or Home, Scottish minister at Duras in France, a contemporary: they had quite different views on the union with England. Life He was the second son of Sir David Hume or Home, 7th Lord of Wedderburn, a Roman Catholic traditionalist of the Merse (now Berwickshire), who had married an active Calvinist wife in Mary Johnston of Elphinstone. He studied at Dunbar grammar school, under Andrew Simson. He then entered the University of St Andrews in 1578, and after a course of study there travelled on the continent. From France he went on to Geneva, intending to travel to Italy. Hume was recalled to Scotland by the serious illness of his elder brother George, returning about 1581. Both broth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Bellenden
John Bellenden or Ballantyne ( 1533–1587?) of Moray (why Moray, a lowland family) was a Scottish writer of the 16th century. Life He was born towards the close of the 15th century, and educated at St. Andrews and Paris. At the request of James V he translated Hector Boece's ''Historia Gentis Scotorum''. This translation, ''Croniklis of Scotland'' is a very free one, with a good deal of matter not in the original, so that it may be almost considered as a new work. It was published in 1536 in Edinburgh by Thomas Davidson. In 1533, Bellenden also translated the first five books of Livy's ''History of Rome''. These remain the earliest existing specimena of Scottish literary prose, and remarkable specimena they are, for the execution of which he enjoyed the Royal favour, and was made Archdeacon of Moray. Both the ''Croniklis'' and the ''Livy'' are prefaced by poems, the Proheme of the Chronicles, 'Quehen Silver Diane', being more often anthologised. Another work, the ''Banner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hector Boece
Hector Boece (; also spelled Boyce or Boise; 1465–1536), known in Latin as Hector Boecius or Boethius, was a Scottish philosopher and historian, and the first Principal of King's College in Aberdeen, a predecessor of the University of Aberdeen. Biography He was born in Dundee where he attended school and was educated at the nearby University of St Andrews. Later he left to study at the University of Paris where he met Erasmus, with whom he became close friends while they were both students at the austere Collège de Montaigu, to whose reforming Master, Jan Standonck, Boece later became Secretary. By 1497 he had become a professor of philosophy at Collège de Montaigu. In 1500, he was induced to leave Paris for Aberdeen by a generously financed offer to become the first principal of the newly established University of Aberdeen, created at the behest of James IV by William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen under the authority of a Papal bull issued by Pope Alexander VI. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Of Wyntoun
Andrew Wyntoun, known as Andrew of Wyntoun (), was a Scottish poet, a canon and prior of Loch Leven on St Serf's Inch and, later, a canon of St. Andrews. Andrew Wyntoun is most famous for his completion of an eight-syllabled metre entitled, ''Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland'', which contains an early mention of ''Robin Hood''; it is also cited by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' as the earliest work in English to use the word "Catholic": pelling modernised"He was a constant Catholic;/All Lollard he hated and heretic." Wyntoun wrote the 'Chronicle' at the request of his patron, Sir John of Wemyss, whose representative, Mr. Erskine Wemyss of Wemyss Castle, Fife, possessed the oldest extant manuscript of the work. The subject of the 'Chronicle' is the history of Scotland from the mythical period to the death of Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany in 1420. The nine original manuscripts of the ''Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland'' still subsist today and are preserved within various fac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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