David Wedderburn (c.1580 – 23 October 1646) was a

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, ...

, and

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at Aberdeen Grammar School. Though his date of birth is not known, he was baptised on 2 January 1580, and was educated in Aberdeen. He started working at Aberdeen Grammar School in April 1602. Wedderburn contributed a Latin poem for the celebrations to welcome

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on 19 May 1617. This was the first royal visit to Scotland since 1603. In the poem the King, after a day of hunting, is asked to contemplate the memorials of Scotland's past, victories over the Romans and Vikings, the

wars of Scottish Independence The Wars of Scottish Independence were a series of military campaigns fought between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The First War (1296–1328) began with the English invasion of ...

, and the present union of the kingdoms of Britain. The poem was presented again when some of the royal party visited Aberdeen, and the burgh corporation gave Wedderburn 50

merks The merk is a long-obsolete Scottish silver coin. Originally the same word as a money mark of silver, the merk was in circulation at the end of the 16th century and in the 17th century. It was originally valued at 13 shillings 4 pence (exactly o ...

. He had a number of publications, including his 1633 work '; and ', first published in 1636. He died in

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), a ...

This was a
Latin grammar Latin is a heavily inflected language with largely free word order. Nouns are inflected for number and case; pronouns and adjectives (including participles) are inflected for number, case, and gender; and verbs are inflected for person, n ...
, using sporting exemplars to help teach Latin. The
golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...
section was titled ', a stick. Wedderburn believed that this was the derivation of the term golf as meaning 'club'. There were a number of other golf terms including the first clear mention of the golf hole. is also notable for an early reference to schoolboy
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...
and contains a sentence to "keep goal". The account was first published in 1938 by Francis Peabody Magoun, an
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historian. Magoun gives the original Latin text (see later) and his English translation:
"Let us choose sides pick your man first Those on our side come here How many are against us? Kick out the ball so that we may begin the game Come, kick it here You keep the goal Snatch the ball from that fellow if you can Come, throw yourself against him Run at him Kick the ball back Well done. You aren't doing anything To make a goal This is the first goal, this the second, this the third Drive that man back The opponents are, moreover, coming out on top, If you don't look out, he will make a goal Unless we play better, we'll be done for Ah, victory is in your hands Ha, hurrah. He is a very skilled ball player Had it not been for him, we should have brought back the victory Come, help me. We still have the better chance"
(The original Latin cited with minor corrections by Magoun (1938): )

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wedderburn, David Scottish schoolteachers 17th-century Scottish writers 1646 deaths Year of birth uncertain People educated at Aberdeen Grammar School