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, p ...

, and

schoolmaster The word schoolmaster, or simply master, refers to a male school teacher. This usage survives in British independent schools, both secondary and preparatory, and a few Indian boarding schools (such as The Doon School) that were modelled after B ...

Aberdeen Grammar School Aberdeen Grammar School is a state secondary school in Aberdeen, Scotland. It is one of thirteen secondary schools run by the Aberdeen City Council educational department. It is the oldest school in the city and one of the oldest 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

James VI and I James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...

Falkland Palace Falkland Palace, in Falkland, Fife, Scotland, is a royal palace of the Scottish Kings. It was one of the favourite places of Mary, Queen of Scots, providing an escape from political and religious turmoil. Today it is under the stewardship of ...

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 ...

. 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), and ...

This was a
Latin grammar Latin is a heavily inflected languages, inflected language with largely free word order. Nouns are inflected for grammatical number, number and grammatical case, case; pronouns and adjectives (including participles) are inflected for number, cas ...
, 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 c ...
and contains a sentence to "keep goal". The account was first published in 1938 by
Francis Peabody Magoun Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr. MC (6 January 1895 – 5 June 1979) was one of the seminal figures in the study of medieval and English literature in the 20th century, a scholar of subjects as varied as soccer and ancient Germanic naming practi ...
, 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