scots
Q: Why was the white rose chosen as the floral Q: What is meant by the auld Scotch expression
emblem of the Jacobites? “by tuck o’drum”?
A: Although no one knows for certain, the choice A: The expression has different meanings in different
of the white rose is probably related to the white parts of the countryside. Up until the year 1792,
cockade which was the distinguishing bonnet badge the townsfolk of Thurso in Caithness, used to be
of the Jacobite armies. The gardeners of staunch summoned “by tuck o’ drum” to work in the laird’s
Jacobite families always endeavoured to bring a fields. No matter how busy they might be with their
white rose into bloom on the birthdays of both the own crops, the tenants of Lady Janet Sinclair had, on
Old Pretender (James) on June 10 and the Young hearing the town drummer, to leave everything and
Pretender (Charles Edward, Bonnie Prince Charlie) hasten to Thurso East Castle, there to work without
on December 31. Jacobite families could thus be payment. If they failed to obey the feudal summons
recognised by the bush of white roses growing to they faced the most dire consequences – the poinding
the right of their front door. Hugh MacDiarmid (impounding) of their two most precious possessions,
captured the sentiment behind the symbolism when the iron tongs used to add fuel to their meagre peat
he wrote: fires and the loss of their best blanket. Given the chilly
The rose of all the world is not for me depths of the winters in Caithness, the northern-
I want for my part most county in Scotland, there was something cruelly
Only the little white rose of Scotland malicious in the choice of the articles to be poindered.
That smells sharp and sweet and breaks the heart. No wonder the frightened tenants hurried off to
answer the summons of the drum.
Q: Where might one see relics directly related to They tilled the laird’s soil, spread dung on his fields,
Prince Charles Edward Stewart? sowed and harrowed and carried in his peats. They
A: The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh thatched and made ropes for the laird’s oathouses;
has the Prince’s elaborately embossed targe on they weeded the land, mowed and gathered the
permanent exhibition. His bonnet, silver spurs, hay. For these folks the sound of the drum was one
white cockade and a lock of his hair may be seen at which made them anxious. We can well imagine the
Ardblair Castle, near Blairgowrie in Perthshire. gratitude of the harassed tenants when one bold
spirit decided he had had enough and rose to defy
Q: When was the last witch burned in Scotland? “the tuck of the drum”.
A: The year was 1722. The self-confessed witch, His name was Sandy Murray, a native of Thurso.
Euphan Leslie, was burned at the stake at Dornoch in He seized the drummer in his splendid uniform,
Sutherland after she confessed to having changed her told him with the utmost candour what he thought
daughter into a pony. According to Isabel Cameron, of him and drove his staff through the drum. Here
writing in A Highland Chapbook: “as the morning of was a declaration of independence with a vengeance.
her burning happened to be a very cold day, this poor “Go an’ tell Leddy Jennet fit I’ve done,” he declared,
deluded woman stood by the fire which was to be “and tell her she need never send anither drummer,
her own death and actually warmed her hands at the for I’ll serve him the same!” History is silent on Lady
blaze.” The sinister belief in shape-shifting, an integral Janet’s reaction, but so far as we know, the drummer
part of witchcraft, was widespread in Scotland up until never went “tuck-tuck-tucking” through the streets of
the nineteenth century. The animal most favoured for Thurso again.
shape-shifting was the wolf. The word were-wolf has
this ancient belief enshrined in it; it means “weird- Q: Who were the Buchanites?
wolf”. In Scotland we get a glimpse of this belief in A: In the late eighteenth century there arose
personal names and place names. For example, Cinel throughout Britain a widespread dissatisfaction with
Loairn, from which the name Lorne in Argyll is derived, conventional marriage and the many constraints that
is from the Gaelic word loarn, a wolf. The clan name went with a church-sanctioned marriage. This gave
Maclennan means ‘son of the wolf”. rise to the so-called sale of women in public auctions,

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