The Song in the Green Thorn Tree by James Barke was first published in 1947. It’s the second book in a four book series about the life of the Scottish poet Robert Burns.
At the end of the first book The Wind that Shakes the Barley, William Burns, father of Robert and his many siblings has died, really from overwork and poverty. Robert and his elder brother Gilbert have decided to take on another farm as tenants. They think that with hard work which they aren’t afraid of they can improve the soil and drain the land which will make it a good paying farm but in reality Mossgiel turns out to be just as bad a farm as the one that had killed their father, with thin and stony soil. They’ve made exactly the same mistake that their father did. Mossgiel isn’t far from the village of Mauchline – or Machlin as for some reason it is named in the book.
Robert is soon introduced to the ‘howffs’ of Machline and although he’s not a massive drinker he enjpys the cameraderie of the places, especially Poosie Nansies which is frequented by the tinkers and lower classes. He’s drawn to the place as there’s always so much noise coming from it, fun laughter and singing. It’s the songs that Robert is most interested in and he collects tunes and songs that otherwise would have been lost forever, songs which are still sung nowadays.
There’s no doubt that this was a formative period for Burns with his poems coming thick and fast. This was probbaly because he was immersing himself in the company of the young women of the neighbourhood, and they inspired him to write poems to them. But I think he had impregnated three women at this time, within a year – or was it four women? Anyway he was on the ‘cutty stool’ in the church, being berated by the minister for his shameless fornicating.
At the end of this book Burns is getting ready to sail for Jamaica where he has the promise of a job as a bookeeper, and he’s going to take his latest squeeze with him who is of course pregnant. At the last minute he gets a reprieve with the printing of his poetry in a book becoming popular and selling out, and his friends think that he’ll be a star in Edinburgh.
I wasn’t at all sure about reading this series but I’m really enjoying them.