Robert Burns’ Eighteenth Century poem, Tam o’ Shanter, has an unlikely hero. The comic story of one boozy night filled with witches, whisky and devilry centres around Tam himself, but he his not the hero. Tam is, according to his wife, “a skellum, a bletherin’, blusterin’ drunken blellum” (a lazy rascal who talks and drinks too much). The hero of the story, the one who senses trouble, who faces the danger and who ultimately saves the day is not aperson at all, but Tam’s trusty, loyal horse, Meg.
A grey mare, Meg is the best horse in all of Scotland, perhaps the whole world. As the poetsays, a better horse “never lifted leg,” meaning that no better horse had ever walked the faceof the earth!
In the poem, we find Tam in a pub late at night. He is having a great time, chatting and joking and drinking. But all good things must come to an end, and drunken pleasures can’t last, they are “like the snaw falls in the river / A moment white, then melts
forever.” Midnight is fast approaching and that’s the time the pub must close and Tam mustleave. But it’s also the witching hour, the time of ghosts, of magic, of all sorts of spookygoings on…
It’s a horrible night, the wind howling, the rain pouring, and lightning flashing, “the wind blew as ‘twad blawn its last” (as if it would never blow again) and “loud, deep and lang[long] the thunder bellow’d!”. Tam mounts Meg and she carries him through the awful Scottish weather, racing to get him home. But Tam, head fuzzy with alcohol, gets distracted from his homeward journey. Through the darkness he sees an old kirk [church] that should be quiet, yet from it he hears to the sounds of music and laughter and dancing!
Tam wants to explore, but Meg is much smarter. She knows that at midnight in a terrible storm only evil spirits would be having a party! She refuses to go nearer, until “by the handand heel admonished” (Tam uses his hand and feet to command her to go forwards) she getsclose enough for Tam to see in. And there, laughing and dancing and whirling, are warlocks, witches and devils!
Sensible Meg wants to leave but foolish Tam hides so that he can watch the devilish party, with witches dancing jigs and . And then, in a moment of drunken madness, Tam shouts out and the witches all turn to see him! Realising he is in trouble, Tam mounts Meg just as the witches race out of the kirk, and as Meg speeds off they give chase, running after our pair“wi’ mony an eldritch skriech and hollo” (with lots of otherworldly screeches and hollering).
Meg dashes towards the nearest bride knowing that witches are not able to cross running water. She’s going as fast as she can as Tam holds on for dear life! But one witch manages to catch up with Meg just as she reaches the river. The witch flies at Meg, furious that Tam interrupted her dancing. The witch reaches out to grab ahold of Tam, but thinking quickly, Meg takes a huge leap to get over the river with the bridge! The angry witch takes a swipeand grasps Meg’s tail as she leaps, pulling it off and leaving Meg “scarce a stump”! Luckily for Tam, Meg is too heroic to be slowed by losing her tail and she gets him safely to the other side of the river and away from the witches. Poor Meg lost her tail but saved the day, and we hope that Tam gave her lots of treats as a reward!