“Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of auld lang syne?”

Words sung around the world when the bells chime at midnight on the last night of an old year and the first morning of a new one. These words were written by a poet of Ayrshire, Scotland, as a young man who hadn’t yet seen his 30th birthday – Robert Burns. Even without his most celebrated poem, Burns would be renowned throughout the world for such songs as “A Man’s A Man for A’ That,” “Ae Fond Kiss,” “Scots Wha Hae,” “My Heart’s in the Highlands,” and “The Battle of Sherramuir,” and poems like “Tam o’ Shanter,” “To A Haggis,” “To A Louse,” “To A Mouse,” and “Holy Willie’s Prayer.”

Certainly his literary influences can be seen far and wide – even across the Atlantic Ocean. Robert E. Howard, like most Americans, was a fan of the bard: The Howard family home’s library had the Harvard Classics volume The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns on their shelf, and Howard professed his great appreciation for Scottish culture and history time and again. In fact, REH once said that he was named after the mighty Robert the Bruce!

And while it is well-attested Howard was enraptured by Lili Damita, how could one not see a shadow of the Dance of Belit in Burns’ “Tam O’ Shanter,” where Nannie’s rollicking incurs a lubricious reaction in young Tam not unlike our favourite Cimmerian?

“But here my Muse her wing maun cour;
Sic flights are far beyond her pow’r;
To sing how Nannie lap and flang,
(A souple jade she was, and strang),
And how Tam stood, like ane bewitch’d,
And thought his very een enrich’d;
Even Satan glowr’d, and fidg’d fu’ fain,
And hotch’d and blew wi’ might and main;
Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tint his reason a’ thegither...

(translated):

But here my tale must stoop and bow,
Such words are far beyond her power;
To sing how Nannie leaped and kicked
(A supple youth she was, and strong);
And how Tom stood like one bewitched,
And thought his very eyes enriched;
Even Satan glowered, and fidgeted full of lust,
And jerked and blew with might and main;
Till first one caper, then another,
Tom lost his reason all together...”

Regardless of the subtextual influences Burns may or may not have had on Howard, there are some poems which are much more compelling – as they are written in the Scots language.

“The Deed Beyond the Deed”

This curious poem was included in a December 1928 letter to Howard’s friend, Tevis Clyde Smith, and features

“Rane o’ the Sword, wha’ men misca’ the fool,
Has turned his galley to the unco’ lands;
Now in the dragon girten prow he stands.
Billows abune the token o’ his rule,
Great fold on fold, the rover’s banner spread.
The hard neives dirl the ash ayint the tide
The war shields klish amain alang the side,
The red moon hammers dune a sea o’ red.

Rane o’ the Sword, nae sairly do we greet
To see your taps’yls scuddin’ dune the west,
Nae muckle love bear we for a’ your breed—
Bluid willna dry like water—yet ‘tis meet
We gi’ ye due, that curious unrest
Wha’ gars ye seek the deed beyant the deed.

(translation)

Rane of the Sword, who men miscall the fool,
Has turned his galley to the unknown lands;
Now in the dragon girten prow he stands.
Billows above the token of his rule,
Great fold on fold, the rover’s banner spread.
The hard fists shake the ash against the tide
The war shields clash strongly along the side,
The red moon hammers down a sea of red.

Rane of the Sword, not sorely do we weep
To see your topsail gliding down the west,
No great love bear we for all your breed
— Blood won’t dry like water—yet it fits
We give you due, that curious unrest
What causes you seek the deed beyond the deed.”

It isn’t half bad for someone who did not speak Scots as a first language, and doubly so for someone who lived outside Scotland! Given Burns’ fame, and Howard had a volume of his complete poetic works, it seems beyond doubt that Burns was the primary source of the Scots language for Howard in writing this poem. Several of the words Howard used appear in Burns poems:

“Wha’” (Who/Whom) is in the title of the Robert the Bruce patriotic song “Scots Wha’ Hae,” which Howard surely would have loved.

“Misca’” (miscall) is in “On the Late Captain Crose’s Peregrinations Thro’ Scotland,” “The Ordination,” and “Epistle to John Goldie, In Kilmarnock.”

“Unco” (unknown, unfamiliar, strange) is found in many Burns poems, but most prominently in “Tam O’ Shanter,” as well as “Halloween.”

“Abuin” (above) is found in “Godly Girzie” and “Guid Ale Keeps the Hert Abuin,” but is most famous in its alternate spelling “Aboon” in “To A Haggis.”

“Nieves” (clenched hands, fists) are found in “Sic A Wife As Willie Had” and, again, “Halloween.”

“Dirl” (the sensation of being struck; stun; vibrate; shake) is found in “Tam O’ Shanter,” “A Fiddler in the North,” and a few other poems which Howard seems to have revisited: “Death and Doctor Hornbook”

“Alang” (along) is found in several poems, including “A Vision,” “Address To The Toothache,” and “The Lass of Ballochmyle.”

“Doon” (down) appears in its adjective form in “There’ll Never Be Peace Till Jamie Comes Hame” and “A Vision,” but it appears often as a place name, as in “The Banks O’ Doon.”

“Nae” (no), being a very common word, appears in hundreds of Burns’ poems – including “Tam O’ Shanter,” “Halloween,” “A Vision,” and “Death and Doctor Hornbook.”

“Sairly” (sorely) is found in the well-known “To A Louse,” as well as “Halloween.”

“Greet” (cry; weep) is found in “Tam O’ Shanter,” “There’ll Never Be Peace Till Jamie Comes Hame,” and “Death And Dying Words of Poor Mailie,” while also found with its English definition in several others.

“Muckle” (much, a large quantity) appears in “Halloween,” “Death and Dything Words of Poor Mailie,” and “Death and Doctor Hornbook.”

“Bluid” (blood) appears in the likes of “Address of Beelzebub,” “Ballad on The American War,” and “The Five Carlins: An Election Ballad.”

“Gi’” (give) is found as “gi’en” in “She’s Fair and Fause” and as “gie” in “To A Louse.”

“Gars” (causes; provokes; inspires) can be found in “Tam O’ Shanter,” “Address to the Toothache,” & “Lines to John M’Murdo, Esq. Of Drumlanrig.”

I think there’s good enough evidence to suggest that Howard may have derived these words from the Burns poems – certainly I think an argument could be made that Howard at least read some poems like “Tam O’ Shanter,” “Halloween,” “Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie, “A Vision,” “Death and Doctor Hornbook,” and “To A Louse,” Certainly the likes of “Tam O’ Shanter” and “Halloween” are very much up Howard’s alley.

Burns’ poetry first appeared alongside Howard’s work in the May 1938 edition of Weird Tales, where an excerpt from “Tam O’ Shanter” preceded “Pigeons from Hell” – both illustrated by the inimitable Virgil Finlay. A decade later, a number of Burns’ poems – along with work by fellow Scottish giants James Hogg and Walter Scott – were included alongside Howard’s in August Derleth’s 1947 anthology Dark of the Moon: Poems of Fantasy and the Macabre. The connection between the two Roberts persists even to this day.

Al Harron is an artist & writer born and raised on the West Coast of Scotland, and became an aficionado of weird and fantastic fiction from an early age. He currently operates the weird fiction blog The Blog That Time Forgot, and the Scottish cultural & current affairs blog A Wilderness of Peace.