the  most  considerable  of  contemporary  vernacular  poets
HUGH  MACDIARMID

Violet Augusta Mary Frederica Kennedy-Erskine, weel-kent be her merriet name o Violet Jacob, wisna like mony ither scrievers in the North-East mither tongue.  She wis the dother o Captain William Kennedy-Erksine (1828-1870) and Catherine Jones.  Violet's grandmither wis Lady Augusta FitzClarence ain of the illegitimate dothers o King William IV an the weel-kent actress Dorothy Jordan.  

Her fadder wis the 18th Laird of Dun jist ootside Montrose an is a bairnie hid a richt preevileged upfeshin.  An yit, a wife kin wi ryaltie, scrievt some o the best, maist authentic wark in the tounge o the north-east. 

Violet hid free-rein as a bairn tae mix we the fowk on the fairm at Mains o Dun, the hame fairm on the estate.  She lairned the leid o the grieves, the orramen, the ploomen and the cottars fa aa warket the fairm.  She mixed we their bairns tee an wis aften taen tae their hames.  As a quine she slippit natural intae the Mearns dialect hail unselfconsciouslike an wis, therefore, vrocht up bi-lingual. 

VIOLET JACOB. Pikter be kind permission o Angus Archives.

The Hoose of Dun far Violet wis vrocht up.

She wid efter spak aboot the cairy o the ‘suffocating respectability’ o the life she an her siblings wis suppost tae hae bit thit she wis ‘aye in and oot amo’ the ploomen’s feet at the Mains o’ Dun’.

Violet merriet Arthur Otway Jacob in 1894, a professional sodget wi the 20th Royal Hussars.  It wis a lang an affa happy merrige an they hid ae loon, Harry.  Arthur wis postit tae India, Sooth Africa and Egypt and they spint mony eers owerseas.   

---

Click ablo tae ging tae National Leebrar o Scotland for digital copy o Northern Lights

FLEMINGTON

Click abeen tae git the full buik on Projik Gutenberg.

---

Past life, past tears, far past the grave,
The tryst is set for me,
Since for our all, your all you gave
On the slopes of Picardy.
~
On Angus, in the autumn nights,
The ice-green light shall lie,
Beyond the trees the Northern Lights
Slant on the belts of the sky.
~
But miles on miles from Scottish soil
You sleep, past war and scaith,
Your country’s freedman, loosed from toil,
In honour and in faith.
~
For Angus held you in her spell,
Her Grampians, faint and blue,
Her ways, the speech you knew so well,
Were half the world to you.

Yet rest, my son: our souls are those
Nor time nor death can part,
And lie you proudly, folded close
In France’s deathless heart.

The muckle tragedie o Violet Jacob's life wis thit her only son, Harry, wis killt it the Battle o the Somme.   She scrievt aboot this in ae single poem in English, fit opent her More Songs of Angus and others in 1918.  She nivver got ower the loss o Harry an her grief rins throuw mony ither poems lik The Field by the Lirk o' the Hill in fit ye hear the vyce o bereavet fairm wife.

Prood maun ye lie,
    Prood did ye gang;
Auld, auld am I,
    But O! Life’s lang!
Ghaists i’ the air,
    Whaups cryin’ shrill,
An’ you nae mair
I’ the field by the lirk o’ the hill –
    Aye, bairn, nae mair, nae mair,
I’ the field by the lirk o’ the hill!

Violet we her loon Harry. Pikter courtesy o the National Trust fir Scotland.

READ MAIR ABOOT THE JACOB LETTERS

Scrievin in Scots wis natrel tae Violet.  She cuid scrieve aboot the fowk o her ain Angus.  She hid understaunin an sympathy for ither fowk, especially fowk waur off than hersel, the puir, the hameless, fit wis unfair atween mannies and wifies. 
John Buchan scrievin in intraduction taae Songs of Angus said ‘She writes Scots because what she has to say could not be written otherwise’.  Hugh MacDiarmid scrievit a bittie on her fir the Scottish Educational Journal in 1925; though nae atoot criticism, he thocht weel o her claucht o the vernacular and reest up her wark in Scots.

---

Oh, tell me what was on yer road, ye roarin' norlan wind
As ye cam' blawin' frae the land that's niver frae my mind?
My feet they trayvel England, but I'm deein' for the north –
My man, I heard the siller tides rin up the Firth o' Forth.
– fae "The Wild Geese", Songs of Angus (1915)

​

---

MAIR ABOOT ​VIOLET JACOB 
AT THE
SCOTTISH  POETRY  LEEBRARy

---