Robert Burns Tam O' Shanter

Tam o' Shanter might never have been written if Robert Burns had not met Captain Grose who was in Scotland collecting material for his forthcoming book, The Antiquities of Scotland. Burns took to this fat, jovial man and asked him to include a sketch of Alloway Kirk, where Burns father was buried, in the publication. Grose, who was interested in the supernatural, agreed but on condition that Burns pen a story on witches. The result was Tam o'Shanter which was reputedly written in one afternoon on the banks of the river Nith. Tam O'Shanter.