What's a Sassenach?

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Royal Stuarts
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My bairn asked me that question the other day, and this is what I told him.

Weel, lad, Ill tell ye. Sassenach are folk that are no Scots. Though ye could say that they're folk that are no Celts - I dinna think ye can call most Irish, Welsh or Cornishmen real Sassenach.

Noo then, lad, I dinna want ye treatin Sassenach like inferior folk, een though thats often true. There are guid, kind, intelligent and een holy people among their different tribes. Why, maist o the saints ye hear tell of are Sassenach. That's why yere no tae be treating folk unkindly just for an accident o birth that they're nae Scots - pity them, aye, but dinnae mock them.

Can ye tell a Sassenach? O course, ye can always tell a Sassenach - but ye canna tell em mickle!

Och, ye mean how do ye ken a Sassenach frae a Scotsman? Weel, there be several ways. Do ye ken walkin in the market last week, and ye mentioned that lassie passing who smelt like flooers? They call that a scent, pair-fume, colon, or such-like. Sassenach o both sexes wear stuff tae mak them smell like something they be-nt, belike a garden, or a kitchen or.... I heerd o one for gents that they call English Leather. Weel, laddie, I mysel dinna want to smell like something trapped betwixt a sweatin horse and an Englishmans backside, but there's nae accoontin for taste.

Why do they wear such folderol?

I dinna truly ken, unless they canna stand their ain aroma. True, Scots bathe regular, another difference wi the Sassenach. Why, our Queen Marys coosin, the English lass, scandalized her subjects by saying in public that she bathed once a month whether she needed to or no!

Speakin o matters o taste, food is another distinction tween Scots and Sassenach. Those outlanders eat outlandish things - snails, frogs and sich - or cover up meat wi spiced sauces so ye canna tell if its coo, mutton, horse, or somewhat else. Yet they dinna ken how we can list wha gaes in tae a haggis and still eat it.

Noo, many tribes o Sassenach tak great pride in their facial hair. Why, I've seen growths on an upper lip that would do a walrus proud. Walrus, laddie, ye remember, at the Calder Park Zoo?

Aye wi the breath like Uncle Alistair after a bad nicht.

These grand mustaches they wax and shape in tae curlicues, horns, or een daggers. Their beards they oil, braid, tie wi ribbands... och, sae fancy! And many of their men do the same things.

Other folk have strange was ospeech - Whah, Ah do declayun, thas so kand o yall! or ye might hear somwhat like Wotcher, guv! Tyke a butchers at me gel there. Aynt she sumpn? So ocoorse, mony Sassenach hae trooble wi the wa guid Scots speak. I ken a lassie nicht sae lang syne wha asked me aboot my accent. She went aroond tae and frae, prating tha she couldna mak oot my woorrds! Och, bairn, ilka Sassenach maun no ken Anglic verra mickle!