The Flyting of Jacksoun and Broun

I that al lettris wel can reid,
Am trublat now of Broun's puir heid:
He can na reid how it schould go—
Resad fili Spusscio

I spare no man for his piscense,
Na clerk for his intelligence,
I will na saften strak ne blow—
Resad fili Spusscio

Guid Father Ryan of Dublin toun,
He will na haf na truk with Broun,
In him and me he has ane fo—
Resad fili Spusscio

He can ne reid ane minuscule,
Stultus stultorum, schamyt fule,
Large assis earis on him grow—
Resad fili Spusscio

In the musaeum is hes place,
He schould be clappit in ane case,
With flyting passers-by to crow—
Resad fili Spusscio

‘1960’

NOTES

• SP added a note at the end addressed to Kenneth Jackson, when he sent a copy of the poem: 'My Middle Scots isn't what it should be, no doubt, but I felt you deserved a commendatory verse on approximately these lines!'
Jackson replied (undated letter from the Staff Club, Minto House, Edinburgh): 'Many thanks for the witty and amusing "Flyting"—what an accomplished person you are besides being an alpha plus plus archaeologist! I confess I'm no Middle Scots expert, but to me it seems indistinguishable from Dunbar & Co. . . I can't bear to see Celtic studies, which are fuller of lunacies than most studies are, loused up with further wildnesses; hence the article in question, and others.'

• Charles Thomas’ comments in a letter 10-i-1998; (his date for SP's poem): 'When O'Dell and Co at Aberdeen grubbed up the St Ninian's Isle hoard, one of the silver chape things had this inscription. This was 1957-9. I was sent up to see O'Dell and try to get some sort of plan and detail of this terrible excavation. O'Dell published what he thought was his reading ( with 'ADKIL' etc) in Antiquity 33 (1959), 241-268, and was pulverised for it by Kenneth Jackson, Antiquity 34 (1960) 38-42. In O'Dell's paper, it was TJ Brown pp.250-255, who put forward the (wrong) readings (= the late Julian Brown, then Assistant Keeper, Dept of MSS, British Museum); no, sorry, wrong, Brown supported Jackson's. In Jackson's paper, KJ cites (42, n26) the support of Rev Prof John Ryan, Dublin, for one of his statements. (Brown sort of lingered on, over a first British Museum reading with pb.s.sc.io, and Jackson attacked this.) The whole controversy got very silly & public. SP wrote this—I remember seeing it—after the March 1960 Antiquity came out. Was it not sent to Jackson? SP and Kenneth were quite close then, and both poked fun at the Braid Middle Scots school, wh. Jackson disliked intensely.'
• stultus stultorum: fool of fools