James Hogg

James Hogg was born in 1770 in the Ettrick Valley, the second of four sons of a poor, tenant farmer. James only attended school for six months as his parents lost all their money and were evicted from their home. James was taken from school and placed as a general labourer and shepherd on a neighbouring farm. He remained a shepherd until his late thirties. His family had been steeped in the folklore and oral tradition of the Border country (it was said that Hogg’s maternal grandfather ‘Will O’ Phaup’ was the last man to have conversed with the fairies); indeed, his mother met Sir Walter Scott (Scott was to become a life-long friend of James Hogg) who was scouring the Borders for disappearing ballads, and sang some songs for him. Hogg later wrote of the meeting:

“My mother chanted the ballad of auld Maitlin to him, with which he was delighted, and asked her if she thought it had ever been in print. Her answer was, ‘O na sir, it was niver prented i’ the warld, for my brothers an’ me learned it an’ many mair frae auld Andrew Moor, and he learned it frae auld Baubie Mettlin … there are mony queer stories about hersel’, but O she had been a grand singer o’ auld songs and ballads.”

Hogg taught himself to read by memorising the Psalms and he read widely throughout his life. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Hogg was working on a farm belonging to the Laidlaw family who became very fond of him and allowed him free use of their library. He loved his life on the hills and the open spaces but he never idealised nature in his writing.

In his teens James began to write songs and verses and became known locally as ‘Jamie the Poeter’. In 1801 he self-published a collection Scottish Pastorals, Poems, Songs etc. but this received little attention. After the publication of Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders Hogg decided to publish his own collection of ballads, The Mountain Bard. This received critical acclaim and he followed it up with a prose work, The Shepherd’s Guide. His next collection was published in 1810 after he had moved to Dumfriesshire, The Forest Minstrel. It was at this time that Hogg moved to Edinburgh determined to give up his farming life and succeed as a writer. In 1813 he published the epic cycle of ballads, The Queen’s Wake, which was critically acclaimed in Britain and America, bringing him the recognition he desired – it ran to ten editions in ten years. Hogg moved back to the Borders in 1815 when the Duke of Buccleuch offered him the tenancy of a farm rent-free. He continued to write and publish poetry and in 1820 married Margaret Phillips. His farming ventures were never successful and he turned his hand to writing fiction: The Brownie of Bodsbeck, The Three Perils of Man, and The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

‘Confessions’, published in 1824 is considered Hogg’s masterpiece. It was published anonymously in London, for as Hogg later said, “It being a story replete with horrors, I durst not put my name to it.”

Initial reviews were hostile, not surprisingly given its subject matter of satanic possession, split personality and religious excess. It is the fictitious diary of a debased Calvinist who believed himself exempt from any moral code because he is one of the ‘elect’, predestined to enter heaven. The book tells and re-tells the story from different viewpoints rendering the reader incapable of making sharp-edged judgements. Many contemporary critics refused to believe that Hogg was the author of ‘Confessions’, saying that he was not a good enough writer. James Hogg died on twenty-first November 1835 at the age of 64 years. He was buried at Ettrick Kirkyard within a mile of his birthplace. A monument to his memory was built by St Mary’s Loch.

Two contemporaries have left us with descriptions of Hogg:

A Glasgow student in 1818 described him as ‘a thick, sturdy, blowsy looking fellow who had the appearance of a porter…’

John Lockhart said of him, that ‘His face and hands are still as brown as if he lived entirely out of doors. His very hair has a coarse stringiness about it… and hangs in playful whips and cords about his ears…’

Hogg was widely known as the ‘Ettrick Shepherd’ and it is this image of him – uncouth and uneducated – which was satirised by his contemporaries. According to Professor Ian Campbell of the University of Edinburgh, ‘Their private joke became a public misconception which has endured.’

Hogg’s poetry has not yet received the re-publication and re-evaluation of ‘Confessions’ but modern editions can be found:

A Shepherd’s Delight: A James Hogg Anthology, Canongate, Edinburgh, 1985

James Hogg: Selected Stories and Sketches, Douglas S. Mack, Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, 1982

The Brownie of Bodsbeck, Douglas S. Mack, Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, 1976

Hogg’s published works include:

Scottish Pastorals (1801)

The Mountain Bard (1807)

The Shepherd’s Guide (1808)

The Forest Minstrel (1810)

The Queen’s Wake (1813)

The Pilgrims of the Sun (1815)

The Poetic Mirror (1816)

The Brownie of Bodsbeck (1818)

The Jacobite Relics of Scotland (1819-21)

Ballads collected from Hogg’s family appear in Walter Scott’s ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border’ (1802/3)