LOCAL writer, one-time teacher of English and occasional musician Ian McFadyen will be joined by his daughter Mairi, Peebles folksinger Ron Murray and Robert Barr, a kenspeckle figure in both farming and theatrical circles, to present “The Greater Craftsman? An Evening with Burns, Scott and Tam Lin” at the Museum Room, Chambers Institute, Peebles.

It will be an evening of storytelling on Friday, August 29, as Robert and Mairi present Ian’s version of the famous Border tale – and song, as Ron presents his take on two songs written by Ian and inspired by the legend of Tam Lin. The first half also contains a brief “overview” of the story from Ian.

There will be an interval for refreshments, and the second half will consist of an illustrated talk which is billed as a contest between two of Scotland’s most heavyweight writers. In the blue corner, from the Borders, Walter Scott, and in the red corner, from Ayrshire, Robert Burns.

Most of us know that Tam Lin (“The Young Tamlane”, to be pedantic) is one of the most famous items in Scott’s “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders”.

It is less well known that Burns presented a version of ”Tam Lin” to Johnson’s “Scots Musical Museum” which obviously pre-dates the “Minstrelsy”. In fact, a bit of research confirms that Burns’ is the first complete version in print. Not only that, it is the one we are most likely to be familiar with: it has become the “cherished” version, the one most often used in anthologies, though you have to look in the very small print to find Burns getting any credit for it.

To observe these two heavyweights wrestling with the same material provides a unique opportunity for a detailed comparison which has never been made before and which, far from being odious, is provocative, entertaining, even exciting!