Scottish Authors > James Hogg Novelist & Poet 1770-1835

Hogg was born in 1770 at Ettrickhall farm in the Ettrick valley: the cottage where he was born does not survive, but a Victorian monument marks the spot. His father, a sheep-farmer, became bankrupt in 1777, and as a result the young Hogg's formal schooling came to a premature end, the rest of his childhood being spent working as a cowherd and later as a shepherd. During his twenties, Hogg was employed as a shepherd by a relative of his mother's, Mr Laidlaw of Blackhouse farm, in Yarrow. At Blackhouse Hogg had access to a good collection of books; and he began to read widely, and also to write. Thereafter Hogg earned his living partly through various farming projects, and partly as a professional writer. In these roles he divided much of his time between Edinburgh and his native Ettrick Forest.

Hogg published mainly poetry until he was in his late forties. A particularly notable poem from this period is The Queen's wake (1813), a book-length narrative in which the poets of Scotland assemble at Holyrood Palace for a bardic contest to celebrate the return of Mary Queen of Scots from France. A notable series of novels followed: The Brownie of Bodsbeck (1818); The Three perils of Man (1822); The Three perils of Woman (1822); The Private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner (1824). An epic poem, Queen Hynde, followed in 1825: this is an exuberant and lively piece that is in essence Hogg's alternative version of James Macpherson's Ossian poem, Fingal. Many of Hogg's best later poems were collected in A Queer book (1832).

Hogg's writings explore the supernatural with great power and sophistication, as in The Justified sinner, which is regarded by many as the greatest of all Scottish novels. Equally powerful is The Three perils of Woman, which explores the terrible aftermath of Culloden. The Three perils of Man is Hogg's version of a Medieval romance. Overflowing with vivacity, this novel is full of devilry and witchcraft. Much of the action takes place at Aikwood in the Ettrick valley, where Gibbie Jordan witnesses a wedding between a demon and a witch. The happy couple retire to "a bower of the most superb magnificence"; and what happens next is later described by Gibbie to the King and Queen of Scots:

... at length the lusty bridegroom, as I supposed, began to weary of his mate, for I saw the form of the bower beginning to change, and fall flat on the top, and its hue also become of a lurid fiery colour. I cannot tell your Majesties what sort of sensations I felt when I saw the wedded couple sinking gradually down through a bed of red burning fire, and the poor old beldame writhing to death in the arms of a huge and terrible monster, that squeezed her in its embraces, and hugged her, and caressed her till the spark of wretched life was wholly extinguished.

Aikwood Tower is now the home of Sir David and Lady Steel and a Hogg exhibition at Aikwood is open to the public during the tourist season. Current interest in Hogg is also reflected in the fact that a multi-volume edition of his Collected works (prepared under the auspices of the University of Stirling and the University of South Carolina) is being published by the Edinburgh University Press.

Douglas S Mack

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