‘The Legend of St. Ronan’
I am delighted to share this blog today, which is a bit different from my usual stuff, and is timely with Innerleithen’s annual festival of St. Ronan just around the corner. It is a poem, in Border Scots, written by my Great Uncle, the late Jim Waddell. Jim had a real talent for poetry, as this demonstrates. Jim was also a St. Ronan’s Standard Bearer (1951), a role I was later to fill, so a long love of St. Ronan’s Border Games runs through our family. Jim had the talent to explain the legend of St. Ronan in a really quite wonderful way with this poem - funny, descriptive and entertaining, it just cries out to be performed! The poem was emailed to me, and I am delighted to share it here to ensure it reaches a wider audience and helps to explain the enduring legend of St. Ronan taking down the De’il in the Leithen Valley.
Enjoy and On, St. Ronan’s, On!
