James Macpherson is often referred to as the Scottish Robin Hood and famous for his fiddle tune “Macpherson’s Rant†he played in the gallows awaiting his execution (later rewritten by the Scottish poet Robert Burns). He was born the illegitimate son to a Scottish Lord and a beautiful Scottish tinker (the equivalent of a gypsy woman). The Lord took him into his house and provided for him until he died, upon which time the child James was returned to his mother. He became a pirate of sorts, but never perpetrated a crime on the vulnerable or distressed; hence, his Robin Hood association (rob from the rich, give to the poor). A posse of rich Lords and farmers eventually captured him and he was sentenced to death. His famous “rant†sings in part: “Ach, little did my mother think / When first she cradled me / That I would turn a roving boy / And die on the gallows tree…Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, / Sae dauntingly gaed he; / He play’d a tune, and danc’d it roon’ / And they hanged him from a tree.â€
