Composed in the 1370s by an archdeacon of Aberdeen, this long poem in rhyming couplets follows Robert the Bruce from his seizure of the Scottish crown through defeat, flight and hiding in Carrick and the Highlands to Bannockburn and beyond. W. M. Mackenzie’s edition prints Barbour’s Older Scots text with an introduction on the two surviving manuscripts.
The earliest major work of Scottish literature, best approached by readers already at ease with Chaucer’s English. Download the free EPUB.