Quote Originally Posted by cajunscot View Post
Specifically, it was a line from Burns' poem 'On the Late Captain Grose's Peregrinations Thro' Scotland':

Hear, Land o' Cakes and brither Scots!

The Capt. Grose in question was Francis Grose, the noted English antiquarian who charged RB with writing a bit o' verse about "Alloway's Auld Haunted Kirk".

Regards,

Todd
Even more specifically, Robert Fergusson had already used the expression in his poem 'The King's Birthday in Edinburgh':

"Oh, soldiers! For your ain dear sakes
For Scotland's, alias, Land o' Cakes."

About the middle of the 14th Century Froissart visited Scotland, and in his Chronicles, described the staple diet of the Scots soldier: 'Under the flap of his saddle, each man carries a broad plate of metal; behind the saddle, a little bag of oatmeal. When they have eaten too much... sodden flesh, and their stomach appears weak and empty, they place their plate over the fire, mix with water their oatmeal, and when the plate is heated they put a little of the paste upon it, and make a thin cake, like a crackenel or biscuit, which they eat to warm their stomachs; it is therefore no wonder that they perform a longer day's march than other soldiers.'