Tour Scotland travel video clip, with Scottish music, of the Highland Mary statue on visit to Dunoon the main town on the Cowal peninsula in the south of Argyll and Bute. The statue, unveiled in August 1896 and made of bronze, was sculpted by David Watson Stevenson. It stands, facing southeast, on a round ashlar pedestal with an octagonal cap and base. It is inscribed Burns Highland Mary. Mary Campbell, also known as Highland Mary, christened Margaret, on March 1763, was the daughter of Archibald Campbell of Daling, a sailor in a revenue cutter, whose wife was Agnes Campbell of Achnamore or Auchamore. Mary was the eldest of a family of four. Robert Burns had an affair with her after he felt that he had been " deserted " by Jean Armour following her move to Paisley in March 1786. The brief affair started in April 1786, and the parting took place on 14 May of that year. Her pronunciation of English was heavily accented with Gaelic and this led to her becoming known as Highland Mary. Mary Campbell died at the age of 23, around 20 October 1786, probably from Typhus contracted when nursing her brother Robert. She was buried in the old West Kirk churchyard at Greenock, in a lair owned by her host and relation Peter Macpherson.[9] A story is told that some superstitious friends believed that her illness was as a result of someone casting the evil eye upon her. Her father was urged to go to a place where two streams meet, select seven smooth stones, boil them in milk, and treat her with the potion.
Mary inspired some of Burns's finest and most famous poems:
Ye banks and braes and streams around
The castle of Montgomerie,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!
There simmer first unfauld her robes,
And there the longest tarry!
For there I took the last fareweel
O' my Sweet Highland Mary.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
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