Magic Lantern Slide with Engraving Illustrating "Auld Lang Syne"

"We twa hae paidled i' the burn", a hand coloured black and white transfer printed image of a scene from the song.   Robert Burns created "Auld Lang Syne", perhaps the best known song in the English language, (although it is actually written in Scots), by reworking a snatch of a traditional song which he had collected. He first wrote down a version of it in 1788 whilst living at Ellisland Farm, 5 miles north of Dumfries.   In 1793 he wrote to George Thomson, his publisher, "...the old song of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript, until I took it down from an old man's singing".   Magic lantern slides such as this were used at "pictorial concerts". Before the advent of the cinema, magic lantern shows were popular social gatherings.