Scots and Scotch

In his piece about the legitimacy of "Scotch" as a definition of a people, Allan Massie (Comment, 3 August) rightly rejects "Caledonian" as another marker of nationality and "Caledonia" to describe the country Scots live in. He mentions The Caledonian Folk-Song as well.

In fact, Caledonia was used by the Romans to describe only the region beyond the Antonine Wall (the Highlands) and the anonymous poem is actually The Canadian Boat-Song, with the memorable refrain: "Fair these broad meads, these hoary woods are grand; But we are exiles from our fathers' land."

These exiles were the children of those who had left the Highlands in the Clearances, "that a degenerate lord might boast his sheep", so they were Caledonians.

Christopher North (pen name John Wilson) is suspected to have written this poem inspired by a letter from a friend in Canada who was rowed down the St Lawrence River "by some strapping fellows all born in that country and yet hardly one could speak any language but the Gaelic".

Caledonian is too exclusive, so Scots and Scotland will just have to do.

ERIC BROWN

Southborough Road

Bromley, Kent