gowk

But just as the poem begins with an epigraph that identifies the Muse's singing of 'humble rural Things' as but a first step in rising higher, this 'Hoden Gray' is quickly revealed to be a pastoral disguise, a pose of humilitas used to poke fun at the misplaced condescension of English readers and which unites the material and the discursive in a vision of improvement: 'THUS, Sir, of us the Story gaes,/By our mair dull and scornfu' Faes./But let them tauk, and Gowks believe/While we laugh at them in our Sleeve;/For we, nor barbarous nor rude,/Ne'er want good Wine to warm our Blood' (p.

In Scotland, the butts of April Fool's jokes were known as April "Gowks," another name for a cuckoo bird.

The problem for the Scot Nats is that they think they have a monopoly on patriotism and those Scots who don't subscribe to their Scots Wha Hae mentality are gormless gowks. They just can't accept that we're no sae daft.