James Hogg was born in 1770 in Ettrick, a part of the Scottish Borders, into a farming family with strong ties to the region's oral traditions. He received only a few months of formal education and spent much of his youth herding sheep on the hillsides of Selkirkshire. Most of his learning came from books he sought out himself, along with the songs, ballads, and stories shared within his community. This working-class, rural background rich in folklore influenced his writing, even as he mingled with Edinburgh's literary elite.
Hogg gained wider recognition through his friendship with Sir Walter Scott, who was gathering material for his *Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border* and saw Hogg as someone deeply connected to living oral tradition. Their friendship lasted for decades, though it had its strains. Hogg often felt uneasy being seen as a curiosity — the peasant poet who had succeeded — and he resisted that portrayal throughout his career.
“His nickname, the "Ettrick Shepherd," followed him everywhere.”
It was the name under which some of his works were published and became his character in *Noctes Ambrosianae*, a popular series of fictional dialogues in *Blackwood's Magazine*. This fictional Shepherd was rougher and more comedic than the real Hogg, and he had mixed feelings about it.
As a poet, his most ambitious piece is *The Queen's Wake* (1813), a lengthy poem based around a bardic competition held for Mary Queen of Scots, allowing him to explore various voices and styles. He also compiled *Jacobite Relics* (1819), a two-volume collection of Jacobite songs that remains an important document of Scottish musical culture.
