Nelly Blair

Nelly Blair, later Nelly Smith (1759–1820) is sometimes suggested as being Scottish poet Robert Burns' first love.

The true identity of Nell Burns himself did not identify his 'Handsome Nell' by name. Nelly Kilpatrick has been suggested as being Burns's first romantic love, but some significant doubts exist about the true identity of this individual. It was thought to be a Nelly Blair until Burns's sister Isabella gave the name Nelly Kilpatrick, however Isobel was only three years old at the time of Burns's association with Nelly and some doubt must be cast on her recollections at this stage in her life.

Life and character Burns stated that Nelly had a sweet voice and was wont to sing songs as she worked in the fields.

The first reference to Nelly's identity by the Reverend Hamilton Paul of Ayr in 1819 records that: "This nymph was afterwards married to a Carrick farmer, and became the mother of many sons and daughters, and who, when we saw her in 1811, still retained the characteristics of sonsieness, which so fascinated her helpmate in the work of the harvest as to betray him into the sin of rhyme. She sung delightfully, and he wrote a copy of verses to her favourite air or reel."

A parish record at Dreghorn records that a Helen Blair married a Carrick farmer, John Smith on 13 December 1788 and a daughter Helen was born at Dailly on 18 February 1789.

He wrote a poem to Nell, unpublished during his life, but it appeared in his Commonplace Book and set to the tune of Nelly's favourite reel.

He had heard her singing a song by a local country laird's son who was courting her and felt that he could do better, so it was with Nelly in mind that he wrote his first song "Handsome Nell" –

"O once I lov'd a bonnie lass, Aye, and I love her still; And whilst that virtue warms my breast, I'll love my handsome Nell."

The tune to the song has not come down to us. Some years later Burns wrote of this song, saying –

"I never had the least thought or inclination of turning poet till I got once heartily in love, and then rhyme and song were, in a manner, the spontaneous language of my heart. I remember I composed it in a wild enthusiasm of passion, and to this hour I never recollect it but my heart melts, and my blood sallies at the remembrance."

Nelly has been said to figure in Burns's poem,

"The lasses staw frae 'mang them a'''To pou their stalks of corn:But Rab slips out, and jinks about,Behint the muckle thorn:He grippet Nelly hard and fast;Loud skirl'd a' the lasses;But her tap-pickle maist was lost,When kitlin' in the fause-houseWi' him that night."

and the verse :

"Nell had the fause-house in her min', She pits hersel and Rob in; In loving bleeze they sweetly join, Till white in ase they're sobbin'; Nell's heart was dancin' at the view, She whisper'd Rob to leuk for't: Rob, stowlins, prie'd her bonny mou', Fu' cozie in the neuk for't, Unseen that night."