How The First Helandman of God Was Maid

How the First Helandman of God Was Maid is an anonymous comic poem in Scots preserved in the Bannatyne Manuscript of the sixteenth century.

[1] The poem narrates how, following a wager proposed to him by Saint Peter, God creates the first Highlander from a piece of horse manure.

In the Bannatyne Manuscript the poem's full title is given as How the first Helandman of God was maid, Of ane Horss Turd, in Argylle, as is said.

[1] The poem opens with God and Saint Peter walking "High up in Argyll, where their path lay."

The Highlander does not reply but, while turning to leave, the lost knife falls from a fold of his plaid.