The Fenyeit Freir of Tungland

Ane Ballat of the Fenyeit Frier of Tungland, How He Fell in the Myre Fleand to Turkiland is a comic, satirical poem in Scots by William Dunbar (born 1459 or 1460) composed in the early sixteenth century.

The title may be rendered in modern English as A Ballad of The False Friar of Tongland, How He Fell in the Mire Flying to Turkey.

The poem mocks an apparent attempt by John Damian, the abbott of Tongland, to fly from a wall of Stirling Castle using a pair of artificial wings.

[1] John Damian was an Italian-born cleric who came to Scotland, at the start of the sixteenth century and became a protégé of King James IV.

[4] Dunbar's poem The Birth of Antichrist seems to be a second satire of John Damian with its reference to a flying abbot clothed in feathers.

Lesley records that, in 1507, Damian declared that he would travel to France by flight faster than a recently departed Scots embassy.

In a particularly scatological detail, the panic-stricken Damian loses control of his bowels above a herd of cattle, Deprived by the birds of his "plumage", he falls into a midden, "sliding up to the eyes in muck".

[6] Dunbar's clear intention is to mock his target by any means available and so the reader must be the final judge of what is true and false in the poem.