'The Cottar's Saturday Night' was published in 1786 and tells the story of a young man's adventures one evening while visiting his beloved. The subject of the poem was charged with personal associations and observed from direct experience. Burns's father was himself a Cottar (a landless peasant employed on a farm and provided with a cottage attached to the farm building). In the poem, the verses are divided into sections of patriotic and religious commentary, which are written in English; the descriptions of the Cottar's home and his daughter Jenny and her young man, are written in Scots.