The first line of one of Maurice Lindsay's poems 'Speaking of Scotland' starts with the question: ' What do you mean when you speak of Scotland?' It is in the search to answer this question that the following book attempts to address the issue of understanding the very essence of Scotland what has made up this complex nation throughout the ages and how its identity can be understood and 'translated'. In translating Scotland in explaining what is meant by the peoples who have made up the Scottish nation over the centuries and how their various identities have come to shape the Scottish culture we know today Aniela Korzeniowska has reached towards the country's languages and literature how the turns of history have influenced what has been written and how this literature has been written.