Cutty-sark (witch) about scantily-clad females. The popularity of this poem was such that the phrase "Well done, Cutty-sark!" entered the English language via Scots as an exclamation similar to "Bravo!" Literary allusions to the original Cutty-sark abound. In "Ulysses", James Joyce writes: "Laughing witches in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broom sticks" (p. 695). Cutty-sark (witch) "Cutty sark" is 18th-century Scots for "short chemise" or "short undergarment". Hyphenated, Cutty-sark was a nickname given to the witch Nannie Dee, a fictional character created by Robert Burns in his "Tam o' Shanter", after the garment she wore. The figurehead of the
Cutty Sark Cutty Sark Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the River Clyde in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development, which halted as sailing ships gave way to steam propulsion. The opening of the Suez Canal (also in 1869) meant that steamships now enjoyed a much shorter route to China, so "Cutty Sark" spent only a few years on the tea trade before turning to the trade in wool from Australia,