Cutty-sark (witch) "chemise", or "shirt". The earliest recorded literary usage of the term "cutty sark" (as opposed to older usage of the two separate words) is by Dougal Graham in c. 1779 (the year of his death): "A cutty sark of guide harn sheet, My mitter he pe spin, mattam." In Burns' 1791 poem Tam o' Shanter, the drunken Tam, riding home on his horse, happens upon a witches' dance. Among the dancing figures is a particularly beautiful young witch named Nannie (Scots pet-form of Anna), "ae winsome wench and wawlie" (line 164). She is wearing a "harn" (linen) "sark" (nightshirt) which
George Thompson (shipowner) was designed for this trade. On her maiden voyage in 1869 she broke records for London to Melbourne, Newcastle (NSW) to Shanghai and Foochow to London. Ousted from the tea trade by steamers in 1879, Thermopylae was deployed as a wool clipper on the Australian trade. In both the Chinese tea trade and the Australian wool trade her chief rival was Cutty Sark. Thermopylae was one of only two composite (i.e. iron and hardwood) ships owned by Thompson. Thereafter his ships were mainly constructed of iron. They included Patriarch and Samuel Plimsoll. George Thompson had adopted the famous loadline recommendations