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I itudles in Lowland Scots / 




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STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 




PRINTED BY 

WILLIAM GREEN AND SONS 

EDINBURGH 



August 1909 




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STUDIES 



IN 



LOWLAND SCOTS 



BY 

JAMES CpLVILLE 
M.A., D.Sc, IN CoMP. Phil. (Edin.) 

AUTHOR OF 

"By-ways of History." Edin.: Douglas 
"Some Old-fashioned Educationists." Edin.: Green 

EDITOR OF 

'Coolcburn Letters" and " Ochtertyre House Book" (Scott. Hist Soc, Vols. 45 and 55) 

CONTRIBUTOR OP 

Art. "Scotland" to "Social England," 6 Vols. Cassells 



WITH FOUR PLATES 



EDINBURGH AND LONDON 

WILLIAM GEEEN AND SONS 

1909 
H. 



^?/«/ 






Jr 



INTEODUCTION 

These " Studies," as the title indicates, lay no claim to be a 
final or exhaustive treatment of the Scots vernacular in respect 
of its origin, character, and contents. They are the outcome of 
an early and sustained predilection for the subject, and testify 
to an interest in it not alone on its linguistic side, but also 
as illuminating the track of racial culture. The bulk of the 
matter has, from time to time, appeared in contributions to the 
Eoyal Philosophical Society of Glasgow and to the " Glasgow 
Herald," to both of which I shall ever owe a debt of gratitude. 
Its appearance in its present form is due to the support and 
countenance of the Carnegie Trust, which is doing so much for 
original research that would otherwise remain little more than 
a personal hobby. 

It would be a scholarly and patriotic task to trace the 
historical development and decline of the Scots vernacular, and 
to base, on an analysis of its literary remains on the one hand 
and of its living usages on the other, a scientific statement of 
its morphology and phonology, and of its affinities and character- 
istics. But I have contented myself with opening up, in 
independent fashion, suggestive lines of investigation, and with 
the recording of words and features now fast passing out of 
recognition. Within the peculiarly debatable sphere of the 
history of the words referred to, the interpretations offered are 
tentative and in no sense final. The text was first completed 
from my own point of view and resources, but I have taken the 
opportunity in the " Glossary " of checking all such statements, 
and frankly indicating any divergence these present from the 
conclusions of recognised authorities. It is hoped that the text 
will be read in the light of this annotated " Glossary." 

Though the work has been presented in a series of " Studies," 
it is hoped that the reader will not fail to see in the whole a 
unity of design. Nothing has been introduced which had not 
naturally a place within the central theme — the antiquity, 
continuity and persistency of the Scots vernacular. With this 
principle in view such apparently remotely connected subjects 
as Aryan Culture and the Gothic Gospels have been treated at 
length. The former places the Scots vernacular ^ithin the 



vi INTEODUCTION 

great Indo-Germanic unity of speech ; the latter shows its un- 
mistakable kinship with a band of brothers, following a serious, 
rural life so remote in time and space as Bulgaria in the fourth 
century of our era. The treatment is novel in so far as it is 
done from this Scots point of view. While we are all Indo- 
Germanic, it is impossible to affirm, in any precise sense, that 
the Lowland Scot is a lineal descendant of the Moeso-Goth, but 
what I have tried to make good is, that the speech of Bishop 
Wulfila's flock is as intelligible to the Scot now as, say, that of 
the Cumberland dalesman. Among the Low-German tribes — 
Dutch, Frisian, Norse — who must have early made themselves 
free of both shores of the North Sea, I do not venture to affirm 
which formed the link of connection and blood-brotherhood 
between Lowlander and Goth. That there was such a vital link 
is indubitable on the evidence of speech. Within these extremes 
will be found a mass of illustrative matter drawn from com- 
parison with the kindred dialects of Cumberland and the Scots 
Border, and from the South African Taal, which has preserved 
so much of what was once the common stock of shrewd, Bible 
and home-loving Hollander and Scot. 

Finally, and forming the kernel of the whole, the section 
entitled "Field Philology" gathers up the reminiscences, in 
phrase, folklore, and social customs, of a mid- Victorian rural 
Scotland at a time when home industries still lived, when 
railways were a wonder, and scientific inventions a dream. 
Here will be found much in idiom and vocable that has never 
yet been recorded. 

To the genuinely patriotic Scot, at home and abroad, I 
venture to appeal for recognition of the fact that this is, at 
least, a praiseworthy effort to preserve somewhat of his rare 
bi-lingual inheritance, and to offer an incentive to kindred 
workers in the field. Nor should it fail to interest also the 
student of English, which, on historical lines, owes so much 
to comparison with Northern speech. Such comparison the 
philological expert might also fitly welcome as the true method 
of scientific progress. 

JAMES COLVILLE. 

14 Newton Place, 
GLAfSGOW, Aiigust 1909. 



CONTENTS, SOURCES, AND AUTHOEITIES 
CONSULTED 



I.— THE DAWN, 1-58 

1. Codex Argenteus and its Story, 1-2 ; Bishop Wulfila and his Work, 

2-4 ; The Goths in History, 4-7 ; Their Place in the Indo-Eur. 
Family, Grimm's Law, 7-9 ; Gothic and Runes, 9-11 ; Gothic 
Phonology, 11-14 ; Lacunce in the Go. MSS., 15 ; Social Life of the 
Goths in their Vocables, 15-28 — (a) Personal Environment, 16-19, 
(b) Natural Environment, 19-21, (c) Activities, 22-28 ; Survivals in 
Sc, Eng. and Ger., 28-34 ; Value of Gothic in Compar. Grammar, 
specially for Scots, 34-42. 

2. Specimens of WuMla's " Gospels " — Grammatical Introduction, 43-46 ; 

Transliteration of Mark iv. 1-10, 46-48 ; Same Passage in Lowland 
Scots of 1520, 49 ; Luke ii. 4-20, 49-52 ; Same Passage in Lowland 
Scots, 52-3 ; Luke xv. 1 1-32, 53-56 ; Same Passage in Lowland 
Scots, 56-58. 

Sources, &t.: — Stamm's Ulfilas, Text. Worterhuch u. Grammatik neu 
herausgegeben von Dr. Moritz Heyne, 1872. Gotische Grammatilc 
mit einigen Lesestiicken u. Wortverzeichnis von Wilhelm Braune, 
1887. Moeso-Gothic Glossary and Grammar by Professor Skeat, 
1868. Moeso-Gothic Gospel of St. Mark by Professor Skeat (Clar. 
Press). Introduction to the Gothic of Ulfilas, 1886. Bosworth 
— Gothic, A.Saxon, WycHf and Tyndale's Gospels. Purvey's Re- 
vision of Wycliflfe's Version turned into Scots by Mtirdoch Nisbet, 
c. 1520, ed. T. G. Law, LL.D. (Scott. Text Soc). Die Vier 
Evangelien in Alt Nordhumbrisoher Sprache von Bouterwek, 1857. 
Die Heliand (Saviour) oder das Lied vom Leben Jesu, Kone, 1855. 

IL— IN DECADENCE, 59-108 

1. Scots Vernacular on its Literary Side, 59-63 ; Survival in Dialect, 

63-66 ; in Proverbial Sayings, 66-71 ; in Law and Church Life, 
71-76. 

2. Scots and English, 76-95 ; English and Scots contrasted in Phonetics, 

78-84 ; in Vocables, 84-87 ; in Grammar and Idiom, 87-95. 

3. Dialect and Vernacular compared, 95-99 ; Lowland Dialects and their 

Study, 99-101 ; Scots in the English Dialect Diet, 101-104 ; Mis- 
interpretations of Scots Scholars, 104-108 ; Contrast with the 
Intelligent Foreigner, 108. 

Sources: — Author's Observation and Reading. Quotations from Sir J. 
Murray's "Dialects of the South of Scotland," and Stevenson's 
" Underwoods." 



viii CONTENTS 

III.— FIELD PHILOLOGY, 109-164 

1. Village Life in Fifeshire, 109-141 ; Influence of Books and Education 

on a Vernacular, 109-113; A Campbeltown Ballad, 113-116; 
Dialect of the "Kailyard," 117-8; Village Sketch in Time and 
Place, 118-121 ; the Natural, Human Boy's Attitude to Rural Life, 
121-125 ; the Skylark, 126 ; Pleasures of Garden, Play, and Farm- 
yard, 126-133 ; Pleasures of "Winter Evenings, 133-136 ; Social 
Virtues and Manners, 136-139 ; Results and Lessons, 139-141. 

2. Farm Life in Moray, 141-164 ; Value of Field Philology, 141-143 ; 

Scene of Sketch, 143-145 ; Farm Work, 145-6 ; Domestic Animals, 
147-8 ; Plant and Animal Names, 148-9 ; Social Life, 149-153 ; 
Folklore, 154-156 ; Ross Narrative, 157-160; Cissy Wood and Cottar 
Life, 160-164. 

Sources: — Gregor's Glossary of the Buchan Dialect. Edmonston's 
Orcadian and Shetland Glossary. Jakohsen's Old Shetland Dialect. 
Shaw's Nithsdale. Author's Observations and Researches. Remini- 
scences of Old Inhabitants. 

The Bub-section No. 2 was very kindly and sympatlietically annotated by the Rer. 
James Cooper, Litt.D., Profes<ior ol Church History, University ol Glasgow. As a native of 
Morayshire, profoundly interested in all departments of Soots lore, he was pectdiarly fitted 
to supply valuable annotations. 

IV.— SIDE-LIGHTS, 165-225 

1. Vernacular of the Lake District, 164-189 ; Cumbria and Strathclyde, 

165-6 ; Affinities in Idiom and Grammar, 167-171 ; Archaisms in 
Common, 171-173 ; Border Parallels, 173-4 ; Comparison of Cu. and 
Scots in Vocables, 174-180 ; Social Customs, 180-2 ; Affinities in 
Scott and Burns, 182-3 ; Folklore, 183-187 ; Rural Pursuits, 187-9 ; 
Weather Lore, 189. 

Sources : — Glossary of Cumberland Dialect — Dickinson and Prevost. Phon- 
ology and Grammar of Cumberland Dialect — Dickson Brown. Sup- 
plemenf>-E. W. Prevost, Ph.D., F.R.S.E. Dialects of the South of 
Scotland — Murray. Glossary of Nithsdale Words — Shaw. 

2. Braid Scottis in the Transvaal, 190-225. 

(a) The Taal, 190-212— Dutch, the Taal, and Scots, 190-193 ; 
Familiar Affinities in Vocables, Idioms, Sayings, Social Customs, 
193-198 ; Rural Surroundings of Boer and Scot in Comparison and 
Contrast, 198-204 ; Social Life, 204-212. 

(V) Duncan Gray, in Taal, 212-217 — Burns in Boer Land, 212-3 ; 
Dantjie Groiiws, 214-5 ; Annotations, 215-6 ; As a Translation, 
216-7. 

(e) The Cottar's Saturday Night, 217-220 — Scene in Comparison 
and Contrast as between Boer and Scot, 217-220. 

(d) Tam o' Shanter, 220-225 ; Defects of the Translation, 220-1 ; 
Conviviality, 222-3 ; Superstitious Elements, 223-225. 

Sources: — How to Speak Dutch — Logeman and Van Oordt. A Veldt 
Official — Musgrave. Article, "Blackwood's Magazine," 1880-1. 
Burns in Other Tongues — Wm. Jacks, LL.D. Reitz's Renderings of 
" Burns " in Dr. Jacks' volume. Notes by Afrikanders. 



CONTENTS ix 

v.— FARTHER AFIELD, 226-263 

1. Scoto-Frenoli in the Lowland Vernacular, 227-243 ; the "Auld 

Alliance," 237 ; Dutch Trading Influences, 227-8 ; the " Scot 
Abroad," 228. 

Sources: — Ledger of Andrew Halyhurton, 1492, 229-30. Exchequer 
Accounts, 1538, 230. Tariff of Custom Dues, 1612, 231. James 
Bell's Pocket-Book, 1621, 231-3. Latin Grammars, 1587-1693, 
233-6. Seventeenth Century Diaries, 236-8. Glasgow Burgh 
Records, 1691-1717, 238-9. General Usage, 239-41. Burns's Poems, 
241-243. 

2. Primitive Aryan Civilisation, 243-263 ; Aryan a Linguistic, not a Racial, 

Unity, 243-4 ; Discovery of Sanskrit and its Consequences, 244-5 ; 
How to Estimate the Primitive Stock of Culture, 246 ; Common 
Vocables for (1) Family Ties, 246-248 ; (2) Man Generally, 248-9 ; 
(3) Home, 249-50 ; (4) Domestic Animals, 250-1 ; (5) Animal and 
Plant Life, 251-2 ; (6) The Homestead, 252-3 ; (7) Food, 253 ; (8) 
Occupations, 253-4 ; (9) Seasons, 254 ; (10) Civil Life, 254-5 ; (11) 
Mind and Myth, 255-6 ; Results, Mental and Material, 256-7 ; the 
Primitive Dispersal, 257 ; " Gothic Gospels," the Veda of the 
Teutons, 258 ; Traces of the Indo-Germanic Schism, 258-260 ; Home 
of the Aryas, 260-262 ; Views of Professor Sayce, 262-3. 

Sources : — Enumerated, 246. 

VI.— GENERAL INDEX, 264-271. 
VII.— GLOSSARY, 272-331. 



COEEIGENDA 

Page 19. 12 lines from top, for " wasi," read wasti. 
„ 23. 14 lines from top, for " dringan," read driugan. 
„ 46. Bead Verses 1-9 ; do. p. 49. 
„ 53. Middle, /or "liftus," read luftus. 
„ „ Middle, for " waljan,'' read walwjan. 
„ 70. 10 lines from foot, for " ill-sets," read ill-set's (as). 
„ 72. 9 lines from top, /or "At the head of," &c., read The head of. 
„ 129. 11 lines from top, /or "laidlick, a loath (tadpole and leech)," 

read laidliok, applied to the tadpole and leech. 
„ 142. 7 lines from top, for " A Mr. Eoss," &c., read This typical Scot, 

John Eoss by name, was spending, &c. 
„ 143. 5 lines from top, for " Heldon," read Keldon ; and, again, 

page 145. 
„ „ 14 lines from top, " Cistercians," see Index sub voce. 
„ 144. 6 lines from top, for " The nave," &c., read The nave was begun 

but never was finished. 
„ 148. 7 lines from top, for " Grigor," read Gregor ; and, again, pages 

151, 153. 
„ 148. 8 lines from top, for " rimin-mink," read rinnin-mink. 
„ 207. Middle, for " Ger. nephew,'' read Ger. Nichte. 
„ 220. 4 lines from top, /or "die Cristen-vader, the gray -haired sire)," 

read die Cristen-vader), the gray -haired sire. 



STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 



L— THE DAWN 

An Introduction to the Gothic Version of the Gospels 
BY Bishop "Wulfila and its Connection with Lowland 
Scots 

The tourist on the Ehine, looking down from the deck of his 
steamer as it breasts the tawny stream, will frequently pass in 
his course a slow procession of barges deeply laden with coal. If 
of an inquiring turn of mind, he will learn that these hail from 
the Euhr, a tributary that enters the great river near Diissel- 
dorf, the valley through which it flows enjoying a brisk trade 
in coal-mining and its allied industries. Three centuries ago, 
in an obscure monastery of this side-valley, in the little town 
of Werden, an inquisitive German — one Arnold Mercator — 
rummaging among the dusty tomes of its library, perhaps in 
search of plunder for his master, the Landgraf of Hesse, dis- 
covered a manuscript of rare beauty. As the Lutheran Ee- 
formation was then making havoc of monastic stores, the prize 
was removed for greater security to Prague. It had been 
written by some careful scribe in characters of silver on a 
purple or mulberry-tinted parchment.^ The letters of a few 
words at the beginning of each paragraph were in gold. How 
it had come to Werden no one could tell, but experts are agreed 

1 The accompanying facsimile is taken from Dr. Bosworth's edition of 
the " Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, WycliiTe, and Tyndale's Gospels." In Roman 
type it reads thus : — Unte jabai afletith mannam missadedins ize, afletith 
jah izvis atta izvar sa ufar himinam. Ith jabai ni afletith mannam mis- 
sadedins ize, ni than atta izvar ailetith missadedins izvaros. Aththan bithe 
fastaith, ni vair [thaith]. The Authorised Version (Matt. vi. 14-15) wUl 
furnish the reader with a translation. 

Professor Skeat ("St. Mark in Gothic") says : "The student who has 

1 



2 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

that it must have been made in Italy towards the end of the 
fifth or the beginning of the sixth century, i.e. during the rule 
of the Goths under Theodorie the Great. It was, indeed, a 
version of the Gospels in the language of the Goths. Towards 
the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648, Count Konigsmark, 
having captured Prague, carried off the MS. to Stockholm. 
Thereafter it had further adventures, having been for a time 
in Holland, but it was ultimately restored in 1669 to the royal 
library at Upsal, where it still remains. It contained the 
Gospels in 339 leaves, of which 177 are preserved, and is known 
as the Codex Argenteus. While in Holland it was printed for 
the first time at Dort, 1665, by Francis Junius, well known to 
literary students as the first to give the Anglo-Saxon poem of 
Csedmon ^ to the world, just as Milton was meditating his great 
epic. Junius prepared types which were a close facsimile of 
the Gothic characters. These types he afterwards presented to 
the University of Cambridge, where they are still preserved. 

What was the origin of this unique relic ? The early Church 
historians throw some light, unfortunately obscure, on its 
author. His name is variously spelt, but is best known as 
Ulfilas or Ulphilas, the Greecised form of the genuine Gothic 
Wulfila or Wolf -ling, showing the common diminutive suffix — 
ila as in att-ila, little father {atta, father); barn-ilo, bairnie 
{barn, child); maw-ilo, maiden, girlie (mawi, girl, Ger. Magd, 
our Maisie), the talitha or damsel, addressed to Jairus' daughter. 
The parents of Wulfila had been carried off from Cappadocia, 
near the end of the third century, in a raid of the Goths into 
Asia Minor, and formed part of a small colony that appear to 
have introduced Christianity among their captors. Born 311 a.d. 

already some knowledge of Middle English and Anglo-Sa^con will not 
experience much difficulty in gaining, in a short time, some elementary 
and very useful knowledge of Gothic." If he can supplement this or sub- 
stitute for it a knowledge of Lowland Scots, both profit and progress will 
be vastly enhanced. I warmly endorse what he adds : " A knowledge of 
Gothic ought to be as common among Englishmen"— and all Scotsmen — 
" as it is now rare ; and I trust, for the sake of English scholarship, that 
the present attempt to smooth the way for those who wish to understand 
more about the formation of the Teutonic part of our own language may 
meet with some success." 

1 Csedmon appeared in 1655. See Masson's Cambr. Milton I., 39. 



THE DAWN 3 

he became at an early age a leader among his countrymen, 
was much connected with Constantinople, where he was held 
in honour, was, after having been a lector or reader, consecrated 
bishop at the age of thirty by Eusebius of Nicomedia, and, after 
having held office for forty years, he died at Constantinople 
about 381. Wulfila was involved in the first great schism of 
the Church — he was an Arian — and had come, along with other 
bishops, to Constantinople on the last occasion, to procure from 
the Emperor the promise of a new Council to settle the faith. 
The rival party of Athanasius ultimately triumphed, and the 
name and work of the good missionary suffered in consequence, 
and speedily sank into obscurity. But in his own age his 
reputation was of the highest ; he wrote in Greek, Latin and 
Gothic ; and was spoken of as the Moses of his devoted people, 
having led his persecuted tribesmen through the Balkan passes 
and planted his colony of Goths in Moesia, the modern king- 
dom of Bulgaria. Byzantium was then the centre equally of 
the culture and philosophy of ancient Athens as of the Chris- 
tian faith, and in the midst of it all had this intellectual Goth 
been reared. His pupil and successor,^ Auxentius, has left a 
brief but touching account of his beloved master, reminding us 
of that more complete picture that has come down to us, under 
similar circumstances, of the last moments of his old English 
parallel, the Venerable Bede.^ 

Wulfila is said to have translated the entire Scriptures, with 
the exception of the Book of Kings. The reason given for this 
omission is that, knowing too well the warlike tastes of his 
countrymen, he hesitated to lay before them a part of the sacred 
narrative that spoke so much of battles and bloodshed. One 
might easily in these days fail to realise the full import of his 
great achievement. Here is a rude tribe, but little removed 
from barbarism — to the Greek and Eoman undoubted barbarians. 
Open though they might be to the ennobling influences of 
■Christianity, what is to be said of the courage, originality, and 

1 For a very full account of Wulfila, aud especially of what Auxentius 
has recorded of him, see Max Miiller's Lectures, Vol. I. ch. 5. 

2 To complete the parallel, it was ^Ifric who sketched for us how he 
wrote down the closing verses of St. John's Gospel to the dictation of his 
master as the light of his life was sinking into eternal night. 



4 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS ' 

confidence in their future that led their bishop to let them hear 
the Gospel story in their own vulgar tongue ? Ever since the 
beginning of literature there has existed a well-marked dis- 
tinction between the language of the vulgar and that of the 
learned — the lewed man and the clerk. The latter is the exclu- 
sive privilege of the educated, and specially of the priestly class ; 
the former is the vernacular, the speech of the verTM or house- 
hold slave, that which children may pick up from a nurse, but 
which they will be half-ashamed of soon as they cross the 
vestibulum of the grammar school and learn the language of 
books. Knowing the influence of our Authorised Version on 
the development of modern English, we can better appreciate 
the wisdom and foresight of Wulfila. That his efforts failed to 
effect a similar result for his native G-othic was due to the cruel 
destiny of his people, a destiny over which he could have had 
no control. A somewhat bewildering chapter in Gibbon, and a 
half-contemptuous application of the name in art, alone preserve 
the memory of the Goths. Obscure Teutonic tribes — Alemanni, 
Suevi, Balti, Belgians, Franks, Lombards — these survive in some 
form, but the name of the Goth is well-nigh effaced from the map 
of Europe. Let me hurriedly glance at the history of this people, 
our own kith and kin, as their language shows them to have been. 
The races that have played the chief part in the history of 
Europe fall into two distinct groups — the Latin and the Teutonic. 
The physical configuration of the Continent explains the divi- 
sion. Imagine oneself in a balloon in lat. 50° N., and what 
will be seen by the eye whose horizon is created by the imagina- 
tion? Southwards a great inland sea bathed in the golden 
light of a sub-tropical sky, lofty snow-clad mountains shut out 
the arctic blasts, long rugged spurs push their giant arms far 
into the blue waters, lovely valleys skirt the shores or lose 
themselves in the deep recesses of the foot-hills, winding bay 
and receding creek bring the sea-breeze that fills the social sail 
and tempts to a larger trade and a wider knowledge. North- 
wards, on the other hand, stretches an almost sub-arctic sea, 
broken into two irregular halves by peninsulas, its shallow 
waters washing dreary sandy shores, on every side a vast plain 
covered for ages with a dense forest through which mighty 
rivers pour their sluggish waters into storm-tossed seas, and 



THE DAWN 5 

ever overhead a changeful sky, now vexed with the drifting 
cloud-rack, now hid behind a pall of murky fog. Southern 
mountain-land, northern plain — these have ever been the 
respective homes of the Eoman and the Teuton. The Goths 
swooped down upon the eastern peninsula, the Vandals upon 
the western, where the name Andalusia still marks their foot- 
steps, while the fierce Viking Ber-serkr sailed his dragon prow 
through ^gean seas, but in time they lost their identity amid 
the orange groves and beneath, the blue skies of the south. 
Equally marked is the contrast between the pleasures, the 
business, and the thoughts of the two races. South of the Alps 
the unit of national life is the polis or the urbs — a busy city- 
life, quick-witted, eloquent, artistic, thronging agora and forum 
under the shadow of each rocky acropolis. In the huge, form- 
less, northern plain, on the other hand, man is lost in the world 
of mingled wood and water. His clearing in the forest is his 
homestead, the centre of social life. Eound it he plants his 
prickly hedge and calls the whole his tun (Ger. zaun, a hedge), 
the most general Teutonic place-name. In Gothic tains is a 
branch of the thorn-bush, tain-Jo the woven basket that received 
the fragments after the feeding of the five thousand. Here the 
family and not the bazaar is the social unit. 

In the ancient world the Eoman and the Teuton met again 
and again in conflict. The Empire held its own for a time 
when, across the Ehine and the Danube, securely flaunted the 
eagles of the legions. But decay set in and the Danube became 
the scene of danger. By the middle of the third century the 
Goths overran the whole country between the Baltic and the 
Black Seas. Eound the Carpathians they swarmed, seized 
Dacia (the modern Wallachia), crossed the Danube, and in 251 
they met in battle and slew the Emperor Decius. Then, sweep- 
ing over the Balkan Peninsula, they crossed into Asia, ravaging 
as far as Trebizond and Cappadocia. But in 269 they suffered 
a check at the hands of the Emperor Claudius, and for ninety 
years there was peace. Those north of the Danube came to be 
known as East Goths, those on the south side as West or 
Visigoths. Ermana-ric, or Herman-ric, made of the former a 
powerful dominion that had ultimately to succumb to that 
terrible scourge of Eastern Europe — the Tartar Huns. 



6 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SOOTS 

Meanwhile, the West Goths were torn by internal dissensions. 
A patriotic and apparently conservative party under Athana-ric 
was opposed to the Christian and Arian party under Frithigern, 
with whom Wulfila sympathised. The latter, to avoid persecu- 
tion, led a colony through the Balkan passes and settled within 
the Empire in what is now Bulgaria. This peaceful movement 
was, however, thwarted by cruel treatment that resulted in a 
rising in which the Emperor Valens was slain at Adrianople in 
378. His successor, Theodosius, made terms with the Goths, 
and many of them joined the legions. In subsequent Gothic 
history great names appear; — Alaric, the hero of national 
independence and unity, strong enough to sack Eome itself; 
Ataulf, the loyal ally and son-in-law of the Emperor Theodoric, 
who fell in battle with Attila, the Hun, on the Frankish plain 
of Chalons ; and, finally, Theodoric the Great, the protector of 
the peaceful Eoman against the Gaulish Odoacer, and Emperor 
of the once more united Western Empire. Therefore it is that 
in the Italy of the fifth century we find the last reliable traces 
of the Goths — the Codex Argenteus, other fragments of the 
Wulfilic translation discovered as- late as 1817 and preserved at 
Milan, a Gothic calendar, and a business document, the owner of 
which lived at Arezzo, near Naples. In Italy, however, the Goth 
was but a temporary invader ; in Gaul and Spain he held his 
own for long, ultimately succumbing to the Frank and the Moor. 

On what is known as the Bucharest ring is a Eunic inscrip- 
tion consisting of three genuine Gothic words — Gut annom 
hailig — dedicated to the Goths' treasures. Eacb of these words 
occurs in the Wulfilic Gospels. From this we learn that the 
Goths called themselves Gut-os, in the singular Guts ; to the 
classical writers they were the Gothones. There seems to be a 
real confusion between the sounds of il and 5. Wulfila speaks 
of the Epistle Du Bumonim to the Eomans, and calls Eome 
Ruma. Shakspere, too, rhymes Eome with doom and groom, 
and in " Julius Caesar " Casdus says, — 

" Now is it Eome, and room enough 
When there is in it but one only man." 

The Wulfilic form survives to this day in the name Eoumania. 
The fuller name for the Gothic people is Gut-thiuda. The 



GRIMM'S LAW 
of 

Consonantal Change. 



1 >Le3 ?. 




H 



To laco page 7. 



THE DAWN 7 

latter part of this term is the German national name Deutsch 
for Deut-isch, in Gothic Thiud-isk; it is from a root widely 
diffused in all the Indo-European tongues, to which, of course, 
Gothic, as a Teutonic speech, belongs. 

The branches of the Indo-European family fall into three 
distinct groups :— I. Sanskrit, Old-Persian, Greek, Latin, Keltic, 
Slavonic; II. Low German (Frisian, Dutch, Norse, Scotch, 
English) ; III. High German. Of these the first to appear in 
Europe must have been the Keltic; the outstanding physical 
features of our continent — mountains, rivers, valleys — bear 
Keltic names. The last to appear, and the lowest in the scale 
of culture, is the Slavonic. The affinities of these tongues have 
long been established, and the principles involved are formulated 
in the well-known Grimm's Law. The most striking illus- 
trations of the law are to be found in such familiar and 
widely-diffused words as numerals, pronouns, and terms for 
relationships, common natural phenomena, domestic animals, 
and the like. The law affects merely the nine mutes, as 
arranged in three sets, viz. : — Hards, Aspirates, Softs, the 
initials of which form the mnemonic H. A. S. Any word 
common to the three groups stated above will change, as far as 
its mutes are concerned, from group to group in the order of 
the groups and the order of the sets of mutes. These changes 
can be shown diagrammatically, thus : — A circular disc,^ divided 
into three arms corresponding to the three groups above, is 
made to revolve from left to right within a circle or outer rim, 
which latter is divided into three compartments corresponding 
to the three sets of mutes — H. A. S. 

The typical illustrations of the law in the three positions of 
the disc are these : — 

1st Position. — Group I. Hard. 



Sanskrit, Grseco-Latin, Keltic, 
Slavonic. 


K. T. P. 


Ca p i t (is) (Latin). 
Tres ( „ ). 


Group 11. 


Aspirate. 




Low German. 


Kh. Th. Ph. 

h. f. V. 


/H au b i th (Gothic). 
\H ea f d (Anglo - SaxonV 
/Th ree (English). 
I.Th reis (Gothic). 



See diagram facing this page. 



STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 



Group in. 
High-Gerraan. 


Soft. 
G. B. D. 


/H aup t (German). 
iDrei ( „ ). 


2nd Position.— Group I. 


Aspirate. 


vydr-ijp (Greek). 


„ II. 


Soft. 


/ D auhtar (Gothic). 
\D ochter (Scotch). 


„ III. 


Hard. 


T ochter (German). 


3rd Position. — Group I. 


Soft. 


/Fa g us (Latin). 
\Duo ( „ ). 


„ II. 


Hard. 


Bo c (Anglo-Saxon). 
Beech (English). 
Bo k a (Gothic). 
T wai ( „ ). 
T wo (English). 


„ III. 


Aspirate. 


Bu ch (German). 
Z wei ( „ ). 



We should not expect too much of this law, for it applies 
merely to a few consonants, and even here there are many 
exceptions. High-German has been, for instance, immensely 
influenced by Low-German, and has accordingly often changed 
its original hard lip mute p for b. The Celt regularly reverses 
the process. This latter must itself have been very imperfectly 
individualised before the great break-up of the common stock. 
The law, indeed, is very imperfect as regards German, not only 
in the lip, but also in the guttural series. In the middle or 
dental position, however, the groups are clearly distinguished. 
Each tongue has, in these respects, as in others, developed on 
its own lines, and produced idiosyncrasies due to the most 
powerful agent in linguistic variation — dialectic growth. Of 
far more value are the laws regulating the internal develop- 
ment of each language, and all that gives it character and 
individuality. The consonants are but the hard unyielding 
bones of a word; the vowels, on the other hand, body forth 
those subtler influences of tone, accent, and quantity that form 
the covering of flesh, complexion, and feature, differentiating 
the individual, the tribe, and the nation. True progress in 
philology lies in a mastery of phonetics as applied to the vowel- 
system of a language, and especially of its dialects. 



ALPHABET. 



Runic. Gothic 

< r 

(O) u 

/ z 

H h, 

I If 

(Kk. K 
h A 



Greek or ^a^ 
Latin. 



r-e 






Runic. 



Gothic. 




•1,10, 
1.30. 

M m^c 

N 



•IJ 

Greek or |1^ 
Latin. | i| 



3,60. 

SO 

rjoo, 

w 



a 



CO OJOO 

900. 



To face page 9. 



THE DAWN 9 

Our own language, that is to say, English and Lowland 
Scots — for the latter is but the Northern or Northumbrian 
variety of the former — is more nearly related to Gothic than 
any other Indo-European speech, brought as it was to our 
shores by the English folk, those Low-German tribes that had 
spread westwards to the dreary Frisian shores when their 
brothers, the Goths, roamed towards the banks of the blue 
Donau, to waste their strength in a life-long struggle with the 
mighty power of Eome. The study of these Gothic remains 
therefore constitutes not merely a unique field of linguistic 
research, but is of practical value in helping to a right appre- 
ciation of the history of our own tongue in its English, much 
more in its Scottish aspect. 

In all probability Wulfila reduced his native Gothic to 
writing for the first time, and for this purpose constructed his 
alphabet on a basis of Eunic, Greek and Latin characters. As 
to which of the three formed the primary basis, scholars are 
not agreed. German writers, whose views are endorsed by 
Mr. Douse, assign this position to the Eunic alphabet, while 
Prof. Skeat discusses the whole point without the slightest 
reference to Eunes. The question is a difficult, but not very 
momentous one. Written symbols of every kind are peculiarly 
liable to change. We all use the same conventional set of 
cursive characters, and yet in practice these assume endless 
varieties of form. Further, it is more than likely that both 
Eunic and Greek, i.e. Phoenician characters, diverged from a 
common source. Eunes form an undoubted relic of Teutonic 
antiquity. Widely diffused over northern and western Europe, 
they acquired a mystic force from their extensive use in charms 
and divination. They have not come down to us in connection 
with literary remains, but merely in incised inscriptions on 
stones, crosses, weapons, &c. The word rune (Go. runi and 
A.-S. run) means a mystery, not a letter, for which Wulfila uses 
boka {cip. Ger. Buchstahe). In O.Eng. and Sc. the verb to roun 
or round means to whisper, and its cognate Lat. rumor properly 
means a whisper, while in its Sanskrit form — hru — the word 
means to speak, and is very commonly used. It may here be 
noted that Eunic letters are formed almost entirely of combina- 
tions of straight lines, generally in threes. All writing is in- 



10 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

deed a variety of printing or graving that has become more and 
more cursive. Thus s, which has now its familiar serpentine 
form, shows, as a Eune, three lines en zigzag, as in the oldest 
form of the Gr. sigma. Again, the Eunes had names attached 
to them, showing their pictorial or hieroglyphic origin. Thus 
the first is / = faihu, the Go. cattle ; Sc. fee, Ger. vieh, just as 
in Heb. al-eph is the ox. is othal an heirloom, inheritance, 
not extant in Gothic, but in Orkney applied as udal to a form 
of land tenure, and as iidaller familiar to readers of Scott's 
" Pirate." The Norsemen in Ireland made it O'Dell. T again 
is Tins (Tues-day), the Northern Jove, wielder of the thunder- 
bolt, which indeed the character symbolises, for it is nothing 
but the Government broad arrow. Wulfila significantly eschews 
the use of this heathen name. But that his people must have 
been familiar with Eunes and their names, is believed to be 
proved from a curious Viennese MS. of the ninth century con- 
taining the Gothic alphabet, with the recognised Eunie names 
for the letters. Not many of the Eunes, however, were adopted 
by Wulfila without modification under Greek influence. A is 
more Eunie than Greek ; b, i, r, are common to both systems. 
The Eune u seems clearly repeated in Gothic, yet Prof. Skeat 
regards it as a Lat. u inverted. He is equally determined to 
ignore Eunes in the case of o, which symbol reproduces a Eune 
very fairly, yet some see in it Gr. omega, and Skeat the inver- 
sion of a Gr. contraction for ou y. Some of the symbols are cer- 
tainly Greek : — g (hard), e, k, 1, n, p, w (upsilon), and ch, used 
merely in such proper names as Christos. Wulfila does not 
give ch its Eunie nasal force, for which he doubles g as in 
Greek, e.g. hriggan, to bring. From the Latin alphabet he 
borrowed, it is thought, d, h, m, s, t, and f, of which the two 
first are not at all Eunie, but m is equally Eunie and Latin, 
though with a different phonetic value, and s, t, and f can be 
easily traced to Eunes. Gothic j (as y in yes) Skeat gets from 
Lat. g, yet this, too, looks like a modified Eune of similar value. 
There remain the characteristically Gothic kw, hw, and th. 
The first Mr. Douse regards as a Eune for qu, used as a number 
= 90, but Prof. Skeat the Lat. u. Hw cannot be accounted 
for ; but Prof. Skeat considers it Gr. theta, while to explain the 
thoroughly Teutonic th-symbol he resorts to the far-fetched 



THE DAWN 11 

device of inverting Gr. phi. The Anglo-Saxon thorn-letter 
closely follows the Fames. Lastly, Wulfila uses his letters as 
numbers, hence we know their sequence, which is that of Greek, 
not Eunic, where the alphabet was known as fvihorh from its 
first six letters, viz., f, u, th, o (for a), r, k. 

It is interesting to know the phonetic value Wulfila pro- 
bably attached to his symbols. This we ascertain from two 
sources, a comparison with the general Teutonic vowel and con- 
sonantal system, and a study of Wulfilic transliterations of Greek 
proper names. His vowel system is : — 

Short a, as in manna = So. man. Long a, rarely used. 

,, 6 as g%hhn (gayvoon), they 

gave. 
„ ei (i) as weis (weece), we. 
„ 6 as w&k, I woke. 
,, H as sids (soots, Ger. siisz), 

sweet. 



ai for 6 as air/Aa = earth. ^ 
i as_;?sfc = fish. 
au for 6 Amur = door, 
u as SM9is = soon. 



The Greek transliterations for the most part bear out these 
values, but it is probable that Wulfila found his vowel system 
different from the Greek. It seems strange that, having adopted 
Gr. eta as a symbol, he should have given it the long sound 
of upsilon, and chosen to use ai for the short sound, thus — 
Baiailzaibul = l3eeX^e/3ovX, Gaiainna = Teewa, Gehenna. Simi- 
larly, is always long, and au represents its short sound, as 
Apaustaulus, airoo-ToAos. These short sounds ai = e and au = 6, 
are almost restricted to those cases in which these vowels are 
followed by r or h. A somewhat similar disturbing effect of r 
is still seen in clerk, Derby, and less correctly in servant (sar- 
vent), and sergeant (sargent). The combination ai and au else- 
where have the values of Ger. Kaiser and Haus respectively- 
Long i is ei = ee in seen, but the transliteration varies, Go. ei 
representing Gr. i, et, and rj, e.g. Aileisabeth = EXia-a/SeT, Jaeirus 
= Ia£t/3os, and Atheineis = A^^vat. The consonants do not call 
for much remark ; g has always its hard sound, j, which has 
now its palatal sound under the influence of French, has the 
sound of y in yes ; p seldom appears in Gothic words except in 
the middle position, and b has the force of f or v between 

1 Preserved still better in the pronimciation of " earth " in Lowland" 
Scots. 



12 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

vowels. In course of time the Go, consonants have become 
greatly altered. Thus Go, s is often Eng. and Ger. r, e.g. raus, 
a reed = Ger. Eohr, dius, a beast = deer, auso = ear, huzd = 
hoard, gazd, a goad = yard, haus-jan, to hear. This change is 
common in the declension of Latin nouns. Go. b is f in laub = 
leaf, giban, to give. 

The guttural series offers the greatest difficulty to the 
modern Englishman, but none at all to the Scot. To the latter, 
as to the Goth, the guttural is familiar. Nowhere has he any 
tendency to alter its face value. His " heech " is as decided as 
the German's hoch or the Goth's hauh-s. His bocht is the Gothic 
bauhta, pret. of bugjan, to buy. The Gothic bairhts (bright), 
nahts (night), are followed in his bricht, nicht. Even where the 
guttural is strengthened by a following dental, the older h has 
been squeezed out in English, though preserved in Scotch, as in 
waihts, a thing, Eng. wight, and whit for an older wiht, com- 
pared with Sc. aacht = ae-waiht, property. The guttural suffers 
in compounds as nought and not, for Go. ni-whait, compared 
with Sc. nocht and noehtie (paltry). The strong German nicht 
becomes in dialects nisht and nit. Dutch makes the positive 
form of Go. waihts into lets and negative niets, with which 
compare Sc. bait and " Deil bait " (Devil a bit ! ). Scotch 
writers of the seventeenth century often put a t after a gut- 
tural as publict for public. This may explain an occasional 
corruption of the original guttural as in bauths, deaf, heard 
in Sc. bauch, applied to anything dulled, such as ice that is 
not keen. The Gothic phrase bauth wairthan is said of the 
salt that had "lost its savour, or become bauch (wersh)." 
Gothic distinguishes where Eng. and Sc. fail equally, as liu- 
hath = light and leihts (not heavy). In Sc. these words show a 
strong guttural as in-lichten for Go. in-liuhtjan (en-lighten). 
But the most interesting example, common to Gothic and 
Scotch, is tiuhan, to tow, tug, and its variant tahj'an, to tear or 
rend, which Prof. Skeat further explains as expressing the 
action of the teeth. Taw is used in connection with the 
preparation of leather, in which primitive process, among the 
Eskimo at least, the teeth of the women play a part. Perhaps 
we have here a side-light on the culture of the Goths. The 
primitive guttural, lost in Eng. tough, from tiuhan, is heard in 



THE DAWN 13 

the A.S. toh, and Se. tyueh or tchuch. A similar survival is 
e-nyuch (enough), compared with Go. ga-nohs, sufficient. 

But the strongest changes appear, as is natural, in double 
consonants, for here we encounter a potent factor in phonetic 
change, human laziness. To the favourite initial guttural the 
liquids r, 1, w, or v attach themselves with persistence. In 
these cases the guttural has a tendency to disappear in favour 
of the weaker parasitic sound. This feature may be illustrated 
in JiTiigga, a staff (Sc. rung), hrot, a roof (0. Fris. hrof ; Du. roef), 
hrukjan, to crow — " suns hana hrukida," soon the cock crowed. 
Scotch sometimes uses this strong initial as in Go. hropjan, to 
call, for which we find not only roup, an auction, but hraep, 
sometimes heard as thraep, to argue — " He thraepit it doon my 
throat." Hropei, a call or harsh cry, is seen in Sc. roopie, croaky, 
croupie. Another instance is hrains, pure, Ger. rein and our 
rinse. Hrishjan, again, to shake, passes through A.S. hrysian 
to our " rush." A derivative is Sc. reeshle, rustle, a stronger 
form of rush, as in " I'll reeshle yer riggin " (back Ger. Eiicken). 
Of the loss of h before 1 our laugh is an example, for it is Go. hlah- 
jan, though the Sc. lach better preserves the original guttural. 

A favourite initial in Gothic, sk, has generally been softened 
in cognate tongues to sh, Ger. sch. The South African Taal 
consistently preserves the hard form where the home Dutch 
softens it, as in Taal skap, sheep. We see this change in shreitan 
= shred, but contrast Sc. screed, scart (scratch), skiuhan = shove, 
skura = shower, Sc. shoor. When Christ stilled the tempest 
Mark says, "warth skura windis mikila," a muckle shoor of 
wind arose. As we usually find in Scots, s has the hard sound 
regularly in Gothic, where un-weis, unlearned, un-wise, sounds 
quite like Sc. on-weiss. The English cousin often sounds 
ciiss-in on a North-country tongue. A striking example of the 
hard s is where Matthew, telling of the stilling of the tempest 
(viii. 26), says, " jah warth wis mikil," and there was a muckle 
wheesh. If followed by i, it must be softened, as siujan, to sew. 
Like Sc, Gothic distinguished between sew = siujan (Se. shoo), 
and sow = saian (Sc. saw). The Gothic laus with s hard has 
exactly the Scotch sound of loose, though the sense is somewhat 
different, viz., empty, of no effect. The difficult th is often 
changed to d, as Go. maurthra = murder, sinthan, go, wander 



14 STUDIES m LOWLAND SCOTS 

= send, hlethra = ladder, but Sc. lether, sneithan, to cut = Se. 
sned, snod, Ger. schneiden, balths = bold, Sc. bauld, kiltheis = 
child. In Sc. th is often heard for Eiig. d, e.g. shoother = 
shoulder, poother = powder, bethel = beadle (Lat. bedellus). 

English characteristically weakens initial hw, in contrast to 
Sc. and the original Go., into w, as hwaiteis, wheat, Sc. hwait ; 
hwairpan, to throw, warp; hwairnei, brains, Sc. harns, Ger. 
Ge-hirne. Whet preserves its original sense of cutting in Sc. 
as, "to white a stick." It has several forms in the Gospels. 
Wulfila shows a striking metaphorical usage as when the 
crowd " hwotidedun " blind Bartimseus for addressing Jesus, 
rendered by our " rebuked." The guttural in Latin is, according 
to rule, the hard k, as in quis, Sanskr. kas, compared with Go. 
hwas, Sc. whaw, who. In this and its derivatives, on the other 
hand, the guttural disappears in English. Our which is a good 
illustration of such changes — Go. hwi-leiks, Sc. whi-lk, compared 
with which or witch. A countryman, sauntering near the Strand, 
on asking a passer-by, " What street is this ? " was answered, 
" Wych Street." This, meaningless to him, made him repeat the 
query, whereupon the Londoner testily said, " W'y, Wych Street, 
of course," and walked on, doubtless mentally forming his own 
opinion of Doric dulness. On the road to Calvary the mob 
railed on Jesus, " wagging their heads," withondans hauhida seina. 
This withon, to shake, is for an older hwithon, as seen in Lat. 
quatere, to shake. As expressing a rapid movement, whid, 
whidding, withon has many representatives in Scotch. Among 
the powers promised by the Master is that of treading on 
serpents, "trudan ufaro waurme," where the word has its 
original sense of dragon, "monster of the prime," as in the 
Welsh cape, christened by the Norsemen Great Orme's Head. 
The original is hwaurms, which again is the Sansk. krimi, and 
this, through early Arab traders, has given us carmine and 
crimson.^ 

If we turn now to the Wulfilic remains as we find theip, 
it may be asked. With what degree of completeness do they 
present the Gospel narrative ? The second Gospel is almost 

^ Greek translated the Arabic hermes by kokkos, hence our cochineal 
the JRomans by vermis, hence vermilion. 



Chap. MATT. 


MARE. 


LUKE. 


JOHN. 


•"■ 


■ 


A 


■ 

^ 
1 


i 1 

5. 


6. 


7. 
8. 




9. 








HI 

^1 




1 




^H 


1^1 


1^1 


^H 




^1 




To face page 15. 









THE DAWN 15 

.complete, the others show numerous and extensive lacunm} 
Of not one of the Gospels is the concluding portion preserved. 
The last words of the narrative, as a whole, form the report of 
Mary Magdalene, that she had seen her risen Lord on the first 
day of the week. We miss the marriage supper at Oana, the 
interviews with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, the good 
Samaritan, the Agony, and the institution of the Lord's Supper. 
But we have the story of our Lord's birth and early life, the 
episodes of the Baptist and the Temptation, the great miracles, 
the best discourses, such as the Lord's Prayer, Sermon on the 
Mount, and the farewell to the disciples, the most familiar 
parables, the entry into Jerusalem, the trial, crucifixion, and 
resurrection. A closer scrutiny of this unique relic ought to 
proceed on three lines — (a) What are its merits as a transla- 
tion ? (6) what does it reveal of the material, social, and 
intellectual condition of the Goths at the time ? (c) what are 
its affinities with Scotch, English and German ? — the modern 
languages with which it is intimately connected. From the 
philologist's point of view the first may be passed over. Wulfila 
keeps faithfully to the Greek text, and in the spirit of Old- 
English, and the prevailing practice of modern German, he 
refrains from adopting a foreign word, but prefers, if possible, 
to translate it. In this respect we have long enjoyed Free 
Trade, and readily admit within our shores an unlimited 
number of foreign words, not unfrequently ousting good native 
products in the process. Many terms, however, Wulfila adopts. 
The Greek borrowed words include those connected with the 
church services, dress, and articles of utility or refinement, such 
as paska (old Scotch ]pash, Easter), purple-dye, sackcloth, olive- 
oil, myrrh, linen, mustard. The Latin borrowings, on the other 
hand, refer to war, government, money, and the like, such as 
CcBsar (Kaisar), pretorium, militare, regere, cumbere (to sit at 
meat), fascia. Of these native equivalents the following may 
be taken as samples : — bokareis = scribes, figgra-gulth = ring 
(finger-gold),[hunsla-staths = altar, i.e. (Sc. hansel)-place ; weina- 
basi = grape (wine-berry), hunda-faths = centurion, hleithra- 
stakins = tabernacles (properly a "wattled cot"), hams-stead, 
1 The accompanying diagram shows the gaps in the MS. referred to. 
The passages awantiug are shown in black. 



16 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

i.e. brains-place = Golgotha, the place of a skull, of. Sc. harn- 
pan and Fr. tete from Lat. testa, a pot. 

Of more vital interest is the evidence these remains afford of 
the condition of life among the Goths. In one respect they have 
the advantage of preserving in transverse section a petrifaction, 
as it were, of contemporary speech. On the other hand, the 
limited range of subjects in the Gospels excludes many depart- 
ments of social and intellectual activity. We miss the language 
of war and the chase, of the social pleasures, of folk-lore. But 
it must be admitted that the Gospel narrative comes very near 
to our " business and bosoms," so we should expect to find in 
the language of Wulfila no lack of homely and intelligible 
terms. A glossary arranged, as it is, alphabetically, conceals 
the evidence it bears of social and intellectual status. More 
instructive would it be to have the words classified under 
subjects. The main heads might be — (1) Man and his personal 
environment (man generally, parts of the body, relationships, 
dwellings, dress, feelings) ; (2) Man's remoter natural surround- 
ings (plant and animal life, the weather, time, &c.) ; (3) Man's 
forms of activity (occupations, war, civil life, education, and 
religion). Under these heads a mass of most interesting words 
are to be found in Gothic, most of which are still in use among 
us, the rest are quite familiar to a Scotchman, and in a large 
degree to a German. All of them have a history in themselves 
and in the affinities they suggest. 

Here follow some specimens of this instructive catalogue : — 



1. Man and His Personal Environment. 

Man generally. — Wair = Lat. vir, the strong one, the hero, 
obsolete but seen in O.Eng. wer-old = world, Sc. wardle, e.g. 
" Eh, sirs ! sic a weary wardle " ("Johnny Gibb o' Gushetneuk "), 
wer-geld. It is found, but obscurely, in Canterbury = Eoman 
Cant-uarius = bury or town of the men of Kent. In this word 
er represents A.S. warn = wair, common in old place-names. 
In Gael, wair is fear, as in Earintosh = clansman. Chima = 
homo, the earthy one (bride-g(r)oom, yeoman). Manna is used, 
like German man, in an indefinite, pronominal sense. Queins 



THE DAWN 17 

= yvvrj,.the producer, stands for woman generally, our queen, 
Sc. quean. 

Farts of the Body. — Zeik = body generally, dead or alive, 
very common in older Eng. as in lich-gate, lyke-wake. Hwwirnei 
= brains, Sc, hams, Ger. Ge-hirne, renders Golgotha = hwairnei- 
staths, place of a skull. Lof-a = Sc. loof, cf. die flache Hand, 
the open palm. " Some standing by struck Jesus with the lofa 
(loof)." — John xviii. 22. In A.S. it is lof. Beowulf has g-16f, 
our glove, an almost solitary trace of the prefix ge, so common 
with nouns in Gothic and German. Gothic shows that our 
gallop has also a trace of it in verbs, for it is Go. ga-hlaupan, to 
run, our leap, Sc. lowp, Ger. laufen, Eng. loafer and inter-loper. 
Kinnus— the cheek, our chin. Sc. keeps k in kin-cough for 
chin-cough, Du. kink-hoest. Literally it is the curved, crooked, 
as in kink, a twist in a rope, Sc. kinch. Taihs-wa = dexter, 
the pointer or right hand (also in teach and token). Gothic has 
a word for one-handed = hamfs, in the general sense of maimed, 
" If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; good is it for thee to enter 
into life one-handed than to enter Gehenna having two hands " 
= "Jabai marzjai thuk handus theina, afmait tho; goth thus 
ist hamfamma in libain galeithan, than twos handuns habandin 
galeithan in gaiainnan."— -Mc. ix. 43. Haihs = one-eyed, a 
curious compound, according to Bopp, of the -ce of Lat. ec-ce 
hic-ce, e-ka (Sanskrit one), along with the common Aryan. word 
for the eye. Go. augo, Lat. oc-ulus. The whole is therefore in 
the Eoman name Horatius Codes = the one-eyed. By Grimm's 
Law the syll.-ha = ka (Sans.) is in both hamfs and haihs. 
Hamfs = ha-nifa, Sc. neive, fist. In haihs and hamfs the 
syllable ha is prefixed. It has been dropped in Sc. neive, cf. 
knife = nife. 

With few exceptions terms for parts of the body can be 
recognised with little difficulty. Some interpret themselves 
at once — brusts (breast), hairto (heart), hups (hip), fotus (foot), 
suljo (sole), auso (ear), kniu (knee, with k sounded as in Scotch). 
Others are archaic, as fill, skin (fell, felt, pelt), amsa, shoulder. 
If, as Prof. Skeat suggests, this be a mis-reading for ahsa, it is 
the Sanskrit uhsan, the bearer, the Ger. Achsel, and Sc. oxter, 
the arm-pit. Several are to be referred to A.S., as haubith, 
head (A,S. heafod), wairilo, the lip (A.S. weler), waggari, a pillow 

2 



18 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SOOTS 

(Ger. and O.E. Wange, the cheek, A.S. wangere). Tooth itself is 
tunthus, showing the older n as in Lat. dent — Du tand. The 
isolated peak, Tinto, in Lanarkshire, was so named by the Norse- 
men. Wlits and (w)ludja, the countenance, are A.S. wlite, now 
lost. Finger and hand are found almost unchanged. The former 
has its So. and Ger. sound. The So. wime (belly) is exactly Go. 
wamba (Eng. womb). The mouth = munths, and the heel = 
fairzna, are more like their German cognates, Mund and Ferse. 
Stamms (stammerer), daubs, blinds (pron. as in Sc), halts 
(halt), explain themselves. The Go. for neck, hals, was at one 
time common in Sc, as hause, but still lives in the Orkneys. 
Here is the experience of an Orcadian in the Canongate of 
Edinburgh : " Ae wife luckid oot at a muckle apstair window ; 
the meenit the Laird saw a heed i' a window atween him an' 
de licht, he stend stock still, an' says he tae me — ' Po' me sal, 
there's a muckle bauckie!' (cf. Sc. for bat, ghost, bogle, and 
Burns's "bauckie bird"). 'Eobbie, gie me me gun, and I'll 
lay him deed as seur as his heed's on his hass.' " — " Orcadian 
Sketches." 

Belationships. — Our woid father is not in Go. except in fadr- 
eins = parents or family (Joseph was of the house of the /amily 
of David), and " abba, fadar ! " (Gal. iv. 6). Its stem is in hund- 
faths = master of a hundred, and bruth-faths = lord of the 
bride. Faths is /ode = a man, in our old ballads such as Cheild 
Kowland and Burd (bride) Ellen, e.g. " God rue on thee, poor 
luckless fode, what hast thou to do here ? " The root of these 
means the protector, and is in sense classical rather than Teu- 
tonic (cf. Lat. pater). Gothic fodr is a sheath, i.e. the protecting 
one. Mother is nowhere in Gothic. The place of these two 
terms is taken by the onomatopoetic atta, aithei. Such child 
words are common, e.g. abba, papa, tata (Vaidic and Greek), and 
dad, hence Att-ila, the Hun = the little father. The Czar is 
still to the Slavs the little father. Atta in Sans, is mother or 
aunt = Go. aithei. Widuwo = widow, the bereaved one, really 
an adj. as viduus ager, a fallow field, in Lat. This is also its 
force in Go. and Sc. The woman of Sarepta is " quinon widuwon " 
= a widow (woman or quean). 

Such terms as brothar, swistar, dauhtar (Sc. dochter), sunus 
(son), lauths (lad), call for no remark. Barnilo, child, what is 



THE DAWN 19 

lorn, is the Sc. bairn, bairnie, and occurs in many forms. 
Another term, well represented but now obsolete, is magus, 
magula, a lad, and the feminine forms mawi, mawila, and 
magathei = maidenhood, and applied by Luke to Anna, the 
prophetess. Magaths, of which the form magathei is the abstract, 
is A.S. maeg-eth, our maid, maiden, Maisie (Meg-sie). The 
root notion is that of a " growing " lad or lass, cf. might, main. 
It is substantially same as maik, a " fitting " companion, very 
common in old Scots. Thus Barbour's " Brus " has — 

" Walter Stewart with him tuk he, 
His maich, and with him great menye." — X. 827. 

Dress in general is wasi = Lat. vestis. Paida, a coat of 
skins, to this day the dress of Slavonic shepherds, is said to be 
in ^ea-jacket, which has come through Dutch. Another hint of 
a national peculiarity in dress we get. When Mary wiped Our 
Lord's tear-moistened feet, Wulfila uses for our phrase, " the 
hairs of her head," Skufta haubidis seinis. Skuft is the top-knot, 
•Ger. Schopf. The Greek here simply says Opt^lv t^s Ke<j>aX^i. 
The pre-historic top-knot is still dear to the feminine world 
from Lapland to Paris. 

2. Man's Natueal Surroundings. 

Natural Phenomena. — To Wulfila heaven and earth, sun, 
moon and stars, sea and land, berg and dale, stone, fen, flood, 
water, burn, gold, silver, iron, salt, were known by precisely the 
same names as to ourselves. The sun was known by two names, 
.sunno, fem., and sauil, Lat. sol. neut. The sea was the saiwa, 
the tossing one, the lake marei, the O.Eng. mere. A country 
district was a gawi, still heard in Ehein-gau and (perhaps) Miln- 
gavie ; a field was hugs, a haugh, or akrs = acre, Lat. ager. Ahwos, 
torrents of rain, is aqua, the universal Aryan word for water. 

Plant Life. — Grass is Go., but not in its strictest sense, 
rather herb. The mustard seed is the greatest of all the grasses, 
cf. gorse and Sc. gers. In our sense of grass hawi = hay, is used, 
s.g. " If God so clothe the hay of the field." For fruit generally, 
especially of the fields, we have akran (akrs = field), our acorn, 
jiow restricted in sense. The New Philological Dictionary 



20 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

traces it to Go. akran, fruit, probably a derivative of Go. akrs, 
and originally " fruit of the unenclosed land, natural produce of 
the forest." Tree generally is hagm = beam, Ger. baum. Timber 
is triu = tree (cf. Sc. a tree or wooden leg). The band that 
came to the garden to seize Christ were armed with trees 
(staves). This explains the expression " nailed upon the tree," 
spoken of the Crucifixion. Strange to say. Go. supplies no native 
tree-names. Of grains, three bear the modern names — Atisk 
= Old Sc. aitis, oats, lit. what is eaten,^ but used for the field of 
corn (a-TTopinov) through which Our Lord walked on the Sabbath- 
day. In the A.S. Bible we read "Tha Noe ongan him aetes 
tilian " = then Noah began to get him food. Hvjaiteis = wheat, 
sounds quite homely to us (hwate in Scots), so also does haris 
= here, barley. Ahs, an awn or ear of corn, and ahana, chaff', 
mean, literally, the little sharp thing, Lat. acus, a needle. 

Animals. — Beast in general is dius = deer ("rats and mice 
and such small deer," Shak.) ; wolf and fox (fauho) occur under 
these names. Waurms, as in O.Eng., means a serpent or dragon, 
cf. Great Orme's Head, and " Where the worm dieth. not " in the 
Bible. Bird (f ugls) in general is the Bible word fawl. Sparrow 
(sparwa), dove, and eagle are named, the first two, as in Eng., 
but in the passage, "Where the carcase is there are the eagles 
gathered together," eagle is ara. This word, now lost, is the 
O.Eng. and Sc. earn or erne and Ger. Adler = Adel-aar, the 
noble bird. The O.Eng. erne exists as a surname, e.g. Dr. Arne, 
the famous musician. Thomas the Ehymer says, — 

" The raven shall come, the erne shall go, 
And drink the Saxon bluid sae free." 

The golden eagle in Gaelic is the iol-air. The iol here is just 
our yel-low. For the domestic animals, cattle generally is 
faihu, a widely diifused word, lit. the tethered ; it is our fee. 
In Barbour's " Brus " it has its original meaning, — 

" In the contrie tbar wonnyt ane 
That husband wes and with his fe 
Oft-syss (times, Chaucer's oft^-sithes) hay to 
the peile led he." — Book x. 150. 

1 Cf. Sans. Anna, lit. what is eaten for ad-na (root ad), food in general, 
rice. 



THE DAWN 21 

Ox, the carrier (cf. veho), is auhsa, retaining the original gut- 
tural. Our ewe, Lat. ovis, is found in awe-thi, a shepherd, and 
awi-str, a fold. Wuliila uses in " Behold, the Lamb of God ! " 
the word vnthrus (awi-thrus), our wether, Ht. a yearling. Fula 
and kalbo, gaits and gait-eins (goat-ling), and stiur (steer) explain 
themselves. Horse is not in the Gospels, but the Kunic aihwus 
(horse) is in aihwa-tundja, the burning-bush, the first member 
of which is cognate with <!>kvs, swift, acer, and the latter part 
our tinder. The horse is originally the eager, mettled one. In 
O.Norse ehwa and in A.S. ehu, Gael, ech, mean horse. In such 
a compound it should be noted that horse simply means large, 
cf. horse-chestnut, and iTnro-KavOapo^, horse-beetle or monstrous 
beetle. Burns's term aiver for horse is derived from O.Fr. 
aver; Low Lat. averium, habere, hence average, cf. cattle and 
" goods and chattels." 

One other singular animal name is in Wulfila. The Baptist 
was clad in camel's hair (Ga-wasiths taglam ulbandaus). The 
Go. for hair is tagl, our word tail. Ulbandits renders Kafji,-^\oi, 
and the wonder is how such a word came into the language. 
It has a long and interesting history. In Greek it is eXe<j>as, 
our elephant, in A.S. olfend, the camel, in Lat. ebur, ivory, 
for this was known in the west long before the animal. 
The first part of Alphabet leads us to the Semitic form, Heb. 
aleph and eleph, the ox, and Sans, ibh^, the elephant. For the 
old alphabets were hieroglyphic or pictorial in origin. The true 
Teutonic alphabet — the Eunes — was of this nature, and the 
letters had names. Wulfila based his characters on Runes, as 
modified by Greek and Latin. The first letter-name in these 
was, as in the Phoenician alphabet, the ox, the Go. faihu, and 
its two horns in symbol can still be seen in our Y. Another 
is called Tius = f = T, the Teutonic Jove, wielder of the 
thunder-bolt, and still in Tues-day. The symbol is just the 
broad arrow or sapper's mark. What was struck by his bolt 
must be deo-datum, confiscated, and thus Government serves 
itself heir to his thunder. But, to return to Ulbandils, el-eph 
contains the Arabic article el or al. The second syllable is one 
of many Sanskrit names for the elephant, ibhd = the strong one, 
and the appearance of the term in the west is due to the Arab 
traders who from the very early times shipped the animal and 



22 STUDllES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

ivory from Ceylon. Ihha, again, is the (Jr. adverbial suflix and 
adv. w/k, and it does the same duty in (U>., where udvorbH are 
regularly formed from adjectives by adding — alia, «.//. baitr-aba 
= bitterly, abr-aba = ably. The A.S. olj'mul moans a camel. 
The Romance form, olifaunt, survives as a Hiirnaino. Chaucor, 
in the tale which he tells in his own characLor as i)oet of the 
Canterbury pilgrimage, sends the Quixotic knight Sir Thopa» 
to do battle with the giant Sir Oliphaunt. 



'.'<. Man AN7) iiiH Activities. 

One looks with interest on any light the Cothic fragments 
shed on the life of the jieoplo. Do they show ovun the rudi- 
ments of a social organisation? They called themselves (Jnl,- 
thiuda, a compound of the national name and a derivative; fiom 
an Indo-Europ. root tu, to swell, be large or mighty, and yrmmi 
in our English thu-mb, the thick, swoln onc!. The notion is akin 
to that in Lat. plebs, the many, the masses. J<"i'om it is thiudans, 
the king. Jerusalem is the haurgs of the mikilins thiudanis. 
On the other hand, Pontius Pilate, the iioraan governor, is only 
the kindins, akin to Idv/j, whereas reiles, honi which oonio Lat. 
rex, Ger. Keich, and -rio in bishoyjric, is applied to Jairus, rulor 
of the synagogue. Apart from the idea of rulo tho inost fre- 
quent tenn of respect, and uniformly appliru! to Our Lord, is 
frauja, rendering Cr. Kv^mo«, but now (^uite lo.st. It is, how- 
ever, common in the ballads as, free, — 

"No longer durst I for him let (hinder, halt). 
But furth I futidit (went) with that free." 

— Ab I went on ae Monday. 

The editor of the ballad remarks : — Free, fey, lord, or fairy, and 
thus gets over a difficulty with a little courage. It is also in 
Ger. Frau, and may be the curious Norse surname Krid^i!, secMi 
on tombstones in the nortli. its Norse f^nuivalent is //-'//r, 
probably preserved in the surname i''rior. 

There is evidence of a self-govcniing community of kindnsd 
interest and origin in dhja, long most familiar in Ix)wland Soots 
as s'vb, related, relationship. The village commune is the ijnm 
or country district (cf. Khein-gau), whon; lived the 'jon-ja or 



THE DAWN 23 

peasant, perhaps the gudge or homely Buchan ploughman in 
" Johnny Gibb." The boundary of the commune is marko, the 
Mark, and So. march, found in ga-marko, a neighbour marching 
with one. The essence of free government, the right of popular 
discussion, is mathl, the market-place, analogous to the agora 
and the forum, when we remember that fmira-mathkis is a chief 
speaker, and mathljan, to speak, is the Old Eng. mele, talk. Akin 
to this is the duty of public giving, implied in mota, toll or 
custom (of. O.Eng. mote or village council), mota-staths, the 
receipt of customs, and a motareis, a publican. The same word 
is in our meed and Ger. ver-miethen, to let, be hired. Public 
defence is, of course, but little represented, though we have 
terms for army (harjis, Ger. Heer, Eng. herr-ing), sword and 
war (from weigan, to fight, whence Eng. vie). Ga-drauhts, a 
soldier, is from a verb, dringan, to serve, be pressed into service, 
still preserved in the old phrase, to dree one's wyrd or fate. 

It is possible to construct a Gothic landscape out of the 
words of that far away time, words perfectly intelligible still. 
Overhead stretches the heavens (himins, Ger. Himmel), above 
the clear air (liftus, Sc. lyft), now swept by the wind (winds^ 
now thick with the rains (rign) or the snow (snaiws) when the 
frost (frius) of winter (wintrus) breathes over the land (land). 
The sun (sunna) lights the day (dags), the moon (mena, Sc. 
mune) the night (nahts). All round lies the open heath (haithi) 
and the woodland (timrjan, to build), with thorns (thaurnus) and 
wild Howers (blowans haithjos = lilies of the field) by the wayside 
(wigs), deep in mire(fani, fen = mud) or rough with stones (stains). 
In moist hollows one sees the fields (hugs, Sc. haugh land), 
where the peasant (gauja) ears (arjan, Lat. arare) his gawi with 
his hoe (hoha) — the plough came later — among his roots (wort, 
aurtja, a husbandman), driving (dreiband) his oxen (auhsa, Sc. 
owsen)at the goad(gazd) point, sowing(saiand) his wheat(h waits), 
oats (at-isk, Sc. aits) or barizeins (Sc. bere), or cutting (snethand, 
Sc. sneddin) his grass (gras) and hay (hawi) with the sickle (giltha, 
geld, geld-ing = the castrated one) when harvest (asans) comes 
round, and the corn (kaurn) is to be winnowed (winthi-skauro, a 

' Where Go. is identiciil with Eng. or Sc. it follows the reference within 

lu'.'U'kots. 



24 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

winnowing fan), or the meal (malan) to be ground in the mill 
(asilu-quairnus = ass-quern) and stored in the meal-ark (arka.Lat. 
area) for the bread (h-laibs ^ = loaf) that the good-wife will turn 
out of the oven (auhns, Se. oon) to grace the table (biuds, booth, 
the board, always movable) at the evening meal (nahta-mats). 
Here sits (sitan) the lord (faths) of the feast, the wairdus (Ger. 
Wirth) among his guests, his ga-hlaiba or fellows of the loaf, 
while the servants (thewis, A.S. theow = serf) bestir themselves. 
The Syro-Phoenician woman helps us to complete the picture : 
"Yea, but eke the dogs under the table eat of the crumbs 
(dross) of the bairns'' = "jah auk hundos undaro biuda mat- 
jand af drauhsnom barne." The morning or working meal is 
the undaurni-mats, where undaurni is under, in its Ger. rather 
than Eng. sense, as meaning " intervening time." Undaurni- 
mats is, therefore, the meal or meat time coining between times 
of labour. In Early and Middle English it is very common as 
uTidern. 

The occupations of the farm would bulk largely in such a 
community. In addition to the more easily recognised forms 
already noticed are a few less obvious but interesting. The 
ba7'n of the Gospels is hansts, from bindan, to bind as a means 
of securing. A Lowland Scot would say of a man under stress 
of passion, " He could nether hud nor biun." The So. steading 
as the stead (Go. staths, a place) or centre of the holding is 
found in the Go. verb staldan, to own, possess. The manger 
Wulfila calls uz-eto, what is eaten out of, cf. Ger. aus-essen. 
The wattled pens in which the animals were stalled may well 
be implied in Jlahta, used in the sense of a plaiting of the 
hair, and connected with flaihtan, to plait (Lat. plectere). 
The movable fence that the Sc. farmer still uses for sheep 
feeding off turnips in the field, he calls a flake. Here would 
be at times secured the "hairda sweine managaize" (herd of 
many swine) that the Gadarene demoniac saw the hairdeis 
(herd) haldand (keeping, holding, Sc. huddin). Not far off 
would be the unsavoury dunghill, maihstus, mixen. The strong 
guttural of maihstus in the Gothic is still heard in the Sc. 
mauchie, fulsome, foul-smelling. 

1 H in lilaiba is the prefix ha-, see p. 17. 



THE DAWN 25 

The civic unit was the householder, the garda waldands, 
wielder of the yard. The term gards has lived long as Gart, 
Gort, Garth in place-names, and in Norse-Celtic districts signi- 
fying a farm-stead (Go. staths, stads, Sc. steading). Gud-hus is 
the only use of our word house, and means God's-house or temple. 
The preference for gards instead of hus suggests that primitive 
type of farm-life in which a settler effects a clearing in the prim- 
eval forest and encloses his home {af-haims = from home) like 
the Sc. farm-toon, for this is the radical sense of both gards and 
Sc. toon. Its roof is the hrot, uncovered to admit the paralytic 
into the room where Jesus was. In the Heliand, a Low-German 
poem of the ninth century upon the Saviour's life, this sufferer 
is admitted " thurk thes huses hrost," through the house's roof. 
Hrot, roof, roost, all originally indicated the rafters on which 
the fowls perched. "Eule the roost" is really an analogous 
phrase to Cock of the walk. The paralytic was let down 
through the tiles — shaljos, Eng. scale — a word which shows they 
must have been slates, for to the Scottish schoolboy his slate- 
pencil was long known as skeelyie — the actual Gothic term we 
have here. Of course skaljos would equally apply to thin slabs 
of stone, still a roofing material in the Eorder districts, and on 
old churches. At the end of the house rose the gihla (Sc. and 
Du. gevel), that pinnacle of the Temple to which the Tempter 
led Christ. In front was the porch, after the fashion of a Boer 
stoep, and known as the uhizwa (our eaves). The door (daur) 
and the window (auga-dauro = eye-door) completed the external 
view. Inside the house, on the middle of the floor, stood the 
sacred vesta of the Eomans, the Go. hauri, our hearth, the 
ascending smoke (rikwis, Sc. reek) of which escaped as it best 
might from its pile of ashes (azgo). Over it mayhap hung the 
kettle (Icaiils, from Icasa, a pot), with chair and bench {stols 
and sitls = Ger. Stuhl, settle) not far off. 

The larger social centre was the haurgs (Eng. burghj Sc. 
broch), translating ttoAjs, and meaning, literally, a walled place, 
from hairgan, to preserve. Some kind of enclosure secured the 
G-o. haurgs, for haurgs waddjan is the town-wall of Damascus, 
whence St. Paul escaped by a basket. The term waddjan here, 
akin to withe, wattle, widdie, points to a kind of fence still very 
•common in Holland, and formed of plaited willow or hazel twigs. 



26 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

The haurgs of Wulfila must have been a considerable place. It 
had its market-place (ga-runs), crowded corners (iveihsta, akin to 
Lat. vicus), street (gatwo, Sc. gate) and stey brae (sfaiga), still a 
street name in Hamburg, in the form Steig. 

The arts of civil life do not play any great part in the 
Gospels. Next to the farmer would be the (w)aurtja, or gardener 
(wort, Ger. Wurzel), whose care would be the aurti-gards with 
its vineyard. Wine (weina), as a name, appears in the word 
for a drunkard and as a compound with triu (tree), basi (berry), 
and tains (branch, Sc. tine of a stag, harrow, eglaniiwe). Build- 
ing construction is implied in timrjan (timber), to build. Trius, 
the general term for tree, means also timber, as in triuw-eins, of 
tree, and in Scots. The Ger. Baum is Go. bagms, beam, boom. 
The common tool of Central Europe, the axe, is ahwizi. The 
metals are known — eis-arn^ (iron), gulth (gold, figgra-gulth, a 
finger ring), and silubr (silver, meaning also money, as in Scots). 
Ais, brass, coin, is Lat. cces. The apostles were enjoined to take 
nothing for the way except ane rung, but no meat-bag (wallet), 
loaf, nor money in (their) girdles = "niba hrugga aina, nih 
mati-balg nih hlaif nih in gairdos aiz." Aiza-smitha is the 
coppersmith of 2 Tim. iv. 14. The humbler arts of the home 
are indicated by wulla (wool), lein (linen), and nethla (needle), 
siujan (sew), and bi-waibjan (weave). 

The higher walks of culture could scarcely be looked for 
among Wulfila's heathen converts. In church organisation the 
alien term accompanies the novel and strange idea, but it says 
much that the subtle language of the Greek is so often accu- 
rately rendered by a native word, intelligible to the hearers pre- 
sumably, otherwise it would have been meaningless. We have 
spirit {ahma, Holy Ghost), soul (saiwala), mind {muns, muiian, 
to think), understanding {hugs). The sense of property is well 
recognised — Swes,one's own (cf.Lat. suus)property,arW, a heritage 
(Ger. Erfe), skattja, a money-changer, skatts, money (cf. scot-free, 
and Orcadian scat-hold), wadi, a pledge (Sc. wad-set, a mortgage), 
waddja-bokos, a bond or legal document. Bota is the familar 
Scots for boot or money in bargaining. Nor is law (witoth, from 

1 Arn is an adjectival affix as in silvern, and in iron. The German 
Eisen does not show this affix. 



THE DAWN 27 

witan, to know) absent, witness witoda-laisareis, a teacher of the 
law, witoda-fasteis, a lawyer. And of course writing must have 
been a regular art — " ainana writ witodis " = ane writ of the 
law (a stroke of the pen, Luke xvi. 17). 

The refined arts of healing and teaching are illustrated by 
lekeis, a physician, the O.Eng. leech, literally the licker, and 
lekinon, to heal, and by laisareis (Ger. Lehrer), Wulfila's rendering 
of Eabbi. The root of the latter is in a Gothic preterite verb, 
lais, I know, and its derivative, laisjan, therefore means to make 
to know, that is, teach. Gothic thus distinguished between the 
two processes, long expressed in English, as it is still in Scots, 
by the one term, learn. The only reference to anything like 
education is stabs, a letter, element, still a compositor's term 
(cf. Ger. Buch-stabe). Our spell has its older meaning, spillon, to 
narrate (cf. gospel = good-spell), spill, a tale, spilla, a teller, and 
spilda, a writing-tablet. The art of the healer had to deal with 
two serious forms of disease — palsy and leprosy. The paralytic, 
us-litha, is named from lithus, a joint or limb (Ger. G-lied) 
from leithan, to go (our lead). Scott tells the story of Samuel 
Johnson's discussion with the elder Boswell at Auchinleck. 
The doctor's depreciation of Cromwell the laird clinched 
with, " He gar'd kings ken they had a lith in their neck." 
Leprosy is thruts-fill, from thriutan, to threaten and fill, the 
skin. 

The Goth could not have been without his pleasures — wit- 
ness his siggwan, to sing, also to read, doubtless a recitative in 
church. In this connection may be noted an odd expression 
that throws light on the ceremonial of Wulfila's converts. 
When Our Lord entered the synagogue at Nazareth on Sabbath 
He stood up to read, dvea^rj dvayvdvai, " us-stoth siggwan bokos," 
literally,' stood up to sing the book. Again, a certain lawyer 
asked, " Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ? " " What 
is written in the law? How readest thou?" replied Jesus. 
The Greek is simply ttws dvayKuxTKws, but Wulfila writes, "Hwaiwa 
us siggwis ? " how singest thou ? alluding to intoning the lessons. 
Wherever Scripture reading occurs this verb is met with. Our 
word read is also in Gothic (rodjan), but in the sense of speak- 
ing. For singing in the secular sense we have liuthon (Ger. 
Lied), and liuthareis, a singer. The only instrument mentioned 



28 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

is the trumpet, a cow-horn most probably, and known as the 
thut-haurn (Du. toet-horen, Eng. toot). 

Religion. — The Supreme Being is Outh, G-od, peculiarly 
Teutonic, and of uncertain origin. Wulfila refrains from using 
the Kunic Tius. A demon is skohsl, Ger. Scheu-sal, Scheuche, a 
scarecrow, Sc. shoo, cf. monstrum, a thing to point the finger at. 
But a commoner term is im-huUha, Devil, Satan, still in Ger. 
un-hold (unkindness, sin), and Held, a hero, hence the favourite 
O.Eng. name Hilda, the gracious one. Hell is halju, the 
covered or hidden, cf. Hades, the unseen. The root is in hul- 
jan, to cover, Sc. hool of a pea, and the hulls for clothes in 
" Sartor Eesartus." A priest is a gud-ja, or good man. The 
affix ja is very common as a diminutive in Sc, and specially 
Aberdeenshire, e.g. wifie, lassie (wifya, lass-ya). 

The foregoing terms give, in considerable variety, evidence 
of the social and intellectual condition of the Goths. They also 
bear out the fact that these people were, in a veritable sense, 
our forefathers. A further inquiry will prove that these re- 
mains throw a very instructive light, not only backward upon 
the primitive condition of Teutonic Europe, but forward on 
many words and expressions still in common use. As we have 
a fuller and richer history, an older and more varied literature 
than any other European country, it cannot but happen with 
our words as with our institutions, that old friends assume new 
faces. Gothic, therefore, serves to show how great has been 
this change in meaning as well as form. The long forgotten 
sense in which they occur gives us a strange surprise. Sutizo 
comp. of suts = sweet, is in Matt. xi. 24 — " Sweeter \i.e. better] 
will it be for Sodom at the judgment-day than for thee." 
Again, Mark xi. 12, coming out of Bethany the next day, Jesus 
was greedy (gredags) i.e. hungry. Sets, our silly, always retains 
its good sense, as in Ger. selig, happy, blessed, and " the silly 
sheep " of pastoral poetry. In the parable of the talents, Lc. xix. 
22 — " Thou wicked and slothful servant " is " Un-selja skalk jah 
lata," lit. unsilly, skulk, yea, late, four words equally good Go. 
and good Eng., but in a strangely altered sense. Lats = late, 
is always used in the sense of lazy. Its opposite, early, is air, 
ere, while both are in Scots as " late an' air." Modags = moody, 
is always angry, thus, " Whosoever is moody (modags) with his 



THE DAWN 29 

brother without a cause." Verbs show similar changes of 
sense. 

The Go. swers (Ger. schwer, heavy) has been lost in English 
in any sense, but is still familiar in Scots as unwilling, slow 
to move. In the Gospels the centurion's servant was swers or 
dear to him. Fagrs, again, our fair, has only the sense of 
suitable or fit. In German and Dutch the root is very 
common. On the other hand, many adjectives differ little 
from modern forms, thus, gods (good), uUls (evil), fav^ (few), 
Toanags (many), reihs (rich), arms (poor, Ger. arm), leitils 
(little), mikils (muckle), Sraic^s (Sc. bredd, broad), Tcalds (cold) 
and gradags (greedy), fuls (foul), wairs (worse, Sc. waur). Such 
adjectives were compared much as now ; for example, for good, 
better, best, we have gods, tatiza, hatists. A quite obsolete 
adjective, mins, is treated similarly, minniza, minists. It still 
appears as a verb, to mince, make small, common in early 
English. 

In the list of nouns there are interesting Gothic words still 
common in Scots though long lost to English. In the miracu- 
lous feeding the disciples took up of the remains of the feast, 
laihos gabruko, literally the lave of the brock or broken bits. 
In Ephesians the phrase, without spot or blemish, has wamme 
and maile, the former O.Eng. wem, a spot, the latter such a 
blemish as iron-mould (Sc. eirn-mail) or rust op linen. The 
Apostles are to shake the dust off their feet, if not favourably 
received, where we have in Go. midda,t\i& Du. mul and Sc.mools,a 
favourite expression for burial, as in being "laid amone the mools." 
Its adjective muldeins, earthy, is applied in Sc, as moolins, to 
crumbs. The sponge that the soldier handed to the Christ on 
the Cross is a swam (Ger. Schwamm). Svmmfsl is the pool of 
Siloam. The word is in Eng. swamp, and, as a Scots mining 
term, is the sumph or draining hole at the foot of the shaft. 
When Judas led Pilate's men to Gethsemane they carried 
lanterns, for which Wulfila uses skeima. It is in our shimmer, 
but in Scots in the older form, — 

" The glare o' his e'e hath nae bard exprest, 
Nor the skimes o' Aiken-drum." 

— The Brownie of Blednoch. 



30 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

Slahan, which has now the special sense of slaying, in Go. 
means simply striking. Thus, at the Crucifixion the by- 
standers say: "Prophesy who is he slaying (striking) thee,'' 
"Hwa ist sa slahands thuk." This sense is old Scots, — 

" Dintis, 
That slew fyr as men slayis on flintis." — Barbour. 

In the cricket-field a hard hitter is a slogger, retaining the old 
guttural. To whei is now obsolete almost, but Wulfila regularly 
uses it in the sense of threaten, rebuke. Thus Our Lord whets 
(hwotjan) the evil spirits. Shakspere makes Brutus say, — 

" Since Cassius first did whet me against Csesar 
I have not slept." — Jul. Cees. 

Wopjan = weep (cf. whoop) has now quite a restricted sense, 
but in Go. it is used for calling aloud under all circumstances, 
of cock-crowing, and of the voice of the Baptist. The usual 
word for crying in our sense is gretan = Sc. greet. Thus Peter 
went out and grat bitterly (gaigrot baitraba). To whine, again, 
is hwainon, in the sense of mourning. Again, in "Wulfila the 
thieves twitted (id-weit-jan), i.e. reproached, Jesus on the Cross, 
from a verb the same as Sc. wite = blame. Ween, now only in 
over-weening, is quite common in its old sense of expect, fancy. 
" Art thou he that should come or ween (wenjan) we another ? " 
asked John's disciples. Be-wray, now obsolete, is wroh-jan, to 
accuse, e.g. " Wrohiths was fram thaim gudjam " = was accused 
of the priests. 

This process of change goes a step farther, and introduces us 
to common Go. words of which scarcely a trace now survives. 
Go. ogan, to be in extreme fear, has been frittered down to the 
senseless expletive awful, yet at one time it meant death by 
throttling (root, agh, to choke, Lat. anguis = the throttler). Its 
derivatives are ogre, eager, ugly, awe. On the Borders %ig-sam 
is still an expressive epithet. Theihan, to thrive, prosper, gives 
the commonest asseveration in O.Eng., " So mot I the " = so 
may I prosper. The thigh, Sc. thee, is the plump, well-thriven. 
Laikan, to leap for joy, lailcs, sport, is the vulgar larks, 
larking. The brother of the Prodigal, coming near the house. 



THE DAWS 31 

hears singing and larking (laikins). Dugan, to avail, is Ger. 
taugen, common in O.Sc. as dow. Bums has, " Some swagger 
hame as best they dow " (are able), and, again, as a negative, 
downa. The derivative doughty, Ger. tiichtig, has the guttural 
sounded in Scots. The root lives in a mutilated form in, How 
d' you do ? Anan, to breathe, a very old verb, is lost in Eng. 
Uz-anan is said of Our Lord giving up the ghost on the Cross. 
Scotch long preserved the word, — 

" And thai war ayndles and wery 
And thar abaid thair aynd to tan " (tane, take). 

— Barbour. 

Eend, breath, now obsolete, was common in Scotch of the seven- 
teenth century. The derivative, ansts, grace, favour, Ger. Gunst 
for ge-unst, is a pretty metaphor in Gothic. 

Some of these Gothic verbs are more obscure than others, but 
the difhculty vanishes on closer acquaintance. German easily 
accounts for such as fraihnan, to question (fragen), mitan, to cut 
(Messer, a knife), niman, to take (Ger. nehmen, Eng. be-numb), 
thaurban, to be in want (Ger. be-diirfen, to need). Of the first 
there is an odd example in the ballad, "As I went on ae 
Monday," — 

" Till him I said full soon on-ane (anon), 
For f urthermair I would him fraine, 
Gladly would I wit (know) thy name." 

In A.S. dearn, secret, is common. It is Go. ga-tarnjan, to conceal, 
lost in English but familiar in Scots. Its usual sense of hiding, 
listening, varies somewhat in the Eifeshire, " he dernd a wee," 
that is, paused to think. When, in the synagogue at Nazareth, 
the unclean spirit in the poor man called out, the Master said, 
" Silence ! come out of him." Here the Go. word for " Silence " 
is thaliai, the imperative of thahan, cognate with Lat. taceo, to 
be silent. 

German is in a much more archaic and homogeneous 
condition than modern English, and, therefore, one is quite 
prepared for many points of connection between it and Gothic. 
But they belong to different branches of the Teutonic family. 
Gothic, a Low-German speech, is closely allied to the Scandin- 
avian group of Teutonic tongues, and therefore akin to Lowland 



32 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

Scots, which, as distinctively Northern in character and largely 
influenced by Norse, has preserved many antique forms. 
Here one finds the most astonishing identities, not alone in 
form and sense, but in , pronunciation and minute turns of 
expression. The Goth said hwan, than, nu, ut, na, ain, haim, 
braid, gagg (gang), for when, then, now, out, no, one, home, 
broad, go. For " Suffer little children to come to me," Wulfila 
says, but slightly changed, "Let thay^ bairns gang to me." A 
hypocrite is a liuta = one that loots. The Apostles, sent out to 
preach, are to take ane rung (one staff, aina hrugga). One is 
to lay upon the altar a hunsl as a gift, which is just hansel in 
Handsel-Monday, and Shakspere's " unhouseled " in " Hamlet." 
The leaven of the Pharisees, in translating the Greek ^vit.jj 
(cf. zymotic^ diseases), Lat. fermentum, is called heist, from 
beitan, to bite, in Scotland known as the first milk of the cow 
after calving. Milk itself is a dissyllable (miluks), just as one 
hears it now in Dutch. " Blessed are the merciful " appears as 
Ueiths = the blate = coy, modest. St. Luke tells Theophilus that 
he has followed the Gospel story glegly (glaggwuba), or accurately 
(a/c/Dt^us), from the beginning, suggesting the Scots phrase " gleg 
i' the uptak," sharp of wit. The gospel mystery, again, was 
concealed from the wise and prudent and revealed to babes. 
For babes here we have niu-klahs = new-born. Can this be the 
klekkin and klekkit, familiar to every Scottish laddie that has 
kept rabbits ? The homeliness of the expression is almost shock- 
ing, but in language, as in life, there are plenty of poor relations. 
The hireling shepherd in the parable is betrayed by his " stibna 
framaths," his fremmit or strange voice. The Gadarene demoniac 
is wods = mad, Sc. wud, on which Shakspere puns in " Mid- 
summer Night's Dream" — "Wood within the wood," scarcely 
intelligible to southron readers. Another Shaksperian phrase 
■'The wild waves whisht," in the "Tempest," is paralleled in 
Go. by the very Sc. expression, " There was a muckle wheesh," 
= and " Jah warth wis mikil " following our Lord's rebuke of the 
waves. Other peculiar terms oddly survive in Scots. Thus, James 
and John were partners — ga-dailaiis — of Simon, a word used 

1 Tliay is not the article but a true demonstrative. 

2 In a scientific age such as ours one need hardly note the connection 
between germs and fermentation. 



THE DAWN 33 

with precisely the same force among our herring fishers, who go 
as dealsmen and half-dealsmen. A common asseveration is 
"bi sunjai," the "verily" of the Authorised Version. Quite a 
long story might be told of this word and its cognates ; enough 
to say it lives in Sc. " My san ! " a variant of " My certe ! " 
Professor Skeat connects " sunja " with our archaic " sooth." 

Turning now to verbs we find similar evidence of identity- 
The Goth said bide (beidan) for staying in a place. Jesus asks 
of the unbelieving generation, How long must I thole {thulan) 
you ? Bartimeeus, now no longer blind, throwing off (af-wairp- 
ands) his robe and loupin up {us-hlaujpands), cam at (to) Jesus. 
The elect are the waled (waljan) or chosen. The crown of thorns 
— wipja us thaurnum — is a wuppin o' thorns, from wipjan, to 
twist or plait, the Sc. wup, beautifully used in the ballad of 
Sir Patrick Spens, — 

" Gae fetch a wab o' the silken claith 
Anitber o' the twine ; 
And wap them in til oor gude ship's side, 
And let na the sea come in." 

The regular verb in Go. for the act of perception is gaumjan, 
the expressive Sc. gumpshin. For a strictly mental act Wulfila 
uses hugjan, to think, which, with the particle of reversal, for, 
Ger. ver, is Sc. for-hoo, to forsake, as in " Johnny Gibb," " I 
wadna say nor the laird wud hae to forhoo's bit bonny nest." 
To strike or cuff with the open hand is kaupat-jan, Sc. gowpen. 
Finally giutan, to pour out water, is quite a Sc. favourite, and 
developed curious meanings such as gyte = silly (cf. Lat. ef-futio 
from the same root). In " Johnny Gibb " is " Loshtie, man, 
ye 're seerly gyaun gyte," and again from an old poem, — 

" Wark, ye ken yersels, brings drouth 
Wha can thole a gaisen ^ mouth 1 " 

Lowland Scots preserves many such verbs in their Gothic 
senses and sometimes even in sound. Thus gairnjan, to yearn 
for, is heard better in Sc. gim than its equivalent grin ; hi- 
smeitan, used when Christ anoints the blind man's eyes, is 

1 Cf . A gizzend tub ; also Allan Ramsay, imitations of Horace's " Siccas 
carinas," boats leaking from having been long beached ; also Icel. Geyser. 



34 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

nearer Sc. smit than Eng. smut ; hannjan, to make to know, is 
not only heard in Sc. ken but in the phrase " a kennin," a 
sample ; diwan, to die, is often heard in Sc. dwine, a dwinin, 
to fade away from such an illness as consumption, or a decline, 
as it was called of old ; mmidon, to observe, is akin in use to Sc. 
mind, pay attention to ; hrukjan, to make use of, is the archaic 
brook (Ger. brauchen). When the question is put to Christ as to 
paying tribute to Caesar (haisara-gild), he asks, " Why temptest 
thou me ? " Wulfila puts it thus : " Hwa mik fraisith ? " using 
a verb that in Scots means flattering, wheedling. The Go. 
jiukan, to contend, and jiuha, strife, explains the Scots expres- 
sion " a yokin," " he yokit on me," in precisely the same sense. 
We use went as the past of go from Go. wandjan, but Scots 
keeps to the older form, Go. iddja, as gaed, the yode of Old 
English. 

When we turn from the vocables of a language, as evidence 
of its character and pedigree, to its grammar we are on firmer 
ground. Por in the one case the materials are in a perpetual 
flux, each district, generation, social set, individual even, giving 
a new meaning to the old stock or borrowing from without, 
whereas in the other we have the permanent bed of the stream, 
deeply grooved with the flow of ages. In language, as in the 
features of Nature, age conceals itself under the guise of 
familiarity. Who thinks, as he follows the course of some 
wimpling bum, that he is gazing on what is older than the 
oldest historical monument in existence, or dreams that the 
variations of case and number in his own speech were evolved 
in an age long anterior to the Vaidic hymns. For these are the 
grammatical formulae of his race, perennial as the very laws of 
thought. Historical grammar is in the study of language what 
morphology is in the natural sciences treated biologically. In 
both directions we see persistency of type, co-existent with 
endless modifications in obedience to the demands of functional 
growth and decay. Thus, what seem to be arbitrary formulae, 
mere atrophied structure, become in the light of historical 
grammar natural and significant. Many of the so-called anom- 
alies of English grammar can thus be invested with meaning 
and interest. The historical grammarian has not evidence 
enough to give us the ultimate analysis of those' conventional 



THE DAWN 35 

formative elements — number, gender, and case ; but he can tell 
us why one says methinks, but a child may not say m« likes 
nurse ; why an Englishman's like I do is wrong, but his give 'em 
(not for them) it right; why drownded, Shakspere's swounded 
(swooned) and once-t are no more correct than sounded(La,t.8ona.re) 
and whilst (by false analogy from whiles) ; and why a Scotsman 
uses hit for it and speaks of a cattle least and a widow wmnan. 
The answer to these and many more such questions is found 
better in Gothic than anywhere else, for this reason, that it 
places us so near to the primitive type of Teutonic speech, 
undisturbed by subsequent functional derangement. Hence it 
is indispensable to the scientific study of English grammar, just 
as it in turn is illuminated by the living vernacular of Scotland. 
It would be impossible, within reasonable limits, to give 
anything like a full account of Gothic grammar. Merely a few 
points can be selected, and these such as prove the essential 
identity of the language with our own, and at the same time 
elucidate modern idiom and expression. Gothic is, like Ger- 
man, highly inflected. Wulfila cannot equal the richness of the 
Greek verb, but is able to convey to his countrymen with suffi- 
cient accuracy the spirit of so subtle and flexible a language. 
The basis of conjugation is the familiar distinction between 
strong and weak verbs, or what might rather be called primary 
and derivative. Gothic properly makes this turn on what is 
the cardinal function of the verb, the expression of preterite or 
past time. The primitive and very natural mode of doing so is 
by reduplication of the root, and this is well preserved here as 
in Greek. The idea of past time might very well be expressed 
by stress on present. Tee-total is said to be the result of a 
stuttering orator's endeavour to emphasise total abstinence. 
Traces of the process exist in Latin, either obvious, as cado, ce- 
cidi, or disguised, as fac-io, fec-i for fe-fac-i. Our did, Go. 
di-da, is the sole English survival of this process, but we have 
in Gothic several specimens of the feci-type, as hold, held (Go. 
hald, hai-hald), take, took (tek, tai-tok), Sc. greet, grat (grgt, 
gai-grot). This process must have become at an early period 
merely conventional, as the rule in Gothic is not to repeat the 
root- vowel but the initial consonant and a uniform light vowel, 
ai = e, in met. Even at this early stage the further step had 



36 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

been taken, and many verbs originally reduplicating are treated 
as they are now, e.g. Go. bind, band = bind, bound ; sit, sat. 
This is the result of a shifting of the accent due to the addition 
of personal endings, similar to what we see in photograph, 
phot6graphy, cdput, capitis. Hence have arisen the mono- 
syllabic preterites that we find in Go., Ger. and Eng. These 
processes exhausted themselves ages ago. Not a single strong 
verb has been developed within the historical period. The 
younger weak and derivative inflection supplies our increasing 
wants, and, like Jacob, appropriates the heritage of its elder 
brother. "We say helped, dragged, slipped, for example, for the 
Go. halp, dr6g, slaup. A Scotsman even says hegoud for began, 
and, still worse, seen for saw, hoten for hit, and putten for put. 
It was a Glasgow merchant, they say, who, visiting the Louvre, 
remarked in answer to his French conductor's " This is a por- 
trait of Burke, your great countryman," "Dod, maan, I seen 
him hanged." 

But the best proof of the value of Gothic as an aid to 
historical grammar is to be found in the analysis it renders 
possible of our weak preterites in -d and -ed. There we see 
that they are really compounds, like will go, am walking, &c. 
The auxiliary do has coalesced with the stem, so that I love is 
just I love-did. The Go. tam-jan, to tame, in its past, is 
declined on the model of love-did. 



s. 


P. 


tam-i-da 
„ d^s (for dedt) 
„ da 


tam-i-d^d-um 

. „ dSd-uth 

„ dM-un. 



Strange to say, the very common Teut. verb to do is not found 
as a separate verb in Gothic. It must have reduplicated and 
formed its pret. as S. di-da, di-des, di-da : PI. di-ded-um, and so 
on. The first syllable disappears when used as a compound 
tense. It thus appears that, even where apparently we see 
tense indicated in Eng. by modification of the stem, we really 
use an auxiliary. Gothic uses this composite tense as freely as 
we do now. At the grave' of Lazarus " Jesus wept " (iSaKpwrtv), 
which Wulfila renders, " Jah tagrida Jesus," as if we were to 



THE DAWN 37 

say, and Jesus teared. In Matt, xxvii. 1, "That they might 
kill him," is " Ei af-dauthi-dedeina ina," reminding one of what 
the child said of the murdered fly, " Me deaded it." 

This preterite tense is the only tiTne inflection in Gothic. 
In common with all the Teut. languages it had no future. 
Wulfila renders the Greek future variously, most frequently by 
using the subjunctive. In Latin, as every boy knows, the Fut. 
Ind. and Pres. Subj. of some conjugations are perplexingly like 
each other. He also uses the Indie, and part, present, e.g. I 
coming heal him = Ik quimando gahailja ina, for I coming will 
heal him; "Thai guth gasaihwand," i.e. they seeing God, for 
they will see. Circumlocutions he employs, just as we may now 
say, I am going to, about to, intend to, have to. Our auxiliaries 
shall and will are always independent verbs in Gothic, with the 
decided meaning of duty and wish. Such is the tense condition 
of the Teutonic verb; the other forms which grammarians 
parade in English are simply imitations of Latin. All this goes 
to show that in primitive times little advance had been made in 
developing this, one of the subtlest and most abstract of concep- 
tions. Even yet the commonest errors in translation, as every 
teacher knows, are due to confusion of tenses. 

Many more striking illustrations of the value of Gothic to 
the student of grammar might be adduced. Suffice it to refer 
to one more verbal form, the passive. Here Gothic throws a 
unique light on the primitive condition of the Teutonic tongues. 
These all, like English, never had a conjugational or simple 
passive. We are so familiar with it in Greek and Latin that 
we can scarcely realise our poverty here. In point of fact, 
young learners have the greatest difficulty in grasping the con- 
ception of a passive. They fail to see the difference between 
/ am struck and / am sick. Eor, in a compound tense such as 
am struck, the participle, which we call the main verb, is nothing 
more than an adjective in predicative relation to the subject. 
English, and still more French and German, avoid the passive 
by the use of indefinite and reflexive pronouns. Thus the hook 
has been found is in German the hook has found itself. Colloqui- 
ally we regularly avoid the passive by using the indefinite they 
as a subject. Other modern languages adopt to an excessive 
extent reflexive forms. Thus, Italian has for it is said, it says 



38 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

itself. Even Gothic preserves merely a trace of a passive 
inflection by simple derivation from the stem as bairada, 
bairanda (from bairan, to bear) = i^ipirai, ^ipovrai. But the 
favourite mode is our modern one of circumlocution, with 
participles and auxiliaries, or by a peculiar formation from a 
passive participle in — na, our — en in brok-en. Thus, from 
mikils, Sc. muckle, mikilnan, to be enlarged, from hauhs = high 
hauhnan, to be exalted. Slight traces of this still survive in 
learn and own. The former is from an original lais-nan, to be 
lered or taught. German shows this distinction of act. and 
pass, senses well in lehr-en (active, to teach), where h is not 
radical, and lern-en, to be taught, to learn. Own, again, is an 
original agnan (A.S. ag-nian), to be possessed, from (Go.) aigan, to 
have, owe. These forms are, however, not true passives, being 
simply the participle with the adjectival ending — na or en, 
treated as a verb, very much as we still do, e.g. " Fallen, thy 
throne, Israel ! " or = Fallen's thy throne, Israel. ' In all 
these cases the participle is merely an adjective used predica- 
tively. I am loved is not a form like amor, but really / am 
(one) loved. 

The ultimate elements in grammar are two-fold, verbal and 
pronominal. In a now-forgotten book, the "Diversions of 
Purley," Home Tooke showed a century ago that nouns, which 
bulk so largely in grammar, are merely epithets formed from 
verbal roots. It is said that our man, the thinker, is the only 
case of a Teut. root used directly as a noun. The pronominal 
elements are the abbreviations of speech, in themselves non- 
significant marks of identity. Their inflexion, as pronouns, is 
peculiar. We have lost many of the Gothic forms, but preserve 
a few, e.g. the old dative in -m as him, them, whom (found also 
in seldom, whilom), and the neuter of demonstratives in -t as it 
that, what. The masc. accus. sing, in -na one hears in Sc. tJume, 
not a mistake for yon. Thus Peter, in his denial, said, "Ni 
kanna thana mannan " = I kenna thone man. The full form of 
I, Go. ik, has quite gone. In " King Lear," the disguised Edgar, 
using the Somersetshire dialect, says, " Keep out, che vor' ye," = 
Go. ik warja thuk = I warn you. When the two disciples are 
told to find the colt in the village over against, Wulfila uses the 
dual of the pronoun, for Go. had a dual here as well as in the 



THE DAWN 39 

verb. A more serious loss is that of the reflexive, which 
German preserves (of. Go. sik, Ger. sich). 

Turning lastly to demonstratives and relatives, we find still 
further interest in Gothic grammar. The article is exactly 
what we see in Sanskrit and Greek. Its feminine survives in 
she, its neuter as that, which Sc. treats as an article, e.g. " Gie 
me that poker '' for " Give me the poker." The nom. plur. of 
that (which is not those) we use as the old plur. of he, but in 
Sc. it is rightly used, as Go. thai bokos = Sc. thay books. The 
proper plural of he Chaucer uses regularly. In Shakspere its 
dative is frequent, though his editors substitute for it them. It 
is not in Gothic, except in a few adverbial phrases, such as 
to-day (himma daga, ef. Sc. the day). The relative is very 
imperfectly developed. The correlation of adjectival clauses is 
effected mainly by the addition of an indeclinable particle -ei 
to pronouns and demonstratives, as ik-ei = I who. This is just 
what might be expected, for the use of the relative implies a 
distinct advance in composition and the inter-dependence of 
clauses. Its growth is always slow, and the usage of cognate 
tongues far from uniform. The reader of Dickens knows that 
when the uneducated attempt to go beyond the rudimentary 
stage in composition of ands and huts and wells, and aspire to 
relatives, they throw about their whieh's very freely. The 
primitive relative is usually a pronominal particle (Go. -ei above 
is the Sanskrit ya), or the article, the indeclinable the (our 
article) of A.Sax. and the abbreviated unemphatic relative that 
or 'at of Scots, due, in the opinion of Dr. Murray (" Dialects of 
Lowland Scotland "), not to Norse but Celtic influence. A Gaelic 
speaker will say he for the throughout. The Irish peasant 
makes it dee. On the other hand the pure Lowland Scot says 
Foorsday (Thursday), and squeezes out the dental between 
vowels as persistently as, the Cumberland man has laal and 
oude for little and old. 

This relative one constantly hears in Scots. It can be traced 
from the oldest vernacular, the twelfth century " Laws of the 
Four Burghs," down to the speech of to-day. In such imitation 
Scots as Burns often wrote we have wha instead. Thus, " Scots 
wha hae " would be in Barbour " Scottis at hes," as Dr. Murray 
well shows. Our forms — who, which, that — have an interesting 



40 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

history. That is simply the demonstrative, and has its own 
appropriate use ; but who, whose, whom, what, which, are really 
interrogatives. They are so in Sanskrit, where who is ka as in 
Gaelic (co) still. Sans, and Gr. clearly differentiate relative and 
interrogative, not so Lat. Who as a relative in Eng. was not 
recognised by Ben Jonson, the author of our earliest English 
Grammar, who says " one relative which." Dr. Furnivall says 
it was first used once in Wyclif s Bible, and very sparingly till 
Shakspere. In Gothic the interrogative is hwa-s, Sc. whaw, 
whae; its instrumental h-ivi we have in why, Sc. hoo, foo. A 
peculiar idiom is the Scots at hoo for how that. Which is a 
descriptive form of adjectival relationship quite distinct from 
who. Latin qualis, Fr. lequel, Ger. der welcher, and Shakspere's 
the which, all show this peculiarity. Gothic proves it to be a 
compound, where it is hioi-leiks. The first member is tvha = 
wha ; leiks is the word for body, as in Lich-field, lich-gate. This 
is our like, both separately and in composition, as in life-like = 
lively. For it has become our general adverbial suffix, -ly, 
e.g. like-ly = like-like. Sanskrit affords a curious parallel ; Lat. 
corpus, a body, is the Sans, kalpa, which also forms adverbs in 
the sense of like, but not quite, e.g. pandita-kalpa = a quasi- 
pundit. Scottish people similarly use like in making explana- 
tions, e.g. He gie'd it to me like ; I gaed wi' him a mile like. 

The following table exhibits the pronominal compounds of 
like, to which Sc. adds thi-lk = that-like : — 



Gothic. 


Scots. 


German. 


English. 


Hwi-leik 


hwi-lk 


we-lch(er) 


whi-ch 


Swa-leik 


swi-lk = sic 


so-lch(er) 


su-ch 


Aiia-leiks 


i-lk and ilk-a 


a(h)n-lich 


ea-ch, on-ly, 



The foregoing imperfect sketch of this fascinating subject is 
an attempt to tell the strange story of the Gothic MS. and its 
enlightened author, of the people among whom he laboured, 
and the sad fate that has buried them in oblivion. On the 
fragmentary evidence of the Gospels, excluding altogether the 
Epistles, I have endeavoured to illustrate the intellectual con- 
dition of the Goths in the fourth century, and to prove that 
whatever there is in the language of to-day that we regard as 
most homely and familiar, the indispensable materials of every- 



THE DAWN 41 

day intercourse, and the very formulae under which our thought 
must find expression, all lived in the mouths of our remote 
Oothic ancestors in their rude turn and hurgs by the banks of 
the Danube, while this land of ours was still a Eoman colony. 
Do such records not awaken a deeper interest than a blurred 
footprint in the Eed Sandstone, or even an inscribed brick from 
a Chaldsen mound ? Jacob Grimm, the father of comparative 
philology, found in Gothic the clue to many of his researches, 
and based upon his study of it those principles which have 
illuminated the whole field of linguistics. During the seventy 
years that have intervened since he completed his great 
Grammar, in 1837, philologists have never lost sight of the 
value of Gothic. The Wulfilic remains have appeared in various 
forms, but the field has been almost entirely left to German 
scholars, and this in spite of the fact that their language is, 
for many reasons, the farthest removed from the true type of a 
Teutonic speech. The English Universities are strong in classi- 
cal philology, but in every other department the German easily 
holds the field. The best Celtic dictionary and grammar, the 
most complete collection of Anglo-Saxon literature, the only 
concordance to Shakspere worthy of the name, the most com- 
plete English grammar — these, among many other works, have 
been left to the foreigner. Bosworth gave us a text of the Gothic 
Gospels, Professor Skeat has done much to popularise the study, 
and quite recently Mr. Douse has published a very elaborate 
and very scientific treatise of about three hundred pages, which 
may be an " Introduction to Gothic," though it must be barely 
intelligible to anyone who has not worked long and well 
at the subject. But the surprising feature is that, whereas 
German scholars, many of them much like our secondary school- 
masters, have so successfully prosecuted such studies, and 
Englishmen only in a fragmentary fashion and generally under 
the mantle of the universities, Scotsmen have contributed 
nothing to the subject, yet they possess an unbroken stream of 
literature from the twelfth century to the days of Burns and 
Scott, and, what is of more importance, they have, not from 
books or the mistaken theories of teachers, but as a living 
product, native to the soil that bore them, a rich system of 
phonetics, a homely, pithy vocabulary, and a genuine Teutonic 



42 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

idiom, vastly more archaic than the academic and conventional 
printed speech of the English scholar. To the Scot, therefore, 
the language and idiom of our old writers and of Wulfila have 
a freshness, a directness, and a meaning which are scarcely pos- 
sible to any but an exceptionally favoured Southron. In proof 
of this contrast take two such works as Barnes's Poems in the 
Dorset dialect and the Banffshire tale of "Johnny Gibb." 
Whereas the one must be almost a foreign tongue to the 
average Englishman, no intelligent Scot, especially if born and 
reared in a country district, need miss in the other one point 
of its inimitable humour, its pithy, pawky turns of idiom and 
expression, and the real genius that created its character and 
incident. But, alas ! in spite of such native advantages of 
Scottish scholarship. Dr. Johnson might still say of it that 
everyone here gets a mouthful but no one may make a meal of 
learning. Such works as " Johnny Gibb," the late Dr. Gregor's 
"Banffshire Glossary," Edmonston's work on Orcadian, the 
Scots contributions to Professor Wright's ''English Dialect 
Dictionary," and Dr. Murray on the dialects of the South of 
Scotland, are invaluable for the study of our fast-decaying 
vernacular. To the philologist a vernacular is vastly more 
instructive than any mere book-speech, for in the field of 
dialectic growth and decay the real problems of language 
must be studied. In such fields there is almost everything 
to] be done for our own vernacular. Who will do for the 
north-eastern counties, for Fife and the Lothians, for Lanark 
and Ayr, what Dr. Murray has so well done for the Scots of 
the Border counties ? Is Jamieson, even in his latest form, a 
scientific record of our vocables ? Is there not room for some 
scholarly account of Gaelic, Norse, and French influence on 
Scots ? Who will treat philologically the relics of the oldest 
vernacular in burgh and parliamentary records, the diction of 
our folk-lore and ballad minstrelsy, and even of Burns and 
Scott, or popularise our national epic, Barbour's "Brus"? 
Whoever should attempt to cultivate any one of these spheres 
of linguistic research will render his labours more valuable by 
a previous acquaintance with the Gothic of Wulfila. 



THE DAWN 43 

2. Specimens from the "Gothic Gospels" 
of "wulfila. 

In treating of the language of the most interesting of the Low- 
German races, the Goths of Moesia on the Lower Danube, during 
the fourth century of our era,. I have aimed at presenting merely 
an introduction and in no way an exhaustive treatise. I have 
had the further object of demonstrating to the student of Low- 
land Scots the value and the extent of his inheritance in that 
forgotten speech. I know of no other treatment of the subject 
from this point of view. Professor Skeat, so long ago as 1868, 
rendered the study immensely interesting to the merely English 
scholar in his " Moeso-Gothic Glossary," of which I have made 
the most ample use in the following pages. He has put this 
English standpoint fairly and forcibly: "To study Moeso- 
Gothic is, practically, more the business of Englishmen than 
of anyone else — excepting perhaps the Dutch. Though it is 
not strictly an older form of Anglo-Saxon, it comes sufficiently 
near to render a study of it peculiarly interesting and instruc- 
tive to us, and a thing by no means to be neglected." This 
exception of Dutch, one of the most modernised and cosmo- 
politan of the Teutonic stock, is not a very happy one, nor can 
Anglo-Saxon in the mouth of the Englishman of to-day be 
mentioned in the same breath with the still living hold of the 
Lowland Scot on his Gothic original through his Northumbrian 
and Frisian ancestry. Professor Skeat has made Gothic still 
, more accessible through his " Gospel of St. Mark in Gothic " 
(Clarendon Press, 1882). More exhaustive is the "Introduc- 
tion to Gothic" of Mr. T. le Marchant Douse, 1886. Por a 
complete text, grammar and philological examination we must 
look to German writers. Of these by far the most practical 
and accessible are F. L. Stamm and Dr. Moritz Heyne, 1872 
(text, grammar, glossary), and Wilhelm Braune (Gotische 
Grammatik, 1887). Needless to say, neither makes any use 
of Lowland Scots. 

The version I have placed alongside of Wulfila for com- 
parison through the following extracts is taken from " The New 
Testament in Scots, being Purvey's Eevision of Wyclifife's 
Version turned into Scots by Murdoch Nisbet, c. 1520," ed. 



44 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

by the late T. Graves Law, LL.D. "While among the very 
oldest specimens of Scots prose, and strictly comparable with 
Gothic on the score of subject-matter, it has the disadvantage 
of reflecting unduly the influence of contemporary English. 
For it must be remembered that the Scots never had a native 
Bible or Psalter. Nearly all the popular Keformation literature 
was produced under the influence of English. Nisbet's version 
was at no time in general use. 

The more than literal versions of the passages here presented 
are not intended to be read as a translation or rendering of 
their sense. The words employed do not always convey such 
an acceptation as would satisfy the mere modern reader. That 
purpose is sufficiently met by the accompanying rendering into 
Lowland Scots, valuable in itself as supplying a philological 
commentary, or by the version in common use. Any rendering 
that is cognate with the corresponding word in the text, 
whether old or. modern English, Lowland Scots or German, is 
adopted. Words that have no such cognates are italicised, 
while anything necessary to complete the sense is put in 
brackets. The mere look of the text, therefore, should show 
how much of the language spoken in Moesia in the fourth 
century has still representatives, more or less distantly related. 
As an aid to the text and translation some knowledge of 
the grammar is necessary. No complete scheme need be given 
here, but pronominals and connectives, as they so frequently 
recur, will give good return for some attention. In the per- 
sonals (I and thou) only the plurals call for notice. Of the 
cases the nom., poss. and obj. are — for /, weis (we), uns (us), 
unsara (of us and our) ; for thou, jus (ye), izwis (you), izwara 
(of you, your). Little has survived of the third person 
pronoun, so that it has to be shown entire, distinguishing 
termination from stem. This stem is the unemphatic demon- 
strative i-. The equivalents here given are the Anglo-Saxon 
forms : — 

Sing.- 





Masc. 


Fern. 


Neut. 


•N. 


i-s = he 


si = heo 


i-ta = hit 


Ace. 


i-na = him 


i-ja = her 


i-ta = hit 


Gen. 


i-s = his 


i-zai = hire 


i-s = his 


Dat. 


i-mma = him 


i-zos= her 


i-mma = hit 



THE DAWN 45 

Masc. 
Plur.- 





Masc. 


Fern. 


Neut. 


-N. 


ei-s = hi 


ij6-s 


ija 


Ace. 


i-ns = hi 


ij6-s 


ija 


Gen. 


i-zg = hira 


i-zo 


i-z6 


Dat. 


i-m = him 


i-m . 


i-m 



The A.S. has but one set of forms for plural. Lowland Scots 
has preserved hit. Morris says, " Mine = him is still retained , 
in the Southern dialect, as ' I seed en.' Shee and thay do not 
occur in any pure Southern writer before a.d. 1387." Our 
plurals here are borrowed from the demonstrative. "Thai 
(they), thair, thaim are Northern forms, and are not used by 
Southern writers" (Morris). "We use the original forms 
colloquially in such phrases as "Give 'em it," for the per- 
sonal him not them. The A.S. forms accompany here the 
Gothic : — 

Masc. 
Sing. — N. sa = se 

Ace. tha-na = thone 

Gen. thi-s = thaes 

Dat. tha-mma = tham 

Plur.— N. thai = thS, 

Ace. tha-ns = tha 

Gen. thi-ze = thS,ra 

Dat. thai-m = th^m 

It will be noticed in the above forms that Go. z becomes the 
modern r according to rule. Of these Gothic forms Scots pre- 
serves thone for ace. sing, and thai for plurals, as " thai books." 
The neut. sing, that it uses as the definite article both singular 
and (in Aberdeenshire) plural. The remoter demonstrative, 
those is thirr. By the addition of uh or h, an enclitic cognate 
with Lat. -que, the strong form of the Go. demonstrative is 
formed. Similarly both personals and demonstratives become 
relatives by the addition -ei, also used independently as a con- 
nective. Lastly, an old pronominal stem, hi = this, survives 
only in certain adverbial phrases, himma daga = to-day, fram 
himma = henceforth, und hina dag = to this day, und hita nu — 
till now, hitherto. 



Fern. 


Mut. 




s6 = sec 


tha-ta = 


: thaet 


th6 = tha 


tha-ta 


■■ thaet 


thi-z6s = thaere 


thi-s 


■■ thaes 


thi-zai = thaere 


tha-mma = 


-■ tham 


th6-s 


th6 




th6-s 


th6 




thi-z6 


thi-zg 




thai-m 


thi-m 





46 



STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 



Mr. Douse has transliterated a passage to show the pro- 
nunciation of Gothic. As it adds great confidence, and even 
light, in learning a language to read it aloud, this passage will 
form the best introduction to the extracts given below. 



Mark's Gospel — Gothic Version (c. a.d. 365). 
Chapter IV., Verses 1-20. 
1. Jah aftra JSsus dugann laisjan 



Yah 
Yea 

marein ; 

mareen ; 

(the)-mere ; 



aftra 
after 



Yaysoos 

Jesus 



jah 
Yah 
and 



gal^sun 

galaysoon 

gathered 



doogann 

began 

sik 

sik 

selves 



lais-yan 
to-lere 

du 
doo 

to 



at 
at 
at 

imma 

imma 

'em 



filu, manageins 
filoo, manageens 
fell many 



in 
in 



skip 
skip 
ship 



gasitan 
gasitan 

he-sat 



swaswe 

swasway 
so as 

in 



m 



ina 
ma 

him 

marein ; 

mareen ; 

mere; 



galeithandan 
galeethandan 
leading (going) 

jah alia 
yah all 
and all 



so managei withra marein ana statha was. 

s6 managee (g hard) withra mareen ana statha was. 

the (she) many over-against the-mere on stead was. 

(Ger. wieder) 



2. Jah laisida 

Yah laisida 

And lered-he 



ins gajukom 
ins gayookSm 
them yokes (parables) 



manag, jah 

manag, yah 

many, and 



3. quath 
quath 
quoth 



im 
im 



in 



laiseinai 
laiseeuai 

lere-ing 



seinai : 
seenai : 



Hauseith ! 

Howseeth ! 

Hear-ye 



Sai, urrann sa saiands du 

Sai, oorran sa saiands doo 

See owre-ran (arose) the sowing-(one) to 



saian 
saian 
sow 



THE DAWN 



47 



4. fraiwa seinamma. Jah warth, mith-thanei 

fraiwa seenamma. Yah warth, mith-thanei 

seed his And it chanced (worth) while 



sai86, sum raihtis 
seso, soom rehtis 
he-sowed, some richt 



quemun 
quaymun 



fuglos 
fooglos 
the-fowls 



gadraus 
gadrows 

y-drossed 
(fell) 

jah 
yah 
and 



faiir wig, jah 
for wig, yah 
fore the-way and 



frgtun 
fraytoon 

fret (ate) 



thata 

thata. 

that. 



5. Antharuth-than 
Antharuth-than 
antarn-ains (then) 



godraus 
gadrows 
y-drossed 



ana 

ana 

on-(to) 



tharei 

tharee 

there 

(where it) 

suns 
soons 



ni 
ni 



hahaida 
habaida 

had 



urrann, 
oorran. 



m 
in 



dirtha 
ertha 

airth 

thizei 
thizee 



stainahamma 
stainahamma, 
stony (places), 

managa ; jah 

managa ; yah 

mony ; and 



ni 
ni 



owre-ran in this (because it) nae 



6. diupaiz6s 
dyoopaizSs 

deepness 

urrinnandin 

oorrinnandin 

owre-rinnin 

7. habaida 
habaida 

had 

gadraus 
gadrows 
y-drossed 



dirth6s : 
erthos : 
of-earth : 

ufbrann, 

oofbran, 

up-brunt (it), 

waiirtins, 
wortins, 

worts, 



at 
at 
But 



sunnin 

soonnin 

sun 



habaida 
habaida 

had 

than 
than 
then 



jah, 
yah, 
and 

gathaiirsnSda. 
gath6rsn6da. 

it-thirsted. 



unte m 

oontay ni 

unto (because) nae 

Jah sum 

Yah soom 

Yea some 



in 
in 
in 



thaiirnuns ; 

thornoons ; 

thorns ; 



jah 
yah 
and 



ufarstigun 

oofarstigoon 

over-styed 



thai 
thai 
thai 



thaiirnjus 

thornyoos 

thorns 



jah afhwapidMun thata, 

yah afhwapidaydoon thata, 
and afif-whoopit-it (choked) that, 



48 



STUDIES m LOWLAND SCOTS 



jah akran ni gaf. Jah sum gadraus in 

yah akran ni gaf. Yah soom gadrows in 

yea acorn (fruit of nane it gave. And some y-dross in 
the fields) 



dirtha 


goda, 


jah 


gaf 


akran, 


urrinnando 


ertha 


g6da, 


yah 


gaf 


akran, 


oorrinnando 


airth 


good, 


and 


gave 


acorn, 


owre-rinnin 



jah wahsjand6, jah bar aiii ■!■ ( = thrins 
yah wahs-yando, yah bar ain (30) thrins- 
and waxing; yea bare ane three, 

j ( = sdihs tiguns), jah 

(60) sehs-tigoons, yah 

six-tens, and 



tiguns), 


jah 


ain 


tignoons, 


yah 


ain 


tens. 


and 


ane 



9. ain •r'= (taihun-taihund). 

ain (100) tehoon-tehoond. 
ane ten-tens 



Saei 

•Saee 

Who-evei 

gahausjai. 

gahowsyai. 

hear-he. 



habai 
habai 

have 



ausona 
owsona 

ears 



— Jah quath : 
— ^Yah quath : 
Yea quoth-he 

hausjandona 

hows-yand6na 

to4iear 



Notes to the Gothic Version. 

1. Jah is the same as yea and Ger. ja, though the sense sometimes 
requires the rendering, and : galesun, perf. of lisan, A S. lease — to glean, 
galeithandan, pres. part, leithan, A.S. lithan, lead, Ger. laden : withra — 
against (cf. with-stand). 

2. Ga-jukom. from jukan to yoke, and, with collective ga, a parable as 
being a parallel, something paired. 

3. Fraiw—aeed, Eng. fry : 4. warth, from wairthan, to become, Ger. 
werden, common in O.Eng., and used by Scott, " Woe worth the day ! " 

5. Antharuth—anthsec—wh, other, Sc. antarin, ither, Ger. ander. 

7. Waurtins, a root, wort, orts (Shaksp.), orchard, Ger. Wurzel : ga^ 
draus, perf. drius-an, to fall with ga-, cf. y-clad. 

Af-hwapjan, to choke, from hwapjan, a variant of whopan, to boast, 
whoop — cf. a whopper, whooping-cough. 

8. Akran, from akrs, a field, not connected with oak or acorn. 



THE DAWN 49 

Maek's Gospel — Lowland Scots Version (c. 1520). 
Chapter IV., Verses 1-20. 

1. Ande eftir Jesus began to teche at the see : and mekile 
pepile was gaderit to him, sa that he went into a boot, and 
sat in the see ; and al the pepile was about the see on the land. 
2. And he taucht thame in parabilis mony thingis, and he said 
to thame in his teching, 3. Here ye; lo, a man sawand gais 
out to saw: 4. And the quhile he sawis, sum sede fell about 
the way and briddis of heuen com and ete it. 5. Vther fell on 
stany places, quhare it had nocht meikle erde ; and anon it 
sprang vp, for it had nocht depnes of erde : 6. And quhen the 
sonn raase vp, it wallowit for heete ; and it dried vp, for it had 
nocht rute. 7. And vther fel doun into thornis, and the thornis 
sprang vp, and strangilit it, and it gafe nocht fruite. 8. And 
vther fel doun into gude land, and gafe fruite springand vp 
and waxand ; and aan brocht furthe threttifald, aan sextifald, 
and aan a hundrethfald. 9. And he said, He that has eeris 
of hering, here he. 10. And quhen he was be himself, tha that 
war with him askit him to expone the parabile. 

Notes to the Scots Version. 

2. Taucht, pret. of teach, preserving the strong guttural. 

4. Ete, pret. of the strong verb, eat. 

5. Erde, Sc. yird ; verb and noun, yirdit— buried, showing p.-part. 

prefix ge-. 

6. Wallowit, withered : Go. walwjan, to roll, wallow, Sc. derivative 

form, wiltit. 



Luke's Gospel — ^Wulfila's Version. 
Gha'pter II., Verses 4-20. 

4. TJrran than jah losef us Galeilaia, us baurg Nazaraith, in 
ludaian, in baurg Daweidis sei haitada Bethlahaim, duthe ei 
was us garda fadreinais Daweidis, 

5. Anameljan mith Mariin sei in fragiftim was imma queins, 
wisandein inkilthon. 

6. Warth than, miththanei tho wesun jainar, usfullnodedun 

dagos du bairan izai. 

4 



50 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

7. Jah gabar sunu seinana thana frumabaur, jah biwand 
ina, jah galagida ina in uzetin, unte ni was im rumis instada 
thamma. 

8. Jah hairdjos wesun in thamma samin landa, thairhwak- 
andans jah witandans wahtwom nahts ufaro hairdai seinai. 

9. Ith aggilus fraujins anakwam ins jah wulthus fraujins 
biskain ins, jah ohtedun agisa mikUamma. 

10. Jah kwath du im sa aggilus : ni ogeith, unte sai, spillo 
izwis faheid mikila, sei wairthith allai managein, 

11. Thatei gabaurans ist izwis himma daga nasjands, saei 
ist Xristus frauja, in baurg Daweidis. 

12. Jah thata izwis taikns: bigitid barn biwundan jah galagid 
in uzetin. 

13. Jah anaks warth mith thamma aggilau managei harjis 
himinakundis hazjandane guth jah kwithandane : 

14. Wulthus in hauhistjam gutha jah ana airthai gawairthi 
in mannam godis wiljins. 

15. Jah warth, bithe galithun fairra im in himin thai 
aggiljus, jah thai mans thai hairdjos kwethun du sis misso: 
thairhgaggaima ju und Bethlahaim, jah saihwaima waurd thata 
waurthano, thatei frauja gakannida unsis. 

16. Jah kwemun sniumjandans, jah bigetun Marian jah 
losef jah thata barn ligando in uzetin. 

17. Gasaihwandans than gakannidedun hi thata waurd thatei 
rodith was du im hi thata barn. 

18. Jah allai thai gahausjandans sildaleikidedun hi tho 
rodidona fram thaim hairdjam du im. 

19. Ith Maria alia gafastaida tho waurda thagkjandei in 
hairtin seinamma. 

20. Jah gawandidedum sik thai hairdjos mikiljandans jah 
hazjandans guth in allaize thizeei gahausidedun jah gasehwun 
swaswe rodith was du im. 



Transliteration of the Gothic Version, Lulce II. 4-20. 

4. Our-ran (arose) then yea Joseph out-of Galilee, out of the-burg 
Nazareth, in Judea, in David's burg that is-hight Bethlehem, to the-tliat 
( = because that) he-was out-of the yard of-the-family (father-/iood) of-DaN'id. 

5. To-he-inscribed mid Mary who in free-gift was to-him quean, being 
in-child. 



THE DAWN 51 

6. "Wortli then, mid-than-t^iaf (= while) thae were yonder, out-full-did 
(=fulfilled) the-days to her bearing. 

7. And she-bore her son tlione foreinost-born, and be-wound him, and 
laid hvm in an oot-eatin (thing), because nae was to-them room in the stead. 

8. And herds were in the same land, throoch-waking and witting watches 
by-nicht over their herd. 

9. But the-angel of-the frea on-cam to-them, and the-glory of the-frea 
be-shone them, yea they-awed with-muckle awe. 

10. And quoth to 'em tJie angel : be-awed not, for see, spell-I to-you 
muckle joy, that worth (ariseth to) all the-many, 

11. That born is to-you tlie-day a-Saviour, he-that is Christ the-frea, in 
David's burg. 

12. And that (be) to-you token : get-ye the-bairn bi- wound, yea laid in 
a,n ooteatin (thing). 

13. And suddenly worth mid the angel a many of the her-ship of 
Himmel (kind) -begotten, herying God and quothing, — 

14. Glory in-the-highest to-God, and on earth peace in men of good 
will. 

15. And worth, be-the (=while) thai angels led far-from tliem into 
Himmel, and thae men thai herds quoth to themselves: let-us-throooh-gang 
now unto Bethlehem, yea let-us-see that word that worth (= happened) 
that the frea has-kenned to-us. 

16. And cam they liastening, and begot ( = found) Mary and Joseph and 
that bairn lying in the oot-eatin (thing). 

17. Seeing then they-kenned be ( = about) that word that was read 
{= spoken) to 'em be that bairn. 

18. And all they hearing seld-likened ( = marvelled) be thae (things) 
read from (by) the herds to 'em. 

19. But Mary fastened all thae words, thinking in her heart. 

20. And wended tliemselves thae herds muckeling, yea heezing God in 
all these-t/wit they have heard, yea seen, so as (it) was read to 'em. 

Notes to the Gothic of LuJce II. 4-20. 

4. Garda, in the sense of the ancestral home of the family, some- 
what equivalent to the later territorial surname, often spoken of as 
that ilk. 

5. Ana^meljan — vi'eak verb from mel, time (of. Ger. ein-mal, once), 
A.S. maeZ— also writings : wis-andein, part, of wisan, to be, from which 
Eng. was, Sc. wurr, wuz, wiz-na, by common interchange of s and r. 

6. Jainar, from jains = that (Ger. jener, yon), meaning there— other 
forms are jaind ("yond Cassius"— " Jul. Cees."), and jaindre= yonder. 

8. Witandans, pres. part, of witan, to watch, observe (cf. eye-wit-ness). 
The two verbs witan, to know, and weitan, to see, are substantially 
identical, cf . otSa and Lat. videre. 

9. Ohtedun agisa, pret. pi. of ogan, from agan, to fear, and agis, awe. 
>Such a form as Lat. ang-uis, a snake, shows that the material figure in 



52 STUDIES IK LOWLAND SCOTS 

agan and agis is that of throttling or the choking sensation of awe or 
dread. 

11. Nasjands, pr. part, of nisan, to save, A.S. ge-nesan, Ger. ge-nesen. 

13. Hazjandane, pr. part, of hazjan, to praise, A.S. herian, O.E. 
hery. 

14. Wulthus, glory, has many derivatives : A.S. wuldor. 

17. Bi, prep, by, Ger. bei, occurs in many senses, some of which have 
been better preserved in Sc. than in Eng. Bodith, from rodjan, our read> 
but always in sense of speaking, as in Ger. reden and Bedner. 



Luke's Gospel in Nisbet's Scots. 

Chapter II., Verses 4-20. 

4. And Joseph went vp fra Galilee, fra the citee of Nazareth, 
into Judee, into a citee of Dauid, that is callit Bethleem, fore 
that he was of the hous and of the meynye of Dauid. 5. That 
, he suld knawleche with Marie his wif , that was weddit to him 
and was gret with child. 6. And it was done, quhile thai 
ware thar, the dais ware fulfillit that scho suld beire childe. 
7. And scho baire hire first born sonn, and wrappit him in 
clathis, and laid him in a cribbe ; for thare was na place to him 
in na chalmere. 8. And schepirdis war in the sammin cuntre 
wakand and kepand the wacheingis of the nycht on thare flock. 
9. And, lo, the angel of the Lorde stude beside thame, and the 
cleirnes of God schynit about thame ; and thai dredd with gret 
dreed. 10. And the angell said to thame. Will ye nocht dreed; 
for, lo, I preche to you a gret ioy, that salbe to al the pepile. 
11. Tor a saluatour is born this day to you, that is Crist the 
Lord, in the citee of Dauid. 12. And this is a taldn to you : 
Ye sal find a young child wlappit in clathis, and laid in a cribbe. 
13. And suddanlie thare was made with the angel a multitude 
of heuenlie knichthede loving God, and sayand, 14. Glorie be 
in the hieast thingis to God, and in erd pece, to men off gude 
will. 15. Ande it was done, as the angellis passit away fra 
thame into heuen, the schephirdis spak togiddire and said, Go 
we ouir to Bethleem, and se we this word that is made, quhilk 
the Lord has made and schawin to vs. 16. And thai hyand 
com, and fand Marie and Joseph, and the young child laid in a 
cribbe. 17. And thai seand, knew of the word that was said ta 



THE DAWN 53 

thame of the child. 18. And almen wonndrit that herd; and 
of thir thingis that war said to thame of the schephirdis. 19; 
Bot Marie kepit al thir wordis, beirand to giddire in hir hart. 
20. And the schephirdis turnit agane, glorifiand and lovand 
God in al thingis that thai had herd and seen, as it was said to 
thame. 

Notes to the Scots Version, Luke II. 4-20. 

4. Meynye, a crowd, Go. managei, Ger. Menge, O.Eng. menye, as " Robin 
Hood and his merry menye." 

7. Claithis, pi. of claith with th hard ; generally claise : verb cled = 
clothe, past cleddit. 

8. Wakand, pres. part, of wauk— " The Waukin o' the Fauld " — to be 
awake, on the wake or watch. 

12. Tahin, a sign. Go. taikns, a miracle, in which sense Luther's Version 
uses its High German equivalent, Zeiohen. Young, Go. juggs, Ger. jung, 
young. Wlappit, wrapped, folded, from a root, waljan, to roll, cf. welter, 
waltz, wallow, wallop (the lapwing in dialect), lapper, a folder in cloth- 
finishing. 

13. Loving, praising ; louing, praise, Fr. allouer, Lat. laudare. 

16. Hyand, hastening, Eng. hie, Sc. hech (cf. Lat. singultire, to fetch a 
deep breath). 



Luke's Gospel. 
Chapter XV., Verses 11-32. 

11. Kwathuth-than : manne sums aihta twans sununs. 

12. Jah kwth sa juhiza ize du attin: atta, gif mis, sei und- 
rinnai mik dail aiginis ; jah disdailida im swes sein. 

13. Jah afar ni managans dagans brahta samana allata sa 
juhiza sunus, jah aflaith in land fairra wisando jah jainar dista- 
hida thata swes seinata libands usstiuriba. 

14. Bithe than frawas allamma, warth huhrus abrs and gawi 
jainata, jah is dugann alatharba wairthan. 

15. Jah gaggands gahaftida sik sumamma baurgjane jainis 
gaujis, jah insandida ina haithjos seinaizos haldan sweina. 

16. Jah gairnida sad itan haurne, thoei matidedun sweina, 
jah manna imma ni gaf. 

17. Kwimands than in sis kwath: hvan filu asnje attins 
m'einis ufarassau haband hlaibe, ith ik huhrau frakwistna. 

18. Usstandands gagga du attin meinamma jah kwitha du 



54 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

imma : atta, frawaurhta mis in himin jah in andwairthja thein- 
amma; 

19. Ju thanaseiths ni im wairths ei haitaidau sunus theins ; 
gatawei mik swe ainana asnje theinaize. 

20. Jah usstandands kwam at attin seinamma. Nauh- 
thanuh than fairra wisandan gasahw ina atta is jah infeinoda 
jah thragjands draus ana hals is jah kukida imma. 

21. Jah kwath imma sa sunus : atta, frawaurhta in himin 
jah in andwairthja theinamma, ju thanaseiths ni im wairths ei 
haitaidau sunus theins. 

22. Kwath than sa atta du skalkam seinaim: sprauto 
bringith wastja tho frumiston jah gawasjith ina jah gibith fig- 
gragulth in handu is jah gaskohi ana fotuns is ; 

23. jah bringandans stiur thana alidan ufsneithith, jah mat- 
jandans wisam waila ; 

24. unte sa sunus meins dauths was jah gakwiunoda, jah 
fralusans was jah bigitans warth ; jah dugunnun wisan. 

25. Wasuth-than sunus is sa althiza ana akra jah kwimands 
atiddja nehw razn jah gahausida saggvins jah laikins. 

26. Jah athaitands sumana magiwe frahuh hwa wesi 
thata. 

27. Tharuh is kwath du imma thatei brothar theins kwam, 
jah afsnaith atta theins stiur thana ahdan, unte haUana ina 
andnam. 

28. Thanuh modags warth jah ni wilda in gaggan, ith atta 
is usgaggands ut bad ina. 

29. Tharuh is andhafjands kwath du attin: sai, swa filu 
jere skalkinoda thus jah ni hvanhun anabusn theina ufariddja, 
jah mis ni aiw atgaft gaitein, ei mith frijondam meinaim 
biwesjau ; 

30. ith than sa sunus theins, saei fret thein swes mith 
kalkjom, kwam, ufsnaist imma stiur thana ahdan. 

31. Tharuh kwath du imma : barnilo, thu sinteino mith mis 
wast jah is, jah all thata mein thein ist ; 

32. Waila wisan jah faginon skuld was, unte brothar theins 
dauths was jah gakwiunoda, jah fralusans jah bigitans warth. 



THE DAWN 55 



Transliteration of Luke XV. 11-32 in the Gothic Version. 

11. Quoth-he than : some (=a certain one) of men auoht twain sons. 

12. And quoth lie the younger of them to father : father, give ine the- 
deal (share) of ownings that on-rins to-me ; and he-dealt to hem his substance. 

13. And after nae many days brocht all together (Ger. zu-sammen) he 
the- younger son, and aff-led ( = departed) into a land (that) was faur, and 
yon(d)er distugged ( = scattered) that substance of-his, living riotously. 

14. Be-the than (= since then) he-frae-was of -all, worth a great hunger 
on the-country (Ger. Gau) yon, and he began to worth in<ijant-oi-a\l (Ger. 
be-diirf en = ala-tharba). 

15. And gangin he hefted himself to some of-the-burghers of-yon-gau, 
and sent-he him to-his heath to-hold swine. 

16. And yearned he to-eat of-the horns (=husks), that meatit the 
swine, and nae man gave 'ini. 

17. Coming than into himself quoth-he : hoo fell of-the-hired-servants of 
mine /airier have of loaves abundance, but I of-hunger perish. 

18. Out-standing gang-I to mine father, and quoth to him : father, fro- 
wrooht-have-I (been) to-myself in ( = against) Himmel, and in (= against) 
thine presence. 

19. Now thone-sith (further) worthy am I not that I be-hight, thine 
son ; do to me so ane of thine thralls. 

20. And out-standing cam-he at his father. Nevertheless than (=But) 
being faur-off saw 'em he-the-father, yea rejoiced, yea thranging ( = thronging, 
running, Ger. dringen), fell on his hause (Ger. Hals), yea kissed him. 

21. And quoth-io him 7ie-the-son : father, I have-fro-wrooht against 
Himmel and in thine sight, now am-I nae longer worthy tlmt I-be-hight 
thine son. 

22. Quoth then the father to his servants : quickly bring the foremost 
vest-mewt and vest him and give a-finger-gold in his hand, and a yair-shoes 
on his feet. 

23. And bringing thone fatted steer up-sned (it), and meating let-us-be 
weel ; 

24. For he mine son was dead, and is quickened, yea fer-lost was and 
bi-gotten (found) worth ; and began-they to be (merry). 

25. Was then his son the elder on acre (=a-field), and coming at-gaed 
nigh house, and heard sang, and larkin. 

26. And, at-highting (calling) some-ane of-the-lads, f rained (ashed) what 
that was. 

27. Thereupon quoth he to him that brother thine cam, yea af-sned 
thine father thone fatted steer, (because) he an-nim him hale. 

28. Thea-indeed moody he-worth, and would-na gang in, but his father 
gangin-oot bade (entreated) him. 

29. There-ow he answering ( = Ger. an-heben) quoth to the father : see, so 
fell of-years have-I-served thee, yea nae-orey-wheen comTnand thine over- 
gaed-I, yea to-me never (ni aiw = nae-eve(r)) hast-thou-given a goa,t-ling, that 
mid mine friends I-might be merry. 



56 STUDIES IN" LOWLAND SCOTS 

30. But than he, thine son, he'at fret thine sulstance mid harlots, cam, 
iip-snedst-thou for him, thone fatted steer. 

31. There-oil quoth-he to him : bairnie, thou daily mid me wast, yea is, 
yea all that mine is thine ; 

32. Well was it incumbent (= should) to-make merry, and to-feign 
( = rejoice) for thine brother dead was, and hat-revived, and worth fer-lost 
(Ger. verloren), and be-gotten (got i 



Notes to Luke XV. 11-32, Gothic Version. 

13. Us-stiur-iba, riotously, with adv. affix -iba. The stem seems to be 
in M.Eng. stiren, sturen, to stir, Icel. styrr, a disturbance. O.H.G. storen, 
to scatter, Lat.' sternere, Eng. storm, steer : steer, an ox, lit. the strong (one). 

14. Fra-was, from wisan, to be. The prefix fra-, far-, is best seen in 
Eng. for-gather, forget, Sc. fer-fochen and Ger. ver-loren. 

15. Ga-haftida, haftjan, to cleave to, Ger. heften, common in Sc, as 
" Throw the heft after the hatchet," or " Let the tow (rope) gang wi' the 
bucket." Sheep are said to be heftit (acclimatised) to a pasture. 

16. Gairnida, from gairnjan, yearn, grin, Sc. girn. 

17. Filu, much, many, Sc. fell, Ger. viel. 

19. Ju, now, already, Ger. je, A.S. geo. 

20. Hals, identical with German for neck, and common in old Scots. 
23. Alids, fatted, from al-jan, akin to alere, to nourish. 

25. At-iddja, past of gaggan, to go, and in Sc. gaed, M.Eng. yode. 
LaiJcins, from laikan, to leap for joy, O.E. laik, cf. larking. 

26. Frahuh, pret. of fraihnan, to ask, Sc. frain, Ger. fragen. 

28. Bad, pret. of bidjan, to pray — hence bead, bedesman — obsolete in 
Eng. Go. distinguishes between this and baidjan, to order, bid. 

29. And-hafjands, pres. part, of hafjan, Eng. heave, Ger. heben. 
Skalkinoda, pret. of skalkinon, to serve as a shalks, Du. schalk, 

mare-schal = master of the horse. 
Frijondam, dat. pi. of /n}'onc?s= friend, Sc. freen, from frijon, 
to love ; opp. fljan, to hate, fijands, an enemy, flend, Sc. 
feint. 

30. Fret, pret. oifra-itan, to eat up, fret, Ger. fressen. 

31. Barnilo, dim. and familiar of 6a™, a bairn, from bairan, to bear, 
bring forth. In the Heliand, Christ is " God's bairn." 

Sinteino, from sinth, a journey, hence a time, sin than, to go, wander, 
A.S. sithian : cf. since, Sc. syne in Auld Lang Syne. 



Luke's Gospel — Scots Version. 

Chapter XV., Verses 11-32. 

11. And he saide, A man had ij sonnis : 12. And the 
yonngare of thame said to the fader, Fader geue me the portionn 



THE DAWN 57 

of substance that fallis to me. And he departit to thame the 
substance. 13. And nocht mony dais eftire, quhen al thingis 
war gaderit togiddire, the yonngar sonn went furth in pilgrim- 
age into a ferr cuntree, and thare he wastit his gudis in leving 
licherouslie. 14. And eftir that he had endit al thingis, a stark 
hungire was made in that cuntree ; and he began to haue need. 
15. And he went and drew him to aan of the citezenis of that 
cuntree; and he send him into his tovn to fede swyne. 16. 
And he couatit to fill his wamhe of the coddis that the hoggis 
ete : and na man gave to him. 17. -And he turnit agane into 
himself, and said, How mony hyretmen in my fadris hous has 
plentee of laaues, and I peryse here throu hungir. 18. I sal 
ryse up and ga to my fadere, and I sal say to him, Fader, I 
haue synnyt into heuen and before thee, 19. And now I am 
nqcht worthie to be callit thi sonn : mak me as aan of thi hyret 
men. 20. And he rase up, and com to his fader. And quhen 
he was yit on fer (afar), his fadere saw him, and was mouet be 
mercy, and he ran, and fell on his neck, and kissit him. 21. 
And the sonn said to him. Fader, I haue synnyt into heuen, 
and before thee, and now I am nocht worthie to be callit thi 
sonn. 22. And the fadere said to his seruandis, Suythe bring 
ye furthe the first stole, and cleithe ye him ; and geue ye a 
ryng in his hand, and schoon on his feet ; 23. And bring ye a 
fat calf, and sla ye ; and ete we, and mak we feest : 24. For 
this my sonn was deid, and has leeuet agane ; he pei-yset, and is 
fundin. And almen began to ete. 25. Bot his eldar sonn was 
in the feeld ; and quhen he com and nerit to the hous, he herde 
a symphony and a crovde. 26. And he callit aan of the seru- 
andis, and askit quhat thir thingis war. 27. And he said to 
him. Thy bruther is cummin ; and thi fadere has slayn a fat 
calf, for he resauet him saaf. 28. And he was wrathe, and 
wald nocht cum in. Tharfor his fadere yede furthe, and began 
to pray him. 29. And he ansuered to his fadere, and said, Lo, 
sa mony yeris I serue thee, and I brak neuir thi comandment ; 
and thou neuir gaue to me a kidde, that I with my freendis suld 
haue eten. 30. Bot eftir that this thi sonn, that has destroyit 
his substance with huris com, thou has slayn to him a fat calf. 
3l. And he said to him, Sonn, thou art euirmaire with me, and 
al my thingis are thin. 32. Bot it behuvit to mak feest and to 



58 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SOOTS 

haue ioy : for this thi bruther was deid, and leevit agane ; he 
periset, and was fundi n. 

Notes to the Scots Version, Luhe XV. 11-32. 

16. Gouatit, desired, longed for, coveted. 

Wambe, bell)', usual Sc. wime, rhyming with " time,'' Lat. umho, 
the boss of a shield. 

Goddis, husks. " Grain which has been too ripe before^being cut, 
in the course of handling is said to cod out " (Jamieson). A 
pillow-cod or cod-ware is a pillow-slip|. 
22. Suythe, quickly, A.S. swith = strong, same as Go. swinths. 
25. Groude, Purvey, " & symfonye and a croude." The instrument^was 
a fiddle. 



II.— IN DECADENCE 

1. The Decadence of the Scottish Vernaculae 

Henry Cockbuen, writing more than sixty years ago, regretfully 
contrasts his own sustained interest in Burns and growing love 
for the frequent reading of him with the pronounced lack of 
interest which his children evinced. For them the language of 
Burns had little meaning, and this blocked the way to apprecia- 
tion. The huge development of a Burns cult since those days 
would seem to imply the removal of this obstacle to intimacy. 
Facts, however, do not bear out this inference. While no 
" common Burnsite " would pass uncondemned such a mis- 
quotation of a well-known couplet as that with which a recent 
writer favoured his readers in a magazine, to wit, — 

" Oh wad the laird the giftie gie us, 
To see oursels as ithers see us ! " 

it would not be difficult to puzzle him as to the meaning, inner 
or otherwise, of half a dozen lines selected almost at random 
from the non-lyrical and strictly vernacular poems. 

Nor is the remarkable vogue of the Scots story incon- 
sistent with the real decadence of the vernacular. The interest 
here would have been much the same apart from the local 
colour of the language. To take the " Window in Thrums " as 
representative of the high-water mark of the Scots story, its 
consummate art is essentially the revelation in fiction of the 
spirit of the Lyrical Ballads, a Wordsworthian interest, that is, 
in the inherent beauty and pathos of common things and people, 
the interplay of human strength and weakness under simply 
human conditions. The situation is vernacular, whereas the 
language is not. Its imitators strain after its vernacular 
colour-effects by a liberal dash of dialect words, but their 
success is factitious. The reader can quite afford to skip the 

69 



60 STUDIES m LOWLAND SCOTS 

dialect and follow the, plot all the better. The French of the 
menu card has little effect on the digestion of the dishes. Take, 
by way of emphasising this point, Dr. William Alexander's 
"Johnny Gibb o' Gushetneuk," a story which, though very 
precious to the few who are in sympathy to appreciate it, is yet 
caviare to the general who dote on Thrums and all its kin. 
Here the charm of rusticity is perfect. The characters are as 
strong, original, and lifelike as any in the whole gallery of the 
" Kailyard." _ The " waesome element o' greetin' and deein' " is 
indeed absent, but the humorous aspects of Scotch thrift and 
pawkiness and all the lights and shades of minor morality in a 
country-side are there, and worked out on the lines of Gait and 
Terrier and Mrs. Hamilton (the creator of Mrs. Maclarty). But 
the author handicapped himself by his devotion to the vernacular 
setting of his tale. He could not do otherwise, this attitude being 
part and parcel of his thinking. Pope doubtless knew as well as 
Shakspere what constituted a poet, but nature had built him for 
reasoning in verse, so he was didactic and ratiocinative at the 
risk of being refused some day the very name of poet. Similarly 
we have the real Burns in the vernacular poems. Wordsworth 
was right in his appreciation of these, while Tennyson followed 
the multitude in preferring the songs in which Burns devoted 
his lyrical gifts to the gathering up of the fragments of a fading 
vernacular and dressing them out in the sentimental fashion of 
the eighteenth century. This preference is the more surprising 
when we remember that Tennyson himself has raised his own 
dialect work to the dignity of a classic. Nowhere else has he 
struck a deeper or truer dramatic note. The truth is that 
literature cannot afford to overlook such vernacular as we have 
in Scotland; witness the great number of Northern words now 
used as English. But the best evidence of the value of this 
interdependence comes from Burns, Scott and Carlyle, who 
nursed their art on this humble soil, and thereby secured a 
position among the most vivid, human, and truly realistic 
masters of English. If the Scottish vernacular should pass 
from decadence to decay, the people will not only lose the 
education of their bi-lingual inheritance, but English itself will 
puffer. For, while the effect of education on the literary speech 
is to develop expression by the strict rules of conventional 



IN DECADENCE 61 

imitation, the vernacular lends itself naturally to local environ- 
ment in choice of words, significant content, idioms, tone and 
accent — everything, in short, which gives to style its colour 
and individuality. Scotland, from the more archaic character 
of its development, and from the fact that the whole nation 
early found its native speech shouldered out of general literature, 
presents a specially rich field for the study of dialectic growth. 
While education and intercourse are between them killing 
out the vernacular, and writers for striking effects have to 
resort to Yankee or coster slang, or even sheer Kiplingesque 
audacity in diction, decadence can never apply to the classic 
Scottish speech. As long as we have Barbour, Blind Harry, 
Henryson, Douglas, Dunbar, Lindsay, their diction can be studied 
like that of Chaucer, Langland and Spenser. But, alongside of 
this, there has always existed a vernacular with a character 
and contents of its own. It lives quite independently of liter- 
ary production, but pines away before the breath of education 
and its fashions. It was as well that Eamsay, Burns, and 
Fergusson were but little versed in classical Scots, for they 
could no more have kept it alive than could Elizabethans the 
archaisms of Chaucer and Spenser. What they did was to 
have the courage to admit so much of the vernacular into 
literary diction, and this is now the true strength of their style. 
But it is with Barbour, Wynton, and the Burgh Laws with 
which the vernacular is most in touch. Erom these one might 
cull many expressions that are only now ceasing to be " house- 
hold words." Thus Barbour describes the good Earl James of 
Douglas as "a hlack-a-vised man that wlispyt sum daill, but 
that set him richt weill." In " Peebles to the Play," when the 
cadger has tumbled in the mire off his horse, — 

" His wife came out and gave a shout, 
And by the foot she gat him ; 
All be-dirtin drew him out ; 

Lord (how), right weil that sat him." 

Henry MorleyC Shorter English Poems") glosses this as "vexed 
him," in defiance of the context. After the disaster of Methven, 
when Bruce and he were " dreand in the Month (Mount, i.e. the 
Grampians) thair pyne;" and "gret defaut of mete had thai," 



62 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

Douglas " wroeht gynnys " (the girns or nooses of the rabbit- 
catcher) " to tak geddis (pike) and salmonys, trowtis, elys, and als 
menownys." Here we have the familiar m€n?io«.s(minnows) of the 
schoolboy. When Barbour tells how Bunnock, the husband-ma.n, 
carried out his clever plan for capturing Lithgow Peel from the 
English while ostensibly leading his wain full of hay for the 
garrison, the whole scene is a lifelike presentment to a Lowland 
farmer who has kept to his vernacular. " Aucht men, in the 
body of the wain," should " with hay helyt be about," where helyt 
recalls the hool or covering of a bean and the hulls or clothes 
of Sartor Eesartus. In Burns's " Hallowe'en," when the vision 
of " an out-lier quey " came between the widow Leezie and the 
moon, her heart "maist lap the hool" (she nearly "jumped out 
of her skin"). Compare the Orcadian — "My heart is oot o' 
hule." Then when Bunnock's wain was " set evenly betuix the 
chekis of the yett sae that men mycht spar (close and fasten) it 
na gat " (way), he " then hewyt in twa the soyme " or traces. 
Gregor's " Banffshire Glossary " shows this soyme still in use. 
"Fin thir wuz a crom (kink) in the sowm the gaadman geed 
(went) and raid (disentangled) it." In Caithness, late in last 
century, tenants had to furnish simmons, or ropes of heath for 
thatching purposes, to the laird. Skinner very aptly uses the 
word in his Epistle to a Ship Captain turned Farmer, — 

" Your hawsers and your fleeand sheets, 
Ye've turned them into sowms and theats " (trace-lines). 

In simmons the definite article has been added to the Norse 
sime, ropes of straw or bent. The oat straw used for making 
them was called " gloy." They were twisted with a " thraw- 
cruck." There are innumerable touches of this kind in Barbour 
which stir up associations with vernacular — " ane Englishman 
that lay hekand him he a fyr," where the preposition, German 
bei, is used in its favourite sense, or " mycht na man se a ivder 
man " than Edward Bruce, where the epithet would be poorly 
rendered by sadder, or this greeting between Bruce and his men, — 

" He welcummyt thaim with gladsum fair, 
Spekand gud wordis her and thar, 
And thai thair lord sa meekly 
Saw welcum thaim sa hamly. 
Joyful thai war." 



IN DECADENCE 63 

"We find also in Barbour the specially Northern use of the 
relative that in the form 'at, — 

" James of Douglas his menye than 
Sesit Weill hastily in hand 
'At (those whom) thai about the castell fand." 

This idiom is found throughout the literature which best 
preserves the vernacular — Privy Council Eegisters and the 
Kecords of Burghs, Kirk-Sessions and Guilds, and is still in 
general use. Burns and Eamsay avoid it as beneath the dignity 
of literature, but there is a good specimen in the " Window in 
Thrums," " Him at's marrit on the lad Wilkie's sister." Dr. 
Murray, who quotes a typical example, " the dug at its leg wuz 
rin owre," ascribes this form of that to Celtic influence, but 
in spite of the teaching of the Celtic Eevival the Gael has 
made scarcely any impression here or elsewhere on the lan- 
guage of the Lowland Scot. The Sassenach has taken kindly 
to vulgar Gaelic words like creesh (fat, grease) or bodach, a 
silly person, a buddie (body), which he loves to characterise as 
windy (boastful), birssy (irascible), fikey (finicky), or nochty 
(insignificant). A Gaelic word for relationship, oy from ogha, a 
grandchild, was in use last century. In the year 1717 the Burgh 
Eecords of Dysart note an heir to property as "oy to John 
Eamsay, carpenter," and Burns has ier-oe, a great-grandchild. 
"Wee curlie John's ier-oe" (Dedication to Gavin Hamilton), 
shows one of the very few Gaelic words in Burns. In the case 
in point it supplied him with a handy rhyme. The Orcadian 
has jeroy, a great-grandchild. Oy has met with the fate of 
eyme, an uncle, common in Barbour and the ballad-writers, and 
still general in German as oheim. The notorious President 
Kruger was known familiarly as Oom Paul. To him his bSte 
noire, Mr. Ehodes, is a schelm. This is the same word as the 
very Gaelic-looking skellum, applied by that waefu' woman Kate 
to her husband, Tam o' Shanter. It is in Gaelic as one of many 
borrowed Teutonic words. Another word of extreme interest, 
scallog or sgoXag, a husbandman, has come into Gaelic from the 
Norse, and during last century was the name in the Outer 
Hebrides for the poor tenants — virtually the serfs of the tacks- 
men. It has never been in vernacular Scots, though as schalh 



64 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

it is found in the mediseval romances. In the Gothic Gospels 
the centurion gives, as an instance of his authority, " To my 
servant (du skalka meinamma) I say, 'Do this,' and he doeth 
it." Though thus an old Teutonic word, we. find it in strange 
places. St. Serf taught his scolocs at Gulross in 517, and Dean 
Hole, in his " Memories," notes shack as in the dialect of Newark 
applicable to one who "can and will do anything but regular 
work." Pratt, in his "Buchan," mentions a charter of 1265 in 
which the Archbishop of St. Andrews granted to the Earl of 
Buchan certain lands that "the Scoloci hold," evidently the 
church nativi, neyfs or serfs. Joseph Eobertson and Skene say 
they are the scholastici or pupils on the monastic lands, but 
Skeat connects it with skalk (servant) in mare-schal. The Ger- 
man element is conspicuous everywhere in Lowland Scots, even 
where one might have looked for Gaelic. Till the potato famine 
brought over the Irishman, Highland reapers and drovers were 
regular summer visitants in the south. Yet such a common 
expression as kempin, in which one shearer struggled to outstrip 
another, is pure German {kiirtipfen, to wrestle). In that inter- 
esting last century poem. The Hairst Eig, where there is a 
graphic description of a kempin tussle, the Gael and his speech 
are treated as something quite f remit (Ger. fremd) or foreign. 
One genuine Gaelic word, however, is only too well known on 
every farm in Fife, skellocks, Eng. charlock or wild mustard. 
This obtrusive and vigorous weed is the Gaelic sgeallag. Mac- 
bain (" Gael. Diet") finds its root as sqel, separate, Eng. sheU, 
which last Skeat prefers to connect with scale. Its place on the 
Highland crofts as an ubiquitous weed is -taken by the gool or 
wild chrysanthemum, so named from its yellow flower, — 

" The gool, the Gordons, and the hoodie craw 
Were the three warst faes 'at Moray e'er saw." 

With the decadence of the vernacular has gone a great 
number of words that were bound up with the social life of the 
past. The position of the long-forgotten birley-man was of 
great antiquity and importance. He was the elective Schulze 
or magistrate of the primitive village commune and an authority 
on boor-law that was referred to in all disputes. Till near the 
end of last century he was the recognised valuator or appraiser 



IN DECADENCE 65 

in every dispute involved in the payment of rent in kind. 
When, again, Burns holds up his waukit loof to witness the 
sincerity of his appeal, he is making probably the last allusion 
in literature to the ancient industry of the dressing of home- 
made woollen cloth. Dialect here asserts itself, and a familiar 
survival in one county may be unknown in another. Thus the 
terms for the homestead are curiously localised. In such Norse 
districts as Caithness and Islay the names of farms often end 
in -ster and -bus, while over the West Highlands generally the 
favourite term is gortchin, the Anglo-Saxon garth or garden, 
and the gart of Mid-Scotland. In Fife and the Lothians the 
ferrm-toon marks the homestead, the cot-toon the row of 
labourers' cottages near by. A sheep-pen again is a buicht on 
the Border, a fank in the west, a pumfle (corruption of pen-fold) 
in the north-east. Fife and the Lothians, never much given over 
to sheep-farming, know little of these terms. A yard for cattle, 
however, is there called a reed, itself an odd survival of the 
Pictish rath, a fortified enclosure. It is still heard in many 
place-names. To Jamieson it is known only as a sheep-ree, 
and marked " West Fife." But as Fife is not a sheep-rearing 
county, this does not say very much. On a specification for 
alterations on a farm in the Lothians not very long ago, measure- 
ments were given for a reed. First the factor and then the 
laird wrote inquiring what was, meant by this obscure term. 
This incident says much for the decreasing interest in Scottish 
dialects. Burns seems to have known a word still surviving in 
Galloway, awal, for a sheep tumbled over on its back, or the 
moon on the wane, if the second version of " Meg o' the Mill," 
be his, but Dr. William Wallace pronounces it too poor a thing 
to have been written by him. It is a Eomance word of much 
dignity (French avaler, to descend, gulp down ; Lat. ad vallem). 
Spenser uses it of the falling Nile — "When his later spring 
'gins to avale." 

The farm labourer (Anglo-Saxon liyne) has distinctive 
dialect names. On the Border he is known as a hind, in 
Aberdeenshire a gudge, itself a word occurring in the " Gothic 
Gospels" of the fourth century : — " Jah bedun ina allai gaujans 
thize Gaddarene galeithan fairra sis " — and all the peasants of 
the Gadarenes begged him to depart from them (Luc. viii. 37). 

5 



66 STUDIES m LOWLAND SCOTS 

In Mid-Scotland he is only " a man," but his help is a hafflin, an 
extra hand is an orra man, while the hagg is charged with the 
feeding of the nowte or rather cattle-beast. Harness and farm 
implements have much the same names all over the country, 
but some exist only because of conditions special to a district. 
Thus in the hay-making regions of Lanark and Ayr a slyp or 
sledge is well known. Burns graphically visualises the action 
of the verb when he tells how the auld mare Maggie in her 
best days " spread abreed her well-filled brisket " at a stiff bit 
of ploughing, "Till spritty knowes wad rairt an' risket, an' 
slypet owre." The word and the implement came from Holland 
originally. In Gaelic slipe appears as sliob, a stroke, a rub, a 
lick ; Ir. sliohhaim, to polish ; Norse sHpa, to whet ; Du. slijpen, 
to polish, sharpen ; A.S. slipan, to glide. In Ayrshire the word 
is used for whetting a scythe or for a whetstone. Gaelic helps 
also with the graphic risket of Burns in its reesk, coarse grass, 
marshy land, morass with sedge; Ir. riasg, a moor, fen; Eng. 
rush. Sprits are rushes growing where the water spurts or 
oozes out. 

In house affairs there are seen similar dialectic differences. 
The "bain" or bucket of the west is unknown in the east, 
■where it is a cog or kimmin. The bairn of Fife is the wean of 
Lanark, the gett of Aberdeenshire. This latter term in Moray- 
shire was always applied to an illegitimate. Even words that 
seem ridiculously easy to a Fifer are but little known in the 
west, such as dubs and puggies, a poalie finger and a ploatet 
pig. Perhaps not quite so much familiarity can be claimed for 
another Fife word, a willie-miln, a latch or door fastening 
worked by a string. Its origin is obscure. As it has lingered 
longest about the Dysart and Kirkcaldy district, it may pre- 
serve the name of some skillie smith body about Pathhead, 
otherwise unknown to fame. It is not a little humiliating to 
think that these and suchlike decadent expressions, so hamely 
to many of us, and so rich in the kindliest of associations, will 
speedily go the way of worn-out coin. 

No better test of the survival of a vernacular is to be found 
than the general intelligibility of proverbial sayings. Where 
a community cherish these, apply them aptly, and even coin 
new ones on the old lines, there is dialectic growth. They 



m DECADENCE 67 

retain the family features of a racial speech. They embody the 
inspiration of generations of nameless stylists, and form a record 
of social changes that is unique. The " wise saws " of the Scots 
— graphic, direct, homely — are instinct with the proverbial 
experience of a people of simple wants and limited outlook, but 
endowed with no common gifts of thought and expression. If 
daily converse must be coterie in kind and imitative, better the 
continual wedding of wise saws to modern instances than the 
shallow and tiresome iteration of such coster slang as bloomin', 
bally, and beastly, of slope, and oof, and chump. Proverbs 
photograph the life experience of an age. "It's nae lauchin 
wark to girn in a widdy " recalls the wild times of the Gallows 
Hill and Jeddart justice, when the poor wretch hung for days 
from a noose of heather or tough twigs (withes). How different 
the social attitude of these equivalents : " As weel be hanged 
for a sheep as a lamb," and " In for a penny, in for a pound ! " 
The universal use of timber on the homestead at a time when 
iron had to be imported, and that in very modest quantities, 
gave point to the worldly wisdom that appreciated character in 
these saws, — 

"Thraw (twist) the widdy (sapling) when it's green, 
'Tween three and thirteen ; " 

" It's a ticht caber (beam) 'at has neither knap (Ger. Knopf, 
knot, button) nae gaw (crack, flaw) in't ; " '' Him 'at hews aboon's 
head may get a speal (splinter) in's e'e," or " Whatever way the 
saw gangs the dust flees," which is another way of saying that 
the lawyer's mill is always sure to get grist. In the days when 
the winter's kitchen hung from the cross-beams instead of 
coming from the co-operative store the pig was a gentleman of 
importance whom everyone appreciated. He was familiarly 
addressed as "goosie ! goosie!" A touch of Celticism appears in 
the name for his sty, a cruve (Gael, eraobh, a tree) or " wattled 
cot," a term better known in connection with enclosures for 
securing salmon in tidal waters. The futility of half measures 
is emphasised in " Wha ploats his pig in loo water ? " where 
loo is what the new generation calls tipt (tepid). English fails 
to render ploats, the soaking of the stuck pig in hot water to 
facilitate the scraping process. The tenderness of maternity is 



68 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

roughly hit off in " A yeld sow (not giving milk) is never good 
to the grices." " Dogs will redd (separate) swine " is just " Any 
stick is good enough to beat a dog with." "Ilka body creeshes 
(greases) the fat soo's tail" roughly describes the worship of 
wealth, expressed by "To him that hath shall be given," or 
" Men worship the rising sun." The sheep was a kindly pet, 
and so was quoted on occasion. " Ae scabbet sheep will smit 
(taint) the hale hirdsell " tells the lesson of evil communications. 
We see what " the gift o' the gab " can do in " He's a chield 
can spin a muckle pirn oot o' a wee tait (tit-bit) o' woo'." Old 
Hawkie, " 'yont the hallan," was one of the family to the thrifty 
goodwife. The virtue of tender handling is commended in 
■' It's by the head 'at the coo gies milk," and of patience under 
trial in " Dinna fling awa' the cog when the coo flings (kicks)." 
The cog has come in again from the Gaelic as the quaich. From 
the milk-pail the milk was sied or strained (sieve) into the 
bowie or kimmin, thence to be reamed (Ger. rahmen) for the 
cream. Around the yard went the homely chuckle when 
couthie caution was commended in " Fleyin' (frightening) a 
hen's no the way to grip it." The ingle-lowe gathered round 
it the household, and baudrons or cheetie-pussy courted the 
warmth to her cost, when we were warned against trusting to 
appearances with, " Like the singet cat, better nor she's likely 
(seemly)." There was a bog in every howe, the burn swept 
past the loan-end in roaring spate (flood), and the wayfarer 
risked a watery grave among the boulders, when these had a 
meaning: "Let the tow (rope) gang wi' the bucket," "There 
was water where the stirk (bullock) was drowned," " Let them 
roose (praise) the ford as they find it." The inexperience of 
youth is in " He hasna ridden the ford yet." When the Yankee 
tramp comes to the proverbial long lane he says, " Guess I've 
struck the prairie," but Tarn o' Shanter might have faced the 
weary Scots miles with the consoling reflection, "It's a bare 
moor but one will find a cowe (bush) in it." The " eowe," 
familiar to the curler, was properly the kale-runt or stalk of the 
curly green, for it is akin to Lat. caulis, Fr. chou, and cauli- 
flower. Gustock is cowe-stock or cabbage-stalk. Close attention 
to business was commended in " The maister's fit maks the best 
fulzie (compost)." Through the dreary winter the starved beasts- 



IN" DECADENCE 69 

went roaming about in search of a bite, till, when nature 
resumed her green mantle, they were "at the liftin'," like a 
corpse before burial, so, instead of the Englishman's " "While the 
grass grows the steed starves " we have the Scots, " The auld 
aiver (nag) may dee waitin' for new grass." "When the bairns 
protested too much at sight of their humble fare the thrifty 
housewife answered with a "Na, na; corn's no for staigs" 
(colts). 

These were the days of small things, when to be near or 
grippy was not unpardonable, yet large-heartedness breathes in 
" Him 'at has a good crap may weel thole a wheen thistles." 
He may well put up with the sornin' (sponging) of poor rela- 
tions. Table-love, however, was appraised at its true value : 
" Mony aunts, mony eems (Ger. Oheim, uncle), mony kin, few 
friens." True neighbourliness comes out in " A borrowed len 
(loan) should aye gang lauchin' hame." There was no worship 
of the baby then, for " Dawtet bairns dow bear little." The 
unwise fondling in dawted (dote) is a poor preparation for real 
life. This obsolete dow (can put up with, effect) was much used 
by Burns and Fergusson. A favourite word with Burns is 
heard in "A tarrowin' (grumbling) bairn was never fat." Its 
Orcadian meaning is "to take the dorts (tirran, cross, ill- 
natured)," from the expression tarre, an incitement to dogs to 
fight (cf. Ger. hetzen, and Shakspere's Hey ! ). Kindly indulg- 
ence for youthful wild oats was not awanting : " Eoyet (riotous, 
dissipated) lads mak' sober men." The Scot's dramatic faculty 
is deemed as weak as his appreciation of humour; but was 
pawkiness (a better word than knowingness) ever more neatly 
put than in " He's no sae daft as he let's on " (gives out, a 
favourite idiom); ""Wark for nocht maks folks dead sweer" 
(unwilling, Ger. sckwer) ; " Better fleech (flatter) fools than 
fecht them ; " and " There's a time to gley (look awry) and a 
time to look straucht." Nor could there be a sounder apprecia- 
tion of the personal reference than "Ye mett (measure) my 
peas by your ain peck." " Men are no to be mett (measured) 
by inches," and " Guid gear is little-booket " (of small bulk) are 
two views of the same situation. "Marriage is a lottery" 
appears as " She's a wise wife 'at wat (divined) her ain weird " 
(fate). And while the endurance of the ills we have is com- 



70 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

mended in "Better rue sit than rue flit," or "Better twa 
skaiths (Ger. Schade, injury) than ae sorrow," we are to 
sturdily face consequences with "The warst may be tholed 
(endured) when it's kenned," or " Better finger aff as ay wag- 
gin'." The old-time peasant had much of that spirit of inde- 
pendence on which Burns harps so often. " My ain hose will 
be tied wi' my ain gairtans (garters)" is the fearless resolve 
of the man that " will to Cupar, so maun to Cupar,'' while 
"We can dicht oor corn in oor ain cannis," points to the 
custom of clearing out the chaff in the process of winnowing by 
throwing up the grain between the doors of the barn and letting 
it fall on the canvas spread out to receive it. "I'm mebbe 
poor but I'm no misleared " (badly brought up) is a croose claim 
to respect for native worth. Popular philosophy put the truth 
that the will dominates the understanding, as " Gar'd (forced) 
gress is ill to grow." The virtue of thrift is commended in 
" Hained mooter (multure) bauds the mill at ease and 'fends 
the miller," the analogue of "A penny hained (saved) is a 
penny gained." Scott finely expresses true independence in 
his favourite motto, " A hedge about his friends, a heckle (for 
dressing flax) to his foes." Contempt for the opposite attitude 
of spiritless acquiescence breathes in his " They liket mutton 
weel that licket whaur the yowe lay." 

Some of these maxims are severely condemnatory. The 
retort of shallow insolence is but "a goose's gansell." The 
cotter's children in the " Twa Dogs " are " a' run-deils thegither " 
— runs, riinds (Ger. Rand) or clippings from the selvage of a 
very bad web. But there was generally playful exaggeration 
in this as well as in the commoner reproach, a " limb o' Sawtan." 
The boy, mischievous as a monkey, is said to be "as ill-sets a 
puggie," which last is, by the way, a very good test-word for 
the survival of dialect. Few of the rising generation, and many 
even of the risen, specially if brought up away from the east 
side of Scotland, can make a guess at puggie. I have had it 
explained as a kind of engine, and again as a fox. In Orcadian 
pieg is anything of diminutive growth, as a pieg o' kale, a very 
small cabbage. The Danish is paeg. Pioo, a small quantity, 
may be Forfarshire peeay. Pug in English is a monkey, as in 
the above proverb. In Scots anything small is a pug or a puggie 



IN DECADENCE 71 

(Gael, paeg, small), as a pug engine, a pug plane is a joiner's 
tool. A small Shetland horse is a gur-pug (garron, a nag, and 
pug). In primitive times this word must have been applied to 
the fairies, always described as the little folks, of. Puck, pixie, 
the wee peehs. Henry Morley (" Shorter Poems," p. 234) has a 
very interesting note on Puck, written also, he says, as Pouke 
and Pug, the former of which is first found in " Piers Plowman," 
signifying the devil. '' Paeean," to deceive by false appearance, 
is early English. From a derivative, pickeln, to play the fool, 
Morley gets the usual name for a mischievous boy, a pickle. 

Another pithy comparison, " as saut's pell," is well known 
in Pife. Jamieson notes it under pell as butter-milk very mucl^ 
soured, which makes little account of the saltness. I take it 
rather to be a survival of the times when tanning was a village 
industry and salted hides (pelts, Lat. pellis, skin) were common 
on every homestead. There is no obscurity about this: "The 
lift '11 fa' an' smore (smother) the laerricks" — one of many 
expressions for the impossible, what is most unlikely to happen, 
so characteristic of the canny Scot. There is surprisingly little 
in these proverbial expressions which might be called obsolete. 
They have the quality of a true style, they rarely miss the 
mark. Some archaisms, however, there are here. Farmers 
do not now call a horse an aiver, though Burns uses it, as in 
" A Dream," when he wishes to be sarcastically, nay daringly, 
familiar. A century ago it was in the north applied to a goat. 
It really means a property (Lat. habere and our average). The 
parallel word, cattle, equally abstract (Lat. capitale and chattel), 
has retained its special concrete bent, except in Scots, where 
one still speaks of a cattle-beast, plural, cattle-beas'. A few 
other terms in these proverbs, such as tarrow, roose, mett, 
eem, are now intelligible only to one fairly well read in old 
literature. 

So far we have had illustrations of the dialectic development 
of a bi-lingual people, as the Scots historically are. Alongside 
of this distinctively northern use of English we have the per- 
sistence of native usage in an unbroken chain. At the Union 
strenuous and successful efforts were made to preserve the 
individuality of Scots law. During the "Auld Alliance" 
French models had been preferred to English, and latterly 



72 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

Dutch, when Episcopacy and Independency together had 
driven Presbyterians into the arms of the Calvinists of Holland. 
Though legal nomenclature is necessarily technical, yet, as the 
Scots always loved a good-going plea, legal terms have become 
to a surprising extent household words. A pley (plea) is indeed 
the very commonest expression for a dispute in general, while 
the lawyer is, far excellence, " a man o' bizness." These words are 
in no special sense Scottish, being in every case English worn 
with a difference. At the head of a Court, or indeed anybody 
acting in a judicial capacity, is the preses ; the pleader is an 
advocate. The provincial representative of a judge is a depute. 
To bring a complaint into Court is to delate, a sense not unknown 
to Shakspere ; witness the phrase in " Hamlet," " More than the 
scope of these delated articles allow." The parties are com- 
plainers. The Crown prosecutor is the fiscal, a " god of power " 
in a Scottish burgh. The accused is the pannel and the indict- 
ment is the libel, a term so familiar that some worthy folks 
speak of having their luggage libelled,. Evidence is adduced, 
and witnesses depone. A civil suit is a process, prepared by a 
writer, or depreciatorily a "writer buddy," who summonses 
witnesses. The judge condescends upon the facts, and issues 
an interlocutor or decision. In questions of real estate the 
guardian is a tutor, sureties to contracts are cautioners, and 
the deed must be implemented conform to its terms. The 
successful litigant is discharged from the conclusions of the 
summons. To become a bankrupt is to fail, a catastrophe, 
classed of old for its awfulness with insanity and suicide as a 
" stroke from God," o'c dctmnwni fatale. The unhappy " dyvour " 
sat near the Mercat Cross on a stone bench and clad in a yellow 
robe. The word long survived its disuse in the legal sense 
as a weapon in a scolding-match. A declared bankrupt was 
notour, to be put to the horn if he failed to extinguish the 
debt, followed by the terrors of poinding and multiple-poinding. 
The proprietors in a parish are heritors. One who holds under 
a perpetual ground rent is a feuar, or in Lanarkshire a por- 
tioner. Keal estate is mortgaged under a bond or disposition 
in security, the agent in the transaction is the doer or haver, 
and the decision of the Court upon it is a decreet. To transfer 
a property is to convey, and the buyer becomes infeft of his 



IN DECADENCE 73 

possession by sasine, a term also familiar to Shakspere from 
Horatio's statemejit, " All those his lands which he stood seised 
of." The general intelligibility of these terms goes far to 
prove that in old society law was not " a supperfluity " but a 
" necessar." 

The Church was another peculiar institution, with terms 
in still more popular use. It was governed by an assembly, 
synod, presbytery and session. , In a land of many sects one 
belonged to a body. In the hey-day of schism a stranger, 
present at a social gathering of one of these groups, approached 
a little girl and addressed her affably, but she pulled him up 
short with, " I dinna belang to the body." No Dissenter could 
join in the laird's comprehensive toast, " The Kirk, the auldest, 
the cheapest, and the best." In Moderate circles a Dissenter 
was classed in a common horror with a Eadieal, a Patriot, and 
a Quaker. Such was the attitude of that otherwise meek and 
worthy man, Dr. Haldane, of St. Andrews. He was repri- 
manding the beadle for ill-using his wife, but was completely 
disarmed by the sly rogue's apologia. "Weel, ye see, doctor, 
she'll no hud awa fae thae Dissenters," eliciting the reply, 
" Then if you must do it, John, let it be in moderation." Sacer- 
dotalism, ritualism, and the sanctity of consecration found no 
favour with these sturdy democrats. The minister was but 
human. One old dame refused to give him his title after he 
had been made a D.D. When remonstrated with she retorted, 
" Weel 1 wat, there's nae doctors in Heevin." The elders were 
always ready to sound his doctrine or prove his conduct, and 
even the beadle had a mind of his own about the conduct of 
the sanctuary. A clergyman, unduly conscious of greatness, 
after a higher flight than usual, asked his man if he did not 
share this feeling. "Ou, aye, yer Psaums wuz no that bad." 

Little respect was paid to either the kirk or the kirkyard. 
To uncover on entering the one, or to do anything but gossip 
or feed calves in the other, savoured of innovation or sacer- 
dotalism. The centre of the tabernacle was the poopit, rising 
■over the lettern, all that was left of the lectern and the old- 
time institution of the reader, whose place was taken by the 
precentor. This last functionary was much exercised over the 
wedding of the metres to tunes. On one occasion when an 



74 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

unusual Psalm was given out, he looked up at the preacher with 
the remark, " That's a gey kittle ain, ye maun just try that 
yersel, Maister Davidson." The only sacrament was Com- 
munion, served on what used to be literally tables, on the 
model of a banquet in a baronial hall. The long strip of white 
linen, the bread and the goblet or loving cup handed round, 
followed exactly the custom in the big house on company days. 
A solemn exercise was the fencing of the tables, for the good 
things of the faith were not for the Gentiles. Strong on minor 
morals must that minister have been who thus wound up the 
solemn exercise of fencing the tables at Communion — " Brethren, 
I debar from the sacred ordinance any man that pits twa fingers 
into his neebor's mull but one intill his ain." 

Of more consequence socially was a burial. The beadle, often 
fresh from shovelling out the mools or soil, went from house to 
house telling when the corp would lift. The friends met the 
evening before for a mild dairgie (dirge, from the Psalm in the 
Vulgate, '' Domine, dirige nos ") lyke-wake fashion, at the kistin' 
of the weel-streikit corpse. The company at a kistin' were 
horrified when the newly-made widow went up to the coffin, 
and bringing down her fist on the lid, exclaimed, " He wuzz an ill 
neebor there whaur he lies." There was here the long-sup- 
pressed tragedy of her married life. Next day, in the darkened 
parlour, the social glass was handed round before leaving for the 
grave, and in solemn silence, save when, as once, a bucolic voice 
was heard to utter his usual toast, " May never waur be amon's." 
The gathering of cummers (comm^re) for a christening was a 
more genial function. The goodman had to arrange some 
evenings before with the minister. One good wife, probably 
used to genteel ways when in service, schooled John well for 
the occasion. "Mind, when the minister speers, ye'r no to 
cau'd the bairn, but the infant." And in due course came this 
colloquy in the manse parlour. " Well, is it a boy this time, 
John?" "No." "Ah, then it's a bit lassie." "It's no that 
nether." " Dear me, John, what can it be then ? " " I'm no 
very sure, but the wife tell't me to cau'd the elephant." The 
cries or banns preceded a marriage. In due time came the day 
when the procession trudged up the manse loan, the groom 
carrying in his button-hole " the rock and wee pickle tow." 



IN DECADENCE 75 

The return journey to the house was more boisterous, for it 
was entered amid the fusillade of rusty guns, only brought 
out at the Hansel Monday sports. I saw only once this old- 
fashioned rural wedding. The guns were fired at the door of 
the village inn where the bridal party dined. The lamp over 
the door was smashed under fire. The groom was often un- 
equal to the greatness thrust upon him. Like Hendry in the 
" Window in Thrums," he failed to see what a man body had 
to do wi' mainers. Chalmers used to tell of a wedding in the 
fishing village of Buckhaven (Buckhine) at which the groom 
quite forgot the responses, when a more experienced friend's 
stage whisper was heard, " Ye eediwat, can ye no boo ! " This 
Chalmers called " the heavings of incipient civilisation." 

Small was the share of the minister in these socialities. 
A big voice had early betrayed his destiny. Though so many 
of the leaders of thought were college bred, academic terms 
have taken little or no hold of the people. One who had been 
to the college was looked up to with respect, but only he him- 
self knew that he began as a bejant, and finished graduand. 
At Aberdeen, according to Beattie, an undergraduate was known 
in last century as a libertine (Lat. libertus, a freedman). A' 
learned alumnus whom I have consulted on this point says, 
" Obviously you have struck a dodo." If he ettled at the Kirk 
he went through the Divinity Hall, where the great object was 
to acquire extempore gifts, for reading the discourse was the 
unpardonable sin. Great was the labour then of committing 
sermons to memory — manding (Lat. mandare) as it was long 
called in the U.P. Church. And if success followed he issued 
from the Presbytery examination a licentiate, and thereafter a 
probationer, and finally, an ordained or placed minister, with the 
privilege of wearing bands. I have a vision, as a little boy, of 
standing in the dimly lit street before a house, fascinated by 
the sight of a figure, casting a darkened shadow on the window 
as it passed and re-passed. It was a son of the house, quali- 
fying for the pulpit by manding his discourse. In later days 
I saw, high up on a rock by Loch Lomond side, a similar exer- 
cise. Pleased faces of kindly neighbours were looking out the 
while from the doors of the paternal homestead not far off. 
In this case I could but see the elocutionary gestures, re- 



76 STUDIES m LOWLAND SCOTS 

minding me of a probationer's flight of oratory when he called 
statuary " the dumb dialect of cheeseld eloquence." 



2. Scots and English. 

The old game of Scots and English, once so popular with boys 
on this side the Border, anticipated those movements which are 
giving such prominence in high polities to the problems of race. 
But it has a still deeper significance. The true inwardness of 
the Union of 1707, and the work it has done for good or ill, 
have still to be adequately told. Suffice it meanwhile to fight 
again the old battle on its kindly but not unprofitable side, the 
differences of tone and accent, of diction and idiom, which dis- 
tinguish natives benorth the Tweed from their southern com- 
patriots. If Mr. Chamberlain was right in facetiously describing 
Scotland as having annexed England, it is all the other way 
where language is concerned. Our northern authors of the 
eighteenth century wrote under an ever-present dread that 
some Scoticism, as they called it, should bewray them. Burns, 
Scotissimus Scotorum, in playing the part of Stevenson's " sedu- 
lous ape," gave his days and nights, not to Addison alone, but to 
all the best models in contemporary English. The process has 
spread apace since his day. The youthful Scot not only mouths 
the latest coster slang, but condescends even to such ubiquitous 
English solecisms as "like I do," and the book "lays on the 
table." All through the seventeenth century Scotsmen wrote 
lay and lays for lie and lies, but they pronounced the -ay long i. 
In time the pronunciation changed to rhyme with " day," but 
the spelling remained the same. This seems to be the real 
source of " lays " for " lies!" To go lower still, the Glasgow 
street urchin used to hawk his " Vestar, a penny a box ! " 

Though the Scottish language lingers now only as a decadent 
vernacular, there was a time when it was cultivated as literature. 
For more than a century after the age of Chaucer, when there 
was scarce even a third-rate poet to be found south of Tweed, 
Scotland was the Muses' haunt. Strange to say, however, not 
till near the close of the fifteenth century was the language ever 
spoken of as anything but the " Inglis tongue." It was Gavin 
Douglas that first knew the "Scottis speech" as a generic term, 



IN DECADENCE 77 

though for long afterwards this was commonly applied only to 
Gaelic, the Erse of Burns's poems. Gaelic itself was universally 
known in Scotland as Irish. The first Marquis of Argyll had 
his son, Lord Lorn, fostered (educated) under Sir Colin Campbell 
of Glenorchy, to whom his mother writes : " I heair my son 
begines to weary of the Irishe langwadge. I intreatt you to 
cause hold hime to the speaking of itt, for since he has bestowed 
so long tyme and paines in the getting of itt I sould be sory he 
lost itt with leasiness " (Willcock's " Argyll," p. 26). For many 
centuries the common features of one and the same Northern 
speech prevailed from Humber to Grampians. The Tynesider 
or Yorkshireman of to-day has a vernacular far more in touch 
with Lowland Scots than the man of Lincoln and the Fens. 
Eeformers like Knox and Melville had no difficulty on the score 
of language in consorting with the English Puritans. Shakspere 
is not very complimentary in his allusions to Scotland, but he 
notes nothing so distinctive in Northern speech as he does 
in Welsh. It must have been in the role of " schoolmaster of 
the nation " that James VI., addressing the Estates at Edinburgh 
in 1617, said reproachfully that "the Scots had learnt of the 
English to drink healths, wear coaches and gay clothes, take 
tobacco, and speak neither Scotch nor English." Nor, again, 
did Baillie and his fellow-presbyters find any difficulty — quite 
the reverse — in preaching with the utmost acceptance to the 
Londoners in Cromwell's time (Baillie's " Letters "). It would 
be hard to find much that is distinctive in the diction of 
Northern writers after 1603, although the speech of the people 
retained its national features. The later Union of 1707 was 
accompanied by a growing consciousness of a distinction between 
the Northern and Southern vernaculars. The Jacobite risings 
introduced a fresh disturbing factor in the shape of the Celtic 
element, and forthwith Scotland was blunderingly thought of in 
the South as a Celtic country. Then the Englishman travelled 
northwards, taking with him his prejudices and insular lack of 
curiosity. The extension of the Empire carried Scots all over 
the world, and these discreetly said little about their origin ; 
but their clannishness, push and success still further emphasised 
distinctions in speech. Such were never observed, however, in 
the literary speech, only in the vernacular. Thomson, Hume, 



78 STUDIES m LOWLAND SCOTS 

Smith, Eobertson, Smollett, all challenge attention as English 
writers. Burns laboured hard to make himself the reverse of 
what Mr. Henley has so superficially called him — "a rather 
unlettered eighteenth-century Englishman." Currie, his first 
biographer, remarking that Scottish dialect was going out, says 
that "Burns, never farther south than Carlisle or Newcastle, 
had less of it than Hume, or perhaps than Robertson." In those 
days Beattie, an Aberdeen professor and elegant writer, thought 
it worth while to make out a list of Scoticisms (spelling of Burns 
and last century writers generally, to indicate the long o in use 
then) for reproof and instruction. Another Aberdonian pro- 
fessor was said to have carried modernity so far as to speak to 
his students of Thomas of Shanter and Shoemaker John. In 
our own time it would be hard to tell the nationality of an 
author from his printed page. As for the speech that bewrayeth, 
there are differences enough between any two individuals quite 
irrespective of their place of origin. 

While literary style, like fashion in clothes, discourages the 
use of the archaic and characteristic, these qualities are persistent 
in spoken discourse. I have heard Carlyle, and his accent would 
have been pronounced decidedly provincial by the smart young 
person, but no one would question his right to a place among 
the masters of literary English. It is matter of common obser- 
vation that the man who is consciously in touch with a well- 
marked vernacular like Scots, educates himself up to a high 
standard of purity in the use of the literary speech. The English 
of Inverness has been ascribed to the presence of Cromwell's 
soldiers, very doubtful models ; but it rests on a far older and 
more philosophic basis. Nor is it confined to Inverness, but 
marks the use of any language grammatically taught, and never 
heedlessly employed. What English is more distinct and melli- 
fluous than the utterance of a Highland girl who has acquired 
it as something apart from her mother-tongue ? Only a slovenly 
Highland preacher would say 'he for the, char for jar, or indulge 
in the comic effect of yiss and divvel. In a genuine letter from 
Eob Roy he says : " The man that bought your quhway (quey) 
divill a farthing he peyd of you." These are the shibboleths 
which grow up with habit and environment ; and so much are 
we the creatures of ear in speech that slight changes in tone 



IN DECADENCE 79 

and accent and pause will produce the effect, when we hear it, 
of a foreign tongue. This is well put by Sir Eobert Christison. 
When studying in Paris in 1820, a time of political unrest, 
police spies were in all public places. At the Theatre Fran^ais, 
with his fellow-student and brither Scot, CuUen, they were 
cautioned by a French friend to be on their guard. "Let's 
kittle our freen's lugs," said Christison, " wi' a wee braid Scots." 
It worked well. "I have often noticed," he continues, "how 
thoroughly the mingling of a little Lowland Scots and genuine 
English renders it unintelligible to the foreigner, however 
familiar he may be with it in its purer form." 

Apart from these general effects of separate environment, 
there are fundamental differences between the phonetic systems 
of English and Lowland Scots. The latter is more archaic, but 
both have developed with respective gains and losses. The 
Southron has grown to be excessively fond of the open, name 
sound of the vowels, and especially a (witness the Cockney 
" lidy "). The Cockney makes the most of it as a sweet morsel, 
and in academic circles it has severed England from all educated 
nations in the pronunciation of Greek and Latin. Long ago 
Punch hit off this point neatly in the lines, — 

" O Mary, Mary, sigh for me, 
For me, your Tony true : 
I am become as a man dumb, 
let Hymen prompt you." 

So they sounded, read Anglic^, but every word was good Latin, — 

" mare, mare, si formae, 
Formae, ure tonitru : 
lambicum as amandum, 
Olet Hymen promptu." 

This preference leads the Englishman also to shun the Italian 
pure a, so characteristic both of the Romance and Germanic 
tongues as it is of Lowland Scots. Thus in words like had, hat, 
this vowel becomes a thin, affected e. This typical Lowland 
vowel, as in inan, the Englishman fails to catch, his rendering 
of a by the impossible mon being the nearest approach to it. In 
the life of the famous brothers Erskine we are told that Thomas, 



80 STUDIES IN" LOWLAND SCOTS 

pleading before the House of Lords, said cur&fors in the Scots 
way, and, being twitted thereupon by Mansfield, who had the 
English way, curators, he replied effectively by playing upon 
senator and orator. The Parliament House still keeps to the 
form curator. It is hard for the Scots vernacular ear to be 
consistent with o, witness — 

poaket for pocket 

jok „ joke 

woarship „ worship 

rod ,, road 

cot „ coat 

provost ,, provost (pruvvost). 

The last has now quite lost its long 6, absolutely necessary as 
representing the Latin prtepositus. 

The Scot seems to have an aversion to the long sound of o 
and, specially where unaccented in finals, substitutes for its 
English value his favourite light ending, shown in diminutives 
like lassie, or a sound similar to final e in German. Examples 
of the light a substitute are — 

barra for barrow 

arra (also for area) „ arrow 

pianna „ piano 

marra ,, marrow 

thurra „ thorough 

mota ,, motto ; 

of the light ie substitute are — 

cargie for cargo 
echie ,, echo 
pitawtie „ potato 
follie „ follow 
swallie ,, swallow 
windie „ window. 

As a medial the open sound is modified by a contiguous r ; for 
example, firr'm (form, or bench), wurr'm (worm); or, again, 
lengthened as in coer'n (corn), stoer'm (storm); while an I, 
following, either preserves the long o (coal, mole), or is itself 
dropped and a quite different vocalisation appears, as row (roU), 



IN DECADENCE 81 

knowe (knoll). But even here we have further anomalies illus- 
trated by sowel (soul), cool (cowl), fool (fowl). 

The thin i again is characteristically English. The Scot as 
well as the foreigner breaks down here. Thus he says keeng for 
king, or calls a word like pin, peen, or by preference preen, or 
flattens the vowel, especially if near a liquid, to u (sully for 
silly to avoid the * sound which he knows not), or to a sound 
unrepresented in English, such as his rendering of tin. Mr. 
Chamberlain is here un-English in his aggrdondisement, thus 
shunning the name-sound of i. So also Mr. Stanley used to 
denounce what he called " our suicidal " policy in "West Africa. 
The north-eastern counties, however, delight in the attenuated 
form of this letter. In the case of u the Scot is better off than 
the Englishman, for he has the peculiar thin sound characteristic 
of Greek and French, as mune and gude (moon and good), in 
addition to such forms as we hear in cut and 'cute. All through 
the Scottish vowel system what is known in German as modifi- 
cation prevails largely. Unlike the Southron the Scot has no 
special liking for the name-sound of u. It is only the flattery 
of imitation that makes him say Bew-kanan (Buchanan) Street. 
A Glasgow business man enlisted the help of his daughter at a 
push in sending out his accounts. One of his customers was sur- 
prised to find himself addressed as Bluechanan. The explanation 
is that the young lady, having had a modern education (sic), was 
trying to correct what she knew as the vulgar pronunciation of 
blue (bew). Human thinking is often a wonderful process. Simi- 
larly the English preference for the name-sound of o, combined 
with the presence of the liquid, has changed the Eome (Eoom) of 
Shakspere's time — "Now is it Eome and room indeed" (Jul. Cses.) 
— though we still say Froom (Frome), while broom (brougham) is 
coming into vogue again. On the other hand, it is the Irishman 
that preserves the seventeenth-century name-sound of a in tea, 
treat, repeat, though the Englishman still keeps to great (grate). 
Smollett, with this old sound in view, cleverly produces a comic 
effect, when Winifred Jenkins in his "Humphrey Clinker " writes 
that her mistress, having turned Methodist and Evangelical, is 
"growing in grease and godliness." An Irishman might still 
call grease, grace. The troubles of the imitative Scot are many. 
He speaks of Kirkcaddy, Kil-mdl-colm, Cupar- Ang-gus, the Cow- 

6 



82 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SOOTS 

gate, the Cow-caddens. One young lady admires what she chooses 
to call jookery-packery, while another bids adieu, more Scottico, 
thus : " But I min win away." She emerges badly from the 
ordeal of a Scottish song, giving " snow drapping primrose " for 
snowdrop and primrose, and explaining the "Auld Quarry 
Knows" lilt as something about the present time. 

The liquids, link between vowels and consonants, seriously 
disturb radical vowels, as seen in the Englishman's Mary, 
marm, drorin-roora, strawrat (straw hat), dawnce, sarvent. The 
treatment of I and r by Northern and Southron seems to 
balance, for each chooses a different one for elimination. We 
might put the English faam (farm) against the Scots fa' (fall). 
The strange thing is that the omission of I, so characteristic of 
Scots, did not appear much before 1500, and for long after we 
find such a word as nolt instead of the spoken nowt (cattle), the 
English neat. In Cumberland conversely old is still oud. The 
vocalising of r in English words has been of recent and very 
rapid growth ; and here again the Englishman, unlike the Scot, 
is strongly insular. Though essential to good fawm (form), it 
puts him out of touch with both the Latin and Germanic races, 
in both of which r is a strong trilled consonant. The licence 
•of aspiration is now coming to be very properly tabooed as a 
vulgar and ignorant departure from the written language. It 
would be well if similar attention were given to the retention 
of r. But here, too, we are capricious in even obtruding this 
consonant where it has no business to be. On the stage and 
in the pulpit we hear it, and there " the very idear of such a 
thing " is excessively irritating. Here and in sofar, and " Asiar 
and Af ricar among continents '" (heard from a recent traveller), 
the presence of r seems due to a strong dislike to the flat 
sound of a. The intrusive letter exerts its usual effect of 
flattening the neighbouring vowel, which is what is wanted 
here. Another English loss is the weakening of initial wh to w, 
as when one hears even a Cabinet Minister speak of " the great 
Wig leader." Here the Scot proceeds, in strongly sounding wh, 
on true archaic lines. For a time after the introduction of 
printing — that is to say, during the sixteenth century — he 
pedantically wrote it quh, but he has always stuck orally to 
the hw of his remote Gothic ancestors, making the h a strong 



IN DECADENCE 83 

guttural aspirate. This double consonant has disappeared from 
modern English entirely. A popular novelist's " whisps of fog 
that had lost their way " must surely be a misprint. A Scots- 
man and an Englishman found themselves at cross-purposes 
when talking on the golf links about the dangers of erratic 
driving. What the one called whins the other took to be winds, 
the sounds appearing alike from the Englishman's dropping of 
the h in wh, and the Scot's favourite softening of d after n. 
The Scottish schoolboy is actually warned by his teacher now- 
adays to look out for a wippin', so rapidly is the Anglicising 
process advancing. This is nothing, however, to the Anglican 
criticism of a boy's exercise, read in the class-room, as " all rot." 
The Scot has his own sins of omission, chief of which is his 
slovenly treatment of dentals between vowels, such as Se'erday 
for Saturday, waa'er for water. Dr. Murray thinks it due to 
the neighbourhood of the Gaelic speaker, but it is a well-known 
feature of the Eomance transition from Latin to French. Nor 
is there any Celtic influence in the Lanarkshire vulgarism of 
hree (pronounced chree) for three, and Foorsday for Thursday. 
The same change is found in Cumberland, where Euresday is 
.also spoken, — 

" Fra far an' neer a' Fuursday neight 
Fwoke com as fast as cudbe." — 

Lonsdale — " Upshot." 

The Scot, however, still manfully takes the trouble to articulate 
his strong gutturals, though the poet Malloch changed his name 
to Mallet to suit Southron ears. Murdoch, who introduced gas- 
lighting, became Murdock, but the young Anglo-Scot goes 
further when he asks his lady friend if shfe is " gowin' to the 
Merrdok's," when he means Murdoch's. On one point, the 
■dropping of the last letter in the combination — ing, he is 
approximating to what has always been the Northern and truly 
archaic practice. In cases like finger, anger, and hunger again 
the Scot, like the German, nasalises the ng instead of doubling 
the g as the Englishman does. He is unfortunately imitating 
the Englishman, however, in such a blunder as reconise for 
recognise. He still keeps to the old ways in strongly sibilating 
-words like weiss (wise) and hoosses (houses), whereas his neigh- 



84 STUDIES m LOWLAND SCOTS 

bour now prefers the softer z. The Elizabethan, however, used 
the Scots hard s, as in Ealeigh's " Soul's Errand," — 

" Tell Wit how much it wrangles 
In tickle points of niceness ; 
Tell Wisdom she entangles 
Herself in over-wiseness." 

But he is, under Southron influences, sibilating where he ought 
not. Lord Kames said that the sibilating of z in Menzies, 
Mackenzie, and the like was enough to turn his stomach. This 
letter is not really a sibilant at all, but the softening of an 
original g such as we have in the English equivalents of the 
German Menge (a crowd, many) or gefallen, Chaucer's i-fall^ 
(cf. yclept). This whole subject of Scottish and English com- 
parative phonetics has never received anything like adequate 
treatment. 

While the primary rocks of a Scottish phonetic system will 
long resist the denuding effects of English reading and converse, 
time will work its wonders here too. The young Scot will go 
on " beshin his bet" out of recognition, mouthing his hind, and 
cake, and Mary to his own satisfaction, and tripping over his 
-ng, wh-, ch-, and -r, with bated breath and studied imitation. 
His speech will lose in weight and distinctness, but will flow 
down the smooth stream of tea-room prattle and the gabble of 
the comic stage. 

The Scots " mis-chievous " is accented, however, in his fashion, 
by the Elizabethan writers, as this example from Spenser's 
" Epithalamium," — 

" He let mis-chievous wretches with their charms 
Fray us with things that be not." 

Equally hazardous is the attempt to use " kenspeckle " words 
in the grand style as contermashous for contumacious, protticks 
for projects, or the Highland cook's query to her mistress, 
" Should I delude the soup or sicken (thicken) it ? " 

A little knowledge is in language a dangerous thing, as 
when Mrs. Parvenu is in search of a " tempery cook " and is 
careful to " libel " the luggage when she travels, has to put on 
" mournings " when a bereavement occurs, is at a " non-plush " 



IN DECADENCE 85 

when she has not another trump, or asks if thfe tea-cakes 
are "pennies each." But the task of such "sedulous apes" is 
laboriously slow. It is otherwise with the stock of old Scots 
vocables. There are ample resources of expression in English, 
yet evolution in language does not always secure the survival 
of the fittest. In many eases the vernacular seems to carry 
more than the literary speech. What Scot would exchange the 
revived Greek nous for his time-honoured gumshon, or Yankee 
'cuteness for smeddum, or the very modern go for through-pit, or 
a quick intelligence for gleg i' the up-talc. The modern man is 
rather proud of his smart hanky-panky, but it cannot compare 
with the severe but kindly jookery-pawkery. Even that pho- 
netic nut umhm ! is preferable to its English form ahem ! which 
he never pronounces. Could tenderness surpass dawtie, hinny, 
doo, or contempt be more withering than gawpus, gomeril 
(Cumb. " Thoo is a gert gommeral, to be sure "), tawpie, sumph, 
or opprobrium arm itself with severer epithets than besom, 
limmer, randy ? Is there more perfect visualising than Burns's 
scorn for the sordid sons of Mammon ? — 

" Their worthless nievefou (handful) o' a soul 
May in some future carcase howl ! " 

Or Chalmers's ohiter dictum, " Jacob was too much of a sneck- 
drawer and Esau was the snool about the pottage," or his 
delight when " an auld wife hirsled aff a dyke to curtsey to 
him." Chalmers took a real delight in the Doric to which his 
oratorical instincts prompted him — witness these, " There was 
great chivalry in David pouring out the water before the Lord. 
I would e'en have ta'en a willie-waucht. As a student at 
St. Andrews I remember with what veneration I regarded the 
Professors. When I was one myself I used to wonder if these 
gilpies could have the same feeling towards me." Good, too, 
are Aytoun's splendid Fozie Tam in " How I became a Yeoman," 
or Donald's description of his mare, Mysie, in " Kobert Urquhart," 
a truthful tale of Eifeshire life, " She's a real frake when she's 
wantin' onything," where frake is so different from its German 
cognate frech. The Orcadian frack describes a weak, delicate 
person. Fraykin was a favourite with my mother, used exactly 
as in " Eobert Urquhart." Nor is Scots wanting in a ' rich 



86 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

variety of concrete expression. We have every grade of quan- 
tity among a humble folk, considerate of small things, in the 
series — a tait, a cum, a stime, a bittock, a hantle, a wheen, a 
feck, while nothing can be more comprehensive than " the hale- 
ajjothick." This last is either a surprising use of the Greek 
apotheke, a granary, storehouse, or is based on the farmer's 
familiarity with the law of hypothec. Nor were such harmless 
affsets to conversation awanting as Losh peetie me ! My certie ! 
My san ! Sal ! Goavie-dick ! A low comedian, Pillans, prime 
favourite with Edinburgh audiences in the sixties, used the last 
cryptic expression with great effect. Apropos of a favourite 
expletive, there is a good story in the life of the Erskines. 
Before the Mound in Edinburgh assumed its present elegant 
appearance it was a rough embankment called the Mud 
Brig, and a favourite place for caravans and wild-beast shows. 
Lord Hermand, taking this as the usual route between the 
Parliament House and the New Town, was so excited over 
the news he had just heard of the defeat of the Ministry 
of All the Talents that he kept on muttering to himself, 
" They're a' oot, by the Lord Hairry ! They're a' oot ! " A good 
woman, hearing him and thinking only of the wild beasts, flung 
herself into his arms, saying, " Oh ! save me and then my 
bairns." 

This comparative list shows how difficult it is to do justice 
in English to a group of graphic descriptive epithets : — 





Scots. 


English. 


blate, feebly 


rendered as 


coy, shy 


gleg, 




,1 


'cute 


dweeble, 




), 


pliable, lithe 


dowie, 




,, 


sad, in Elizabethan and Miltonic 
sense 


fikie, 




,, 


fastidious 


furthie, 




), 


abundantly hospitable 


couthie, 




,, 


kindly 


fashiss. 




), 


ill to please 


wersh, 




1, 


insipid 


bauch, 




»j 


dull (in surface) 


croose, 




,1 


cocky. 



IN DECADENCE 87 

The English presentation of negative qualities wants the 
vigour of these: — 

Scots. English. 

feckless feeble 

fushonless without virtue or grit 

menshless immoderate, insatiable 

thowless bandless 

wairdless thriftless 

taebetless benumbed. 

The more one studies English historically the more is one 
convinced that what Gavin Douglas called the Scottis tongue 
was substantially one with what his predecessors named the 
Inglis tongue. Certainly crowds of old words and expressions 
ceased to be intelligible to Englishmen long before they 
died out in the north, but this is only to say that literary 
culture and social development lagged there a full century 
behind the pace of the south. This element, so long archaic 
to Englishmen, has now almost disappeared from the Scottish 
vernacular. Alongside of this, however, there are uses of the 
common living English stock of words which are essentially idio- 
matic in Scotland. These idioms are generally of great antiquity. 
Take the common word greet. There is no doubt that its 
meaning in Scots, to weep, is much older than the modern, to 
welcome. In the Gothic Gospels (fourth century), " When the 
cock crew, Peter, going out, wept bitterly" — "Usgaggands ut 
gaigrot baitraba." If we remember that the reduplicating pre- 
terite here, gaigrot, became a monosyllabic strong preterite, 
this Gothic is good Scots, " Gangin oot he grat bitterly." Simi- 
larly cry, to call^to " Cry on the maan " — better preserves the 
sense of its cognates, 6crier, scream, screech, than the English. 
Hamlet's town-crier was not expected to weep. The forensic 
expression, to challenge a juror, preserves a meaning of the 
word which is vernacular in Scots from the " Him 'at chalengis 
the gudis " of the " Ancient Burgh Laws " to the current, " I 
was never challenged for that afore," It has always meant, to 
call in question, accuse, reprimand, and never been like Lat. 
provocare, to call to combat. The verb learn ought never to 
do duty now for teach, but the Scoticism, "learn the boy his 



88 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

lessons," would have passed muster with even elegant English 
writers of the eighteenth century. It has left its mark in the 
proverb, " Learn the cat to the kirn (churn) and she'll aye he 
lickin'." On the other hand, " to hearken one his lessons," in 
the sense of hear him say, has been developed on independent 
lines. Similarly idiomatic are such uses of tell, as, " It'll no be 
tellin you " — not to your advantage or credit, and " Tell him to 
come " — bid him come. Scots retains much of the Elizabethan 
freedom in making verbs. Thus, to even has the peculiar 
senses of " think equal to," and " mention " in connection with 
an eligible. Along with this there is a characteristic quaintness, 
as in Eobertson of Ochtertyre's remark about an old Scottish 
lady : " She was an excellent woman as long as she was her- 
self." The reviewer's statement, on the other hand, to the 
effect that " though Mr. Barr's wit is American, he is not him- 
self," is mere journalistic slipshod. A Scot, however, will in all 
good faith say " I had lost myself, and asked the way." Pecu- 
liarly odd is the idiom in " The children took their bare feet, 
and went to the sands," " He knew what I wanted, but never 
let on" (said a word of explanation). "I don't like to crave 
(dun) a man for debt," "The book is sitting on the table." 
Characteristic of Glasgow and neighbourhood is the frequent 
use of get as an auxiliary — e.g. "Can I get going to the 
post ? " 

Scots has always had a strong preference for the adjectival 
use of the past participle in -ed, hardened where possible into 
it or et. This comes out in many forms such as pointet for tidy, 
the twa-neukit (cornered) moon, champet (mashed) tatties, roopit 
(hoarse from cold), boolie-backet (round-shouldered). In the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries these were pronounced 
literary forms. A stout old Jacobite lady thought Prince Charlie 
" an ill-usit lad." Preterites of verbs ending in a dental gener- 
ally drop the suffix -ed, a feature of Shakspere's English also. 
To this we owe such pasts as 2>ut, cut, hit. The Scot said cuttit 
for cut, and puttit as well as pat for the past of put, and even 
preferred hotten to hit. The Orcadian says hitten in the past 
participle, past hat (Sc. bote or hutt). This rule is observed 
even in modern words. A cyclist was warned not to ride on 
the footpath with the remark "That's proheebit, sir." This 



IN DECADENCE 89 

applies specially to " lang-nebbit " words of Latin origin, as in, 
"It's braw to be weel eddicate," just as Shakspere writes 
(1 Hen. IV.), "These things indeed you have articulate" 
(expressed). Another Elizabethan feature is the use of a 
strong preterite for a participial form. Thus, in " King Lear," 
we read, " I dare pawn down my life for him that he hath wrote 
this to feel my affection." Lord Stair said, " All letters from 
Lord- Advocate Craigie, before and after Prestonpans, were wrote 
like a man of sense and courage." This Shaksperian character- 
istic is found in many of last century letters, even those of 
English ministers. Chancellor Hardwicke to Lord President 
Dundas has " was writ." Newcastle again says, " Sir Alexander 
Gilmour is very much threatened that he shall not be chose 
again for the city of Edinburgh." Another correspondent, 
speaking of Sir John Cope, says, " He has rose fast to consider- 
able rank and preferment." Only the uneducated would now 
say, "The man has corned, is went away, begoud (began) his 
work early, I seen him do it." 

Some well-marked differences between Scots and English 
fall under the head of relational expressions. Such idioms as 
these are common : " This is the man as told me," " Still in life," 
" Had it in his offer," " He speaks through his sleep.'' A favourite 
preposition in the Scots vernacular is at — "Angry at him, 
asked at him, a hatred at him." In "Eobert Urquhart" we 
read, " Eobert Muir took scant notice of his neighbour's belated 
sympathy. He had seen how his mother had suffered at their 
tongues when she was alive." Other prepositions are equally 
characteristic. Witness the phrases, "A pound in a present," 
"No fault to him," "Better o' a dram," "Married on," "Oot 
amon' thae neeps," " Oot the hoose at wance," " Aboon the lave," 
" A slater to his trade." There is change in progress even in 
modern English. Thus Gray wrote, " What cat's averse to fish ? " 
Formerly /rom had been more frequent in such a case, and this 
is coming in again. Quite recently to has superseded from 
after " different." Shakspere uses uvert without a' preposition, 
" To avert your liking a more worthier way " (Lear). 

What would now be deemed a vulgarism, alongst for along, 
was very frequent till near the close of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. Mrs. Calderwood, as well as many English writers, uses 



90 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

it constantly, as here, " You must carry this alongst with you." 
It is also in ballads like the " Battle of Harlaw," — > 

" Alangat the lands of Garioch 

Great pitie was to hear and see." 

The modern vernacular admits also wanst and twicet. The 
equally faulty whilst has quite superseded whiles in good 
English. While is really a noun (Ger. Weile), whiles is its 
genitive ease used adverbially, to which t has been added by a 
false analogy with superlatives. Whilie is the Scottish noun ; 
the monosyllable while, pronounced whill, means until. After 
comparatives than has become fixed in English. Scots prefers hy, 
meaning in comparison with, nor, and as, reserving than for the 
sense of then : " He's an aulder maan by me," " She's better nor 
she's bonny," "I would rather go as stay." It has nothing 
corresponding to the faulty conjunctive use of like instead of as, 
so marked in English, e.g. " He feels like I do," but it uses the 
prepositions without and eaxeft for unless as a conjunction. The 
adverbial like in Scots, as " He did it that way like," is still 
a common German idiom. Another Teutonism is the admissible 
use of any adjective as an adverb. This is very common in 
Shakspere, but would be condemned now. Equally character- 
istic is the use of that for so : " I'm that thrang the noo." The 
expression for negation shows the surprising persistence of the 
original Indo-European particle na exactly as in Sanskrit na, 
Greek and Latin ne with imperatives. This strong form is like 
the German nein. As a strong negative, equivalent to an 
affirmative here, it is preferred to not — e.g. " That's no bad," 
"It's no a good day," "She's no bonny," "'Deed no." The 
enclitic form is well marked : " Ye manna bide lang." In com- 
pounds the Saxon un- is preferred to the Latin in- just as we 
find it in Shakspere. Scots delights in words like " oncanny," 
" onbonny," " onneat." Distinctively Northern are thir and thae 
for these and those. It is in his sparing use of such forms that 
Burns shows either unfamiliarity with the vernacular, or more 
probably the chastening influence of his English education. He 
more frequently resorts to the most characteristic of Northern 
idioms, the declension of the verb present with s throughout, 
except immediately preceded by the personal pronoun in the 



IN DECADENCE 91 

nominative, as "I come." Even here dialectic decay asserts 
itself in the colloquial " says I." Pure Northern are such forms 
as " we wuz " for we were, " some speaks o' lords," &c. The 
apparent solecism, often heard even from young people educated 
entirely on English, " Thae wurr a man," for there was a man, 
is very interesting. " Thae," not the article here, is far older 
than there. In German the two forms exist together as da and 
dort. " Wurr," again, is just was, pronounced wuzz, with the 
usual change of s to r between vowels. This favourite Northern 
usage has given us are and were for the older is and was in 
plural as well as singular. The infinitive of purpose keeps its 
old preposition "for" in Soots as persistently as "pour" in 
French or "um zu" in German. The subjunctive has quite 
gone now, but it is regular in Shakspere and in Burns, though 
these are so far apart in time. In the " First Commonplace 
Book " Burns writes, " Nobody can be a proper critic of love 
compositions except he himself in one or more instances have 
been a warm votary of the passion." Here we have the subtle 
Scotticism in the use of except as a conjunction instead of 
unless. His editors sometimes presume to tamper with this 
subjunctive. 

In recent years we have witnessed a change of venue in 
philological pursuits. Investigation used to be concentrated on 
the structure of words, so as to get at historical development. 
But increased attention to dictionary-making, to style, and to 
international intercourse has brought to the front neglected 
phases of word growth, such as the import of words, the mental 
attitude of those who have either coined new metaphors or 
diverted old ones to suit modern wants. This line, if pursued, 
would provide educational discipline as fertile as it is novel. A 
French writer, M. Br6al, devotes a recent work to this new 
and most interesting development of philology, his "Essai de 
S^mantique." 

In this connection comparative idiom throws light on the 
Scottish way of looking at things. Significant are such buried 
metaphors 9.S to "straucht one's legs" for to take a walk, 
" change the feet " for putting on fresh stockings, " break one's 
word," " he's no himsel the day," or " he's cairrit," to express 
a delirious condition, " to feel a smell," " to have a want or to 



92 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

hae a misfortune," " to think shame," " to mind it weel," " to pou' 
a flower," " to stay at a place." In the use of particles with 
verbs Scots is strongly Germanic, as cast up, a kick-up, tak on 
(run up an account), tackin in, up-tack, intaek, oncast, oncost. 
A logical habit comes out in the use of "argue" for goes to 
prove, as "A hang-dug glower argues a man either a thief or an 
ill-set scoondrel." The wrangling of the causeyhead lives in 
" argie bargie." Odd uses from the English point of view are 
to cry on a man to arrest his attention, " gie him a cry in the 
passin' " ; to challenge or call in question, with its synonym to 
quarrel ; to tell for to bid or order, to turn sick, to weary alone, 
to think shame. My watch is behind, to play cards, What o'clock 
will it be? Mrs. Calderwood (1758) uses one of the above 
words, quarrel, in characteristic fashion thus: "Lady Nell bought 
a gown and quareled wi' the talior (Fr. tailleur) that made 
it. Capt. Dalrymple bought some cravats and quareled wi' 
the woman that made them, and she scolded him like a 
tinkler." 

The Scot is credited with Doric reticence, but on occasion he 
protests too much, as in "There's no matter" for no matter, 
" He was in use " for he used to, " I'm hopeful that " for I hope, 
a four-square table for a square table. Even in the formation 
of words he errs by excess, as mishanter for mischance, residenter 
for resident. At times there is method in his excess. Tinkler 
and kittlen seem to carry more than tinker and kitten. On the 
other hand, he takes a short cut in inconvene, slippy under 
influence of the German suffix ig, necessar, ordinar, expiry for 
the clumsy expiration. 

Metaphorical epithets offer another characteristic feature as 
a coarse day, dull o' hearin', fresh weather, a windy (boastful) 
body, chancy for risky. But even matters of fact are not put 
in the English way, witness cripple for lame, failed for debili- 
tated, frail for feeble in health and its opposite, stout, an inward 
(internal) trouble, hard fish, sweet butter, roasted cheese, butter 
and bread, fork and knife. Some of the commonest words become 
in the North traps for the unwary Englishman. Thus his fog 
is moss, and a pig in a bed is very different from a pig in a 
poke. Sidelights again on social history are thrown by special 
uses, for 



IN DECADENCE 



93 



Scots. 
minister 
elder 

Communion 

chamberlain 

grieve 

tradesman 

Wright 

carpenter 

lime shells 

chimley 

merchant 

gear 

deals 

plenishing 

providin' 

friends 

juice 

pouch 

keep 



English. 
clergyman 
in deacon's orders : found 

only in alderman 
Eucharist 
land steward 
head man on a farm 
workman 
joiner 
shipwright 
lime for mortar 
fireside 
shopkeeper 
worldly goods 
boards 

household requisites 
bridal trousseau 
relatives 
gravy or sauce 
pocket 
fodder. 



One often hears Lowland Scots declared to be little more 
than English mis-pronounced or mis-spelt or both at once. Of 
course there is individuality in pronunciation — nowhere more 
so — as in every form of personal presentation. But as Scots is 
much more archaic, and as the tradition of book knowledge has 
been with it more persistent and more thorough, it will be found 
that supposed mistakes often 'represent an older and historically 
correct usage. Thus preen would be voted but a vulgar double 
of pin. But the Gaelic prine, and Mid.Eng. preon, and Norse 
prjoun (needle) should give us pause. In the German Pfriem, 
Kluge compares the change of n to m with pilgrim for Fr. 
pelerin, Lat. peregrinus. To take one other example, protticks 
might be considered but a blundered projects, but Gaelic has 
prattick, a trick, A.S. praett, craft, Norse pretti, a trick, A.S. 
praettig, tricky, and Eng. pretty. 

Certain idiomatic expressions show a curiously contrasted 
point of view in passing from the general to the particular. 
The following have a general sense — meat, storm, wife, yard,. 



94 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

On the other hand, the particular is preferred in heasts for farm- 
stock, harvest or hairst for autumn, policy for pleasure grounds, 
planting for plantation, corn for oats, victual for rations, labour 
for to till, manage for to get through with. Another mode of 
particularising is to use my or the as " Is my dennir ready ? " 
" I'll come i' the noo " for just now, or " the morn's mornin' " for 
to-morrow morning, I've got the cold, going to the kirk. Where 
quantity is concerned Scots follows the German partitive usage 
as a lit bread, a wheen grozers, even a few soup. Equally German 
is some better for somewhat (etwas), cow milk, a cloth brush. It 
also prefers the plural for the expression of a distributive sense 
in dealing with materials as thae (these, but a quite different 
and older form) soup or porridge, my linens for underclothing, 
corns for crop, pennies each, mournings, jobbings. Contrariwise 
it follows a Saxon practice in saying six horse as we still say 
ten feet, twenty year. Scotland, it has been sarcastically said, 
has quietly annexed England, and it may be part of the process 
to find expressions now in general use which a purist like 
Beattie, an Aberdeen professor of last century and very notable 
in his day as philosopher and poet, warned his Northern con- 
temporaries carefully to avoid if they wished to conceal their 
origin. He instances homologate, maltreat, militate, restrict 
(limit), liberate, succumb, notice, wrote him. He warns his 
compatriots not to say, " Give me a drink," but a draught, and 
to speak of a milch cow, not a milk cow. The Latin re, now 
in general use, is a poor equivalent for the "anent" of his 
taboo-list. From good Scots writers of almost his own day one 
can cull curiosities of usage, such as Coekburn's frequent use 
of " transpire " and Jeffrey's " refrain " as an active verb in the 
sense of the Lat. refrenare. English writers of an earlier period 
use what would now be scarcely admissible expressions, such as 
Swift's "Styles and I do not cotten," or Penn's advice to his 
sons in his will, " to act on the square ; " or a use of idioms now 
purely Scottish, as Defoe to Harley, " I doubt I throng you with 
letters." 

Idioms die hard. In spite of free schools, penny magazines, 
and penny poets, these expressions will long remain to betray 
the Anglified Scot. Dialect words, on the other hand, disappear 
with the pursuits, customs, and all the concrete equipment of 



IN DECADENCE 95 

speech, out of which their roots are nourished. For they are 
nothing in themselves. Hobbes has well said, " "Words are the 
counters of wise men, but the money of fools.'' Their virtue 
lies in previous accretions of thought which they vivify by 
assimilation. It is in respect of the associations they recall 
that the loss of them affects the capacity for finding pleasure in 
language. The great weakness of our educational system is its 
academic and analytic character. For centuries the schoolboy 
has studied the mechanism of language, not the expression of 
human life and interests, with nose over printed text and finger 
in lexicon. The ear and the imagination have not worked in 
unison so as to visualise the situation and give it its place in 
the world of fact. The effect is to fill our dictionaries with 
words which reveal their content to the logician and scholar. 
The corrective to this lies in the recognition of the historic 
mother-tongue. Created by needs which were lying to hand, 
its diction is suggestive of the concrete representation that is 
of the essence of poetry. It is a healthy sign of a national 
literature when it keeps in touch with its vernacular as based 
on natural observation, humour, and pathos. Better this than 
to strain after the striking or familiar by the use of coterie 
slang. The dramatic instincts of Mi'. Kipling seem to have 
imposed a diction which shocks the more punctilious, but even 
so good a stylist as Mr. Augustine Birrell quite needlessly 
offends good taste when he speaks of certain people's scholar- 
ship being " no great shakes," or tells us that " a vast number 
of people do not care a rap about reading." 

The foregoing is an attempt to exploit a subject which may 
fairly be said to have escaped learned discussion, though much 
of the matter of it is part of our everyday experience. Extended 
observation might not only widen the view here outlined, but 
fill up many gaps. 

3. Dialect in Lowland Scotland. 

The word dialect has been coined for us by those early 
Greek grammarians who endeavoured to present their match- 
less literature, and language to the duller understandings of 
their Eoman conquerors. They thus differentiated the Ionic, 



96 STUDIES m LOWLAND SCOTS 

Doric, Aeolic dialects from the classical Attic, all dignified 
equally with it by the possession of literary monuments. But 
the modern dialect is something quite beneath the notice of 
the grammarians, and too vulgar and coarse for literary treat- 
ment. To it may well be applied the words of Comus to the 
Lady,— 

" It is for homely features to keep home, 
They had their name thence." 

The peasant lends picturesqueness to the canvas, but the liter- 
ary artist must trick him out as the conventional Corydon and 
Thestylis. Spenser tried in his " Shepherd's Calendar " to make 
his peasants speak " in habit as they lived." But the experi- 
ment broke down when they proceeded to discuss ecclesiastical 
politics and the creed of Puritanism. Then their language 
ceased to be the dress of their thought. The diction of Spenser, 
indeed, is as ideal as his matter, hence his Ikck of a general 
vogue. His case shows the dependence, for vitality, of litera- 
ture on the homely vernacular. In Scotland the persistence of 
a distinct vernacular with its human appeal has given univers- 
ality to Burns and Scott, whereas in England the vernacular in 
post-Elizabethan literature has had but a local interest. It is 
dialect pure and simple. 

Dialect as the humble patois or tongue shaped by the 
environment of locality, occupation, or manners, is in a sense 
equivalent to vernacular, both presenting speech in undress. 
The vernacular, however, is more correctly the mother-tongue, 
the speech to which we are born, and as much our inheritance 
as gait and features. "When we take heed, under the influence 
of education or example, our speech may approximate more or 
less to literary form, but it never quite reaches it. If this be 
so, one may well question the appropriateness of Mr. T. F. 
Henderson's title, " The History of Scottish Vernacular Litera- 
ture," for the gist of the whole matter is that the vernacular is 
not literature, else should we all be talking prose and verse 
without knowing it. Now, the works of which he has to treat 
— those of Barbour, Douglas, Dunbar, Lindesay, and the rest — 
are as much literary monuments as those of their English con- 
temporaries. Yet, would a "History of English Vernacular 



IN DECADENCE 97 

Literature " follow Mr. Henderson's plan ? His title would 
imply also that the Scot has no right to regard English as his 
mother-tongue. The authors on his list would certainly have 
resented any such limitation. Nor will anyone who has had 
the misfortune to be born north of Tweed be likely thus to 
disclaim his inheritance in English. Even the Englishman 
cannot disown kinship with the Northern speech or neglect to 
cultivate an intimate acquaintance with it. The native speech 
that characterises the provincial districts of England differs 
from the standard English quite as much as the Northern 
speech, but here an important distinction asserts itself. The 
various tongues in rural England have remained mere dialects, 
whereas Scotland developed and cultivated for centuries such 
a literature as entitles us to speak of a Scottish language, the 
sister tongue of English. 

If dialect be regarded, then, as only localised vernacular, 
have we evidence that anything of the kind is found to prevail 
in Scotland? There is something to be said for a negative 
answer. We have not a case here on all-fours with the provin- 
cial dialects of England, which, for obvious reasons, have been 
much more thoroughly segregated. Almost nothing has been 
done for the general diffusion of these dialects, whereas Scotland 
has been remarkable for the unusual quantity and widespread 
popularity, not alone of national, but also of dialect, literature. 
Hence it happens that the great bulk of Scottish vocables are 
diffused more or less over all Scotland. Nay, the Northern 
genius in tale and song has successfully planted a mass of its 
vocables in English itself. Thus it would be almost an insult 
to an educated Englishman to gloss such words as ane, auld, 
bonnie, wee, canny, cosy, dour, blate, sweer, couthy, fashous, 
weel, ettle, thole, pree, coup, hirple, speer, to select a few 
at random out of hundreds. Another crowd of words repre- 
sents but English disguised in form or meaning or both, such 
as weel, waur, sair, stoor, ca', dunt, brizz, cauld, cripple, wyce, 
scart, brunt, warsle. It is such adventitious dialect that the 
modern writers of song and novel draw upon to give local 
colour to their style. The results are not without a suspicion 
of trading on false pretences, as when a Thrums weaver is made 
to say, " Gang straight forrard," or a character in " Cleg Kelly " 

7 



98 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

speaks of " The likes of you." The archaic is twisted, too, into 
doing duty as current. A favourite with Mr. Crockett in a 
forced sense is awsome, as " It's an awsome nice scene." This 
is but an abuse of the old and very interesting " ugsome," still 
heard in the Border counties. A favourite with him, too, is the 
wicks, applied to the corners of the mouth. The curler is 
familiar with " wickin a bore," but I have never met with any- 
thing like the novelist's use of " wicks." A much more successful 
artist is the clever and amusing lady who writes " Penelope in 
Scotland." Her plan was much after the orthodox Kailyard 
fashion. " Then we made a list of Scottish idols — pet words, 
national institutions, stock phrases, beloved objects — convinced 
that if we could weave them in we should attain atmosphere. 
Here is the first list : — Thistle, tartan, haar, haggis, kirk, clay- 
more, parritch, broom, whin, sporran, whaup, plaid, scone, coUops, 
whisky, mutch, cairngorm, oatmeal, brae, kilt, brose, heather, 
fowk o' Fife, Paisley bodies, gentlemen of the North, men of the 
South." Her greatest triumph is a rhymed " Farewell to Edin- 
burgh," into one line of which she contrives to put the delight- 
ful hotch-potch, " hoots, losh, havers, blethers." 

On such lines must the Scottish vernacular be written in 
these days. Hear, however, what Stevenson, the last of the 
makkars, has to say on the existence of dialect in Scotland : — 

" I note again, that among our new dialecticians, the local 
habitat of every dialect is given to the square mile. I could 
not imitate this nicety if I desired ; for I simply wrote my 
Scots as I was able, not caring if it hailed from Lauderdale or 
Angus, Mearns or Galloway ; if I had ever heard a good word 
I used it without shame ; and when Scots was lacking, or the 
rhyme jibbed I was glad (like my betters) to fall back on 
English. For all that I own to a friendly feeling for the 
tongue of Fergusson and of Sir Walter, both Edinburgh men ; 
and I confess that Burns's has always sounded in my ear like 
something partly foreign. And indeed I am from the Lothians 
myself; it is there I heard the language spoken about my 
childhood ; and it is in the drawling Lothian voice that I repeat 
it to myself. Let the precisians call my speech that of the 
Lothians, and if it be not pure, alas ! what matters it ? The 
day draws near when this illustrious and malleable tongue shall 



IN DECADENCE 99 

be quite forgotten ; and Burns's Ayrshire and Dr. Macdonald's 
Aberdeen-awa' and Scott's brave metropolitan utterance will 
be all equally the ghosts of speech. Till then I would love to 
have my hour as a native maJckar, and be read by my own country- 
folk in our own dying language ; an ambition surely rather of 
the heart than of the head, so restricted as it is in prospect of 
endurance, so parochial in bounds of space." 

No one has a better right to speak on this subject than 
Stevenson. Dowered above most moderns with the gift of style 
and a temperament keenly susceptible to human influences, he 
best could stamp the hall-mark of genius on what survives of 
the humble northern Doric. Since the peasant's pipe fell from 
the hands of Burns no note has been struck that is so genuinely 
true to the national character and sentiment as his " Under- 
woods." To the testimony of a consummate literary artist like 
Stevenson regarding the existence of local dialects in the north 
may be added that of a professed philologist, Dr. J. A. H. 
Murray. His " Dialects of the South of Scotland " is the only 
systematic treatment of the subject that we may be said to 
have. Dr. Murray says : " It is customary to speak of Scots 
as one dialect (or language), whereas there are in Scotland 
several distinct types and numerous varieties of the Northern 
tongue, differing from each other markedly in pronunciation 
and to some extent also in the vocabulary and grammar. The 
dialects of adjacent districts pass into each other with more or 
less of gradation, but those of remote districts (say, for example, 
Buchan, Teviotdale, and Ayr), are at first almost unintelligible,' 
to each other, and, even after practice has made them mutually 
familiar, the misconception of individual words and phrases 
leads to ludicrous misunderstandings." He arranges these 
dialects in three groups — a North-eastern, a Central, and a 
Southern — which may be further subdivided into eight minor 
divisions, or sub-dialects. The first group, or dialects north of 
Tay, seems to fall into three sub-dialects — Caithness, Moray 
and Aberdeen, and Angus. In the central group are the sub- 
dialects of Lothian and Fife, of Clydesdale, of Galloway and 
Carrick, and of the Highland border from Loch Lomond to the 
Braes of Angus. The southern group is represented only by 
the dialect of the Border counties from Tweed to Solway, and 



100 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

from the Cheviots to Locher Moss. He proceeds to give an 
exhaustive analysis of his native Border group, bringing in 
much that is of great value and originality in connection not 
only with the other groups, but with the historic relationships 
of these dialects to literary Scots. His concern is, however, 
mainly with the grammar and pronunciation. 

With the exception of Dr. Murray's monograph, there exists 
no systematic treatment of the subject and nothing of the 
dialects as a whole. This compares badly with continental 
efforts in such a field. As far back as 1819 there was published 
an exhaustive Dialektologie for Switzerland, with a comparative 
presentation of the parable of the Prodigal Son in all the Swiss 
dialects. About the same time Jamieson produced the first part 
of his dictionary, in which something of this sort was attempted 
for Scotland, but in no scientific or systematic fashion. So 
indifferent was either he or his public that nearly twenty years 
elapsed before he finished his task, and even then Henry Coekburn 
complains that he had made no use of the recent researches of 
Thomson and other antiquaries. It would be easy to find illus- 
trations of how the study of dialects emphasises the defects 
of Jamieson. Take one from the most distinctive of all the 
dialects, the Shetland. As recently as 1897 Dr. Jakobsen of 
Copenhagen published two most interesting and suggestive 
lectures on this subject, in which he frequently supplements 
both Jamieson and Edmonston. Thus Jamieson at one point 
notes tuva-keutliie as unexplained, giving as authority an 
"Ancient MS. Explication of Norish Words in Orcadian." 
Jakobsen comes to the rescue : " Kuclda " is usually applied to 
a small rounding point, originally to a " bag," and akin to Iwd, 
a pillow (well known in Scots and obsolete English). Some of 
the Kuddas go by the name of Tevakudda, the first part being 
O.N. theofa, to waulk or shrink cloth. They are places at the 
seashore, where people used formerly to fasten " wadmel," the 
old' Shetland cloth, in order that it should shrink and conse- 
quently grow thicker and closer by the action of the ebb and 
flow of the tide. The word is now lost in its original sense in 
Shetland, but is preserved in the expressions, "to tove (toss) 
a body (person) aboot " and " dere's a tove (commotion) in the 
sea." The verb to taam or ty-ave still lives in Aberdeenshire in 



IN DECADENCE 101 

the sense of " pottering about, Handy-Andy fashion." Gregor 
noted it in Buchan as " labouring hard " : " He tyeuve on a' 
weenter wi' consumption, an' dee't i' the spring," " He tew throo 
a' the loss o's nowt (cattle), an' noo he hiz stockit-siller " (cash 
laid past). In Cumberland we find " teav," to fidget with hand 
or foot, and " tew," physical exhaustion, as — 

" Git oot wid the', Jwohnny, thou's tew't me reet sair ; 
Thou's brocken my comb, an' thou's toozelt my hair." — 

Gibson — " Jwohnny." 

Even in English we have it in taw or teiu, to prepare skins so as 
to dress them into leather. Skeat quotes here from Aelfric's 
" Homilies," " Seo deoful eow tawode," the devil scourged you, 
which explains the familiar taws, the Scottish ferula. The 
metaphor now is familiarly expressed by a hiding. The Shet- 
land mode of preparing cloth suggests the old Hebridean mode 
of curing leather, which was to sink the hides in a stream or 
in a tidal flow. In the old Statistical Account there are various 
references to this primitive mode of fulling cloth. 

Much might be said in favour of a new Jamieson. It should 
present the results of a scientific inquiry into the whole history 
and development of the Scottish language. But quite indepen- 
dent of such an arduous enterprise, there is room for the study 
of dialect, whether living or obsolescent, in respect of the 
localising of idioms and vocables, and especially in preserving 
the more obvious characteristics of tone and accent. A learned 
treatise on systematic botany leaves an ample field for the 
humble local inquirer in observing and noting the habitat, 
distribution, and parochial appreciation, as it were, of the 
familiar weeds and flowers that are " born to blush unseen " by 
the scientist. The English Dialect Dictionary annexes the whole 
Scottish vernacular as an English dialect, to be entered in much 
the same fashion as Wilts, Yorkshire, Shropshire words. Apart 
from consequent imperfect localising of words there is evidence 
in the entries of a loose employment of Sc, when we find darn 
figuring as Sc, Eng., Amer., and the kindred dash as Sc. Ir., Eng., 
Amer. Again the dight, familiar to every reader of L' Allegro, 
" The clouds in thousand liveries dight," appears as Sc, Ir., Line, 
Sussex. The only Scottish authority given is Fergusson's Poems, 



102 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

more than a century old now and themselves imitative. The 
true Scottish form is dicht (strong guttural), in general use and 
in various meanings. It is now simply a vulgar term, to wipe 
up, clean, though farmers still "dicht" or clean the corn in 
winnowing. Greater dignity attaches to the word in German, 
where Dichter is a poet, cf. Scots makkar and Greek Poietes- 
The very common chows for small or smiddy coals is noted as 
obsolete Scots, no fresher illustration of it being given than a 
reference to the Statistical Account of a century ago, as quoted 
by Jamieson. The same mistake is made with the well-known 
cirsackie, a workman's coarse overall, '' ohs. Scots, Tennant's Poems," 
while the rarer form earsackie appears as Fife (Jamieson) and 
Ayr. Cirrseckie, not the impossible earsackie, is the Fife form. 
Then we have such surprising bits of information as this : 
" Brether, a plural for brothers, is in everyday use in Fife. In 
towns it has in some degree given place to brithers, but in the 
country it still holds its own." No doubt plurals such as childer 
and brether were at one time distinctively Northern, " but chil- 
dren and brethren only are found in writings from the sixteenth 
century." An entry in Chambers's " Domestic Annals " under 
the year 1600 gives a very late example of brether. " In Edin- 
burgh this day at nine hours at even a combat or tulzie was 
fought between twa brether of the Dempsters and ane of them 
slain." 

The omissions, also, are not a few. Bunker, not in Jamieson, 
is absent here, as well as such familiar words as carblin = wrang- 
ling, carcidge = carcase, chops me !, clack = gundy, cripple as an 
adjective. The word doach for a salmon trap or cruve is given, 
but not localised, as it ought to have been, on the Galloway 
Dee. The unknown daver = s,Uxn, stupefy, is given as Sc, Ir., 
N.-country, though the true form is doaver, to be in a dose. 
Professed omissions — kept back from want of information — are 
caddie, four in the game of cherry-pip or papes; dp, to play 
truant ; cruden, a partan or crab. The first used to be known to 
most Edinburgh lassies, cip is the " playing kip " of the Glasgow 
boy, and crudest is a corrupt form of the Ayrshire and Campbel- 
town cruban, i.e. crab, with the usual suffixed article. The 
boost of Burns, " boost to pasture," appears under the sense of to 
guide, with a query. The usage, quoted from Wigtownshire, 



m DECADENCE 103 

•■'he buist to do it" (Jam.), might have suggested that we have 
here the well-known "bu'd to be," behoved to be, under the 
influence of an analogy with must, which latter is properly in 
Scots "mun or maan," as in the proverb, "Him 'at wull to 
Cupar maan to Cupar." The expression is also Orcadian. 

We ought all to be proud of such a work as the English 
Dialect Dictionary. On every page it throws light from England 
on Scottish vocables, thus emphasising the fact of an essential 
kinship in vernacular speech from the Humber to the Gaelic 
Border, and westwards to the Presbyterian colony in Ulster. 
Thus there seems to be some original racial heredity to account 
for dike meaning, south of Humber, a ditch (cf. Ger. Teich, a pool), 
and north, a wall. If, as I am told, dike in Ayrshire means 
ditch, this may be due to the fact that when enclosing began 
there last century the common fence, in the absence of stone, 
was a ditch with a thorn hedge planted on the top of the bank 
that had been made higher by the soil thrown out to form the 
trench. In Holland a dyk is a wall,, while graben is a ditch. 
Northumberland, too, has surprising links with Scotland. My 
friend, Mr. Atkinson, mining inspector for the North-Eastern 
District, tells me that the word is familiar to the Northumberland 
collier. The spiteful mischief done in the pit is set down to 
the cutty-soam, a goblin that haunts mines and cuts the tackle 
for the hutches. So far. good. Professor Wright has done a 
notable work in the English Dialect Dictionary, but he must 
perforce give a poor account of Scotland from the Scotsman's 
point of view. The partner is here as elsewhere too pre- 
dominant. For one thing, the work shows an unwise depen- 
dence on Jamieson. This must explain the inclusion of Scottish 
law terms in an English dialect dictionary, though these are all 
good English words used in a special archaic sense. Even in 
such disguised forms as cayshin and caysliner it is easy to 
recognise caution and cautioner, for which the Englishman now 
uses security, and the surety who pledges it. This dependence 
on Jamieson is doubly unfortunate, since he is specially weak 
in dialect. Nor will the defect be' altogether made good by 
gleanings from what might be called the parochial muse of the 
minor singers, however rich as this undoubtedly is in local 
words. Moreover, dialect is ever shifting, ever growing. It is 



104 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

the slang and coterie talk of the masses. Thirty years ago to 
every boy in East Fife correction by the time-honoured taws 
was known under the name of pawmies, French paume as injeu 
de paume or rackets. As far back as 1604 we find the Aberdeen 
Presbytery enforcing a magistrates' edict ordering that, "for 
repression of oaths and the like, every householder sbould keep 
a palmer and therewith punish all offenders." Nowadays in East 
Fife pawmie has given place to caker, an incomer from Dundee. 
In those early days neither the Dundee accent nor vocables had 
travelled far across Tay. But increased intercourse by rail has 
altered all this. Similarly, a learned friend assures me that 
cum, a small quantity, is not indigenous in the Kingdom of 
Fife but imported from Forfarshire. From the North, too, has 
recently crept all along the coast the " Smoky," as the modern 
development of the Finnan Haddie is called. 

Can the study of those homely, but fast disappearing, dialects 
be justified on the score either of utility or necessity ? Certainly 
no one would wish the flavour of rusticity or provincialism to 
linger about what any educated Scotsman either speaks or writes. 
In this he must be inspired with such an ambition as that which 
made Burns so ardent a student, to know and to use English as 
well as any educated Englishman. But this, no more than in 
his case, need cut us off from those charms of memory and 
imagination by which homely speech keeps us in touch with 
rural life, simple manners, time-honoured customs, youthful 
associations. For my own part the study of those poor rela- 
tions in the family of speech has vivified forgotten associations, 
explained much that was obscure, and thrown many side-lights 
on what was deemed familiar. For it would be a great mistake 
to assume that the average man, though born and brought up in 
Scotland, knows these expressions, so apt to be looked down 
upon, when those who are very much above the average in 
intellectual curiosity and capacity are found wanting in this 
knowledge. A Galloway laird, a well-known and versatile 
contributor to current literature and an authority on matters 
Scottish, was talking with some farmers on his own estate. 
When he spoke of the Guisers his auditors failed to follow him, 
as they knew them only as the Mummers — children who go 
from door to door at Hogmanay time. Later on they had the 



IN DECADENCE 105 

better of him, when someone was described as " having a viiant " 
(a stutter), an expression quite new to him. Few have done so 
much for a knowledge of Old Scotland as Dr. Eobert Chambers. 
His " Domestic Annals," " Traditions of Edinburgh," " Popular 
Ehymes of Scotland " will for ever keep his memory fresh. Yet 
when noting, in the first of these works, the account given by 
Law the diarist of the earliest exhibition of an elephant in 
Edinburgh (1680), he adds a query to the graphic phrase in his 
author, "lowged like twa skats "(?). Singular that a Scotsman 
should have any difficulty in reading this as ears like two skates. 
He also confounds staigs (colts) with stags. So experienced an 
editor and so loyal a Scot as the late Dr. Grosart occasionally 
went far astray in his glosses. Here are some examples from 
his edition of Alexander Wilson, one of the many poetical lights 
of Paisley. In one of those severe satires on the Paisley corhs 
(small employers) of his day which soon made the town too hot 
for him, he has occasion to say, — 

" Our Hollander 
Kens better ways o' workin, 
For Jock and him has aft a spraul, 
Wha'll bring the biggest dark in." 

This peculiar spelling of the quite familiar darg tempts to the 
gloss, " day's work (before dark)." Surely a comical attempt to 
throw light on the origin of the word ! In a humorous elegy on 
a tailor, Wilson says, — 

" Wi' yowlin clinch aul' Jennock ran, 
Wi' sa'r like ony brock." 

No one who knew what a brock is could read this as serve 
instead of savour, to say nothing of its defiance of grammar. 
The very word is in the Buchan dialect : " He got a sawr 
(disgust) wi' that, and geed awa' " (Gregor). Further on we 
have, — 

" As soon's she reekt (reached, Gar. reichen) the sooty beild, 
Whare labrod he sat cockin, 
' Come doon,' she cried, ' ye lump o' eild.' " 

Incredible to relate, labrod, the "harmless but necessary" 
implement by which the tailor is here facetiously described 



106 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

is glossed, " mill-stream at work." The " Abbotsford Series of 
the Scottish Poets" hag the merit of being a commendable 
attempt to popularise the neglected study of our old literature, 
not without serious faults of execution, however. From the 
last, and what ought to have been the easiest, of the volumes, 
"Scottish Poetry of the Eighteenth Century," I select a few 
points out of much that "comes in questionable shape." In 
Alexander Watson's droll story of the " wee wifikie comin' frae 
the fair " the line " Somebody has been felling me " is given thus 
without note of explanation, and the reader is left to imagine 
the pedlar knocking her about like a football, so that she must 
have been almost comatose. Clearly the poor body is simply 
saying in her best Aberdeen accent, " Somebody has been feelin 
me " — that is, making a fool of me, as the narrative graphically 
bears out. Here is a verse from Skinner's epistle to Burns that 
aptly illustrates this distinctively Aberdeenshire vocalisation, — 

"Now after a' hae me exqueesed 
For wissing uae to be refeesed, 
I dinna covet to be reezed (lauded) 

For this feel lilt : 
But feel or wyce, gin ye be pleased 
Ye 're welcome till't." 

As a specimen of Fergusson, again, we have the " Leith Paces," 
where the poet winds up his humorous narration with, — 

" The races owre, they Imle the dules 
Wi' drink o' a' kinkind." 

Here we encounter the extraordinary gloss, heal the 'jjains. 
The editor, misreading hale, recalls quite ineptly the common 
ballad word, dule (Fr. chuil), and misses entirely the point of 
Fergusson's witty metaphor. This is an example of the dangers 
of mere book knowledge, yet Allan Eamsay uses the very 
phrase in question. Any Scottish schoolboy ought to know 
what it is to hale the dules, or dulls as he terms it. Few 
Scotsmen will admit that Burns is ever obscure to them. They 
" smile and smile " with a knowing look as most of us do when 
we listen to a longish Latin quotation or a drawing-room song. 
In the Abbotsford Series the editor very properly includes 
"Hallowe'en" and "Tam o' Shanter," and here we have 



IN DECADENCE 107 

examples of the climax of absurd glossing sufficient to make 
" the judicious grieve, the unskilful laugh." Near the close of 
the former poem we read, — 

" And ay a rautin kirn we gat, 
And just on Hallowe'en 
It fell that nicht." 

We are here told that a rantin kirn is a " churning in which 
the butter does not gather rightly." If any unhappy Southron 
should have difficulty in visualising a churn ranting, he must 
feel grateful to the editor. I had a teacher once of the old, and 
much over-lauded, school whose favourite compliment to the 
troublesome dullard, among a variety, was kirn-stick. It was 
no " ranting-kirn " for him. In reality the poet was referring 
to the revelry of the harvest-home under its usual designation 
of the kirn. Again, in "Tam o' Shanter," occur the hard lines, — 

" Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, 
Louping and flinging on a crummock.'' 

The two obscure words here are thus glossed — rigwoodie, 
straddling ; and crummock, cow with crooked horns. Alas ! 
" stands Scotland where it did ? " Why hags, above all people, 
should have occasion to straddle, and why in that condition 
they should be chosen to spean foals, are known only to the 
editor. To discover what a rigwoodie is he should try the 
alternative which old Polonius was ready to face — "keep a 
farm and carters." But these wonderful hags not only straddle 
when speaning foals, but loup and fling on a cow with crooked 
horns. Poor Crummie has cruelly tossed the editor here. 
Even Burns shows us that crummock need not always be appro- 
priated to a cow. It was an obscure Ayrshire poet who sang 
in his " Carriek for a Man," — 

"When auld Eobin Bruce 
Lived at Turnberry House, 

He was the prince o' the people, 
The frien' o' the Ian'. 
At the stream o' auld bannocks (Bannockburn) 
There was crackin' o' crummocks. 
It was a hard tulzie, 

Lang fooht han' to han'." 



108 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

It must surely be the familiarity that breeds contempt 
which tolerates an inexact and feeble standard of scholarship 
where the folk-speech is concerned. There is a better spirit 
abroad, not only in America, but in Germany, France, and 
Denmark. I need only mention here such names as Jusserand, 
Angellier, Ten Brink, Schippert. A favourite thesis for a 
German doctorate is some obscure corner of Scottish literature. 
Before me is a learned and exhaustive academical dissertation 
on the Scoto-English dialect, publicly defended before the 
Philosophical Faculty of Lund on 5th March 1862. Another 
and more recent is a curious philological analysis of verbal and 
nominal inflexions in Burns. Yet in our educational systems 
there is no place for such distinctively national studies. 



III.— FIELD PHILOLOGY 
1. Village Life in Fifeshiee 

The vernacular is, properly speaking, the language of the verna, 
or " household slave." In all old societies the ruling and pro- 
pertied class entrusted the infant to a foster-parent, and the 
work of the household to a crowd oi famuli, and in both cases 
these were drawn from the lower and dialect-using classes. All, 
even moderately civilised, peoples were, and in a sense are still, 
bi-lingual. The " clerk and the lewed man " are equally required 
fpr the business of life. From the dawn of literature it must 
have been so. Whenever expression is consciously artistic it 
becomes selective and creative. The first to use verbal em- 
broidery must have been the first stylist. One of the many 
indirect effects of printing has been to emphasise and fix this 
duality. The schoolboy, a keen observer of character, like the 
natural man, has a just horror of " the fellow that speaks like 
a book." His own diction is never recklessly original, being 
largely a medley of coterie words, as " horrid," " awful," " cheeky," 
" beastly," " caddish," " dashed mean," with an occasional "jolly " 
or " bally." More striking is the effect of hearing the average 
man, schoolboy, or even preacher read aloud. At once all 
naturalness is lost in a monotonous, high-pitched sing-song. 
To these the art of using book language is an acquired taste, 
aiad retains scarce a feature of that tongue which gives to social 
intercourse its perennial charm. 

Macaulay argued that as civilisation increases poetry declines. 
It would be easier to maintain that as reading and education 
spread, a true vernacular must gradually disappear. It loses 
historic continuity, and becomes a mixture of malapropisms and 
slang. Fashion, worst of all, taboos it as vulgar. Like divina- 
tion, and poor relations, and last season's millinery, it keeps in 
the background. Mrs. Calderwood, a grand lady of the old 

109 



110 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

school, travelling in Holland in 1758, describes to a friend 
a visit to a synagogue, where the priest officiated with a ham 
clout on his head. No lady would nowadays adopt such a style, 
even if she could understand it. And what university reformer 
would express himself as Lord Cockburn did, who observed that 
" when a professor grew doited he became immortal " ? Vulgar 
is, after all, but a relative term, and the essence of vulgarity lies 
in its associations. Now all modern associations are against the 
vernacular. In the absence, then, of a historic vernacular how 
is the plain person to express himself ? The style is the man, 
and the modern man is nothing if not stylish. He assumes the 
virtues of his better-class neighbour, but wears them with a 
difference. The suburban young lady, who is reported to have 
commented on the heshed condition of Jeck's het, disguised her 
true self in what she took to be the accent of fashion, but her 
choice of words betrayed her. Not so the street boy when he 
asked the shopman for "a happ'ny worth o' baasht plooms." 
His style was in perfect keeping with his pretensions. Some- 
times the plain person will make quite a praiseworthy attempt 
to swim out of his depth in expression as when a workman, 
reporting on some choked drain pipes he had been asked to 
lift, explained to his young master that " Thae pipes wuz clean 
sedimateesed." 

To the imperialistic gaze of the average Englishman all Scots 
speak much alike, and all are equally unintelligible to him. He 
cannot see how anyone should fail to understand him. If obser- 
vant, however, he would find that even at home environment 
differentiates speech as much as plant or animal growth. In 
Old Scotland intercourse was limited, and racial or imitative 
peculiarities became persistent. To say nothing of the Gaelic 
and the Norse districts, one could not travel over many counties 
without discovering differences by ear alone. A traveller of 
the seventeeenth century notes the scolding pipe of the Aber- 
donian and the monotonous click-clack of the Lowlander. He 
has the sense to see that the good English tone of the Highland 
districts is not confined to Inverness, but is really that of a 
language grammatically taught and never heedlessly employed. 
Their very choice of words has a literary fiavour, like Baboo 
English. 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 111 

Burt notes the peculiarities of that Edinburgh dialect, which, 
despite Parliament House and an earnest determination to be 
as English as possible, still persists. The waiter offered him for 
supper " a duke," " a fool," or " a meer-fool." In Fife this "duke" 
would be "juck" — a modification heard also in the verb, as in 
the proverbial caution, " Jook and let the jaw gae by." The 
broad a of the Lothians, especially if near a liquid, is as decided 
a shibboleth as the slurring of t wherever possible betrays an 
early familiarity with the " Sautmarket '' of Glasgow. The long- 
drawn drawl, " Cauff for beds ! " used to be familiar in the 
Oanongate of Edinburgh ; and in the Cowgate, which the 
Modern Athenian forgets to call the " Coogate,'' for an older 
" Soo'gate " (Southgate), they still " baur the dore," " hing up 
the umber-ellie," or take " a dook at Joapie." Glasgow equally 
ignores historic continuity with its '' Bew-kannan " Street. In 
its early days it was " B'whannan " and, later, " B'kannan " 
Street. The native loves to leave the convenience of the 
Broomielaw " wanst a week a' least, on Se'erday afternoon." 
The Borderer, again, has his shibboleth, the burr which comes 
out when Eidley speaks of his friend Kutherford at Chollerford 
or Chirnside. He of Kelso, if a clergyman, preaches about 
" radamption." The same vowel is heard in the local name of 
the town, " Kal-so," or the neighbouring Salkirk. Here local 
pronunciation of the place-name is, as usual, correct. The 
ancient seal of Kelso bears the inscription, " Sigillum Monas- 
terii de Calco" — referring to a height near which, in olden 
times, was a " chalk-heugh," or quarry. The Galloway man 
has long known the Irish " trogger," so if you ask your way of 
him he directs you to a short cut " farder on " by a " foot- 
pad," as " neerder " than the highroad. All round the Fife coast 
you hear the long, high-pitched drawl of someone battling with 
the east wind. The St. Andrews man goes into the " ceetie," 
or down to the " herr-burr." In rural districts the Fifer says, 
"Whaur arr ye gaun, maan?" in ore rotundo tones that fitly 
accompany heavily-laden heels crushing clods at leisure. 
Between the Tay and Moray Firths we hear nothing but thin 
vowels and piping tones. The distinctive feature is the /sound 
of initial wh. Here we are among an alert, canny folk, of keen 
intelligence, whether we spend a day in prosaic Dundee among 



112 STUDIES m LOWLAND SCOTS 

" mill-fuds " and " corks," or an " 'ouk " in rural Garioch with 
" gudges " and " getts." 

These dialects, fast giving place, the school inspectors tell ns, 
to a mongrel, characterless medley, have suffered the neglect 
that overtakes the familiar. Local story-tellers and versifiers 
have used them as literature of a kind, but they have received 
no study worthy of the name. Jamieson — storehouse of much 
that is valuable — is here very defective. From Burns we do 
not receive much aid. He has given a local character to a gbdd 
deal that passes for Ayrshire simply because he has used it, but, 
in his vernacular at least, he was not " the singer of a parish." 
We know too little of the sources of his vocabulary. Where 
his vernacular is not common to comparatively modern Scotland 
— that is to say, is but English with a provincial look about it — 
its source is the poet's reading in Eamsay, Fergusson, Hamilton, 
and the treasures of ballads and popular verse. He is so little 
vernacular as never to use the characteristic relative " 'at '' — 
witness " Scots wha hae " for " Scots 'at hes," or such a common 
celloquialism as " div " and " divna." 

If we turn from the diction of dialect to grammar and accent 
we have nothing to guide us but Dr. J. A. H. Murray's mono- 
graph on the dialects of the South of Scotland. There is, indeed, 
no work on the phonetics of dialects in the United Kingdom. 
And all is passing away of the old and only the new and the 
vulgar remains. Yet what a wealth of national character, social 
customs, folk-lore, lies in dialect 1 It represents the operation 
of individual enterprise in language, rapidly being crushed out 
by the Juggernaut of collective trading through literature and 
education. To gather up what remains is not the work of one, 
but of hundreds. Germany devotes imperial funds and the 
marvellous philological instincts of an academic people to such 
work, and even little Denmark has kept a student for months 
in the Fair Isle observing and collecting. 

The sturdy survival of a vigorous vernacular, alongside of 
a language of books and of education, must go far to account 
for the fact that Scotland's contribution to English literature 
has been, both in quality and quantity, out of all proportion to 
her size and position. Her authors have never needed to strain 
after such artificialities as characterise the Eenascence period. 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 113 

or the efforts of educated Hindoos in our own day. Thus it is 
that men so markedly in touch with the vernacular as Burns 
and Carlyle, stand out prominently among all English writers 
for the actuality of their vision, the mingled virility and veracity 
of their style. For a healthy vernacular is constantly evolving 
itself under the natural influences of dialect growth. The effect 
of education on the literary speech is to develop expression by 
the hard and fast rules of imitation, by " the days and nights 
devoted to Addison" and his kind. But a vernacular lends 
itself naturally to local environment in the selection of words, 
the meaning put into them, the idioms, the tones of voice, the 
vowel system, and all that gives to style its colour and indi- 
viduality. Scotland, from the archaic character of its develop- 
ment, from the fact that a vigorous race found its native tongue 
early shouldered out of general literature, presents a specially 
rich field for the study of dialectic growth. 

The intelligent observer cannot fail to be struck with the 
substantial resemblance that runs through the main stock of 
vocables in vernacular use over the Lowlands, combined with 
well-marked differences of tone and accent. This is a field of 
study that one might say has never been worked. To show 
something alike of its variety and extent, let me present glean- 
ings from two such far-sundered districts as Campbeltown and 
East Fife. As is well known, the Argyle family not only gave 
its name to the thriving burgh of Kintyre, but transferred 
in making it a fresh population from Ayrshire, in thorough 
sympathy with its pronounced Covenanting proclivities. The 
result has been to produce such a curious blend of Celtic and 
Saxon as we find in the following specimen, the phrases of 
which, though now almost extinct, were in common use in 
Campbeltown in the earlier part of last century: — 

Floey Loynachan (Flora Lonie, as a diminutive). 

A most pathetic baUad, the composition of Dougie Macilreavie, 
of Corbett's Close, in the Bolgam Street, Campbeltown. 
Inscribed, with aff'ectionate regards, to the members of 
the Kintyre Literary Association, as an illustration of 



114 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

the common conversational idiom of the dear old town 
half a century ago. 

0, it buitie be an ogly thing 

That mougres thus o'er me, 
For I scrabed at mysel' thestreen, 

And could not bab an e'e. 
My heart is a' to muilius minehed, 

Brye, smuirach, daps, and gum, 
I'm a poor cruichach, spalyin' scrae, 

My horts have struck me dumb. 

Dear Flory Loynachan, if thou 

Thro' Saana's soun' wert toss'd. 
And rouchled like a shougie-shoo. 

In a veshal with one most ; 
Though the nicht were makan' for a roil, 

Tho' ralliach were the sea. 
Though scorlins warpled my thowl pins. 

My shallop would reach thee. 



Gloss by a Native of Campbeltown. 

Buitie, must be. Sc. bude, behoved. 

Mougres, creeps over. 

Scrabed, scratched. Celt, sgrob, a scratch, furrow. Cognate Lat. scribo, 
I write. Eng. scrape. 

Bab, close, Ayrsh. 

Muilins, bread crumbs ; minehed, Go. mms = small. 

Brye, pounded sandstone. Cf . briz, bruise, bray, snaw-bree. 

Smuirach, very small coal. Sc. and Celt. cf. smoor, smore, smother. 

Daps, for dabs, small flounders. 

Gum, coal dust. Fifesh. coom. 

Cruichach, crooked and bent. Cf. cruck, crook. 

Spalyin' flat-footed, splay. 

Scrae, skinny fellow, a shrivelled old shoe. In the Boer "Tarn o' 
Shanter " the witches are skraal, lean. 

Horts, hurts. 

SoMre=sound, or Strait of Sanna. 

Bouchled, tossed about. Cf. roch, rough. 

Shougie-shoo, cf. Ger. Sheuchel-stuhl, a rocking-chair. 

Ralliach, slightly stormy. 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 115 

Thou'rt not a hochlan scleurach, dear, 

As many trooshlach be ; 
Nor I a claty skybal, thus 

To sclaifer after thee ; 
Yet haing the meishachan, where first 

I felt love's mainglin' smart, 
And haing the boosach dyvour too. 

Who spoong'd from me thine heart ! 

! rhane a Yolus Cronie — quick — 

Across this rumpled brain ! 
Bring hickery-pickery — bring wallink, 

Droshachs, to sooth my pain ! 
Fire water — fire a spoucher full — 

These frythan stouns to stay ! 
For like a sparrow's scaldacban 

I'm gosping night and day ! 

Scorlins, slimy, cord-like seaweed. 

Tliowl pins = rowlocks. 

Hochlan, slack iu dress, walking clumsily. Cf. hobble. 

Scleurach, untidy in dress and gait. Celt, sgliurach, slut, gossip, young 
sea-gull. 

Trooshlach, worthless thing. Cf. trash. 

Olaty, dirty. Sc. clarty. 

Skybal, worthless fellow. Celt, gioball, chap, odd fellow. Banffsh. 
Glossary — Skypal, not having a sufficiency, e.g. "A'll be some skypal 
o' seed corn." 

Sclaffer, go slipshod, to sclatf. 

Haing, a small swear. Hang. 

Meishachan, subscription dance. Cf . minsh, a change-house. 

Mainglin', crushing, mangling. . 

Boosach, drinking, boozing. 

Dyvour, poor looking individual. Lat. debtor. Fr. devoir. 

Sponged, stole deceitfully. 

Rhane, rhyme. Orcadian reen, to roar vehemently ; exclusively of a 
pig in distress : reening, squeaking as a pig. 

Yolus Cronie, a charm (in words). Celt, eolas, knowledge, eoisle, a 
charm. 

Rumpled, confused. 

Hickery-pickery, tonic bitters, lepos, sacred. ■jriKpis, a bitter herb. 
See Chamb. Encyc, Art. "Hiera Picra." 

Wallink, brooklime speedwell. 

Droshachs, doctors' drugs. 



116 STUDIES m LOWLAND SCOTS 

Were I the laird of Achnaglach, 

Or Kilmanshenachan fair, 
Crockstaplemore, Kilwheepnach, 

Foechag, or Ballochgair ; 
Did I inherit Tuyinroech, 

Drumgary, or Ballochantee, 
Creishlach, or Coeran — daing the bit 

I'd fauchat them for thee ! 

0, the Clabbydhn, it loves the Trineh, 

The Crouban, the quay-neb, 
While the Anachan and Brollochan, 

They love the Mussel-ebb. 
The Muirachbanii the Dorling loves, 

And the Gleshan, and Guildee, 
They love to plouder through the loch ; 

But, Flory, I love thee ! 

Spoucher, wooden ladle for baling a boat. Sc. spud, spade. Cf. Celt. 
spuidgear, a baling ladle. 

Frythan, cook in & frying-'pa.n., 

Stouns, sharp pains. Cf. a stoond o' love. 

Scaldachan, unfeatliered nestlings. Norse and Sc. scalled, bald. 

Gasping, gasping, 

Daing, a small swear. 

Fauchat, to throw up a thing. Cf . feech ! expressing disgust. 

Glabbydhu, black bivalve, a large mussel still quite familiar on the 
lower Clyde estuary. Dbu is tlie Gael, black. 

Crouban, a crab, with suffixed article (an) : neb, end, nose. 

Anachan, bivalve used for bait. 

Brollochan, similar, with a little difference in shape. 

Muirachbann, \\hite shellfish got near the ebb. Celt, maorach, a shell- 
fish, and baan, fair. 

Dorling, line of shore joining isle to mainland. Celt, doirling, isthmus, 
beach. 

Gleshan, coal fish. 

Guildee, young of the saithe. 

Plouder, plouter, plunge. 

For the Celtic of this gloss I have to thank Mr. Alexander Macbain, 
M. A., author of "An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language" 
(Inverness, 1896); and the verses, a cutting from a local newspaper, I owe 
to my friend, the late Mr. Matthew Dunlop, of Dunlop Brothers, Bothwell 
Street, Glasgow. 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 117 

The Great Exhibition and the horrors and heroisms of 
Sebastopol must mark, to those of us who are now middle-aged, 
the first note from the external world that came to disturb the 
placidity of what seems now an idyllic youth, spent in the far 
back fifties in many a Sleepy Hollow with which the bicycle is 
now enabling us to renew a pleasant acquaintance. It must 
have been then when such pen-artists as Mr. Barrie and " Ian 
Maelaren " were " making themselves." The demands of fiction 
as " the warp and weft '' of human passion lie outwith my 
present quest, which is indeed a much less ambitious task, no 
other than the attempt to recall the local colour of the village 
story, the manners and customs of the rustic mind as revealed 
in its vernacular, and especially the amusements of youth 
" when all such sports could please." Like the cognate attempt 
at reminiscence in the "Deserted Village," the task has its 
limitations as a genuine bit of realism. Most dealings of this 
kind with rustic life and its vernacular have a tendency to give 
a false impression to the superficial reader. Firstly, the very 
shallow suggestion of vulgarity as inherent in the vernacular 
has to be discounted. Further, such vernacular is really often 
more old-fashioned than it seems. Much of Burns, not in 
diction alone but in matter, was half -consciously archaic in his 
day, and fully intelligible only to the old people whose sym- 
pathies with a familiar past he aroused. If we are to believe 
his biographer, Currie, Burns himself used but little of what 
now passes for the dialect of the " Kailyard." Of course the 
accent remained in his case as in that of Scott and Carlyle, 
though such an unfriendly critic as Samuel Johnson admits 
that even that may be got rid of " wi' a fecht." " There can be 
no doubt that Scotsmen may attain to a perfect English pro- 
nunciation if they will. We find how near they come to it " 
[nearer in his day than now, however, for English is more 
changed relatively than Scots]; "and certainly a man who 
conquers nineteen parts of the Scottish accent may conquer 
the twentieth." Pity companies that tour in Scots plays 
could not act up to Johnson's conviction, and come near 
enough the ultra-Tweed accent to spare us Eab Dow ("The 
Little Minister ") in a tone that rhymes to " now," instead of 



118 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

the genuine Bob Dow (pronounced Doo) as the reader of Burns 
knows, — 

" But, as I'm sayiii, please step to Dow's, 
An' taste sic gear as Johnny brews, 
Till some bit callan brings me news 

That you are there, 
An' if we dinna hae a bouse 

I'se ne'er drink mair." — 

Epistle to John Kennedy. 

They would surely never speak of Eoderick Dhu in such a tone, 
though it is substantially the same name. The Scots long 
vowel, as in Eob, always presents difficulties to the Southron. 
Thus the Englishman thinks his absurd " Eabbie " Burns quite 
to the manner born. A somewhat similar misrendering of 
Scottish vernacular is the impossible " Babbie '' of the " Little 
Minister." Barbara is familiarised as Baubie. The elided r 
always lengthens a contiguous vowel. 

Let me endeavour in the following sketch to visualise a 
Pifeshire village at a time when its folk were still bi-lingual, 
when they had not long had to part with their handlooms, to 
welcome the iron horse, and to forget the turmoil of the Dis- 
ruption. The scene is a kirk toon, red-tiled like the East Coast 
villages, and straggling in one street up the rough ascent called 
the Paith, and over the school hill, to disappear into the open 
country round one side of the churchyard. Where the bairns 
romped between lessons, pre-historic villagers had laid their 
dead, only to be gradually exhumed in toothless chafts and 
crumbling harn-pans (skulls), that, from time to time, revealed 
themselves in the cosy nooks among the stone coffins, where 
the lassies played at selling sugar and tea with the crisp, bony 
soil. On the crest of the broad knowe stood a newer God's- 
acre, but even it so old that the accumulated soil concealed the 
sculptured base of the thirteenth century tower, beloved of 
artists and architects. Those Goths, the parish heritors, left 
the unique apse to the betheral (sexton) for his shools and 
coffin-trams, and obliterated its exquisite Norman arch with a 
lath and plaster partition so as to complete the eastern end of 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 119 

their own barn-like structure, a hideous post-Eeformation 
Church. The back walls of the houses, thriftily built hard 
against the abodes of the dead, had their window-boles looking 
out on these silent neighbours through a screen of nettles, 
dockens, apple-reengie, and heather-reenge, as the fragrant 
southern-wood and showy hydrangea were called. To eastward 
the kirk hill dropped abruptly, to be imperceptibly lost in a long 
reach towards the open sea, across a wilderness of bent and sward, 
of heather and whin and broom, till it ended amid miles of golden 
sand, where the swish of the white crests as they broke mingled 
with the moan of the bar when the turn of the ebb brought in 
the rush of billowy foam to hide the mussel scaups and lagoons, 
dear to the flounder and the heron, the mussel-picker and the 
whaup (Oyster-catcher and Greater Curlew). 

To westward the school hill sank to the trough of a wide 
valley which drained to nowhere in particular, but of old its 
countless lochans and forest of seggs and reeds must have 
been a paradise to the falconer and fowler. Tradition, indeed, 
made of it a royal forest in the palmy days of Falkland 
Palace. It was the favourite hawking ground and sporting 
estate of James V. (see " Exchequer Accounts," vol. vii.). How 
Petlethy, as it is called in the "Accounts," fell into tlie Crown 
is explained by an obscure episode of 1537, in which year Lady 
Glamis or Strathmore, of the hated Douglas line, was accused 
of plotting the King's death by poison and burned at the stake 
on the Castle hill of Edinburgh. Her son, a lad of sixteen, was 
left in prison and the estates forfeited, of which Petlethy formed, 
a part. Here there was a fine old castle, built by the Mow- 
brays. The " Accounts " (1539-40) show frequent charges for 
household stuff carried between St. Andrews and Petlethy or 
Glamis by the "ferry of Dundee." After the death of the 
King, Glamis was restored to liberty and his estates. More 
precise historic links were few. Archbishop Sharp regularly 
journeyed by the kirk toon on his way to and from his rural 
retreat at Seotscraig, overlooking the estuary of the Tay, and 
that dear lover of a bishop, the great Samuel, trundled gravely 
past the old church in his progress northwards with the 
admiring Boswell. Out of the wilderness of marsh over against 
the kirk hill rose an artificial mound, on which stood for cen- 



120 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

turies a stronghold of the Earls of Strathmore. The last laird, 
like the other impecunious but very faintly Jacobite Fife ones, 
went out in " The Fifteen," and the forfeited estate fell as a 
realisable asset to the Yorks Building Company, which tore 
down the venerable pile, noted for the painted ceiling of its 
hall, to make cow byres. The quaint sun-dial of the castle is 
now at Glamis. Nothing remains but two rows of yews, terror, 
as a poison, to the farmer and his stirks, and a portion of the 
ditch that once drained the moat. Its name, the Water-gate- 
aillie (alley), suggested the fact that here had been a raised 
causeway that communicated with the kirk toon across the 
swampy hollow. This sluggish ditch was a favourite haunt of 
tadpoles, the " gellies " of the boys. This was also the name 
for the sliddery leech. A Falkland man was using a leech for 
swollen tonsils, when suddenly a neighbour woman looking on 
exclaimed, "Goavy-dick! he's swallowed the gelly." In time 
the estate was bought by a " nabob,'' a Scot who had made a 
fortune in the East at a time when, as Lord Eosebery neatly 
puts it, the all-powerful Henry Dundas was busy " Scotticising 
India and Orientalising Scotland." The improving laird ran a 
deep-cut canal from end to end of the marshy bottom, turning 
it into fields of the richest loam. 

From the foot of the Paith or steep ascent to the kirk hill 
the village street was continued across the drained valley by a 
newer line, where the feuars reared their trim cots on the edge 
of the highroad in the hideous fashion of the orthodox Scottish 
village. There they plied the shuttle and reeled the pirns in 
sweet content in the pre-Malthusian days, when a lying-in 
brought a welcome bread-winner, — 

" The weaver said unto his son, 
The day 'at he was bom, 
' Blessins on yer curly pow ! 
Ye'll rin for pirns the morn.'" 

The brisk times of the great French war, when Osnaburgs 
kept all hands busy, were followed at a long interval by two 
disturbing elements. A great railway tore its ruthless track 
across the smiling hollow, and buried its placid, canal-like 
stream deep down in a gloomy condie (conduit), the home of 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 121 

eels and puddocks and drowned kittlens. The old-fashioned 
gardens, with their brier, elder, and rizzar (currant) bushes, 
their artless clumps of bachelor's buttons, gardener's gairtens, 
dusty miller (auricula), balm, spinks, apple-reengie, speengie 
(peony) roses, spearmint, and lily-oak (lilac), gave place to coal 
bings (Fife knew not coal-rees) and lyes for trucking tawties 
and nowt. A still greater upheaval in the moral world was 
the new broom of Dissent, with its out-crop of unrest and bad 
blood. Down at the lower end of the village rose a rival sub- 
scription school, where a learned unfortunate, some licentiate 
under a cloud, starved on £10 a year, school pence and non- 
Intrusion principles. His successor, a man of many secular 
activities in spite of a lame leg, came to the village with this 

ambiguous recommendation : " The character of Mr. A 

B is well known in this parish." Near this nursery of 

Dissent a barn-like Free Church opened the door of its gavel- 
end on the high road to welcome the swarm from the Erastian 
hive. The tailor's wife eagerly took the new road, coveting the 
eldership for her man. Discussing church politics amid a circle 
of her "cummers," she stoutly maintained that the days of 
auld Babylon on the school hiU were numbered, assuring them 
that " ye min gang doon the toon if ye waant to hae yer sowl 
saved." A local variant of a saying, conceived in a similar spirit, 
credited a Dissenter with the remark, apropos of the future 
happiness of a parishioner lately deceased, "I hae my doots; 
ye see she didna gang to oor meetin' at Lucklaw Hill." 

Those were the days, coTisule Planco, of sunshine and glad- 
ness, when the worry of the great world was far remote. 
There were no big dailies then, only a threepenny bi-weekly, 
and the one copy that came, franked by its stamp, went round 
its circle of readers in turn. The circulation was managed by the 
Sergeant, a veteran of the Kaffir wars, and a striking contrast 
to Sandy Awrnot, a battered, one-armed wreck from Chilian- 
wallah and Sobraon, who had nothing more interesting about 
him than a rusty blue swallow-tail coat with brass buttons, a 
passion for snuff and the speediest liquidation of his pension. 
The Sergeant was intelligent and interesting, as when he told 
a thrilling tale of the wily Kaffir crawling up to assegai the 
sentry at his lonely post by the laager, amid the stillness of the 



122 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SOOTS 

" veldt " and 'neath the passionless gaze of the Southern Cross. 
His thick guttural tones, as if he spoke with a stone in his 
throat, heightened the effect. He was indeed a gentleman, tall, 
straight, and broad shouldered, with bronzed, clean-shaven 
face, broad leather stock for collar, striped blue-and-white 
shirt with pearl buttons, blue fatigue jacket with brass buttons, 
and corduroys of the pattern known then as Oalifornia, a 
name due to the late outbreak of "yellow fever" on the 
Pacific coast. He was a bachelor and lodged with the tailor, 
whose long, ill-girt figure had got for him, from some wit 
in the village, the nickname "Deuteronomy." The Sergeant 
mainly employed himself in digging up barrowloads of fir-tree 
roots, highly resinous, and excellent for kindling or eeldin, as 
the old folk called it. Nor should I forget the station-master, 
cheery, good-natured, obliging. As a man of many freits and 
fancies he was dear to the natural boy. Hens, bees, pigs, dogs, 
goats, and a donkey in turn ruled his energies. A stranger, 
making inquiries at a native, was referred to my friend as " the 
omnifeeshint man in the place." 

Oh ! those glorious days in that wood where the Ser- 
geant's long-drawn pech accentuated the mattock's every blow. 
Heavenly were the sloping glades where one beaked (basked) in 
the sunshine among bracken and blaeberries and bell-heather, 
while whin and broom pods plunkt their peas on ruddy cheeks, 
and the fir-cones, known only as " taps," that were scattered 
around, turned out their recesses to the birsling sun, and the 
foggie-toddlers (yellow humble bee) hirpled about over the 
warm turf, among golacks (beetles) and clip-sheers (ear-wigs). 
The hum of bees and the chorus of birds mingled overhead 
in the sough of a languid breeze, and everything made for 
righteousness but the buzzing flies, the nagging midges, and the 
quiet but thorough prod of the glegs (gadfly). The lotus was 
too much in the air to tempt one to risk a joabing (jagging) by 
prying into the whin-buss for the mouse hole entrance to the 
rannies' (wren's) nest, to sclim the branchless stem of the fir 
for the keelie's (sparrow-hawk's) eyrie, or even to disturb the 
sugar industry by cutting into the bark of the birches to suck 
the sweet sap that seapt out on the sunny side. How poor 
and imperfect is " trickle out " beside its equivalent seap ! An 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 123 

Aberdeen professor of the old school used to tell a slow student 
to keep a " gleg " ear, and just let his prelections " seap " in. 
The Orcadian sab means to saturate. Pieces were eaten to the 
last crust, and pouches " reipet " for mtilins (crumbs), while the 
shady banks of the ditches were searched for soorocks (sorrel), 
and the dank spots in the woods for Caliban's earth-nuts, or 
lucy-awrnits, as they were called. For botanising was pursued 
with the practical purpose of the primitive man, and spoils 
secured for use or pleasure. Pet rabbits, our mappies, claimed 
the sookies (clover blooms) and the grundie-swallie, for ground- 
sel was known by its Anglo-Saxon name of " grunde-swyligie," 
or " grunde-swilie " (what swells over the ground). " Little 
goodje" (sun spurge) was plucked for its astringent, milky juice, 
infallible against warts, while the benty dunes were searched 
for the roots which passed for the savoury liquorice (Common 
Eest- Harrow). The elder furnished a boon-tree gun or tow-gun, 
the elm a whistle, the hemlock a spoot-gun, while the brown, 
withered leaves of the tussilago or colt's-foot — " dishie-logie " 
it was called — were eagerly utilised as a substitute for tobacco, 
and smoked, " with diffeeculty," in a " partan's tae." When the 
girls played at shops the seed-capsules of the doeken passed 
for sugar and tea, while the sweeties were the " nirled " catkins 
of the alder, since they resembled the genuine " curly-andrew," 
or sugared coriander seed. More serious was the midday divi- 
nation with that humble weed, the rib-wort. When the leaf 
was broken off the exposed ribs were held to forecast the number 
of pawmies to be faced in the afternoon. The long seed-tipped 
stalk of this plantain, the " curly-doddy," furnished a weapon 
for mimic cuts and slashes — in the effort to break off each his 
opponent's stalk. More formidable sword-play was done with 
a kail-runt or a clump of the malodorous weebie, as the yellow 
and ever-assertive rag- wort was called. The name "weebie," 
seemed to have been strictly local. In the north-east the plant is 
the " stinkin Elshender." Of old it was called bun-weed. Thus 
in Holland's "Buke of the Howlat" (circa 1450) the Jay as the 
Juggler could carry the cup from the king's table, " syn leve in 
the sted hot a blak bun-wed." The name is still used all over 
Ulster. Can it be that " weebie " is just " bunwede " inverted ? 
Such a careful philologist as M. Amours, in editing Holland 



124 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

(Alliterative Poems, Sc. Text Soc), explains "bun" in his 
author's " bunwed " as M.E. for the long hollow stem of some 
plants. It is therefore akin to " bone " (Ger. Bein), and wood- 
bine. This syllable certainly accounts for the Fife name, for 
the elder, the boon-tree, a Northumbrian term also, which the 
" English Dialect Dictionary," not very wisely, explains as the 
" sacred or lucky tree." A dialect variant is boor-tree, pro- 
bably bore-tree, as if from its hollow stem. Generally it served 
as a fence round the old kail-yards, which gives a sort of colour 
to this suggestion. It was not alone a proof against evil spirits, 
but the cows refused to touch it. The distribution of this term 
" bun " or " boon " — Fife, Northumberland, Ulster — well illus- 
trates the vagaries of dialect. It is represented in German as 
well as English dialects— in the latter always in the sense of 
a hollow stem, as of flax or hemp or any .umbelliferous plant. 
It is also in Celtic, as " bun," a stock, trunk ; " bun-ach," coarse 
tow. Macbain finds in the Gaelic " bun-tata " (potato) a piece 
of folk-etymology suggested by applying this descriptive term 
to the dried stems of the plant. In Irish the ragwort is rogaim, 
sneeze-wort, from rag, stiff, unwilling, borrowed from Norse 
lirak, wretched. 

The animal world was closely observed. Keen was the zest 
in the chase of a whittret (weasel) or the smeekin of a wasp's 
bike. These were the only noxious beasts known. Among 
birds, the yellow yite (Emberiza citronella) met with scant 
favour, relic of a medieval tradition that its yellow robe sug- 
gested the hated Jew, probably Judas Iscariot himself. In the 
cabbage rows a pit-fall (a " faw," German " Falle ") vi^as set for 
him. This word faw as a mouse-trap is of very limited range 
in dialect. In Orcadian we have moosfa', a mouse-trap, Norse 
mus-foU. When snow covered the ground the barn " wecht '' 
or close sieve was the favourite snare. 

There was no thought of egg-collecting. The berried spoils 
were merely set up on a dyke or stonewall as a mark in the 
sport called " prappin." A cushie's (wood-pigeon's) nest, or still 
better a paitrick's (partridge), was prized. Sunny hours were 
spent out on the moors in search of " dunter's " (eider duck) or 
" strokannet's " (burrow duck) eggs, hid away in rabbit holes. 
I can find no trace of either of these terms elsewhere except 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 125 

about the head of the Solway, where the boys know the 
strokannet. This kannet is a form of gannet, while stroh 
probably refers to its variegated plumage. Eerie it was to 
follow the "teuchat" (lapwing) as it wailed out, in tumbling 
circles round the intruder, " Pease- weet, pease- weet, herry my 
nest and gar me greet ! " the boy's call to the wailing spirit 
on the wing. Karely did success follow the rearing of small 
captives. The young "gorbets" (callow brood) were fed on 
crowdie till their "gaebies" (crops) if not their nebs, cried 
" Hold ! enough ! " Sparrows or " spyugs " were the favourite 
innocents for such experiments, but we never were Herods, 
such as the Border herd-boys with their " spung-hewet " or 
spung-taed (toad) pranks, which consisted in placing a frog or 
toad or young bird on one end of a stick balanced on a stone, 
then striking the other end smartly, so as to send the victim 
high up into the air, to fall neatly cleft in two. Spung, as 
spang (Norse spong, to stride), was our familiar form of span 
in playing at bools (marbles). Some of the old herd-boys' 
sports were kept alive, however, such as the flauchter-spade 
and the divot-fecht. We still find boys in spring-time cutting 
out bits of turf to throw at one another, quite unconscious of 
the origin of the sport in a long-obsolete industry. The herds 
in rival parishes or " lands " used to have regular pitched battles. 
The word " fiauchter-spade " as a game would seem to be pecu- 
liarly local. It consisted in one boy lying on his back, while 
another stood on the out-stretched palms and leant on the feet 
of the first boy, held up to him for the purpose. The game was 
to see which pair of boys would make the biggest leap by the 
aid of their combined forces. In Lanark and in Moray the 
boys know the game as the sawmon-loup. The true flauchter- 
spade, of course, was used in the old days of bad farming to 
pare turf from the moor, or outfield, to make the compost 
known as " f ulzie," and is still employed to cut larg'e turfs to 
cover the potato-bings in the absence of straw. The Orcadian 
tlaa, Icel. flaga, is a thin turf,_cf. Boer, vlei. 

Here let me "divagate" so far as to' versify the kindly 
reminiscence of those days when, as a boy^IwajS left to learn 
"Nature knjowledge" at the feet of . the; mighty; Mo th^jr her- 
self. . ; . ■■ \] \ ' .ill--) :• -■■■ 



126 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

THE SKYLARK. 

Lae-rockie — lae-rockie-lee, 

Up i' the lift sae hie ! 
You soar frae the grun', up there to the sun, 

An' hing like a mote i' my e'e, 
While frae your free throat, on wastlin winds float. 

The charms o' your ain melodie. 

You fondly look doon whaur your wifockie broon 

Sits broodin' sae mitherlie, 
'Mang the bluebells an' heather, the yow an' the wether. 

An' the bee bummin eidentlie. 

It maks my heart wae when I think on the day. 

On the bent-brown links by the sea, 
How, a loon like the rest, I berried your nest, 

An' brocht the bit tear to your e'e. 

Owre aften sin syne I've owrestapit the line 

Whaur frail mortals dauner agee, 
But never I ween done ocht half sae mean 

As stealin' your broon bairnies three. 

But harder the heart o' the moneyed upstart, 

Clay-cauld to a' true poesie. 
To roast on a spit, as a denty tit-bit. 

The bard o' the muirland an' lea. 

Noo shake aff' the stoor, the dew an' the shoor. 

An' lilt your bit innocent glee. 
Ye can cock up your tap or sit lown on Earth's lap, 

Ye'll ne'er get a mischeef frae me. 

This warl o' care still has joys to share, 

'Boon a' maun your sang bear the gree, 

An' it heartens to feel, i' the land o' the leal, 
Your liltins aye sowniu shall be. 

The pleasures of the garden, the playground, and the farm- 
yard bulked largely in the village boy's year. Delicious it was 
to "speel" (climb) the flat-topped garden wall, and strip the 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 127 

pleasantly-tartish " rizzars " from their pendulous stalks. The 
name is now little known, though Cunningham of Craigends 
(Scot. Hist. Soc.) tells us he bought rizzars from the garden 
of a Paisley change-house for 4d. Scots. This was during the 
Killing Time of the seventeenth century It denotes anything 
growing on a branch, from Ger. " Reis," a twig. An Elizabethan 
street-cry was, " Cherries on the rise ! " The rizzar berry is an 
old name for the currant. A " stake and rise " hut or " wattled 
cot " was a primitive but inexpensive abode. Still more attrac- 
tive were the " geans " and " grozers," the latter better known 
in the West as " grozets," and sometimes grossarts as in 
James VI.'s application of a homely proverb — " When he heard 
of the tocher, then, by my kingly crown, he lap like a cock at a 
grossart." There was the usual round of games — hi-spy, smuggle 
the gag (never geg), tig, craw-flee. In their due season came 
bools, peeries, earriek, draigeiis (kites), girds (hoops). The 
Border expression " ca' a girr " was never heard. A hoop for 
any purpose was always a gird. The shinty term, earriek, I find 
to be quite local. It is only a modification of the word crook, 
and, like the similar Gaelic term " camanachd " (cam, crooked), 
properly applies to the stick used. Football and cricket were 
unfamiliar, so also was rounders. Nothing, therefore, was known 
of that interesting survival amid the wreck of old words, the 
" dulls " or " dools " of Allan Eamsay and Fergusson, and still 
in common use. Girls chose the quieter sports of merry-my- 
tanzie, jing-ga-ring, or the ever-entertaining palall, the " beds " 
of Edinburgh, and the peevor (from Fr. paveur, a pavior) of 
Lanarkshire. Playmates and playthings were known as play- 
fares. The term has nothing to do with fairplay, but is from 
an Anglo-Saxon " gefera," a companion, the gaffer of a working 
squad. We have it in Beaumont and Fletcher's " Two Noble 
Kinsmen " — " Learn what maids have been her companions and 
play-feers." If " by-ordnar thrang," they were reported to be 
" cheef " or intimate — not so graphic as the Tweed-side " thick 
as dugs' heads " — but when they fell out they parted with 
a Parthian shot, " I'm no' freends wi' you the day." Poetical 
justice was gleefully noted with a " cheatery's choket you ! " or 
" ye're weel cheap o'd," when Nemesis brought ill luck. " Fair 
hornie " was the euphemistic appeal for fair play. " Chaps me 



128 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

that ! " was enough to secure first choice of a good thing. All 
enjoyed giving each other " fichils " (Gael, dialect, fachail, strife, 
and quite local), or challenges to difficult feats — the " brags " 
of Edinburgh and the "coosie" of Arbroath. Hiding in the 
crap-wa' or coom-ceiled recess of the hay-loft, where floor and 
joists meet, was much enjoyed. To be called " bairnlie," " fugie," 
" coordie " (the " coordie, coordie custard ! " of Edinburgh), or 
to be sent home with a torn " daidlie " (pinafore) was justly 
shunned. " A carrier of clypes," dreaded in the West, was 
never heard, though " clippy " for pert was quite common. To 
settle sides in a game the lot was cast by the inevitable 
decision, — 

" Nievvi-nievvi-nik-nak, 

Which hand will ye tak? 

Be ye richt or be ye wrang, 

I'll begowk you if I can.'' 

Glorious were the June evenings, when the bairns were as 
happy on the green as the gowans that nestled in a sleep which 
their tread did not disturb ! As the gloamin' from the East 
chased the azure day to far Western seas, the golden moths 
flitted over the breer-busses, the corncraik seraiched among the 
skellocks (wild mustard) in the haugh-land, while the bat circled 
overhead, easily evading the bonnets tossed up to catch it with 
the seductive cry, " Bat, bat, come intill my hairy hat ! " But 
all this paled before the delights of " hairst." Eager was the 
look-out for the first stock as authority for demanding the 
vacations (Fr. vacance). Eapidly gleamed the hyucks (sickles) 
in sturdy hands when some forward shearer began " kempin " 
(Ger. " kampfen," to contend), — 

" This wicked flyte being laid at last, 
Some rig now strives for to get past 
The ithers, and wi' flaring haste 

To show its strength ; 
This sets the lave a-workin' fast — 
They ' kemp ' at length." — 

The Hairst Rig, 1786. 

The grieve (A.S. " gerefa," reeve, officer) looked on with mingled 
feelings, divided between a desire for sued stubble and a 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 129 

speedy arrival at the rig-end. Sweet was the midday meal 
of baps and beer by a stook-side, varied by a chase for the 
youngsters after a scared rabbit or a hirplin' maukin (hare) ! 
One ill-set prank I remember. The scene was a hairst rig on 
a Perthshire farm. The idle boy, stravaiging round, saw among 
the stubble some nice, plump toads (taeds he called them). 
Tucking one into a shearer's shawl that she had left on the 
sunny side of a stook, he waited till the owner came to sit down 
with her neighbours for her " twal oors," and enjoyed her squeal 
and fright as she caught sight of the " laithly beast," an expres- 
sion illustrated in Grigor's laidlick, a loath (tad-pole and leech). 
The leadin' of the well- won thraves (stooks of twenty -four 
sheaves) appealed to the boy's love of horses. He 'took little 
interest in the gleaners that followed, making up their " singles " 
out of the scattered ears, — 

" 0' gatherers next, unruly bands 
Do spread themselves athort the lands, 
And sair they grien (yearn) to try their hands 

Amang the sheaves ; 
For which they're ordered far behind, 
To mak' sic singles as they find." — 

The Hairst Rig, 1786. 

"Winter brought its own sports. Frozen pools in the woods 
resounded to the clang of the "skaetchers" (skaters). Open 
snow-clad stretches were seamed with the sheen of slides, 
whereon in gleeful rows the boys careered, erect or hunker- 
tottie (crouching), the " coorie-hunker " of other, dialects. 
" Faht," Grigor quotes, " wiz the auld bodie deein fin ye geed 
in ? She wiz crulgin on her currie-hunkers at the cheek o' the 
cutchick." All went well till a thaw made the ice " bauch " 
(dull). The long evenings favoured such pranks as Tammy- 
reekie, Ticky-molie, and Guisin'. For the first a kail-stock was 
chosen, the pith within the custock extracted, and the space filled 
with wet tow. Then the process of smeekin some unsuspecting 
household through the front door key-hole went merrily on. 
Hallowe'en brought its supper of " stovies," " a pound of butter 
champit in," said champing being effected by a vigorous use of 
the porridge-stick, or " theel," the " theevil " of the North-east. 



130 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

There was high revelry when the pig was killed. The blood, in 
view of black puddings to follow, had to be switched with a 
bundle of twigs to remove the fibrin, and so prevent clotting. 
Then the carcase was plumped into scalding water, to ploat 
(soak), so as to admit of the scraping process. In due course 
followed the feast of puddings, made from the "pluck," and 
cracklins, the chitterlings of the English villager. The lard that 
was extracted was " weel-hained " under the name of swine's 
" saim," a bit of dialect which appears in " Troilus and Cressida " 
— " The proud lord that bastes his arrogance with his own seam." 
The metaphor anticipates the historic one, " Stew in their own 
gravy." Lastly there were such special aids to friendship as 
" clack " (cf. Ger. Klecks, a blot), or clagum, the " gundy " of 
Edinburgh youth, " pawrlies," and " ha'penny deevils " (ginger- 
bread figures, arms a-kimbo, currants for eyes), each offering a 
more popular fate for spare bawbees than the " pirlie-pig " or 
nursery savings bank. Gundy is still a favourite of youth. A 
village rhyme runs thus, — 

" Adam and Eve gaed up my sleeve 
To fess me doon some gundy ; 
Adam and Eve cam doon my sleeve, 
And said there was nane till Munday." 

The farm, its ways and animals, were ever interesting to the 
boy, himself a stock-raiser on his own account. Knowing in the 
breeds of doos and rabbits, the "niffering" of the- progeny or 
the " swauping " of the cleckin (litter), with knives and bools as 
buit (luckpenny), prepared him for a commercial career. The two 
terrors of the farmyard were the turkey and the billy-goat. The 
latter was treated, across the wall, to sham offers of tobacco, 
while the former was greeted with the execration, " Bubbly-jock, 
your wife's a witch, and a' your bairns are warlocks." But 
the boy was proudest of all of the friendship of a horse. He 
knew his " monk " or head-stall (confined to Eife and Aberdeen), 
his haims, brecham, britchen, and rigwoodie, the necessary items 
in the harnessing. To walk alongside when he was in the theats 
(traces) or to hold the reins beside the swingle-tree when he 
was in the plough was a coveted distinction. A ploughman, 
appealed to one day by a boy to let him hold the stilts, with 



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132 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

in the guise of the favourite diminutive. The open trench or 
" gruip " (Ger. Graben, a ditch) made the byre unsavoury. The 
term is common for a ditch in the fields in Ulster, in Kent, and 
even in the Transvaal. Arthur Young says that the roads a 
little way to the north of London were in his time (1780) made 
troublesome and even dangerous by the " grips," trenches cut 
across the road to keep it dry before the advent of Macadam. 
It has lived in popular verse, as here, — 

" The muckin' o' Geordie's byre, 

An' shooling the gruip sae clean, 
Has aft gart me spend the night sleepless, 
An' brocht the saut tears to my een." — ■ 

Herd, vol. ii. app. 53. 

The calving was momentous, for on that hung the milk 
supply. If the cow was " yeld " (in calf but not in milk), or 
" foarrie " (not in calf), there was no milk, but only a poor 
substitute, " treacle-peerie," made of sweetened water mixed 
with barm (yeast) to produce a perfectly harmless ale, feebler 
even than penny-whaup. " Peerie " (small) is a strange survival 
from Norse times in the East coast. It is very common in 
Orkney. There the infant school is the " peerie squeel." Scott 
in his Life says that "Stevenson, the engineer, landing at 
N. Eonaldshay, was forced to rout out of bed a mannikin of 
a missionary whom, because he was so peerie, the Selkies- 
suspected of being a Pecht or elf" (quoted by Tudor). The 
" heist," or first milk after calving, was too strong to be 
palatable. When the milk was drawn in the cog it was " sie'd " 
(sieved), laid away in " kimmins " (shallow tubs), and reamed 
(Ger. Kahm, cream ; Cape Dutch, room) for the churn. Earely 
was the sweet or unreamed milk used for drinking, a substitute 
being found in the skimmed or in the butter milk, known as 
soor-dook (cf. dough and the Sauer-teig of " Sartor Eesartus"). 
The bappy-faced nonentity was graphically but unkindly 
described as "daichie" (doughy). The Edinburgh schoolboy, 
recognising in the Militia the ploughmen that brought the milk 
to town, derisively christened them " soor-dook sogers." For 
cheese-making the stomach of a calf was held in reserve, filled 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 133 

with salt, and hung up over the fireplace to make "ernin" 
(rennet). Coagulation took place sometimes when not wanted. 
" Lapper," to co-agulate, explains Grigor's Banffshire phrases : 
"The thunner hiz lappert the milk," "The loans (lea fields) 
wir pleut weet, an' they a' lappert in spring fin (when) dry 
wither set in." 

The pig was of less interest to the boy, unless perhaps it 
was the wee wrig (a variant of wry) or last-born (puny, puis-n6) 
member of the litter, and therefore less perfectly developed. 
His name is local. In the Gothic Gospels (Luke iii. 5), where 
part of the work of John the Baptist is to make the crooked 
paths straight, we have — "wairthith thata wraiqo du raiht- 
amma," lit. set the crooked or wrig to-rights. This Fifeshire 
form is akin to the Orcadian raaga — the same word indeed 
— otherwise known as the water-droger. In England he is 
St. Anthony's pig, in Perth and Angus the shargar (weakly, 
scraggy ; Oread, sharg, petulant, teasing), and in Aberdeen and 
Moray the carneed or curneedy. " I jist got the carneed at 
a wee pricie." Grigor glosses crine, to cause to grow stunted, 
as, " Y've crinet yir caar (cattle) by spehnin them our seen " 
(soon). Connected with carneed is earn, to soil, e.g. " I earned 
ee aa' wi' the jice" (gravy). Beginning life as a "grice," the 
pig, when weaned (speaned), became a " shot," and, whUe there- 
after in process of assuming a douce obesity, was familiarly 
addressed as Gus-gus ! or spoken^ of as Sandy Cam'l, a name 
widely spread over the Lowlands. The Orcadian "grici-fer" 
(swine fever) is the distemper that deprives swine of the use of 
their hind legs. I have seen many of these thrown out from 
a distillery into the brimming tide. The popular philosophy 
of proverbs -took a purely material view of this worthy. The 
old folk capped the incongruity between pearls and swine with : 
" What can ye expec' o' a soo but to grumph ? " The last scene 
of his uneventful history was the bustling one of stickin' with 
the gully, ploatin' in the big tub to get the hair off, scrapin' and 
disembowelling. 

Spare hours in the busy day were given to watching the 
joiner, ever popular if good-natured enough to turn "peeries" 
(spinning tops), or the mason swinging his heavy mell (Shet. a 
large broad fist). Not so popular he, to judge by his derisive 



134 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

name, " dorbie." The long winter evenings were often devoted 
to technical education of no mean kind amid the bustle of the 
craftsman's shop. The handloom weaver, a comtemplative 
artist whose craft had by this time almost disappeared, was 
coaxed into sparing the ends of his warp to make strings for 
" draigens " (kites), or the tow from his yarn to supply shot for 
spoot-guns. The former was known as " thrums," the thrummy 
cap of the ballads, and, of course, the cognomen of Mr. Barrie's 
native Kirriemuir. The tailor was voted a windy buddy, much 
given to blawin' or boasting. Odd uses were found for his 
runds (selvage of cloth), and there were sly pilferings of his 
keelivine or pencil. The Orcadian rands is the edge of a shoe- 
heel : rynd is a long strip of cloth. Interesting was it to watch 
the hot " goose " hissing along the damp seam over the " law- 
brod." A Glasgow bailie who had been familiar professionally 
with the flat-iron of the tailor and how he used it, diverted tlie 
Town Council by remarking that an opponent's criticism was 
no more to him than " a skite aff a tailor's goose." Every way 
more entertaining was the sutor as he beat the bend-leather on 
his lap-stane, drew his thread across the roset (Gael, rosead, 
resin), deftly birsed a fresh lingle end, or passed the gleaming 
elshon (awl) through his hair. In those days there was no lack 
of variety or interest in village industries, as yet little affected 
by machinery or the rush town-wards. All this is commemo- 
rated in the Fife toast, — 

" Here's life to men and death to fish, 
The pirn and the ploo', 
Horn, corn, linen-yairn, 
Tups and tarry 'oo'." 

Around the ingle-neuk character was both formed and best 
studied. Lessons played a small part in the evening economy, 
for school passed for little, and the " maister " was held in no 
great esteem among the monotonous drudgery of "eoonts" 
(sums) and Catechism, and the mechanical sing-song drawl 
called reading aloud. For the well-doing the highest praise 
was : " Ye'll be a man before your mother yet," while for the 
be-fogged bungler were reserved the choice epithets, "kirn- 
stick," or dunder-head, and the ever-ready " pawmy." Neither 



PIELD PHILOLOGY 135 

the Edinburgh boy's pandy (mediaeval dominie's "pande pal- 
mam," stretch out your palm), nor the Saxon " loofie " of the 
Glasgow one, was known in Fife. Village education was at 
a low ebb then. Too often it was a poor choice between the 
antiquated stickit minister who couldn't teach and the bump- 
tious " laddie in a jekkit " from the Normal, who knew little 
that was worth teaching. ISTot much effort was made to put 
any soul or meaning into what was read. A boy of those days, 
encountering in his text-book the lines, — 

" Around the fire one wintry night 
The farmer's rosy children sat, 
The fagot lents its blazing light " — 

and so on — had a vision of an untidy drudge " troking " about 
the kitchen, for such was the import of the mysterious " fagot " 
in the local vernacular. The kitchen was the common room of 
humble households. The door, secured by a sneck, opened upon 
a short passage, the trance, connecting the butt and the ben. 
Against its wall stood the trap (Ger. Treppe) or ladder leading 
to the garret. The wily, pawky flatterer was familiarly known 
as an " auld sneck-drawer." The centre of the kitchen was the 
well-caumed fireside, the saut-girnal in the jambs, the good- 
man's settle (bink) between the lowe and the crusie, and pussy 
bawdrons, or cheetie-pussie, not far from the warmth of the ace 
(ashes). Thrift prescribed a big gatherin' coal backed by chows 
(small coal) or, at the worst, coom (dr6ss). On the mother's 
knee began the knowledge of the vernacular. How the peekin', 
dwinin' bairn was brightened up by " Creepie, crappie, &c.," or 
" Bree, bree, brentie, &c.," or, — 

" John Smith, a falla fine, 

Can ye shoe this horse o' minel" — 
"Yes, indeed, an' that I can, 

Juist as weel as ony man. 

Pit a bit upon the tae 

To gar the pownie speel the brae, 

Pit a bit upon the heel 

To gar the pownie pace weel. 

Pace weel (presto), Pace weel " (prestissimo), 



136 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

while screams of delight greeted the "denouement" of the 
tale, — 

" This ane biggit the baurn, 

This ane stealt the corn, 

This ane stood and saw, 

This ane ran awa' — 

An' wee peerie-winkie paid for a'." 

The goodwife was an authority in minor morals, keeping 
careful watch over her flock as maturing years expanded char- 
acter. An awkward girl was " a muckle tawpie " (Fr. taupe), a 
foolish boy was a "haveril," a "gawpus," or a "gomeril." The 
simpleton was a " cuif " or a " nose o' wax," while mental smart- 
ness was esteemed under the names of " gumshon," or " smed- 
dum," or the " rummle-gumshon," of everyday common-sense. 
The elder sister, " fikey " and " perjinlc," was severe on a younger 
brother's hashiness, but the douce mother was wisely tolerant. 
" Auld maid's bairns are never misleared " (lair, lore), she would 
remark. She tholed much from the wheengin, raenin (Gael, 
ran, roar, cry, Norse, reen) bairn, but soon got out of patience 
with the thrawn, contermashus (contumacious) youngster. 
The " gansel " or insolent retort of the pert " smatchet " was 
sternly rebuked equally with the airs of the upsettin' brat. In 
Henryson's (1462) "Town and Country Mouse" the latter 
retorts thus : " Thy guse is gude, thy gansell sour as gall." In 
illustration Morley quotes the proverb, "A gude guse indeed, 
but she has an ill gansell," and explains the word as a severe 
rebuke (from agan, again, and sellan, to give), but in living use 
it is rather the equivalent of a " cheeky " retort, a speaking 
back impudently. A Morayshire phrase is, "Jist a gansellin 
creatur." Wright (" Dialect Diet.") says, " Originally a garlic 
sauce for goose, but now only figuratively, a saucy speech." 
Thrift was strictly inculcated, especially in the sparing use 
of best clothes. " Ilka day braw maks Sabbath a dilly-daw," or 
seedy-looking idler. Many a bien (well-to-do) good-wife went 
about in a short-gown and wrapper while her drawees were 
well-stocked with apparel. 

Table manners were attended to, if at all, in somewhat 
blunt fashion. The hasty eater was warned not to ramsch his 
food. To snotter or slaver was no less objectionable in the 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 137 

callant, the loon, or the haflin. Too much assurance was 
rebuked with " Ye're no blate." The impatient call for dinner 
elicited the diplomatic rejoinder, " It's braw to be hungry and 
ken o' meat," or, " It's on the hettest pairt o' the hoose." Such 
dainties as tea and white bread were reserved for elders, and 
remonstrance was met with the proverb, " Corn's no for staigs " 
(colts). Grown-up folk held the young with a ticht hand, 
dealing out " skelps " and " paiks " with liberal allowance as a 
necessary aid to growth, morally and physically. The " owre- 
blate " youth was voted a " sumph," a word still used by colliers 
to denote the, as it were, swampy hollow at the bottom of the 
shaft. The tomboyish girl was condemned as " roid," a corrup- 
tion of rude, and the light-headed as " giglot " in the fashion of 
Cowper's office pastime, "giggling and making giggle." The 
mischievous (with its Elizabethan accent on the penult) boy 
was a " monkey," or a loon-lookin' dog, or a limb of Sawtan, an 
expression like Burns's rundeils or clippings off Auld Nick. 
His glossarists, by-the-by, have not looked very narrowly into 
this graphic word, a run' or rund, the selvage of cloth or what- 
ever goes round. It is the too-familiar Rand of the Transvaal, 
or reef of hills round Johannesburg where the gold-mines are. 
The throo-gaw'n mother could not endure sloongin over work, 
the couthie one had no patience with gloomin', stoomin' (Ger. 
"stumm," dumb), or dortin', while the furthie housewife had 
nothing "near" about her hospitality. Throo-ither-ness in 
house affairs was odious to the purpose-like goodwife. The 
ill-set rascal, the ill-doin' waffie, and the wairdless vagral body 
found no favour, and when someone had to go anes errand on a 
particular service, no mercy was shown to him that said he was 
" deid sweer " or would be " seek sorry." Gossip was condemned 
as clashing, an essentially feminine weakness. The severest 
criticsm of conduct, indeed, was directed to the frailer sex, 
backsliders being progressively characterised by the uncompli- 
mentary epithets — gilpy, besom, hizzie, herry (Ger. Herr, master, 
cf. virago), randy, limmer. To get into debt was to tak on, and 
to become bankrupt was to fail, a social catastrophe linked with 
insanity and suicide as among the sorest of fortune's buffets. 
To run the cutter (whisky bottle) betokened a confirmed habit 
of tippling. A sand-bed o' drink graphically described the 



138 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

constant boozer, chronically "on the ball." A crack over the 
stoups filling at well or pump was accentuated with such 
expressions of surprise as my eertie ! my san ! losh peetie me ! 
goavy-dick ! 

The inborn habit of thrift led to fine distinctions in expres- 
sions for small quantities : — 

Tate = Eng. tit, tot, teat. 

Cum = Oread, "a eurney o' piltaeks " (large number of coal- 
fish). 

Stime = a speck, "canna see a stime." 

Bittock = little bit. 

Puckle = a little "picked up." 

Wheen = piece broken off, akin to Lat. cuneus, a wedge. 

Feck = a good deal. 

Hantle = handful. 

Gowpen = what one can scoop up. 

Nievefu' = a fistful. 

Wee hue (Renfr.) = a small portion as a tasting, "a wee hue 
mair," anither drappie. 

An obsolete word, haet (cf. Boer lets, ocht or anything, niets, 
nocht) is in Burns's " Twa Dogs," — 

" But Gentlemen and Ladies warst, 
Wi' ev'n down want o' wark they're curst, 
They loiter, longing, lank, an' lazy : 
Tho' deil haet ails them, they're uneasy." 

The " hale apothick " expressed what is vulgarly known as " the 
whole bilin." I do not think the word, as thus used, had any- 
thing to do with the legal " hypothec." Besides, it would be 
very awkward to have two initial aspirates so close together. 
The term is the Greek apotheke (a granary), very early 
adopted in Germany and Holland for a shop or general store. 
Both in sense and sound this form is preferable to "hale 
hypothik." 

The best qualities of the goodwife came out in distress, as 
when a glisk o' cold or a groosin (cf. Ger. " grausen," to shudder) 
brought on a hoast, or foreboded the nirls (measles), or maybe 
the more serious broonkaidis ; or taebetless fingers had to be 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 139 

thawed in loo water; or skelbs and hacks and gaws (galls) 
needed tender handling or a healing saw (salve). But the case 
was altered if a thoughtless pliskie brought a broken " lozen " 
(lozenge-shaped pane). If the glossarists of Burns had been 
familiar with the graphic "taebetless" (lingers all thumbs, 
without to-put or application) they would have better under- 
stood his description of his muse as a " taepetless, ramfeezled 
hizzy." Should playmates fall out there was little sympathy 
at home with the cloor on the head, the dad i' the lug, or the 
bluidy nose. The sensible mother of those days, like the Cassius 
of " Julius Caesar," did not think " that every nice offence should 
bear his comment." " Best tholed, soonest mended " was all 
the consolation. Grown-up people spoke more gravely of an 
income, a weed, the rose (erysipelas), or the pains (ague). A cut 
was delayed in healing when the proud flesh appeared or when 
it began to beal (suppurate) -a-nd form a gatherin'. The water 
brash was a frequent symptom of indigestion. And, after all, 
there were the dispensations that could only be tholed. The 
undergrown was a droch (dwarf), the curved-spine was boolie- 
backet, the cleft palate was the whummle-bore. But worst 
trial of all was that heavy handfu', the helpless natural or 
harmless loonie (lunatic). 

A list of about 350 words, embracing much of the vernacular 
that has been used in the foregoing pages, was distributed by 
me, to be reported on by obliging correspondents in East Fife, 
Angus, Hawick, South Lanark and Galloway, The reports bore 
evidence to the very general diffusion of these Fifeshire expres- 
sions. It must be said, however, that the reporters were all in 
sympathy with the archaic in the vernacular. In one district. 
East Fife, a very large proportion of the words were found to 
be now unknown, significant of how little of the vernacular 
now lives. As this was the very district where the material 
forming the list was originally gleaned, we have here a striking 
proof of decadence. 

Though the words were upon the whole familiar to some of 
the districts, there were, in many cases, curious preferences — 
both when there was close proximity, as Fife and Forfar, and 
again at wide intervals, such as Fife and Galloway. 

I select the following as reported blank (absolutely or in the 



140 



STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 



sense or form given here) from all the districts, except, of course 
parts of Fife : — 



GelUe, leech. 
Tiki-molie, boys' trick. 
Gutter-gaw, sores between toes of 

bare-footed walkers in puddles. 
Fichils, feats. 

Pennart, tin case for penholders. 
Seek sorry, unwilling. 
Chows, small coal. 
Speengie-rose, peony. 
Cummins, in malt. Jamieson has 

" Cumin, wort." 
Hagg, man who tends fat cattle. 
Treviss, frame to shoe horses ; 

common in other sense. 
Flauchter-spade, boys' game. 



Hunker-tottie, cowering slide. 
Monk, horse's head-stall. 
Nose o' wax, ninny. 
Sand-bed o' drink, drunkard. 
Giglot, laughing girl. 
Whummle-iore, cleft palate. 
Onbonny, ugly. 

Shelly-coat, tortoise-shell moth. 
Meedge, mark to steer by. 
Thro-pit, go. 
Baenin, whimpering. 
Fuggy-toddler, humble bee. 
Peeler, soft crab. 
Ringle-e'ed, wall-eyed. 
Stoom, to look sulky. 



It might also be said that these are not in Jamieson either, 
if one might speak positively on such a point. Upon another 
set of these words corroboration was got only from Jamieson : — 



Coo-haikie, pole securing cow in 

stall. 
Dunter, eider-duck. 
Strokannet, burrow-duck. 
Poddlies, young saitbe. 
Gurihie, nauseous, what "staws." 
Flaws, ends of horse-shoe nails. 
Fraekin, wheedling. 
Wrig, puis-n^ grice, or young pig. 



Golack, beetle. 
Kimmen, a milk-pail. 
Carrick, shinty stick. 
Furthie, liberal. 
Bauk, grass walk in a garden. 
Gansell, insolent retort. 
Spar, close a gate. 
Keelie, a sparrow-hawk. 



These lists are given merely as specimens of what are purely 
local and, in some cases, lost words. 

The bulk of the foregoing specimens of the vernacular, 
regarded as an object-lesson in popular philology, is the common 
property of that bygone phase of village life in Lowland Scot- 
land which has been dubbed, by unsympathetic critics, the 
" Kailyard." As the result of the observation of actual usage 
within a special area, it has features of its own that might be 
valuable for comparison and suggestion. Such studies do not 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 141 

call either for book knowledge or profound scholarship. Be it 
always remembered that philological research has these distinct 
fields — (a) The genesis or kinship of a word; (5) its various 
applications ; (c) its distribution, if vernacular. These are pre- 
cisely analogous to the great departments of research in the 
natural sciences of observation. The scholar must be left to 
discuss the first in his dictionaries. For the other two, "the 
plain man" may well be a valuable and competent witness, 
but to gather his evidence demands wide observation and 
generous co-operation. The foregoing pages have attempted 
to show that the "plain" man's field of observation possesses 
a broad, human interest, in which mere dictionary-making 
must be deficient. 



2. Farm Life in Moray. 

It is a hopeful sign of progress that education is at last 
recognising the value of Bacon's two-fold instrument for the 
acquisition of knowledge — observation and experiment. In the 
natural sciences we readily concede a place to this method, but 
in the study of language we are still devoted to 'books. The 
naturalist explores sea and land in search of truth, but human 
nature offers a still wider field in recovering the fading traces 
of old customs, manners, and beliefs, embedded in obscure terms 
and proverbial sayings. And the joy of following up one of 
those survivals and garnering the crowd of associated recollec- 
tions which it suggests is of far more vital, because more human, 
interest than the accumulation of " specimens," stuffed or dried. 

The following study is designed as a specimen of what might 
be called field-philology. The invention of printing has helped 
to make us all forget that the spoken, not the written, word is 
the true phase of a living language. This is specially true of 
the vernacular. If we wish to get into intimate touch with its 
diction we must catch it from the lips of those who think and 
feel in it. And if the listener is in a similar position, there 
will arise a real bond of sympathy and a fruitful stimulus to 
the imagination. With a view to such study I prepared a list 
of terras familiar to me as the general vernacular of my youth 



142 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

in East Eifeshire and utilised it in interviewing my living 
" subjects." 

While holidaying at Stonehaven one summer I had the 
good fortune to fall in with a most interesting specimen of 
the countryman of the olden time, unspoilt by town, by school 
I might almost say, and certainly by college and books. He 
was a Mr. Eoss, and was spending the autumn of his days with 
his son, who had the leading photographic studio in Stone- 
haven. For fifty years and over he had lived amid rural 
surroundings, and not only had much to communicate but 
took a real pleasure in communicating it. The delights of 
reminiscence, to one even moderately endowed with imagina- 
tion, are a real compensation for declining age and powers. 
What I gathered from this observant and intelligent informant 
I have amplified from my own stores. His native district 
of Morayshire lay in the western corner of that north-eastern 
shoulder of Scotland which is, philologically, perhaps the most 
interesting in the country, surrounded as it is by the Celtic 
west and the North-Anglian south, and ever open to the influx 
of the hardy Norsemen who came on the wings of the snell 
Nor'-easter. The Celtic elements are extremely, but quite 
accountably, few, but the Norse abound, and therefore I have 
made ample use of such material as lies to hand in Edmonston's 
" Dictionary for Orkney and Shetland," and, still more largely, in 
the late Dr. Grigor's " Glossary of the Buchan Dialect." To these 
I add the two volumes on the "Dialect of Cumberland," a 
labour of love on the part of three dalesmen and excellent 
philologists, Messrs. W. Dickinson, S. Dickson Brown, and Dr. 
E. W. Prevost. Theirs is quite a model of what Dialect Glos- 
saries ought to be. The interest of these volumes in this 
connection lies in the fact that the dales, through the Solway 
and Irish Sea, offered a welcome home to the Norsemen. For 
the Scottish side of this Norse influence I have also used the 
glossary in Shaw's "Country Schoolmaster," a Nithsdale observer. 
Including my own native Eife, therefore, on its coast side, my 
survey embraces all the Norse influences ever brought in Scot- 
land to blend with the older North-Anglian, excluding those on 
the Western Isles, the effect of which last on the native Celtic 
was neither extensive nor persistent. 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 143 

My friend's memories went back almost to the first quarter 
of last century. A Morayshire man, he had spent his youth 
and most of his manhood in the beautiful vale of Pluscarden. 
It is cut off from the plain of Moray by the long wooded ridge 
of the Heldon Hill, forming a welcome screen from the north, 
while southwards across the vale the ground rises away up to 
the moorlands of Badenoch. Through the vale flows the Black 
Water on its way to join the L6ssie near to Elgin, six miles off. 
The cyclist, climbing the easy ascent of the valley, makes his 
exit from the vale to westwards by the base of Cluny Hill into 
Forres. The return journey to Elgin on the North side of the 
Heldon would take him by the mystic sculptured stone of King 
Sweno and the ruined abbey of Kinloss. 

Early in the thirteenth century the Cistercians planted their 
picturesque priory here in a secluded vale (vodlis clausa) that 
might well remind them of their own Italian Vaucluse. Alex- 
ander II. (1230) was partial to the Cistercians. He planted 
them in other two secluded retreats — Ardchattan and Beauly. 
Scotland owes them an unrecorded debt, for they were the 
farming monks who brought to the wild Celt land the arts of 
the sheep walk, the garden, and the meadows rich with corn. 
They chose out, as here and at Newbattle beside the South Esk, 
a spot embosomed among the hills, on the generous soil of the 
haugh land, where the clack of the mill might blend with the 
matins. The scene now breathes a singular calm — the solemn 
approach between the files of thickly-grown hollies, the stately 
eastern gateway through the lofty precinct wall, the silent mill, 
the deserted cloisters and the grey walls of the roofless pile 
looking out at intervals from their mantle of ivy. The lands 
came to the Duff family about 1710, but were sold by the Duke 
of Fife to the late Marquis of Bute. When I saw the priory 
the ivy was being removed, and the usual diggings and drawings 
of the Marquis's restorations were in progress. Early in last 
century (1821) the Earl of Fife contemplated the fitting up of 
the choir as a church for the district, but, instead, the monk's 
Calefactory was roofed in and set up as a Chapel of Ease, which 
ultimately was handed over to the Frees at the Disruption. 
Above this low-ceilinged place of worship is the Dormitory, 
usually chosen from the warmth afforded by the kitchen 



144 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

beneath. It is now roofed as a ballroom and a shelter for the 
trippers. 

The precincts are enclosed within a high wall pierced by 
the principal gateway, which one approaches along an impres- 
sive avenue of solemn-looking holly. The ancient mill-lade 
skirts the wall here. The nave never was built. The choir 
and two transepts of the chapel still stand. When old St. Giles' 
in Elgin was pulled down (1826) its pulpit was secured for the 
chapel here. 

The centuries have rung their changes on this haven of 
spiritual peace. Through the rough mediaeval ages the lay 
brothers ploughed and planted in the vale, while the monks 
plied their pious round of book and bell, of plain song and mass. 
The storm of the Eeformation passed harmlessly by. The last 
of the monks lived here in peace till 1586. The Presbyterian 
Church was for generations too poor to do much for rural dis- 
tricts like this, so that not till the beginning of the eighteenth 
century was the Evangel again heard in the valley. Once more 
(1843) was there a moving of the waters, when almost the entire 
flock came out, and the tiny Chapel of Ease was handed over to 
the Church of Chalmers. Lastly came the Marquis of Bute, with 
his devotion to the beautiful past of the Old Faith, and swept 
from the sacred walls the kindly mantle of green within which 
the centuries had enfolded them. If anywhere in Scotland the 
imagination could plant the ideal retreat of Milton's II Penseroso, 
surely it would be here, — 

" But let my due feet never fail 
To walk the studious cloister's pale, 
And love the high embowed roof, 
With antique pillars massy-proof, 
And storied windows richly dight, 
Casting a dim religious light. 
There let the pealing organ blow, 
To the full-voiced quire below, 
In service high and anthems clear, 
As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 
Dissolve me into ecstasies." 

But the contrast of to-day had little that was ecstatic in it for 
me as I wheeled away from the hallowed precincts on a summer 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 145 

Saturday evening to the strains of the tripper's melodeon and 
" the wry-necked fife." 

Some fine trees in the haugh are probably patriarchs of the 
pre-Eeformation period, but the dense coverts on the surround- 
ing hills, closing in far to west with the vast woods of Altyre 
beside the Findhorn river, are the growth of last century. Till 
then all these north-eastern parts were the bleakest and barest 
in Scotland. In the youth of my friend the picturesque counted 
for little. Above stretched the monotonous brown of the moor- 
land, in the bottom of the vale were the frequent miry hollows 
where the sheep got drowned or the cow " lairdet." Eutty, 
stone-strewn tracks led to the frequent clachan or humble 
homestead. Over the Heldon, on the great north road, the 
" Defiance " rolled on its way to Inverness, a daily excitement 
to Elgin, where it brought the London letters late in the after- 
noon of the third day after posting. Life in the vale was purely 
agricultural. Ploughmen had up to £10 a year, with board; 
such artisans as got jobs made but half a crown a day. A 
weaver, working his longest and hardest, might have ten 
shillings a week. 

It is significant that the minister and the schoolmaster 
found no place in my friend's narrative. Naturally his ideas 
grouped themselves round the farm. A large proportion of his 
words belong to the common stock of Lowland dialect, so I 
select only the more novel ones, passing over, at the same time, 
any comment on his own interesting personality. I knew the 
term wrack for the refuse of weeds from the fields, but he called 
it brintlin (burnings). This refuse of the fields was mainly 
formed of " quickens " or couch-grass and knap or knot-grass, as 
in " Comus " — " with knot-grass dew-sprent." This latter was 
red with knobs or knaps at intervals on the stalk. One of my 
own boyish diversions into wild life was to bury potatoes in the 
heap of burning wrack, and to pull them out when roasted and 
eat them piping hot. New to me was his term, a wining, for 
"a bittie o' a field." "Fou arr ee gettin' on?" "0, I've jist 
a wining to dee." So, too, his " fleed," a head — or end-rig in 
a field. The obsolete thig, to beg, once in general use, was 
applied to the thriftless ones who would go from house to house 
for " pucklies o' corn " at sowing time, or for a sheaf when reap- 

10 



146 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

ing was in progress. Originally it was the begging of seed oats 
to sow the first crop on entering a farm. The hay was done up 
first in colies, then tramp-colies, and last in hey-soos or trances. 
In Shetland the head-koil or koil-tett is the top sheaf on the 
haystack. The sickle was the hyuck, either the ancient toothed 
ind, requiring no sharpening, or the syth-hyuck, a very capable 
implement in the hands of an active lass, specially if kemping 
or striving with rivals for speed. There were a few odd terms 
for implements. A rake to clear out manure from a cart was 
a hack or a drag, the latter, curiously, a North of England word. 
In Cumberland a drag is a three-pronged fork, known in Fife 
as a graep, for dragging or drawing litter out. Hack is another 
form of bowk, dig out. " Sunshine mead him throw his cwoat 
off when in ' hackin ' he grew warm " (Cumb.). A drill harrow 
was a shim, known not only in Banff and Moray but in York- 
shire. In Kent it goes bodily between the rows of hops. 
Winnowing of old was done on the sheelin (shelling) hill. An 
enormous saving was effected when a machine for it was intro- 
duced near the close of the eighteenth century. Many worthy 
folks thought it an impious thing thus to raise wind by art and 
man's contrivance. The fanners, as the machine was called, was 
in Moray named a winister. 

These verses express the scruples of the straiter sect that 
objected to 'novations, — 

" But the priest o' the pairish, 

Sae godly and richt, 
Got word o' the wark 

'At was done that nicht ; 
And cam to oor mailins 

An' made muckle din, 
'Bout the corn at was windet 

Wi' ungodly win'." 

A minister's wife, having made an effort to have her daughter 
" finished " in Edinburgh, was naturally a diligent matchmaker. 
Entertaining an eligible young farmer at the manse one evening, 
she made much of the young lady's piano playing. The farmer, 
appealed to for a compliment, confessed that to him the best 
music was the sound of the fanners. 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 147 

The management of the domestic animals produces many- 
special terms. My Morayshire friend distinguished three stages 
in the life of an ox — calf, stirk, stot. A colt was a clip and 
not the usual " staig " (Gael, cliob, explained by MacBain 
as anything dangling; cliobach, hairy, shaggy; cliobog, a colt; 
clibeag, a filly). In German, Klepper is a pony. It is certainly 
surprising to find any word like the German Klepper in Moray- 
shire. Kluge suggests that Klepper — akin to our clip, what 
catches by an embrace — may be from the little bells on the 
harness, or from the short, clipped action in running. The Celtic 
sense, as MacBain gives it, seems preferable to this. The tether 
which secured the cow in the stall or at grass was the baikie. 
In Fife an upright pole, secured to the floor of the byre at one 
end, to the roof at the other, had a sliding ring on it, to which 
the collar of the cow was attached, so that its head could move 
freely up and down. This was the coo-baikie. The word was 
never used in any other connection. In Northumberland the 
collar was a bent wooden band shaped like a horse-shoe, and 
called a f rammelt or thrammelt. This was attached to the upright 
baikie. Here we probably have the name for the apparatus 
that occurs in " Johnie Gibb," an Aberdeenshire story, viz., sells 
and thrammles. Sele or sale is a word widely diffused over the 
Indo-European tongues, and always in the general sense of a 
rope. In Moray the rope which passed over the cow's head 
and connected the two wooden cheeks of the branks or head- 
stall was the iver or over-sell. Compare the Go. in-sailjan, 
used where the bearers of the paralytic lowered his bed by 
ropes through the roof, " in-sailidedun thata badi." 

The expression, hovin, for a cow swoln up after eating wet 
clover, has such variants as heftet (Fife), and boutent (Moray). 
For Nithsdale Shaw gives us an unusual application of " heftet " 
— domiciled as of sheep used to a pasture, evidently a metaphor 
from haft or heft for a handle. But the Gothic Gospels (Luke 
XV. 15) say that the Prodigal Son gahaftida sik, hired himself. 
Boutent is from the Buchan bowden to swell, used always in 
this connection. Dialect is rich in tool and implement terms. 
The Fife deeple, a variant of dibble, is in Moray dimple, used 
in planting " neeps and kale." ■ " It took," said my friend, " three 
men to dimple an acre a day." A variant, again, on snod, neat, 



148 STUDIES IN" LOWLAND SCOTS 

is the peasant's sned, to head and tail turnips. Such terms 
often preserve obsolete farming processes, such as cannas 
(canvas), used to catch the winnowed corn. Hence the Buchan 
proverb for independence, " I can win (winnow) i' my ain cannas." 
A cannas-breid was a familiar expression for size, as, " A cot wi' 
a cannas-breid o' a gairden." Mink is a Morayshire variant on 
monk (Fife), the head-stall of a horse. Grigor's " Glossary " gives 
the act of coiling up a rope as minkan-up, and a rimin-mink as 
a slip-knot. " Mink up the coo's tether," is one of his phrases. 
Call-names for domestic animals are wonderfully persistent, 
such as Trooie (Moray) to a cow, for the Fife Prooie, or the 
Buchan Treesh. The duck call, Wheetie, and the pigeon, Peasie, 
are both widely spread. My friend was not so famUiar with 
geld (to castrate, hence gelding), as with its variant lib, of which 
he had an odd application. If one was getting in new potatoes, 
before starting to lift he would say, " I'll gae an' lib twa or 
three to see what kind they are." 

Similarly plants and animals had their special names. My 
friend did not know the Fife name for the ragwort, the weebie, 
or the Ayrshire bun weed, but called it stinking Willie, just as in 
Ulster, where it is the stink-weed. From a strong and persistent 
root it sends up a cluster of tall stems crowned by a mass of 
small yellow flowers. One variety of the plant, the tansy, has 
a peculiarly pleasant odour when pressed. My friend had the 
usual old " freit " about the weed : " It liket a bit good ground 
and did na grow weel in Buchan," for instance. It is certainly 
evidence of disgracefully bad farming. I have seen a small 
paddock beside a County Down homestead so covered with the 
growth as almost to hide the grazing cow. The farmer let 
himself be cheated out of two-thirds of his grass, when he 
could have scythed down the weed within an hour. Eagwort 
grows freely in ill-drained, poor pasture. The cornfields were 
equally impoverished by what in Moray was called the gool. 
The pretty yellow of the wild chrysanthemum is tolerable 
enough on a small scale ; of old it must have been odious to 
anyone but the sluggard. The yaar or corn-spurry is not 
quite so obtrusive. It grows low but spreads far and thickly. 
Both were pronounced to be " very bad, very destructive." He 
had the popular aversion to the harmless newt — " abominable 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 149 

critturs. I've seen them in damp hoossis." It has been 
suggested that this prejudice was due to a confusion with the 
poisonous asp of Scriptures. The newt is widely known as 
the ask, esk in Fife. It is really the same as the river 
name, Esk, Celtic for water. In Cumberland the newt is 
the wet or water ask, the lizard the dry. Another creeping 
thing that he shunned was the earwig, which he knew, not 
as the clipsheers of my youth, but as the flachter golak. 
Properly the golak is the clock or beetle. The "flachter" is 
explained by the old man's distinction between a divot and 
a feal. The former was a long thin turf "cas'n wi' a flachter 
spade " for roofing or covering potato heaps ; the latter a thick 
turf, " cas'n wi' a common spade " for building the dykes that 
formed the universal fences or for the walls of houses, layer 
of stone and feal alternately. The only one that practises 
flachterin now is the golfer. The garrie-bee was more attrac- 
tive than any golak. It was described as striped and about 
the size of the f oggie, but having a lot more honey. The " human 
boy " of old, like Caliban, the primitive man, loved " the bag o' 
the bee." The foggie, also known as the foggie-toddler, is the 
small yellow bee that seems to crawl, baby fashion, over the 
soft, yellow fog or moss. Gar, or gor, as a prefix in plant and 
animal names, denotes what is large and coarse, as in gyr- 
falcon, gor-cock. Fozie is foggie through age from lying on the 
ground. In Shetland fog is fjugg, airy stuff. 

In the domestic series I gathered a few fresh specimens. 
The gizzened tub, rendered leaky through drought, is quite 
familiar. Not so the Morayshire expression for correcting this 
fault by soaking in water again. This was known as beenin. 
" Deed, ee'U hae to pit that tub to been afore ee get muckle 
eess o't." The feeling for a telling metaphor is keen in Scottish 
dialect. A genial host, pressing a cronie whose drouth was of 
more cautious type, said, " Dod, man, yer no beend yit." The 
word is specially North-eastern in habitat, and so may be akin 
to the Danish bolner, to swell. The loss of the 1 is quite 
regular. The word lends itself to the expression of a loud, full 
noise, and in this aspect may be recognised in the BuUers of 
Buchan, where the waves make a terrific buUerin among the 
rocky caverns. Shaw's " Dumfriesshire Dialect " also notes the 



150 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

BuUers in this connection, as well as the figurative application 
to a great growth under an accession of heat and rain — " Every- 
thing's bullerin out." Norse influence is very notable in the 
river valleys running up from the Solway. On the other hand, 
Gaelic had surprisingly little influence, even in Moray. I 
gathered but one notable specimen, greesh, an old-fashioned 
fireplace of clay, built against the " gavel " of the cottage. Just 
such an one Burns's father set up in the " auld clay biggin." It 
is the early Irish gris, fire. Shaw notes the diminutive grushach, 
hot, glowing embers, and Chambers, in the delightful " Popular 
Ehymes," gives it in a Dumfriesshire variant of the " Wee 
Bunnock " : " There was an old man and an old wife, and they 
lived in a killogie. Quoth the auld man to the auld wife, 
' Else and bake me a bannock.' So she rase and bakit a 
bannock, and set it afore the greeshoch to harden." Tim 
Orcadian kiln-huggie is the fireplace of the kiln. To thet^i^ 
may be added a very common Morayshire word, doubtless of 
native origin, howp, a mouthful, as in the expression, "Let's 
see a mouthfu' o' watter." 

Small communities tended to foster the personal, and gener- 
ally uncomplimentary, form of familiar criticism. My friend 
had several peculiar specimens of this class, which I give at 
random: — Be-gyte, a variant of the more usual be-gowk, to cheat, 
e.g. "I was terrible be-gytet," said a man who had unwisely 
, married a second time ; dirdum, a scolding, overbearing dame, 
but usually a disturbance, blame ; galsh, rubbishy talk, e.g. " A 
galshin crittur, only a lot o' galsh an' nae eediefaction in't ; " 
gutty, as a big-bellied bottle — Wright quotes from the Ayrshire 
story, "Dr. Duguid," "A gutty we chiel that gaed aboot the 
toon wi' knee breeks on"; pee-akin, sickly, puling, e.g. "Yer 
like a deein chicken, a pee-a,kin thing," a variant of the West of 
Scotland peel-wersh, sickly ; peerie-weerie, " terrible weak stuff," 
a variant of the Glasgow peelie-wally. In Lanarkshire the little 
finger is peerie or peerlie-winkie. In Banff " peeack " is the 
chirp of a young bird, or any one with a small, insignificant 
voice, " Faht kyn's (sort) yir noo minister ? " " He's jist a mere 
peeack. We hardly saw 'm i' the poopit, an' he cheepit an' 
squeakit like a moos aneeth a firlot" (corn measure). "Yir 
chuckles ar peeackin gey muokle, an' hingin thir wings, I doot 



PIELD PHILOLOGY 151 

they winna stand the kin (kain) lang." Sclitter, uncouth, a lazy 
person ; scuddy, jimp, serimpit, e.g. " Yere terrible scuddy wi' 
eer mizzur ; ee dinna turn ee bank," or beam carrying the 
scales ; dottrifeed, a variant of tabitless or thowless, handless, 
fingers all thumbs, e.g. " That dottrified he can dae naething, the 
fushin's a' oot o' im " — these are also very expressive. Shaw, it 
may be noted, has the peculiar " scuddy " above as Dumfriesshire, 
where it means naked, bare, as a child or nestling. While my 
friend used all these out-of-the-way words he seemed unfamiliar 
with such as hip, to miss, pass over ; lippen, to trust to ; lapper, 
to clot, as blood or milk. 

The foregoing shows that the language of mutual criticism 
was not unknown among this rural community. To speak fast 
was to yammer, a variant of yatter. Mimp (a variant of mumble), 
in Cumberland to talk primly and mincingly, and properly mean- 
ing a small part, is applied in Banffshire to an affected walk : 
" She mimpit an' primpit throo the room." Sclitter was an ill- 
shaped, lazy, indolent, slooterin person, while slabbery was used 
like the Fife hashy. The coward was the foogie, a wide-spread 
relic of the Candlemas cock-fight in school. " Gie 'm the foogie 
lick ; that'll riz his birse," with which last- word compare Gaelic 
bairseag, a scold. In Buchan it usually is applied to playing 
truant: "The twa loons fugiet the squeel, an' geed awa to 
the widds, an' harriet craws' nests a' day." It is a relic of 
schoolboy Latin, from fugio, to run away. 

Yankee 'cuteness finds its analogue in the North-eastern 
phrase, to take a nip of one. Apropos is Grigor's story : " Fin I 
wiz a bit loonie, him and me trockit (bartered, niffered) watches; 
an' he took a nip o' ma ; for, fin I geed, she (the watch) geed, an' 
fin I steed, she steed. A jist lost (so many) shillins, an' a 
thocht this was my last chance," said by an old sexton in excuse 
for an overcharge in digging a grave, the grave of a man who 
had " taen a nip o'm." 

Continuing the peculiar, but not necessarily uncomplimen- 
tary, terms, I note cothie, usually coothie, in the sense of very 
comfortable ; Cumb. " a varra cowthie body," i.6. kindly. From 
it came the odd expression cothie juke, cothie-guckie, a snug 
shelter, a cosy beild. Hare-shed, hare-lip, was the cleft in a defec- 
tive upper lip. The effect on speech is to produce the " whummle- 



152 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

bore.'' Jots is used for jobs, usually trokes, e.g. "The servan 
lass riz i' the mornin, did up her jots, and geed awa tee market." 
Jamieson has jotterie, odd or dirty work. The most general 
term for this sort of thing is trokes, trokin, but these were 
unknown to my friend. 

Many of these expressions are due to the special phonetic 
system of the North-eastern counties. Of this I secured some 
interesting illustrations from my friend. He sounded initial k 
where it is now silent, as in the olden time over Scotland and 
as in G-erman still. He called the ankle-bone the kynoekel o' 
the queet (Ger. Knochel, a joint, our knuckle); queet here is 
very characteristic. It appears also as ciite, cuitt, always 
referring to the epiphyses or knobs at the lower end of the 
tibia. A Fife man, narrowly examining the impressive mount 
of the trooper sentry at the gate of the Horse Guards on his 
first visit to London, was astonished to hear the warning, " Tak 
care, freend, or mebbes yell git your cuitts cloored " (be kicked 
on the ankles by the horse). The Guardsman hailed from Anster, 
and retained the accents of the fisher-toon. Mr. Eoss knew the 
foot of the cow as the hive (hoof) : " Yir beast has lang hives." 
The older term is cliite, akin to the German kleuz, split, cloven. 
The Orcadian clett is a rock in the sea, broken off from the 
adjoining rocks on shore ; cf. skerry and scaur. A singular illus- 
tration of how the track of the stranger can be followed by words 
is the appearance of clett on an odd and isolated corner of the 
Fife coast. Such a cliff or stack as one finds on the Caithness 
coast overhangs the bathing place well known at St. Andrews as 
the Step Eock. It used to be a tour deforce for a daring bather 
to take a header from the Cleet into the pool below, brimful of 
the tide. Clooty is a familiar soubriquet of the Evil One, as 
shown on the mediaeval stage : " If black claes maks a parfyt 
man, Auld Clooty beets the priest" (Northumb.). Somewhat 
similar was kyob for the usual gebbie, a bird's crop (cf. gob, gab) : 
" That kyobie o' ee beestie is crammed fou o' meat." This initial 
I> found also in his kneef, meaning " in thorough sympathy," 
" rale cheef," reminding one of Shakspere's gossips who "knapped 
ginger " together. The root idea is that of breaking into small 
bits, hence the usages, pinching (nip), cutting (knife), breaking 
stones for roads (knappin). In the Morayshire sense we compare 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 153 

the " kneipen " of the German students. Without the k we have 
nip, to outwit, as in the Morayshire expression, " He fairly took 
the nip o' me." In the South this would be " He took his nap 
aff me." The form ouks for weeks, general over Scotland in the 
seventeenth century, lingered long in the North, but is now old- 
fashioned : " Sax ouks o' a knee-deep storm i' the mid o' Mairch ; 
it nivver devald " (ceased). On the same lines is the Aberdeen- 
shire description of a spell of wet weather in the uplands of the 
county : " Up i ee Cabrach for sax ouks ther wizz an onding o' 
weet oena upalt (uphold) or deval." This is a good test of an 
ear for Scottish dialect, if spoken moderately fast. Grigor has 
a variant of this saying, " It dang on sax ooks delaverly on iver 
uppalt or dewalt." He glosses delaverly here as continuously, 
which looks very like Chaucer's " deliver," nimble, active, as 
"Wonderly deliver and gret of strenthe," though it seems 
strange to see it used in Banffshire. The word oena here is 
exactly the German without, ohne, and once in common use. 
It is the favourite negative prefix as in 5n-bonnie, on-neat. 
Grigor gives this interesting example, " The nowt are gaein' 
throo an undeembus thing o' neeps: ye see, th'ive nae up-stanan." 
He compares the Shetland undumous, immense, uncountable 
from un, without, and deman, to reckon. The once familiar 
deval, to leave off, is, in Cumberland, dwalla in the sense of 
wither, grow yellow from damp, — 

" If it sud rain on St. Swithin's day, 
We're feckly sarrat wi' dwalled hay." 

To continue on this human side of rustic speech, expressions 
for feelings are stanner-gaster, dumbfoundered ; " a grue, cauld 
nicht " as inspiring a shivering sensation ; yuckie, an itching feel- 
ing. With reference to their source of the feeling we have fousom 
(fulsome), dirty, causing disgust ; wersh, generally insipid, and 
probably a contraction of the Buchan walshoch, weak and watery. 
Dreich is tedious. Hamil, Fife haemit, is home-made. A few 
examples applicable to manners as the outcome of feelings will 
suffice. Fraising, used much like the Fife fraiking, is the wheed- 
ling manner of a " twa-facet creatur." As marking the lowest 
grade of manners we have the " tinkler's tung," better known 
all over the edge of the Highlands by his name of caird. Thus 



154 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

in Buchan, " Finevir the twa met, they wir in o' ane anither's 
witters (withers), jist like twa kyard wives." 

The interest of dialect is not confined to the discovery of 
roots and affinities. It has preserved traces of many old 
customs. Thus the very primitive habit of beating down prices 
in bargaining, known as prigging, found no favour with my 
friend, who called it " a nashince (nuisance), just an ug," using 
in ug a very old word, still heard in the Border district. But 
it survives in ugly and ogre. " He took an ug (dislike) at's meht " 
is a phrase from Buchan. In Orkney and Shetland the bat is 
the oagar hiuuse, from a root, ogra, to frighten. Similarly the 
hauky bird of Burns is what bogles or frightens, such as a bat 
or a ghost. 

Modern sports have done much to wean boys from the 
primitive delights of the monkey. A harmless amusement of 
the young was to pluck the long stalks of the ribwort, and, 
hitting each other's in turn, try which flower head would be 
first broken off. This my friend knew as playing at sogers with 
the carl-doddy. " We used," he said, " to fecht wi'd till wurr 
reegment was throo." In Beattie's "Arnha'," the work of a 
Mearns man (1820), we read, — 

" I garr'd the pows flee frae their bodies, 
Like nippin heads frae carl-doddies." 

A red-letter day in the rural year was that of the clyack feast, 
when the hindmost pickle of corn was reaped, plaited together, 
and carried in triumph as The Maiden. The name is Celtic, 
cailleach, a woman wearing the caillie or cowl (Lat. cucuUus). 
I was told that the farm hands always " hed a feastie at Clyack, 
getting leave, too, to spread butter on the pieces ad lib ; " at other 
times the most they got was "a knottie o' butter." And at Hallow- 
e'en, when the ingathering of corn and tatties was completed, 
" there was a big denner and a big tea." Another feast of a 
different kind marked the last sad scene of all — the lyk-wake. 
Lyk, a corpse, a word entirely gone unless as the affix -ly, was 
once in general use. In Shetland the leek-strae was the straw 
placed under the corpse in bed. " Calm as a leek," still as the dead, 
was applied to the unruffled sea. In Moray it was a disgrace 
to have a corpse in the house with nothing beside it night and 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 155 

day. A Bible was placed at the head of the table, and in the 
centre the bottle with pipes and tobacco. This was a strange 
survival of Catholic times, and handed down through the service 
of the mass for the dead. 

Fascinating bits of folk-lore linger in names occurring in the 
play-time of life. Of school, which had never meant much to 
him, there was but the phrase, " Foo munny pandies did ee get 
the day ? " For the ferule or leather taws he knew taurds. The 
Aberdeenshire word is tag. The boys' slate-pencil was skylie, 
the skeelyie of Fife. Only two play-terms he noted — herryin 
the peer man, and duckie. The former is smuggle the gag, 
equivalent in signification, for to herry is to run off with, to 
plunder, the gag or pledge (Lat. vas, a surety; Sc. wad-set, a 
mortgage). The peer man is the little man, the counter in this 
game of prehistoric man-hunting. The English barley-break 
is but another name for it. In Thomas Morley's "Book of 
Ballets" (1595) is the couplet, — 

" Say, dainty nymphs and speak. 
Shall we play at barley-break ? " 

Duckie seems to have been a sort of variation of rounders. A 
pointed stone was placed on the ground, and a smaller one on 
top of it. Beside it stood duckie or man in charge, while the 
others (outs) stood at intervals around. Each tried to knock off 
the top stone (also known as duckie). None must run till duckie 
was knocked off. If hit off, the outs tried to pick up duckie, and 
run to pass out of play. Duckie in charge had to put on the 
stone again and try to catch a relief. The outs had to do 
nothing till he put on the stone. In " Elgin Kirk Session Eeeords " 
(Dr. Cramond) there is an unexplained reference to this game 
under the name of Duchman, apparently for Duckie Man. 

In the domestic series the most important piece of furniture 
was of old the deas (dais). Mr. Eoss knew it as the big seat at 
the side of the house, to hold four, and not as the fireside settle. 
The term is well known over Aberdeenshire : " Seated in the 
deeee in Johnnie Gibb's kitchen " (Johnnie Gibb of Gushetneuk). 
In the kitchen he noted the vessel-board above the dresser, the 
saut-backet, and the meal girnel, a large, oblong chest. Eound 
the front of the box beds against the wall hung the pawn, Fife 



156 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

pawnd (Lat. pendo, to hang, through French). Of house utensils 
there were the bowie, a round barrel for the milk, and the 
scimmer " for reamin " or removing the cream on top. A 
smaller and shallower milk vessel was the bain, probably from 
the Gaelic bainne, milk. In South-western Scotland it is always 
a washing-tub. In Sackville's "Induction to the Mirror for 
Magistrates " (1555) there is an example of the word, — 

" And Priam eke, in vain how he did run 
To arms, whom Pyrrhus with despite hath done 
To cruel death, and bathed him in the bayne 
Of his son's blood before the altar slain." 

Old-fashioned varieties of food lingered in sowens, and soor-dook. 
Soup maigre was barefit broth, of water, pot barley, and milk. 
Dainties were little known, such as in " the liths " of an orange, 
a word which he had never heard. 

I did not test my friend much on the wide held of natural 
objects. He knew the Buchan for the lapwing, the wallop, 
evidently in both cases a visualising of the bird's characteristic 
flight. The rhyme, — 

" Wallop-a, wallop-a weet, 
Hairry ma nest, an' rin awa' weet," 

is a variant of the familiar 

" Pees-weet, Pees-weet (Fr. dix-huit), 
Hairry my nest and gar (make) me greet." 

He knew the yellow-hammer as the yellow yorlin. From the 
frog's spawn he got an indication of the weather. " If the 
season was to be dry, it was in the centre of the pool ; if wet, 
near the edge." He never saw this prognostic fail, but could 
give no guarantee for a period beyond three months, when 
the young came to maturity. In the plant world I note 
only his Thissilaga (colt's foot) and Peenie (peony) rose for 
the Fife Dishielogie and Speengie rose respectively. 

The scene of these reminiscences was the farm- toon of Willie 
Gallon. The " gudewife " was Leezie Harl — known, as married 
women of old were, by their maiden name — and their man 
or grieve, Kob Manson. " I was wi' them twenty years,'' said 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 157 

the old man. Like most aged toilers of those days, he had 
suffered from rheumatism ; but now, he said, " I wud a been i' 
my grave ten year ago, but it hed been for that baths," using in 
" that " here the old Scottish and current Dutch form of the 
article. There is no grammatical blunder in it. I heard a 
Stonehaven fishwife, delivering an order and explaining her 
difficulty in finding the place, say, "I've been a' roond that 
hoossis." Eeeently I heard an Aberdonian joiner in Glasgow 
tell his fellow-workman that he " could get up be that 
steps." The idiom is common in the Gothic Gospels of the 
fourth century. 

Mr. Eoss gave me the interesting story of his early life under 
his own hand. His narrative forms a valuable sidelight on rural 
culture, or rather the want of it, in a secluded corner during the 
first half of last century, all the more valuable as the vocal expres- 
sion of a class among whom the rise of such another mouthpiece 
as Burns recorded time will never know. I present it exactly as 
I got it, and in this guise it is rudely eloquent, nay pathetic. 
Here is an intelligent youth, reared in a parish which is supposed 
to have had its share in those educational advantages with which 
the half-informed credit John Knox, and this is how he had to 
educate himself. Those responsible for national education have 
the solemn duty imposed upon them of providing for intellectual 
destitution, of affording to obscure incipient talent the oppor- 
tunities it is impossible for it to provide for itself. But, as it 
is, how often do we find it true that " to him that hath [monied 
parents, leisure, tutors, books] shall be given " [bursaries, prizes, 
honours] ! In every form of the world's wealth, be it intel- 
lectual or material, the problem ever crying aloud for solution 
is distribution in the proper quarter, not accumulation. 

" Immediatly after the second Eeformation, which was 
effected in 1690, there was a great wunt of Ministers of the 
Presbitury. Persevaging hence (Following from this) a great 
meny Parishes had none in those days the People mead a play 
day of the Sabbeth they meat on the Abbey green (I refere to 
my Natife Glen Pluscarden neir Elgin) in the forenoon & Plaid 
at the Ba,ll with Clubs : in the afternoon they meat in Grups 
& chaised Bees to get there Beiks ; in winter thay gathered in 



158 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

one anothers Houses cracked there gocks: on the other six 
dayes were employed in the work of the farm ; up in the morn- 
ing at the flalie by five A.M. thrashed till seven, then had 
Brackfast went to the fields Game home in the Glooming had 
Dinner, then went to some Genter House Plaid at the Gards till 
eight oclock then home to Supper, kale & kale brose Torneeps 
& Torneep brose Sometimes brochen a thick kind of grouel : at 
Ghristimes thay would have taken a whole week Playing Night 
& day with a Dram now & again Some of them went home to 
there food, back as fast as possable thay had a most intense 
desire for playin Gards : a play thay termed three cart IJd. the 
dale : thay would sometimes taken a day at Hunting there were 
no Gam laws then thay fished after Dark with torchlight, firs 
split up into long Candls the fish Glustord around the light 
& thay then spaired them. 

" The first Minister thay had in Pluscarden after the Eefor- 
mation was a Mr. Hesbon his Stipon was eight pounds english, 
a small manse, with a but & ben with a Gloset in the Genter, 
he was vary much esteemed, the wives in the Glen, were allways 
bring som present for him it was like a Hevn below Minister 
& people were envloped in the Atmosphere of love ; big Stipens 
dos not always mak loving Ministers he had no Beedel no Gown 
or bands no Manesript he went ben the pass[age] with his Bible 
below his arm, up to the Pulpet there Preached the Gospel with 
such power his flock listining so inteently to the Power of God's 
spirit Minister & herers souls being filled 

" it was the strongest Man that was looked up to in these 
days I will give you an instence of it : in Lochcarron : that 
Parish had ben long without a Minister at last there was a 
Mr. McLachlen ordained to go he went on a Sabbeth forenoon : 
got all the young men playing at the Ball with a Mukel Eorey 
as there Ghef he saw at once except he got to be master of him 
he might go as he came : all there playgreens were beside there 
Ghurches : these were the Old deserted Epispicle Ghurches : thay 
did not all leave there comfortable homes for in East Aberdeen- 
shire thay turned Presbiterian but to return : Mr. McLachlen 
joined in the play & ultematly got the better of Big Eorey : 
there were three ways of testing there Strenth the sweertree, 
wrestling & a battle with the hands Mr. McLachlen got the 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 159 

master of Eorie he then ordred him to take so meny of the 
people to the Church he douing the same, thay just got two 
halones by the tim they came for the third the remnant had 
fled : he then armed Eorie with a big Stick ordred him to alow 
none out. when he went up to the Pulpet & preached that 
Sermon was the mens of Big Eories converson he then became 
an Elder & the tow were the meanse in Gods hand of douing 
a great work ; there was a deal of ignorence & Superstetion a 
relick of barbaresem : an old woman on hir Deathbed told hir 
Caretakers to leeve hir neir the Yet that she might have time 
to be up & away before thethrang Vass. 

" Thay beleved in witchcraft & Feries Gosts all sudden Deaths 
were effected by feries caled Elfs whou were contunley prowing 
about on eviel intent ; & sudden Deaths was an elf shot there 
were heard before death the shukkie mill : the noise a small 
insect maks in decayed wood: thay beleived in some sudden 
deaths to be don by a Witch casting a Cantertup in the path of 
one thay did not love or baited thay alse beleived in days of 
luck thay beleived in the power of Burtrie & roden tree thay 
put bits of these in the iverseals that bound there Cows & above 
there Doors : thay beleived in Witches having power to trans- 
form themselves into hairs (hares) : thay could tak away the 
Milk of a Neighbours Cow. 

" Between the eand of the eightteenth centurie up till the 
dawn of the Nineteenth was an age of great darkness Supper- 
stetion & opresion Agriculter was in a vary Eoad (rude) 
Condition ; the Common people were all Serfs the Lards (who) 
had pot & Gallos in there own hands : the one for hanging the 
other for Drowing whoever offended them were taken into 
there Courts bound to a ston with an iron chain & then taken 
at the Lards pleasure & consined to the one or the other thay 
had stons all Bound there Courts for binding there victims two 
hence there Mota above there Gait in Laten gang ye forth in 
beast & fill the fetters. 

" there were scersley any whisky it was strong Ale : but thay 
learned to extract whisky from the Strong Ale : the Goverment 
put on Excise offesries to catch & plounder then were the days 
of deseption falsehood & judasem the poor Crofters had vary 
sore time of it worken Day & Night : going ten twelve mils in 



160 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SOOTS 

a Dark night an out of the way Koad with a Shoulty & a Coggie 
on each side of the Horsie: sometimes they would be taken 
from them : the way thay mead the Whisky thay had Sacks 
mead of Hair which thay used for steeping the Barley after it 
was steeped & dreeped it was then taken to some out of the 
way place there to foment & become Malt — it was then taken 
to a kill to dry & all don in the Dark: it was then taken & 
ground in a Quren a vary angeint Mill the same kind as Jesus 
speaks of when he says two Wemon shall be grinding at the 
Mill the one shall be taken & the other left : after being ground 
it was put into a Cask & there keept till it became strong Ale : 
it was then put into a pot & boiled & the steem deverted into 
a tube called a wirm which was laid amongst Coold watir hence 
the steem cam out Whisky." 

Notes to Ross Nabeative. 

p. 158 — brochen, name for porridge, Gael, proclian, broohan, gruel — akin 

to broth, 
p. 158 — sweertree, a trial of strength : two, seated on the ground, 

grasp a stout stick between them and try which will raise 

the other up. It is the Sweir-Kitty in Teviotdale. 
p. 159 — halones. Jamieson, hallion, a clown : a clumsy fellow, a sloven 

(Banff). 
p. 159 — roden = rowan: The most approved charm against cantrips and, 

spells was a branch of rowan-tree, plaited and placed over 

the byre-door — hence the rhyme, — 

" Eoan-tree and red threed 
Puts the witches to their speed." 

In ploughing, the pattle or stick to clear the furrow, had to be 
of the rowan for good luck. 

As supplementary to the foregoing gleanings I may here 
refer to another subject of interview. The road between 
Banchory and Stonehaven is a typical bit of varied prospect 
and interest. A few miles out of Stonehaven the wayfarer dips 
down into the valley of the Cowie, and, crossing the burn by 
the old brig where the tumbling stream seems hushed under its 
canopy of trees, he commences the long ascent to what a Trans- 
vaaler would call the Neck or notch in the hill land that opens 
out to him the silvan landscape of Deeside. A little off the 
highway he will see a lone, low-roofed cottage, its sombre grey 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 161 

relieved by a wealth of trailing rosebuds and its modest garden 
patch. Here a sturdily independent pair, father and daughter, 
planted their lodge in the wilderness. How they did it I shall 
leave them to tell in the following verses, which I took down 
from the lips of the sturdy dame, preserving, as faithfully as 
I could, the pronunciation. Known to the country-side as 
Cissy Wood, she still survives, a septuagenarian, the brave and 
indomitable mistress of her own humble fortunes. The reader 
will observe that, though there is little of the archaic in the 
language, his ear will recognise in it a genuine example of the 
tones of the Mearns. 

THE BIGGIN O'T. 
Tune—" The Eock and the Wee Pickle Tow." 

There wuz an' auld man tuke a bit o' yon hull, 

An' he wud gae try the biggin o't. 
He hidna a hooss 'at he cud bide intill 

An' his first wark wud be the biggin o't. 
He biggit the wa's wi' gweed clay an' steen ; 

Wi' heather he happit the riggin o't : 
A cantier dwallin' wuz ne'er to be seen, 

An' sorra a bit cam by thiggin o't. 

He's plantit some tatties to full his auld wime, 
An' sawn some neeps for the stainshin o't, 

Wi' ingens an' carrots to gar them taste fine, 
An' mak him mair fit for the trinchin o't. 

He's sawn some corn his bannocks to be ; 

He delv't it an' dung't it, for eident wuz he ; 

The aul' earl kent brawly foo awbody wud see, 
There wad naething be made by the flinchin o't. 

Fin the day'd turned dreary, an' the rain doon did fa', 

! then he gaed in to the planin o't, 
To win to's auld pooch a shillinie or twa, 

As there's neebody cares aboot len'in o't. 
It's seldom the rich man hes siller to spare, 
An' ere the poor get it they mun trachle sair, 
Altho' that the winnin' breeds sorrow an' care, 

Ee'll get plenty to help wi' the spen'in' o't. 



162 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

Fin the day lieht wuz deen an' him tired at the wark, 

! then he'd set doon to the tun'in' o't 
An' the young in aboot flockt fin it wuz dark, 

An' yokit to dince to the soon'in' o't. 
They dinct and they jumpit till their legs they got sair, 
An' it growin' late they hame wards repair, 
An' thankt the aul' carl for biggin's cot there, 

An' aye blesst the day o' the foon'in' o't. 

For ance on yon hull-side grew heather an' trees ; 

The auld folk'll min' o' the plantin' o't. 
An' in simmer it wuz swarmin' wi' birds an' wi' bees. 

Which cheert his auld heart wi' the drintin' o't. 
In the gloamin' the lads an' the lasses wud meet : 
The whisperin' wuz fond, an' the kisses were sweet. 
An' they leuch at the thing 'at wud weel gar'd them greet. 

An' ne'er brak their heart wi' the thinkin' o't. 

Bit noo there is naething bit scrabs to be seen, 
The trees they're a' sawn for the wrichtin' o't. 

Bit a' the tree roots they stuck fast to the green. 
They gied him a sair back wi' the liftin' o't. 

Sud the carl trincht a' he'll get muckle sweat wi't : 

Ere he get it a' sawn, sud he e'er live to see't. 

He'll hae twa simmer's suns yet an' ae winter's weet. 
Afore he get wark wi' the dichtin' o't. 

Bit may he yet live for to see it a' growin'. 

An' a' stan'in' ready for reapin' o't. 
Wi' twa breed-backit doddies to low i' the loan ; 

There's naething sae gweed for the weetin' o't ! 
An' may he ne'er wint fat his auld heart can tak — 
A snufF till his nose an' a coat till his back, 
An' an auld neeper cronie an hour wi'm to crack, 

An' len' him a ban' wi' the eatin' o't. 

Though the words are almost all English, their vocalisation 
is significant and local : — 

hull for hill gweed for good 

dwallin' ,, dwelling stainchin „ staunching 

Fin „ when dinct „ danced 

foow'in' „ founding wint ,, want. 



FIELD PHILOLOGY 163 

The few words calling for remark are drintin, evidently a 
modification of droning ; scrabs, a variant of scrub, shrub, 
applied to self-sown, stunted trees ; doddies, cows of the polled 
Angus variety. Doddy is a round, ball-like head, as the seed- 
stalk of the ribwort. Edmonston has curl-dbddy, naturally 
clever, where curl is carle, or k^rel, a man. The word reminds 
one of Burns's phrase, a stalk of carl-hemp. 

Cissy Wood, the owner of the cottage, was a most remark- 
able specimen of the best type of the Scottish peasantry. She 
was born early in last century at the Limpit Mill, overhanging a 
brattling burn, one of many that have worn a steep descent for 
themselves into the North Sea through the cliff wall that 
frowns on the tumbling waves at its feet between Stonehaven 
and Muchalls. She had worked steadily since seven "intill 
the mull," as she put it. " Speak aboot half-timers ! I wuzz 
ay a hail-timer." When the larder, never very full, was low, 
grumbling was met with, "If ee dinna tak that, ee can Uck 
wint," equally significant whether we take the wint here for 
wind or want. 

Her temperament must always have run to the masculine 
rather than to the weaker side. She was twenty-four before 
she learnt stocking-knitting, or shank- wiving as she called it, 
using one of the commonest of names for stockings, shanks, 
known at one time all over Lowland Scotland. Her time 
was devoted to her croft, her garden, and her workshop, for 
she has in her own fashion solved the problem of a self- 
contained independence on the land. She has been joiner, 
blacksmith, and general mechanician to the neighbourhood, her 
" neepers " as she called them. She could handle a hei-sned 
{scythe), turn a lay (lathe), or put together a meal-bowie with 
the best. Her two " freits " in gardening were raising potatoes 
from the " plooms " (seed-capsule) and growing fantastic walk- 
ing sticks. The potatoes were, the first year, the size of peas, 
and could be " eatt 'gin the third eer." In colour they were 
daintily mottled, black, brokkit and white. Her " brokkit " is 
familiar Gaelic for anything, say a trout or fern, that is speckled 
■or variegated in spots. The walking sticks grew freely from 
willow slips. The branches, as they developed, were ingeniously 
intertwined. When matured, smoothed, and varnished they 



164 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

formed a "quaint device" much sought after by the curio 
hunter. Kale-runts and thistle-stems were ingeniously turned 
to the same purpose. This worthy woman's boast wasl the 
converse of that male solitary's, Silas Marner. She could '^do 
everything that the mere male attempted. To cap all, she 
could, in her best days, inspire the rural dance on a fiddle of 
her own making. 



IV.— SIDE-LIGHTS 

1. Vernacular of the Lake District 

It is a hopeful sign of progress that the mutual dependence of 
history, geography, and philology is becoming more and more 
recognised and acted upon. The bond of union is that element 
of human interest without which every study will soon lose 
its savour. The specialist who gropes round the study of 
his choice and sneers at others is but exploring his own dark 
chamber to the exclusion of the sunlight of fact and nature. 
N"o better illustration could there be of this helpful interdepend- 
ence than what a glance at the map of England discloses. 
Down the West Coast extend three well-marked groups of hill 
country, Cumberland, Wales, and Cornwall, and in each and 
all the historical, geographical, and linguistic elements are " con- 
fusedly mingled," offering that prolonged quest which is so 
fascinating to the genuine student. The Cumberland group is 
particularly interesting as leaning more closely to Scotland 
than to England, towards which the Pennines seem to have 
presented a greater barrier than the Cheviots and the Solway 
did on their side. As a principality it was of old the appanage 
of the heir-apparent to the Scottish Throne, and as such raised 
nice questions of feudal tenure, which often brought the Scots 
and English to serious hand-i-grips, and made much history. 
At a still earlier period it formed, with South- Western Scotland, 
the country of the Strath-Clyde Britons, where the primitive 
Celts formed a counterpart to that Frisian race which gave a 
common character to the whole district between Humber and 
Tay. All over this Strath-Clyde Celtic has vanished before Norse 
with a strong Anglian admixture. It lives only in place-names. 
In Galloway even the patronymic Mac precedes Williams and 
Eoberts and Hughs, and the redoubtable Macdougall has become 
Macdowal (pronounced Madool). To north of Galloway, again, 

165 



166 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

the Anglian conquest of Kyle in Ayrshire, in the eighth century, 
contributed still more to reduce the Celtic area in the South-west. 
The later Lollard movement in this district was probably a conse- 
quence of this early settlement. But it is among the Cumbrian 
dalesmen that the Norse element has been most persiBtent. 
The Norse kingdom in Scotland, before it was swept away at the 
battle of Largs, was in two parts, the Xorder-ey or Northern 
Isles (Hebrides), and the Suder-ey or Southern Isles (ilan and 
others). The bishopric of Sodor and Man still illustrates the 
division. Besides this affinity of speech and race across the 
Solway and the Sark, there was a long-standing trade con- 
nection. For ages sturdy Galloways and wild Doddies (polled 
cattle) " swam the Esk river where ford there was none " on 
their way to the southern markets. 

The historical and geographical aspects of the question bein.' 
thus stated generally, let me follow up the linguistic trail. 
Fortunately there lies before me an altogether admirable guide 
in " A Glossary of the Words and Phrases pertaining to the 
Dialect of Cumberland," By W. Dicldnfion, F.L.S. Piearranged, 
Illustrated and Augmented by Quotations by E. W. Prevost, 
Ph.D., F.RS.E. With a Short Digest of the Phonology and 
Grammar of the Dialect by S. Dickson Brown, B.A. (Hone.) 
Lond. (London : Bemrose & Sons. Carlisle : Thumam & Sons). 

This work is a new edition of that published in 18-59, and 
now improved by the elimination of elements not specially 
Cumbrian, but merely peculiar pronunciations of ordinary 
English. The Scottish student of the vernacular must put this 
invaluable guide alongside of his Grigor's "Buchan Dialect," 
Edmonston's " Orcadian Glossary," and Dr. Murray's " Dialects 
of the South of Scotland" — aU he has indeed to set against the 
magnificent dialect work that has been done in England in a 
field that is not any richer than his own. Dr. Prevost has now 
completed this great work in an admirable "Supplement." 
These two volumes it is a very special pleasure to me to utilifre 
as valuable side-lights on the Scottish vernacular. 

The "Supplement" is a substantial continuation, of over 
two hundred pages, to the author's larger work on the same 
subject, published in 1900. It runs on the same admirable 
lines as its predecessor in the scientific treatment of idiom and 



SIDE-LIGHTS 167 

phonetics, sympathetic ingathering of material fast fading away, 
and abundant illustration of the dialect of the dalesmen from 
popular tale and song. Dr. Prevost has done work, unaided 
save by inborn, loving zeal, that, even in frugal Germany, is 
deemed worthy the aid of a State Department. Is there a class 
of subscribers in Scotland public-spirited enough to give similar 
countenance to the labourer there in a field that is quite as 
rich, but, alas ! marked with decay ? There has always been a 
double current of trade across the Sark, but traces of an early 
and unkindlier state of matters have been more persistent. 
Dr. Prevost quotes the significant couplet, — 

" When Scots fwok starts to pou' their geese, 
It's tyme to hooss baith nags and beese," — 

an echo of the freebooter's "hership," when the Michaelmas 
moon was welcomed as his lantern. In quieter times the Scots 
pedlar took his place among the dales, a character that Words- 
worth made the model for his " Wanderer." To the packman's 
ear the Cumberland speech would sound homely. Familiar 
would be its fondness for the dental ending as in sheppert, 
forrat, anes-eerant ; the avoidance of the hard tone in bodd'm, 
foot-pad (path); the vocalising of prepositions as in wi' meh 
(with me) ; and the intrusion of a letter in such words as narder 
for nearer, spreckled for speckled. There are shades of differ- 
ence here. For the Cumbrian's " Ah divn't, he disn't, plural, 
divn't " the Scot would say " Ah divna, he disna, we divna, they 
dinna," showing his fondness for the enclitic na, a far older 
negative than " not." Dr. Prevost accounts for the insertion of 
V here by analogy with " Ah hevn't," but in these cases the v 
is radical, (Ur being an old strengthened form of do as shown 
in Moeso-Gothic. 

Idiom is still more characteristic than phonetics, and here 
the parallels ai-e most interesting. No one in touch with Low- 
land Scots could fail to recognise kinship with these Cumberland 
phrases : — I'se warrant, seckan a yan (sicna yin), the butcher's 
killin' es-sel the day, noos and thans, thur ans (thirr ans), pennies 
a-piece, whiles for sometimes, and the general use of the old pre- 
position un meaning without (Ger. ohne) as a prefix sounding on. 
In both districts one hears such words as oonpossible, onbonny, 



168 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

onneat. There is agreement, too, in the marked preference for 
the relative 'at instead of that, and the persistence of the plural 
present of the verb in s. Both are well-known Northern charac- 
teristics. Sometimes one sees these historic forms condemned 
as if they were vulgar English. Thus the phrase, " They were 
a man," &c., is called bad grammar. What is said is, " Th' wur 
a man," where we have such an old particle as we find preserved 
in German da used for inversion of the subject. Just as German 
has both da and dort, Scots has thae, thirr. " Wur " shows the 
regular wus changed in the final before a vowel. Other old 
forms, very common in the Scots of the seventeenth century, 
survive in Cumberland speech, such as the particles after com- 
paratives, nor, as, be : " It's better ner gud like sugger te taties," 
" He's keynder as thee tuU me,'' " summat hy ordinar," and the 
genitive without the apostrophe s {f cow horn). Northern 
speech never used than after comparatives. When one hears 
than in Scots it is for then. There are shades of differ- 
ence here, too. The "as that" in the Cumberland, "He said 
as that he wasn't cumin," is " 'at hoo " (that how) in Low- 
land Scots. In intensives Scots has the "gayly," "varra" 
and " fine " of Cumberland, but in addition " fell " (Ger. 
viel), and " 'at weel " (Ger. ja wohl, yes, indeed). Of similar 
persistence over a wide Northern area are such popular wit as, 
" Wake as dish watter," " Eowtin like a quey in a fremd lonnin," 
"Maiden's bairns are aye weel bred," "He's no fed on deef 
(worm-eaten) nits," " He hardly made sote to's kail," " Better 
fleitch a feuU ner feight 'm," " Aback o' beyont whoar the meer 
fwoaled the fiddler," "He dissna ken a S fra a bull's feutt," 
and " He hiss neah maar wit ner's pitten in wi' a speun." The 
custom of the country substitutes a gander for a hen in the 
saying, " Dancin like a steg on a het gurdle," while, in both 
North and South, the following would now have little meaning : 
" Sweerin like a tinkler," " Teugh as a soople " (thong joining 
the two parts of the flail). 

Extremely suggestive is the subject of Cumberland idiom, 
especially since it exhibits all the characteristics of Northern 
English as it has been so well preserved in Lowland Scots. A 
few significant phrases only can be given, such as " t' words 'at 
we use in oald Cumberlan'," " ah maks mesel easy," " a gey fine 



SIDE-LIGHTS 169 

day," " siccan a fellow he is," " a few broth," " he'll he five come 
Lammas, "I'se quite agreeable," "mey peype's langer er (nor) 
theyne," " who's owt t' dog ? It u'll be oor Tom's." The "I'se " 
above is exactly the Dutch and Boer Ik is = I am, preserving 
the Northern to be in the present tense. I have been asked by 
a Kintyre fisherman, "Who belongs that boat?" meaning to 
whom does the boat belong ? He was not any more ungram- 
matical or illogical than the Cumbrian with his, " Who's owt 
t' dog ? " to whom is the dog owing ? They both use the inde- 
clinable interrogative as a dative. Likely, again, very frequently 
means " I suppose : " " Mr. S. is away from home likely," does 
not suggest any uncertainty, nor does " I will see you to-morrow," 
likely," which quite falls in with the Scottish attitude of non- 
committal. The East Coast variant of " lickly " is " mebbe," or, 
preferably, "mebbes," for "it maybe so." Play oneself: "Barns ! 
give ower ! ye've played yersels aneuf noo." In Fife, purpose- 
like gudewives, greatly vexed with paidlin on the caum-staned 
doorsteps, would come out and exclaim : " Tak the croon o' the 
causey, vratches, and play yersels there." Meal's meat, what 
will suffice for one meal, is in Scotland always a meal o' meat : 
" Ah wadn't give 'm a meal's nieat if he were starvin'." Rackon, 
to guess, imagine, suppose, has got a new lease of life across the 
Atlantic : " I'll reckon the' daizter an' dafter," says she, " nor 
iver I've reckon't the' yit." Up a, heet for aloft is a common 
idiom in Hexham. Dr. Prevost illustrates thus : " Dan gev yah 
greet lowp ebben up a heet." In the North of England, as often 
in Scotland, one hears such awkward circumlocutions as Wadn't 
cud dea 't. The sense is that of moral, not physical, inability — 
he would be above doing it. " Another expression," says the 
doctor, " somewhat similar, is, ' Won't can come,' " where, how- 
ever, the idea of physical inability is intended. The same ideas, 
expressed in the future tenses, as, "I will not can come," or 
" Shan't can dea't," are not in use. " Nay, I tell thee he wadn't 
cud dea't, I'll uphold thee ; I ken ower weel for that, wey he 
wadn't cud din it." The favourite Glasgow circumlocution, 
" Can I get going ? " is as nothing to these. 

It says little for human nature that idioms of the colloquially 
exclamatory nature are more frequently contemptuous than 
complimentary. We have always with us the man who is only 



170 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

too ready to say to his brother, " Thou fool ! " In an obscure 
exclamation, Goavy-dick ! common to Fife and the Lothians, 
and apparently expressing mere surprise, the Cumberland 
dialect suggests that there is implied contempt. The plain 
man in the Lothians, suddenly surprised at sight of something 
comical, naturally exclaims, " Goavy-dick I " In Cumberland a 
Gauvy is a fool, a simpleton, an open-mouthed fellow : " Thee girt 
Gauvy, thoo." This is just the English gaby and the French gobe- 
mouche, the fly-catcher. Gope is to stare with open mouth : — 
" A gowped at t' chaps 'at war playing sangs." Other forms 
are in the phrases — " Greet govin fuil ! " " Whee was't brong 
thee a fortune, peer gomas ? " " T'ou's ayways in a ponder ; ay 
geavin' wi' thy oppen mouth." In Scotland the metaphor is 
carried still further. " Git oot o' ma rodd, ye muckle gawpus ! " 
says the stirring gudewife to a loutish, idle fellow, varying it 
for a lump of a lassie with taupie, French for the mole. In 
some districts to gob is to spit. The Orcadian guhb is scum, 
froth, foam. In Nithsdale gowf is to flaunt about, and a gowf 
is a foolish person. As a mere exclamation, however, and a 
kindly qne, comes the characteristic Border and Lanarkshire 
lovenanty ! the equivalent of goavy-dick ! Jamieson's explana- 
tion. Love anent you ! is too suspiciously neat. We are all 
familiar with Paisley as the city of " Seestu ! " but the exclama- 
tion is not confined to that Scottish Helicon. It is very common 
in Orkney, and has a place in the kindred Norse district, the 
dales of Cumberland — " Sista, if thoo leaves me, ah'll kill tha ; '' 
" Sees te, Bella ; nay, but sees te ? " So thoroughly does the 
conventional lay hold of us that one will say even to a blind 
man, " See that, now ! " 

To note down the peculiarities of grammar that prevail in the 
spoken vernacular of the unlettered is a difficult task, but it is 
a trifle compared to the problems of dialect phonology. And yet 
while the vocables are being ousted by the ootners — the Cum- 
brian for Uitlanders — of the school and the newspaper, and the 
quaint idioms and proverbs and folk-lore slink into obscurity, 
abashed by the inroads of the railway, the tripper, and the 
tourist, the pronunciation of the locality seems to cling per- 
sistently to the very air and soil. Mr. Dickson Brown's work 
here is worthy of all praise as a valuable contribution to the 



SIDE-LIGHTS 171 

exploiting of an almost unworked section of the linguistic field. 
The Cumberland dialect has been moulded by both Anglo-Saxon 
and Norse influences. To the latter, carried across the York- 
shire fells, is due the favourite abbreviated article t' for the in 
all positions — e.g. t'teable, t'floor, t'cow horn. Of course the 
t here is not the initial in the original " that " — still heard in 
Scotland, as " give me that cleek " — but the final. The first 
step of the change is seen in " the tane and the tither " for that 
ain and that ither. The Dutchman keeps it as liet, while with 
the Highlander it is a feeble breath, 'he. The dalesman, though 
he spells water with a double dental, goes farther even than the 
Glasgow man in eliminating this letter, witness his favourite 
laal for little, while he will only say Hoo ! for the " Kailyard " 
Hoo-t-ootts ! If this be due to laziness, he takes the extra 
trouble of saying h for v as eben for even, whereas the Scot gets 
rid of V between two vowels as often as he can. The dalesman 
is lazy enough to say reesht and reet for the Scotsman's richt, 
just as in German dialects nicht drops to nisht and nit. The 
Cumbrian's enclitic negative is n't; thus he says divn't and 
disn't where the Scot chooses the better part, dinna and dizna. 
For the Scot's "u'll no gang" he says "ah willn't gang." In 
common with the Southron, the presence of r affects him. On 
the North-east he cherishes the burr, but introduces, where he 
can, a peculiar after-sound of w, as in cworn for corn, to the 
fwore for to the fore. 

There is a wide field for comparison among the vocables. Many 
are haimit enough, such as crine (shrink), dorting (ill-humour), 
dub, fouthie, lum, reek, tine (lose), threep (argue), pree (taste), 
shade (part hair), snod (tidy). Others differ from Scots in 
meaning. Kittle is active, never difficult as in Scots ; unco is 
strange, never intensive, as it is in " unco guid ; " ploy is employ- 
ment, not a feast in humble life ; oot-weel is wale oot or select ; 
threve is a great number, not a stock or set of corn sheaves. 
A bole or recess in a wall is so obscure in Cumberland as to 
require to be called a " booly hole." The Cumb. " This shoe 
isn't a marras (match) te that," would be in Scots, "... isna 
the marra o' that," or in the plural, " Thae shuen are no marras." 
More useful is it to study those obscure words on which Cum- 
berland practice throws light, since there must now be but a 



172 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

limited acquaintance with them in Scotland. Some golfers 
might enjoy this couplet, for we sometimes hear of one lamming 
into his opponent, — 

" Wid t' fwoak lammen intull t' chorus 
It was neah whisper ah can tell yeh." 

On the North-east Coast one may perhaps find the Burrow Duck 
called the Stockannet, as still heard on the Solway shore. But 
a glossary would in most cases be now needed for Scoto-Cum- 
brian obscurities like lisk (the groin), wipe (a gibe or rebuke), 
kickin' up a wap (row). Sype in Cumberland is to drain to the 
last dregs, but in Scots it means to soak. Staw, to surfeit, is 
genuine Scots, as " Plenty o' butter wad staw a dog." As more 
or less local survivals in the North take " thyvel, a porridge- 
stick " (East Fife, theel), " gwote, a gutter through a hedge ; if 
■ covered in, called a cundeth " (Sc condie). This last is in 
Lanarkshire known as a gote or drain. Gutter is another 
form of the word. Of the numerous uncomplimentary expres- 
sions in which dialect revels light is thrown on these obscure 
Scottish ones : slinge or sloonge, to loaf about, to mouch ; doughy 
or daichie, " A duffy gowk is a great soft fellow ; " mayzy or 
mwozie, dreamy, sleepy. This last is a Galloway and Ulster 
word. An Ulster man, giving his opinion of a third party, 
not present, said, " Of all the mozies ! " In Cumberland a 
" mayzlin' " is a simpleton. As a verb it is in the line, " I 
mazle and wander, nor ken what I's dien." 

In one particular the use of the familiar thou, as well as the 
old English distinction between ye and you, the Cumberland 
dialect is markedly archaic. Burns carefully retains " thow " 
in such homely subjects as the ewe Mailie and the Auld Mare 
Maggie, but it has disappeared from the modern vernacular. 
While the Cumbrian question, " Ur ye gan teh t'fair ? " would 
be quite familiar in Aberdeenshire, not so the answer, " Mebbe, 
is thoo gan ? " The former shows the pronoun of respect, the 
latter the true " heimliches Du " of the German. The idiomatic 
feeling comes out in popular sayings, and here Dr. Prevost's 
illustration by happy phrases is of the greatest service. Many 
are good Scots with a difference, such as " sittin to t'bottom " 
for a pot sittin in, " just noo " for i' the noo, " still an' on " 



SIDE-LIGHTS 173 

(however), " he's a laddie for o' maks o' spwort " for he's a lad 
at a spree, " barley me that " for chaps me that. " Seekin th' 
milk" for fetching it is characteristically Tyneside. I have 
heard a nursery tot singing lustily : " Oh my ! wat a smell o' 
sindgin ! Battle Hill is all a-fire. Seek the 'attie-indgin." "We 
stump't away togidder as thick (friendly) as inkle weavers" 
preserves a lost Paisley industry. A Glasgow man of the 
eighteenth century conveyed from Holland the secret of weaving 
coarse tape, long known and peddled over the dales as inkle. 
The name is preserved as that of a Paisley street to this day. 
The old Scottish saying, " To lick at the lowder," a variant of 
" To live at hake and manger," is explained here by the note on 
lowder as the foundation supporting the nether millstone. The 
dalesmen knew at one time the terns, a hair sieve, the origin of 
the phrase " to set the Thames on fire." 

Naturally many old Northern words, interesting to the Eliza- 
bethan scholar, linger among the dales. Shakspere finds many 
illustrations here. Billy, common all over the Scottish Border 
as brother, chum, is Bully Bottom, the weaver ; Jliar, to laugh 
heartily, is " the fleering tell-tale " of " Julius Cassar ; " plash, 
to trim the sides of a hedge, is " the pleached alley " of " Much 
Ado ; " slive, to split, slice, is " the envious sliver " that drowned 
poor Ophelia. But the Burns scholar is still more indebted to 
the sidelights of the Cumberland " Glossary." Bumeywin is the 
blacksmith ; chufty is fat-cheeked (" chuffy vintner ") ; ootliggers, 
or cattle not housed in winter, is the " ootler quey " of " Hallow- 
e'en ; " weed-clips is the " weeder-clips " that Burns turned aside 
from the thistle. Daft Will in " Hallowe'en " " loot a wince," 
explained here as an attenuated swear-word, used in full in 
Gibson's " Bobby Banks : " " 'Ods wuns (God's wounds) an' 
deeth ! " Every friend of Burns's auld mare will understand 
the kindly phrase in the Cumberland old song, — 

"Tak a reap o' cworn wi' ye, 
An' wile her (my meer) heamm, an' wile her heamm." 

And when we learn that in the dales titty is a sister, and that 
"she's deein in a wearin" alludes to a hopeless case of con- 
sumption, we understand better two of our finest old songs. 
Comparison with the usage of the Scottish border reveals 



174 STUDIES m LOWLAND SCOTS 

but few variants in meaning or form among the common stock 
of vocables. Of such these few may be noted : — Creuve, a staked 
enclosure for catching salmon (C.) ^ — a pig sty (B.) ; dad, obsolete 
mining term, to shake (C.) — a blow (B.) ; gliff, a hurried look (C.) 
— a fright (B.); jag, sucker or rootlet (C.) — a pin prick (B.); 
jink, move quickly (C.) — avoid by a quick movement. (B.). 

Parallels are more numerous. The familiar bien, well-to-do, 
kindly, has here the sense of obliging, " Theer was niver a 
kinder, bainer body leevt." The Border phrase "a bob of 
flowers " for a bouquet is similarly used, witness, " She had put 
on a great red bob of ribbon on her bonnet." " Chuck," a 
miner's term for food, suggests a note from my Border friend: — 
" In an evening school in Glasgow, about twenty-five years ago, 
asking the meaning of 'delicacies,' I got the answer, 'Fancy 
chucks.' " " Dub," so widely diffused in the North, is here 
equally familiar. Anything larger, however, than a puddle of 
casual water is separately named. When the river banks are 
high and steep, the word " whol " replaces dub. This, in the 
form of weel or well, is the regular name for a large pool in the 
stream of the Tweed. " Fell," the common Scottish and German 
intensive," has also its Border meaning of strong, hard-working, — 

" A fell bit lassie, strong and clear, 

But Tibbie was as thrang as ever." — 

" Broken Bowl." 

The Border phrase, a nibby stick, one with a crook, has the form 
gibby or kibby in the dales. " To glower oot " is a Border game 
in which two would stare at each other to see who would wink 
first. In Cumberland it simply means a fixed, staring look. 
" Skelly-eyed," both here and on the Border, has the sense of 
squint-eyed. Finally, the familiar " wap," a disturbance, is 
paralleled by a miner's description of the tragedy of Othello as 
" A (blank) wap aboot a pokkit neepyin." 

One might pick at random from the " Cumberland Glossary " 
such parallels with vocables used in Lowland Scotland, more 
or less modified to suit the different conditions prevailing. 
Thus we have : Chun, the sprout of the potato ; " T' taties are 

1 (C.) for Cumljerland, (B.) for Border. 



SIDE-LIGHTS 175 

sair chunned " or well sprouted. Shaw says : " A term applied 
to the sprouts or germs of barley, but, as I have heard it, to 
the shoots of potatoes when they begin to spring in the heap ; " 
which also appears in Jamieson, who adds that it is used in 
connection with the process of making malt. I always heard 
the maltman calling these "cummins." They represented the 
germination of the malt as dried on the floor of the malt-barn. 

Cobble, to pave with cobblestones, to stone : " He could tell 
that they also had another fish in a hole because they were 
running up and down cobbling it," the poacher's trick to drive 
the fish out into the shallower water. This is the diminutive 
of cob, cop, cup, anything rounded, cup-like. Its Boer form is 
the too familiar kopje. Chaucer's miller had a wart " upon the 
cop right of his nose." I was forcibly shown what the old-time 
cobble-hole was when travelling through Antrim. The bundles 
of flax are kept down in water-pits, during the stage of putre- 
faction, by rounded stones or cobbles : and as I passed the good 
Orangemen were busy lifting out the fermenting mass and 
spreading it abroad to dry, filling the railway carriages the 
while for many miles with an odoriferous blend as of senna tea 
and grease fizzling from a hot-plate. 

Dow, to be able, to dare, or venture (with a negative), — 

" A whusslin lass an' a bellerin cow, 
An' a crowin' hen'll deu nea dow." 

This fine old word, still in much and daily use in German, is 
rarely heard now in Scotland. It recalls the well-known Burns 
couplet, — 

" But facts are chiels that winna ding, 
An' downa be disputed." 

Faymishly, splendidly, " We set off t' merry neet, an' gat to 
Eostwhate famishly." How readily most of us settle down into 
the ruts of our pet mannerisms of action or phrase ! All human 
action tends naturally to the automatic. An old weaver had 
one fixed reply to every opening for a twa-handed crack. To 
a neighbourly inquiry, " Hoo are ee the day, Dauvit ? " came 
the unfailing response, " Fawmous, mun," which was quite as 
explicit as BuUer's " The men are splendid." In a famous city 



176 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

in Fife dwelt worthy 'pothy Smith, whose favourite catch was, 
" I'm not very sure," and he carried his Scots caution so far one 
day as to answer to a neighbour's call at the shop door in 
passing, " Are you in, Mr. Smith ? " " Well, I'm not very sure." 

Feeky, nervously uneasy, used in reference to senile decay, 
a development of its familiar force peculiar to Cumberland. 
" Ah was terrible feeky till Ah hard thee fit in t' entry an' saw 
theh pass t' alien." Here we have the " ayont the hallan " of 
" The Cottars," where Hawkie was chewing her cud. This was 
the treviss or partition separating the but room from the ben. 
The passage crossing it inside the doorway was called the trance 
in Scotland, not the entry. A clergyman, familiar with our 
old-fashioned, long, narrow, dark country churches, tickled his 
hearers when discoursing on St. Peter's vision by saying that 
he himself had often preached in a trance. 

Fowersom, a set of four, — 

" An' a' the foursome gat as merry 
As tho' they'd drunken sack or sherry." 

Though the dalesman prefers wrestling to golfing, we have here 
aptly visualised many a comfortable party of happy, middle- 
aged worthies long past the record-breaking stage. Such a 
foursome was one day holing out at the Ginger-beer hole of 
St. Andrews Links, when the respective caddies compared notes. 
To the inquiry, " Hoo's your men gettin' on, Jock ? " came the 
response, " Dod, but they're doin' fine ; they hauved the lest 
hole in fifteen." 

Bare Gorp or Gorlin, an unfledged bird : " Geap, Gorbie, an 
thou'll get a wurm." " As neakt as a gorlin." This is the " raw 
gorbit" of our unfeeling youth. It recalls a scene, under a 
spreading hawthorn tree, when I assisted at the beck of a 
masterful cousin, considerably my senior, in the fitting out of 
what we thought a braw butcher's shop, the joints and gigots 
consisting of callow spyugs and nestling mice, perfect Lilliputian 
piggies. A pleasanter reminiscence is Dr. George Macdonald's 
exquisite piece about the bonnie, bonnie dell where the yorlin 
sings, in an early volume of " Good Words for the Young." 
His yorlin, applied to the yellow-hammer, must be the Cumber- 
land gorlin, turned to another use. 



SIDE-LIGHTS 177 

Gulls, the Corn Feverfew (Febrifuge, chrysanthemuiri sege- 
tum), a weed which gave, much trouble to the Birleymen of 
the old townships when the crofters were too lazy to clear it 
out. The word is the same as what we have in yellow and 
yolk. Shaw says, " Benner-gowan. I have heard this name 
applied to the fever-few of our gardens ; " to which Professor 
Wallace, his biographer, adds, "Benner — Bennert or Bane- 
wort." Banewort is either deadly nightshade or " Eanunculus 
liammula," and therefore not the same as the Corn Gool. 

H is dropped more frequently than it is used. The Scots 
are mercifully preserved from this variety of " English as she is 
spoke." Dr. Prevost illustrates thus : " Bessy, boil me a heg." 
" Father, you should have said an egg." " Then gang an' boil 
me two neggs." 

Havver. Dr. Prevost quotes a saying about the Havver 
bread, baked twice a year and carefully preserved for luck, — 

" If you gang to see your havver in May, 
You'll come weeping away, 
But if you gang in June, 
You'll come back in a different tune.'' 

Havver is oats. The word has long been obsolete, and Burns, 
in the song, " 0, whaur did you get it ? " was working on an 
old model beginning — 

"0, whaur did ye get that hauver meal bannock?" 

a ballad which suggested to Scott his "Bonnie Dundee." 
Though not unknown to middle English, havver is distinctly 
Northern, and leans to a Scandinavian origin. But the Anglo- 
Saxon " oats " has quite superseded it. The German Hafer is 
the same word, as also our haversack (lit. oat-bag). 

Heft, to restrain, let the cow's milk increase until the udder 
gets large and hard : " She's hef tit of her yooer." The former 
sense is common over South-Western Scotland. On the East 
Coast the more familiar usage is swoln in the case of cows, 
and figuratively in the case of man as here: "A tak ill wi' 
the firrst o' hairst. A buddie's sae heftit wi' the baps an' the 
beer, an' fair hippit wi' the bindin'," was the sage reflection 
of a Fife bandster before the days of the reaping quick-firer. 

12 



178 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

Yooer for udder is a good illustration of omission of a dental 
between vowels ; of, wa'er for water. 

Hotch, what the Alston miners call a jig. The Burns 
reader will remember the midnight Free-and-Easy in AUoway 
Kirk,— 

" Even Satan glower'd and fidged fou fain, 
And botched and blew wi' might and main." 

The word expresses primarily deep and rapid breathing under 
excitement, as in " Hech, sirs ! " "a hacking cough," " Heigho, 
the wind and the rain ! " and even the " Hoeh ! " of the phleg- 
matic Teuton. The Scot's innate love of graphic metaphor 
leads him to widen his words with the freedom of an artist. 
" Any fish in the burn to-day ? " " Fish ! the pools is fair 
hotchin'." 

Kast, to place peats on end so as to dry them : " A pony 
cart-load of peats had been cast by his sister." The Lowlander 
knows so little on this head that he might think it referred to 
throwing them out of the hole. The word properly implies a 
change of position, as " a cast in the eye," " a cast ewe," " cast 
up," and the saw, " Ne'er cast a cloot or May be oot." 

K. — This letter was formerly pronounced in knit, knap, and 
knot. " My grandmother used to articulate easily and without 
effort the k in knitting, knee " (D. H.). I can distinctly remem- 
ber that my grandmother said k'nife. An Aberdeenshire Jacob- 
ite old lady, long after the memory of the '45 and its repression 
of Scottish Episcopacy had died out, stoutly refused to honour 
the Hanoverian, " though Bishop Skinner sud pray the k'nees 
afPs breeks." A more persistent peculiarity is the omission of 
the letter t when between vowels, common in Cumberland and 
with all the slovenly speakers in south-western Scotland. The 
dalesman's " laal," however, is more easily managed than the 
Lanarkshire for little : " Axt him if he'd ivver seed laal 
sprickelt paddicks wid phillybags an' gallasses on." Dr. Pre- 
vost explains that " phillybags were long drawers visible below 
the skirt, formerly worn by boys and girls " — a fashion we all 
know from Leech's pictures of the early Victorians. But what 
has " ta Phairshon " to say of this insult ? Some of his forebears 
certainly got short shrift at Carlisle 'Sizes. An English book. 



SIDE-LIGHTS 179 

glossed by a German for his fellow-countrymen, calls a phillibeg 
a weed worn by Scotsmen. He had got his " weed " from reading 
in earlier literature such as in " Midsummer Night's Dream : " 
" Weed (dress) wide enough to wrap a fairy in." The Cum- 
brian "gallasses" is also Fife for braces or suspenders, and is 
but a variant of "gallows." 

Pawky, too familiar, sly, impudent : " Grace did not trouble 
herself about the susceptibilities of pawky young monkeys." 
" They caw't yanudder for aw t' pawkiest rapscallions." This 
is certainly not the pawky we all have such a respect for. It 
must be the " paik," a low character of Davie Lindsay's verses, 
and one of " the poor relations " in words, " with a past." 

Skeal or scales, a sort of huts or hovels, built of sods or 
turfs on commons. This is the Jcelandic "skjol," shelter; 
" skyling," a screening. As initial " sk " in Scandinavian and 
Dutch has become " sh " (cf. ski and Eng. shoe), we have here 
the summer " sheelins " of ballad and song. The hardening of 
sh, though spelt sch, still holds in Cape Dutch, so that Scheepers 
should be pronounced Skaepers. 

This Norse skjol has assumed various forms among us. In 
English the sheeling is the sheal, a temporary summer hut, 
from a root, to cover. Professor Skeat connects the Icelandic 
skjola, a pail or bucket, with what in Scotland is a skiel or 
skeel, not at all forms in common use. At one time, however, it 
did appear among us. When Nansen, after his historic voyage, 
was entertained by the London Savage Club, the Norse shal was 
•drunk, interpreted rightly enough as a sort of guid-willie waucht 
■or loving-cup. It carries one back to a very different reception 
of Norsemen, a Scottish one, when the nobles that brought over 
Anne of Denmark as spouse to James VI. were feasted (1590) 
in the house of the famous Napier, Master of the Mint, in the 
•Cowgate of Edinburgh. The Provost provided "naprie & twa 
•dozen greit veschell." These were the goblets or skolls (Ger. 
Schale, cup ; ef. scale, shell) which were drained to the king's 
" rouse " (Hamlet), long known in Scotland by the very name 
used at the London banquet. In Edmonston's "Shetland 
•Glossary" "scoU" is a roimd wooden dish. 

Skiddaw Gray, a bluish-gray colour, a rough gray cloth from 
Herdwick wool. The Keswick Kifle Volunteers are called 



180 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

" Skiddaw Grays " because of the colour of their uniform. 
Similarly, as a specimen of the " wut " of the man in the street, 
the Mid-Lothian Militia, special care of the Duke of Buccleuch, 
were known as the " Duke's Canaries," or, more contemptuously, 
" Soordook Sogers," from association with the morning milk carts 
round the Tron Kirk. 

Tew, annoyance, distress, fatigue : " Ey ! it was a sair tew 
that." To tease : " T' thowtes o' hevin forgitten sum tewt me 
t' warst of a'." " Ah fand it gey tewsum wark." We have here 
— Dr. Prevost has it in his glossary, but adds nothing in the 
supplement — a word that has many duties and forms in Scots. 
I believe it has to do with teuk or took, which Shaw explains 
with Jamieson as a by-taste, a disagreeable taste. 

Dr. Prevost, perhaps not unwisely, imposed upon himself 
certain limitations. Keeping strictly to his text, he makes little 
use of comparison with cognate dialect matter, and hardly ever 
says anything as to the history of his words. Here and there, 
however, there is a Something that requires " reddin up." The 
word " ea " cannot well be both the " outlet of lime-kilns " and 
the " channel of a stream." The former is the Scottish collier's 
" in-gaun-ee," but the latter must be a wide-spread term for any 
running water and of Norse origin in place-names. In the 
" Supplement " it is " a gap, river mouth." In many parts of 
Scotland the local burn is called simply " the waa'er.'' At Eye- 
mouth the villagers always speak of their " Eye " as the Waa'er. 
The author has, laudably, the courage to note even failures, 
thus : " Hemmil (ohsol.), no description obtainable." But the 
illustrative passage added shows that it is but a misreading for 
" skemmel," entered elsewhere. The quotation is : " The sconce, 
long-settle and hemmil are superseded by more modern furni- 
ture." These illustrations, always apt and pithy, form an 
admirable feature of what is an invaluable contribution to the 
philology and folk-lore, not only of Scotland but still more, of 
England. 

The volume throws much light on an almost untouched 
subject — the comparative study of dialects. With the Border, 
of course, there will be much affinity. The Cumberland stock- 
annet or sheldrake is so named on the Upper Solway, but 
nowhere else except here and there on the East Coast north of 



SIDE-LIGHTS 181 

Forth, where also any nestling is a raw gorbet, the Cumberland 
" bare gorp." Of pure Saxon affinities with the Tweeddale there 
are wig, a tea-cake; hine, a farm-servant; Mnny, a term of endear- 
ment ; and the curious gawm, to give attention to. " He nivver 
gawmed me " is quite Border. Farther north it is better known 
as gumption. The root is in the fourth century Gothic transla- 
tion of the Gospels. The " hypocrites pray at the street corners 
that they may be seen of men ('ei gaumjaindau mannam')." 
Jamieson has gum, variance, umbra.ge, of which Lockhart, writing 
his account of Union times (1707) says : " "Whilst this affair 
(Malt Tax) was in agitation, as it created a great gum and cold- 
ness between members of the two nations, it created a friendship 
and unanimity amongst the Scots Commons." 

The able editors have designedly refrained from specu- 
lation on the historic aspects of their subject. The volume is 
richly suggestive here. ' Their " wife-day or cum-mether " (Fr. 
commere) is the Cummers' Feast of Old Edinburgh, a christen- 
ing ceremony humorously sketched in " A Midsummer Night's 
Dream." The rannel-trees, alluded to by Davie Deans in the 
" Heart of Mid-Lothian," are fully explained as a part of the 
old ingle and chimney-breest. Old farming customs are noted, 
such as "the deetin (Sc. dichtin) hill," the equivalent of the 
Scottish Sheelin Law, where the corn was winnowed. The 
" tummel-car," Burns's " tumlin wheels," we are told, was repre- 
sented in 1897 by one ancient survivor. "Syme," the straw 
rope for securing thatch, is the simmons or sooms which the 
tenants of Caithness had to supply for the laird's stacks a 
century ago. The " spelk hen," annually due to the landlord 
for liberty to cut rods , for securing thatch, clearly points to 
the Orcadian spoUc, a splint (Eng. spoke, Ger. Speiche, the 
spoke of a wheel). To this day round Loch Lomond barked 
oak -branches are called speogs. The Morayshire custom 
of corn-thiggin, when the poor or thriftless crofter went 
round the clachan begging a pickle seed, is just the , Cum- 
berland " cworn-later " asking at every house for " a lile 
lock corn" for his first crop. "Lock" here is- often heard in 
Scotland. A "fell lock o' us" is not a corruption , of lot, a 
quantity. It is accounted for by the Orcadian lock, to .clutch, 
seize hold of, the Icel. luka. In , Old Edinburgh the Lucken- 



182 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

booths or close shops were so called in contrast to the stalls set 
up on the street. The " lucken-gowan " is the closed daisy. 
The latter part of the Cumberland compound " cworn-later " 
seems to be connected with Go. leithan, to go, Eng. lead, a verb 
with many derivatives. The Border herd's cruel mode of 
splitting up birds, frogs, &c., is known in both districts as 
spang-whew. In Clydesdale, again, a straining sieve is also 
known as a syle. Stranger, still, is it to find faggot as a term 
of reproach turning up in Campbeltown, where also skybel is 
well known as a good-for-nothing. " In lots there were helter- 
skelter skybels frae Carel " (Carlisle). Norse influence explains 
these af&nities, as also the presence in the North-eastern counties 
of such Cumberland words as grice and shot, applied to young 
pigs ; gob, spit, foam ; geat, a bairn ; wax kernels (waxin kernels 
in Fife) for glandular swellings in the neck ; sued, a scythe handle 
(Kincardine) ; swine-crii (Fife criive), a pig-sty ; thyvel (Fife 
theel), a porridge-stick; weyt (Fife wecht), sheep's skin cover- 
ing a wooden hoop, to lift corn; whicks (Fife quickens), roots 
of couch grass. It must be the same Northern leaning which 
accounts for such remarkable German representatives in the 
Cumberland dialect as byspel, a guy (Beispiel); flittermouse, 
the bat (Fliedermaus) ; shirk, a slippery character (Schurke) ; 
unfewsom, awkward, unbecoming (Ger. fiigsam, pliant) ; skemmel, 
a long seat without a back. This last is German Schemel, a 
seat. Butcher's shambles were stools to show the meat in open 
booth or market as in Old Glasgow, where they were known as 
shemels. But the whole volumes are calculated to send one off 
on a stream of " divagations." 

The " Glossary " could not but be suggestive at many points 
to the student of Scott and Burns. SacMess, innocent, a word 
now obsolete but used in " Kob Boy," appears in a Cumberland 
sketch in dialect : " Ah wasn't sec a sackless as he'd teann meh 
teh be." Curious is it to find the wyliecoat of the " Fortunes of 
Nigel," and familiar in old literature, still used in Cumberland 
in its usual sense of an undervest. The " rannel-tree," which 
Davie Deans uses in his vigorous denunciation of latter-day 
backsliding in Church and State, is annotated at great length 
by Dr. Prevost. It was the beam from which hung the ingle- 
crook in the large, open chimney. In "Guy Mannering" a 



SIDE-LIGHTS 183 

randle-tree is a tall, raw-boned youth. One naturally finds 
more points of relationship with Burns and his open-air and — 
to use a Greek in default of an English expression — autochthonous 
muse. In his facetious apostrophe to the unbidden insect guest 
he spied in church we have three Cumberland words — " ... an 
auld wife's flannin toy . . . Aiblins on some duddy boy, on's 
wyliecoat," Burns, again, in the " Twa Dogs " makes " Caesar " 
so frankly human as to hob-nob with "a tinkler-gipsey's 
messan ... or tawtiet tyke, tho' e'er sae duddie." Compare 
this with the Cumberland couplet, — 

" Me mudder merit me oald breeks, 
An aye bit they wer duddy." 

The " messan '' of Burns and the " Glossary " was originally a 
lap-dog from Messina. During Knox's famous interview with 
Secretary Lethington, the wily diplomat kept toying with a 
messan on his knee. The two old-fashioned " bannocks " that 
Burns alludes to — mashlum (of mixed meal) and hauver (oat- 
meal) — have long ceased and determined in Scotland. Both 
are Cumberland terms. In " The Cottars," it will be remem- 
bered, the Covenanting Psalm tune, Elgin, " beets the heaven- 
ward flame," and, again, the house-father wales a reading out of 
" the big ha' Bible." Two of the words here are annotated in 
a fashion that throws light on Burns's use of them. Thus the 
" beeter " attends to the fire that bakes the oatbread. The. 
" beetin stick " was used to stir the fire in the brick oven. A 
recent publication illustrating " The Cottars " glosses the 
" ha' Bible " as the one used in the great hall of a mansion. 
Dr. Prevost's note is more helpful to the student of Burns than 
this : " The manor house of small manors, now a farmer's house, 
in contradistinction to a cottage " or humblest rural abode. 

Folk-lore offers a rich hunting-ground to the antiquary 
turned philologist. Here we have embedded the wit and the 
wan-wit of the " rude forefathers of the hamlet." In this con- 
nection Dr. Prevost gives some interesting finger-jingles, product 
of the upland nurseries — Tom Thumper (a German, speaking 
English, calls the thumb the thump), Billy Winker, Long Lazor, 
Jenny Bowman, Tippy Town-end; also, Tom Thumper, Bill 
Milker, Long Eazor, Jerry Bowman, Tip Town-end. The follow- 



184 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

ing doggerel is ia use :^" This (finger) go t' wood. This un says, 
what t' do theer ? To late mammy ; what to do w" her ? Sook 
a pap, sook a pap a' t' way heame." The word " late " here has 
an interest of its own. Dr. Prevost says it has two significa- 
tions, . to seek and to bring. A Cumbrian will say, " He's gaen 
to lait a lost sheep," or " He's gaen. to lait t' kye in to milk " 
(Eichardson). One is tempted to compare with these tlie layt in 
Jamieson, to allure, entice, an old word in Teviotdale, and his 
"ill-laits," common in Angus for "bad customs." .The latter 
was much used as illaits in Fife for " bad habits." The former 
Jamieson traces to Icelandic. He says nothing of the expression, 
" he never let on," " made no remark," when it was expected. It 
can hardly be the usual let, permit. Kluge, under German 
laden, to invite, shows that the two senses above are sub- 
stantially the same in their origin in the Gothic lathon, as in 
Matt. ix. 13 : " nith-than kwam lathon usvaurthans," I came 
not to call the righteous ; in Luke ii. 25 : " Symaion beidands 
lathonais Israelis," in A.V. Simeon, waiting (biding) for the 
consolation of Israel. 

Dr. Prevost supplies an interesting survival of the Gothic 
lathon, to invite, in the Cumbrian laitin : " In many places in 
the Lake district, when anyone dies, two persons from every 
house near are invited to the funeral, and the houses within 
the circle are termed the Laitin." 

An. in teres ting group of vanished Scots can be culled from 
the dalesmen. To scarce a living Scot is the squirrel known, 
as he was of old, by the name " con." A Cumberland contri- 
butor says, " ' Fat as a con ' is a simile I used to hear thirty 
years ago " (1845). " Hind," the A.S. hyne, a manager of an 
off-lying farm, is now heard only on the Scottish Border. Two 
Scoto-French expressions, of old very common in Scotland, are 
quoted from the dales. " Plague gang wi' them that tooly wi' 
thee," preserves the Scots tulzie, a quarrel, street-fight. Still 
more archaic is "Pie Powder," the ancient Court instituted 
when the Peace of the Fair was proclaimed. It settled all 
brawls and disputes over bargainings in which the outlander 
pedlar was involved. He was known as Pied Poudr6 or Dusty 
Foot. 

While much of' folk-lore is extremely local, much of it again 



SIDE-LIGHTS 185 

seems to be almost world wide. We all know the Benjamin of 
the family hand, Wee Willie Winkie, and the little Piggie-Wiggie 
that cried all the way home. The Boer Tante amuses the wee 
kerel on the stoep with tales of " Pinkie," the little finger. I 
suppose there are still kindly mothers of the old-fashioned sort, 
who, baby on knee and ready for By-by ! take the warm little 
tootsies, one in each hand, and make them go through a wondrous 
pantomime from dainty, coralline tips to rosy heel, to the jingling 
rhymes, lips parted, and heaven-lit eyes aglow : " John Smith, 
a falla fine, can ee shoe thiss hoarss o' mine ? (In largo 
measure.) Yiss, indeed, an' thaat a' caan, juist as weel as ony 
maan (larghetto). Pitt a bit upoan the tae, te garr the pownie 
speel the brae (andante). Pitt a bit upoan the heel to garr the 
pownie pace weel (allegretto), pace weel, pace weel (allegro), with 
lively upsie-daesies !) " The folklore of school time is another 
wide and interesting theme. At St. Bees School the master was 
familiarly known as Mcks, which Dr. Prevost bases on the 
expression to keep nicks, to keep account or tally by nicks or 
notches, natural enough among shepherds who counted by 
scores on the crook. Keep in the sense of to mind, mend, look 
after, was very common long ago. Sir John Foulis, in his 
" Eavelstoun Diary," has now and again the item "for keeping 
my watch." " Boys keep nicks," continues Dr. Prevost, " when 
watching the schoolmaster, and ' nicks ' is equivalent to ' cave ' : " 
" While anudder kept nicks, watching up an' doon street.'' The 
term is extended to the corporation schoolmaster, the policeman : 
"Twelve nixes manhannl'd by yah man," seems a ridiculously 
easy victory for the hooligan. To be nicked, i.e. caught, or hit, 
was a common expression during the war. It may even be 
implied in " Auld Nick," the catch-poll of souls. A good tuck-in 
is as dear to the schoolboy as a lively shindy. Hence it is 
natural to note : " ' Mint-cake,' a sweetmeat, made by boiling 
down soft brown sugar and .water until a firm but ' short ' mass 
was formed, strongly flavoured with peppermint, in shape two 
inches square and a half thick;: somewhat resembling toffy, but 
not so hard and, crystalline ; sold at two squares for a half- 
penny "^-communicated by Miss Armstrong. The luxury of 
my youth was "clack," known elsewhere as "gundy," and being 
a messy preparation in much favour with the girls. These were 



186 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

home products. A specific sure to mollify a colded throat was 
" sugar-awlie," sold in short, black sticks, stamped at one end. 
The Glasgow sweet, known in the trade as Tchuch Jeens, is 
known to me only by name. 

The biscuit and sma'-breed trade, now enormously developed, 
has quite transmogrified the old-time fly-blown window-watchers. 
Where are now the plump wee brown rabbits with currants for 
eyes, the nickit baiks, the rings powdered with pink sugar, the 
cheesies, Cupar hardies, and the ginger-breed demons ? These 
last, standing grim and black, arms defiantly akimbo, and goggle 
eyes, so impressed a bit lassie one day that, barely reaching the 
counter with her bawbee, she asked the village Johnnie Aw-thing 
for " ain o' thae hawpny deevils," so familiar were we long ago 
with the deep things of theology. And yet our kindly English 
critics speak with commiseration of our dismal creed. I re- 
member, when in a sweetie shop in Heidelberg, being surprised 
and amused as a little boy, putting down a kreuzer or two and 
receiving three sweets in exchange — Protection in Germany 
takes care of that — exclaimed with disgust, " Ah, wot a horrid 
shame, Herr Schmidt ! " Nowadays the sorrows of exam.-driven 
youth are tempered by the delicacies of Signer Nicolini, the ice- 
cream man. I know the slider merely by name, but apropos of 
it here are some of the words of Oald Cummerlan, illustrating 
its dialect forms and uses. " Wor hes thoo been aw this time, 
thoa sledderkin thoo ; thoo's a fair sledders an' nivver like ta 
git back woriver thoo gangs till ; " " T' aad fella dizz nout but 
' sledder about an' smeuk ; " " Wi' taes aw sticking through my 
shoes I weade among the slatter ; " " T'wedder was slattery. 
t'rwoads was slashy.'' An old-fashioned bailie, before the days 
of public festivities, spoke of oysters as " nae better nor slithery, 
fushionless glaur." 

The " Cumbrian Glossary " is rich in illustration of folk-lore. 
Children's games afford ready proof. A safety-valve under the 
stern discipline was the barrin-oot at Pasch (Easter), or Candlemas 
in Scotland, and at Christmas in England. " It was customary 
for the boys inside school to sing, ' Pardin, maister, pardin, 
Pardin for a pin ; If ye won't give us helliday, We'll nivver let 
ye in.' " " Barrin-oot " was practised in Eoxburghshire on 21st 
December 1907. The " beut-money," customary of old over the 



SIDE-LIGHTS 187 

higgling of the market, is practised at school in Teviotdale when 
pupils are exchanging articles of different value (niffering). The 
" fair horny," or appeal in these eases to honest dealing, is in 
Cumberland used by colliers in dividing mutual gains. The 
leaping game of " feut-an'-a-half " is played alike on both sides 
of the Border. To the many Cumberland child-rhymes I add 
this from the Border, — 

" Ane's nane, twae's some, 
Three's a pickle, four's a crumb, 
Give's a cuddy's lade." 

The old game, " Scots and English," is known in Cumberland as 
"Watch "Weds." Each side put its caps at equal distances 
from a dividing line drawn on the ground between the rows. 
Pillaging then went on across the line. If one were caught, he 
was retained prisoner. In " wed " here we have the familiar 
wad, a pledge or surety. 

The folk-lore of play never travels far from its native 
district unless on the strong current of the very modern Golf 
Stream. Cumberland boys, of course, know all about marbles, 
which they assort as alleys, steanies, and gingers or pots. The 
last was " a rough, common marble of red half-baked clay and 
partially glazed. Steanies were brightly coloured, very hard, 
and highly glazed : " Hoo mony steany marbles do ye gi' for a 
ho'penny ? " The rough horse-play of the grown-ups, the halflins 
or hobbledehoys, is hinted at in the once popular but now 
obsolete amusement, " girnin throo a brafhn " — the Scots brec- 
ham or horse-collar. This is the comic side of the much older 
and really tragic, but seemingly off-hand, description of death 
on the gallows : " girnin in a widdie," or rope of hazel twigs. 

No account of old-time pleasures in the uplands would be 
complete without some allusion to poaching. The humours of 
local government through the Great Unpaid were never more 
neatly hit off than in the speech : " When ah's a magistrate 
ah'U luik ower sec things as sniggin an' nettin." Sniggin was 
catching salmon as they lay in the pools by means of a bunch 
of hooks, " t'west Coomerlan flee." These rake-hooks sniggled 
over the bottom like eels, " snig " being an obsolete name for 
a young eel. In those old days work and pleasure were blended 



188 STUDIES IX LOWLAND SCOTS 

in kindly fashion. Xo one contributed to this more than the 
peripatetic tailor, ever a welcome visitor to the upland dales : 
"Travelling artisans — tailors, shoemakers, and saddlers — went 
to the houses of the country people to work, taking with them 
their own material. They were paid so much a day and their 
' meat.' This custom was formerly very common hereabouts, 
but it is not so much followed now." It was called " gangen oot 
t' whip t' cat." AU over Old Scotland the " customer " tailor, 
working for customers, was known as Whip-the-Cat. A corre- 
spondent said it primarily meant to " thrash with flail." One 
certainly fails to see why the " harmless, necessary " house- 
friend is chosen to symbolise itinerant labour. 

Mining is the serious occupation of the Cumberland district, 
and here there are interesting notes. The " in-gaun-ee " of our 
colliers is explained by " ea," a gap, inlet, or gateway, used by 
miners with reference to a pit. " It was i' t' boddom ee at 
t' Park." Xew light is also thrown on the method of working 
known as " stoup an' room." " If in driving a level in the lead 
mines it is necessary at any point to carry the working upward 
and continue in a plane parallel to the original level, the 
material underlying the new level is a stoup. From these 
levels short cross-cuts were made into the vein." Of course, 
a room is any empty space, as "your room's better nor your 
company." Anyone can see that the Dutch-Frisian race that 
introduced mining and industries generally into Fife and the 
Lothians was closely akin to the Xorse settlers in Cumberland 
and Westmoreland. Xay more, this very word " stoep " was 
transferred to the South African veldt. On the Boer homestead 
or place, as he calls it, the doorway on his raised first-floor has 
exactly such a stoup as is above described, with a double sloping 
approach to it, as is still to be seen in many old mansion-houses 
at home, and public buildings in Holland and Xorth Germany. 
Such a stoup is shown in views of the old Court-house at the 
Tron of Glasgow, used alike for hustings, speeches, magisterial 
functions, and even executions. 

Farm life has always been a stronghold of rural conservatism. 
One would hardly expect a survival anywhere of the sport of 
bull-baiting, yet the Cumbrian phrase, "Shak t' buU-ring," 
applied to the challenger at the village fair, analogue to the 



SIDE-LIGHTS 189 

Irishman's " Tridd on the tail of me coat," seems to preserye the 
custom. Curiously the Kelso March market is to this day 
known as the Bull Eing. The homely " coo-liekt," for hair that 
would part only in one place, iS familiar in Teviotdale. The 
Cumberland euphemism for an illegitimate, " cum by chance," 
the Bordei^er applies, as " come o' wills," to potatoes left in the 
field and growing up in the following year. His " hick nor ree," 
said to a cart horse as a guide to left or right, is the Border 
phrase, " neither hup nor hie," or neither right nor left. Another 
farm variant is rig-welted, said of a sheep lying on its back and 
unable to get up, and so the Scottish awal. It is formed of 
rig, the back, and welter, to roll. 

Weather-lore has always been in great favour with the rural 
wise. "Morland fleud ne'er did good," refers to the damage 
done in a hilly district by Lammas spates and the bursting 
of water-spouts. All along the foot of the Ochils widespread 
havoc has been caused in this way. On 4th October 1775 the 
Tyne at Haddington rose seventeen feet. But the record flood 
is the memorable one that Sir Thomas Dick Lauder described 
so well. One can still, on crossing the new bridge at Forres, note 
the almost incredible height to which the Findhorn suddenly 
rose in 1829. Any abnormal summer, or want of it, has aired 
much weather-lore such as this, — 

" If t'esh sud bud afore t'yek, 
Dor feyne summer wedder'U hoddenly brek ; 
But if t'yek bud be seuner cummer 
We'll sartinly hev a drufty summer.'' 

The Cumberland glossary says that hoddenly is frequently, 
continuously, without interruption : " He's hoddenly been a 
good husband to me." Hodden, sair hodden, in straits to accom- 
plish a task : " Ah was hard hodden to keep mi tongue atween 
mi teeth an' keep frae tellin' mi mind." This reminds one of 
Scott's fool, who had little to complain of as fetch-and-carry 
for the farm toon, save that he was " sair hodden doon wi' the 
bubbly Jock." 



190 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

2. Bkaid Scottis in the Transvaal. 

We have had not a little information about the Transvaal 
from within, but next to nothing about the language of the Boers. 
And yet there are few more direct roads to the true inwardness 
of the character and sentiment of a nation than its vernacular. 
It must be confessed, however, at the outset, that it is a some- 
what indirect method of approaching the subject to sit at home 
here and discuss the speech of the Boer without ever having had 
an opportunity of hearing a Boer speak. Failing this, I take 
up my standpoint on a keen interest in Lowland Scots, spoken 
and written, and with this I propose to compare the Cape Dutch, 
or Kaapsch, as the Hollander calls it. Towards this aim has 
been contributed the generous aid of an Afrikander now in 
Cape Town, and of another who has left the Transvaal after 
long residence there. Finally, an old and valued friend, the 
late Heer E. P. Dumas, of Eotterdam, and formerly of Glasgow, 
lent me of his wonderful resources, both in Dutch and English, 
and especially sought out for me an admirable guide in " How 
to Speak Dutch," by Professor W. S. Logeman, B.A., and J. F. Van 
Oordt, B.A. This excellent manual, published at Amsterdam 
and Cape Town, second edition, 1899, gives throughout practical 
conversation in Dutch and Cape Dutch. I have kept almost 
entirely to the vocables and phrases found in this book. 

(a) The Taal. 

For a century the Dutch Afrikander has been practically cut 
off from his ancestral home in Holland. Doubtless his Church, 
its Bible, and its preachers, have served to keep unbroken a 
chain of communication, ever lengthening by time and distance, 
and this kind of influence must have told specially in language. 
But both the religion and the language have undergone a much 
more rapid change at home in Holland than out on the sparsely- 
peopled Veldt of South Africa. The consequence is that both 
are old-fashioned and homely, and therefore admirably suited 
to the mental and spiritual attitude of the pastoral Boer. With 
a creed that has ceased to develop, and without a home-grown 
literature, he has clung all the more fondly and tenaciously to 



SIDE-LIGHTS 191 

the antique vernacular which he has inherited from his fore- 
fathers. He calls it lovingly die ou'we or oude Taal, using, to 
name it, the root we have in tell and tale. In German still, 
and in English of old, it meant to count, but the operations of 
reading and counting in many languages appear readily to over- 
lap and commingle. The Taal scarcely deserves the hard words 
that have been applied to it as a barbarous and uncouth poly- 
glot. The Scot can well sympathise with such treatment, for 
the Englishman, disdaining to try to understand his dialect, 
calls it unintelligible, vitiated English, and when he does con- 
descend to make a lever de rideau out of it, mangles it through 
his perverse habit of mispronunciation. The Dutchman looks 
upon the Taal in much the same light. An intelligent Hollander 
writes me thus : " I hate and detest the Boer idiom, which is 
a repulsive amalgam of old and modern Dutch, with traces of 
Platt-Deutsch and English, and only good, or rather bad enough, 
to disappear from among the races of mankind." This is of 
value, merely as emphasising my point, that the appreciation of 
vernacular is incompatible with the attitude of what arrogates 
to itself a claim to progress and culture. The Taal has merely 
undergone natural changes on old lines, but less rapidly than 
Dutch. It has borrowed a little from English, and almost less 
from Kaffir, for no people ever learns much from a race on a 
lower plane of culture than its own, though the two may be 
commingled. The Highlander and Lowlander have always had 
very close intercourse at many points, but English and Scottish 
borrowings in Gaelic vastly outnumber Gaelic terms in Scots 
or English. 

The Taal, or Kaapsche,^ as the Hollander calls it, has closer 
affinities with Lowland Scots than with any other European 
tongue, except Dutch. Its resemblance to German is mainly 
superficial. Certainly the philologist is constantly reminded 
of German in studying the Taal, but the uneducated Boer or 
German speaker would quite overlook this, for their consonantal 
systems are entirely different. On the other hand, the Frisian 
speech was, in very early times, common to the eastern and 

1 Kaapsche, speech of the Cape, to which for generations the Dutch 
colonists were confined. 



192 STUDIES m LOWLAND SCOTS 

western shores of the North Sea, and these shores were more 
nearly opposite, and united therefore more closely by trade, on 
the side of Scotland than of England. In addition, the two 
peoples enjoyed substantially the same Calvinistic type of 
Church, a type which has been even better preserved in South 
Africa than in either Scotland or Holland. Certainly, during 
the first half of the eighteenth century, a Scotsman would find 
himself vastly more at home in Leyden, Eotterdam, or Amsterdam 
than he would in London, or even Newcastle. The Boers them- 
selves are well aware of this bond of union. The German 
overseer in Olive Schreiner's " Story of an African Farm " tells 
the knave, Blenkins, when introducing him to the Boer woman, 
Tant Sannie, to call himself a Scotsman. The English she 
hates. 

It is a well-known characteristic of the Boer that he dearly 
loves to walk in the old ways, and of these not the least 
cherished is his vernacular. A few of the old-fashioned among 
ourselves similarly cling fondly to their "braid Scottis," but 
they are a fast vanishing quantity. The Boer always thinks 
and speaks of his Taal or speech as die ou'we, his familiar abbrevi- 
ation of old. Like the Scot he is fond of dropping I. Thus in 
a version of " The Cottar's Saturday Night," by Eeitz, devoted 
henchman to Kruger, he makes " the sire," die ou man, read een 
sions lied (song) in d'Ouwe Taal, when " he wales a portion of 
the big ha' Bible." This Taal is the Dutch of a century ago, 
modified by the phonetic corruptions natural to the changed 
surroundings and languid life on the Southern Veldt, and 
mingled with such English and Kaffir as is necessary for inter- 
course with the Uitlanders, to whom the old burgher's attitude 
is as proudly conservative as that of any Prussian junker or 
Highland duine-wassel, the over-lord whom the Norse imposed 
upon Celtic communistic life. This type of the full-flavoured 
Transvaaler is the Dopper Boer, an epithet that has sadly fallen 
in English, suggestive as it is of that Simon Tapper-tit who was 
the redoubtable hero of " Barnaby Eudge." In Dutch, however, 
it still retains all the dignity of its German cognate, tapfer, 
brave and valiant. From Dutch New York we have got it in 
the very modern toff. But it is still a Scottish dialect word. 
In Dumbartonshire as a note of admiration one hears, " My ! 



SIDE-LIGHTS 193 

that's a topperer," with a verb also, to toper, to surpass, to 
clinch. The Cumberland man applies " topperer " to any thing 
or person that is superior, — 

" The king's meade a bit of a speech, 
An gentlefwok say it's a Topper." — 

Anderson's " Cumberland Ballads." 

The Dopper Kirk is the highest expression of this exclusive 
unco-guidness, which also so markedly characterised the true- 
blue Hillman of the seventeenth century. And with reason, 
for both can trace their dourly militant Calvinism to the same 
source — the Hollanders that baffled the legions of the Spanish 
Inquisition. The Scottish Church in Eotterdam has for three 
centuries marked the close affinity between Scot and Dutchman. 
Here Wallace, leader of the hapless Pentland rising, was a ruling 
elder, and so also was Hamilton, of " Old Mortality " fame, that 
wilful but unfortunate leader who so bungled the defence of 
Bothwell Brig. Here, too, John Brown of "Wamphray ordained 
Kichard Cameron in 1679, to fall desperately afterwards 
at Airdsmoss in 1681. From the Hillmen were recruited 
those "doughty fighters, the Cameronians. The term Dopper, 
applied to Dutch Calvinism in the Transvaal, is in no sense 
ecclesiastical, though one sees it sometimes interpreted as the 
Quaker, and again as the Baptist, Church. There is really 
nothing to support either interpretation. 

If we are to get along with the Dutch of the Cape we had 
better try as soon as possible to understand this Taal to which 
they cling so fondly. For nothing so wins the affections and 
sympathies of a race with whom our lot may be cast as show- 
ing a kindly interest in their homely speech. Unfortunately 
the average Englishman is too apt to dispose of a strange tongue 
as simply a " rum lingo " and not worth mastering. Similarly 
to the Greek, everyone who did not understand his language 
was classed as a barbarian, a babbler. In the case of an Asiatic, 
a Polynesian, or a Negro dialect there is some excuse for in- 
difference, but the Afrikander's speech is only indirectly a 
foreign tongue. Apart altogether from those borrowed words 
that reach us through education and trading intercourse, English 
and Dutch are structurally akin, belonging as they do to cognate 

13 



194 



STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 



branches of the great Teutonic family. Though in usage the 
Afrikander's vocables largely follow German, his consonantal 
system is frequently identical with English. Thus he speaks 
of somer and winter, dag and daa'e {g elided) and nooit, hart and 
bleed, vleesch and bane, steen and leem, vuur and water, and 
ijs, melk and hotter, and brood and drank, a Bijbel and a boek 
— all easily recognisable under the thin guise of altered spelling 
and pronunciation. His familiar epithets are obviously akin to 
ours, such as — 



Taal. 


Sc. 


Eng. 


Jong 


yung 


young 


niuwe 


noo 


new 


warm 


warr'm 


warm 


keel 


ciile 


cool 


siek 


seek 


sick 


wel 


weel 


well 


fijn 


fine 


fine 


doof 


daef 


deaf (defif) 


wit 


white 


white (wite) 


grijs 


grey 


grey 



The wearing-down process is very apparent in epithets like goeje 
(good), rooje (red), breeje (broad), weije (wide), ouwe (old), koud 
(cold). The Scottish vernacular does not go quite so far, though 
one may hear 's-awfyka' the day for " It's awfully cold to-day." 
On the other hand, an unnecessary dental was added as in 
publict, witht. Such forms are found late in the eighteenth 
century. A medial guttural is also objectionable to the Boer. 
Thus he says daa'e for daage (days), and oo'ies for oogies 
(eyes), and even a final g may go as in lui, lazy, where we 
have an interesting modification of the syllable seen in Eng- 
lish lag and laggard. 

Action words also show close resemblances, such as we find 
in leef (live), groei (grow), kom, gaan (go), ken (know), vergeet, 
vergee (forgive), dek (deck), bloos (blush), sit, staan (stand), seg 
(say), and leg (lie). "Words for relationship exhibit equally 
affinity and lazy articulation — va'er (father), broer, neef (nephew), 
but others have been little changed, as moeder, suster, and sussie, 
seun, dochter. In North-eastern Scotland dialectic variations 



SIDE-LIGHTS 195 

show forms like fader, breeder, neeper (neighbour). This last, 
again, is the Irish " Napper Tandy '' in the " Wearin' o' the 
Green." South African speech has further remarkable affinities 
with Scottish dialects. " Is dit die naaste pad ? " for Is't the 
nearest (nighest) path or road ? might almost be heard here at 
home. We regularly find neest for nearest in Scottish verse. 
"When one hears in some country districts in Scotland such 
words as nearder and faarder for nearer and faarer (Eng. farther 
is wrongly formed), one is apt to regard them as ignorant 
corruptions, but they are really double comparatives (naa-re-d-er, 
faar-re-d-er), showing the older affix — re as in more — and the 
latter er with d inserted to separate the liquids. Now in Dutch 
it is the rule to insert d before er in adjectives ending in re, as 
vere, verder (far, farther) and zwaare, zwaarder (sweerer). 

The wearing-down process is still more apparent where 
affinity with German is most direct. Thus we have na'ant (guten 
Abend, good evening), eers (erste, first), lus (Lust, pleasure). 
Here (Kleider, clothes), rus-plaas (Eust-platz, rest-place), rek 
(reeht, right), eenvoudig (einfaltig, onefold), gen (kein, no), blij 
(bleiben, remain), glo (glauben, believe), krij (kriegen, obtain), 
spreck (sprechen, speak), slaan (schlagen, strike), snij (schneiden, 
cut), verjaa (verjagen, drive off). But the consonantal changes 
generally incline to the English or Low rather than to the 
German or High Dutch type, as these examples show : Oudste 
or ouste (alteste, oldest), deur (Thiire, door), ook (auch, eke), diep 
(tief, deep), twede (zweite, second). It is curious to find that 
Cape Dutch, like Scots, prefers to harden initial sch into sk in 
contrast to German, as shown in skrij (Sc. skrive, Ger. sehreiben, 
write) and schade (Sc. skaid, Ger. Schade, damage). As Heeren 
Logeman and Oordt say, the rule is absolute, we ought to call 
the prominent politician Schreiner, Skreiner, in Taal fashion, 
and, this connects the name with the old Scottish trade of the 
skriners, originally shrine-workers, and latterly cabinet-makers. 

The most interesting affinities of the Taal are with Lowland 
Scots, and this quite apart from borrowings. One of the most 
characteristic features of our dialects is the fondness for diminu- 
tives to north of Tay, evidently a survival of Norse and Frisian 
influences. This is well marked in the Taal as in merrie (mare), 
beitjie (bit), meisie (miss), wortjie (word), hartjie (heart), kereltje 



196 



STUDIES IN LOWLAND SOOTS 



(carlie). In some cases one hears even the Scottish tones of the 
voice as in — 



Tad. 


Sc. 


Eng. 


huis 


hooss 


house 


muis 


mooss 


mouse 


vrind 


freend 


friend 


en 


an' 


and 


kerel 


caerl 


carle 


seker 


siccar 


secure 


een 


ane 


one 


heel 


hale 


whole 


nieer 


mair 


more 


groote 
such 
kijk 
sweet 


grit 
sooch 
keek 
sweet, swaet 


great 
sigh 
(look) 
sweat 


crau 


craw 


crow 


dwijn 

wijt 

bees 


dwine 

wyte 

beas (s. and pi.) 


(pine away) 

(blame) 

beast 


ure 


oor 


hour 


juist 

zoolang 

duik 


jilst 

so long ! 
dook 


just 

good by ! 
duck (dive) 



If we consider slight variations in sound, with or without change 
of sense, further resemblances arise. Thus we find elk for the 
Scottish ilka (each), speul, to play, for speel, to climb ; spoor, a 
trace, for speer, to find out by asking ; hou (hold) for hud, and ge' 
for gied (gave), both with dropped dental; stuit, to knock up 
against, for stot, to rebound ; duiwel, the devil, for deevil ; loup, to 
go, or run for loup, to jump. Boer preferences, even, seem to run 
on Scottish rather than Dutch lines, witness his persistent choice 
of maak (make) rather than the Hollander's do. Even phrases 
have a familiar ring to the Scotsman's ear, as " een gang o' 
water " (very hard to put concisely in English), or " jij moet 
huis toe gaan " (ee mon gang to ee hoose). When in Fergusson's 
" Leith Eaces " we read : " The races done, we hale the dules wi' 
drink o' a'-kin kind," we have a genuine Taal phrase, " haal die 
doel," to reach the aim or goal. The dulls are still familiar to 



SIDE-LIGHTS 197 

schoolboys as standpoints in the game of rounders. A Scot 
might say with a Boer, "Dat's het" for "That's it," while such 
phrases as these translate themselves : Hoe veel wil u be ? Ik 
is met pa ; wat meen jij ? H6 je een beitjie brood voor mij ? 

In grammar the resemblances between the Taal and Scots 
are equally striking. The double negative is frequently used in 
both, as "It'll no be hizz nether." The Northern English sub- 
stantive verb uses is throughout, and this is the rule in Cape 
Dutch: "Ik is een arm man," I am a poor man; "Die tije is 
zwaar," The times is hard (sweer). The verb have is either hae 
or het, singular and plural, as " 0ns het al-tijd lets te mis voor 
een arm mens," Hizz hae all-tide something tae spare for a poor 
man ; " Die kinders het vrinde genog," The children have friends 
enough. So one hears in Scbtland, " Oor bairns hizz (or hae) 
naethin' to maak a wark aboot." The Boer preserves the sub- 
junctive as Burns and older writers do : " Ik ga niet uit want 
(Ger. wenn) ik ben ziek," I go not out if I be sick. A parallel 
idiom is, for the time of day, half two (half-past one), twal oor 
(midday, twaalf uur, in Taal). 

In one respect the Taal has the advantage of the Scots 
vernacular. As a living speech it grows and adapts itself to 
new conditions. How modern are these words and phrases, 
alike in their old-world guise ! — faar-keeker, a telescope ; spoor- 
boekjie, a time-table ; on-smet, to disinfect ; snij-dokters, cutting 
doctors, surgeons ; ik shorthand ken en kan typewrite. One 
looks, also, to such elements as metaphors, proverbs, and the 
like for evidences of vitality in a language. The Boer's blad 
stil (blade still) strikingly depicts a dead calm. These popular 
sayings are simple, but expressive : — 

Zoo vast as een Mip = so huge as a cliff 

(cf. " The shadow 
of a great rock"). 

slim ,, „ jakhal = sly as a jackal. 

stil „ „ muis = quiet as a mouse. 

zach „ veeren = soft as feathers. 

dood „ een klip = dead as a stone. 

koud „ ijs = cold as ice. 

oud „ die Kaap = old as the Cape. 
Een kerel as een boom = a fellow like a tree, a blockhead. 



198 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

Proceeding in less obvious directions, we meet with many 
Boer words that are rich in suggestions of old-world ways and 
words in Lowland Scotland. This is true even where com- 
parison with German is directly involved. Thus the Volksraad 
or council of the folk points clearly to German Eath, counsel, but 
it lived almost to our day in Scotland. Burns in his " Epistle 
to a Young Friend " says, " And may you better reck (heed) the 
rede (counsel) than ever did the adviser." Its kindred sense of 
good order survives still as in the phrase, " to redd up (tidy) the 
house." The champion of the Eaad had an obviously German 
name, Kriiger, a tapster, but this again is from Krug, well known 
in Scotland as crock, a mug or tankard. Since this served as 
a sign, a krug is in Dutch also a common public-house. The 
regular Dutch for crockery is crock-werk. Leem, or clay, was 
a seventeenth-century borrowing from Holland, for Sir Eobert 
Sibbald in his " Stirlingshire " tells us where laim was made in 
the county. Grigor says (" Glossary of Buchan Dialect ") that 
in Buchan it now means a broken piece of crockery. It is 
difficult to associate the simple, patriarchal, pious Boer with 
a taste for the alehouse, but those familiar with him do not 
hesitate to say that he is sometimes " under the influence." 
Anyhow, he knows the Dutch for a village alehouse, kneipe, 
familiar, as a comparatively recent borrowing from Holland, 
among German students, who revel in their Bier-kneipen. One 
is tempted to connect it with " the reamin nappie " of Burns. To 
judge by the Buchan use of nappie it primarily refers to the jug 
and not the liquor it contains. The Boer has two words for a 
dram — a sopje and a slag. Thus in " A Veldt Official " a Boer says, 
" Come in and have a glass of grog, Musgrave ; we'll have our 
sopje anyhow." It suggests the soupe that old Hawkie afforded 
in " The Cottars," though this was in the innocent form of milk. 
The Taal " slag " is just the familiar Scottish slocken, to quench 
thirst. In Shetland sluck is to gulp in drinking. And as gorge 
and gully both involve the metaphor of a throat-like pass, so 
slack is common in place-names for a defile. Thus we have 
the farm of Gate Slack in the long glen or Pass of Dalveen, of 
which Burns sings in " Last May a Braw Wooer." 

The Boer is essentially a nomad, taking naturally to a roving 
life in his waggon with all his dependants, as did his remote 



SIDE-LIGHTS 199 

Gothic ancestors when they moved slowly but irresistibly west- 
wards across the great plain of Europe even to the shores of the 
North Sea. But the monotony of his outlook over the arid, 
treeless veldt is very different from that of his remote ancestor, 
hemmed in by the weird gloom of the primeval forest, where 
lurked the wolf and the bear and the wild boar. The climate 
compels him to be on the move still. At the end of April he 
packs up his waggons on the high veldt where he has spent the 
summer, shuts up his house, and treks to the lower or bush veldt 
for the winter feeding. The rains set in at the end of September, 
when he returns to his house with his belongings. This is a 
primitive custom of northern lands adapted to new conditions. 
The " summer sheelins " lingered longest in the Highlands, but 
they were general in Old Scotland. In the " Complaint of Scot- 
land" (1545 ?) there is a delightfully realistic description of this 
popular custom, which did more than all else put together to 
foster the popular literature of ballad, song, dance, and folk-lore 
generally. But of this aspect there seems to exist only Psalm- 
singing among the Boers. Another seasonal word, oogst, harvest 
(oo'st tijd, 'in the Taal), has also been transferred by the first 
settlers to their new home under the Southern Gross, for it is 
but another form of August. This oo'st of the Boer is the old 
French Aoust (Aout) of his Dutch Huguenot ancestors. The 
original significance of the term must long have been forgotten, 
for this month is nearly mid-winter in South Africa. 

An officer in the first Boer War graphically sketches the 
landscape on the veldt ("Blackwood's Magazine," 1880-81): 
"You may travel a hundred miles without seeing a tree. 
Houses are ugly cottages, with low roofs of galvanised iron, so 
low as to escape notice altogether but for the clump of blue 
gums beside them " (cf. " Cottar's Saturday Night," — 

" At length his lonely cot appears in view 
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree "). 

"A few acres not far off are under the plough. Through the 
middle of the scene is a stream or bog, from which water is got. 
Eound a part of it runs a stone wall to keep the cattle out. The 
windows of the house have four small panes. Pigs, cows, and 
dogs and children run at large together. The roads are a bit 



200 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

of dirty tape thrown down carelessly on the veldt, and not even 
pulled tight. Waggons are always straying from the track for 
firmer ground. In bottoms flows a marshy spruit or burn. 
Where there is a drift or ford this is churned into pools, where 
maybe a dead ox is lying." If we substitute thatch for the 
galvanised roof this might pass for a description of much of 
Scotland, even so recently as last century. In fact it is a 
graphic picture of an old-time Highland clachan set amid its 
background of local colour. Certainly wheeled vehicles in Old 
Scotland were fewer, but the bridle tracks sought the firm high 
ground as independently, avoiding the bogs where the cattle 
might be lairdet (bemired). The ford was as troublesome as 
the drift, and equally a source of danger or delay when a spate 
came down. The Boer transferred the name veldt from his 
northern home. It is the Norwegian and Scottish fell. An 
obscure survival of it in Scotland is haemit, a peculiarly expres- 
sive word for what is homely and familiar. A less contracted 
form — haemilt — prevails in the North-eastern counties, where 
it means pasture adjoining an enclosure. In Icelandic it is 
heimilt, a contraction for the heim-veld. One familiar only 
with haemit might well take haemilt to be a corruption instead 
of the purer and older form. 

The Boer farming customs are much like those of Old Scot- 
land, where the farm land was divided into the infield or arable 
portion, enclosed by a fael or turf dyke, and the outfield or open 
grazings on the moorland. The name itself, as bower, is regu- 
larly used in Ayrshire for a dairy farmer on the steelbow, Fr. 
metayer, system. Near the homestead was the loanin or haemilt 
where the cows were kept at milking-time or during the heat of 
the day ; and this ground, being thus heavily manured or tothed, 
as it was called, raised the best here crop of the following 
season. In the dry air of the veldt the cow-dung is invaluable 
as fuel, but in bygone Scotland it was too frequently thrown 
into the burn, which was as little conserved as a Boer spruit. 
This word is well known in Scotland, though in a different 
sense, that is, as the spruit or spout of a kettle. Before the 
introduction of draining many were the wet spots where the 
rushes grew in such plenty that the general name for the plant 
was sprits Originally sprit meant to spurt or squirt out water 



SIDE-LIGHTS 201 

(Du. spruiten, Ger. spriessen). In English the root was trans- 
ferred to growing, hence sprout. The Banff hill farmer applies 
it to a particularly tough, strong rush which he twists into 
ropes. " Spritty knowes " or wet, rush-grown spots (water 
springs) were only too common in the pre-draining days. Burns, 
too, tells how his mare Maggie stoutly " spread abroad her well- 
filled briskit " and pulled the plough over " the spritty knowes." 
The favourite term in the West of Scotland for the kettle nozzle 
is not sprout but stroup, of Norse origin. The " Bachelor to his 
Bellows" in "Kilwuddie" sings, — 

" Eay ther than see a f rien' sae leal 

Gang ony siccan roads, 
I'd mak a poker o' yer stroup, 
Twa pat-lids o' yer brods." 

A ditch, again, is a sluit, an old Dutch and Boer word familiar 
in Scotland for a mill-lade as being controlled by a sluice. The 
Sclate, or old burgh, mill of Irvine probably meant originally 
the mill on the sluit. 

The nomadic habits of the Boer are reflected in his language. 
To go on foot is to be a thief and a liar, as are all pedlars and 
gangrel bodies, such as were those sorners who were hunted off 
to their own parish in Old Scotland. Every honest Scottish 
farmer must ride his own nag with sonsy goodwife on the pillion 
behind, even though that were only a turf seat, the sonks that 
we read of as doing such service. At the kirk-stile and before 
the ha'-house stood the loupin-on stane, the counterpart of the 
Boer stoep. This is not a Celtic racial feature but a Norse one, 
for the Highlander has always been an infantry man, and kept 
his garron merely for the pack-saddle. On St. Michael's Day in 
Norse Scotland everyone in the township had to mount and 
enjoy a mad gallop. Eiding the marches is still a great holiday 
in some Lowland towns, and the hroose is not long extinct, in 
which the wild stampede of the bridal party from the kirk to 
the home earned for the first comer his bottle. To his horse 
the Boer applies a modification of the German Pferd in the 
form of paard or pirt. Cronje made his last desperate stand at 
Paardeberg, the hill of horses. So much a part of the Boer's 



202 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

life is his horse that he says, " Ik het een honger as een paard," 
for our " hungry as a hawk." But the bridle is known as toom, 
identical with the English team, though in a different sense. 
As in all primitive communities, the thong is the handiest 
material for cordage, and this is the Boer reim or reimpjie. 
" He had knee-haltered the animal with too great a length of 
reim. . . . Tom, the Kaffir boy, was dressed in the ordinary 
slop clothes of a store, more or less tattered, and more or less 
ingeniously repaired with bits of reimpjie " ("A Veldt Official "). 
In German the word is Riemen, but is also Old English. As it 
is properly applied to long, narrow strips of hide, one should 
connect it with the Scottish runes {m and n frequently inter- 
change), the selvage of cloth. Hence Bums jocosely calls 
mischievous youngsters run-deils, strips, as it were, of Old 
Nick. In the Scots Privy Council Eegisters (1620) there is an 
interesting example of the word : " Grite abuse by slascheing 
of hydis and cutting of some of the rinie away." 

To complete his equipment the Boer wants only his gun, 
and this he visualises by a term peculiarly his own. " Eoden 
could find no buyer for his old smooth-bore. A Boer would 
pick it up. ' A good roer,' would be his verdict, ' an excellent 
roer in its day ' " (" A Veldt Official "). This word is explained 
by the German Bohr, a reed. It is only a variant of rush, as in 
bulrush, or in Burns's " Green Grow the Eashes," where rashes 
means, however, a different plant. The roer is the Boer's con- 
stant companion. He is not only a born sportsman, but, as lord 
over an inferior but treacherous race, he is a wary " man of war 
from his youth up." Knowing himself to be left as his own 
master, one of a governing few among many, he instinctively 
selects the defensive positions which the country affords in 
abundance. He prefers the advantage of a kopje, and using 
the stones scattered about in profusion, speedily constructs his 
schants or breastwork. Here we have the German Schanze, 
common on the lower Ehine in the sense of a bundle of sticks, 
such as the Dutch construct so cleverly to fence their water- 
ways. This old Dutch word is used in the form sconce by 
Shakspere, both as bulwark and humorously as the skull, the 
bulwark of the head : " To knock him about the sconce with a 
dirty shovel." When the Boer finds himself snugly en-sconced 



SIDE-LIGHTS 203 

behind his schants with roer in hand he is not, as we know 
too well, easily dislodged. 

The waggon is of no less importance to the nomad Boer. It 
is his house, and, if surprised in the open, his castle too, for he 
then forms a hollow square, or laagers-up, within the square of 
waggons placed end to end. On the move in the waggon he 
treks, and when he yokes and unyokes he inspans or outspans 
respectively. There are two very common verbs in Lowland 
Scotland — trake, to gad about, and troke, to barter — the former 
of which is probably the Dutch trek, to take the road. In the 
Cumberland dialect treak is an idle fellow, and as a verb to 
wander idly about. " What is't ta treaken about this teyme o' 
neet ? " There is no doubt about spayig, to stretch, being widely 
known in Scotland, particularly to boys when playing bools or 
marbles. In Orkney spong is to stride. Stevenson uses it 
effectively in his " Underwoods," — 

" An' whiles the bluid spangs to my bree, 
To lie sae saft, to live sac free, 
While better men maun do an' die 
In unco places." 

Not the least interesting phase in the study of words is the 
modification of a radical idea under the influence of race and 
environment. As every term involves substantially a buried 
metaphor we thus see how unknown namers looked at the 
objects to the naming of which they diverted the stock of 
linguistic material that was the general property of the race. 
Many Transvaal words are not only in form but also conception 
identical with our own vernacular, but not a few, while radically 
akin, are put to new uses. This is specially the case with 
features of the landscape. It is natural to name the new and 
strange by reference to the old and familiar. Thus the Norse 
settlers in Clydesdale, arrested by the striking appearance of 
the isolatiid hill, Tinto, nairied it after a home term, tand, a 
tooth. So the Boers called those knobs that form the foot-hills 
of the Drakenaberg, Kops or heads (German Kopf). But the 
radical idea was nothing more than anything rounded and 
prominent. Chaucer visualises his miller thus, — 



204 STUDIES IN' LOWLAND SCOTS 

" Upon the cop right of his nose he hade 
A werte, and thereon stood a tuft of heres, 
Eeede as the berstles of a sowes eeres." 

The word appears with variations of vowel and sense : cup, cap, 
cob, ettercop (spider), kibe (a swoln sore on the heel, Shak.). 
Lower eminences, again, have the diminutive form, kopje, and 
this is merely the Scottish cappie in the kindly wish, "May you 
aye be happy and ne'er drink oot o' a toom (empty) cappie ! " 
though the point of view is widely different. In Cape Dutch 
hop is also the favourite word for "head," and not the Hollander 
lioofd, which is used only in a figurative sense as die hoofd-laager 
or headquarters. In Holland, on the other hand, kop is regarded 
as a vulgar term for the head. Compare the vulgar English, 
nut. Similarly, the French t§te is the Latin testa, a pot, while 
in Scots the skull is the harn-pan. 

There is indeed but little play for the imagination on the 
monotonous veldt. It is otherwise with the torrent-swept 
passes of the Drakensberg, where beck and spruit have eroded 
the slopes into profound, rock-walled gorges. The Boer, modi- 
fying the Dutch klip, a crag, calls such a place a kloof. Here, 
habituated as we are to rock-bound coasts, the word is used in 
the form cliff. Another feature of the lofty passes is a hoek, 
such as Bushman's in the Stormberg, which cost G-atacre so 
dear. " The ground sloped abruptly down from about a hundred 
feet, forming with the jutting elbow of the cliff a snug, grassy 
hoek or corner " (" A Veldt Official "). One sees in this word a 
derivative from the Norse holka, more familiar in Scotland as 
howk, to dig up. Hence at home here a hoek is called a hauch, 
only the scene of it is not a rocky pass, but a broad flat holm 
by a riverside. In Highland scenery it is the laggan, or laich, 
place. Still more welcome to the trekker, as his cattle toil 
wearily up the pass, is the nek. "Ambling along the dusty 
waggon-road which led up to the grassy nek, about a mile from 
the township," is a bit of description in "A Veldt Official." 
This word is the equivalent of the French col (Lat. coUum, the 
neck), familiar to Alpine climbers, and a form of Scots, nick, 
notch. 

Bygone social life in Scotland is reproduced in the speech of 



SIDE-LIGHTS 205 

the Transvaal. In Old Edinburgh, the mistress of a bonny land 
in Advocates' Close, when the christening came on after a lying-in, 
sat up in bed in high dress and received her acquaintances who 
came to congratulate her and taste her sweet-cakes. This was 
the cummers' (French, comm^re) feast, or in Dutch the Jcraam- 
hezuk (German, Besuch) visit. Cummer is still a general rustic 
synonym for a lass. In the Transvaal the bed on such occasions 
is the kraam, a booth or screen, also the name of those stalls, 
the krames, that were hidden away between St. Giles and the 
Luckenbooths in Old Edinburgh. They were borrowed from the 
picturesque shops that surround the cathedrals of the Nether- 
lands. A Kram in Germany is a small shop, but the custom of ' 
the kraam-bezuk is there known as the Kind- (child) or Wochen- 
bett (bed). Another singular survival both of Teutonic social 
customs and vocables, is a Boer opsij or rustic wooing. The 
term is a variant of up-sit (omission of final dental). The " up- 
set " in a Scots burgh was the fee payable to the craft on admis- 
sion to the trading privileges of a master. The conviviality 
attending the function long survived among artisans as a 
" foy." When a meisjie, or a widow well tochered with suffi- 
cient skaap (sheep), is visited by an eligible Dopper, " kom 
tae vrij " (woo), he off-saddles, and, if graciously received, pre- 
pares to improve the occasion with the bucolic reserve of the 
Laird of Dumbiedykes. The vrouw takes the long candles 
from the shrank (cupboard), and leaves wooer and wooed to sit 
up together till the grey dawn breaks, a custom which, in one 
form or another, rural Scotland long looked on kindly. The 
envied fair one, who has many of such vrijers, may have to 
sit up four or five nights a week till the eventful choice is 
made. 

There is abundant evidence in language to prove that the 
ancient Northumbria — that is. Lowland Scotland from Tay to 
Humber — was a Frisian or Dutch settlement. Both find their 
affinities in the fertile plains of the lower Danube among 
those Goths for whom their good countryman, Bishop Wulfila, 
translated the gospels into their vernacular in the fourth 
century.' The very tones of his converts live in the Dutch — 



206 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 



Dutch. 


8c. 


Eng. 


wan 


whan 


when 


dan 


than 


then 


nu 


noo 


now 


oot 


oot 


out 


een 


ane 


one 



In his version the thieves twitted (id-weitjan, Du. ver-witjan) 
Jesus on the Cross, just as any Lowland Scot puts the wite 
(Du. wijt) or blame on another. The hireling shepherd in the 
parable is betrayed by his framath voice, the Dutch vremmd, 
and Scottish fremd. Scott, writing to John Ballantine, says : 
" Walter will be in town by the time this reaches you, looking 
very like a cow in a fremd loaning " (paddock). The disciples 
take of the fragments twelve baskets full of Iroclc (ga-bruko, 
Du. brok), a term familiar in every kitchen. The Shetlander 
calls the offal of fish, Irucks. St. Paul tells the Corinthians that 
"all things are lawful, but are not expedient," which Wulfila 
renders, " All bi-nah, akei ni all daug," where we have the Boer 
deiig, virtue, merit, the root of which is primarily a pastoral 
metaphor, to yield milk, then to be good for. It gives us 
doughty, and do in the phrase, " Will that do ? " The old verb 
dow, to be worth, be able, is still in use in Central Scotland. 
In "Johnie Armstrong's Last Good Night" there is a good 
illustration, — 

" These four-and-twenty mills complete, 
Shall gang for thee through a' the year ; 
And as meikle of gude red wheat 
As a' their hoppers dqw to bear." 

When the Saviour sends out the twelve on mission He says : 
" And put not on two coats " — " Jah ni vasjaith tvaim paidom." 
Here Wulfila uses a very old word for a peasant's coat of sheep- 
skin, faida. This explains the contemptuous Boer name for 
an English red-coat, a rooi-baatjie. Both forms follow the 
Greek /SaixTj, a peasant's coat of skins, not the modern Dutch 
pije, a coat of coarse woollen stuff. This latter is what we hear 
in pea-jacket and the mediteval courte-py. It is remarkable 
that Dutch uses not this antique baatje, but jakse or mantle 



SIDE-LIGHTS 207 

(Ger. Jacke, jacket). In the Taal it is applied as in the sen- 
tence, " Is die Heere nie bang dat het sal gaan reen ? . . . N6, 
ons h§t almaal reen-baatjes " — Are you gentlemen not afraid 
that it is going to rain? . . No, we have always waterproofs- 
Calvary, again, in the Gothic is hvairneistaths or harn-stead 
(Du. hersen-pan, Sc. harn-pan), the pot which holds the hams 
or brains. This renders the phrase, " the place of a skull," in 
the English version. 

The homely aspect of life and its relations are naturally 
prominent. The patriarchal head is the huis heer, or, gener- 
,ally, the baas, based on the figure of the boss on a shield or 
the Scotch bush, the nave or hub of a wheel on which the 
spokes (children), felloes (dependents), and rim (outer world) 
all depend. Vrouw, the housewife, is the term of honour in 
preference to wife. The children are the kleintjies, the little 
ones (Ger. Klein). Broers and broederen preserve the dis- 
tinction in brothers and brethren. Kindly inquiries take such 
forms as these : " Maarie, waar (whaur) is jou zussie ? Is dit 
jou dochterjie ? " Conventional address is equally patriarchal. 
One younger than the speaker is son ; of his own age, neef 
(knave, in Ger. boy, lad) ; if a lady, tante ; if younger, nicht 
(Ger. nephew). Ou is familiarly addressed to anyone, like our 
old, old boy. Parts of the body are quite intelligible, such as 
the " luff (or palm) van de hand," the oor (ear), and the oksel, 
or armpit (Sc. oxter). 

In the domestic series the Boer comes equally close to the 
Scot. He mends the vuur (fire) with tangs (tongs), hoests 
(coughs), has a kinJchoest (whooping-cough), snotters or snivels, 
knows the virtue of a steek in time, taps his beer with a kraan, 
admires a Ireed shouder and sound lids (Du. leden, C. Du. le'e, 
joints, " lith and limb "), and prides himself in being slim 
(Sc. slim, Du. slem, Ger. schlimm), believes himself to be kloek 
(Ger. Mug, clever) or gleg i' the uptak like the Scot. His huis 
has a roef, and a gevel (Gothic gibla, pinnacle of the Temple). 
From the stoep one enters the one large common room, the 
kitchie (Aberd.) of this ha'-house, with sleeping chambers 
leading off it. The hultong and the mealies hanging from the 
rafters represent the Scottish Iraxy and the weel-hained 
kebbooks. The loft above is reached by a trap (Ger. Treppe). 



208 STUDIES IN LOWLAIH) SCOTS 

This is the usual Scots word for a ladder. In school to take 
down a rival and thus climb higher in the class we called to trap. 
The Taal calls a stair a trap, as in the sentence, " CJa die trap 
op, loop voorbij (walk past) twee deure in die gang (passage), en 
klop (clap, knock) dan aan die derde deur," where the language 
is Scots enough to be easily followed. The "who goes up 
my winding stair " connects trap as at once a stair and a snare. 
The window, as in a Scottish borrowstoon when glass was scarce, 
closes with a schut or wooden screen, a term in constant use 
here in olden days. Amid the reek (So. Du. rook, smoke) hangs 
the pot on the fire by the lum-cleek (Du. and Sc. lum, a chimney, 
and klik a hook and eleek in golf), while the guidwife plies her 
canny trokes (Sc. Du. drok, busy) about the kitchen in home- 
made vel-schoen {fell or skin shoes), the bauchles or revlins 
(Orkney) of the days before machine-made slippers. Out of 
doors the Boer would recognise the sheep flake (Sc. and Du,) 
or hurdle, originally of flaked or plaited twigs, and the 
thoroughly Scottish saying, " Let the tow (rope) gang (gaan) wi' 
the bucket," for the folly of crying over spilt milk. He makes 
a kink (Sc. Mnch) on his tovj or tuig, and might easily hazard a 
guess at the meaning of Bums's lines, — 

" My fur a-hin's (oflf-wheeler) a wordy beast (Du. waarde bees) 
As e'er in tug or tow was traced." 

A Cape man, doing business up-country, was buying horses for 
his waggon, and this is what the Boer seller had to say for 
them : " Die paar paarde is goed geleer (weel learnt) in die 
tuig." A pole or stick is a sta'rvg, just as in the Scottish phrase 
to ride the stang, and to smother is to smore. When the auld 
mare came to a stey (steep) brae. Burns reminds her, — 

" Just thy step a wee thing hastet, 
Thou snoov't awa'." 

This shows the Boer moove, to walk smoothly. A " stey brae " 
is in the Transvaal " een steile op-draus," a stiff up-drawing or 
climb, where we have the same word as there is in stile, or steps 
over a wall in the absence of a slap or a yett. It is, indeed, 
surprising to find so many of the homeliest Scots expressions 



SIDE-LIGHTS 209 

in the Taal. One might fancy a private of the Scottish Borderers 
becoming quite brotherly with a Boer,, for the jou (you to rhyme 
with now) and the mij (me) of both are almost identical in 
sound. The Boer's inquiry, " Is jou hoofd zeer ? " — is your head 
sore, would not sound strange. Similarly a Cameronian in the 
Scottish Eifies would find his strong r in " warm " quite equiva- 
lent to the Boer's warem(e), as also the long vowel in school- 
maistre (C. Du. meester). Both will agree in taking a wife or a 
wifie in a depreciatory sense. The respectful vrouw is applied to 
a woman. The Scot would understand the Boer's " Ga maar binne 
in die huis" (gae mair ben the hoose), a "sully k^rel" for a 
simple-minded sumph is his own phrase, and 'tweel I wat is 
almost his way of saying "I am well aware" ("Net weel Ik 
weet " — pronounced wait). "Who could miss " Ja, dat is het " — - 
that's hit. When we read in Burns, " The gossip keekit in his 
loof," we almost hear the Boer's "Hij kijk in die leof." The 
obscure word iets, used in preference to the Hollander wat 
(what) for anything indefinite, and its negative niets are very 
common in the Taal, They are contractions for Scottish ocht 
and nocht (Eng. aught and naught). Both appear in the 
sentence, " H^ je een beitje brood voor mij ? " " N^, ik h6 ver 
jou niets, maar (but, mair, cf, Fr, mais, majus) die man daar het 
iets ver jou." "Neem een komme water en dicht die vloere 
op " (take a kimmin o' water an' clean up the floor) shows, in 
Tisem, an old English verb which Shakspere had in mind 
when he qalled a pickpocket Corporal Nym ; while kimmin 
(komme) is a well-known East Coast word for what would in 
Lanarkshire be called a bine or bucket. " Die lum rijk zwaar " 
is the Kaapsch (C. Dutch) for "The chimney smokes badly," 
where zwaar is the Lowland Scottish sweer, unwilling, but used 
in a slightly different sense. The Boer says, " Die pad is zwaar 
Zand " (the road is very sandy). " Die tije (tide-time) is zwaar " — 
the times are hard, "Dat is veel waart" — that is worth a great 
deal, and " G6 die man een stuk brood " — gie the man a piece 
bread, these all sound homely enough. 

The kijk of the Taal is felt by the Hollander to be not 
so dignified as his ziet, which the Transvaaler again avoids. 
Similarly the German thinks its cognate gucken nicM so fein 
as sehen, But d Dutch is fond of kijk, as witness the homely 

14 



210 STUDIES m LOWLAND SCOTS 

phrases — '' Kijk hoe mooi die weer nou is " (See how nice the 
weather is now) ; "Kijk een beetje, daar kom mijn broer, Jakob ;" 
" Hij kijkt naar je " (He's keekin naar ye) ; " Wach een \ beetje, 
laa mij kijk " (Wait a bittie, let me [of. Lanarksh. Le'me] see). 
" Een val ver die muis " is the Boer way of describing a mouse- 
trap. Here we have the German falle, and, curiously, the East 
Coast of Scotland word also, a mooss-faw (Norse musfoU), with 
the usual dropping of a final I. A val deure is a trap-door. 
Evefi the youthful Boer would understand the Doric, to swei 
(Du. zwaai, swing) on a gate and to be roopie with a bad cold, 
for his roep (Sc. roup, an auction) means a call or a hoarse shout. 
From the sway or swei-cruck, in the old Scottish kitchen, hung 
the kail-pot. The request of the family doctor is equally familiar : 
" Laa' een beetje jou torig zien." " Wat kan ik voor u doen, 
Jufvrouw ? " (Let me see your tongue. What can I do for you. 
Miss ?) When he says " Daar teekens is van een besmettelijke 
ziekte" (there are tokens of an infectious sickness), he uses an 
expression almost identical with the Lowland Scots, smit and 
smittel. The Dutchman speaks plainly. He calla corns, for 
example, likdoorns (body- thorns), using, the old word we have 
in lyke-wake, and calls a surgeon a snij-dokter or cutting doctor. 
He even turns his humour in grim directions. " Hei izet hoekie 
omgegaan " is his euphemism for " He has died." He uses here 
the diminutive of hoelc a corner. Some may see in it a connection 
with our slang, Hook it ! and Hooky Walker. 

It will be seen that our current vernacular can claim close 
kin with the Cape Dutch. But the comparison also carries us 
back to olden times. There a roes has still the force it had in 
Hamlet's " The king has ta'en his rouse," for boisterous con- 
viviality. One can recognise in it the Orcadian ruz, to praise, 
boast. Burns to Gavin Hamilton sings, — 

" Expect na, sir, in this narration, 
A fleechin, flethiin Dedication, 
To roose you up, and ca' you guid, 
An' sprung b' great and noble bluid, 

Because ye're sirnamed hke his Grace." 

In Dutch, too, there is a very strong expression fot constant 
tippling in the verb zuipen, familiar to us in our saep, to soak in. 



SIDE-LIGHTS 211 

More reputable illustrations, socially, are seen in mise, to spai'e, 
as in " 0ns li6 altije iets ver een arm mens to mise " — "We havfe 
dlways something to spare for a poor man. A parallel is found 
in the Cumberland syper, as "The Hivverby lads at fair drinkin 
are Sypers." In mise, to spare, we are reminded of the Scots 
thrifty savings bank on the mantelpiece, the misert-pig, noted in 
Grigor's " Glossary." The reader of such a fine illustrator of old 
manners as Allan Eamsay meets with many interesting points in 
Cape Dutch. His Luckenbooths, from the Dutch luilcen, to close, 
means the shops that were not mere temporary stalls. The lok- 
man was the jailer, and the closed daisy was said to be loeken. 
The vernacular look for a quantity is no corruption of lot, but 
merely a synonym for a nievefu' or fist-full. In the expression, 
again, for " he is dressed," the Cape Dutch " hij trek aan " 
reminds us of Roger in the " Gentle Shepherd," — 

" An few gangs trigger to the kirk or fair," 

or the swains in " Hallowe'en," — 

" The lads sae tng wi' wooer babs, 
Weel knotted on their garten." 

The series " zout, peper, mosterd, azjin (vinegar), zoet olie," is 
of much interest. The obscure azjin reminds us of Hamlet's 
" Woo't drink up Eysell ? " where we see the same stem, essen 
to eat, with a different termination. The form olie for oil 
is exactly what was so familiar to Allan Eamsay and Fer- 
gusson in the vernacular of last century. It is the Dutch 
form of the Latin oleum. In old speech it was always a dis- 
syllable, hence the Olie or Oyl6 wall of St. Katharine's, near 
Edinburgh, 

But the Taal reminds us of many such points of social and 
trading contact between old Holland and Scotland. This .is 
still more evident when we turn to farming terms. The Boer 
applied his rustic terms to the novel conditions of the mining 
industry. Thus he spoke of myn-pachts or mining leases, and 
here we recognise the pact and paction or bargain of our own 
country. But more, strangely Btill, along the Forth or Dutch 



212 STUDIES IN LOWLAOT) SCOTS 

shore of Fife a small fanner is spoken of as a pachter or lease- 
holder, and sometimes described contemptuously as a pauchlin 
buddie. And even in so serious a matter as high politics words 
familiar in old Scotch land-tenure are heard. The Boer con- 
stitution or Grond-wet shows the well-known term a wad-set 
for a property pledged under a mortgage, and in our vernacular 
a bet or pledge is always a wad-g-er. A very common name, 
too, in Scotland for a farm, a place, is universal in South Africa. 
Thus one asks, " Hoe v'er is dit na die plaats van Oom Piet 
Steen ? " How far is it to (Ger. naeh) Old Pete Steen's place ? 
The homestead in the Lowlands is the toon (Ger. Zaun, hedge, 
fence), but this the Boer uses strictly in its original sense of 
an enclosure, or in rural England a garth, as in the phrase, 
" Een meus kijk uit op die tuin," one may look out over the 
garden, given as one of the attractions of a particular lodging. 
The cultivated land of the Boer is without our most trouble- 
some weed in olden times, the gool or wild marigold, but he has 
the name in his ged, yellow. He knows nothing of the old- 
fashioned bere or big, but oats he calls by its antique Scottish 
name, haver, a word that the song preserves in its " haver-meal 
bannocks." And when he mows his com he speaks of whetting 
his scythe with a dijp, just as an Ayrshire man still does. 
Though he uses a Kaffir word for his sheep-pen (kraal), it might 
very well be called a fank as in the west of Scotland, for this 
shows his verb vangen to catch, from which comes our quaint 
legal terms, infang and ootfang theft, and the common descrip- 
tion, " off the fang '' applied to a water-pump when too dry for 
the valve to catch. 



(&) Dunmn Gray. 

Mr. Eeitz, Secretary of the quondam Transvaal Eepublic, 
enjoyed an English education, but seems to have returned to 
his home on the Veldt a confirmed separatist. His sense of 
patriotism, deepened by his sojourn here, led him to do for his 
brethren what King Alfred did for his Englishmen, and that 
was to supply them with a native literature, or at least a 
temporary substitute for it. He knew well that nothing so 



SIDE-LIGHTS 213 

supports the flame of patriotism as pride in the national speech. 
This was in every way a laudable and progressive policy. 
Krugerism, on the other hand, represented, to the Uitlanders 
of Johannesburg and the Eand, a retrograde Conservatism. 
Eeitz rightly tried to foster a popular literature, and so he 
chose for the models he put before the young Boers such pieces 
as " John Gilpin*" and, above all, the poems of Burns. They 
were published, fifty in number, in 1888, when he was Chief 
Justice of the Orange Free State. Of these pieces the outstand- 
ing ones are " The Cottars," " Tarn o' Shanter," and " Duncan 
Gray," They are suggestions more than translations. With 
skill and judgment he selects the features that suit the Boer 
environment, and adds many touches that spring out of the 
changed situation. All of them throw most interesting light 
on the peculiarities, of the people. In "The Cottars" Eeitz 
admirably illustrates the rural homeliness and isolation of Boer 
life, combined with characteristic social and devotional traits. 
" Tam " shows the Boer in convivial mood, the victim at once 
of good fellowship and uncanny spooks. He cheats Auld Nick 
through his slimness and mobility. In " Duncan Gray," again, 
we have the Boer in the lighter vein of a wooer or vrijer, a term 
that is a survival from prehistoric times, for it is just the 
masculine of the Freja or Norse Venus of our Friday or Freja 
Day, and stdl heard in the Ger. Frau. In the Gothic goSpels of 
the fourth century, frijon, to love, is cotnmon, while our Lord 
is generally addressed as Frauja. The wooer is the young 
farmer, Daautjie or Danie Grouws (cf. Ger. grau, grey), while 
the wooed is the meisje (missie), Maartjie or Martha. A word- 
for-word translation will enable the reader, with his Burns in 
hand, to judge of the merits of the pieca It will be noted, in 
this interlinear translation, that wherever an English word 
could be found that was closely akin to its Taal equivalent it 
has been used, though archaic from the modern point of view. 
The second line, as the oft-recurring refrain, need appear only 
once. 



214 STUDIES IN LQWLAND SCOTS 

DAANTJIE GEOUWS.i 

Daantjie kom hier om te vrij, 

Danie comes here for to woo. 

Ja, met vrijers gaat dit soo, 
Yes, 'mid wooers goes it so ; 
Sondags-aants het hij vfer moet rij. 

Sunday-eves he far must (O.-Eng. mote) ride. 
Maartjie steek haar kop in die luch, 

Martie sticks her head in the light, 
Kijk soo skeef en trek terug, 

Keeks so slyly and draws back, 
Sit ver Daantjie glat op vlug. 

Sets Danie clean on the wing. 
Daantjie smeek en Daantjie bid. 

Danie flatters -and Danie entreats (O.-Eng. bid, to p'ay). 
Maartjie's doof en blif maar sit. 

Martie is deaf, and remains however seated. 
Daantjie such vir ure lang. 

Danie sighs fow hour long. 
VSe die trane van sijn wang. 

Wipes the tears frorri his cheeks (Ger. die Wangeji), 
Praat van hemselve op te hang, , 

Prattles of hirnself u^-to-hang, 
Die tijd versach ^ maar oris gevoel. 

But (maar cf. Fr. mais) time softens mr feelings. 
Verachte liefde vford ook.koel. 

Despised love w(nih (becomes) eke cool. 
" Sal ik," aeg' hij, " nets (Ger. nichts) een gek, 

"Shall I," says he, "an oyi,t-andout gowk (fool), 
Om een laife meisie vrek ] 

Fm- a laughing lassie be-driven-away ? 
Sij kan naar die hoenders trek." 

She can near the hens go.'' 

^ The text, of this piece is given in that unique and interesting collection, 
" Robert Burns in Other Tongues," by Dr. Wm. Jacks (Glasgow : Maclehose, 
1896). For help in the English translation I am indebted to my esteemed 
friend, Miss Frances du Toit of Rondebosch, Cape Town, an accomplished 
Afrikander. The language, though not the sense, I have altered so as to 
suggest affinity wherever it exists. 

2 Versach, as if Scots fer-soak, makes soak. 



SIDE-JLIGHTS 215 

Hoe dit kom lat dokters vertel, 

Uow it comes let doctors tell. 
Maartjie word siek en hij word wel, 

Martie grows sick and he grows well. 
Daar's lets wat an haar borsie knaa. 

There's something what {that) in her hosojn gjiaios. 
En hartjie-seer begin haar plaa, 

And heart-sore begins her to-plague, 
Haar oogies glinster ook maar braa. 

Her eyes glisten eke more bright (Sc. mair hraw). 
Daantjie was een sacbte ^ man, 

Danie was a soft {Sc. sauchie) man, 
En Maartjie trek haar dit soo an; 

And Maaiie took it to her so, 
• > Daantjie, krij ^ jammer in sijn hart. 

Danie felt pity in his heart. 
■ Die liefde groei weer an sijn part. 

Love grew again {Ger. wieder) on his part. 
Nou leefsulle same sender smart. 
;. • Now-live they together without vexation. 

The Boer vernacular offers many points for annotation to the 
curious in matters linguistic. German, as the least altered living 
Teutonic speech, is, of course largely represented here, \yitness 
om = um, met = mit, aants = abends, glat = glatt (smooth), 
vir = vier, trane = trane, van = von, !sijn = sein, .wang = 
wange, gevoel = gefiihl, ons = unser, verachte = verachten, 
word = werden, seg = sagen, same = zusammen, oogies = 
augen, krij =.kriegen. But scarce any of these are unknown 
to Scots or old English. Thus . while modern English says 
evening, Scots shows the same softening as the Taal, witness, 
" Hame cam oor gude man at een." We have now lost the 
useful verb, wore? (becomes), but Scott uses it in " Woe worth 
the hour!" This piece, again, shows two of the commonest 
words in Cape Dutch that are explained by Scots and 
German, though at first sight obscure. These are the positive 
lets (ocht = ought), and the negative niets (noeht). But the 

J Sachte, softened, lit. soaked. 

2 Krij, kriegen (German), acquire, obtain. 



216 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

Taal, in following the Dutch, is consonantly akin to Scots 
and English, rather than German, as is shown by comparison of 
the following Boer Words with their German cognates : — te = zu, 
terug = zuriiek, op = a,uf, doof = taub, tijd = zeit, ook = auch. 
We have here also the favourite corruptions of the Taal. Thus 
a dental, both final and medial, frequently disappears as rij for 
ride, Ger. reiten, luch for Scots lieht, or weer for German 
wieder (cf. Eng. with-stand, with-hold), drif for drift. A 
similar softening is seen in ySe for wipe. Such elisions are 
common in all linguistic growth. Eeitz's language, indeed, 
shows nothing to justify the popular contempt for the Taal as 
a vulgar hotch-potch of corrupt Dutch^ English and Kaffir. 

To the Scot the Taal must always sound familiar, for he can 
turn an intelligent- ear to both the Dutch and the German 
elements in it. The sounds are often exactly his own. The 
query, " Hae ye faur te gang ? " is just the Boer, " He'you ver 
te gaan ? " The Boer constantly uses kijk, to look, though in 
Scotland it is but little heard out of the nursery. In South 
Africa, however, photographic views are kiekjies, and a field- 
glass is a ver-kiekjer. Similarly in en for and, een for a and 
one, ure for hour, and lang for long, we are on homely ground. 
The Scot, again, has ceased to sound the guttural in such 
(sigh), but to " keep a calm souch," is still for him a discreet 
silence. 

Eeitz's rendering is spirited, though we miss some character- 
istic touches. "On blithe Yule night when we were fou," is 
discreetly changed so as to suggest the long distances on the 
lonely Veldt and the pleasures of the Op-sit oji the great social 
evening of the week. In the very expressive skeef, we have 
what is really only a variant of the Scottish skeigh. The change 
of final is paralleled in laugh, enough. Of course Ailsa Craig 
must go, but while to " remain seated " may be de rigueur on such 
occasions in Boerland, the change is weak. Nor can the Lover's 
Leap be always practicable in the sun-dried spruits, so " spak 
o' lowpin owre a linn " is dropped. " Grat his een baith bleert 
and blin," is feebly rendered by "wipes the tears from his 
cheeks." The phrase " een gek " is however stronger than " a 
fool" of the original. "Hunt'e gowk" is to play April fool. 
The word is also in the familiar play-rhymes, given in a former 



SIDE-LIGHTS 217 

section (p. 128). This imitative name for the cuckoo (A.S. gaee) 
denotes a simpleton in many lands. Its monotonous note in- 
spires the Cumberland proverb, " Ye breed o' the gowk, ye've 
nae rhyme but ane." Gibson, poet of the dales, has, " T' pooar 
lal gowk hesn't gumption enough." 

" Een laffe meisje " is only a " giglot lassie," a very different 
thing from a "haughty hizzie." The sly humour, too, of 
"Duncan was a lad o' grace," has been missed in the phrase, 
a "soft or tender-hearted man." The sach here is a familiar 
Scottish word for soft, while, contemptuously, sauchie is a 
simpleton. In the Buchan dialect a selch is a big, stout, daichie 
or doughy fellow, somewhat after the fashion of the seal. 
Selch, in fact, is a dialect equivalent for seal, of which 
it is but the f uUer form. On the whole " Daantjie Grouws " 
is a vigorous and characteristic specimen of the Boer ver- 
nacular, and gives a very favourable impression of the trans- 
lator's literary tastes and sympathies. There remains only 
to add, that in all the piece under discussion we have but 
three terms with which the Boer war made us familiar — kop, 
trek and ons (our), which last is in the title of the Bond organ, 
" Ons Land." 

(c) The Cottar's Saturday Night. 

Saterday-aant in 'n Boerewoning — Saturday-e'enin in a 
Boer-wbning (dwelling, farm). 

Eeitz was evidently in whole-hearted sympathy with " The 
Cottar's Saturday Night," though here too his work is in no 
sense a reproduction but an imitation. We miss the beautifully 
appropriate local colour of the original — the graphic scenery of 
the opening, the elder bairns drappin' in' and all the cackle of 
the clachan, the saintly sire's exhortation to well-doing and 
faithful service, l)he finesse of the blushing Jenny and the pawky 
gudewife, the artless love-making, the kindly Hawkie " 'yont the 
hallan," and the specially Burns touch in deprecating the ensnare- 
ments of artless love. His gray-haired sire is the House-father, 
the Klein-baas (little Boss) of a patriarchal, self-contained estab- 
lishment who has nothing to say of hard manual labour at the 
beck and call of a master, or of " service out amang the farmers 
roun," for there were none to hire on the Veldt. 



218 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

The Season is, of course, not the gloom of November but the 
end of harvest, the Oest-tijd of the Boer's Bible. The sickle is 
away (die sekels weg), and there iS joy in prospect of the morrow's 
rest. Greetings go round (Naant, Gar. Guten Abei^d) from the 
eldest son (die oudste seun) to the little ones (die kleiijtjies). 
Brothers and sisters sit round upright in the hall (broers and 
susters sit rondoin upsij) after the fashion of an old-time funeral 
party, and each outvies the other, in gossip : " The social hours; 
swift-winged, unnoticed fleet " (" die tijd die vlieg so ongemerk 
verbij " = the tide flees so unmarked for-by). There follows a 
specially patriarchal function, the feet-washing (voet-wasbalie 
= f eet-wash-pailie), grateful surely in that dry, dusty land. 
It long survived in Scotland as the rough horse-play of the 
evening before the wedding. 

The watchdog barks (die hoiide blaf = bowffs, bluffs), and 
a knock at the door brings the conscious blush to Elsie's cheeks. 
The young man (die jonkman) greets (greet), Oom, Tante en 
Niggie (Ger. Nichte, niece), Boer conventions for host, hostess 
and girls. The sire, talks to the kereltjie (carlie) of horses, 
pleughs". and kye, but in Boerland this i? horses, sheep an4 
cattle (perde, skaap en vee). The Taal vee is in the openiug 
of Henryson's fiae pastoral,— 

" Robin sat on a gude grene hill, 
Kepand his flok of fie." 

rfom the "neebor lad" (neef Koot, the lad Koot) we pass to 
Maatjie (Maatie, the gudewife) preparing the supper (die Opsit, 
a solemn social function). Instead of the " halesome parritch " 
fin(i Hawkie's yill the table is decked with — 

" Rijs, kerrie, kluitjies, en wit brood 
En hotter waar die vrou op trotsig is, 
'N kora vol melk," 

which may be rendered — Rice, carraway sweets, tarts, and white 
bread and butter, of which the Erau is proud, and a cog of milk. 
A iSouth African assures me that kluitjies here is not clotted 
(our dot, clod) cream, which that land knows not, but "a sort 
of tart with a sticiy, sweet paste inside. Kluit in the Taal i^ 



SIDE-jLIGHTS 212 

a lump or clod, and substantially the same 4s. Se. cliite, ankle, 
hoof of a sheep. The kom milk is .the.Pifeshire kimmin with, 
the suffixed article. " Help jouself, neef Koot," But what cares 
he for the cake ? (koek of tert, mea,ning cookie, and tairt). The 
" of" here is not our preposition. He gazes (kijk) rather at his 
Elsie ; her dear eyes are worth more to him (" haar liewe oogies 
is hom meerder werd "). Lowland Scots do uot, indeed, say 
mairder (more) but they say nearder. 

The supper done ("die, maaltijd 's klaar") the "Tatriarg" 
takes the Bible, "die selfde Boek, wat al sijn voor-ouers had" (the 
self-same Book, what all his (Ger. sein) fore-elders had). It is 
the " big ha'-Bible," such an one as that wherein William Burness 
entered the baptisms in Boer fashion, " waar die doop-registers 
staan." In old St. Andrews the Baptists were known as The 
Dippies. The head of the house of old uncovered only for 
prayer, and so here, — 

"Sijn breerand. hoed: eerbiedig afgehaal, - ■ 
Sijn bartdie is all grijs, sijn hare ijl" — ,, . 

his broad-brimmed hoed (hat) reverentially (Ger. ehrbietig) aff- 
haling, his beard all grey, his hair thin, — ^ 

"Hij lees 'n Sion's lied in d' ouwe taal " — 

he reads (wales) a Sion lay in the old speech. 

There is no note here of the Covenanter's " wild warbling 
measures," but they sing with gees (Ger. Geist), heart and voice. 
They hearken as the old man reads (die ou man les — Ger. 
iesen) of how Moses smote the Amalekite (the Boer's Kaffir 
foe) and David groaned (ge-sug, sooched) under God's anger 
and chastising hand (kastijdend hand). 

This Priester-praal or Evangelical part is done with real 
feeling. Thiere is the picture of the Christ tied " an die Kruis 
met bloedrig sweet " (sweat), — 

"Hoe Hij die hier gen (Ger. kein) rusplaas had op aard, 
Daar Bowe tog die twede naam besit " — 

lipw; He who here no rest-place had on earth, there 'Bove 
(JHeaven) yet the second name; Owns. , ; , 



220 STUDIES IF LOWLAND SCOTS 

There is nothing of the breaking- up of the party in such 
a self-contained household. But we have the secret homage of 
the parent-pair (stil en bed-aard spreek toen die Gristen-vader, 
the grey-haired sire), and the prayer to Him who decks the lily 
fair in flowery pride (wat met prag die lilies kan beklee = who 
with pride the lilies kan beclad). 

There is of course no eulogy of the simple non-Prelatic 
services of the home, no patriotic outburst inspired by Old 
Scotia and Wallace's undaunted heart, but the piece conclude 
with an almost literal rendering of the Burns couplet, — 

" But haply, in some cottage far apart, 
[surely a close appeal on the Veldt] 
May hear, well pleased, the pure language of the soul : 
And in his Book of Life the inmates poor enrol' " — 

"Ter wijl uit so 'n stille needrig hoek, 
Hoor hij die reine siele-taal met wel-behaa 
En skrijf dit iu Sijn ewig lewensboek." i 



(d) Tam o' Shatiter. 

The Boer translator is not nearly so successful with " Tam 
o' Shanter " as with " The Cottars." The rustic setting, the pious 
sentiment, the Biblical flavour of the latter, seem to elicit 
a more sympathetic response. In some respects "Tam" should 
have been equally congenial. The Boer, whether in his cups or 
in his wanderings among the eerie,, baboon-haunted kloofe, is 
peculiarly susceptible to the influence of unholy spooks on his 
nerves, a peculiarly Dutch term for bogles that may very 
plausibly claim kinship with our own Puck and the "wee 
Pechs" of Scottish folk-lore. The strengthening with initial s 
is no unusual feature. But Eeitz so completely misses the 
humour of the situation and its inimitably dramatic touches 
that one wonders if we have here another racial illustration of 
the joke and the .surgical operation. Few fresh features are 
imported into the tale, and only about a third of the original is 
used. The piece is entitled "Klaas Geswint en sijh Pgrt," or 
in German, Nikolas Geschwind (thej mobile) lindCsein Pferd 



SIDE-LIGHTS 221 

(and his horse). The commonplace beginning is unworthy of 
Burns's vigorous visualising: "when you perhaps with your 
mate up in the village sit laughing and chatting, you forget you 
must go home (vergeet jij, jij meet huis toe gaan), otherwise 
Elsie will beat you. She now sits by the fire and mutters, 'I'll 
get him soon as he comes home.' " We miss the graphic picture 
of Auld Ayr's High Street at the close of a market-day, the 
chapmen homeward bent, the change-house going " like a cried 
fair," and the prospect of moorland roads in winter. Elsie is 
a poor substitute for Kate, but the vrou, well used to the 
" handy rung " for the Hottentot help, threatens to beat her 
man (slaan, Ger. schlagen, Eng. slog). Por " nursing her wrath 
to keep it warm " we have merely Irom, expressive in a way, for 
it is akin to the word for barm or yeast. Eeitz moralises on the 
frequent want of appreciation of a wife's advice, to him indeed 
the raison d'ttre of Klaas's subsequent mishap, — 

" Jammer dat mans so selde hoor 
As hulle vrouens, ver hul' knor ; 
Dit is maar so — hul' kaan maar praat, 
0ns luister tog nie na hul' raad. 
Dat dit so is, het Klaas Geswint 
Een donkernag oek uit-gevind ; 

Toen hij terug rij van die Braak, 
Had Klass geluister na sijn vrow 
Dan had dit horn nog nooit berou." 

Pity 'tis that men (mans) so seldom hear (hoor) 

When their good wives scold them ; 

But so it is — they can speak at will, 

We listen never a bit to their good advice. 

That that is so, one Klaas Geswint 

One dark night e'en found it ; 

When he rode home from the Braak. 

Had Klaas listened to his wife 

Then this had never happened to him, 

Elsie's scolding does not want for directness. Not a day 
passed but she said to him, "Klaas, you are indeed an old 
rascal (alte skellem); not a night you have been out of the 



222 STUDIES IN LOWLiiirD SCOTS 

house but you conduct yourself like a beast, and when Koos 
Titles goes with you, then it goes badly with you two." There 
is here the identical epithet Burns uses, skellem, Ger. Schelm. 
It has now quite dropped out of the Scots vernacular, but is 
preserved in Gaelic as sgeilm, boasting, prattling. The booz- 
ing in the change-house is done con amove. "Ee'n afi,nt, in 
plaas van huis toe gaan " (Sc. ane eenin, in place of hooss tae 
gang), Klaas tipples with his Mrels in die hnijp, where we have 
a Dutch word that has been borrow6d by the German students 
for their Bier-kneipen. The glass which he induces his mates 
to give him is een slag, still heard in the Scottisli phrase, to 
" sloken (moisten) one's drouth " or thirst. So they " ge' oom 
Klaas oek nog een dop" (so they gie old Klaas still another 
swig). In dop we have a word once in familiar use in Scotland. 
One of the Lowther family, travelling from^ Carlisle to Edinburgh 
(1629), records in his Journall or diary how, on going to bed for 
the night at laird Pringle's on Gala Water, his host gave him a 
doup of ale, or, in his own Cumberland dialect, a noggin of beer. 
The word is applied also in Cape Dutch to an egg-shell, and 
implies anything deep and rounded. In illustration we have the 
cognate Ger. Topf, a cooking-pot, Eng. spinning-top, and in Scots 
and nearest to Cape Dutch, candle-doup or the conical end of 
a candle. The result of the. conviviality waste render Klaas, 
in Boer phrase, " mooi hoenderkop," beautifully fowl-headed. 
This may only visualise the erratic action of the bewildered 
hen, well known to cyclists, or a brain disease which makes its 
feathered victim whirl round and round and then fall helpless. 
The word mooi (Lat. mollis, soft) is as useful a,n epithet to the 
Boer in the Boer taal as bonnie in Scots, Thus he applies it 
to a river, a horse, a woman (haiidsorae vrouw), 

Eeitz weakly omits the strikingly human elements of the 
story — the miller, the smith, the woman in the kirk- toon " with 
a past," the "chuffi0 yintijer " and his spouse, and above all the 
souter, immortal Bacchanal. But moralising attracts him, so he 
tackles his author's visualising of Pleasure thus : '' Pleasure is 
like a young cucumber. If you pick it, it simply withers ; or 
like a tortoise in his shell, as soon as you touch him, he pulls 
in his head." We have hete two similes that appeal most 
strongly to the Afrikander — "een jong Icoinkommer . en eeii 



SIDE-LIGHTS 223 

skulpad." On this latter term Mitford's powerful t'al'e, " A Veldt 
Official," throws light : " He is -a young horse but a, good one 
and will stand fire like an arm-chair, though he does shy like 
a foal now and again at a schuilpaat the size of a snail." By 
this name is the land tortoise known all over South Africa. 
Cape differs from Hollander, Dutch in hardening initial sch, 
hence the difference in spelling here. The term is historically 
notahle. Kruger, in a famous parable, once likened the Uitlander 
to the sktdpad, whose head he cannily waited to lop off as soon 
as the unhappy creature, unwarily progressive, should emerge 
from its cover. In most tongues the crab and the tortoise 
designate something pinched, stunted, crooked. Hence this 
Dutch term appears in Scots as an epithet, shilpit, very familiar 
and expressive. Thus in Ford's " Morning Walk," — 

" Wee shilpit bairnies fill the doorsteps, 
An peer oot through the window panes." 

So Scott calls sherry a " shilpit drink," not, as the glossarists 
explain, because it is insipid, but because, when tart and sour, 
it causes a wry face. The wines of old had to be sweetened iri 
a posset to make them palatable. 

Tarn's nag bears here the name Kol, very cotnmon for a 
horse, and always designating one with a white star on its fore- 
head, what Burns called " bawsent." An Englishman, bargain- 
ing with a Boer for. a pair of horses, has them thus described : 
"Daar staat een, die licht-bruine 'met die kol; en daar in die 
hock die ander, die donker-bruine ook met een kql"-^there 
stands one, the light brown with the blaize (kol) ; and there in 
the corner the other, the dark brown, also with a blaize. The 
Scottish ploughman equally favours such a horse and calls it 
" Star," Klaas's meerie is still frisky though her back is a bittie 
hollow (" al was haar rug, 'n bietjie hoi "). In rug here we 
have the Sc. riggin or ridge of a hduse, i . 

Keitz fails to face the droll visualising, of Auld Nick, but 
merely says he played on a tromp for forty spooks in a clump. 
His playing is expressed by speul. Get; Spieleif, %nA long in the 
Scots vernacular in such phrases as spiel the wa', spiel a tree, 
where it means to climb. 'The insttanieiii, too, is thei rural 



224 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

name for the Jew's harp, the trump. The witches are timidly- 
sketched as die goed, the stuff, the things, and almost as naked 
as a poodle. 

It is significant of much that, whereas Tam " skelps through 
mud and mire, crooning some auld Scots sonnet," Klaas whistles 
(fluit = flute) the nine and ninetieth Psalm to keep his courage 
up, for the Boer is as fond of psalm-singing as a westlan' Whig. 
He dreads to meet uncanny spooks, for he must pass " die 
kerk-hof," haunt of bogles. For the "hof" the modern Scot 
finds a Saxon term, churchyard, but the town graveyard of 
Dundee was of yore known as the Auld Howf. 

Equally significant of Boer tactics, too, when Klaas is 
pursued by the witches, is his appeal to his mare to do her 
utmost, not in clearing the brig, rare in the Transvaal, but in 
crossing the drift or ford, often enough exposed to sudden floods. 
" Go it, Kol ! " he shouts, " the devil cuts your spoor ; here lies 
the drift. Up ! she's over ! " A born huntsman, the Boer knows 
the spoor well, the Scots speer, to follow a track, to ask one's 
way. But, exposed for generations to unseen dangers, he knows, 
too, what it is to have his retreat cut off, as Klaas dreaded here. 
The denouement is rapidly sketched, — 

"Haar st^rt het hul glad uit-geruk ; 
Mar Klaas is los, dis iin geluk " — 

Her tail was clean pulled out ; 

But Klaas is safe, a piece of good luck. 

The st^rt here remains on our coast, as a note of Viking raids, in 
Start Point, and, with more peaceful suggestions, in the name 
of a bird, the redstart. " Uit-geruk," again, is simply the 
Scots rugged or pulled out. There remains only to point the 
moral in the fashion of the good Predikant, — 

" Ver die wat lus het cm te draai, 
Wil ek mar net d^n wortjie raai : 
Gedenk aan Klaas Geswint sijn pirt, 
En vraag jou selve : waar's baar stSrt ■? " 

Rendered literally this would read : — 



SIDE-LIGHTS 225 

For him, who knows (wot) desire (lust) to turn round 

(Ger. drehen), 
Will I but one word-ie advise (rede) : 
Think on Klaas Geswint his horse, 
And ask (Ger. fragen) yourself, " Where is her tail 1 " 

"Tarn o' Shanter" is manifestly but an exotic on the Veldt. 
The Boer is out of sympathy with the characteristic humour of 
the situation. He lays hold of the conjugal aspect, so indispens- 
able to the peace of his self-contained home. He emphasises the 
eerieness of the situation and its call for caution, but we miss 
the jocose familiarity and kindly humanity of Tam's relations 
to the witches. 



15 



v.— FAETHEE AFIELD. 

Of the two items here presented, that on French words in 
Lowland Scots calls for no apology. The old connection 
between Scotland and France is one of the few links with 
•Medisevalism that might be considered popular. This popu- 
larity could hardly be said to be the fruit of any extensive 
acquaintance with Scottish history. It would seem to owe 
much of its persistence to the genius of Sir Walter Scott in 
his " Quentin Durward." 

The list, though probably not exhaustive, has the merit of 
showing a series of borrowings extending over many centuries. 
Arranged in chronological order, as far as possible, these borrow- 
ings show contemporary usage. Not a few of Scoto-French words 
must have got into the stream through well-known literary 
tradition from Chaucer and the alliterative poets onwards, but 
the contemporary usage, which the evidence here presented 
illustrates, stands outside of the convention of books and inde- 
pendent of any influence exercised by English. "While the great 
mass of the words cannot fail to appeal to the reader familiar 
with the Scots vernacular, a large proportion must have 
speedily dropped out of use. They are much in the position 
of those borrowings which we still owe to the war corre- 
spondent or the adventurous traveller in remote and little- 
known lands. They vanish with the conditions which led to 
their importation. 

The second item. Primitive Aryan Civilisation, would seem, 
on a superficial view, to have only a remote connection with 
Lowland Scots. Closer study, however, will show it to be com- 
plementary to the opening article of the volume. That article 
aimed at linking on the vernacular to that primitive Teutonic 
influence which supplanted the prehistoric Celtic in the Low- 
lands. The present is an excursus into the wider field of com- 

5!26 



FAETHEK AFIELD 227 

parative philology. It discusses the only accessible evidence 
for that matrix of culture, social custom and attitude to the facts 
of nature and life which moulded the vernacular of Scotland in 
common with its cognate European tongues. 

The illustrations that I have here garnered owe much to 
the published researches and arguments of the late Professor 
Max Miiller and to Professor Sayce. It was the writings of the 
former that most powerfully impelled me to follow up my youth- 
ful reading of Trench's charming studies into the wider field of 
comparative philology. But most of all is the article based on 
the teaching of the late Professor Aufrecht. He was the first 
holder of the Chair of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology in 
Edinburgh University. As these lectures have never been 
published, so far as I know, I believe I am doing a welcome 
service to linguistic study in incorporating them with my own 
researches. 



1. Scoto-Febnch in the Lowland Veenaculae.^ 

But slight evidence of the " Auld Alliance " has survived 
in the vernacular. Any influences exerted on the nation by it 
were at no time more than political. France used Scotland 
merely as a thorn in the side of her rival, England. The 
political movement came to a head during the Eeformation 
struggle, but the battle of Langside (1568) dealt the final blow 
at the Catholic reaction. Even this political line of influence 
has left scarce a survivor in the vocabulary. The long reign of 
the Old Faith might have been more fruitful. On the evidence 
of language the hold of Catholicism on Lowland Scotland has 
been of the slightest. The once familiar Pasch (Easter) and 
a dairgie (Domine, dirige nos) are among the very few of its 
survivals. 

Actual intercourse between the two countries was of the 
trading kind, but such interchanges as existed were carried on 
with Northern France through Dutchmen and Dutch ports, 

1 In the revision of this section I have been favoured with the valuable 
aid of my esteemed friend, Mons. F. J. Amours, B.A., well known as a 
distinguished scholar both in Scots and French. 



228 STUDIES IN" LOWLAND SCOTS 

mainly Campvere, or through the Huguenot city of Bordeaux, 
then also in the hands of Dutch traders. But the East Coast 
of England, particularly the port of Hull, came under similar 
influences, so that no list of word exchanges can claim to he in 
any special sense Scottish. Word exchanges under this industrial 
head have mainly a social significance. 

In other two directions seventeenth-century influence might 
well have been very considerable and lasting. These were the 
military and the academic. The Scot abroad, under both aspects, 
has played a part in literature in no way borne out by the 
evidence of the vernacular. A typical soldier of fortune, Sir 
James Turner, tells us he went through all his Continental 
fighting without knowing French. Graham of Claverhouse, 
though he got his baptism of fire abroad, uses no Prench in his 
correspondence save such a word as allya (Fr. alli6), an ally, 
relation by marriage, but it is often used by contemporary 
Scottish writers. In the arts of peace many youthful Scots 
gained posts in Huguenot colleges, such as the Melvills, Boyd 
of Trochrig, and others, but they use scarce any borrowings 
from French. Sir Thomas Hope, Lord-Advocate, through the 
critical times of the Bishops' War and the Solemn League and 
Covenant, himself the grandson of a Frenchman settled in 
Edinburgh, had some of his sons educated in France, but uses 
surprisingly few French words. Sir Thomas Lauder, again, 
later known as Lord Fountainhall, studied and travelled in 
France through the middle of the century, but he uses very 
little French. After his day, under the influence of the English 
Eevolution and the Orange King William, the academic stream 
flowed towards Holland. 

Borrowings from one language by another are either few or 
many, just as one regards the question of origin. The evidence 
of this origin, in the case of Scoto-French, is to be found in the 
literature of the past, but here we come under book and imita- 
tive influences, and these are deceptive. I present a few 
examples from sources that can hardly be called literary. Such 
evidence has the merit of being contemporary, undesigned, and 
unbiassed by art. I now present it in chronological sequence, 
premising that it is in no degree exhaustive. It has, however, 
the advantage of showing popular use of the words at the time. 



FARTHER AFIELD 229 

" Ledger of Andrew Halyburton " (1492-1503), ed. by 
Cosmo Innes.i 

This quaint old Edinburgh merchant was stationed at Camp- 
vere as " Conservator of the Privileges of the Scottish Nation 
in the Netherlands," and therefore at the gateway of traffic as it 
passed to and fro between Scotland and the Continent. 

Gallandis. — James Homyll, his brother-in-law and agent 
in Scotland, " payit me wi' challenges " (reproaches) " and evill 
wordis and onsufferabyll. God keip all guid men fra sic 
callandis ! " In a French translation of " Tarn o' Shanter " the 
" chapman billies leave the street," of the opening scene, appears 
as — 

" Quand les chalands abandonnent la rue." 

This word, said to be Flemish rather than French, has long 
been familiar as callant, a lad. In the days of old " Heriot's " 
in Edinburgh, the foundationers were known as callants. 

Chamer ; Fr. chambre. The Archdeacon of St. Andrews 
gets " a mat to his chamer " (1499). 

Corf, a basket; Fr. corbeille, Lat. corbis — "A kynkyn of 
olives and a corf of apill orangis." 

Cramoisie, cramasie, a cloth; O.Fr. cramoisin, cramoisie, a 
form of crimson. 

Oralog (mendyn), a watch; Fr. horloge, a clock. Bishop 
Elphinstone, founder of King's College, Aberdeen, has his orolog 
repaired and fitted with a new case in Flanders through 
Halyburton's agency. 

Fantonis, slippers — " Blak welvot to be pantonis to the 
Kingis grace." Akin to patten, an iron ring that could be 
slipped on to the sole of shoe or clog to admit of moAdng 
dry-shod about the miry surroundings of the untidy clachan ; 
Mod.Fr. patin is a skate. The Accounts show the older form 
of the word. Diez connects it with Fr. patte, a paw. 

Pasch, Easter; Fr. P4que for Pasque — "Hydis, I trow, 
salbe the best merchandise that comes here at Pascha, for thar 
is mony folkis that speris about thaim " (1502). This word had 
long been familiar through the Romish services of the Church. 

1 The "Ledger" is examined minutely in my "By-ways of History" 
under the title, " Scottish Trade in the Olden Time." 



230 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SOOTS 

Say (red), silk ; Pr. soie, bought for the Archdeacon of St. 
Andrews for a frontal to an altar. 

Taffetas, plain silk cloth ; Fr. taffetas. Halyburton uses the 
French form. 

Tapischere, tapestry — "Twa drauchtis fra Edinburgh to 
Striveling." Fr. tapisserie, tapis, a carpet. 

Tassis of silver, cups ; Fr. tasse. 

" Ye'll bring me here a pint of wine, 
A server and a silver tassie." — Old Song, 1636. 

Tivis — " Twis, to put all the silver weschell in." Fr. 4tui, 
a case. Common in German as a borrowed word. 

"Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer," vol. vii., 1538-41. 

As this volume contains the expenses of James V.'s visit to 
France, it is unusually rich in foreign words, but few have lived 
or come into common use. 

Bahuttis, bibs — "For making of twa collaris of welvot 
plattis, twa bahuttis, twa litill collaris." Fr. bavette, from have, 
slaver ; Sc. bavard, worn out, bankrupt ; Fr. baveur, a driveller. 

Boge — "Ane chandellair callit the boge." Fr. bougie, wax- 
candle, so named from a town in Morocco. 

Buye, a water vessel — " Ane grete watter buye." O.Fr. buie. 
Bain, a tub, now firmly rooted in some districts of Scotland, 
may be the Gael, bainne, milk. 

Cv/rchessia, night-caps — " Curchessis to the kingis grace." Fr. 
couvre-chef. 

Disjonis, breakfast — "To by milk to hir disjonis." Fr. 
dejeuner. This word lived a long time. The item here referred 
to was for the " bam Elizabeth," a natural child of James V. 

Dornielc, linen cloth, made at Toumay, whence the name. 

Dule-weid, mourning dress ; Vr. deuil, mourning. 

Fleggearis, arrow makers paid "For the foddering of ij™ 
auld ganzels" (arrows) "for the croce bow." Fr. fltehe, an 
arrow, hence Fletcher. 

Tailzeour, telzour, tailor ; vernac. teelyir, tiler ; Fr. tailleur. 

After the Union of 1603 James I. made strenuous efforts to 
foster trade and home industries in the poor country he had 



FAETHEE AFIELD 2'31 

left. The records of his Privy Council, sitting in Edinburgh, 
tell the story of how his masterful chancellors tried to carry 
out his wishes on the lines of a benevolent protection. In this 
connection the tariff of 1612 is of much social import. From 
its items I cull a number of French names of articles, which, 
if not in actual use, might probably be imported at the same 
time as the article. 

Buist, a needle-case; sand-buist, sand-box, used instead of 
blotting-paper, as it is still in Germany. The mark Branden- 
burg was called the Sand-Biichse of the Holy Eoman Empire ; 
O.Fr. bostia, boiste, a box; Mod.Fr. boite, boisseau (whence 
bushel). 

Baheis or Fuppeitis, dolls; Ital. babbeo, a blockhead; and 
Fr. babiole, whence the baby clown on the head of the 
staff with which the Elizabethan stage fool excited laughter. 
There was deep contempt in Cromwell's "Take away that 
bauble (the mace)." Puppettis is the Fr. poup6e, a doll. Chil- 
dren used to fashion a miniature stage of paper on which tiny 
figures were moved. Eyelets gave a peep of the play to the 
invitation, " A preen to see the puppie-show." 

Chaffing dishes, braziers, warming-pans ; Fr. chauffer, to 
warm by rubbing. 

Chandlers, chandeliers, candlesticks ; chandelle, a candle. 

Grogram, Fr. gros-grain, a coarse cloth. 

Tripans, Fr. trypan, a surgical instrument. 

Trencher, wooden platters, a word in universal use; Fr. 
tranchoir. 

Turcusses, turkes, twisters, pincers, tourniquets; Ital. tor- 
ciare, to twist (Lat. torquere) ; O.Fr. torser, to pack up, gives 
the familiar turs, to pack up in a bundle, to carry off hastily. 

Turse. — The Exchequer Accounts have numerous entries 
for tursing household and other stuff (cf. truss, trousseau, 
torch ; lit. a twist). To tirr has long been in use in the 
sense of raising or disturbing, for example, the soil of field or 
garden. 

An interesting Commentary on the Tariff of Custom Uueo 
(1612) is preserved in the library of Glasgow University in the 
shape of a shrivelled leather pocket-book which accompanied 



232 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

James Bell, a merchant burgess of Glasgow, on two business 
journeys to Holland, 1621-22.^ He was not what we would 
now call a foreign merchant, but took with him, on commission, 
the ready money of his clients for investment in trading ven- 
tures. The words of his entries must, therefore, have been in 
actual use at the Cross and Tolbooth of Glasgow. 

Chandlers — " To by to Mairen " (so pronounced still) " Stewart 
sum chandlers " (candlesticks) " turnit." Ft. chandelier. 

Chyres (grein), green chairs ; Fr. chaire in sense of a pulpit ; 
from Lat. cathedra, a seat, see of a bishop. Bell's spelling 
(sometimes chayres occurs) seems to follow the French pro- 
nunciation. 

Cissills, probably chisels from Fr. " ciseler, to cut or carve 
with a chisel." — Cotgrave. 

Frenyes, fringes ; Fr. frange. Bell followed the Dutch pro- 
nunciation and spelling, frangie, where g has a y sound. 

Oabarts, cappers, the lighters that brought the goods up the 
Clyde from Dumbarton ; Fr. gabare, a lighter. 

Plumbe damies, long the name of the damson in Scotland. 
Plumdammas is a character in Scott's " Heart of Midlothian." 
The form follows the French, prune de damas or Damascene 
plum. 

Suher, sugar, interesting as following the Fr. pronunciation. 

Tinder, wire, tinsel, thread ; Fr. 6tfncelle, what glitters ; 
from tat. scintilla, a spark. 

Travelloure, Fr. travailleur — "Giffin to Jhone Mortoun, 
travelloure, ane barl seap " (soap), pronounced as it stiU is in 
the vernacular. In the seventeenth century ea = § in French, 
as it still is in Ireland; compare the Irishman's repeat and 
Fr. r^p^ter. Almost the sole survival in English is great. In 
Pope's time tea was pronounced tay. 

Trebuchet, a balance ; " trie balks " or wooden beams, he 
elsewhere calls them. He uses the actual French word, not, as 
it appears, ever naturalised among us. As a noun trebuchet 
means a bird-trap ; as a verb, to stumble. The basic notion 
of a beam is found in the O.Fr. buc (bucket), a trunk. 

1 Bell's " Ledger " is examined at length in " By-ways of History,'' 
p. 163. 



FAETHEE AFIELD 233 

Tm-kes, grappling irons ; cf. turcusses above, " hammer and 
turkes " for the blacksmith. 

Annatto is a surprising exotic to reach Glasgow through 
Holland early in the seventeenth century. It takes the forms 
annotto, arnotto, and is the South American name for a tree, 
common also in Jamaica, the seed of which dyes silk a deep 
yellow, and is used for colouring butter, cheese, chocolate. 
I saw the preparation from it quite lately on an Ayrshire 
cheese farm. 

Wirsat (worsted) passments, Fr. passementerie, a novel addi- 
tion to the comforts supplied in a seventeenth-century booth. 

Gaprus, copperas — "ane trie caprus;" Fr. couperose; Lat. 
cupri rosa, rose of copper, used to dye black and make ink. 
The story goes that a Glasgow merchant sent to London an 
order for copperas, but his bad spelling was read as capers, of 
which the weight sent seemed completely to outrun the possible 
demand. Fortunately a shortage of capers followed and he 
cleared his stock at a thumping profit. 

Chapelet is exactly the Fr. form, and diminutive form of 
chapel ; Mod.Fr. has chapeau, a hat. 

The old Latin grammars give long lists of vocables, sup- 
posed to be useful to the boys in the absence of dictionaries. 
The meanings given frequently throw light on the current 
vernacular. The French elements in them are few. The 
Vocabula have, from our point of view, little or no educational 
value, as they are not well adapted to aid either construing 
or speaking. They must have commended themselves to the 
compilers as instruments of torture. 

Andrew Duncan, rector of Dundee Grammar School, regent 
in St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, and minister of Crail, 
introduced the following in the Appendix Etymologise to his 
Latin Grammar (1595) : — 

Boise, vter, a wine loise (wine skin, bottle, jar) ; O.Fr. busse, 
buse, buce, a cask for wine. As Dutch buyse, the word was 
long known in Scotland as a buss or fishing-boat. 

Bonet, riscus, a bowell (bole), or lonet caisse ; Fr. bonnet. 

Caisse, bowel, a basin, is still vernacular. Caisse is Lat. capsa, 
whence capsule. 



234 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

Bruit, rumor, fama; hrute, bruit, noise. 

Chicknawd, talitrum, a spang, a chicknawd (chiquenaude, a 
fillip, flirt or bob — Cotgrave); naude = noeud, knot, knuckle; 
Lat. nodus, whence nodule. " Talitrum, a rap or fillip with the 
finger." — Suetonius. 

Hurcheon, herinaceus, a hurcheon ; Pr. hdrisson ; Lat. ericius, 
the prickly one, the hedgehog. From it comes urchin. 

Lowe, liceor, to lowe (bid at auction), to cheape; allouer, 
formerly alouer, let out to hire ; Low Lat., to admit a thing as 
proved, place, use, expend ; allocare ; " the law allows (assigns) 
it to you," in " Merchant of Venice." 

Mowles, pernio, the mowles in- the heels (chilblains); Fr. 
mule, slipper, kibe. 

Odll, merula, an osill ; avis, the blackbird (merle) ; Fr. 
oiseau, and Shakspere's " ousel-cock." Also derived from Ger. 
Amsel, found in England as early as the eighth century (Murray). 

Panton, crepida, a pontoun or mule (slipper) ; Fr. patin, 
Eng. patten. Creepie (crepida) is a low stool, " Ne sutor ultra 
crepidam," let the cobbler stick to his stool. Murray says of 
panton, " origin unknown, but certainly not from patin." 

Parsell, petro-selinum, parsell ; Fr. persil. Sir Thomas Hope, 
in his " Diary " (1641), speaks of a dream in which he is caught 
in a thick mist, in hortis petrocellanis, as if it were in the gardens 
of parsley. But he is not thinking of the Lat. petro-selinum, 
from which " parsley " is derived, but punningly refers to his 
pet name for his favourite mansion of Craighall, near Ceres, in 
Fife. On another occasion he enters a solemn vow when on 
the point of setting out ad Fetro-cellam (Craighall). 

Pertrik, perdix, a pertrik, paitrik, partridge ; Fr. perdrix. 

Pursie, anhelus, pursie or short-ended. Pursie is short- 
winded. Palsgrave has pourcif for Mod.Fr. poussif, so poulser 
for pousser, to push, from Lat. pulsare. Und, breath, is very 
common in Barbour and old writers, but long obsolete. It 
is of Norse origin. 

Sowder, ferrumen, sowder, solder; Fr. soudure ; Mod.Sc. 
soother. 

Suldarts, cohors, a band of suldarts ; Fr. soldart, a soldier. 

Triacle, theriace, triacle, remeid against poison. This is the 
modern treacle, a word with quite a history. Mod. Eng. a sove- 



FAETHEE AFIELD 235 

reign remedy, from ft/ptaKos, belonging to wild or venomous beasts. 
The late Dr. MacCuUoch, of Greenock, made this liaguistic 
" treacle " the subject of a delightful article in an early number 
of "Good Words." 

Truncheor, orbis, a truncheor or round body ; Fr. tranchoir. 

David Williamson's " Vocabula " forms an appendix to his 
"Eudimenta Grammatices," published by Eobert Sanders in 
Glasgow, 1693. His grammar was one of the latest of the 
many recensions of the Dunbar Eudiments. Originally compiled 
by the first of the post-Eeformation pedagogues, Andrew Simson, 
schoolmaster in Dunbar, it had held its place in all the grammar 
schools for over a century. It was soon after superseded by 
the still more famous work, the first of the kind to be written 
in English, of Thomas Euddiman (1714). 

Allya, affinitas ; Fr. allay, alli6, ally, relation (by marriage), 
in very general use during the seventeenth century. Claver- 
house introduces it in his letters. 

Awmrie, repositorium, an amhrie ; an awmrie, a chest or 
cupboard; awmous dish, a beggar's platter; Fr. aum6nerie, 
aumone, Eng. alms. 

JBuist, pixis, a buisi. Diez says that in the tenth century 
buxida, from accus. of the Greek pyx, a box, was corrupted into 
buxida, bustia, whence O.Fr. boiste, Mod.Fr. boite. 

Choffer, foculus mensarius, a choffer or chafing dish; Fr. 
chauffer, to warm. This preserves a trace of the old-fashioned 
brazier for the table. Chauffeur is the very latest importation of 
the word. But the Scots workman has long called his portable 
fire-grate a choffer. 

Disj'une, jentaculum, breakfast and disjune; Fr. dejeuner. 
This word is quite archaic now. 

Pottage, puis, pottage, as if made from pea soup (pulse) ; Fr. 
potage. 

Servet, mappa, a servet or any tablecloth ; Fr. serviette. 

Siedge, classis, the siedge; Fr. siege, a seat. Used in this 
sense by Spenser. 

Trencher, quadra, a four-neuked trencher; a four-cornered 
wooden platter, hence "corner dish;" Fr. tranchoir. 

From James Carmiehael, of Haddington Grammar School, 



236 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

whose Latin Grammar (1587) renders some of his vocabula in 
the vernacular — 

Ghesbol, the poppy, from the ball-like capsule or seed-case ; 
Lat. capsa ; Fr. caiss6. 

Tirlets = caxLceWi, from Fr. tirailler, to pull about. He 
" tirled at the pin," the equivalent of our knocker, is a phrase 
in an old ballad. The cancelli were the movable cross slits of 
wood that did duty for glass in the old-time windows. In the 
Accounts for the city of Glasgow, 1713, is the item — " For new 
glass windows to the session-house and tirlies " of the Hie Kirk 
or cathedral (" Glas. Eecords," 1691-1717). 

During the seventeenth century there was increased inter- 
course between the two countries, but there was little bond 
of national sympathy. On the absorbing Church and constitu- 
tional questions no link of connection could be formed. The 
exiled Eoyalists, and the Continental wanderings of the Scot 
abroad, whether for military service or learning, made no great 
linguistic impression. The following may be given as a sample 
of borrowings as they appear in some books of the century : — 

From Sir Thomas Hope's Diary (1633-45)— 

Abillzeamenis, modern habiliments; Fr. habillement, from 

habile, ready. 

Bruttit (Fr. bruit)\ " It is bruttit that Capitane Cokbume 

Gwpitane (O.Fr.) J is deid." 

Essay (essai) — " It sail half ane essay " (trial). 

Ohlissis 1 11 • 

„,, , V obliger. 

Ublisc/iement } 

Travell (travailler) — " I sail travell to draw them to their 

tryall." 

Valour (valeur) — " The valour of the tithes." 

From a contemporary report by an Englishman on the 
Covenanters at Duns Law (1639) — 

Bases. "The blue bonnets have blue woollen waistcoats, 
pair of bases of plaid and stockings of same, pair of pumps, 
mantle of plaid over left shoulder and under right arm, pocket 
before knapsack, pair of dirks on either side pocket. . . . We 



FAKTHEE AFIELD 237 

gazed in wonder at targes and dorlachs or quivers of mane of 
goat or colt with hair on and hinging behind so as to be like a 
tail." The garment in question here was worn between doublet 
and short hose in the fashion of the seventeenth-century kilt. 
Fishermen wore such a garment loose till the end of the 
eighteenth century. The connection of bases with Fr. bas, a 
stocking, is disputed. Murray says, "Apparently an English 
application of Base, bottom, lowest part." 

From Eow's Appendix to Blair's " Autobiography," on the 
execution of Hackston of EathiLLet (1680) for the murder of 
Archbishop Sharp — 

Panse, to staunch a wound ; Fr. panser. " The Council had 
a singular care of him, causing jpanse his wounds, &c., lest he 
should die before coming to the scaffold." Also in Montgomery's 
"The Cherry and the Slae" (1628). 

From the "Inventory of Goods of Sir Peter Young" (1628), 
pedagogue to James I. — 

Muntar, a watch ; Fr. montre. 

From Spalding's " Troubles," on Charles I.'s entry into Edin- 
burgh, 1633— 

Calsey, causey ; Fr. chauss^e ; Bevel — " The calsey was revelled 
(fenced) frae the Nether Bow to the Stinking Style, with staiks 
of timber dung in the end." This seems to be an English form, 
from Lat. revellere, meaning to draw or keep back, as " Eevelling 
the humours from their body." — Harvey in " Imper, Diet." 

Scoryettis, burgess; O.Fr. escorcher, to pluck off the skin, 
to burn the surface of anything ; Eng. scorch. Scoryettis was 
some kind of cake or confection. 

From the diary of Sir Th. Lauder, when studying in France 
(seventeenth century) — 

Bitch-full — "Eleventh Nov., St. Martin's, a very merry day 
in France for Swiss and Alemands (I'Alemande), who drink like 
fishes. Find only three good feasts, — St. Martin's, les trois 
Eois" (of Cologne, I suppose), "and Mardi Gras, All drinkes bitch 
full theis dayes." Burns has this expression for extreme intoxi- 
cation. Fuller form is licher-ion, i.e. full as the beaker, to the 



238 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

bung. Can this be Fr. becqude, a billful ? If it be a metaphor 
from hitch in the ordinary sense it is unintelligible. 

Booh — Pery — Tci{p — " Bairns in France have exercise of the 
tap (toupie, a spinning-top), the pery (pirouette), the cleking 
(small wooden bat like a racket), and instead of our gouf, which 
they (know) not, they haves hinyes." Add bools, marbles (Fr, 
loule) ; also in bowling, Lat. bulla, a piece of lead. 

From "Glasgow Kecords" (1691-1717): Burgh Records 
Society, 1908. We have in these Records the familiar usage 
in a Scots burgh at the time of the Union — 

BilgetH — " To the quarter-master for his pains of giveing hilgets 
for the localities " (1695), Here we have an attempt to render 
Fr. billets, the rrnouill*': in which was a familiar Scots soum'J. 
We have also frenzies for fringes, where the same sound is 
represented by z. Similarly the name Daniel is spelt Dainziell, 
cf. guinzees (guineas;. 

CMrv/rgeon, surgeon — " Helping him to satisfie the chirv/rgm 
and furnishing d/rogs " (1G96;. 

Lrogg, as above ; Fr, drogues. The pronunciation has re- 
mained to this day. 

Ffyad, a fund ; Fr, fond, 

Ga.dgf,, a measure — " The baxters have raised their dame a 
considerable hight above the gadge and measure eoncluded." 
The word is still so pronounced. It is Eng, gauge, gage, to 
measure the contents of a vessel^ and of French and Low Lat, 
origin. It is not necessarily a borrowed word, biit the pro- 
nunciation, gadge, and the derivative gadger, an exoL'ieman, are 
distinctively Scots, 

Ldtron, a reading desk — "The lettron of the clerk's 
chamber," Fr. lutrin ; Eng. lectern ; O.Erig. leterone, lectrun, 
from Low Lat. lec-trinum. " It l;a« no connection with lecture" 
(Skeat). As the precentor's desk it lived till that functionary 
was ritualised out of existence, 

Nott/ir, a notary — " His pairtie called in a nottar" (1701); 
Fr. notaire. 

,S'y«r, a sewer — " Go no farder south nor the north Kid« of the 
syre between gavell and well" (1692) ... "a strand or sayre" 
(gutter). The word is now pronounced syver. Skeat traces it 



FARTHEE AFIELD 239 

to the O.Eng. sewe and shore in Shore-ditch, and derives from 
O.Fr. essuier, esuer, to dry, but the true sense is to drain dry ; 
Lat. exsucare. 



The " Eecords " yield an interesting group of Latin-derived 
words, mostly verbs, which, though most probably only a re- 
flection of grammar-school influences, are curious as following 
French rather than English formation. They are these — 

Acerese, Fr. accroissement ; Eng. in-crease — " Conveniencie 
that might acerese to this burgh" (1696). 

Oompesce, Lat. compescere, to restrain — " To compesce these 
troubles "(1706). 

Contigue, adjoining, contiguous ; Fr. contigue — " Four seats 
contigue in the head of the trans or entry " (1702). 

Dite, to write ; Eng. in-dite ; Lat. dictus ; Fr. dit — " For paines 
in dyteing securities " (1700). 

Evite, avoid; Lat. vitare, to shun; Fr. 6viter — "Put to 
expense which they cannot evite " (1715). 

Exerce, exercise ; Fr. exercer ; Lat. exercere — " Exerceing the 
said office" (1693). 

Exoner, exonerate ; Fr. exon^rer — " It is but just that they 
be exonered and freed" (1716). 

Expede, Fr. expedier, to despatch, expedite (cf, impede) ; Lat. 
expediri — "Expenses depursed for expeding the signature of 
the saids lands " (1696). The plural adjective, saids, is a curious 
survival of Norman-French usage. 

Exeem, exempt ; Lat. exemptus — " Fisher baats are exeemed 
by law " (1697). Fr. exempter is not followed here. 

OUddge, oblies ; Fr. obliger, to bind— " Inact & obleidge 
themselves as shall be needcessitated " (1700). The pronuncia- 
tion here is English of Queen Anne's time. 

Sv/plee, supply ; Fr. supplier — " Power to lay on the suplee 
and public burden of this burgh " (1701). 

The following words, from general sources, represent elements 
that still live in the vernacular : — 

Ashet, Fr. assiette, a plate or dish, large platter on which 
meat is served. 



240 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

Barley, a truce in a game ; Fr. parlez. Barley-break was an 
old English game. 

Beaver, Fr. bevoir, boire, the merendum or lunch, otherwise 
fcnir-oors. It was a grammar school vocable. 

Bawlee — "Ane balbe," St. Andrews Kirk Session Eecords, 
ii. 683 ; Fr. has billon, base coin. 

Butry, bajan, a freshman at Aberdeen University, has been 
explained as from butor, a booby, and bejaune for becjaune, a 
nestling (lit. yellow-beak), a ninny. 

Certes, my certie ! Fr. certes, indeed, certainly. 

Brace, a chimney piece—" A braeebrod in excise chamber " 
(" Glas. Eecords," 1706). This may be from Fr. bras, an arm. 
Compare jamb, a projection or wing ; Fr. jambe, a leg, familiar 
as the jambs or sides of the fireplace. 

Cheetie-pussie ! Fr. chat. 

Close, Fr. clos ; vaucluse = vallis clausa, a square, a court. 

Condie, Fr. conduit, a passage, pipe. 

Fattrels, falderals ; O.Fr. fatraille, trumpery ; fatras, rubbish, 
trumpery. 

Bowet, a hand lantern ; Fr. boite, a little box. Spalding says 
that when Cromwell ordered the Edinburgh burgesses to show 
bowets at their close-heads nightly, the effect was to bring 
back the day. Cf. moon, as Macfarlane's bowet for reiving 
purposes. 

Cummer, kimmer ; Fr. commfere. Cummers' or gossips' feast 
(eighteenth century), described, as practised in Edinburgh, by 
Eliz. Mure of Caldwell (1712).—" CaldweU Papers." 

Dyvour, a bankrupt ; Fr. devoir ; Lat. debtor. Murray rejects 
devoir and suggests Eng. diver in the sense of " plunger," not 
a very satisfactory explanation. 

Fachous, facheuse, troublesome to do. "Its fachous wark 
pikin' a paitrik ; " Fr. f ^cheux. 

Fent, in a lady's skirt ; Fr. f ente, a slit, cleft. 

Fushonless, pithless ; Fr. foison, plenty, ia Shakspere. 

Gag, in the game of " smoogle the gag ; " Fr. gage, pawn, 
pledge ; also in the form geg. 

Groser, a gooseberry ; Fr. grossier, coarse ; but other native 
forms are grosart and grozet. 

Haverel, a simpleton ; Fr, poisson d'avril, an April fool. Also 



FAKTHEE AFIELD 241 

explained as from Jiaver, to talk foolishly, itself of unknown 
origin. 

Jigot, Fr. gigot, leg of mutton. 

Jambs, sides of a fire-place ; Fr. jambe, a leg. 

Face, paiss, peise = weights of a clock ; Fr. peser, to weigh, — 
regularly used in the seventeenth century, long obsolete. 

Parish, Fr. paroisse. Mediaeval English as well as Scotch. 

Pend, and paund ; Fr. pendre, to hang ; an archway, a hang- 
ing round a bed, a valance. 

Petticoat-tails, species of shortbread ; as if from petits-gatelles 
(Fr. g3,teau, a cake). See Meg Dods's " cookery " in " St. Eonan's 
WeU." 

Popinjay, Fr. papegai, the parrot. See " Old Mortality." 

Puppie — "A preen to see the puppie-show," children's play; 
a puppet show ; Fr. poup6e, a doll. 

Sklate, slate ; Fr. delator, to fly into fragments. 

Spaul, the shoulder ; Fr. dpaule ; Lat. spatula. 

Sybows, a species of onion, young onions ; Fr. ciboule ; Lat. 
eepula, cepa, an onion. 

Joist, a beam. "When the building is first joist heigh" 
(" Glas. Eecords," 1696) ; M.Eng. gyste, jist ; O.Fr. giste, place to 
lie on (Cotgrave) ; M.Fr. glte, lodging, etymologically a support 
for the floor. Scots distinguishes joist (jaste), just (jiiste), juice 
(jice). 

Toolye, tuilzie, a broil, quarrel; Fr. touiller, to mix con- 
fusedly. 

Turner, a coin once very common in Scotland = 2d. Sc. = a 
bodle ; Fr. tournois, because coined at Tours. 

Tureen, a soup basin ; Fr. terrine, an earthen pan ; Lat. terra, 
earth. 

Treviss (common in Scots and in Chaucer), division between 
stalls in a stable ; O.Fr. tref ; Lat. trabs, a beam. 

Tweel—" Eow weel the bonnie tweel, row weel the plaidie ; " 
Fr. toile, cloth. 

Scoto-French in Burns's Foeins. 

Bums was proud enough of his French to air it in his 
correspondence, but the words he blends with his native ver- 
nacular must represent the popular absorption of centuries. 

16 



242 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

Aumous, alms, almesse ; Pr. auin6ne. " She held up her 
greedy gab, Just like an amous dish." — "Beggars." 

Awmrie, a cupboard; almonry, aum6nerie. Almerieclos, in 
old Arbroath, stood on the site of the Court where was the 
awmrie or treasury of the Abbey. 

Cadie — " E'en cowe the cadie " (Ch. Fox). — " Earnest Cry," 
Fr. cadet. 

Castocks, kale stocks or runts ; as if for chou-stocks, from 
Fr. chou, a cabbage ; Lat. caulis. Stock is, of course, of native 
origin. 

Corbie — " Corbies and clergy are a shot richt kittle." — " Brigs 
of Ayr." Fr. corbeau. Compare the " corbie-stepped " gable of 
old houses. 

Dool, Fr. deuil, mourning. "0' a' the numerous human 
dools, 111 hairsts, daft bargains, cutty stools." — " Toothache." 

Douce — "Ye dainty deacons, an' ye douce conveneers. To 
whom our moderns are but causey cleaners." — "Brigs of Ayr." 
Fr. doux, douce ; chauss^e. 

Dour, Fr. dur, hard. " When biting Boreas, fell and dour." — 
" Winter Night." 

Dyvour, a debtor ; Fr. devoir. " Crash them a' to spails. An 
rot the dyvors i' the jails ! " — " To Beelzebub." 

Gree, prize ; Fr. gr^, grade, rank, degree ; Sc. to bear the gree. 
" Where glorious Wallace aft bure the gree." — " To Wm. Simson." 

Gusty, Fr. gout. "An' just a wee drap spiritual burn in, 
An' gusty sucker." — " Scotch Drink." 

Hatch, to fidget. " Even Satan glowred, and fidged fou fain. 
And hotched and blew wi' might and main." — " Tarn o' Shanter." 
Hocher, to jog, shake, toss. 

Joctelegs, knives, from Jacques de Liege, famous cutler. " An' 
gif the castocks sweet or sour, Wi' joctelegs they taste them." — 
" Hallowe'en." 

Mell, Fr. mSler, to mingle. "It sets you ill Wi' bitter, 
dearthfu' wines to mell our foreign gill." — " Scotch Drink." 

Tawpie, foolish, thoughtless young folks ; taupe, talpo, a mole. 
"Now gawkies, tawpies, gowks, and fools, Frae colleges and 
boarding schools. May sprout like simmer puddock stools. In 
glen or shaw." — Verses written at Selkirk. Gawkie; Fr. 
gauche; gowk, the cuckoo. 



FAETHER AFIELD 243 

Toy, toque, a bonnet. "I wadna been surprised to spy 
You on an auld wife's flannen toy." — " To a Louse." 

2. Primitive Aryan Civilisation. 

" There is no Aryan race in blood, but whoever, through the 
imposition of hands, whether of his parents or his foreign 
masters, has received the Aryan blessing, belongs to that un- 
broken spiritual succession which began with the first apostles 
of that noble speech, and continues to the present day in every 
part of the globe. Aryan, in scientific language, is utterly 
inapplicable to race. It means language and nothing but 
language; and if we speak of Aryan race at all, we should 
know that it means no more than x + Aryan speech." Thus 
does Professor Max Miiller tell us that in attjsmpting to 
reconstruct an ideal social unity for the Aryan race we must 
not look for aid to ethnology. The question is one which 
concerns the continuity of speech not of blood, an inheritance 
of mental attitude towards the world of spiritual and natural 
phenomena within and without us far subtler and profounder 
than any perpetuation of the characteristics of complexion and 
feature ; for an Aryan speech writes its own history in virtue 
of those inherent principles which govern its growth and decay, 
or rather regeneration — principles which, by reason of their 
persistency of type and uniformity of action, alone go far to 
prove in this case a primitive social unity. What those prin- 
ciples are it is not my object either to investigate or prove, but 
rather to show how those mutual affinities, which are known to 
exist within a European unity of tongues, and connect them- 
selves again with a certain well-marked Asiatic unity, point to 
a time when the makers of those tongues dwelt somewhere 
together, and developed a common civilisation whose leading 
characteristics are stamped upon Aryan progress down to the 
present day. 

If we exclude, on the one hand, the Magyars of the Hun- 
garian plain and the Osmanli of Turkey — both the remains of 
an irruption from Asia within the historic period — and, on the 
other, the prehistoric Basques of the Pyrenees and the nomadic 
Lapps and Finns of the northern mark, we find that all the 



244 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

languages of modern Europe have well-established racial affini- 
ties. They group themselves round four centres, which, again, 
are further reducible to two. Let us regard the map of Europe 
as a rhomboidal figure with its greater axis lying east and west, 
and corresponding to the line of the Alps with their prolonga- 
tions. In the lower half place the classical tongues — Greek 
right, Latin and her Eomance sisters central and left. In the 
upper half, again, across the snowy peaks and stretching far 
northwards over the great central plain, lost amid elfin meres 
and gnome-haunted forest, roam the Teutons. By the eastern 
angle, pressing close for hundreds of years upon Eoman and 
Teuton alike, come the Slavs of the Southern Steppes and the 
Sarmatian plain ; while, thrust far away into the western angle, 
the old-world Celt looks sadly on the mist-clad mountain and 
the melancholy western main. These four groups, with a wide 
range of dialectic variation peculiar to each, have yet innumer- 
able features in common that constitute them a distinct European 
unity. They range themselves, however, under two distinct 
types — a Classical and a Teutonic. The Slav is a link of con- 
nection to east, Celt to west, but both lean to south, and, as far 
as phonetic affinities are concerned, are Aryan dialects of the 
Classical type. 

The discovery of Sanskrit to western scholars, dating from 
the foundation of the Calcutta Asiatic Society (1784), revealed a 
singularly suggestive Aryan unity existing in the far east, and 
possessing in its sacred books a literature that was old long before 
the Homeric poems took definite shape. The ancestors of the 
Hindoos and the old Persians reached the Indus together, and 
there developed a common religious and social system. They 
named the great river (the Indus), Sindhu, the goer, the runner. 
The country beyond was named, from the river, Sindhya, the 
Scinde of Napier's punning despatch, Peccavi (I have sinned). 
After this people divided, the western or Persian branch 
developed phonetic laws of their own, such as the use of an 
h for a Sanskrit s, so that, when the Greeks came in contact with 
them, these transmitted to us the name of the river as the Hindus 
or Indus, and the country as Hindia or India. This Persian or 
Iranic branch spread over the plateau of Iran, and their speech 
is now known as that of the Zend-Avesta and the cuneiform 



FAETHEE AFIELD 245 

inscriptions of Darius. Their Hindoo kinsmen pushed beyond 
the country of the seven rivers into the Dakshin-aranya, or 
great southern forest of the Deccan, calling the aborigines 
blacks, just as in later ages Olive's soldiers knocked their high- 
caste descendants on the head as niggers. A great religious 
schism seems to have accentuated some original distinctions 
between the two peoples. The Sanskrit deva, a god, became in 
Zend a demon, while the Hindoos retaliated by making Asura 
a giant at war with the Vaidic gods. The Persians, on the other 
hand, put Asura (root, as, to be) in the place of honour, who 
then became the Ahura-mazda or Ormuzd of Zoroastrian dualism. 
But the Sanskrit grammarians had no difficulty in inventing a 
derivation for the word, namely, a not, and sura a god. 

The proofs of the connection between this Asiatic and the 
former European unity form the very kernel of comparative 
philology. They are invaluable, not alone in the phonetic 
aspect of the question (Sanskrit and Zend range themselves, as 
far as Grimm's law is concerned, under the Classical or southern 
European group), but still more, and of far deeper import, in 
respect of the clue they afford to the difficult problems of com- 
parative grammar and mythology. Suffice it here to say that 
Sanskrit explains the significance of the name Aryan as an 
eponym for the whole family. In the Vedas the Aryas are 
believers in the Vaidic gods in opposition to their Gentile 
enemies the Dasyus. Later, it meant belonging to the three 
upper castes, and especially the third or cultivators of the soil. 
Its root is seen in Lat. ar-are, and English ear, to plough. The 
name points to that immemorial custom which loves to dignify 
a nation or a family by associating its origin with the possession 
of land, and proves the early existence of that Aryan earth- 
hunger which reaches its acme in Ireland, the Erin that is said 
to be just another form of the common race-name. 

No one can ever venture to conjecture when all these races 
existed as a primitive unity, or why they broke up, or in what 
order, or whence sprung the initiative for that dialectic growth 
to which they owed their phonetic differences. But we have 
learned to know and distinguish the various branches of the 
stock, and to formulate the law under which all comparisons of 
them, one with another, must be studied. It remains now to 



246 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

apply this knowledge by comparing a few groups of cognate 
terms in the Aryan dialects in evidence of a linguistic unity, 
subsisting among the various members of the family, and of a 
relatively advanced stage of civilisation, reached by the proto- 
Aryans before their separation. Professor Max Miiller has 
drawn up similar lists in his "Biographies of Words," and 
there he lays it down as a general rule " that whatever words 
are shared in common by Sanskrit and Zend on one side, and 
any one of the Aryan languages on the other, existed before the 
great Aryan separation took place, and may be used as throwing 
light on Aryan civilisation, such as it was at that distant time." 
To this it has to be added that cognate terms, peculiar to one 
only of the unities (Asiatic or European), are evidence that they 
were developed after the primary schism, but existed antecedent 
to any secondary schism. Developments by growth within each 
unity from a common stock of primitive roots are evidence merely 
of the persistency of those distinctive Aryan peculiarities, — 
the inflexional system and that significant word-change whereby 
we continually specialise the general or generalise the special. 
Thus we confer epithets that in course of time become divested 
of their meaning — " the counters of wise men but the money of 
fools " — and consequently require an efibrt of literary emphasis 
to vitalise or supplant them, the secret, in short, of a rich and 
expressive vocabulary and a copious literature. 

CoNTKACTiONS : — Vaidic, Sanskrit, Zend (Old Persian), Greek, 
Latin, Celtic (Irish, Welsh, Cornish, Gaehc), Slavonic, Lithuanian, 
Eussian, Teutonic, Old High German, German, Icelandic, Gothic, 
Anglo-Saxon, Scottish, Old and Middle English, shown by their 
initials. Where no meaning is given after a word it may be 
assumed to be identical with that of the head-word under which 
it stands. Roots and radical meanings are in italic type. 

AUTHOEITIES CONSULTED: — Profcssor Aufrecht's Lectures; 
Max Miiller, "Biographies of Words," 1888; Skeat, "English 
Etymological Diet.," 1884; Pick, " Vergl. Worterbuch der Indo- 
ger. Sprachen," 1870; Curtius, " Grundziige der Griech. Etymol.," 
1873. 

1. Family Ties. 

Child-Woeds. — Papa, S. and Gr. tata, L. tata, C. tat, SI. teta. 
Go. atta. Mama, S. atta, T. aithei. Foster-par eTit, Ved. nan^, 



FAETHER AFIELD 247 

L. nonnus, nonna (nun), Ved. ambha, Icel. Embla = AmbhaiS, 
(ancestress of human race), Ger. Amme. 

Father, Pa — , protector, S. pitdr, Gr. and L. pater, T. fadar, 
M.E. fader. Mother, Ma — , manager, S. m^tdr, L. and SI. mater, 
C. mdther, T. modar, M.E. moder. Husband, ruler, S. pati, L. 
potis (able), SI. pats, Go. fath. Wife =prorfMccr, Ved. GnS (wife 
of the gods), S. ^gkxA (gana), wife, yvvr/, SI. jena, C. ben, Go. 
kwen, queen, quean. ^OT<i = hegotten, or male child, SI. and Go. 
sHnu, wos (o-utos), G. suth. 'Da\jguteu = milkmaid, S. duhitar, 
Ovydr-qp, SI. dukter, Ir. dear. Go. dauhtar. Brother, hearer, 
S. bhrAtar, L. frater, Gael, brathair, SI. bratru. Go. br6thar. 
Sister, joy, happiness, S. svdsar, L. sorer (svosor), Ir. sethar, 
SI. sestra, Go. swistar, M.E. suster. Father-in-Law, S. svaQura, 
eicv/oos, L. socer (svocer). Cor. hveger, Sl. svekru, Go. swaihra, 
O.E. sveor, Ger. Schwieger. Widow, vindh, vidh = awanting, S. 
vidhdvS, L. vidua, W. gweddw, SI. vidova, Go. widuwo, Ger. 
Wittwe. Orphan, Ivreft, Ved. arbha (little), L. orbus (a little 
one), op<^ai'ds, 0. arbe and T. arbi (inheritance). In addition, 
there are common terms for uncle, son, daughter, and sister-in- 
law, husband and wife's brother, grand-son, grand-daughter. 

Aryan civilisation was distinctively social, based on the family 
unity. The terms expressive of the family ties are of two quite 
different kinds. The child- words (German Lall-worter or prattle- 
words) seem to take us into the penetralia of word-making. 
They point to the monosyllabic stage of aboriginal speech, and 
do not conform to Grimm's law. The Semitic Abba claims 
kindred with them, while Nausik5,a addresses her father as 
Trdinra (^iA«, ! dear papa, exactly as an English girl would. 
To our Celtic nurses we owe dad and daddy. In Wulfila the 
Goth began his Paternoster, " Atta unsar," whence the historic 
Att-ila or little father. Varro says that children in ancient 
Italy called food papa, father tata, and mother mama. Our 
spelling mamma is due to the mistaken connection with Lat. 
mamma, the breast. Nonnus and nonna were originally a 
mother's brother and sister. The Sans. akkA is the Lat. Acca 
Larentia, mother of the Lares. The Ger. Oheim, Sc. erne, Boer 

1 Italic g in Sanskrit indicates the soft or palatalised sound, as in 
"George." 



248 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

oom, L. avus, avunculus (cf. uncle, nunkey), all point to a primi- 
tive type of family life. The other names for family relationship 
show a distinct advance on the monosyllabic type. "We have 
now reached the significant or epithet stage. The affix -ter is 
a very common inflexion to show agency. Thus in the Vedas 
mtitar is used as a participle. The th in father and mother is 
thought to be due to the influence of brother. The Sans, vidhdvt, 
a widow, was early explained by the native grammarians as from 
vi = without, and a fictitious dhavS. = a husband. The initial gw 
in the Welsh is the general Celtic equivalent of Teutonic w, cf. 
guarantee = warrant, Guillaume = William. Under orphan, C. 
arbe appears in Sc. and M.E. orpiet = peevish, quarrelsome, and 
in the phrase, to erp = be constantly grumbling, " to harp upon 
a grievance." It will be observed that grandfather is unrepre- 
sented. The head of the family was the father, whether he was 
really so or not, and engrossed all attention. Grandson, how- 
ever, was named, S. ndpat, Ved. nap = offspring, and Lat. nepot 
(is), from a root nap = bind. With this our nephew and niece 
are cognate. 

2. Man Generally. 

Man = (a) thinker, Ved. Mdnu, L. mas (mans), T. Mannus, 
Go. mans ; = (&) chosen, hero, S. vira, L. vir, Ir. fear. Lit. vyras, 
Icel. verr Go. wair, E. wor-ld, Ger. Wel-t ; = (c) strong, S. nara, 
ndry-a (manly), Oscan ner, Nero, Neria (wife of Mars) a,vrjp ; 
= {d) terrestrian, L. homo. Lit. zeme (land). Go. guman, yeo- 
man, bride-groom. YOVNG = guarded, S. yuvan, L. juvenis, Lit. 
jaunas. Go. juggo. Child = conceived, S. vi-garbha. Go. kil-thei, 
child, calf. 

Of these terms the first (a) is specially Teutonic. The 
Hindoos and the Teutons both used the word, man, for the pro- 
totype or ancestor of the human race, and both recognised in 
man the possession of the god-like gift of reason that looks 
before and after. The commonest later names in Sans, are 
m^n-ava and man-ushya. Go. mannisk is Ger. Men-sch, and 
is adjectival. The second (6) is the most widely diffused — S. 
vara = suitor, virya = vires, vir-tus. Its compounds are extremely 
interesting: decurio and centurio contain it. Cantuarii is 
Latinised for Kent-were (men of Kent), wergeld was com- 



FARTHER AFIELD 249 

pensation for manslaughter, wor-ld is O.E. wer-old, the age 
of man, a seoulum and sum of human experience, affording 
curious comparison with other modes of expressing such a wide 
generalisation. The third (c) is entirely awanting in Teut. and 
Slav. In Oscan ner was applied to the nobles in the State. 
The fourth (d) is not in Sans., and has had little vitality in 
Teut. The Go. gunia Wulfila applies to Zacchams. 

3. Home. 

HovfiVi = builded, S. d&xak, L. domus, SI. domu, 0. dam. Go. 
timrjan (build), timber, Gor. Zimmer. Door. — S. dvar (dhvar), 
dvpa, L. fores. Lit. durys (pL), Go. daur. Straw-bed. — S. stara, 
L. torus, C. srath, SI. straje. Go. strau-ja. Hamlet (1) = abode 
(vifj = enter), S. ve^a, vaika, oTk<k, L. vJcus (veicus), SI. visi, 
(Jo. weihs, — wich. (2) Fenced place. — (a) S. vara-ta. Worth 
(village), (b) O.E. tin = town, Ger. Zaun (hedge), (c) S. pur 
(strong place), pura, t6X.ii, Lit. pilis, S. puru = plenus, plebs. 

As the names for man show that the primitive Aryans had 
advanced far beyond the simple concepts that clustered round 
the hearth and child-life, and could cope with epithets that 
implied considerable powers of reflection and generalisation, 
so do those for house and home show a stage of comfort very 
different from that of the neolithic cave-dweller or the nomad 
Eskimo. One fancies in the terms for hamlet a distinction 
between northern and southern Aryans, due probably to the 
condition of the country over which each set had spread. In 
both cases a, simple enclosure constituted a hamlet — outside, the 
village mark or common pasture land, and within, the homes. 
To this day in many ]>arts of Germany the scattered homestead 
is unknown, the Farmyard being a Hof in a village. The Sans, 
and Greek terirw, however, add to the notion of a defended 
place that of a busy crowded populace that made its acropolis 
the rallying point I'or a more lively civic development in street 
and agora. Signilicant in tliis connection is the commonest later 
Sans. I'or a man, puru-sha, literally a townsman. The favourite 
Teutonic town, on the other hand, points to a more scattered 
baclvwoodsman kind of settlement. The North German plain 
is one vast monotonous expanse of wood and vvater, within whose 



250 STUDIES IX LOWLAXD SCOTS 

limits the lonely settlers would develop a simpler bucolic sodefy, 
slow of wit, dreamy, but home-loving. In Lowland Scotland a 
farm homestead i; a town. Even a few houses standing apart 
and supposed to be, if not actually, enclosed within a hedge 
fence, form the cotton or cot-toun of the farm. 



4 Domestic Anvnw.ls. 

CATrLK= tethered, pastured. — S. pa^a (pa^ rope), L. pecus, 
SL peku. Go. faihu, A..S. feo, Ger. Yieh, fee, .Sc. te. BcxL= 
strong. — ^Yed. sthuia (bull), sthurin (beast of burden), sthula 
(strong;, Gr. and L. taurias. SL turn, W. tarw. Go. stiur, steer. 
(ys. = wrrifr. — ^S. nkshiin, d L. veho (carryX ^. y-chain (pL), 
Go. auhsa (ct wax, to grow), Ger. Oehse. Cow = (a; heUower. — 
S. go, gans (m. and t), Gr. and L. bos, SL gow, C. bo, M.E. cu, Ger. 
Kuh (for kavi; ; (J) railher, dhenu, OrjXvi (giving milk), L. filia. 
Lit. de-te (infans). Go. daddjan (suck). Sheep = (a) protected = 
youngling. — S. aAT, avis (attached), Gr. and L. ovL=, Lit. avi, Ir. 
oi. Go. awi-str (fold), awe-thi (flock), ewe ; (fe) ddthei, in-ceded, — 
S. rira (vara, wooUy), uma (wool), urana (vamna, a wether), 
€«/»os (wool), L. veUus (fleece), SL vluna, W. gwlanen= flannel, 
.So. flaunen. GoAX=affile. — S. aga, (aga), a^ina=oi7''s (goatskin), 
SL ozka. ^OBS&— quick. — S. aova (akva), Z. aspa (Hydaspes) 
JsTTos, L. equus, Epona (goddess of horses), lit. aszva, "W. osw 
(Jo. aibwa, A..S. ehu, GaeL and Ir. each. J'jUs=hegottefi. — 
.S. pu-tra (son), pota (jouug), L. puUus, Go. fula, K fiUy. PlG= 
(a) f/r'AvMd. — S. su-kara, ts, L. su.=, Lit. svini-ja, T. sv-ein ; (tj 
=grvMier. — S. grish'ii (boar), ghrish-ti (piggie), yoipan (xof^uK), 
Xorse and Sc. grice, E. Gris-kin. Jjo-x. — Ted. and S. rvan, 
Ki''^v, L. canis (cvauisj, SL szun, Ir. en. Go. bunds. 

These terms Olustiate still more clearly the simple agiicul- 
txiral life of the Aryans. Th^ snrronnd themselve-s with tixc-se 
domestic animals that still tenant every homestead, and name 
them with intelligent observation. All the dialects agree in 
giving a general significance to the name for cattle, and from 
the earliest period there is attached to it the sense of property, 
cf. cattle (capitalia), capital, and chatteb. The beast of burden 
is the sturdy ox. In ."^ans. go-pa, a cowherd, gives a common 
word to rule or govern, and the Hindoo title (^aikwar still 



FAETHER AFIELD 251 

preserves the importance of the original office. The Umbrian 
filia sus is a sucking pig. That so expressive and widespread 
a name as was given to the Aryan horse has not been preserved 
in common use among the Teutons is intelligible, and points to 
the east and open plain as its home. The Eomance dialects 
have dropped the common Latin equus, while modern current 
Gael, and Ir. prefer capuU and garron. That the initial aspirate 
in Greek is wrong is shown by such names as Aristippus. 



5. Wild Animals. 

Beast = 0.E. deer, 6rjp (4>r)p) L. fera, SI. zveri, Go. dius. 
Beae = shining, S. riksha (arksa), apKro^, L. ursus (urcsus), Lit. 
lokis, Ir. art. Wolf = tearer, robber, S. vrika (Ved. = enemy). 
X-vKoi, L. lupus, SI. vluku, C. fael, Go. wulfs. M.ovse= thief, S. 
mUsh, /*w, L. mus, SI. misi, A.S. mus, pi. — i, mys (mice = mise), 
L. mus-culus (muscle, creeping thing under the skin). Hare = 
cleft (nose), S. qaga (^asa), S. " man in moon " is hare in the moon, 
SI. sasins, T. haso, hare. Serpent = (a) throttler, ccmstrietor, S. 
ahi (aghi), ex«, (viper), L. anguis, Lit. angis, eyx^'^^« = anguilla 
(eel), C. escuing (water-snake), M.E. el (agla), Ger. Aal; 
(6) creeper, S. sarpa e/ra-erov, serpens. 



6. Birds. 

Bird, generally, S. vi, oi-wvds, L. avis, ovum, SI. aje, T. ei (egg), 
pi. eigir. 

G!OOSE,= gaping, laughing, S. hamsa (ghansa), x^"' L- anser, 
C. geiss (swan), Euss. gus', Bohemian hus (cf. John Huss), 
O.H.G. Kans, AS. g6s (gans). Duck, S. ati. L. anat— , vrjTTa 
(averia), Lit. antis, O.H.G. Anut, Ger. Ente, O.E. ened, M.E. ened, 
d-rake (end-rik = duck-king). Crow = (a) noisy, S. karava, 
Kopa^, L. corvus, O.H.G. Hraban, raven, L. crep-are, make a noise ; 
(b) croaker, S. kru9 (croak), SI. kruk, 0. cru, O.H.G. Hruoh, 
rook. Cb.as'E= calling, Z. krounkn, yepavoi, L. grus, C. garan, 
SI. zervi, A.S. cran. Cuckoo, S. kokild, kokkv^, L. cuculus, SI. 
kukavica, C. cuach, T. kuckuk, Sc. gowk (gauche, gawky). 
Owl, S. uluka, oXoXvyaia, L. ulucus, Sc. hoolet. 



252 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

7. Plant Life. 

Birch, S. bhiir^a, Euss. bereza, Sc. birk, M.E. birche. Beech 
or Oak, [S. bhaga], S. bhaksh to eat, <#»j7os, L. fagus, O.H.G-. 
Puohha (Buche), A.S. b6k, O.E. b6cen (adj.). Sallow = wa^er- 
haunting, S. sara a pond, eAtxij, L. saUx, Ir. saileacb. O.H.G-. 
Salahd, M.E. salwe, Sc. sauch. Osiee, E. wi — , plait, S. veta-sd, 
(reed), tVea (willow), L. vitis (vine), W. gwden. Lit. zil-wittis 
(gray willow for baskets), Danish vidie, E. withe, wind, Sc. 
widdie. Eeed, S. kaldma (reed-pen), KaXafi-os, L. culmus (stalk), 
C. kalaf, Dutch halm, E. haulm (der. quill). 

The last three groups are all important as affording some 
clue to the common home. The larger ferce Tiaturce are absent. 
Those we have here are familiar to the northern verge of the 
Temperate Zone. The ordinary features of the bear are over- 
looked here, and a name is given him that is connected with 
the place he occupies in mythology. Similarly, the name of 
the hare is accounted for by early folk-lore, in which he plays 
a large part all over the Aryan world. Under serpent-words 
it should be noted that there is no trace of any worship of 
the creature. In the larger forms it is dreaded, but for the 
harmless ones there is no change of radical meaning. From 
the Celtic clearly comes the Scotch ask or esk, the eft or 
newt. The bird- terms are few and all northern, notably the 
crane, which does not extend further east than Armenia. The 
use of the word as a machine, as well as bird, seems very old. 
These bird-terms are all of the imitative kind. Such creatures 
all attract attention first by their cries. 

8. The Farm. 

Field, E. ag — , drive, V. a^ra (agra, place where cattle are 
driven out), aypos, L. Ager, Go. akr, E. acre. Path, E. pat-, spat-, 
stretch out, S. pathas, ttoitos, L. pons (pathway), SI. pati, T. fad, 
Sc. paeth. Plough, S. drya landholder, L. ar-are, SI. orati to 
plough, Ir. ar-aim, I plough, S. ira and urvarS, = Ipafe, apovpa = 
arvum (ploughed land); S. ar-itra = C. ar-athor = L. ar-atrum 
(a plough), Norse aror, «V''^/*os = L. remus (oar); Go. ar-jan= 
M.E. erien = ear (to plough), oar. Sowing, E. sa — , cast, scatter, 



FAETHER AFIELD 253 

S. si-ta (furrow), L. sero (seso), Go. saian. Wain, E. wah — , 
carry, S. vdhaua, oxos, L. vehieulum, SI. vozw, C. fen, A.S. waegn 
and waen. Axle, E. aff — , drive, S. dksha, a^tov, L. axis, C. echel, 
A.S. eax, O.H.G. Ahs-ala (shoulder), Sc. oxter (arm-pit). Yoke, 
E. yug-, join, S. yugd, fvyov, L. jugum. Lit. junga, W. iaw, A.S. 
geoe, ioc. 

Farm- words show a simple, rustic, but by no means nomadic, 
life. The Vaidic a^ra reminds us of the old Scotch loanin or 
field kept in grass near the farm-town. The roads are simply 
footpaths leading to the out-fields or the village mark. The 
North- Western dialects agree in restricting the root ar- to 
plowing, but the common name for plough seems to have been 
lost, for the modern word has been developed within the 
Teutonic unity — Frisian and Sc. pleuch, Swedish plog, Euss. 
pluge. It is the same as plug, a block of wood. The familiar 
Teut. hoe, Sc. howk is in Sans, koka, a name for the wolf. 

9. Food. 

COEN = E. ju-, sustainer, S. y^va (barley), ydvasa (fodder), 
(iLai, Lit. yavas, C. e6rna. Meal = (a) E. mar — ground, ruhied, 
S. malana (rubbing), /ivA?;, S. mola, SI. melja, C. melim. Go. 
malan (to grind) ; (&) E. kar — crumbled, S. Aurna (flour), yvpi^, 
L. granum, SI. zruno, C. gran. Go. kwairnus a quern, E. eor-n, 
ker-nel, churn (Sc. kirn). Mead, S. madhu (sweet, honey), 
pidv, L. mel, SI. medus, A.S. medu, O.Ir. med (drunk). 
Water, E. wad — wet, S. udan, v5<op, L. udus, 0. dour, Euss. 
vod-kja = Ir. uis-ce (whisky), Go. wato. Salt, E. sar—flow, that 
which runs together, cf. serum, S. saras (lake), aXs, L. sal. Ir. 
salann, E. sole. Go. sal-t., Sc. Saline (place-name). 

10. Occupations. 

Build, S. dru (a tree), daru (wood), Sopv (spear-shaft), Ir. 
daur, SI. drevo, Go. triw-eins (adj. = treen), axle-tree. Cut, 
S. kartani (scissors), Kilpto, L. cul-ter. Go. hairus (sword). Plat, 
S. prik, irkeKm, and L. plico. Go. flahta (plaited), Sc. flaik (hurdle), 
E. flax. Weave, S. va, urna-v§,bhi (wool-spianer, spider), v<j>ri 
(web), L. vieo, SI. viti. Sew, E. nah = sna, bind, S. nah, Gr. and 
L. ne-re, Ir. snathad (needle), Ger. nahen, E. needle. Knead, 



254 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

R dhigh, handle, form, S. dih, L. fingo, Go. daigs = dough. 
Dress, S. vas (clothe), «tr6^s=L. vestis, Go. vasti. 

The food-grains seem to have been a late development, and 
are named on separate lines, the primitive staple being a kind 
of spelt playing such a part as we find in Homer and among 
the Jews and Arabs. Grinding [was done by the simple old- 
world hand-mill, and the action involved in it is expressed 
by two distinct roots. Mead implies a knowledge of fermen- 
tation. From the existence of a common root for salt, it does 
not follow that the primitive Aryans had any acquaintance 
with the sea. Our word tree retains its original reference to 
the use of timber as the only building material. The use of 
osier-twigs in plaiting, of wool in spinning, and of clay as a 
plastic material, and the naming of them from common roots, 
prove an early common acquaintance with the primitive arts 
of basket-making, weaving, and pottery. 

11. Seasons. 

Spring. — Orig. same as the dawn = u8has (va8as= aurora), 
R. vas-, give light, S. vasanta, eap, L. ver (veser), SI. vesna, Ic. 
vair, A.S. Eastre (austara), the spring goddess, E. east (auost). 
Winter. — S. hima (cold, snow), hSmanta, x"">' (snow), x*'/^"' 
L. hiems. Lit. zima, Norse gymbr (year-old sheep), Sc. gimmer. 
Snow, E. snigh — , wet. — S. sneha (moisture), Z. (jnizh (to snow), 
vi<f>a, L. (s)niv(is), nivis. Go. snaiws. Month, Moon. — E. ma — , 
ineasurer, S. m§,s, /i^v (month), fi-qvij (moon), L. mensis. Lit. menu, 
Ir. mi. (mens), Go. mgn-oths, A.S. mgna. Day, E. div — , shine, 
S. div, diva (by day), L. dies, W. dyw, SI. dini. Yesterday, 
orig. = Ttiorning-heyond. — S. hyas, x^«> L. hes-ternus, Go. gistra- 
dagis, yester-day. Night, E. nuk — , fail, disappear, perish, 
S. nakti, vu^, L. nox. Lit. naktis, Go. nahts. Year, S. yatu 
(time), hora, A.S. gear, Ger. Jahr. 

12. Civil Life. 

King (a) as father. — S. ^'anaka, L. ^-enitor, Ger. Konig, A.S. 
cyn-ing (son of the kin or clan) ; (h) as protector — S. vi9-pati 
(master of the wic or village-community), SI. vesz-pati (only 
of God and the king); (c) as ruler — E. rak — reach, rule, S. 



FAETHEE AFIELD 255 

ra^-an, L. rex, Ir. riogh, ri, Go. reiks (ruler), Ger. Eeich. 
Village-commune. — Sabha (community), SI. sebru, Go. sibja 
and Ger. Sippe (affinity), Sc. sib, O.E. sibbe (peace, affinity), E. 
gos-sip. Kin = E. gan — begotten. — S. ganas, ytvos, L. genus, Go. 
kuni (race, tribe), E. kind-red. 

Season-words yield a further hint of a northern Continental 
home, with a more or less humid climate in which the welcome 
change from the long ungenial winter was as the burst of sun- 
shine through the cold and mist of a gloomy night, and the 
dawn of gladsome spring was merged in a too short summer day. 
Time was measured by the moon, of little service otherwise in 
that wolf-haunted forest-land, and therefore playing but a small 
part in primitive mythology. Day is the reign of divine, life- 
giving light, as night is the waning of Nature's powers in a 
death-like gloom. The terms for civil life show that a more 
than rudimentary conception of social polity existed. The basis 
of union is kinship by blood, and the ruler is the father of related 
families, the guardian that defended the tribe on its threshold 
(the encircling mark), or even the one most distinguished by 
personal merit chosen to a still wider sway. 

13. Mind. 

Thinking. — E. ma-, measure, S. manas, /xevos, L. mens, SI. 
mineti, 0. menme. Go. mun-s. Wit = seeing clearly, S. vid, olSa, 
L. videre, SI. vedeti. Go. wit-an, Ger. wiss-en (to know). Know- 
ing, E. make to know, teach, S. g^ntimi (I know), y vwo-ts, L. g-nosco, 
SI. znati, Go. kannjan (make known), Sc. ken. Willing = choose, 
a. vri. (choose), v^ra (wish, excellent) ; L. volo, S. voliti. Go. wil- 
jan — will, well. Awe, E. agh-, choke, S. amha (angha, constraint, 
pain), axos, Ir. eaghal. Go. agis — awe, ugly, ug-some. 

14. Myth. 

Sun = light-giver, S. siira, svar (sky), a-eipios = Sirius, L. 
ser-enus = <reXrivq (svar^nS,), C. sail. Lit. saul. Go. sauil. Staro 
= strewn or light-strewers, — Ved. star-as, dtn-qp, L. stella (ster-ula), 
C. steren, Go. stairno, star. Wind and Weather,— E. vdr—, 
blow, vtita, L. ventus, Lit. vetra. Go. waian, A.S. weder, — weather : 
K. an , breathe, S. anila, ave/ios, animus, Sc. end (breath). 



256 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

Thxjndek (a) = sound, groan, S. stanita, L. tonitru, A.S. thunnr, 
IcEL. Thor (god of thunder), Thurs-day ; (6) = strike, S. VadM-tra 
(thunder-bolt), T. Wuodan (Woden), Odin, Wednes-day. Daek- 
'S'E,ss = what dims, mist, S. llamas, raj^ani (night), Gr. Erebus, 
Orpheus, Go. rikwis, Sc. reek (smoke). Fire (a) S. agni, L. ignis, 
SI. ogni ; (J) firestich, S. pramantha, Prometheus. Bug-beak, 
S. Bhaga, Phrygian, Zeus Bagaios, Ir. puea (sprite Puck), Sc. 
bogle (scare-crow). Heaven = (a) bright sky, S. dyaus, Dyaus- 
pitar = Dies-piter = Jupiter, Diana, Janus, S. deva (a god). Lit. 
devas, C. di, Norse Edda, Tivar (gods), Tyr (god of war), Tuesday 
= Tiwes-daeg ; (6) = all-emiradng and all-seeing, S. Varuna (sky) 
Uranus; (c) = living, being. — K. as, to be, V. Asura, Z. Ahura-mazda, 
cf. Jehovah = T am, that I am. 

The terms under these heads enable us to plant Aryan 
civilisation deeper, showing as they do a more profound grasp 
of what is in the best sense culture. They prove the truth of 
the maxim — "Nil in intellectu nisi prius in sensu." Whatever 
may be the psychologist's verdict on the scholastic question of 
primum eognitum and primum appellatum, these primitive con- 
cepts tell us that the Aryans reached the abstract through the 
concrete, and moved in a world of quick sensations. They had 
even grasped the Kantian distinction of subjective and objective, 
differentiating the wissen from the kenTien, the savoir from the 
connattre. The higher consciousness is choice, and the most 
solemn and impressive symbol for physical pain and religious 
dread is found in the sensation of choking. The last head 
reveals to us the boundless region of comparative mythology. 
Here we read the unconscious literature of the Aryans, the 
sacred books of the race. It has the same physical basis as the 
terms for mental operations. The cardinal fact of the Aryan's 
simple existence was the ever-ending, ever-beginning struggle 
of the bright sun, eternal type of his own lot. Against his hero 
are arranged the powers of nature, the demons of the cloud and 
the darkness. His love is the dawn-nymph. In the first blush 
of their love she coyly eludes him ; fair but faithless and fleet- 
ing. In the heat of the day she will haunt him, till once again 
in the glory of his manhood she meets his embraces, and they 
sink together into the mystic Avillon with his twiUght smile 
irradiating her azure brow. Thus did the simple Aryan endow 



FARTHER AFIELD 257 

the phases of natural life with a personality like his own ; on 
this all-absorbing thouie he lavished his nascent powers of 
literav)- expression in the signiticant epithet ; and all this with 
such truth and vitality that, from Homer down to the latest 
moilern novel, the primitive solar myth — the varying fortunes 
of luno and heroine, the cruel machinations tliat separate them, 
and their iinal re-union — doniiniites the whole realm of literary 
make-believe. 

Professor Max Miiller sums up the results of the foregoing 
iu(iuiry in these words: — "Looking tlieu at the whole evidence 
which the languages of the wirious ^Vryau nations still supply, 
we percei\'e that before their separation their life was that 
of agrieultural nomads, and probably most like the life of the 
ancient Germans, as described by Tacitus. They knew the arts 
of ploughing, of making roads, of building ships and carts, of 
wea\'ing and sewing, and of erecting strongholds and houses, 
more or less substantial. They could count, and they had 
divided the year into months. They had tamed the most 
important domestic animals; they were acquainted with the 
most useful metals, and were armed with hatchets and swords, 
whether for peaceful or for warlike purposes. They followed 
tlieir leaders and kings, obeyed their laws and customs ; and 
were impressed with the idea of a IMxine being, which they 
invoked by various nauu^s." 

It is impossible to su}- when or in what way the causes which 
ha\e produced the existing distribution of the Aryan tongues 
began to take etl'eet. It is due to a highly-elaborated tlexional 
system, aiul a vtuy early appearance of literary forms, among 
many other considerations, that philologists like Max Miiller 
were led to place the common centre of emanation nearer to 
the Asiatic than to the European unity. There is no doubt, 
moreover, that these tongues range themselves in groups that 
tra\'el on divergent lines. We are on liistorical ground, too, in 
saying that the original rupture between North-west and South- 
east was rendered permanent by internal causes due to the 
growth of an elaborate social and sacerdotal system peculiar 
to the Asiatic section, and by such external agencies as the 
inroads of tlie Tartar hordes from Central Asia, and the 
siiread of Semitic influences from the South-west. Bearing- 

17 



258 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

in mind that the oldest names for the outstanding features 
of the country in Europe are of Celtic origin, and that the 
Celts are, both in point of locality and civil progress, an out- 
lying, isolated, and diminishing stock, we may safely infer that 
they were the first to move westwards. All the traditions 
of the Grseco-Latin stock point to an Eastern origin, and that 
a very remote one. On the other hand, not till the fourth 
century do the Teutons emerge from obscurity and take a place 
in literature. They are then on the lower Danube, but driven 
into the Empire by ruder barbarians on the North. The trans- 
lation of the New Testament by the Bishop of the Goths, Wulfila 
(about 360 A.D.), constitutes, philologically speaking, the Veda 
of the Teutons. The language of the Goths retains very many 
of the characteristics of the primitive Aryans, and throws 
besides invaluable light on the whole subsequent dialectic 
growth of the Teutonic tongues. The Slavs, having for centuries 
to maintain a hard contest between their Teutonic brethren on 
the west of the Sarmatian plain and the Mongol savages of the 
east, have arisen but slowly out of their primitive barbarism. 
Their language, however, preserves some singularly interesting 
archaisms. 

As the great schism that has permanently separated the 
Asiatic from the European groups brings us nearest to the 
proto-Aryan period, whatever throws light upon the significance 
of that event serves still further to illustrate the stage of culture 
which the combined stock had reached. We have seen on what 
points of material, mental, and moral culture they all agree. It 
will be important to notice in what respects they differ. Eoots 
will be found to divide in a mysterious way, so that the North- 
western group, for example, prefers to express the action of 
milking as stroking, softening (marg-), the South-eastern as 
drawing (duh-). Similarly the root ar- goes to Europe as 
ploughing, and remains in Asia as rowing, the Hindoos betak- 
ing themselves to another common radical (karsh — to draw) to 
express the former action ; while the Sans, kshuma is supplanted 
in the West by linen, flax. Of more special growths we have 
the Vaidic soma as a sacred beverage remaining strictly in the 
East, while vinum spreads all over the West. It was probably 
due to climatic conditions that the Hindoos added to the primi- 



FAETHER AFIELD 259 

tive set of phonetic symbols such new peculiar forms as charac- 
terise the Sans, alphabet. But the most striking proofs of an 
imperfectly-developed common civilisation remain to be noted. 
For example, whereas the ear for phonetic variations was so 
developed as to produce a rich fiexional system, and perpetuate 
minute shades of accentuation, the colour sense, as might be 
expected, was a late growth. The Sans, for colour is varna, lit. 
what covers, and is the same as vellus and our wool. It was 
also chosen to express caste, a most significant specialisation of 
its force. But this vagueness in colour-naming is best shown in 
the case of the metals. Gold is S. hir-anya, hd,r-ita, Z. zaranya, 
zairita, SI. zliitu, zelenu, Go. gulth and our gold, Gr. chrusos. 
These all agree in naming the metal from its colour, the yellow. 
From the same stem, however, come S. hari, green, and Lat. 
gilvus, fiavus, and our yellow ; from S. harit, red, Lat. f ulvus. 
The neutral tint of silver is more easily decided ; it is S. ra^rata, 
the white, or ra^'ata hiranyam, white gold, just as in Scotland 
zinc was called white iron. The Lat. arg-entum has the radical 
sense, but it is lost in the Teut. dialects. The third metal shows 
the greatest variations of colour-naming, so much so that it may 
have been applied to copper, bronze, or iron. It is in Sans, ayas, 
Lat. aes, Go. aiz. In Wulfila the apostles are to take no aiz 
(money) in their girdles. Gr., Lat., and Teut. have developed 
their words for iron on quite independent lines. When we deal 
with the names of commodities that are the products of an 
advanced civilisation, we are in the region of loan-words, inter- 
esting as evidence of a very early commerce, and this necessarily 
complicates the question as to the higher culture of the proto- 
Aryans. Some of these loan-words are extremely old — sugar- 
candy, for example, came from India in the remotest times, 
crystallised on sticks of cane or bamboo. Sugar is the S. Qarkara 
= gravel, Pers. shakar, Lat. saccharum, and Gr. with slight 
change, M.E. sugre. Candy is S. kandha, a stick, and Pers. 
quandat, quandi (sugared). The word lives in Lowland Sc. as 
gundy. 

The only point that now remains to be discussed is the home 
of the Aryas. We were long satisfied with locating it some- 
where in Western Asia, probably in the region stretching south 
from the Caspian and along the valley of the Oxus, on the one 



IHIO STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS 

side reaching up the slopes of tiio raiopainisnn ami Hiiuioo- 
Ivoosh, and on the other to the Arnienian Higldands. Tliis 
position gives ns, mindful of the saying, cr oricnte lit.v. a reason- 
able eentie of development, and aecords well with siieh histovicnl 
facts as bear on the point. In res]ieet of natural produets and 
cliuiatie conditions it lends itself to the deduetit>ns already 
drawn from the lists of most widely dilliised terms, lint a 
European centre has long been claimed for tlie Aryan disper- 
sion, somewhere in South lUussia, the Danube, the shores of the 
Baltic, and so on. This theory would make the proto-Aryans 
spring from the rude builders of tlie lake-dwellings and the 
kitchen-middens. It points to the absence of any common 
word for lion, tiger, elei)liant, eanicl, ape, as inimical to any 
Asiatic source. It says that the only common trees named, 
birch and beech, are natives of middle Europe not of Asia. 
Max j\[iiller discusses the whole (piestion, and replies Id Ibis 
argument on its own lines. There is no doubt that the pre- 
historic condition of middle Europe was unfavourable to the 
early growth of civilisation. In point of fact, when there at 
all, it came late and from the south. Dense forests co\'ered 
a marshy land. The inhabitants must have been confined to 
the neighbourhood of lakes or of the sea, where ah^ie were the 
means of easy subsistence. If, then, the dispersion was from 
such a centre, there ought to be a common word for fish, yet 
the Sans, matsya, and the Teut. and Celt, fish are from diU'erent 
radicals; common names for shells and shell-fish are entirely 
absent. The eel is not found in the Black or Oas])ian Sea, and 
the name, though from a connnon root, is of A\'estern and later 
growth. The sea itself ought to, and does, have a connnon 
name, but this proves little. In Sans, maru is a desert, liter- 
ally that which is dead, and Lat. mare aiul our nunc and 
extensive Tent., Slav., and Celt, forms point to a Western 
development. Why, on this hypothesis, should the Enrojiean 
Aryans forget in the East so prominent a natural environmenti 
as this? The name for ship, too, is common. It is Sans, nau, 
Gr. and Lat. nans, A.S. nuca, and Ger. Naclien, a skill', from 
a root seen in nare, to swim or float. It primarily appli(>s 
to a boat on a river or lake, and has not spread far in tlie 
Teutonic dialects. In bird life the crane is not in Sans, buli in 



|'AI;thki;. aiikiJ) 2«i 

'/,i:U(\, l/c,f;;uiW) l.lic l/ini iUicn not, iii.ic.;i,(| fiirUidr <::wX UifUi Annf.u'iii, 
wliili; Uk; r|i)ail a))|)C,;i,rii holJi in HfuiH. and <it: iim tlti; rctjirnin;/ 
mil;. 'I'lio ciiinc, would l/c new l,o Uiokc wtio wiuit, woHt, fainilifir 
if Uicy wont, oiijil,. Of \i\iuiin Uio !.7',nc,rii,| |,(;rfri l,tc,c, ;i,h l,inil)C,r Ih 
M,lonoc,orriino;i l,o fill, 'I'Ijc, ijiunin^^ of irifliviiliial t,r(;c,H JH unootiiiin. 
'i'iior*! in no (|<'liriil,(i ooniinon Uum. \',\nu}n(Ki>^r. hi roll, So. \i'u\i) 
ii|)|;(',aii) In H/uiH, (i,H t,li(! nanio of a liark nhoi) m writ-inj^^-rnaLoriiiJ. 
Tlio l/oooli, iiHi'd m a food, in (ionlincd t,o t,lic, Norl,l]-weHt. 'I'lio 
woni Ih l,lio natiio of t,lio oak in (in:i:k. 'I'Ik; l.al,. (|M(;if;iiH, 
iif^ain, Ih t.lir! 'I'omI/. fora ha and onr lir. HiiL tho whole, iLiyn- 
nionj; from t.ho |)lii,nl, ii.rjd a,iHtnal life for(.rr.!tH l,liiU, t,h(!n) ar'o 
a Horn, a,nd fanna of a,lt,il,iidn an well an ]al,il,iidii, atid IL wa« 
iKivcii' inipliiul t/liat t,li(i |)fo(,o Aiy/uiH liv(!d anywiioro but/ on 
l,li(! iijilandM of woHl/crn AhIii. whore, l<;uio|)ea,n l.rcoH and familiar 
lun/nalH l/liriv(i. Ho l-hal/ it, Ih not, ne,(;(!HMary t,o admit,, as I'rofoHHor 
Mii.x Mdlier dooH, l;hii,l, t,lie niMrien for lion, t,i(^(!r, oid,, ffdj.dit, have 
li(U',n for^/olien \iy t-liOHO woHl/Ctrn trihoH that li^ft, t,h() liaunlH 
of t,lie,HO e,ron,l/iii'(!H. ThiH woidd ho inl,elli),,dlj|e, for what t'A-.mc.H 
t,o ho ^.;i^noraJly UHod i:i)im'.H In he named. 'I'huH in t,he pre- 
lid.ie, (layM in Me.ot,lM,nd flie lee,t,ern wu,H i'li.miliiu'. Ah I'renhy- 
t,iirianiHtn fook liold of t,lie [leople tho readiuf^-degk, known for 
II, while (iH t,lie let.t.min, wiiH a|)|)li(^d t,o l,lio |)re,e,{inl,or'H doHk, 
iMid ill fimo wiiH l'or),{(itl.en an l')|iiHi',o|)aey hee.amn un|)0|)iilar. 
The ii,|ie and l,i).i;er ii.ro Htriel,ly l,ro|)iea,l. The lion Ih more 
widely diCruMod, luid tlio word iH Haid to he an liido-l<;uro|)eiui 
one, Hi)^nil'yilif^ t,lie rii,viiij^ or roarinj; one. The eanidl preHcntH 
II. real diriieiilty, I'er liiuifriii., tJie home of a well-liiiowii variety, 
Im lulmit/fedly neii.r the iinnfre of iMieienI/ Arya. ICIephanl, Ih a 
loan word wifli ii. eiiriouH liiHtory t/lial, hIiowh it.H Aryan nni^iii. 
The aniiiiid wiiH unktiowii in fhe WohI. fill hrouffht l,o SouLherii 
Ifidy hy l'yi'''liiiH, thouKll ivory IiimI heen Hpread hy Lriule. 
The word ele|iliaiit/ appearH in t/lie (iotJiie traimlafion of the 
New TenfiMnenl.. Wullilii., aX ii. hiHH l.o tranHlal,e the («i,niel- 
liair e,oal, of the ilMpt/inl., uhoh iiluhii.iiduH, liiH Ootliie eipiivalent 
hir elephaiiL It waH the only name hir a largo eii,Hl,ern 
(|iliMlriipeil, known to him, that would Hiiif. The word in 
ii,ppareiil,ly Hemifie., eleph, an ox, huti eoiil,iunH a Siiim. Hleiu, 
ihha, wifll the lleh. ii,rfiele prelixed. The Saim. ihhii,, Htroii}j;, 
powerful, Ih a e iiion iiiuik^ applied l,o the luiinnil, imiiI its 



262 STUDIES IN LOWLAND SOOTS 

appearance in the west points to a familiarity with the creature 
after the Hindoos reached Southern India and to an early trattic 
by the Arabian Sea in ivory. 

The interest of this whole question for the student of the 
Scots vernacular lies in the evidence it affords of a primitive 
unity within that circle of the West Aryans, known as the Low- 
Germans or Teutons of the flat shores bordering on the lower 
Ehine, the Baltic and the North Seas, to which not only our 
northern speech but also our chai'acteristie cultural develop- 
ment belongs. It is beside this point to follow the question 
into those wider issues which go to the root of the whole science 
of Comparative Philology. Suffice it to indicate in brief the 
conclusions arrived at by so eminent an authority as Professor 
A. H. Sayee in his '' Principles of Comparative Philoloij;y." He 
there shows how the philological point of view has changed in 
recent years. Notably has Sanskrit been dethroned from the 
commanding position on which its far-reaching discovery had 
placed it. The study of anthropology and folk-lore, of Assyrian 
and Egyptian records, and of living tongues now growing imder 
primitive conditions in the dark places of the earth have all 
profoundly affected accepted theories. 

On the question of the orighial home and unity of the 
Aryans Professor Sayce adopts Latham's view and assigns a 
centre of distribution inclining more to Europe than to Asia. 
He holds that the European vocalic system is older than the 
Indie, and that the East Aryans ai'e the latest and most distant. 
A permanent cleavage between East and West Aryans seems 
to have been effected by an inrush of Northern Turanians, to 
whom are due the cuneiform inscriptions of the Babylonian 
tablets. On these no Aryan elements appear earlier than the 
seventh century B.C. When or how, again, tiie West Aryans 
distributed themselves over the Central Plain of Europe and 
roamed westwards to the Danube, tlie Phine, and the Baltic it 
is impossible to say. That the wandering instinct was strong 
within these pioneers of Western civilisation is writ large in 
history. We find Wulfila's converts nourishing under condi- 
tions of comparative enlightment in the Danube valley as early 
as the fourth century, determined Teutons pouring out of the 
forests of Central Germany gave imperial Pome for centuries 



FAETHEE AFIELD 263 

her hardest frontier question, while their kith and kin were 
soon to sweep the Xorth Sea as Angles, Frisians, and Xorsemen. 

On every page of the foregoing Studies there will be found 
evidence of the continuity and persistency, within the Lowland 
Scots vernacular, of those features that are most distinctive of 
this Western Teutonism. 

It may help the student to have, as footnotes to this 
article, a conspectus of Professor Sayce's views on the oru/ines 
of the Aryans. As a distinguished Egyptologist and Assyrio- 
logist, he has a wider grasp of the situation than the earlier 
Orientalists could have had : — 

(1) To Greek, and not to Sanskrit, we have to look for 
light on Aryan speech. 

(2) Sanskrit not now regarded as the parent Aryan speech. 
(.3) The primitive Aryan, a coarse, squalid savage, defending 

himself against the climate, clad in skins. 

(4) Early Aryans' presence in Asia Minor given up : no 
Aryan names on cuneiform monuments between Kurdistan 
and the Halys. 

(5) Whole strip from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf 
Turanian at the earliest date known : cuneiform tablets due to 
a Turanian inrush. 

(6) Eastern Aryans of India and Iran, the latest and most 
distinct branch. 

(7) Westward flow of Aryans not likely begun before the 
Turanian inrush. 

(8) This flow not south by the Caspian but over the Tartar 
steppes on its northern shore: therefore little sea influence 
shown. 

(9) European Aryan home a track, bleak and wintry ; want 
of a common name for same object in East and West Aryan 
may be due to loss, as well as to ignorance, of the object itself. 

(10) A primitive European Aryan language, hence the 
original branching — East and West — repeated in Europe into 
Kelt.-Ital., Hell, Teut., Slav. 

(11) Not till the West Aryans settled on the shores of the 
Baltic, or, possibly, of the Black Sea, did they break up — shown 
by agreement in the word for sea, and in the beech, which 
grows only to the west of line, Koenigsberg — Crimea. 



INDEX 



An attempt has been made in this Index to provide in it not merely 
a reference to proper names, but to the subject-matter of the volume. 
With this purpose in view, the details have been grouped under more or 
less comprehensive heads. Many of these have intentionally received but 
slight treatment in the text, having been introduced merely as Ccisual 
steps in the argument, or as incidental illustrations. Thus, under such 
names as Rome, Constantinople, and the like, the reader is not to look 
here for information on their historical importance. 



Aryan, 17, 19, 226, 243-62 (passim). , 

Aryas. See Table of Contents. 

Authors quoted or alluded to : — (a) English — Addison, Joseph, 76, 113 ; 
Aytoun, Professor, 85 ; Bacon, Francis, " Essays," 141 ; Beaumont and 
Fletcher, 127 ; Boswell, James, 119 ; Burke, Edmund, 36; Caedmon, 
2 ; Chaucer, 20, 22, 39, 61, 76, 84, 153, 203, 226, 241 ; Defoe, 94 ; 
Dickens, 39, 192 ; Eliot, George, 164 ; Fletcher, John, 127 ; Gibbon, 4 ; 
Goldsmith, 117 ; Gray, 89 ; Hobbes, 95 ; Henley, 78 ; Hole, Dean, 64 ; 
Hume, David, 77-8 ; Jeffrey, Francis, 94 ; Johnson, Samuel, 27, 42, 
117, 119 ; Jonson, Ben, 40 ; Kipling, Rudyard, 95 ; Langland, "Piers 
Plowman," 61, 71 ; Macaulay, 109 ; Milton, 2, 96, 131, 144-5 ; Pope, 
60 ; Raleigh, " Soul's Errand," 84 ; Saokville's " Mirror," 156 ; Shak- 
spere, 6, 30, 32, 35, 38, 41, 51, 60, 69, 72, 73, 77, 81, 87, 88-90, 107, 
123, 130, 139, 149, 152, 173-4, 179, 181, 202, 209-10, 234, 240; 
Smollett, " Humphrey Clinker," 78, 81 ; Stevenson, " Underwoods," 
76, 98-9, 203 ; Spenser, 61, 65, 84, 96 ; Swift, 94 ; Tennyson, 60 ; 
Thomson, James, 77 ; AVordsworth, 59, 60, 167. 

(b) Scots — quoted or referred to as using Lowland Scots : — Alexander, Dr. W., 
"Johnnie Gibb," 16, 23, 42, 60, 147, 155; Barbour, "Brus," 19, 20, 
30, 31, 39, 42, 61-3, 96, 234; Baillie, "Letters," 77 ; Barrie, J. M., 
59, 63, 75, 97, 117, 118, 134 ; Blair's Autob. 237 ; Blind Harry, 61 ; 
Beattie, James, 75, 78, 94, his " Arnha," 154, and " Scoticisms," 76, 94 ; 
Bell's "Ledger," 231-3 ; Burns, 31, 39, 41-2, 59, 60-6, 68-70, 76-8, 85, 
90, 96, 98-9, 102, 104, 106-8, 112-3, 117-8, 137-9, 150, 154, 163, 172-3, 
177, 181, 183, 198, 201-2, 223, 230, Scoto-Fr. in Burns, 241-3 ; Carlyle, 
28, 60, 62, 78, 113, 117, 132 ; Chalmers, 75, 85 ; Cockburn, Henry, 
59, 94, 100, 110 ; "Complaint of Scotland," 199 ; Crockett, S. R, 97, 
98 ; Dunbar, 61, 96 ; Douglas, Gavin, 61, 76, 87, 96 ; " Duguid, Dr.," 
150; Fergusson, 61, 69, 98, 101, 106, 112, 127; Ferrier, Miss, 60; 
Fountainhall (Lord), 228-237 ; Gait, 60 : Halyburton's " Ledger," 
229-230 ; Hamilton, Mrs., 60 ; Henryson, 61, 136, 218 ; Law, the 



INDEX 265 

iJiarist, lOS ; Lindsay, Sir David, 61, 96, 1 79 ; Kames, Lord, 84 ; 
Montgomery, "Chcriy and Slae," 237; Holland's "Buke of the 
Howlet," 123 ; Hopu, Sir Thoniiis, 229, 235 ; " Kilwuddie," 201 '; Lock- 
hart, 181 ; Miicl/iren, Ian, 117 ; Macdonald, George, 99 ; Nicholson's 
"Jiiownie," 29; Ramsay, Allan, 33, 63, 106, 112, 127, 211; Scott, 
27, 41, 42, 60, 70, 96, 98-9, 117, 132, 177, 189, 223 ; Waverleys, 10, 
181, 182, 193, 205, 226, 232, 241 ; Sibbald, Sir Robert, 198 ; Skinner, 
.fohn, 62, 106 ; Skinner, Bishop, 178 ; Thomas the Rhymer, 20 ; 
"Uiquhart, Robert," 85, 89 ; Wynton, Chronicler, 61. 



Balladh— As I went on a Monday, 22, 31 ; Brownie of Blednoch, 29 ; Battle 
of Harlaw, 90 ; Book of Ballets (Tho. Morley), 155 ; Carrick for 
a Man, 107 ; Cheild Roland, 18 ; Ciimbc;iland Ballads, 193 ; Herd's 
liulludH, 132 ; Hairst Rig, The, 64, 128-129; Johnnie Armstrong, 206; 
Muckin' o' Geordie's Byre, 132 ; Peebles to the Play, 61 ; Sir Patrick 
Spens, 33. 

Bible References— 2, 3, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 
27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 64, 65, 85, 87, 147, 181, 184, 
206, 207, 249, 261. 

Childbbn's (iAMES, 106, 127, 129, 131, 135, 165, 185-7, 196. 

Church, The, 73-5, 119, 121-134 ; Calvinism and Calvinistic, 192, 193 ; 
Catholic and Catholicism, 227 ; Covenanters and covenanting, 193 ; 
(Jistercians — Pluscarden was not a Cistercian foundation, as 
stated in the text. Alexander IL granted the settlement, in a 
(charter of 1236, to the White Monks of Vallis Caulium (valley of 
cabbages) in the Netherlands, founding about the same time Elgin 
Cathedral. The Abbey, as we see it, was mainly the work of the 
lienedictines from Dunfermline, who acquired it in the fifteenth 
i^ntury. After the Reformation it fell to Alexander Seton, builder of 
Fyvie and all-powerful chancellor under James VL, 143 ; Culross, 64 ; 
Kinloss Abbey, 143 ; Pluscarden, 143 ; Presbyterian, 144 ; St. Giles 
(Elgin), 144 ; St. Serf, 64. 

Cottar, The— Cissy Wood's Story, 160-4. 

Cottar's (The) Saturday Night in (.'ape Dutch, 217. 



Dialect— Effect of Printing on, 109, 141 ; Of the Schoolboy, 109 ; Vulgarity 
in use of, 117. 

Dialects— General, 97 ; Classification of, 99-100; Study of, 103, 104-105, 
no, 139, 141 ; in Fair Lsk', 112 ; Germany, 108-112 ; Switzerland, 100. 

Dialects illustrated (JE^n/yiis/t)— Anglican, 82, 83, 101, 165, 166 ; Cumberland 
(general), 68, 146, 149, 151-153, 167-180, 182; Geography and 
I'jthnology of, 165 ; Scots Connection, 165, 167, 681 ; Archaic Element 
in, 173; Idiom and Grammar, 168, 170-171; Dorset, 42 (Barnes); 
Kent, 132, 146 ; Somerset, 38 ; AVilts, 101 ; York, 146, 101 ; South and 
North, 45, 168. 

Dialects illustrated («■»(.<)— Alierdeen, 28, 45, 65, 66, 75, 78 Aberdonian, 



266 INDEX 

78, 99, 100, 104, 106, 110, 123, 130, 133 ; AberdeensMre, 147, 153, 
155, 157, 172, 178, 194; Angus, 98, 99, 133, 139, 163, 184; Angus 
and Mearns (phonetics), 161-162 ; Ayr, 42, 66, 221 ; Ayrshire, 99, 102, 

103, 107, 112, 113, 148, 150, 166, 200, 201, 212 ; Ban£F, 42, 133, 146, 
150, 151, 153, 160 ; Buchan, 23, 64, 99, 101, 105, 147, 148, 151, 153, 
154, 166, 198, 217 ; Borders (The), 30, 65, 76, 98, 99, 125, 127, 154, 
160, 170, 180-182, 184, 187; Campbeltown, 102, 182; "Flory Loyna- 
chan," text and glossary, 113, 116; Caithness, 62, 65, 99, 181 ; Edin- 
burgh, 18, 86,98, 102, 105, 111, 119, 127-8, 130, 132, 135, 146, 179, 180, 
181, 205, 211, 229, 230, 237 ; Dumfriesshire, 100, 103, 142, 150, 151; 
Dumbartonshire, 181, 192 ; Fife, 31, 42, 64, 65, 66, 71, 75, 85, 99, 102, 

104, 109, 111, 113, 118, 120, 121, 124, 130, 133, 134, 135, 139, 140, 142, 
147, 148, 149, 152, 153, 155, 156, 169, 170, 172, 177, 179, 181, 184, 188, 
210, 211 ; Northern, 9, 13, 45, 63, 77, 83, 90, 91, 97, 102, 146, 168, 169, 
173, 182, 197 ; Village Life in, 117-139 ; Vocables of, 139-141 ; Forfar, 
70, 104, 111, 128, 139 ; Galloway, 65, 98, 99, 102, 104, 111, 125, 139, 
165 ; Cattle Trade, 166, 167 ; Words and Idioms, 172 ; Glasgow, 36, 
81, 88, 102, 111, 134, 135, 150, 169, 171, 173, 174, 182, 186, 188, 232, 
233, 236, 238-9 ; Lanarkshire, 42, 66, 72, 83, 99, 125, 127, 139, 150, 
170, 178, 182, 203, 209, 210 ; Lothians, 42, 65, 98, 99, 111, 170, 188 ; 
Kincardine, 98, 161, 182 ; Wood Narrative, 160-164 ; Moray— Farm 
Life in, 141-160 ; Ross Narrative, 142-160 ; Phonetics and Vocables, 
152-154 ; Dialect, 64, 66, 99, 125, 133, 136, 181 ; Nithsdale, 142, 147, 
170 ; Shaw's Glossary, 149-177 ; Ulster, 103, 123, 124, 132, 148 ; 
Orkney and Shetland, 10, 18, 42, 62, 63, 69, 70, 71, 85, 88, 100, 101, 
103, 123, 124, 125, 131, 132, 133, 134, 146, 149, 152-154, 166, 170, 181, 
198, 206, 210; Orcadian Sketches, 18; Edmonston's Glossary, 42, 
100 ; Norse, 65, 110, 132, 165, 166, 182, 195 ; Perthshire, 129, 133. 



Farm Life in Morayshire, 141-160. See for details. Contents IIL 2. 

Folk Lore, 129, 130, 135, 136, 154-155, 183, 185, 186, 187 ; Avild Nick, 185 ; 
Candlemas, 151 ; Charm(a), 160 ; Clyack Feast, 154 ; Clooty, 152 ; 
Guisers, 104, 129 ; Hades, 28 ; Hallowe'en, 129, 154 ; Hansel Monday, 
75 ; Hogmanay, 104 ; Maiden, The, 154 ; Mummers, 104 ; Pechs, 220 ; 
St. Katharine's "Well, 211 ; St. Swithin's Day, 153 ; St. Michael's Day, 
201 ; Wee Bunnock, 150 ; Weather Lore, 189. 

Folk Names for (a) Animals : — Ask, esk, the newt ; calls, to a cow, 148, 
duck, 149, pigeon, 149, la^jwing, 156, bat, 128, turkey-cook, 130 ; clip- 
sheer, earwig, 149 ; oushie, wood-pigeon, 124 ; dunter, eider-dvick, 124 ; 
gellie, leech or tadpole, 120 ; foggie-toddler, yellow bee, 149 ; garie- 
bee, 149 ; golak, beetle, 149 ; gleg, gnat, 122 ; keelie, sparrow-hawk, 
122 ; lerricli, lairrick, lark, 126 ; paitrick, partridge, 124 ; rannie, 
wren, 129 ; Sandy Cam'l, pig, 133 ; St. Anthony's pig, 133 ; staig, colt, 
147 ; stokannet, sheldrake, 172, 180 ; spyug, sparrow, 125 ; teuchat, 
lapwing, 125 ; wallop, lapwing, 156 ; whaup, greater curlew, 119 ; 
whittret, weasel, 124 ; yellow yite, or yorlin, yellow hammer, 156. 
For (6) Plants : — Apple-reenie, 119, 121 ; bachelor's buttons, 121 ; 
bane-wort, 177 ; benner gowan, 177 ; bun-weed, 148 ; boon or boor- 
tree, 123-4, 159 ; corn fever-few, 117 ; curly-doddy, ribwort, 123 ; 
dishielogie, tussilago, 156 ; gairner's gairtens, 121 ; gool, 148 ; grundie- 
swallie, groundsel, 123 ; little goodje, sun spurge, 123 ; lilly-oak, lilac, 
121 ; liij^uorice, common rest-harrow, 123 ; lucy awrnits, earth nuts, 



INDEX 267 

123 ; soorocks, sorrel, 123 ; speengie rose, peony, 121 ; stinkin 
Elsliender (Alexander), stinkin Willie, stinkweed, and weebie — all 
names for ragwort, 148. 

Folk Songs, 130, 135-136, 146. 

Grimm's Law and Diagram, 7-9. 

Historical Allusions :—(!)— Events, 2, 61, 71, 76, 77, 89, 90, 120, 157, 166, 
193, 228, 231, 235, 236, 237. (2) Personages— " Robin " Bruce, 107 ; 
Kno.x, 77, 157, 183 ; Melvill, Andrew, 77 ; Dundas, Henry, 120 ; 
Harley, Earl of Oxford, 94 ; Huguenots, 199, 228 ; Hardwioke, Chan- 
cellor, 89 ; Turner, Sir James, 229 ; Sweno, Norse hero, 143 ; Pyrrhus, 
261 ; Kob Roy, 78 ; Darius, 245 ; Cope, Sir John, 89 ; Graham of 
Claverhouse, 228 ; Haokston of Rathillet, 237 ; Archbishop Sharp, 
237 ; Cromwell, 27, 77, 78, 231, 232, 240 ; Lord Stair, 89 ; Lord Lorn 
(1st Marquis of Argyle), 77 ; Lethington (Secretary to Queen Mary), 
183 ; Lollards, 166 ; William of Orange, 228 ; Alexander II., 143 ; 
James V., 119, 230 ; James VI., 77, 127, 179 ; Jacobites, 77, 88, 120, 
178 ; Napier, Sir Charles, 244 ; The Union, 181. 

Languages ilhistrated : — Anglo-Saxon — 1, 2, 9, 11, 13, 16, 19, 24, 39, 41, 43, 
44, 45, 65, 123, 128, 171, 177. Danish— 70, 108, 112, 149 (Denmark). 
Z>tt«c7i (Holland)— 13, 19, 25, 32, 43, 72, 171, 179, 188, 191, 192, 196, 201, 
202, 203, 204, 205, 206 (in Soots), 209, 210, 220, 228. Dutch (Cape-Taal)— 
13, 179, 185, 188, 191, 192, 193, 194, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 
204, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 213, 215, 216, 217, 218, 220, 222, 224 ; 
Taal (affinity with German), 195, 215 ; affinity with Gothic, 206 ; 
phonetics of, 194, 195, 223 ; phonetics of Braid Scots, 190, 195, 196, 197, 
198, 202, 203, 215 ; Burns in "Taal," 192, 198-9, 210, 212-17, 220-25 ; 
Reitz's translation, 212-13, 216, 220. ^n^Ks7i (general)— 76-71, 66, 204 ; 
historical, 24, 29, 30, 34, 39, 84, 127, 165, 166, 202, 232 ; grammar, 
34, 35, 36, 39, 76, 78 ; phonetics, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 79, 80-3, 86 ; pro- 
vincial dialect of, 97 ; Soots in, 97 ; Inglis tongue, 76. French — 11, 
37, 71, 83, 104, 170, 199, 204, 229 ; in Scots, 184, 227-43. German— 
High, 7-9, 12, 124, 153, 168 ; Low, 7-9, 31, 195 ; Heliand, 25 ; general, 
177, 182, 191, 198, 202, 205, 209, 215, 216, 222, 231. /ranic— 244, 
263 ; Zend-Avesta, 244 ; Ahura-Mazda, 245, 256 ; Indo-European, 7, 
9, 22, 261. Keltic— general, 7, 39, 41, 63, 67, 77, 124, 178, 192, 200-1, 
222, 226, 244, 258 ; Gaelic, 39, 40, 42, 63-4, 66, 67, 68, 77, 83, 103, 110, 
124, 163, 191, 200-1, 204, 222, 247 ; Erse or Irish, 39, 77, 81, 124, 150, 
232, 245 ; Welsh, 248. LaJira— general, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 247 ; in Gothic, 
15 ; grammars in Scots, 233-7 ; grammar, 15, 35, 37, 40, 90 ; Greek— 
general, 193, 244 ; grammar, 8, 10, 35, 40, 90 ; in Gothic, 11, 15, 19, 26, 
27, 32, 36. Norse— 32, 65, 182, 195 ; Frisian, 7, 9, 13, 43, 16o, 188, 191, 
205 ; Icel., 179, 181, 184, 200 ; Norse-Kelt., 25 ; Norse-Goth., 32 ; 
Norse in Scot., 166 ; Scand. (Norse), 5, 7, 10, 14, 39, 42, 63, 66, 110, 
132, 171, 177, 179, 180, 188, 201, 204, 213 ; Runes, 6, 9, 10, 11, 21 ; 
Phcenician, 9, 21. Sanskrit— 7, 14, 39, 40, 90, 244, 245, 246, 258, 262 ; 
grammai', 40. Semitic— 14, 257, 261. Slavonic — 7, 18, 19, 244. Teutonic, 
—11, 21, 28, 35, 37, 41,43, 64, 90, 194, 205, 226, 244, 248, 258, 261. 
Vaidic— 18, 34, 243, 257, 258. 



268 INDEX 

Note to Norse above. — The bulk of the volume goes to illustrate, directly 
and indirectly, the ancient and enduring influence on the Makers of 
Lowland Scotland of their Norse kinsmen from over the North Sea. In 
this connection Chalmers in his "Caledonia" says — "The Flemings who 
colonised Scotland in the 12th century settled chiefly on the east coast, in 
such numbers as to be found useful, and they behaved so quietly as to be 
allowed the practice of their own usages by the name of Fleming- Lauche 
(cf. Eng. Dane-lagh), in the nature of a special custom." So it happened 
that the " Laws of the Four Burghs " forms one of the oldest and most 
illuminating documents on the history of the Scots vernacular. This 
couplet, in popular fashion, gives emphasis to the point : — 

" Boeytter, Brea (d), in (an') griene Tzis, 
Iz goed Ingelsch in' eack goed Friesch." 

It was late before the name Scottis tongue was given to Lowland speech in 
contrast to Erse or Gaelic. In point of fact, the Lowland tongue is mainly 
the archaic form of the ancient Northumbrian, and therefore ought to be 
invaluable to the student of historical English. 

Minor sources — Abbotsford Series (ed. G. Eyre Todd), 106 ; Atkinson, Mr., 
103 ; Alliterative Poems (ed. F. J. Amours, B.A.) (Sc. Text Soc), 124, 
227 ; Angellier, Mons., 108 ; Baillie, Robert ("Letters"), 77 ; BaUantyne, 
John, 206 ; Beo^vulf, 17 ; Birrell, Augustine, 95 ; Bopp, 17 ; Breal 
("Essai de Semantique "), 91 ; Burness, William, 219; Burt, Edward, 
111, 113; "By-ways of History," Colville's, 229-233; Calderwood, 
Mrs., 89, 92, 109 ; Campbell, Sir Colin of Glenorchy, 77 ; Carmichael, 
235 ; Chambers' Dom. Annals, 102 ; Traditions, 105 ; Popular Rhymes, 
150 ; Christison, Sir Robert, 79 ; Cunningham of Craigends (S. H. S.), 
127 ; Cramond, Dr., 155 ; Carrie (biographer of Burns), 78, 117 ; 
" Diversions of Purley," Home Tooke, 38 ; Dick- Lauder (Moray 
Floods), 189 ; Dunlop, Matthew, 116 ; Elphinstone, of King's, Aber- 
deen, 229 ; Erskine, 79-80, 86 ; "Farewell to Edinburgh," 98 ; Flory 
Loynachan, 113-6 ; Foulis, Ravelston, Diary, 185 ; Furnivall, Dr., 
40 ; Gibson (Cumb.), 101, 105, 173 ; " Good Words" (Dr. MacCullooh), 
235 ; Gregor, Dr., 101, 105, 129, 133, 142, 166, 211 ; Grimm's Law, 
7-8, 17, 41, 245; Grosart, Dr. ("Poems of Alexander Wilson"), 
105 ; Haldane, Dr., 73 ; Hamilton, Mrs., 60 ; Heliand (Die), 25 ; 
Henderson, T. F. (Scott. Vernacular Literature), 96 ; Hermand, 
Lord, 86 ; Holland's " Buke of the Howlat," 123 ; Horace, 33 ; Innes, 
Cosmo, 229 ; Junius, Francis, 2 ; Kantian Philosophy, 256 ; Latham, 
262 ; Law, Dr. T. G. (Nisbet's Scots Test.), 44 ; Laws of Four Burghs, 
39, 61, 87 ; Lowther's Journall (1629), 222 ; Masson, Professor, 2 ; 
Morley, Henry ("Shorter English Poems"), 61, 71, 136 ; Miiller, Max, 
243, 246, 260-261 ; IMure, Elizabeth, of " Caldwell Papers " (1712), 240 ; 
Nansen, 179 ; Napier of the Mint (1590), 179 ; Nisbet, Murdoch, 43, 
44 ; Miss du Toit, 214 ; Olive Schreiner, 192 ; Penelope in Scotland, 
98 ; Penn, 94 ; Privy Council Regs., 63, 202, 231-232 ; Punch, 79 ; 
Purvey's Revision of Wyclif, 43 ; Records— Burgh, Kirk-Session, and 
Guilds, 63, 236 ; Robertson, Joseph, antiquary, 64 ; Robertson, historian, 
78 ; Robertson of Ochtertyre, 88 ; Ross, John, Narrative, 157-160 ; 
Ruddiman, Thomas, 235 ; Sackville, Induction to the J\Iirror for 
Magistrates, 156 ; Sanders, Robert, printer, Glasgow, 235 ; Schippert, 
108 ; Skene, historian, 64 ; Simson, Alexander, grammarian, 235 ; 
Skeat, Prof., passim ; Skinner, John, 62 ; Stanley, 81 ; Smith, Adam, 
78 ; Statistical Account of Scot., 101, 102 ; Stevenson the Engineer, 



INDEX 269 

133 ; Ten Brink, 108 ; Thomson, Thomas, antiquary, 100 ; Tudor's 
Orkney and Shetland, 132 ; Varro, 247 ; Wallace, Dr. William, 65 ; 
Wallace, Professor, 177 ; Wallace, Covenanter, 193 ; Wiggin, Kate 
Douglas, 98 ; Willcock's Argyll, 77 ; Wilson, Alexander, 105 ; Wood, 
Cissy, 161, 163 ; Wyclif's Bible, 1, 43 ; Young, Arthur, 132 ; Young, 
Sir Peter, 237. 

Moeso-Gothic, historical names connected with — Adrianople, 6 ; JEgenxi, 5 ; 
Alario, 6 ; Andalusia, 5 ; Asia Minor, 2 ; AtauK, 6 ; Arian heresy, 3 ; 
Athanaric, 6 ; Attila, 6 ; Auxentius, 3 ; Balkans, 5, 6 ; Bulgaria, 3, 6 ; 
Cappadocia, 5 ; Carpathians, 5 ; Chalons (battle), 6 ; Claudius (Emp.), 
5 ; Constantinople, 3 ; Dacia, 5 ; Danube, 5 ; Decius (Emp.), 5 ; East 
Goths (Ostrogoths), 5 ; Ermanaric, 5 ; Eusebius of Nicomedia, 3 ; 
Erithigern, 6 ; Huns (Tartars), 5, 6 ; Moesia, 3, 43, 44 ; Odoacer, 6 ; 
Theodoric the Great, 2, 6 ; Theodosius (Emp.), 6 ; Trehizond, 5 ; 
Ulphila=Wulfila, 1, 2, 6, 205 ; Valens, 6 ; Vandals, 5 ; Wallachia, 5 ; 
West Goths (Visigoths), 5. 

Moeso-Gothic, fragments of — Arezzo scrap, 6 ; Bucharest ring, 6 ; Book of 
Kings, 3 ; Codex Argenteus, 2, 6 ; Facsimile as frontispiece ; Epistles, 
40 ; Epistle du Rumonim, 6 ; Ephesians, 29 ; Milan fragment, 6 ; 
Viennese MS., 10. 

Moeso-Gothic Gospels, names associated with — Camb. Univ., 2 ; Dort, 2 
Dusseldorf, 1 ; Francis Junius, 2 ; Landgraf of Hesse, 1 ; Arnold 
Mercator, 1 ; Prague, 1, 2 ; Ruhr, 1 ; Stockholm, 2 ; Upsal, 2 
Werden, 1 ; Wulfila (Bishop), 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, 24, 
26, 35, 40, 41, 42, 64, 65, 87, 133, 147, 157, 181, 184, 205, 206, 207, 213, 
258, 259 ; his translation, 2, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 
28, 29, 30-3, 38, 49, 53, 65, 82, 133, 147, 206, 247, 258, 259, 260. For 
further details, see Contents I. 

Nationalities referred to— France, 108, 227-41 ; Germany, 136, 138, 
153, 167, 186, 188 ; Goths, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 15, 28, 43, 205, 258 
Guth = God, 28 ; Gut-thiuda, 6, 7, 22 ; Gutos, 6 ; Gothones, 6 
Holland, Hollander, 2, 25, 66, 72, 103, 110, 138, 188, 190-1, 193 
196, 198, 204, 209, 211, 228, 232-3 ; Hindu, 113, 244, 258, 250, 260 
Non- Aryan — Basques, 243 ; Eskimo, 249 ; Lapjis and Finns, 243 
Magyars, 243 ; Mongols, 258 ; Osmanli, 243 ; Scotsman, 191, 192, 206, 
207 ; Scot, The, 77, 110, 206, 207, 209 ; Scots, imitative, 81-5, 94, 
110 ; Scottish, bi-lingual,. 71, 77, 79 ; Scottish, in Ulster, 103, 123-4, 
148; Scottis, braid, 192; Scottis, braid, = Doric, 14, 85, 92, 99, 210 
Scotland, 156, 165, 166, 167, 199, 200, 201, 203, 204, 205, 211, 212, 
250 ; Transvaal, 132, 160, 190, 205, 208, 209, 224, 259. 

Persons and Places of Linguistic Interest — Ahura-mazda, 245 ; Auld 
Howf, Dundee, 224 ; Buchanan, 81, 111 ; BuUers o' Buchan, 149 ; 
Bushman's Hoek, 204 ; Cupar-Ang-gus, 81 ; Cowgate, 81, 111 ; Dak- 
shin Aranya, 245 ; Deccan, 245 ; Erin, 245 ; Esk, 143-149 ; Eyemouth, 
180 ; Farintosh, 16 ; Fridge, Frier, 22 ; Frome, 81 ; Gaikwar, 250 ; 
Gate Slack, 198 ; Gart, Garth, Gort, 25, 51, 65 ; Golgotha, 17 ; Great 
Orme's Head, 14, 20 ; Horatius Codes, 17 ; Hydaspes, 250 ; Jupiter, 
256 ; India, 120 ; Indus, 244 ; Kaisar, Caesar, Czar, 11, 15, 18 ; Kelso, 
111 ; Kirkcaddy, 81 ; Krames, 205 ; Kruger, 63, 198 ; Luckenbooths, 
211 ; Lichfield, 40 ; MacDougal, Madowall, Madool, 165 ; Malloch, 



270 INDEX 

Mallet, 83 ; Murdoch, Murdok, 83 ; Mackenzie, Menzies, 84 ; Miln- 
gavie, 19 ; Mount, Mounth, 61 ; Nero, 248 ; Norder-ey, 166 ; O'Dell, 
10 ; Ormuzd, 245 ; Paardeberg, 201 ; Rheingau, 19, 22 ; Rome, 6, 81 ; 
Rouinania, 6 ; Saline, 253 ; Sand-Biichse, 231 ; Scinde, 244 ; Selkirk, 
111 ; Sodor, 166 ; Start Point, 224 ; Suderey, 166 ; Thursday, 256 ; 
Tinto, 18, 203; Tins, Tuesday, 10, 21, 27, 28 ; Veldt, 200, 204, 216, 
217, 225 ; Wednesday, Wodin, 256. 

Popular Verse — Adam and Eve, 130 ; " Arnlia' " (Beattie), 154 ; Biggin' o't 
The, 161 ; Broken Bowl, The, 174 ; Carrick for a Man, 107 ; Cherries 
on the Rise, 127 ; Fife Toast, A, 134 ; Ford's Morning Walk, 223 ; 
Niewi-nievvi-nik-nak, 128 ; Nursery Rhymes, 128, 183, 185; Nursery 
Rhymes (Border), 187 ; Rhymes, 167 ; Rhymes (Cumb.), 173 ; Scots 
wha hae, 112 ; The Priest o' the Pairish, 146 ; The Weaver, 120 ; 
Wee Bunnock, The, 150 ; Wee Wiflckie (Alexander Watson), 106 ; 
Weather Rhymes, 189 ; When Auld Robin Bruce, 107. 

Proverbs — Lowland Scots, 66-71 ; Lowland Scots and Cumberland, 167, 
168, 177, 217. 



Social Customs — Birley man, 64, 177 ; Boer Op-sij, 205, 218 ; Bull Ring, 
189 ; Candlemas Feast, Cummers' Feast, 181, 205, 240 ; Duke's Canaries, 
180 ; Callow's Hi]l, 67 ; Hebridean tanning, 101 ; Jeddert Justice, 67 ; 
Kraam-bezuk, 205 ; Mercat Cross, 72 ; " Macfarlane's Bowet," Michael- 
mas Moon, 167, 240 ; Nicks (Cu.), 213, 223 ; Pasch (Easter), 15, 157, 
160, 220, 227, 229 ; Riding the Marches, 201 ; Ross Narrative, 157-160 ; 
Sheelin' Law, 181 ; Skiddaw Grays, 180 ; Soordook Sogers, 132, 180 ; 
Summer Sheelins, 199 ; The Broose, 201 ; Tumlin' Wheels, Tummlin- 
car, 181 ; Wochen-Bett, 209 ; Whip-the-Cat, 188. 



Vbrnaculae, The Scots— (1) General— 4i-b, 62, 64, 79, 96, 97, 109, 192 ; 
imitative, 81-5, 94, 110 ; bi-lingual, 71, 77, 79 ; in Ulster, 148 ; New 
Test, in Scots, 43-4 ; Scots and English, 76-95 ; Scots law terms, 72-3 ; 
Scoticisms, 35-6, 39, 40, 76, 78, 84-94, 122 ; " Kailyard," The, 60, 98, 
117, 140, 171 ; "Scottis tongue," 87 ; "braid Scottis'," 192. (2) Vocables 
of — 86-95, 113 ; terms for quantitv, 86, 138 ; expletives, 86 ; epithets, 
86-87, 92 ; archaisrns, 87, 89, 90, 93 ; social interest, 92-3 ; Scots 
vocables familiar in English, 97-8 ; spurious Scots, 97, 117, 118 ; 
Scots malapropisms, 84. (3) Orarivmar of— 63, 71, 76, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 
91, 92, 94, 171, 219. (4) Phonetics and idioms of— 12, 36-39, 41, 79, 80, 
81, 82, 83, 84, 110, 113, 118, 171-2, 174 ; Scholarship (Scots), 41. 

Village Life in Fifeshire, 109, 157. For details, see Contents IIL 



PLACES EEFEERED TO CASUALLY 



Anster (Anstruther), 152 
Arbroath, 128, 242 
Ardchattan, 143 
Armenia, 252, 260 
Auchinleck, 27 

Bactria, 261 
Badenoch, 143 
Beatily, 143 
Black Sea, 260, 263 
Black AVafcer, 143 
Buckliaven, 75 
Byzantium, 3 

Calcutta Asiat. Soc, 244 
Campbeltown, 113, 116 
Campvere, 228, 229 
Canterbury, 16, 248 
Caspian, 260, 263 
Ceylon, 22 

Craigliall (Ceres), 234 
Crail, 234 
Cupar, 70, 103, 186 

DoNAU (Danube), 9, 260, 262 
Dunbar, 235 

Dundee, 104, 111, 119, 131, 224, 233 
Drakensberg, 203, 204 

Elgin, 143, 144, 145, 155, 183 (tune) 

Fair Isle; 112 
Falkland Palace, 119, 120 
Findhorn, 145 
Forres, 143 

Garioch, 90, 112 
German (North), 249 
Germany, 249 
Glaniis, 119, 120 

Hamburg, 26 
Hawick, 139 
Hebrides, 63 
Hindoo Koosh, 260 



Hull, 228 
Humber, 103, 165 

Inverness, 78, 110, 145 
Iran, 244 
Irvine, 201 
Islay, 65 

Kbldon Hill, 143, 145 : Heldon in 

text 
Kilmalcolm, 81 
Kintyre, 113, 169 
Kirriemuir, 134 
Kyle, 166 

Leydbn, 192 
Limpit Mill, 163 
Lithgow Peel, 62 
Locher Moss, 100 
Lomond Loch, 99 
Lossie, 143 
Lucklaw Hill, 121 

Mark Brandenburg, 231 
Milngavie, 19 
Muchalls, 163 

Newark, 64 
Newbattle, 143 

Ochtertyre, 88 
Osnaburgs, 120 
Oxus, 258 

Paisley, 98, 105, 127, 170, 173 
Paropamisan, 260 
Pathhead, 66 
Petlethy, 119 

Konaldshay, North, 132 
Rotterdam, 190, 192 
Eoumania, 6 

Sark, 166, 167 
Sarmatian Plain, 244, 258 



271 



272 



PLACES EEFEEEED TO CASUALLY 



Soots Craig, 119 

Selkirk, 111 

Sobraon, 121 

St. Andrews, 111, 119, lb2, 176 
Sharp, Archb., 119, 237 
Arobdeacon of (1502), 230 
Andrew Duncan, regent in St. 

Leonard's (1595), 233 
Kirk-Session Records, 240 

Start Point, 224 



Stonebaven, 142, 160, 163 
Stratb Clyde, 165 
Switzerland, 100 

TOHRNAY, 330 

Tours, 241 
Trebizoud, 5 
Turnberry, 107 

Tyne at Haddington, great flood 
(1775), 189 



VII— GLOSSAEY 



SCOTS SECTION 

To confine within reasonable compass the huge mass of vocables and 
phrases introduced into the text, a selection has been made. As the 
whole aim of the volume is to interest the reader in the Scots Vernacular, 
this element has been made the dominant feature of the list. Thus Scots 
head- words are given in italic. Words, also, of which the origin is not indi- 
cated, are to be taken as Scots. Italicised words are to be considered cognates 
with each other or with the word under which they are placed. Only such 
words as are held to be cognate with Lowland Scots have their linguistic 
origin noted thus — E.= English, G. = Gothic, Du. = Dutch, C. Du. = Cape 
Dutch, Da. =i Danish, Fr.= Frisian, Ic. = Icelandic, N. = Norse. To these 
add local varieties of Scots, such as Ore. = Orcadian, Cu. = Cumberland, 
No. = Northumberland, North = Northern, Ab.= Aberdeen, Mo. = Moray, 
Kinc. = Kincardine. Relationship with these emphasises the essentially 
Teutonic character of the Scots Vernacular. Outside this circle are noted 
Celtic (Ga. = Gaelic) and French (F.), illustrative of external influences of 
historical interest. Scarcely any references have been made to general 
Ind.-Ger. affinities in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Semitic. ObvioiTS 
contractions are or. = origin, obsc. = obscure, prob.= probably, conn. = con- 
nected, cog. = cognate, perh.= perhaps. 

Dictionaries Consulted — 

New English or Oxford Diet. — as yet published, ending with " Ribald- 
ously," excepting and P — referred to as N.E.D. — Editors, Sir James 
Murray, LL.D., and William Craigie, LL.D. 

Skeat's Philological — Sk. 

Skeat's Moeso-Gothic Glossary— Sk. 

Jamieson's Scottish — Jam. 

Imperial English— Imp. 

Kluge's German Etymological — Kl. 

Edmonston's Orcadian Glossary — Ed. or Shet. 

Gregor's Buohan Dialect — Bu. 

Prevost's Cumberland Glossary — Cu. 

MacBain's Celtic— MacB. 

Jakobsen's Shetland Dialects. 

Annotations, more or less complete, have been made on many of 
the words. These take the place of what might have been footnotes 
throughout the text. Wherever, too, the explanations, or conjectures in 
tracing to their sources words occurring in the text, have failed to find 
support from authorities quoted, such discrepancies have been clearly 
marked by a f on the left, so that the reader can at once check all doubtful 
statements. Such annotations are entirely supplementary to the discussion 
of the word in the text. 

With regard to the dictionaries referred to above, the permanent value 
of Professor Wright's monumental work, the English Dialect Dictionary, 
must be gratefully acknowledged, but for the special purpose of my 
subiect it could be of no great service. It could have furnished many 

273 18 



274 



GLOSSAEY 



variants, but such investigation lay quite outside my plan. More to the 
purpose was Jamieson's Dictionary, tut its well-known faults of matter 
and arrangement seriously hamper the student. A thorough and well- 
informed report on " Jamieson," the outcome of long-continued annotation, 
was contributed several years ago to the "Glasgow Herald" by the late 
Mr. J. B. Fleming. These notes form one of the most valuable contri- 
butions to the study of the Scots Vernacular. I have made use of them 
wherever they had a bearing on the contents of the " Glossary," where they 
are initialled J. B. F. I have also incorporated passages illustrating 
" Jamieson," culled from time to time by Mrs. David Murray of Cardross, 
an ardent enthusiast in such old-world lore. 

This is not a " glossary " in the usual acceptation of the term, since it 
mainly gives references to the explanations m the text and not merely 
meanings. Its additional illustrations and fresh gleanings, it is hoped, 
will give it a value in itself. 



Ai 

A, 79, 80, 81, 111, open namesound, 

as for ea (Ir.) in great; shut 

sound, Sc. Ital. ; light, as final ; 

broad in Loth. 
^Aacht, 12, possession. Eng. aught. 

Go. aiht-s, from agan, to owe; 

not connected with Go. waiht-s. — 

N.E.D. 
Aba, 22, Go. adv. suff. 
Abba, 18, Go. father ; Greek 
Abr-aba, 22, Go. ably, from abrs, 

strong ; able is of Fr. or. 
Ace, aiss, 135, ashes. Go. azgo, 25, 

N. ashe ; hence the Sc. ; cf. buss 

for bush 
Acorn, 19 
Action words, 194 
Adduced, 72, Sc. law term 
Adna, 20, for Sans, anna, food, rice ; 

lit. what is eaten 
Advocate, 72, Sc. law term 
Aetes, 19, A.S. aetes tilian, to get 

food ; aet, food ; Go. at-isk. See 

aits 
Af-haims, 25, Go. from home, Sc. 

hame, haim-s, a village (Go.) 
Af-hwapjan, 48, Go. to choke ; var. 

of hwopjan, to boast, whoop 
Af-wairpands, 33, Go. ; Ger. werfen, 

Eng. warp, A.S. wearp. Go. 

wairp-an, to throw ; cf. moodie- 

iimrt, the mole 
Agis, 30, 51, 255, Go. awe, ugly, 

iigsome, which see 

1 Words not found here may be looked for in the Sc.-Fr. Section. The Indo-Ger. cognates 
(246-256) have not been entered here except as regards their Sc. or Go. elements. 



Ahmins, 26, Go. spirit, arj/jbo. 
Ahwos, 19, Go. floods of rain, Lat. 

aqua, from Go. ahwa, water 
Aihwus, 21, 250, Go. horse, Lat. 

equus, in aihwa-tundja, 21, the 

burning bush ; lit. the sharp, 

swift one ; Lat. ewer, sharp ; Gael, 

ech, N. ehioa 
Ain, 32, Go. ain, Eng. one, a, an 
Air, 28, Go., or Sc. ere, early 
Airth, 11, Go. airtha, earth, Du. 

aarde. So. yird 
Ais, 26, Go. brass, coin, Lat. aes; a 

borr. word 
Aithei, 18, Go. mother 
Aits, oats, 20, 23, Go. ai-isk for 

cnr6piiJ.ov, a field of corn, root eat. 

See aetes 
Aix, aex, 26, Go. ahwizi, axe. In a 

North, gloss, on Lu. iii. 9 ; Go. 

akwizi is A.S. aex 
Aiza-smitha, 26, 259, Go. copper- 

smith; lit. iron-smith 
Alcran, 19, 20, 48, 252, Go. fruit, 

der. from aire = field, acre; cf. 

A.S. "aecyres lilian," flowers of 

the field ; also acorn, fruit in 

general, not from oak, but from 

A.S. aecer, a field, for akern or 

acern 
Aleph, 10, 21, eleph, Heb. ox, hence 

alphabet. See elephant, ul- 

bandus 
Alids, 66, Go. fatted (calf), aljan, to 

nourish, Lat. alere 
Alleys, 187, Cu. 



GLOSSARY 



275 



Alongst, 89, 90, for alongest, an em- 
phatic form treated as a super- 
lative, obsolete in Eng. 

Alphabet, 21 

Amsa, 17, Go. the shoulder, prob. 
misreading for ahsa, ox-ter, 
O.H.G. ahs-ala, 253 

An-an, 31, 255, Go. to breathe, only 
in us-orean, to expire. See aynd, 
eend, anst 

Anda-wleizn-s, 18, Go. countenance, 
O.E. and-wlita, O.N. and-lit, M.E. 
anleth — Northern. N.E.D. quotes 
from Beowulf and Rushworth 
Gospels. See wleiz 

Anent, 94, Sc. legal term, with final 
t in Eng. as early as 1200, but 
long obsolete ; O.Sax. an eban, Ger. 
nehen for en-eben 

Anes errand, 137, going as a special 
message, anes = once, poss. used as 
adv. ; Cu. anes-eerant, 167 

Annatto, 233, native Amer. name, 
var. anatta, annatto. [Misplaced 
at p. 233, not Sc. Fr.] 

Anst, 31, Go. grace, favour, from an- 
an, to breathe ; Ger. Gunst is for 
ge-unst, O.H.G. anst. See anan, 
usanan, eend 

Antarin, 48, Go. anthar, Ger. ander, 
ither 

Apple-reengie (g hard), 119, Arte- 
misia abrotonum, Linn., lit. the 
plant which saves from death. 
Introd. from France in Qu. 
Mary's time. Abrotonum in O.P. 
abroigne, avroigne, ivrogne (dial.), 
which last is the Aberd. iveringie. 
The modern pp is a harking back 
to the ah of abrotonum, immortal 

Arbi, 26, 247-8, Go. heritage, Ger. 
erfe, A.S. yrfe, an heir, Gael, earb, 
trust, akin to opcftavos, Lat. orbus, 
Eng. orphan, Sc. orpiet; with a Go. 
der. arbja. Grimm connects Go. 
arbaiths, toil, Ger. Arbeit, O.H.G. 
arapeit. See erp, orpiet, arpiet 

Argie-bargie, 92, argle-bargle, argue, 
wrangle 

Argues, 92, proves 

Ar-jan, 23, 245, 252, Go. erien, M.E., 
E. to ear 

Ark, 24, a chest 

Arka, 24, Go. meal-arfe in Sc, borr. 
from Lat. area, arceo, to guard 



Arms, 29, Go. poor, Ger. arm 
Arpiet, erpit, stunted, starved, akin 

to Go. arbi, arbja, A.S. yrfe, 

Du. erf, Lat. orbus and orphan. 

See also arbi 
Article (def.), 39, 171 ; art. as t' 
As, 90, after comparatives, a worn- 
down form of all-so; cf. Ger. als, 

in Scots sense 
As, 89, relative 
Asans, 23, Go. harvest ; asneis, a 

hired servant 
Asilu-quairnus, 24, Go. ass -quern, 

asilu-s, A.S. esol, Du. ezel, Ger. 

Esel — borr. from Lat. asinus, with 

I for n; quairnus, a hand-mill, 

Ic. hvern, from root of corn. See 

quern 
]Ash, 149, 252, wet or water newt ; 

apparently a worn-down form of 

O.E. Athexe, Ger. Eidechse ; N.E.D. 

Not connected with the river 

name, Esk, water (Gael.) 
At, 89, prep. 
At for rel. that, 39, 63, 69, 87, 168, 

170 
'At hoo, 40, 168, how that 
-4.tta, 2, 18, 246, Go. father, atta, 

aithei. 
Att-ila, 2, little father, Go. ; Gael. 

oide, foster and god-father 
'At weel, 168, = Ger. ja wohl 
Auga-dauro, 25, Go. window ; lit. 

eye-door 
Augo, 17, Go. eye, Lat. oculus 
Auhns, 24, Go. oven, Sc. oon, as 

Arthur's Oon, near Falkirk, now 

destroyed ; auhn-& preserves the 

Teut. base ; uhna, A.S. ofnet, a 

little pot, shows the radical 

sense 
Avihsus, 21, Go. ox, lit. the carrier. 

The long vowel (o-ax) in Sc. 

preserves the orig. guttural 
Aurti-gards, 26, Go. vineyard, exact 

equivalent of orchard, for ort-yard, 

wort being plant in general 
Aurtja, 23, 26, Go. a husbandman, 

Eng. worts, oris, roots 
Auso, 12, 17, Go. ear, Lat. auris 
Averse, 89, to or from 
Awe, 51, Go. ageai, to caiise to fear, 

agis, awe, ugsome 
Awi-str (fold), 21, 250, awe-thi, Go. 

cog. Eng. ewe 



276 



GLOSSAEY 



Awn, 20, Eng. ear of corn, Go. ah-s, 
ah-ana, chaff — "the little sharp 
thing," Lat. aous, a needle 

Aimome, 98 

Azjin, 211, 0. Du. ; of. eysell 
(Hamlet) 



B 



Baas, 207, C. Du., Amer.-Eng. boss. 

N.E.D. says, supposed cog. with 

Ger. Base, female cousin, baas, 

master, both arising out of dialect 

child-words for father (badar) in 

various familiar senses 
BaasM plooriis, 110, bruised, perh. 

N., but possibly onomatop. 
Bab, 114, to close, Ayr. 
Bachelor's buttons, 121 
Back o' beyont, 168 
Bad, 56, Go. pret, bidjan, to pray ; 

cf. to hid one's beads or prayers, 

from Go. hida, a prayer or bead 
Baikie, in coo-baikie, 131, 147, piece 

of wood fastening cows in stall 
'\Bain, 156, 230, bainne (Gael.), 

milk, MacB. Ir. banne, a drop, 

SI. banja, a bath, Eng. bath. 

N.E.D. says bath not conn, with 

bain, but is Ger. bahen, cog. 

fovere, orig. idea = heat ; no 

Gael. conn. 
Bairn, bairnie, bairnlie, 2, 19, 24, 32, 

56, 66, 69, barn-ilo, Go. from 

bear, "We're aw Joahn Tamson's 

bairns," O.E. beam, Go. " Thata 

barn, Jesu " 
Bairseag, 151 (Gael.), a scold, N. 

berj-a, to strike, cog. birr, birrle 
Baitr-aba, 22, 30, 87, Go. bitterly 
Balm, 121, balsam (flower) 
Bands, 75, necktie of a beneficed or 

" ]Dlaced " clergyman. — Not in 

Jam. 
Bandster, 177, K. 
Banewort, 177 
Bannock, 150, 183, Gael, bannach ; 

bunnock, 107, Lat. panicium, 

panis, bread 
Banst-s, 24, Go. a barn, O.E. ®bos, 

O.N. bds-s, E. boosy, M.E. bosig, 

a cow-stall, O.T. ''-'banso-z, Ger. 

Banse 
Bajps and beer, 129, 177, baps, a thick 

cake, generally with yeast in it 



Barefit broth, 1 56, made with a little 

butter or dripping, but without 

meat 
Bare-gorp, 181 (Cu.), a nestling 

bird. See gorbet 
Barley-break, 155 
Barley me that, 173, Cu., syn. of 

chaps me 
Barrin-oot, 186 
■\Bauch, 12, 86, 129, dulled, as ice 

after thaw, synon. wauch; perhaps 

O.N. bagr, awkward, N.Eng. baff. 

"not Go. bauths, deaf."— N.E.D. ; 

weak, pithless, bauths. Go. deaf ; 

ch sometimes interchanges with 

th; Go. bauths not under bauch 

in N.E.D., but cf. sense in Go. 

bauth wairthan, 12, to become 

worthless 
Bauchles, 208 
Bauckie, 18, 154, bawki-bird, bak, 

baukie — 

"The laverock and the lark, the hawkie an^ 
the hat, 
The heather bleet, the mire snipe ; 
Hoo mony birds is that ? " J. B. F. 

Baudrons, 68, 135, pussy — 

" Here baudrons sits and cocks her head " 
" Old Ball." 

Gael, beadrach, a playful girl ; 
beadradh, a fondling 
Banks, 131, 140, 151, dividing ridges 
between fields, left in grass ; com. 
Teut. O.N. bjalki, a beam ; also a 
weigh-iecMTi — 

" Give your neebor the cast o' the hauk." 
Hugh Miller. 

Bauld, balths, 14, Go. bold, Ger. bald, 

quickly 
Bawsent, 223 

Be, bi, 52, 62, Ger. bei, E. by 
Bead, Seadsman, 56, Go. bidj an, to pray 
Beaked, 122, basked ; bekand, 62, 

may be only a form of bask, which 

again is a variant of bath. — N.E.D. 

Beck, to bathe, Eoxb. — Jam. Beek, 

beik — 

" While the sun was beakin' warm and 
bonnie, 
Owi-e the hauglis and holms o' the 
Garnock." Duguid. (J. B. F.) 



Becd, 139 (suppurate), var. of 
I, a blain, Du. biiil. 



Ic. bola, a Islain, feu. biiil, Ger. 
Beule, Go. uf-bauljan, to puft' up 



GLOSSARY 



277 



Beam, 20, 26, 197, boom, Du. 

boom, A.S. beam. Go. bagm-s, a 

tree 
Bear, 38, to carry ; Go. bairada, 

bairanda, bairan, passive ; from 

bairan, to bear, or carry 
Bear, here, 20, 23, 200, 212, tbe 

coarse variety of iar-ley ; Go. 

hari-zevas, made of Jarley 
Beck, 204, E., from N. bekk-r, Du. 

beek, Ger. Bach = brook 
Beds, 127, child's game 
Beenin, 149 (Buoh.) to heene, make 

the staves of a barrel swell 

by steeping. See Go. hulna, to 

swell. — Jam. 
Beese, 167, Cu., Sc. beas', pi. of beast 
15eeter, 183, Cu., beetiu stick, Cu. 
Beeis, 183, lit. makes 6ei-ter, mends 

the fire 
Begovd, 36, 89, past of Eng. hegan, 92 
Begowh, 128, 150, Sc. "For he meets 

wi' a great hegech frae empty 

binks." Jam. begeik, begink, 

begunk ; prob. under influence of 

" gowk," the cuckoo ; Ab. begeck, 

Bu. begyte 
Beiks, hikes, 124, 157 

" Tliiang as bumbees frae tlieir bikes, 
The lauds an' lastes loup the dykes." 

'\Beist, 32, 132, comm. Teut., or. obso. 

Du. and Ger. beist ; Fris. bjilst — 

" beitan, bite," not conn.— N.E.D. 
Bend-leather, 1 34, for soles of boots 
Bennert, 177, Nithsd. 
Berry, 25, 26, Go. basi, in weina-basi, 

the grape 
Besom, 85, 137, a broom, O.Fris. 

besma ; Ger. Besen. As an op- 
probrious epithet strictly Sc. 

"A.S. besma. Go. bisma ; cf. Lat. 

ferula."— Kl. 
Bethel, headle, 14, 73 ; hetheral, 118. 

Bedellus is the Latinised form. 

O.E. bydel ; from Go. hiudan, to 

oli'er 
Bet-ter, 29, batiza, batists, Go. hetter, 

best 
Beut-monej, 26, 130, 186, buit. Go. 

bdta, advantage, good ; Eng. to hoot 
Bew, 81 (Lan.)blue 
Bewray, 30 (Bible), Go. wrohjan 
Bid, 56, to order, combines two 

originally distinct verbs — (1) O.E. 

beodan, Go. biudan, to command ; 



Sc. bode, an offer at an auction. ; 
Baidjan, 56, is for biudan. (2) 
O.E. biddan. Go. bidjan, pray, 
ask urgently, Sc. ftetZesman 

Bide, 33, 90, Go. beidan.; 6ic?e = stay ; 
also endure, tolerate 

Bien, 136, 174, Eng. dial, bain ; 
O.N. beinn, straight, hospitable 

Big ha'-Bihle, 219 

Bike, 124 

Billy, 173 (Borders), companion 

*' Ye are a lad, ye are but bad, 
An' a billie to his son a canna be." 

" Bord. Minstr." 

familiar form of "Willy. — N.E.D. 
Bine, 209, Lan. 

Binnd, 36, Go. bindan, to bind 
Birh, birch, 252 
Birley-man, 64, from byrlaw, burlaw, 

the law of the baer (Ic.) or village 

community 

Birse, 134, 151, bristle 

" The elshin, the lingle, and the birse ! " 
" Souters o' Selkirk." 

Birssy, 63, irascible, Gael, bairseag, 
a scold 

Birsling sun, 122, scorching. Jam. 
birsle, brissle, to parch by fire. 
A.S. brastl, glowing, brastlian, to 
burn. "I trained on birsled 
peas and whisky." — " Tom 
Cringle's Log." (J. B. F.) 

Bi-sunja, 33, Go. See san, sooth 

Bit, 94, a bit bread 

Bite, 32, Go. beitan, to bite 

Bittock, 86 (dimin.) 

Bi-waibjan, 26, Go. to weave. Root 
general over Ind.-Ger. tongues, 
evidence of high antiquity of the 
art 

Black-a-vised, 61, dark visaged 

Blad, 197, C. Du. leaf in general ; 
cf. "Ilka blade o'gress" 

Blate, 86, 137, bashful. Go. bleiths, 32 

" An' leukit feel bUUe." 

" Christmas Ba'ing." 

"Ye're no blate," by litotes, in- 
solent 
Blaioin, 134, boasting, from blowing 

(fig-) 
Blowaiis haithjos, 23, Go. flowers of 

the field, blooms of the heath 
Blinnd, 18, blind, blinds. Go. blind 
Bocht, bauhta, 12, Go. pret. of bugjan, 

to buy 



278 



GLOSSAEY 



Bob of flowers, A, 174, Cu., of un- 
known or. ; perhaps conn, with 
Gael, baban, babag, a tassel ; pab, 
flax refuse ; O.Ir. popp, a bunch 

Bodach, 63, 177, Gael, a silly 
person, a carle, So. a hiddie 

Bodd'm, 167, Cu. and Sc. 

Bogle, 18, 256, bugbear, goblin; in 
Sc. lit. since 1500 : of uncertain 
origin.— N.E.D. 

Boka, 39, Go. book, bokareis, scribes, 
bookers 

Bole, 171, boal, small recessed cup- 
board in a wall Or. unknown 

Bolner, 149, Ic. to swell. See beal, 
bullerin 

Bond, 72, So. law term, mortgage 

Bone, 124 (Ger. Bein), Eng. 

Boolie-backit, 88, Sc. hump-backed 

Boohj hole, 171, Cu. var. of bole 

Boost, 102, buist, behoved, under 
necessity to ; also bu'd, had to 
" Twa eUs o' plaiden bude be bocht." 

Booth, 24, binds, Go. the table, 
booth, Ger. Bude — root, to build 

Bour-tree, boon tree, 123, 124, the 
elder. " Uncert. der. — bore in- 
consistent with earliest and dialect 
forms ; ioweranswers phonetically, 
but unlikely with regard to sense ; 
bound-tied, from marking bound- 
aries." — N.E.D. This last a mere 
guess 

Boutent, bowden, 147, to swell ; noth- 
ing like it in Jam. or N.E.D. 

Bower, 200, a farmer, on steelbow 
system, bow, O.N. bti, farming, 
farm stock, Ger. Ban, Bauer, 
C. Du. Boer 

Bowie, 156 

Braffin, 187, a horse-collar 

Brags, 128, Eng. brag, not in 
Jam. 

Braxy, 207, a disease in sheep ; prob. 
conn, with break ; A.S. broc, 
disease 

Brecham, 130, 187, E. dial, bargham ; 
peril. O.E. beorgan, to protect 
with hame, q.v. 

" A brecham and a cardln' clout." 

"Jac. BaU." 

Bredd, broad, 29, 32, Go. braid-s 
Bree, bril, brye, 114, var. of brizz, 
bruise 



Bree, 203, brow, " Bree-bree brenty," 
&o. 

Breed slwuder, 207, C. Du. broad 
shoulder 

Breest, 17, Go. brusts, breast 

Brether (as pi. for brother ; long 
obsolete), 102 ; Shet. breder 

Bricht, 12, Go. bairhts, bright 

Bride, bruth-faths, 18, Go. lord of 
the bride. See faths 

Bring, 10, Go. briggan 

Brintlin, 145, Mo. a form of hrunt, 
Eng. burnt ; not in Jam. : bruntlin 
is a burnt moor (Buchan) 

Britchen, 130, a piece of horse har- 
ness, poss. from breech 

Brither, brothar, 18, Go. brother 

Brixn, 97 (bruise), O.E. brysan, to 
crush 

Broch, 25, a burgh, a pledge, bairgan, 
Go. guard, preserve ; baurgs, a 
town ; O.N. borg, a castle ; Go. 
iam-js-waddjan, town-wall 

fBrochen, 158, 160, Mo. porridge, 
Ir. brochan, cog. broth. — MacB. 
" Not cog. with broth."— N.E.D. 

Brock, 29, 206, O.E. ge-broc, E. 
dial, brock, a fragment, Du. brok, 
Go. bruko — from "break;" fish 
offal, Shet. ; to do work unskil- 
fully — " A widna hae that tailyor ; 
he brooks sae muckel claith." — 
Gregor 

Brock, 105, a badger ; brokkit, 163, 
speckled. N.E.D. sub brock, bad- 
ger, Gael, broc, prob. cog. (^opicos, 
grey, white, the " speckled " 

Brokkit, 163, " a briekit sheep, dark, 
with white legs and belly." — Edm. 

Brom, 221, C. Du. cog. with Sc. 
barm 

Brook, 34, enjoy, endure, Go.brukjan, 
Ger. brauchen. Bruik, bruke, 
brook — bruk not in Jam. " Mar- 
garet Loif gevin license to marry 
Andro Elemyn, and bruk the 
twa merk land in Scheddylstoun." 
— " Glas. Rental Book." (J. B. F.) 

Broom, 81, Eng. (brougham) 

Broon kaidis, 138, bronchitis 

Broose, race of, 201, mounted party 
at a country wedding; "of un- 
certain origin." — N.E.D. 

Brucks, 206, Ore. fish offal. See 
brock 



GLOSSAEY 



279 



Bubbly jock, 130, the turkey, So. 

bubble, to blubber 

Bu'd to be. See boost 

Bu^jan, 12, Go. to buy 

BuuM, 65, Border, sbeep-pen 

'• O, the ewe buchts are bonnie, 
Baith e'enin' and mom." 

BuU-baiting, 188, "Shak t' bull- 
ring," Cu. 

Bull Ring, 189 

Bullerin out, 149, 150, O.Fr. bullir, 
to boil.— N.E.D. M.E. bolne. Da. 
bolne, to swell. See bolner 

Bultong, 207, C. Du. 

Bun — bunaoh, boon, 124 ; Gael, bun 
tata, potato, from E. MacB. says 
it contains folk-etym. in bun, a 
root. A.S. bune, stalk, reed, 
prob. cog. ; root bbu, to grow, 
<f)vo) ; Ger. Beule, a swelling 

Bunker, 102, cog. with bunk, bank, 
bench ; not in Jam. 

Bun-wed, -wede -weed, 123, 148 

Burg, broch, burgh, 25, Go. baurgs, 
bairgan 

Burneijwin, 173, bum- the- wind, the 
blacksmith 

Burr on the Borders, 111, 171 

"^Bmh, 207, box in centre of a wheel 
in which the axle works, Sw. 
hjul-bossa, wheel-bush ; not conn, 
with boss.— N.E.D. 

But and ben, 176, for be-out and 
be-in ; of. Du. Buiten-hof and 
Binnen-hof, at The Hague 

" Butter and bread," 92 

By, 90, So. after comps. 

By ordinar thrang, 127 

Byspel, 182, Cu. 



C 



0. Dutch, affinities with German, 

195, 215, 216 
Caber, 67, MacB.— cabar, a rafter. 
Caddie, 102. Not in Jam. or N.E.D. 
CaiUeach, 154, Gael, old wife, nun, 

the " veiled one ; " cog. Lat. 

pallium, a pall. CaiUie, cowl, 

Lat. oucuUus, Sc. cool 
Caird, 153, 154, a gipsy, tinker, Gael. 

Sc, in borrowing, has debased the 

orig. sense of art, craft ; var. 

kyaird 



Cairl, carle, 163, O.N. karl. Go. kerel, 

a man, churl 
Cairneedy, 133, Bu. carneed, crine, 

to shrivel. Not in Jam. or 

N.E.D. MacB. has crannadh, 

withering, shrivelling, Ir. orannda, 

decrepit, from cran, tree, running 

to wood. Jam. has a var. — 

cranshaoh 
Cairrit, 91, var. of carried, fig. used 
Caker, 104, Forf. ; not in Jam. or 

N.E.D. ; prob. from cake 
Callow spyugs, 176, unfledged 

sparrows 
Calm souch, 216, sigh, with guttural 

sounded 
Camanachd, 127, Ga., the " crooked 

thing," cam, bent ; camag, a club, 

camas (Cambus), a bay 
Candlemass cockfight, 151 
Cannas, cannis, 70, 148, Bu. 
Cannis-breid, 148, from canvas 
Cantertup, 159, for cantrips, charm, 

trick 

" Here Mausy lies, a witch that for sma* 
price, 
Can cast her cantrips, an' gie me advice. ' 
" Gentle Shepherd." 

Cappie, 204, dim. of cup ; Bu. " He's 

as fou's cap or stoup'U mak him." 

— Gregor 
Carblin, 102, from carble, carb, O.N. 

karpa, to brag; cf. carp; Bu. 

wrangling, followed by wi', if a 

person, and, aboot, if a thing. 
Carcidge, 102, carcase 
Carl-doddy, 154, the plaintain ; carl, 

in sense of "male" in plant 

names ; dod, anything ball-like ; 

carl-hemp, hemp, 163, male flower 

of ; curl-doddy, naturally clever 

(Shet.). See also ourly-doddy 
Cam, 133, to soil, Bu. Not in Jam. 

or N.E.D. 
Garrick, 99, 127, 140, Ei. shinty or 

hookey stick, form of crook 
" Garrick for a man," 107 
Carsackie, drsackie, 102, workman's 

coarse blouse ; cirrseckie (Fi.) 
Cast up, 92, 178, to rake up the past, 

to throw 
Cattle beass, 35, 71, 167, cattle beast, 

cf. bees, Cu. 
Oauf, 21, calf. Go. kalbo ; chaff is 

similarly sounded in Sc. 



280 



GLOSSARY 



Caum-staned, 169, pipe-clayed 

C'ayshin, cayshner, 72, 103 (caution, 
cautioner), Sc. law 

Clmllenge, 87, 92, So. law 

Ghampet, 88, 129, mashed, champ 
from an original chamb, identical 
with jam and jumble, imitative of 
action of chewing. — N.E.D. 

Chapel of Ease, 144, quoad sacra, 
supplementary to parish church 

Chaps me! chops me! 102, 127, 173, 
from chap, chaup, to fix upon by 
selection ; "Belg. kippen, to 
choose ; " cog. with cheap, chap- 
man. "Jam. I. 409, but chap 
only, not the phrase." (J. B. F.) 

Char, 78, for jar, by a Gaelic 
speaker 

Charlock, 64, B. Sinapis arvensis, 
O.E. cerlic ; or. unknown 

Chattel, 71, E. 

" Oheatery's cholcet you," 127, cheat- 
ing = Nemesis 

Cheef, 127, very friendly ; chief, 
136. Not in N.E.D. 

Cheesies, 186, Fi. cheese biscuits 

Chekis of the yett, 62, door-posts, 
cheeks (Barb.) 

" Che vor' ye," 38, Lear. 

Chield, 14, 68, generally bairn in Sc. ; 
O.E. did. Go. Idlthei, womb, child, 
chiel, a variant 

Chiels, 175, fellows 

Childer, 102, children (O.Sc.) 

Chin, 17, Ga., kinnus, chin-cough = 
kin-cough. So. kink-hoast 

Chitterlings, 130, E. smaller intes- 
tines of pig, &o. ; or. doubtful 

C^lows, 102, 135, 140, small coal (Fi.) ; 
not in N.E.D. 

Chree, 83, Sc. dial, for three 

Chuck, 174, Cu., Lan. 

Chufty, 118, 173, Cu. chuflfy, chaff, 
plump-cheeked, or. obs. ; prob. 
a var. of chafts, the jaws and 
chew 

Chun, 174, Cu. 

Cip, 102, play truant, common Lan. 
and the West, also kip. Not in 
Jam. or N.E.D. 
Clahhy-dhxi, 116, black clah or mussel. 
In the 17th cent, they were sought 
for, under this name, in the bed 
of the Clyde opposite Glasgow 
Green. 



Clack, 102, 185 

Clagum, 130, treaole-toflfee, olag ; Da. 
klag, sticky mud, ckiy, clog, Kleoks, 
a blot (Sc. blob) of ink, is a corn- 
par, modern usage in Ger. ; clocks, 
milk boiled till it acquires a dark 
colour and peculiar taste (Shet.) 

Claise, 53, clothes 

Claith, 53, cloth 

Claty, 115, var. clarty, liorty, simpler 
forms clat, clot. ' ' Gavell of house 
east side Saltmarket of catt (for 
clat) and clay."— "Gl. B. Recs.," 
1692. A road-scraper is still 
called a clatt in Glasgow ; klurt, 
a lump, also to daub (Shet.) 

Clashing, 137, gossip, an echoic 
word 

Cleckine, 32, 130, litter of rabbits 
or brood of birds, Fi., O.N. Klekja, 
Da. klackke, to hatch ; cf. cletch, 
clutch, cleokin, " a brood of 
chickens, is given in Jam. but 
not clatohin, a common form." 
(J. B. P.) 

Cled, cleddit, 53, clothed 

Clerk, 4, 109, scholar 

Clet, clett, 152, O.N. klett-r, a sea 
cliff. Da. kUnt, a flinty rock 

Cliob, 147, Gael, oliobach, cliobag ; 
cliobeag, a filly 

Clip, 147, Mo., a hoyden, Ab. dippy, 
Fi. pert 

Clippy, 128. See Clip. 

Clip-shears, 122, 149 ; O.N. klipp-a, 
to cut with scissors ; " prob. ident. 
with L. Ger. klippen, to make a 
sharp sound, to clap." — N.E.D. 

Cloth, 94, idiom 

Cloor, 139, 152, a blow or its mark. 
O.N. klor, a scratch ; klo-a, 
claw. 

Clooty, 152, clootie, the Devil as 
cloven-footed. Perh. from claw ; 
Du. klauwtje, little claw, ankle 
bones, hoof 

Gliite, 152, 219, or. sense, firm lump, 
clump, ball ; Du. kloot, a ball ; 
Ger. Klosz 

'* Six guid fat lambs I said them ilka clute." 
" Gentle Shepherd." 

Clyaoh, 154, Gael. See caillach 

Clypes, 128, Lan. tittle-tattle ; or. 

doiibtful. (?) A.S. clypian, to 

speak 



GLOSSAEY 



281 



CoaLrees, 121, Lan. coal depots, 
bings. "A sheep-ree or fold 
(Loth.) ; rae, wrae, cattle-yard ; 
ree, reed (Fi.), do." — Jam. 

Cob, cop, cup, 175, 204 

Cohhk, 175, dim. of cob, small, water- 
worn stone 

Cobbling, 175, Cu. poaching term 

Cobble-hole, 175 

Coddis, 58, husks, pillow. N. koddi, 
a pillow ; Da. kodde, a bag, 
kudda. Ore. 

Cod-out, 58, to shake out — said of 
over-ripe pods 

Cod-ware, 58, pillow-slip ; A.S. 
waer, pillow-cod 

Coern, 80, 94, 171, corn ; Cu. cworn 

Coffin trams, 118, poles bearing the 
coffin 

Colies, 146, Mo. prob. Ic. kollr, 
round-head, a hay-cock 

Come o' wills, 189, Cu. 

Complainers, 72, appellants, Sc. law 

Compound tense, 37, Go. 

Con, 184, obs. the squirrel 

Condescends, 72, Sc. law 

Conjugational ov simple passive, 37 

Contermashous, contumacious, 84, 
136 

Conventional address, 207 

Convey, 72, Sc. legal term 

Coo, 68, cow 

Coo bailde, 140, 147, Fi. See baikie, 
147 

Cool, 81, a cap, var. of cowl, hat, 
cucullus. See caillach 

Coo-Uckt, 189, hair that would part 
in one line only. Jam. has only 
cow-lick, in above sense 

Coom, 135, Fi. coal-dust ; O.N. 
kain, film of grime ; Shet. koom, 
anything much broken, coal, bis- 
cuits, &c. ; var. goom, 114 

Coom, - ceiled, 128, Fi. arched or 
rounded top ; said of a garret 
room ; cog. Eng. coomb, a small 
valley.— N.E.D. 
Coonts, 134, counts, sums 
Coordie, 128, coward 
Coorie hunker, 129, Lan. coioer, and 
hunker, to squat down on haunches 
Coosie, 128, Forf. 
Cop, 204 
CorJcs, 105, 112 
Correlation of adjectival clauses, 39 



Corruptions of the Taal, 216 

Coterie words, 109 

Cothie-juke, cothie-guckie, 151, Mo. 

Cothie, coothie, 68, 86, 137, 151, 
couthie, only in Sc, akin to O.E. 
ciith, from cunnan, to know, fa- 
miliar, affable. Go. kunds, known, 
Ger. kundig, couthie ; cf. kythe, 
known, uncouth, unco 

" nk couthie word."—" Wh. Binkie." 

Gotten, 94, get on well together.^ 
Swift 

Cot-toon, 65, ploughmen's row of 
houses at a farm 

Couatit, 58, coveted 

Coup, 97 

Gran, 207. See kraan 

Craobh, 67, Gael, a tree, the "split- 
table " one 

Grap-wa', 128. See coom-ceiled 

Crave, 88, to dun, for a debt 

Craw-flee, 127, Fi. a boy's game, 
crow-fly 

Oreesh, 63 

Creuve, cruive, cruve, 67, 174, criv 
in Bu. ; Northern only : a hovel, 
sty, salmon-trap ; akin corf, a 
bfisket, Ger. Korb. "Ane schiep 
criff (pen) bigit on the Gallow 
Hill hot licence of the town," 
1628.—" Banff Records." 

Crine, 133, app. Gael, crion, little, 
withered, crined, shrunken. — 
N.E.D. MacB.— "Root kre ap- 
pears to belong to root ker, 
to destroy, as in Go. hair-us, a 
sword " ; cf. catVneedy, as verb 
to cause to grow stunted, "Y've 
crinet yir caar (calves) by speh- 
nin thim our seen." — Gregor ; 
creenie-crannie, the little finger 
(Ab.) 

Cripple, 102, lame 

Crovk, 198, O.E. croc, N. krukka ; 
KL connects with Ger. Krug, Du. 
kruik, lo. krukka, A.S. crocca, 
M.E. crokke 

Crom, 62, kink, Bu. Du. kram, a 
hook, crook 

Crock, 198, crockery. Or. Celt, 
crog, crogan, a pitcher ; in Eng. 
and Teut. generally 

Crock- werk, 198, C. I)u. = crockery ; 
cf. Du. krug, a public-house 



282 



GLOSSARY 



Groaning, 224, liumming over a 
tune. Croon under croyn in 
Jam. a very unusual form ; " to 
whine " certainly wrong ; happi- 
ness and contentment implied 
rather. (J. B. F.) 

Grooss, 70, 86 ; only in Sc, from 
Frisian. N.Eng. crous, Du. krys, 
curled, Fr. krfls, curly 

Groude, 58, a fiddle ; W. crwth, a 
violin 

Groupie, 13, croaky. Imitative 
conn, with crow, croak 

Gruden, cruban, 102, 116, crah or 
partan (Sc). Ir. crubadh, to bend, 
crook, N. krjup-a, to creep, Sc. 
cruppen, bowed 

Grummie, 131, the "cow with the 
crumpled horn " 

Grummock, 107, staff with a crooked 
head. Gael, cromag, from crom, 
crooked 

Groon o' the causey, 169, centre of 
roadway 

Gry, 87, 92, to call, a call 

Cry on, 92 

Guif, 136 

Gum hy chance, 189, Bord. 

Gummins, 140, 175, Fi. Jam. 
"cumming, a vessel for holding 
wort." Cog. coomb, O.E. cumb, 
Ger. Kumme, a vessel 

Cundeth, 172, Cu. var. of condie, 
which see 

Curators, curdtors, 80 

Gurly-andrew, 123, Fi. 

Gurly-doddy, 123, 163, doddy, polled, 
what has a rounded head, wild 
scabious, ribwort plantain. Chil- 
dren apply it to scabious or 
Devil's-bit— 

" Ourly doddy, do my biddin, 
Soop my hooss and shool my midden." 
" Ohambei-s' Rhymes." 

Gum, 86, 104, 138, var. of corn. 

"An' mix the gusty ingans wi' a cum o' 
spice." — "Gentle Shepherd." 

" I hae na a corn," Shet. A curney, 
a large [number, as "a curney 
of piltacks" or coal-flsh (Shet.) 

Gushie, 124, cushat or stock-dove 

Guss-in, 13, cousin 

Gustomer (tailor), 188 



Gutchick, 129, Mo. prob. Gael. dim. 
cooch-ack, in dog-covich, a kennel, 
and syn. with chicken-cavie or 
hen-coop. Not in N.E.D. 

Ciite, 152, Mo., queet, Ab. Cuit, 
the ankle, is "not given (Jam. 
I. 548), and no cross-reference to 
coot nor cute." (J. B. F.) 

Guttit, 88, cut 

Gutty soam, 103, North, cutty, short ; 
subst. a wanton. See soum, seme, 
sime, sinmiins. 

Cworn, 23, 181-2, 253, Go. ; later, 
kaurn, Cu. 

D 

D, intrusive in adjectives, 195 ; 
elided. 111, 178, 210 

D in -d,-ed, 36 

Dad, 139, 174, a rough blow, a lump 
of anything ; dawd, daud, " not 
given, but dodd is (Jam. II. 72), 
to move by succassation!" (J. B .F.) 

daddjan, 250, Go. to suck, cog. with 
Lat. filia 

Baffin, frolic, not in E.D.D. 

Bcrft, 69, imbecile. No. Go. stem 
dah, in sa-daban, to happen, gives 
daft and deft; or. sense, fit, apt, 
then inoffensive ; cf. silly and 
Ger. selig.— N.E.D. 

Dags, 23, Go. day 

Daichie, 132, 172, 217, dough, duff, 
(dial.). Fris. deeg, Du. deg, Ger. 
Teig, Go. daig-a ; or. sense, 
"what is kneaded" ; Eng. doughy, 
pallid, deighle, a simpleton. — 
E.E.D. Not in N.E.D. 

Baidle, daidlie, 128, No. pinafore ; 
cog. dawdle ; dud, Gael, dud, 
a rag, " or. unknown." — N.E.D. 

Daiff, daubs, 18, Go. deaf, af- 
daubnan, to grow dull. The or. 
long vowel pres. in Sc. 

Daing, haing, 115, 116, minced oaths 

Dairgie, dirge, 74, 227, funeral feast. 
Lat. " Domine, dirige nos," in the 
office for the dead 

"An' he helps to drink his ain di-aieie." 
" Ballad." 

Daizter, 169, dayster, Yks., worker 
by day, not by piece. — E.E.D 
Not in N.E.D. 



GLOSSAEY 



283 



Dakshin-aranya, 245, Sans. Dak- 
shin = Lat. dexter, right hand, 
and aranya, forest, jungle. The 
priests, worshipping the dawn in 
the East, had the Deccan on the 
right hand, hence its name, the 
southern forest 

Bang, 153, No. ; Ic. dengja, to 
hammer; "a hard blow: to knock, 
bang."— E.E.D. Var. dung, "Ne 
ver (true) man shall hae the door 
dung in's schafts that wud be in." 
—"Kirk Records," 17th c. See 
ding and on-ding 

Dapper, 192 ; Du. dapper, Ger. tap- 
fer, brave, sturdy ; Dopper Boer 

Daps, 114, var. of dabs, small 
flounders 

Darg, 105, No. for day-wark, a job 
or fixed task.— E.E.D. 

Darn, 101, Am., dash, Eng. 

Daur, 25, 249, Go. door, pi. daurons 

Dauthi-dedeina, 37, Go. dauth-s, 
dead ; in So. a noun, e.g. to the 
deid. Dedeina is here the 3rd pi. 
affix of the past conjunctive of 
the weak verb dauthjan, to kill. 

Daver, 102, stun, stupefy, stagger, 
for doaver, to be in a dose. O.N. 
dofna, Go. daubna, to become 
heavy, dover, to fall into a light 
slumber.— E.D.D. This is the 
usual Fife form. The daver of 
E.D.D. is unknown 

Daw, 136, as lazy, idle ; not in Jam. 
"A workin' mither maks a daw 
dochter."— Prov. (J. B. F.) See 
dilly-daw 

■\Dawtet, dawtie, 69, a darling, pet, 
petted ; daiit, to make much of. 
" Etym. unknown ; conn, with 
dote excluded."— N.E.D. 

Deaded (me) it, 37, nursery grammar 

Deal, dealsman, 32, Go. ga-dailans. 
Ger. Teil, E. deal, dole 

Deas, 155, Ab. dais or settle 

Decreet, 72, Sc. law 

Dee, 39, Ir. for the 

Deefnits, 168, deaf nuts 

Deeple, 147, Mo. var. of dimple, 
dunt and dent ; cf . Ger. Dumpf el, 
a pool.— N.E.D. Eng. dibble, not 
in E.E.D. = "settin plants on the 
Sabbath, a dmiill in his hand." — 
" Elgin Records," 1648 



Deetin, 181, Cu., var. of Sc. dichtin 

Definite article, 45 

Deid, 37, dead, n. and v. : verb dee. 
O.E. d^ad, Du. dood, Ger. todt, 
O.N. dauthr, Go. dauths ; af- 
dauthjan, to put to death ; 
"would be the deid of his 
wyfe."—" Elgin Records, 1699" 

Deid sweer, 137, extremely lazy, 
absolutely unwilling ; sweer, Ger. 
schwer, heavy 

" Deil hait," 12, 138. Jam. hate, halt, 
haid, a whit, atom. Ic. haete, a 
particle. " The Deil haid ails 
you," replied James, "ye oanna 
abide ony to be abune you." — 
M'Crie's " Knox." This quotation 
scarcely bears out the alternative 
explanation "Deilhae'd" (have it) 

Delate, 72, Sc. law 

Delude, 84, for dilute (malap.) 

Demonstratives, 45 

Dentals slurred, 83, 111, 178, 216 

Depone, 72, to give evidence, Sc. law 
term 

Depute, 72, Sc. law 

Derivative inflection, 36 

Dern, derned, dearn, 31, A.S. dark ; 
dearn-VLXiga, secretly. Go. ga- 
tarnjan, to hide, dernd, Fi., pon- 
dered, noun, dernin ; O.E. dernan, 
Fris. dern, Teut. ■•■ darnjo, hidden, 
secret ; verb, O.E. diernan, H.Ger. 
ternen ; obsol. as adj., survives 
as V. 

" This darned within my breist this mony a 
day."—" Gentle Shepherd." 

Descriptive epithets in So., 86 

Deug, 31, 206, 0. Du. virtue, merit ; 
cf. Ger. Tugend, Go. dugan 

Dialectic growth, 8 

Dicht, 70, 102, 181, Sc. to wipe 
up, to winnow corn. O.E. dihtan, 
used in many senses in O.E. and 
Ger. ; to wipe up is sp. No. ; 
diglit, poet. Eng. ; obsol. as "to pre- 
pare," cog. Ger. dichten — N.E.D. ; 
Ger. dichter in 17th c. authors 
is general ; A.S. dihtan, set in 
order, E. dight — all borr. from 
Lat. dictare, to dictate, compose 

Di-da, 35-36, 167, Go. reduplicating 
pret. of a possible verb, * dedjan, 
to do, ga-deds, a doing. Di-da = 
did. Ger. thun. That. 



284 



GLOSSAEY 



Dike, 103, Ayr. a ditch, O.N. dike, 
Qer. Teich, a pool ; sense varies 
bet. ditch and bank ; lit. " dug or 
thrown up." " February fill the 
dike." 
Billy -daw, 136, Sc. form of dilly- 
dally, as noun, in sense of 
untidy get-up : " a slow, slovenly 
person." E.E.D. has the quot. in 
the text 
Diminutives in Sc. and C. Du., 

195 
Dimple, 147, Mo. to dint, make an 
impression, as of dimpling : quots. 
in E.D.D. are modern ; none from 
Moray. See deeple. "Yesudna 
dimple yir taties." — Gfregor 
Dinna, dizna., dizn't, 168, 171, "do" 

with negative 
Dirdum, 150, No. "Or. unknown : 
not So. dird, a blow, conse- 
quences of error." — N.E.D. "The 
loon took a haud o'im, but he 
gae 'im a dirdum fae 'im, and 
ower 'e yod (gaed)." — Gregor 
Discharge, 72, So. law term 
Dishielogie, 123-156, Fi. tussilago 
or oolt's-foot, dishy-lagy, Roxb. — 
E.D.D. 
Dius, 12, 20, 257, Go. deer, any wild 

animal as in Shak. 
Div and divna, 112, 167, 171, sp. Sc. 
also dis, disna, and dinna, for do, 
does not, and don't. The v here 
is an odd survival of an Ind.-Ger. 
causative formation, common in 
Sans., as stha, to stand, sth-ap- 
ayati, he causes to stand. Not in 
N.E.D. 
Divot, 149, Sc. ; No. thin, flat piece 
of turf. Jam. from Lat. de-fo-dere, 
to dig 
DiTOi-feoht, 125, fight with thrown 
turfs ; divot, origin not given in 
N.E.D. 
Divvel, 78, 196, devil, by a Gael, 
speaker. " Ministers, when they 
fall, are like angells that are 
divells." — Alex. Henderson to Gen. 
Ass., 1638 
Do, 206. See dow 
Do, 36, Eng. auxiliary, is not in 
Go. except in past tenses of weak 
verbs, e.g. lagi-dedjan = I lay-did, 
I laid, from lagjan, to lay 



Doach, 102, salmon-trap, peculiar 
to Gall. ; or. unknown ; not in 
E.D.D. 
Dochter, 18, 247, daughter. Go. 

dauhtar 
Dockens, 119, No. ; O.E. doccan, Ger. 
Dockenblatter, Gael, dogha, bur- 
dock, anything valueless — " no 
worth a docken " 
Daddies, 163, polled cattle, Ab. ; 
dod, doddy, a rounded hill 
(Bord.) ; dad, a lump, Fris. 
dadde, lump, bunch. — N.E.D. 
Abbrev. of George : not in these 
senses in E.D.D. See curl-doddy 
Doer, 72, So. law 

Doited, 110, sp. No., obtuse from 
age, perh. var. of doted; pron. 
deitit in Fi. 
Domestic series, 207 
Dool (for quoits), 131. See diiles 
Dop, 222, C. Du. dop, shell, husk, 
cover. N.E.D., " Of Norse origin, 
O.N. daup." Var. doup, deep, 
candle-doup, Ger. Topf, a pot 
Dopper-Boer, Kirk, 192, 193, C. Du. 
Dorbie, 134, a mason, Fi., prob. akin 
to O.Fris. derf, Ger. derb, sturdy, 
O.N. thjarfr, common 
Dortin, 137, since 1500, obsc. or. ; 
sulks, ill-humour. "Dorty Janet's 
pride." — Allan Bamsay 
Dorts, 69, sulks, Bu. to over-nurse — 
" She dorts awa at that geet o' 
hers,an'saygeein'tfeesic." — Gfregor 
Dottrifeed, 151, Mo., rel. to dodder 
and totter, dottered, dotard, senile. 
—N.E.D. 
Double negative, 197 
Dough, 132, 254. Ger. Teig, Du. 
deeg, A.S. dah, O.N. deig ; from 
Go. deigan, to "knead," daigs, 
dough. Of. Ger. Sauerteig ; cf. 
Lat. fingo 
Doughy, 172. See daichie 
Dow, 31, 69, 175, 206, can. No. 
Go. dauh, pret. ® dauhta. O.H.G. 
'* tohta ; Go. dugan, Ger. taugen, 
Sc. docht and dought, to be good 
for, strong, to avail 

" He downa guns to rest for Ms lieart is in a 
Hame."—Uogg. 

Dowie, 86, given under dolly in 
Jam. (II. 77). " The dowie dens 



GLOSSAEY 



285 



o' Yarrow" is not referred to. 
(J. B. F.) 
Drag, 146, North, a drag-harrow 
JJraigens, 127-134, K., kites, dragons 
t Drake, 251, usually mterpr. as 
"duck-king," the d representing 
a radical, as seen in Du. een-d 
Lat. ana-t-is. Kl. says, "Ger. 
Enterioh is the O.Teut. anut- 
trahho, the latter element of 
which being obscure in origin." 
Dree, 23, 61, Go. driugan, to serve 
as a soldier ; ga.-drauhtins, soldiers 
under the centurion (Matt. viii. 
9) ; A.S. dreogan, to endure ; der. 
dree, drow ; Go. ga-drauhts, a 
soldier, from driugan 
Dreich, 153, No. dregh, earlier 
form of dree, O.E. dreogan, Go. 
driugan, to do military service — 
revived as archaism ; dwarf, not 
conn. See driugan 
Drintin, 162, 163, Kino. Not in 

N.E.D. 
Drive, dreiband, 23 (Go.), pres. part, 
of dreiban, to drive, O.E. drifan, 
Ger. treiben 
Droch, 139, dwarf. O.E. dweorh, 
Fris. dwirg, Ger. Zwerg, ••' dhwerg- 
=o-6p<^os= midge, " droich, perh. 
metath. of duerch or similar form 
of dwarf ; Gael, droich, borr." — 
N.E.D. 
Drok, 208, busy, 0. Du. See trokes 
Drorin-room, 82, Cockney 
Droshachs, 115, Celt. var. of drugs 
Drownded, 35, drowned 
Drusan, 48, Go. to fall, whence 
dross, drus, fall— "great was the 
fall (drius) thereof."— Matt. vii. 
27. In N.E.D. dross cog. with 
Ger. driusen 
Dubs, 66, 171, 174, pools, No. ; 

"or. uncertain."— N.E.D. 
Duchman, duckie, 155, Mo., "a 
small stone on a larger, and at- 
tempted to be hit off by the 
players " 
Buddie, 183, Cu. Cf. duds 
Du%, 172, Cu. See daichie, doughy 
Dules, dool, dole, dulls, 106, 127, 131, 
196, stone as mark, post; Ens. 
dole, Du. doel, aim, butt. 
Dunderhead, 134, a blockhead: or. 
obsc. 



Bunt, 97, a dull blow, var. of dint ; 
a large piece — 

" Dunts o' Icebbiick, taits o' 'oo, 
Whiles a hen, an' whiles a soo." 

Dunter, 124, 140, Pi., eider duck, 

Ore. 
Dusty miller, 121, Auricula 
Dwalla, 153, Cu. to wither, dwale, 

O.N. dvol, delay, Sw. dvala, a 

trance 
Dweeble, 86, prob. a form of Lat. 

debilis. Not in Jam. or Imp. 
Dunne, a dwinin, 34, fade away; O.E. 

dwinan, N. dvina, to vanish, Du. 

dwijnen 



E 



E, 79, 81, 84, 110, thin sound for a ; 

So. ee for i 
Ea, 180, 188, in place names 
Each, ech, 21, Gael, (war) horse. 

See aihwa 
fEager, 30, not conn, with Go. ogan, 

to dread, but with Lat. acer, 

through O.Fr. 
Ear of corn, 20, So. ick-er, Ger. 

Ahre, Du. aar. Go. ah -s, Lat. acus. 

the "sharp" thing. E. and Du. 

drop the gutt. 
Ear, 23, 252, to plough, O.E. Go. 

arjan, A.S. erian, Lat. arare 
Earn, Erne, 20, as in Ger. Adler, for 

adel-ar, edel-ar, noble bird ; or. 

aar in Ger. is the eagle, and still 

in dial. Cf. Go. ara, O.N. are, 

O.E. earn, Du. arend 
Eben, 171, Cu. even 
-Ed, 88 (suffix) ; =var. -et, -it 
Eddicate, 89, educated 
Eedixoatt, 75, idiot 
Eeldin, 122, fuel. A.S. aeling, from 

selan, to burn 
Eend, end, eynd, aynd, aynd-les, 31, 

234, 255, breath, from Go. an-ara, 

which see 

" An' a' wurr blithe to tak' their eind." 
" Christ. Ba'in." 

-Ei, 39, 45, Go. pron. particle. Sans. 

ya 
Eidmt, 126, 161, active, diligent, 

or. unknown ; eidentlie 
Eirn-mail, 29, rust on linen. Sea 

mail 



286 



GLOSSAEY 



Eis-arn, 26, 259, iron. Du. ijzer, 
O.H.G. Isam, Ger. Eisen 

Elephant, 21 , 74 105 ; elephant first 
in Edinburgh (1680). "Of the 
ultimate ety. nothing is reaUy 
known." — N.E.D. Deriv. in text, 
that of the late Prof. Aufrecht, 
a Sanskrit scholar of European 
repute 

Elshon, 134. Ore. alison; E. awl, 
Ger. Able ; root, Sans, ar-pa-ya, 
to pierce, causal of ri, to go 

Elys, 62, 251, eels (Barb.) 

E-nyuch, 13, enough ; Ger. genug 
Go. pref. pres. ga-nah, it suffices, 
ga-nohs, sufficient 

Erde, 49, earth. Also airth, yird 

Ernin, 133, rennet. M.E. rennen, to 
run in sense of coagulate, var. 
earn, yearn, A.S. yrnan, to 
run 

Erp, 248, to. See arbi, arpiet 

Esk, 166, river 

Eak, 149, Fi. newt 

Etter-cop, 204, the spider ; etter-cap. 
Ger. Eiter, A.S. attor, poison, O.N. 
eitr ; cop, cob, a tuft, a spider, 
C. Du. kop, any round lump or 
knob 

Ettle, 75, 97. Ic. aetla, ettla, to 
think, determine 

Even, 88, think equal to 

Except, 90, 91 

Expiry, expiration, 92 

Expressions for small quantities, 
138 

Extinguish, 72, Sc. law 

Eyme, eem, 63, 69, 71, uncle ; Du. 
oom, A.S. iam, E.G. eme, uncle 
on the mother's side, Lat. avun- 
culus, Go. * auh-aims, where h = c 
(Lat.). Lat. aviis, Go. awo, grand- 
mother, Ger. Gheim. See Oom 
Paul, 63 



F sound, 111 
Fa', 82, fall 
Faarar, farder, 195 
Faarder, 195, farther 
Faar-keeker, 197, C. Du. 
Fadar, 18, 247, Go. Sc. fethir, 
faethir, E. father 



Fadreins, 18, Go. parents 

Fael, feal, 149, 200, a sod ; turf, 

Gael, fal, a sod 
Faggot, 135, 182 
Fagrs, 29, Go. fair, from faih-a.n, 

to suit, Ger. fug-en, causal oi fagrs 

= to make suitable, A.S. faegrs, 

fair 
Fahan, 212, Go. to grasp, A.S. fon, 

vangen (Taal). Kl. "conn, of 

finger. Go. figgr-s, with this root 

f anh not certain " 
Faihu, 10, 20, 21, 250, Go. cattle, 

or. property in cattle. Du. vee, 

Ger. Vieh, Ic. fe, Sc. /e 
Fail, 72, 137, become bankrupt 
Fair homey, 127, 187, fairplay in 

the game of " hornie ; " descr. by 

Jam. sub voce 
Fairzna, 18, Go. heel, Ger. Ferse, 

pres. only in Ger. among Teut. 

tongues 
Familiar epithets in Taal, Sc. and 

E. 194 
Familiar thou, 172 
Fani, 23, Go. fen, mud, Fr. fene, 

Du. veen 
Fanh, 65, 212, a sheep-pen. Gael. 

Fang, faing, valve of a pump- well, 

fang, v. to catch ; Ger. fangen, Go. 

figgrs, finger. 

" He thooht the warlocks o' the rosy cross 

Had /anf/ed him in their nets sae fast." 

" Bord. Minstr." 

Fanners, 146, winnowing or dichting 

machine, brought from Holland 

by Meikle, 1710 
Farm-toon, 25, 65, homestead 
Faths, 18, 24, 247, Go. lord of the 

feast, conn. Go. fodr, a sheath, 

as the protector. See Indo-Eur. 

preserved only in Sans., Go., 

and Lat., akin to fath-ti. See 

fother 
Fauho, 20, fox, peculiarly Teut. ; 

or. the tailed one. Sans, pwccha, 

a tail 
Faus, 29, few. Lat. paucus. Go. 

fawai, pi. 
Faw, 124, 210, Ger. Falle ; inooss-faw, 

C. Du. muis-val, N. miis-foll, 

mouse-/aM or trap, what/aZk. Of. 

^it-fall 
FawwMus, 175, Fi. falmishly, Ou. 



GLOSSAEY 



287 



Te, 10, 20, O.Sc. cattle; or. pro- 
perty in farm stock ; Eng. fee, 
Sc. kitchen fee, Qer. Vieh. See 
faihu. 

Fear, 16, Gael, a man, Lat. vir. Go. 
wair, A.S. waru 

Feck, 86, 138, a quantity. "The 
maist feck," the bulk ; from effect. 
— N.E.D. 

" What feck o* stirks an' milk coos hae ye ? ' 

Feckless, 87, fu.tile 

Feeky, fikey, 63, 86, 136, 176, fidgety. 

O.N. fikenn, eager 
Feel a smell, 91 

Feet-washing, 218, C. Du. and O.Sc. 
Fell, 56, 168, 174, Go. filu, Du. veel ; 

common intensive ; Ger. viel, and 

also/eM, sturdy. 

" A snod bit lassie, fell an' clever." 

•' Broken Bowl." 

In N.E.D. Sc. sense classed under 

fell, fierce 
Fell, 17, skin. O.E. fel, Du. vel, 

Ger. Fell, Go. thruts-^H, leprosy, 

Lat. pelUs. " The form felt, for 

pelt, is a confusion of felt, a kind 

of cloth."— N.E.D. 
Felling me, 106, "fooling," Ab. 
Fencing the tables, 74 
Fends, 70, defends 
Fer, for, 33, 56, Go. fair, far, faur, 

intensive prefix ; Ger. ver. 
Fer-fochen, 56, fatigued, done up. 

Conn, with fecM, fight, Ger. Ge- 

fecht, Du. ge-vecht 
Fermentum, 32, Lat. in Go. Gospels, 

leaven of the Pharisees 
Ferse, 18, Ger. heel 
Feuar, 72, small landholder 
Feut-an'-a-half, 187, Cu. ; cf fit'n-a- 

half, Fi. a game 
Few, 94, 169, as a noun 
Fey, 22, fairy, fay, Fr. fee. It. 

fata, fate 
Fichil, 128, 140, Gael, fachail, strife 
Figgra-gulth, 15, 26, Go. finger-gold, 

ring 
tFijands,/emi,56, pres. part, oifijan. 

Go. to hate, fiend, Ger. feind, Sc. 

" feent a bit ; " fiend, Go. fijan, to 

hate, Ger. feind. N.E.D. "obsc. 

or., can hardly be a variant of 

fiend" 



Fill, 17, 27, Go. skin, in thiuts-fill, 
leprosy, from thriutan, to threat, 
and fill, skin, Lat. peUis, Eng. 
fell 

FiUy, 250, foal, Go. fula, 

Finevir, 154, whenever, Ab. 

Finger-jingles, 183 

Firlot, 150, O.N. "fiorthe hlotr, 
fourth part " of a boll 

" A firlot o' guid cakes my Elspa' beuk." 
" Gentle Shep." 

Firr'm, 80, /orm, bench 

Fiscal, 72, Sc. law term 

Fisks, 11, Go. fish, liat. piscis 

Fit, 17, foot. Go. fotus 

Flachter-golak, 125, 149, Ic. flag, 
spot where turf has been cut, 
O.'N.flaga, slab of stone, thin turf ; 
Eng. flake, flay. Da. flaae, Boer, 
vlei, holm land. Ore. flaw, flaa, 
C Du. vlei 

Flahta, 253, plaited. See flake 

Flake, 24, 208, a sheep fence, O.N. 
hurdle, Du. vlaak, •■■" O.Teut. 
flehtan, Lat. plectere, plait, a 
wattled hurdle. Go. flaihtan, to 
weave, flahta, a plait of hair 

Flalie, 158, a flail (Ab.) 

Flannen, 183, 250, flannel, a more 
correct form than flannel. W 
gwlanen, gwlan, cog. with wool 

Flauchter-s^ade, 125, 140, for paring 
turfs ; flauch, to fiay. 

"A dibble an' a flauchter-spade" 

"Jac. Ball." 

Flaws, 131, 140, spec. Sc. a fragmen 
of a horse-shoe nail, O.N. flaga 
slab of stone, flaw ; or. sense 
" something peeled or struck off," 
and " something flat." 

Flax, 253, E. See flake 

Fleech, fleich, 69, 168, flatter ; obsc. 
prob. Go. ga-thlaihan, to treat 
Idndly. Du. vleien, to flatter, 
Ger. flehen, to beseech. — "Fleech 
till the gudewife be kin' " 

Fleed, 145, prob. var. of field. Mo. 
Jam. "a head-rig" (Ab.). Not 
in this sense in N.E.D 

Fleyin', 68, frightening. O.E. a- 
flygan, to frighten away. Go. us- 
flaugjan, fleg, to frighten — conn, 
with ^2/ 

Flyte, 128, scolding match 



288 



GLOSSARY 



Fliar, 173, Cu. laugh heartily, fleer, 
N. flira, to grin. Jam. " to gibe, 
taunt," a "fleering tell-tale."— 
Shak. 

Flings, 68, kicks up the heels. 

" She sat an' she grat, an' she iate an' she 
Hang" 

Flit, 70, remove, M.E. flitten. Da. 
flytte — conn, with fleet 

Flittermouse, 182, Cu. Ger. Plieder- 
maus 

Foal, 20, Go. fula 

Foarrie, 132, farrow, ferry (Bu.), cow, 
Du. verre-i.oe, ceased to bear, Fl. 
verroe-'koe (16th c.) 

Fode, 18, in ballads, a man. Jam. 
" f oode, f eode, a man." 

Fog, 92, 149, moss ; unknown or. : 
fjugg, Shet. airy stuff 

Foggie-toddler, fuggy-, 122, 140, 149, 
small, yellow bumble-bee, that 
toddles among dry moss — fog 
moss, foggie-bee — Jam. 

Fondness for diminutives, 195 

Foo, 40, Ab. who 

Foogie, fugie, 128, 151, one beaten 
in a fight, Lat. fugio, to flee — 
relic of school cock-fights, fuga, 
flight (law Lat.) ; Bu. to play 
truant — " The twa loons fugiet 
the squeel an' geed awa t' the 
widds, an' hairriet craws' nests 
a' day." — Qregor 

Fool, 20, 81, 111, fowl, Go. fugls, 
bird 

Fomsday, 39, Sc. dial. 
Foot-pad, 167, path, Cu. 
" Fork and knife," 92 
For-lioo, 33, to forsake ; for -how, 
O.E. for-hogian, for, reversing, 
and hogian, to think, care 

*' And the merle and the mavis for-hoo't 
their young."—" tiu.'9 Wake." 

Forrat, 167, Ou. forrit, Sc. forrard 
Father, 18, E. to stop a leak by 
covering it with a sail. Go. fodr, 
a sheath, conn, with faths, a 
lord (cf. food, feed), O.Teut. 
" fothro, a sheath, O.E. fodor, Du. 
voedr. Kl. says "two different 
roots are confused in futter (Ger.) 
* Go. fodjan, feed, food, and Go. 
fodr, a sheath." See faths. 
Four-square, 92, square 



Fousom, 153, fulsome, offensive in 
smell 

Fouthie, 171 

Fowersom, 176 

Foy, 205, a feast, Shet., Ic. fog-und 

Fonie, 85, 149, soft, Du. voos, N. fos, 
L.Ger. fussig, spongy 

Frain, 31, 56, complain, ask, O.E. 
frayne, freyne, fregnan, O.N. 
fregna. Go. fraihnan, Ger. fragen. 
Jam. fryne, to fret from ill- 
humour, frynin. Not in N.E.D. 

Fraising, 34, 153. N.E.D. has 
frail, to creak, Sw. frasa, to 
rustle, /raise, a fuss, commotion. 
Go. fraisith, teniptest 

" He may indeed, for ten or fifteen days, 

Mak meikle o' ye, wi' an nnco fraise." 

Allan Ramsay. 

Fra-itan, 56, to eat up, Ger. fressen, 

E. fret, O.E. fretan, Du. vreten 
Fraiw, 48, Go. teed, fry, spawn, Ic. 

frae. Da. fro 
Frake, 85, a wheedler ; fraih, s.v. 
fond discourse ; fraildn, 140, 153. 
Not in N.E.D. 
Frammelt, 147. See thrammelt, of 

which this is a var. 
Frauja (masc), 22, 85, 205, Go.= 
master of the hoiise, Du. vrouw, 
Ger. Frau; or. sense, "tlie first" 
in the house ; cf. Ger. Fiirst, 
O.N. freyr. Go. '' fraujis (fern.) 
fraujo, Ic. Freya in our Friday. 
Distinguishes Our Lord in Go. 
Gospels. See free 
I'ra-was, 56, Go. pret. of fra-wis-an 
to spend ; was ; Ger. war ; or. 
sense, to stay in a place 
Freeh frack, 85, Ore. weak, delicate, 
O.E. free, Ger. frech, insolent, 
O.N. frekr, greedy. Go. friks 
Free, 22, 56, ballad term. O.E. /r&, 
O.Fr. fri, Du. vrijer, a wooer, 
O.N. fri-r. Go. frei-s, frijon, to 
love, " dear," of kindred, a free 
man, E. friend. See freen 
Freen, freend, 56, 127, friend, A.S. 
freond. Go. frijonds, pres. part. ; 
from frijon, to love ; cf. Lat. 
amicus, amare ; Du. vriend : or. 
kinsman, Du. vrijer, a lover. See 
free 
Freits, freit, 122, 148, 163, anything 
superstitiously cherished, often a 



GLOSSAEY 



289 



hobby, O.N. iiitt, news, avigiiry. 
O.E. freht, oracle, from Go. fraih- 
nan, to ask. See f rain 
Fremd, fremit, 32, 64, 206, strange, 
foreign, spec. Sc. O.E. fremede, 
Dii. vremmd, H.Ger. vremde, 
strange. Go. franiaths 

*' Is this the way the fremit serve us ? " 
" Broken Bowl." 

Fremd loanin, 168, strange loan or 

cow-yard 
Freyr, 22, N., prob. same as 

surname Frier 
Friks, 85, Go. in faihu-friks, greedy 

of money. A.S. and O.E. freca, 

a hero, O.N. frekr, greedy, Sw. 

frack, daring. Jam. freik, frick, 

a strong man, petulant ; Ger. 

frech, bold ; C. Du. vrek, 214 
Frius, 23, Go. frost, A.S. frhsan, 

frSorig, Ger. frier-en, Eng. freeze, 

Lat. pruina 
From, 89, after, different 
Fuls, 29, Go. foul, fou-n\a,rt=foul- 

marten 
Fuhie, 68, 125, compost, manure, 

f ulzie, — " what is trampled under- 
foot " 
Furthie, 86, 137, 140, hospitable, 

free in giving, f orthy, disposed to 

put oneself /orf A or forward ; var. 

foothie — 

" That's gi'en wi' furthy glee." 
Furesday, Futirsday, 83, Thursday 
Fushonless, 87, " not given in Jam. 

at all, meaning under f oisonless, an 

Eng. word." Shaks. foison, plenty. 

(J. B. F.) 
Put. ind. and pres. subj., 37 
Futhork, 11, Go. ABC, the Runic 

alphabet, from the first six Runes, 

f, u, th, 0, r, k 
Fwore, 171, Cu. fore 



G 

G, 11, 83, its hard sound; gg=ng 

in Go. 
Gaan, 208, 0. Du. See gang 
Gab,68, fluency — " he has the gift o' 

the gab ; " — var. of gape, prov. E. 

gob, the mouth, borr. from Gael. 

gob, beak, mouth ; O.F. gob, a 

gulp ; cog. gobble, gobbet, gabble 



Gaby, 170, E. See gab 

Gad, 12, 23, goad. Go. gazd-s, 
spike, O.N. gaddr, O.T. •■■gazdja, 
O.E. gyrd, yard ; or. sense seen 
in Go. gad, a pike, fish with 
snout. Kl. sub Gerte says, goad 
and Go. gazd have a common 
origin, contrary to N.E.D. 

Ga-dailans, 32, Go. partners, Sc. 
dealsmen 

Oaebie, gebbie, 125, 152, hen's crop, 
" pron. against conn, with gab" — 
N.E.D. ; cf. Gael, giaban, the giz- 
zard 

Gaed, 34, 56, went, Go. iddja, O.E. 
yode. See gang 

Gaet, 62, road 

Gaffer, 127, gefera, A.S. companion, 
equal, retainer from faran to 
fare. From godfather rather than 
grandfather in sense of an old 
man. See playfare 

Gaggan, 56, Go. go, gang; gagg-s. 
Go. way, street, O.E. gangan, 
supplanted by gdn, go, Du. gaan. 
Da. ga. See gang 

Ga-hlaiba, 24, Go. fellows of the 
loaf; or. term superseded by 
" bread " in general sense 

Gairnjan, 33, 56, Go. to long for, 
to yearn. So. girn, Ic. girna, to 
desire, gairnida, Go. pret. = 
yearned. See green 

Gairtans, 70, garters 

Gaisen, gaissend, gissen, gizzend, 33, 
149, of a tub, leaking through 
drought, Ger. giessen. N. giosa, 
to spurt, gissen, leaky. Go. giutan, 
to pour 

Gaits, gaiteins, 21, Go. goat, Sc. 
gait ; goat-ling 

Ga-juko, 48, Go. from jukan, to 
yoke : a parable, that which is 
paired, a simile 

Galeithandan, 48, Go. from leithan. 
A.S. '\lithan, Eng. lead, leiten, 
O.N. litha to travel — cog. lead, 
lode, load. Ger. laden, is Go. 
lathon, to call, invite 

Galesun, 48, perif. of lisan, to gather, 
A.S. and Eng. lease, to glean 

Gallasses, 178-9, Fi. in form, Cu. var. 
of gallows; cf. bellisses= bellows 

Gallop, 17, Go. ga-hlaupan 

Galsh, 150, Mo., prob. conn, with 
19 



290 



GLOSSAEY 



gash in gash-mouthed, wide- 
mouthed, ■voluble. Xot in Jam. 

Guiiti, 32, Go. gaagian. The G. pret. 
iiiiljii shows the conn, with verb 
of going in Sans., Gr., Lat. Its 
Sc. form is gaed, M.E. vode, with 
prefix ge-, as ga-iddja 

Gamut, 125, solan goose, O.E. ganot, 
Du. i/t'iit, Eng. pnn-d-er. In A.S. 
the sea is the "i;<iHOft;i bath " 

d'anstU, 136, 140, ganseUiii, Bu. 

Gar- or gor-, 149, intensive prefix 

Garda, 25, 51, Go. yard or fold, 
ijard-s, a house, or. sense, an en- 
closure; garth, Gev. gurt, giirten, 
-A..S. gyrdan, girf. Go. gairdan, 
O.X. garth, — all, primarily, hedge 
round the homestead 

Ctarda waldands, 25, Go. head of the 
house, lit. iiard-u'iehliiig 

Gardciter'g gairteiis, 121, garters 

Garr, 70, 185, has almost superseded 
"make" in So. In Sc. gar, to 
force. For X. sense of "do," Sc. 
uses gar as " make or cause to do," 
widely Teutonic, O.X. ger(v)a, 
O.E. gearwian, Eng. yare and gear, 
Ger. gixrben, gerben, to tan 

Game-hee, 149, Mo. In archaic 
Eng. as garabee or hornet : gaiu- 
as in gerfalcon, gor-cock 

Garron, 71, 201, Gael. 

Gart, garth, gorth, gortchiii, 25, 65, 
Go. qarda, gtird, X. garth-r. Da. 
gaard ; common forms in place 
names. See garda 

(Jaruns, 25, Go. market place, where 
jieople run together 

Gatwo, 26, Go. a street, as in Sc. 
gate, road. X. gaita, Ger. gasse, 
from get, not " go " 

Gtnr, 67, 139, rack, flaw, or. uncert., 
gell, a crack, Shet., galli, a defect 
(Ic.) 

(inwi, 19, 22, 23, Go. a country dis- 
trict, cog. E. yeoman 

(Jawm, giiani, gome, 33, 181, to stare 
(C'u.), stare \'acantly ; also goaw, 
to recognise, "he never goamt 
me." l».X. gaum-r, Go. *'gauma, 
lieed ; gaumjan, to observe 

GaifjiHs, 85, 136, 170, simpleton, 
pvob. from gawp, gape, to yawn 
or iiiijic 

Ciayly, 168, Cu. Sc. geyly 



Ge-, 17, prefix, M.E. ve-, v-, i-. Go. ga- 
Ge', 196, C. Dn. for "gave, Sc. gied 
Gtuiis, 127 

Geat, 182, Cu. See get, Ab. 
Geavin', 170, Cu. See goave, goavy 
GObun, 11, Go., gayvoon, they gare 
Gtddis, 62, pike, spec Sc. X. gedde, 
giidd-r, a spike. Go. gazd-s. See gad 
Gttl, 212, C. Du. yellow. See gool 
Cicfallen, 84, Ger. Chaucer, i-fallen 
Gi-td, geld-ing, 23, 148, castrate, X. 
geld-a, Ger. gelze. Cf. galti, a 
pig (Siiet.). See giltha. — Xot in 
Jam. 
Gellies (g hard), 120, 140, tadpoles, 
leeches — var. of jelly. Bu. geal- 
caxil, ice-cold (g soft) 
Oer-biek, 131, Ore. the gerss- \grass) 

bank or bank. See bank 
German partitive, 94 
Get, SS, 169, as auxiliary, " Can I 

get going ? " 
Gett (pron. geetX 33, 66, Ab. child. 
X^t in X.E.D. Gyte, var. of gait, 
from get, he-get a child, a first- 
year pupil in Edin. High School. 
Jam. get, gett, geat, geit : — "A 
theiffls geit." — "Elgin Keconls,'' 
1627 

" Whingin' gett^s aljout your ingle side." 
" Qen. Shep." 

Oerel, 25, 150, 207, gable. Go. gibla. 

Da. g-avl, Ger. giebel, lit. "the 

outermost " 
Geg, 168, Cu. intensive 
CJeyser, 33, le. lit "the gusher" 
Giban, 12, Go. to gin; Sr. gee (g 

hard) 
Giglot, 137, 217, 140, var. of giggle 
Gilpg, 85, 137, a romp 

'*The gilpv siood ond lem'liod (lauched) 
tell blata."— ■• Christ. Bn'iu'." 

Giltha, 23, Go. sickle. le. gelda, Sc. 

;/t7(^ to castrate ; Eng. geld-mg. 

See geld 
(?i»i /III)-, 254, Sc. a two-year-old cwc, 

X. ginibur 
Gingers, 187, Cu. 
Gin!, gin-', 127, a hoop for play or 

for a ban-el — var. of girth ; X. 

g^jorth, Go. t;airda, a girdle 
Girn, 33, 56, (>2, 67, wee]\ girn, spec 

Sc. sense, to bo jieevi.sli — var. of 

grin. Girn, a wire snare for rabbits 



(iLOSSAltV 



291 



diniiil., Klf), IT/ri, mM>i: won] uh 

Kfiui/iry, lull, /iji|i. 1,1) a iJu'mI,. 

Him', piiciil-i/inml 
(litidn, ill. II, 'iiulil.iUi:, 187. Hi'.i: (^iiiiTi- 

iii.Ni, wimIiIjii, 
lit mm, iiTitiiH, I!), ii.'i, 70, <io. ({dih 

iti MniiKi^ 111' lii'j'li : cog. wiUi grow 
Oiii, Hfi, 170, (Jii. gnail,, Hi:, grit,, 

(in: groHH 
OiMtrit (lii-t/iH, iirdjOo. yi'Hl.rccrj-ijiiy 
')iiil,un, .'!.'), ')(). t,o iioiir oiil, wnl,(:r ; 

( li'r. ijiimKii, Hii. iii::;:i:iiil,, ICiig. ;/mo/(,. 

Him', p;ii,iHi',ii 
r,7(i///', IHd, imikI. "Tlii'.y Hiiy (!liriHt 

will get, a lili'i'Id'il I'lii'.i', l)y Uii'. 

(/ii,l,i'. An (ih III', Ki'l, l.liiH iloni', 

llr, iiihmI, wiuiIi', t.lii'. gliirrr, iiiyri', 

III' oiirHliiH." " I7l,li I'.. Huriiiotm" 

(llriiii, rhyii, ijlrijrr, m, I ii'2, I ii.'t, l.'ll, 
(^M,il lly, liorHi'.-lly 

'W,7«/ i''l,|ii' ii|i.(,ii,l(," :w, M, HO, 207, 
i|llir,|( ill illl,l',llif.;i',liri',, ,N. gkigg-r, 
rli'iir, I'li'iir-Hi^lil'i'il, Oo. gliiggw- 

llliM, (). 10. gli'll,W, I'Ir.Vrr 
/f7r:r//;//, H'^i, rl'. (io. glllggWUbll, 

ii,r(',iii'al,i'ly 'ii.Kjti.jiw'i 
li'lr.nliiM, I ill, (l|il,ii. 
Illi'll, ijli'f; ijlri'ji, (II), i^v.. Huniiil., l-o look 

/IHI|lliMl,, yll'ill, k'v'i Hl|llilll.-I'yi',ll 

0'////; I7'l, alHii (III. ' 

(///«/i;ii'niill(l, II, I'old I'liiiiiiii,' on, IliH, 

Hpi'i',. Hi',. ; iiluk, mIhii a Hli(,'lil' look. 

-N.IO.I). ■ 
• ilovi', 10, A.H. glof I'orKi'-lol'. Hcc, 

lol'a 
llliiirn; I7'l, H|ii!i',. Hi'. Io hI.IU'i! wiUi 

wiili',-o|irii iiyrH : glowi'l'-ool,, (Jil. 

l)n. (j/ii, l,o Hl,ari', 10. i/lfn'r 
(In, 8ft, lOiif,'. Hi',. l,liroii'gli-|ijl, 
(liHivy dirk, llill, l:iH, 170, (/"'""!, l,o 

Hl,ar(^ Hl,ii|iiilly : a liroiul, variuil, 

,'<liii'i'. .Iiiiii. givrH aim) ^oir, novi', 

Hoii|i, ^(ii,wr, Kaiil'. Nol' ill N.IO.I). 
Huh, l7o, viir. Ill' (/((/'; K'i''''i Mi'iiiii. 

IVol ll, H|lil., Hlll'l'. 

(loi'il, ilii', '2i!l, (I. Dii. do. K'""I-'S 
gooil, Hi', H'llili'. ili'iv kooiIm, 
|iio|ii'i'l,y. A I'oiiiliiiiii Hi', ilcriva- 
livn Ih ijiiitiilii, iimiiiirn, liolli as 
V. iiiiil II, "'riii'ri''H iiMi'l,liiiif{ 
u'lMir nil' Hci'il liny I'or ki'I'''''" 
^;iilai'k,M nil' illini' i'i'H,il,i'i',M o' Miat, 
kill," wii,4 l,lii^ liolil liKHi'i' ol' an 
All. runner 

llutiik, lUa, 1-10, 1 ID, a liri'I'li', (liii'l. 



l'ori;)mi' (I'orki'il) f,'olla(;li, l.lii'. itur- 

wig. .lam. L'i'llorli (Ayr, Uf'r.), 

gii,vi:l(H',k. Not in N.l<!.l). A]«o 

iiH ^follauk or liorny gollack 
(lolil, iiO, 'Jo. giilUi, radical Hunwj 

"yellow." Hi'i', gool 
OoiiiaH, 170, On. No(;N.I0.1X 
(Joiiicril, K), l.'U!, i/n'iarii.i:ml-, (!u., 

He. a fool. Hilly I'rilow. Jain. 

yniuvii], "a ilari.goiMi'ril o' a wiii', " 
( Jooilie (lil.t.li',), r^.'i, HUn H|iiirgi', 
','iinl. i/ulil., (M. I'lH, 177, ill Mo. f,'i',ni',r- 

ally I'alli'il f^wi'i'l ; ii'idl(il,), thu 

gold (lowitr, 1)11. goiid-l)loi!iii. (Jer. 

Oold-I)l\iiiii',, 10. corii-Kool 
(,'iiiiHi:, l.'M, a (,ailoi''H iron, handle 

liki', a gooHi','H iii'.ck 
(lo|M', 170, (.'. Dli. 
(Inrlid, ijiirhid, tlni-liliii, I '25, 176, nii- 

llcdged liirdH, from ijnrh, Hi'''''d.y ; 

'/'//■/J, Oil. young liird : coj,'. wil.li 

gmh, grip, graH|j 
lliiri'iii'k, I'll), ri'ii or moor cock 
(Jorliii, 170, On. var. of gorp. Hce 

i/nrlid, yiirliii ; giirliii, a lioy, a 

gorlicl,, Hlii',1,., conn. Ic. karl 
■|(<oi'Hi', 10, O.IO. (/(«■«/,, Ocr. ijiii'di:, 

liarlcy, akin l.o Ijiil.. luiri/ini/iii,, or. 

Hinni'.l.liing liriHMy or prickly : mil, 

I'oiin. with gruHM 
OoHpcl, ii7, O.IO. (/(;'(/, H|ii',l, triiiiiS. of 

Or. cvangcliiim. Oo. Miiiitli-w/i'/- 

/"// from l,liiiil,li,H,good, and Hpillon, 

1,(1 aiinonncc, Hpcll 
Itiimiji, I;i7, O.IO. L'oil-Hilili, ri'lal.i'd, 

godfal.lirr or goiimothi'r 
diili; I7'2, liiiii., gwoti',. On. "About 

till' draining of l.lic locli allow,H 

him to make \\\n Htank-gote to 

l,liM,ti',iri',i',l,."— " Ola,Hgow licrordH," 

Klllll 
(litip-im, liirlcni.-ijiiii^iiii, '\H->,, also 

Oiti'l. and Ic, from golland, glolii'. 

Ilowrr. Hi'i', gool and lock 
^'(.l^/.:, cuckoo, 'JKI, 21^2, -lt>[ 
\(liiii<ii(:ii, iiini'iiiu. full, yriH,y»!y/-fli', .'i.'i, 

l.'iH, liaiidl'id. N. gaupii ; or. 

Hi'iiHe HiiiKli' liaiiil hollowed, - 

N.IO.I). docM not mention Oo. 

kaiipiitjaii in l,lii,'< coiinection iw 

in l,exl, 
l,'ntfii,iirtn)i, 11(1, ,Mpec. He. S\v. gre]), 

I 111. greli, 11, fork for niiiniire ; var. 

grip, grope. Hee gripple 
Oraphie. lle,'^e|■iptive epithets, HO 



292 



GLOSSARY 



Greedy, 29, Go. gredags, grCdus, 

hunger 
Greexh, 150, fire-place, cog. Ir. 

grushach. See gris 
Greet, .30, 35, 87, siJec. Sc. cry. O.E. 

giaetan, N. gr&ta, Oo. grfitan, to 

weep, grat, pret. Go. gai-grot 

" She sat an' she prat 
An' she flet an' slie dang." 

Grewy, " one of the most expressive 
of Sc. words, to be looked for 
under grewing (II. 452 Jam.), 
where you are referred to groue, 
growe." (J. B. F.) 

Grice, 68, 133, 182, 250, sp. Sc. a 
young pig. O.N. griss. Da. gris, 
Skr. grishti, E. griskin, N. grici- 
fer, grice or swine fever 

Grien, green, 129, to yearn, A.S. 

geornan, long for. See gaimjan 

" Then a' the hcioss for sleep begin to grein." 
Fergusson. 

■\Griere, 93, 128, Sc. farm-bailiff. 
W.Sax. gerefa, in Eng. reeve, 
sheriff, land-grave, Ger. Graf, 
conn. A. 8. r6f, active, not Ger. 
Graf.— Kl. Sk. 

Gripple, gruip, 132, Du. greppel, a 
ditch, from Du. grip ; grips, grips, 
O.E. grip, a burrow, groop, Ger. 
Graben. See graep 

Grippy, 69, tight-fisted, Du. gripicli, 
from grip 

Grips, 132, hand-i-grips, a fight at 
close quarters 

Gris (Irish), 150, grushach. See 
greesh 

Groop, grupe, gruip,l32,GeT. Graben, 
drain in cow-byre ; Eng. graft 
(obsc.) ; Du. gracht, a ditch, and 
street on either side of a canal, 
yrare, to dig 

Groode, 153, shivering with cold ; 
groue, growe, groose to shudder ; 
grue, goosg skin on approach of a 
cold. Of. Ger. grausaxa. 

GrooHiii, 138, Ger. grausen, a shiver- 
ing (cold) fit, gruse, groosy, grue, 
to shudder from cold, dread, &c. 
<^ier. grausen, Du. gruwen 

Grozets, grozers, grossaiis, 127, 240 

Grumphie, the pig fechoic) 

Grundie ewalhe, 123, groundsel, 
grunde-3wylige(10thc.); grundee- 
swelgiae (7th c). N.E.D. dis- 



cusses the confusion of these two 
forms, not ve:y satisfactorily 

Gucken, 209, colloquial Ger. like 
Sc. seestu'. Cf. keek, which see 

Gude, 29, 81, god-s, goth-s, gen. 
godis. Go. good, or. sense, fitting, 
suitable ; Du. goed, Ger. gut, 
landed estate 

Gudge, (Ab.) 23, 56, 65, 112, a peas- 
ant. Go. gaujans, peasants, gauja, 
a peasant, 21 ; gawi, a country 
district, in place names, 19, 22 ; 
gudge, not in N.E.D. Jam. has 
gudget,a camp follower, Fr. goujat 

Gud-hus, 25, Go. Oo(fs house, guth, 
masc. in sg. and pi. gutha. In 
Go. neut. in pi. neuter. In or. 
use anal, to Lat. numen and deus. 
— N.E.D. 

Gud-ja, 28, Go. priest, good man 

Guildee, 116, Cptn. 

Guisers, guisard, guini/i, 104, in fan- 
tastic guise 

Gulls, 177, Cu. 

Gully, 133, .spec. Sc. or. obs. — a 
large kniJEe 

" A lang kale gnlly hung doon by his side." 

Gum, 181 

jGuma, 16, 248, 249, Go. man. A.S. 
guraa, " groom, difficult, — not 
from guma."-— N.E.D. 

Oumpshm, gumption, 33, 136, 181, 
217, judgment, mother wit, 
rummle - gumption. Not ex- 
plained in N.E.D. Conn. O.N. 
gaumr, care, heed. Go. gaumjan, 
to take notice of. See gawm 

Gundy, 130, 185, 259, syn. of clack, 
which see 

Gnnst, 31, 245, Ger. Kluge = ge- 
unst, O.H.G. gi-unnan=gbnnen : 
oldest form anst (without prefix 
ge-). Go. ansts, A.S. liSt ; with 
gonnen, cp. Du. gunnen, A.S. 
unnan, O.N. unna. For Go. root 
ans = Ger. ■'•> un.s, unsan, O.N. iiss, 
A.S. OS = Godhead, Sans, asura for 
ansura. See an-an, eynd, &c. 

Our-pug, 71, Orc. = a small Shetland 
horse 

Gurthie, 140, "app. spec, to what 
burdens the stomach." — Jam. 
Bu. galsoch, gulsoch, fond of 
good eating. — Oregor 



GLOSSAEY 



293 



Gus-gus! 67, 133, call to pigs, Ic. 
gosse, a pig, Sc. gussie, "Goosie! 
goosie ! " ; grumpiiie, K., a pig, 
Ic. grnmfie, a spectre ; grynta, to 
grunt, Shet. 

Gutty, 150, pot-bellied : gut, the in- 
test, canal of animals, Go. giutan, 
to pour, Sc. and O.E. gote, a 
drain ; cf. Fi. gutsy, gluttonous. 
A dignified Aberdeenshire burgh 
official was popularly known as 
Gutty Willie. See gaissen, giutan 

Gutter-gaw, 140, a pustule shown on 
feet between the toes after padd- 
ling in gutters : " conn, with gall 
either as bile, Du. gal, Ic. gall, 
or with O.P. galler, to gall, in F. 
gale, scab on fruit, Lat. caUus, 
thick skin."— Sk. 

Gynnys, 62, gin =Tioose, from engine 

Gyte, 33, silly, to gang gyte, perh. 

cog. with giddy, out of one's senses 

" Screamed like a young gyte." 

" Christ. Ba'in'." 



H 

H., 12, 82, 177, Cu., before a vowel 
in Go. 

Haa-penny deevels, 130, 186, hawp'ny 
d — , old - fashioned gingerbread 
figures 

Hoar = mist, 98, of. hoar frost, and 
prob. O.N. harr, hoar, hoary 

Hack, 146, North, a muck-rake. Du. 
Juxh, hoe, Eng. hack. See howk 

Hm, 197, for have, C. Du. M 

Haemit,]iamil, 153, 171, 200,hamald, 
hamelt, hamel, from hame, home, 
O.N. heimolt, Sliet. heimilt, 
pasture adjoining a yard or en- 
closure ; hamly, homely, 62 

Hafflin, 66, 137, 187, young plow- 
man, hawflin, si^ec. Sc, one half- 
grown 

Hafjands(and-), Go. answering: from 
hafjan, to heave. Ger. heben, to 
lift, Lat. cap-i-o. Cf. Bible, "lifted 
up his voice " 

Hagg, 66, 140, cow-tender. Not in 
N.E.D. 

Haggis, 98, dish, now spec. Sc, der. 
unknown, Fr. hachis is later 

Haihs, 17, Go. one-eyed. 



Haims, 32, village, Go. haim, af- 

haims, from hontie. O.E. hain, Du. 

heem, Ger. heim 
Haims, 130, Jam. hammys, hems, 

collar of working horse. Du. 

haam, O.F. ® ham — to hold against. 

" Not known bef. 1300." N.E.D. 

See brecham. 
Hained, 70, 130, saved. Not in 

N.E.D. Hain, to spare, save from 

exertion : — 

" An' swankies they link aff the pat 
To hain their joes."—" Farm. Ha'." 

Hairdeis, 68, Go. a herdsman 

Hairst, 94, 128, 129, autumn, Ger. 
Herbst, harvest 

Hairus, 25, Go. a sword, A.S. heor 

Hait, 12, a bit, an atom. " The de'il 
hait ails you."— Jlf'CVie's "Knox." 
Ic. haete, common phrase, also 
explained as "De'il have it," 
which see 

Haithi, 23, Go. heath 

Hake and manger, 173, live in plenty 

Haldand, 24, 35, Go. keeping, hold- 
ing, Eng. hold, O.E. haldan, N. 
halda, Ger. halten, Go. haldan, 
Sc. hud, hudden ; Go. only to keep 
cattle, which term superseded it 
in Sc. ; hald, for hai-hald, Go. 
pret. of haldan 

Hale, 106, to take a goal. Not in 
N.E.D. 

Hale-apotheh, 86, 138, Sc. entire or 
v:liole quantity, Gr. apothek6 

Half two, 197, Sc. idiom 

Halja, 28, Go. Ml. O.N. and Du. 
hel, or. "the coverer up." See 
hool ; Go. huljan, to cover 

Hallan, 68, perh. dim. of hall, screen 
wall inside doorway, inside porch. 
— N.E.D. 

*' Richt scornfully she answered him 
Begone ye hallan-shakker." 

Hallion, halones, 160 

Halp, 36, Go. helped, pret. of hilp-an 

Halts, 17, Go. halt, lame, Eng. 
limp, v., to make a halt 

Hamfs, 17, Go. one-handed =ha- 
nifa. Skeat, under hamper, con- 
nects it with hamfs, M.E. hamelen, 
to mutilate, render lame, hammle, 
an ungainly walk, Ic. hamla and 
Ger. hammel, mutilated. See 



294 



GLOSS AEY 



nieve, neive : hummel has many 
uses in Sc. — hornless, mean, 
shabby, to dress bere or barley 

'\Eansel, 15, 32, a Xew Year gift. 
"Form coiT. to O.E. handselen, 
mving of the hand over a bargain, 
O.X. hands-al, money handed over 
to anyone. The usages — luck 
penny, auspicious inauguration, 
&e. — not accounted for by these ; 
of. handsel, earnest money, Ger. 
Handgeld."— X.E.D. Go. hnnsl, 
gift laid on the altar, hunsla-staths, 
the altar. X.E.D. does not note 
Go. hunsl in this connection 

Hantle, 86, 1.38, a considerable 
quantity; not kno'mi before 1700; 
or. obs.— X.E.D. 

Hardies, 186, Fi. hard biscuits 

Sare-shfd, 151. Jam. "hare-shard, 
hareshaw = harelip, harchatt, 
hareskart (Renf.), from hare, and 
Ic ska, a particle, Ger. Scharte, a 
gap," A.S. sceart, shard 

Harjis, 23, G(o. army, Ger. Heer, 
Eng. herr-ing 

Earmless-loonie, 139, natural or im- 
becile, Lat luna, the moon. Xot 
in X.E.D. Cf. a "dwamly 
ciaiter," Lan., in same sense 

Harn^dout, 110, herden, burden, 
contr. of harden, a coarse fabric 
made from han^s, Du. heerde, 
threads of flax, O.Teut^ tJT*^- 
hi^mi, coarser parts of flax separ- 
ated in hackling. Clout, var. of 
cloth, Ger. Kleid 

Hariu, 14, 16, 17, 118, 204, 
207, Go. hwaimei, brains, hwair- 
nei-staths, Golgotha or place of 
a skuU, Du. hersen-pan ; spec 
Se. ham-pan, the skull, brain- 
pan ; bams, brains. O.N. ^Jame, 
bu. hergenen, Ger. ge-hime 

Hat, bitten, 88, Ore. hote, hotteu, 
hutt ; Ore. pret. hit 

Haubith, 17, Go. head, A.S. heafod, 
Lat. caput 

Maugh^ 19, 23, holm-land. Go. hugs, 
a field, O.E. hallt^ comer, nook, 
Du. hoek 

Haus-jan, 12, Gc>. to hear; -widely 
Teut. Go. alone shows .«, ga- 
hausjan, to hear ; « and r inter- 
change 



Have a irani, to, 91 

Haver, 72, Se. law, " witness having 

documents to produce in a suit ; 

not given in Jam." (J. B. F.) 
Haveril, 98, 136, spec. Sc. one who 

havers or talks ■vrithout sense — or. 

unknoAvn. — N.E.D. Hyreral, a 

lounger, idler. — Ed. 
Harrer, haffer, 177, 183, 212, oats, 

"presumably Norse." Fr. haver, 

Ger. Hafer, var. hauver 
Haversack, 177, oat-sack. Seeha\'\er 
Hawse, 18, 56, neck, O.E. and 

O.N. hals, Gk). hals, bass. Ore. 

Pap o' the hass, given in Jam. as 

Ulva for Uvula. (J. B. F.) 
He, 39, 78, 171, dee, for the, in Ir. 

and GaeL dialect respectively 
Hearken., 88, hear a child his lessons 
Heath, 23, 32, Go. haithi, haithno, a 

heathen woman ; or. sense, prairie 

land. Ger. Heide 
Heather-reenge, 119, i«enge, var. of 

rinse or range. Either will suit 

sense 
Heech, liee, 12, 38, high. Go. hauh-s, 

bauhnan, to be heedi, to hithteu. 

Ger. hoch, Go. bauhnan, to lie 

esalted 
Hech J 53, deep breath, exclamation ; 

Sc. form of heigh ! " Hech Sir? ! " 

not given in Jam. (J. B. F.) 
Heckle, 70, to dress ; flax ; v. and n. 

var. of hadde, haichel 
Heft, 56, axe handle, O.E. haefte, 

Ger. Heft, Eng. haft, ha ic, heave, 

that by which anyt hing is held. 

— N.E.D. 

" El natore hefts in sauIs that weep an' 
pine." Ailan Unittsay, 

Heftet, 56, 131, 147, 177, ga-haftida. 
Go. cleaved to : haft, O.E. liaeft, 
Ger. Heft, a handle, root in heave 
or have, O.N. hefta, to bind, retain 
(milk, urine), Ger. heften, heftet, 
acclimatised, as sheep to pasture. 
Shet. provided with 

Hei-fned, 163, liav-cutter 

Hemmii, 180, Cu. presumably mis- 
reading for skemel, which see 

Herdwick wool, 179, Cu. 

Heritors, 72, landlords, Sc law 

Herried, harriet, herryin, 124, 151, 
155, robbed (a nest), var. of, 
harry, harrow, deriv. from Go. 



GLOSSARY 



295 



liai-jis, an army, and widely Teut. 
See harjis, hersliip. Bu. " Thu 
loons got a gueede soun dribban 
for hairrien the craw's nest." — 



" They hao near hand henit hale 
Eltrlck Forest and Lauderdale." 

" Bord. Minst." 

fHerr-ing, 23, O.E. hering, Du. 
haring, Qer. Haring, Hering, 
F. hareng. Gen. explained as 
from heer, an army — "the fish that 
comes in hosts," but its short vowel 
is against this. — N.E.D. 
Heirt, 17, heart. Go. hairto, Ger. 

Herz 
fHerrth, haurja, 25, burning coals. 
Go., Du. haard, Ger. Herd, 
fireplace, floor. N.E.D. does not 
notice connection of hearth with 
haurja 
Herry, 137, a virago, perhaps akin 

to Ger. Herr 
Hership, 167, A.S. here. Go. har- 
jis, a troop and soipe (abst. term), 
Ic. her-skap-r, ravaging. See 
harjis, herry 
Hery, 52, M.E. to praise, O.E. 
herian. Go. hasjan, hazjandane, 
pres. part. 
Het, 171, Du. def. article 
Hetzen, 69, Ger. = to set on dogs to 

flght 
Hey, hay, 19, Go. hawi, meaning 

grass, herb ; Du. hooi, Ger. Heu 
Hey-soos, 146, hay-sows, hay-ricks 
Hi, 45, Go. this, old pronon. stem 
Hick nor ree, 189, Cu. 
//I'cto-iiy-piokery, 115 
Hiding, 101, thrashing 
Hie, 53, Eng. to hasten, O.Sc. hyand, 
hastening, O.E. higian, to pant, 
Du. hijgen, Ger. heichen, Sc. liecli 
Hilda, 27, Pr. name, the gracious one, 
O.E. hold, Du. hon, Go. hulths, 
gracious, wilja-halthei, benevo- 
lence, *' hilthan, to be inclined. 
See hulths 
Himins, 23, Go., Ger. Himmel 
HimseV, 91, himself, in "He's no 

the day " 

Hind, 65, 181, 184, ploughman — 
chiefly on Borders. MJl. hine, 
0. North, in sense of famuli : 
hine faedar (Rushw. Gl.)= pater 



familias, A.S. hyne, Cu. hyne. 
In hind, fem. deer, the d is 
radical ; O.E. hind, Ger. Hinde, 
Go. hinthan, to catch 

Hine, 45, E. dial, him 

Hinny, 85, 181, term of endear- 
ment, var. of honey 

Hip, 151, var. of hop, to pass over. 
M.E. hyppe, Ger. hiipfen, Go. 
"huppjan, O.E. hoppian, O.N. 
hoppa, to hop 

" Nor hip the daft and gleesome saunts 
That flu Edina'8 seat." Ferg. 

Hippit, 177, hip muscles strained 
and tired 

Hirdsell, 24, 68, sheep stock of a 
hill farmer ; hirsel, O.N. hizla, 
safe keeping ; hirtha, to herd, 
Go. hairdeis, a herd. — N.E.D. 

Hirplin mawkin, 97, 122, 129, hirple, 
to walk with a limp, run like a 
hare ; or. unknown ; spec. Sc. 

" He hosts an' he hirples the weary 
day lang." *'Ball." 

Hirrd, 24, herd, hairda. Go., O.E. 

heord, Ger. Herde 
Hirsled, 85, moved with effort, O.N. 

hrista, to shake. Da. ryste, rustle — 

"John hirsled on his specs " 
Hi-sfy! 127 

Hit for it, 35, 45, 1 97, 209. C. Du. het 
Hive, 152, Mo. the hoof, Du. hoef, 

Da. hov 
Ilizzy, 137, var. of hussy, from 

housewife 
Hoast, 138, 207, A.S. hwosta, Ic. 

hosti, imitative, C. Du. hoests 
Hochlan, 115, var. of hobbling 
Hoddenly, 189, Ou. continuously ; 

app. hodd is a var. of hold 
Hoek, 204, 210, 0. Du., corner (Boer), 

Du. hoek, haak, corner, angle, 

nook, Eng. hooh. The Hook of 

Holland 
Hoo, 40, how 
Hoodie or howdie craw, 64, the hooded 

crow 
Hoofd, 204, C. Du. head, Ger. 

Haupt 
Hool, huil, hule, helyt, 28, 62, pea-cod. 

Eng. lutU, shell, pod or husk = 

what covers. Ger. Hiille, Htilse, 

hulls (Sart. Res.) clothes, Go. 

huljan, to cover. " The kind 



296 



GLOSSAEY 



corn has its ain hool." — Prov. 
Shet hule, husk. " My heart is 
out o' hule " 

Hoolet, 251, the owl, Ger. heulen, to 
howl or hoot as an owl, O.F. 
huller, to yell. Teut. forms gener- 
ally without aspirate, A.S. i\le, 
O.N. ugla, Lat. ulula 

Hoosaes, 25, 83, Go. hus 

Hoo-t-ootts, 171 ; "not given at all in 
Jam." (J. B. F.) 

Horn, 72, 131, So. law, proclaim 
bankrupt, outlaw ; from horn as 
trumpet, v. to call 

Hornie (Fair) Hornie, the Devil, 
Sc, the Horned One. See Fair 
Hornie 

Horse-chestntit, 21. "Called in 
English horse chestnut for that 
the people of the East countries 
do with the fruit thereof cure 
their horses of the cough." — 
Gerard's " Herbal," 1597 

Hotch, 178, hotchin 

Hovin, 131, 147, swollen (app. to cows) 
with, overfeeding ; cf . heave, hove 

Howe, 23, Eng. hoe, hollow, Ger. 
Haue, Eng. hough, Sc. howe, 
howk, Go. hoha, N. liol. Da. huul. 
Go. hul-undi. See howk 

Hoiof, 224, abode, resort, C. Du. 
kerk-hof, Ger. Kirchhof, church- 
yard, 0. Du. hof; "howff not given. 
Houff refers you back to hoiff ; 
Hoffe, a residence" (II. 601, 
Jam.). (J. B. F.) "A timber 
hoofe to be meithed " (measured). 
—"Glasgow Records," 1696 

Hoiok, 146, 204, 253, to hollow, N. 
halka, root of holl-ovf with dim. 
formative k, Go. hul-undi, a cave, 
us-hulon, to hollow out, Sc. 
haugh. See howe 

Hree, 83, chree, Lan. three 

Hrukjan, 13, Go. to crow, rooh, 
onomat. 

Hud, hold, 73, keep 

Huddin, 24, held 

jjue (wee), "a wee hue maer," 138. 
Paisley humour was to apply the 
phrase to the Sheriff at the time 
(Mair). Both his stature and name 
fitted the expression. "Hue, a 
tasting, app. to solids or liquids." 
— Jam. 



Hugan, 26, 33, Go. to think ; hugs, 
Go. understanding. See for-hoo 

Hugs, 19, 23, Go., Sc. haugh, Eng. 
holm. N.E.D., under haugh, says, 
"app. from O.E. halk, corner." 
See hoek 

Huis heer, 207, C. Du. = Sc. hooss- 
maister 

fHulths, 27, Go. merciful; hold, 
Ger. gracious, O.N. hollr, A.S. 
hold. Go. un-hultho, unclean 
spirit ; un-hold, sin. Kliige does 
not connect Ger. Held, a hero, as 
in the text, with Ger. hold, but 
finds it in A.S. haeleth, a man. 
See Hilda 

Hundfaths, 15, 18, Go. hundred- 
lord, centurion ; cf. braut-faths 

Hunds, 250, Go. hound 

Hunker-tottie, 129, 140, a position in 
sliding as a game. Or. obs. 
Fris. hauk, corner, home in a 
game. Cf. O.N. hokra, to crovich, 
huka, Ger. hocken, to sit on the 
heels, Sc. hock, the ankle joint, 
and E. hough ; prob. akin Shet. 
hookers, bended knees ; cf. Sc. hoch 

Hups, 17, Go. hip, O.E. hype, Du. 
heu]D, Ger. Hiifte 

Huird, huzd, 12, Go. hoard, treasure, 
O.E. hord, hidden, O.N. hodd 

Hiv-, 82, Go. and Sc. hw-, E. wh-, 
pre. Teut. kw- 

Hwairpan, 14, Go. to throw, warp 

Hwaiteis, 14, 20, 23, Go. hwaits in 
text, Sc. hwait, wheat 

Hwapjan, 48, Go. to choke, var. 
of whopan, whoop, whopper, 
whooping-cough 

Hwas, 14, 40, Go. who. Sans, kas, 
Sc. whaw 

Hwaurms. 14, Go. drtigon. So. wurrm, 
worm. Sans, krimi, carmine, crim- 
son 

Hwe, 40, Go. 

Hwi-leiks, 14, 40, Go. which, Sc. 
whilk 

Hwithon, 14, Go. older form of 
withon, to shake, Lat. quatere 

Hwotidedun, 14, Go. rebuked, 
whetted 

Hyand, 53, hastening, Eng. hie 

Hypothec, 86, Sc. law 

Hyucks, 128, 146, hoolcB, sickles, 
syth-/!.2/Mt7>; 



GLOSSAEY 



297 



I, 80, 81, thia vowel sound of ; 

final light i is -ie 
Ick-er, 20, ear of corn. See akrau 
Iddja, 34, Go., Sc. gaed, O.E. yode 
Id-weitjan, 206. Go. See wMte (v.) 
ler-oe, jeroy, 63, Ore. Gael, iar after, 

and oglia grandchild 
tiets, 12, 138, 209, 215, C. Du. any- 
thing ; neg. niets. Perh. cog. -vvith 
Ger. jetzt, itself obsc, but its older 
form ietz. — Kl. 
I-fall6, 84, Chaucer. See ge-fallen 
Ik, 38, 169, 197, Go. and'C. Du. I. 
In O.E. ik and I were in use 
tog. till 14th c. ; I alone in 
N. and Mid. after 1400; in S. 
ich remained till, in 16th c, re- 
duced to ch, as cham, chave, chiU, 
wth auxl. verbs. See " che vor 

ye" 

Ik-ei, 39, Go. I who 

-ila, 2, Go. dim. ending 

Ill-laits, 184, Angus ; ill-aits, Fi. ; 
ill-gait, syn. Bu. — " A thocht he 
wz gain t' dee weel, bit he's back 
till a's ill-gaits." — Gregor 

Ill-set, 70, 137.— Notin'N.E.D. 

" Ye're owre ill-set. As ye'd hae meesir 
ye sud mett."— " Farmer's Ha'." 

Implemented, 72, law, made good. 
Income, 139, an on-come, morbid 

affection, or tumour 
Inconvene, 92, inconvenience, malapr. 
Iiifcft, 72, Sc. law ; cf. en-feoff, to 

im-est with heritable property, a 

fief 
lugaan-ee, ingaun-ee, 180, 188 ; " not 

given, but ingaan, ingain and in- 

gaand mouth are." (J. B. F.) 
Ingh-lowe, 68, the fireside ; prob. 

Gael, aingeal, fire, light. — N.E.D. 
Inlie, 173, early form of linen tape, 

from Holland. Du. enkel, single 

is conjectured as origin. — N.E.D. 

Xot in Jam. 
Inlichten, en-lighten. Go. inliuhtjan 
In, 89, as prep, in Sc. — in his offer, 

in life, in a present 
Inspan, 203, C. Du. See spang. 
In-tatk, 92, a fraud, deception 
Interlocutor, 72, Sc. law, decision 
Inversion of the subject, 168, Sc. 

and Ger. 



lol-air, 20, Gael, iol, yellow, and air, 

bird. See gool and earn, erne 
I'se quite agreeable, I'se warrant, 

167, 169; archaic Sc Cf. Du. 

ik is 
r the noo, 172, just now 
Itlier, 48, other; pi. ither for older 

ithere. Sc. antarin, Go. anthar, 

Ger. ander 
Iver-sell, 147, Mor., var. of over-sells. 

See sells, sile. ]S^ot in N.E.D. 



J a, -ya, -ie, 28, dim. suff. This 
diminutive, so characteristic of 
the N.E. counties, is very rare 
in Elgin Kirk Records of i7th c. 

Jag, 174, Cu. and Bord. 

Jiiiq-a-ring, 127. Xot in Jam. or 
N.E.D. 

Jink, 174, Cu. and Bord. 

Jiuka, 34, 48, Go. strife ; jukan. 
Go. to contend. See yoke, yokin 

Joabing, 122. Jam. job, a prickle, 
jobbie. "App. onomat. as sound 
of an abruptly arrested stab." — 
N.E.D. Cf. Bu. dob, a prick, 
Perth, drob 

Jobbings, 94, repairs 

Jookery-packery, 82, 85, for jookrie- 
pawkrie, Fi. N. E. D. doubts iijouk, 
conn, ^vith duck, Sc. djuk, to 
bend or swerve quickh', dodge ; 
packery, for pawkery ; cf. pawky 

Jots, jotterie, 152, Mor. — jobs. Jam. 
"Jotterie, odd or dirty work." — 
Ettrick 

Ju, je, 56, Go. now, already, Ger. ja, 
A.S. jes, E. yes 

Jugg-o, 248, Go. young, Ger. jung 

Just noo, 172, Cu. for "i' the noo" 



K 



K, 14, 152, 178, initial, sounded k, 
hard, sound of. Nursery rhyme 
in which h is always sounded — 
"John Knox fell over a knowe 
an' cut his knee on a knife." 
(J. B. F.) It sounds strange to 
hear, in a German school, of 
K-nox, the Reformer 



298 



GLOSSAEY 



Ka, 40, Sans, wlio 1 Sc. whaw 1 

Kaapsche, 191, var. of C. Du. 
Taal 

Kail-runt, 68, 123, 129, No. form of 
cole ; Lat. caulis, cabbage ; Jcail- 
stock, in same sense 

Kaisara-gild, 34, Go. the "tribute 
money ; " Csesar-gold 

Kalbo, 21, Go. calf, Sc. cauf 

Kalds, 29, Go., Sc. cauld, cold 

Kalpa, 40, Sans, a body, Lat. corpus 

Kasa, 25, Go. a pot, kettle, Go. katils, 
Du. ketel, kessel, borr. from Lat. 
catillus, a food vessel 

Kast to, of peats, 178, Cu. ; in sense 
to throw, E. cast 

Kaupatjan, 33, Go., prob. cog. with 
cuff, Sw. Icufva, to subdue, cow, 
kuffa, to thrust 

Kaurn, 23, Go. corn 

Keelc, 209, 210, 219, to peep, not in 
O.E. ; Du. kijk-en ; cf. teet 

Keelie's eyrie, 122, 140, sparrow 
hawk's nest^ — from the bird's 
cry 

Keelivine, 134, any coloured pencil, 
or. made from keel, ochreous 
iron-ore, ruddle ; Gael, cill 

Keep, 185, mind, look after, repair, 
maintain in proper order — sense 
archaic in Eng. " The saids 
bestiall not being keeped eats the 
petitioner's comes." — " Glasgow 
Records," 1695 

Keep nicks, 185, Cu. 

Kempin', 64, 128, 146, Ger. Kampfen, 
to strive in doing a piece of 
work, O.Fr. kempa, Du. kemp (e), 
Ger. kampe, Eng. camp, Lat. 
campus, a plain. " A' the coern's 
no shorn be kempers." — Prov. 
N.E.D. Shet. kemp - rooth, a 
rowing match 

Ken, kenned, kennin, a sample, 34, 70, 
255, Go. kannjan, cause to know, 
O.E. cennan, Er. kanna, Du. 
kennen, Ger. kennen. In later 
tongues, to know ; but in Sc. it has 
supplanted know. "I no kan" 
(Berw.) for I dinna ken 

Kenspeckle, 84, Sc, obsc. or., but, like 
N. kjennespak, quick at recognis- 
ing things 

Kerel, 163, 185, 209, 218, 222, Ore. 
and C. Dii. ; cf . carle, churl 



Kibe, 204, W. cib, a cu.p, "malady 
in shape of a cup, from swelling 
form." — Sk. See cob, kopje 

Kick-up, a, 92, disturbance, wrangle 

Kiekjies, 216, C. Du. 

Killogie, or kiln-logie, 150, covered 
space in front of a kiln ; Shet. 
fireplace of a kiln 

Kiln-huggie, 150, Ore. For huggie, 
see hugs 

Kiltheis, 248, Go. chield, child 

Kimmin, 66, 68, 132, 140, 209, 219, 
Fi. bucket, coum, Eng. cuming, 
coomb, O.E. cumb, Ger. Kumm, 
a vessel, O.Teut. kumbo, a vessel. 
North, coom, kim, a milk can, 
M.E. kim (e) lin. App. reL to O.E. 
camb, combe, a tub 

Kin (Jmin), 151, rent paid in kind, 
gen. fowls ; Gael, caan, the head, 
cMn, poll-money 

Kinch, 17, 208, 0. Du. kink, twist 
in a rope, Ger. kink, Ic. kikna, to 
bend at the knees 

Kinkhoest, 17, 207, C. Du. 

Kirn, rantiri him, kirn stick, 107, 134, 
"uncert. or. — -harvest -home or 
harvest supper, cutting of last 
handful of corn" N.E.D.— Ic. 
kvern, E. corn. See quern 

"As bleak-faced Hallowmas returns, 
They get the jovial rantin' kirns." 

" Twa Dogs." 

Kirn, 88, E. churn 

Kisten, 74, chesting, coifining, putting 
into the chest or coffin. 

Kitchen, 67, Sc. butcher-meat, any 
kind of food eaten with bread, &c., 
as a relish ; " fee, dripping, the 
skimmings of fat meat " 

Kittle, 74, 79, 171, spec. Sc. difficult, 
V. =to tickle, prob. of N. or.; 
O.N. kitla, to tickle, Ger. kitzeln: 
unknown outside Teut. 

Kittlen, kitting, 92, 121, or. young 
of any animal, a kitten ; " comm. 
only identified with O.N. ketling-t, 
a kitten." The loss of final g in ing 
quite regular in Scots. — N.E.D. 

Klecks, 130, Ger. a spot, as of 
ink, a blur ; in Campbeltown, a 
" stollm." " To gather a stolm," 
said of animals when with young. 
— Edm. See klack 



GLOSSAEY 



299 



Kleintjies, 207, 218, C. Du., Ger. 
klein 

fKleuz, 152, Ger. split ; not a Ger. 
word as given in text 

Klik, 208, C. Du. cleek, which is 
No. form of O.E. cleche = clutch, 
Sc. cluik, a claw ; from latch, 
modif. hy loss of A.S. prefix ge, 
seen in A.S. gelaecan 

Klip, 204, C. Du. a crag, var. of clifif 

Kloek, 207, C. Du. clever, Ger. kliig, 
Du. kloek, N. klokr ; or. ohsc. 
Of. Sc. gleg 

Kloof, 204, C.Du. a ravine with steep 
sides ; var. of Du. clif, pi. cleve, O.N. 
klif 

Kluit, 218, C. Du. See cliite 

Kluitjies, 218, C. Du. 

Knap, 67, 152, as in stane-knappin or 
stone-breaking, knapped ; Du. and 
Ger. knappen, to crack, snap, bite ; 
Bu. var. knack, to talk in a lively 
manner. "He thinks nae mair 
o' knackin aflf lees nor o' pittin 
afPs claise an' gain till's bed." — 
Gregor 

Knap or knot grass, 145, having 
knobs on stalk 

Kneef, 152, C. Du., app. var. of knap, 
to break a thing with a sharp 
crack; " knapped ginger." — Shak. 
See knaj) 

Knijp, 152, 153, 198, 222, C. Du. 
" kerels in die knijp " ; Ger. 
Kneipe, kneipen, student word, 
late in appearing ; Du. knijp, 
straits, difficulties, a public-house ; 
or. Du. knip, bird-trap. See Knopf 

Kniu, 17, Go. knee, Ger. Knie 

Knopf, 67, knot, Ger. ; Kl. knop, 
A.S. cnopp, Du. knop, bud, button. 
Go. Ger. Knauf, •■■' knaupa, A.S. 
"*cnobba, M.E. knobbe, knob, 
M.E. knap 

Knottie, 154, Mo. small knot or lump 

Knoioe, knoll, 8], 82, O.E. cnoU, hill- 
top, Du. knol, clod, ball, Ger. 
KnoUen, N. knoll, a hillock ; 
"roxTnded hill-top."— N.E.D. 
Kod, 100, Ore. a pillow. See coddis 
Koil-tett, 146, Mo. head-koil or cole, 
O.E. ted, to spread new-mown 
grass, Ic. tatha, hay in a home- 
field. Cf. Sc. tothed, manured, Ic. 
tath, manure, q.v. 



Komme, 209, 0. Du. See kimmin 

Kop, 175, 202-204, C. Du. kopjie, 
Du. kopje, dim. of kop, head ; cog. 
kibe (Shak.), a chilblain, any 
malady in shape of a cup. 

Kraan, 207, also C. Du. a tap, cock, 
or fawcett 

Krames, 205, Ger. Kram, out-spread 
cloth covering over a booth, the 
booth, its wares. Specially Du., 
spread through trade, Ic. kram. 
In Du. also means child-bed, 
hence C. Du. kraam-bezuk, Ger. 
Besuch, a visit 

IKrug, 198, A.S. crog, croh, cruce, 
M.E. crouke, Du. kruik, kroeg, a 
drink-shop, Ic. krukka, pot, or. 
Celt. The name Kriiger does not 
necessarily imply a Ger. origin as 
in the text 

Kudda, kod, 100. See teva-kudda, 
and cod, a bag 

Kuni, 255, Go. kin, kindred, kind 

Kyard, 154, Gael, caird, a gipsy, 
tinker. See carid 

Kynockel, 152, Mo. knuckle, A.S. 
onucel, M.E. knokil, Du. knokkel, 
Ger. Knochel ; dim. of Du. knok, 
Ger. Knochen, a bone 

Kyob, hyohie, 152, Mo. for gaebie, a 
bird's crop. See gaebie 



L, sound, 80 

Laager, 121, 0. Du., Du. leger, 

camp ; cog. lair, Ger. Lager, Go. 

ligr-s, a couch, from ligan, to lie 
Laal, 39, 171, 178, 181, Cu., var. of 

little, also Ule. Not in N.E.D. 
Labour, 94, to till 
Labrod, 105, for lap-hoard, used to cut 

out work upon (by tailors) 
Lack, 13, laugh, hlahjan, Go. 
Laerroh, 71, 126, lark, A.S. Mwerce, 

Idferce, Ic. laevirki,Du. leeuwerik ; 

lit. laew - werca, guile - worker, 

regarded as of ill-omen 
Laggan, 204, Gael, in place names ; 

cog. with Sc. laich, loch 
Laidlick, 129, Bu. North var. of 

loathly, repulsive, " laithly beast " ; 

for-laithie, disgust. " He took a 

for-laithie at it." Cf. Ul-laits, 

ill-aits, bad habits, q.v. 



300 



GLOSSAEY 



Laif, 23, 26, loaf, Go. hlaiba, A.S 
hldf, Ger. Laib, Go. ga-hlaiba, 
messmates 

fLaik, 30, 56, O.E. Mc, warlike 
activity O.N. laik-r, to play. Go. 
laik-s, (lance, laikan, to leap for 
joy. "E. lark, a frolicsome ad- 
venture, V. and svib., first 1811-13 ; 
or. somewhat uncertain." — N.E.D. 

Lair, 27, lore. Go. laisjan, to make to 
know, its pret. as a pres. is lais = 
know, from which Go. leis = expert, 
lubja-icis = witchcraft, Ger. lehren, 
to make to know 

Lairdet, 145, 200, v. lair to sink in 
mire, mire or bog ; subst. lair, clay, 
cog. with lime, loam; Shet. leir, 
clay, mud 

Laisareis, 27, Go. the Scribes, Rabbis 

Laisnan, 38, Go. to be taught. See 
lair, lore 

Laithly, 129 ; laith, unwilling 

Lai tin, 184, Cu. custom 

Lall-wdrter, 247, prattle words 

Lamming, 172, a beating ; to lam, 
break, beat soundly, O.N. lemja, 
past of V. to lame ; cog. lame, 
not Sc. ; Bu. form is lummer, to 
beat smartly, " A lummer on at 
ma laddie to pay attention till's 
lessons." — Gregor; Fi. loonder, 
" To gie 'm a loonderin." 

Land, 23, Go., Sc. laund 

Lang-nehhit, 89 ; lit. long-nosed, said 
of big words 

Lap, 62, leapt 

Lapper, 133, 151. Not in N.E.D. 
Jam. to cover so as to clot. Lap- 
pered, coagulated, Ic. hlaup, a 
clot ; lapper, a clot of blood — 
Edm. — still in common use. Of. 
" lapiser't-milk " ; Gael, clabar, 
mud ; clabar bainne, clotted milk 

Lapper, 53, from la]3, to fold, O.E. 
wlap, cf. lappel, lappet ; Bu. to 
coagulate. " The thunner hiz lap- 
pert the milk." — Oregor 

Lapstane, 134, shoemaker's stone, 
held on the lap ; from lap, a fold, 
an apron, or part covered by it. 
Not in Jam. 

Late, kit, layt, 184, Gu. N.E.D. 
has lait, to seek, try to find ; O.N. 
leita = O.E. wlatian, Go. wlaiton, 
to behold, look round about, 



whence Go. wlits, the face. Go. 
lathon, to call, invite is not men- 
tioned in this connection, as it is 
in the text (p. 184). See anda- 
wleizns, and wleiz 

Late, 28, slow, tardy. Go. lats, lazy 
or late, or. meaning ; Du. laat, 
O.N. lat-r — form of let; Go. letan 
— primarily to let go through 
weariness ; F. laisser, Lat. lassus 

Lauchin', 69 

Lauf-s, 12, pi. laub-os, Go. leaf, Sc. 
levis (pL), O.Fr. Idf, Du. loof, Ger. 
Laub 

Lave of the brock, 29, spec. Sc, Go. 
laibosgabruko. Go. laiba, Fr. Uva, 
Eng. leave, what is left over 

"fLavM, lawdie, 18, 19, lad, boy. Cf. 
Go. j\igga,-lauths, a young man. 
"Quite inadmissible, both on 
ground of phonology and meaning, 
is current statement that lad is 
cognate with this. Go. lautlis, of 
obsc. or."— N.E.D. 

Lay, 163, Kinc, Ger. Lade, box, 
chest, O.N. hlatha, shed, M.E. 
lathe, E. lathe 

Lays, 76, E. for lies 

fLead, 27, 48, 182, Eng to conduct, 
O.E. laedan, Du. leiden, Ger. lei- 
ten ; " wanting in Go.," says 
N.E.D., as given in the text, p. 
27. Var. of leithan, to lead, has 
many derivatives 

Learn, 38,87,88, teach, Eng., or. obsc. 
in this sense, Ger. lehren, lernen, 
to be taught 

Lease, 48, 219, Eng. to glean. Go. 
lisan, to gather, Ger. lesen, to 
gather, read ; cog. learn, lore, Sc. 
lair, C. Du. les, lees 

Leech, 27, N.E.D. "commonly re- 
garded as a trans, use of leech, 
physician, but prob. originally 
distinct." Go. lekeis, a healer, 
N. laka, to heal. Go. lekinon, to 
heal 

Leeh-strae, 154, Ore. from leek (lich), 

a corpse 
Leem, 198, and C. Du., common in 
Teut. ; cog. with Lat. limus, E. 
lime ; Bu. a broken piece of 
crockery 
Leiks, 17, 40, Go. body ; lyh, lyhwnhe, 
leek, leek-aiiae, 154 



GEOSSAEY 



301 



Lein, 26, 258, Go. linen, lint, Sc. flax 
plant, Eng. linen, Go. lein, also 
Eng. line, Lat. linwm, flax 

Len, 69, n. and v. lend, loan 

Lered, 38, O.E. learned, Sc. lair, Eng. 
lore. See lais, lore 

Lethir, 13, 15, ladder, Go. hlethra 
in hleithra-stakins (stakes), taber- 
nacles ; letherin, Fi., ledderin, 
Shet., a severe drubbing 

" Let on," 69, 88, to betray a fact by 
word or look: in N.E.D. under 
Eng. let, O.E. laetan, Du. latan, 
Ger. lassen. Go. letan 

Lettern, 73, precentor's desk, lec- 
tern 

Lewed, 4, lewd, illiterate, lered and 
lewed = clergy and laity 

Lib, 148, to castrate, Du. lubben, to 
maim 

" Lib ye o' yere German gear." 

"Old Song." 

Lihel, 72, 84, Sc. law, indictment 
Libelled, 72, for labelled 
Licentiate, 75 
Lich-gate, 17, Eng. O.E. lie, a body, 

corpse (later sense), O.N. lik, Go. 

leih. See leiks, leek-strae, lyke- 

wake 
Licht, 12, Eng. light, O.E. leoht, 

Ger. licht, Go. liuhath, inliuhtjan 

= en-lichten enlighten 
LicM, 12, not heavy. Go. leihts 
Lids, 207, 0. Du. le'e, Du. leden. 

See lith 
Lidy, 79, 84 
Liftin' (at the), 69 
Likdoorns, 210, C. Du. body-thorns 

= corns. See leiks, lyke-wake 
Like, 90. Not in N.E.D. in this 

sense 
Like, 35, 40, 76, Eng., as conj. 
Like, 40, 90, as adv., still heard in 

Ger. 
Likely, 68, 169, seemly, good Sc. ; but 

N.E.D. says only " U.S. dialect," 

as verb, to lay to one's charge, 

" A wid a' niv\'er tean't inta ma 

heid to hae likliet it till him." — 

Gregor 
Lily-oak, 121. N.E.D. laylock, obsc. 

and dial, form of lilac 
Limh of Sawtan, 1 37 
Limmer, 85, 137, a hussy; "obsc. 



or., conn, with limb, possible." — 
N.E.D. 

Linens, 15, 94, underclothing 

Lippen, 151, obsc. or., prob. cog. 
^vith Go. laub-jan, to trust, Ger. 
glauben, to believe 

Liquids (consonants), 82, 84, 111, 
efl^ect on vowels 

Lisk, 172, the groin, O.E. leske. Da. 
lyske 

Lith, 27, 207, spec. So. a limb; 
0. Er. lith, Du. lid, Go. litlius, a 
limb, with pref. ge Ger. s-lied. 
Kliige says glied can hardly be 
from leiden, leiten, to go, as 
it is not confined to the "foot." 
He connects with limb through 
O.N. lim-r, limb, branch. See lids. 

Lithan, 48, A.S. to lead, to travel, 
go by water, laedan, to cause to go, 
i.e. conduct, all from base, lith, to 
go, as in Go. ga.-leithan; A.S. 
lith-ule, joint-oil 

Liths of an orange, 156, sections of;, 
not in N.E.D. in this sense 

f Little, 29, Eng. a synonymous and 
phonetically similar adj., ■■•litilo, 
as found in Go. leitils, is radically 
unconnected 

Little booket, 69, of small hulk 

Liuthareis, 27, singers, liuthon, to 
sing. Go. ; Du. and Ger. lied, A.S. 
Ifeoth, Go. ® liuth 

I Loafer, 17, Eng., obsc. or.; not 
conn, with Ger. laufen. — N.E.D. 

Loaning, 200, 206, var. of loan, lane 

Loehans, 119, small loclis 

Lock, 181, in sense of " a lot." 

Lodd, lade, 48, load. Go. hlathan,, 
A.S. hladan, Du.laden 

Long-settle, 180, Cu. 

Loo, 67, 139, 211, tepid ; not in 
N.E.D. 

Loof, loofie, 17, 135, A.S. lof, palm^ 
Ic. lofi, Gael lamh, whence lamh- 
ainn, a glove. Go. lof a, O.H.G. 
Laffa, blade of an oar 

Loon, 1, 137, obsc. or., loon-loohin" 
dog 

Loot, 32, to bend down, stoop, O.E. 
lutan. O.N. luta. Go. liuta, a 
hypocrite. Not in N.E.D. 

Losh, 33, 86, 98 ; loshtie, exclama- 
tion, corr. of Lord 

Lost myself, 88 



302 



GLOSSAKY 



Lot, 211, var. of lock, a quantity. 
See lucken 

Loupin-on-Stane, 201 

Lovenanty! 170, Lan. 

Lowe, 135, O.N. loge, Ger. Lohe, a 
flame ; cog. Lat. lux, light 

Loiq), lowpin', 17, 33, 216, Go. 
hlaupan, to leap up, A.S. hleapan, 
to run, Ger. laufen, Du. loopen, E. 
leap 

Lowss, 1.3, Eng. loose, Go. iatts, 
empty, vain, O.E. liesan, Du. 
loozen, Ger. losen, Go. lausjan, to 
loosen, fra-lius-an ; ako in suff. los, 
less. Leasing, lying, is cog. 

Lozen, 139, lozenge as a window-pane 

Lucken,181, 211, past part, of louk, 
lock. Go. ga,-lukan, to close, us- 
Mkan, to open, O.N. luka, cog. 
lock; Du. luiken, to close; Shet. 
to clutch ; Ic. luka, locket, seized 
hold of. — Ed,m. ; hence, Lucken 
booths, Lucken-gowan 

Lucy-awrnits, 123, " corr. of earth- 
nut ; lousy arnut, tall oat-grass or 
pig-nut." — Jam. 

Luff, 207, C. Du. ; in Sc. loof, which 
see 

Lti/js, 79, ears, obsc. or. — superseded 
in Sc. by the older " ear " 

Lui, 194, C. Du. sluggish, same as 
lag, lag-gard, with elision of gut- 
tural 

Lum, 171,209, Celt or. lit. "what 
projects" 

Lum-cleek, 208,0. Du. chimney hook 

-ly, 40, Eng. suffix 

Lyft, 23, spec. Sc. O.E. lyft, Ger. 
Luft, the sky, Go. luftus 

Lyke-wake, 17, 154, Ir. watch over 
a lich, leik, a dead body. See 
leiks. " The neighbour women 
used to come in and sit by the 
corpse in twos or threes all night." 
— Prof. Cooper 



M 

-}il, 38, old dat. case ; old customs 
in Moray 

M/(ak, 196, 0. Du. and Sc. it is pre- 
ferred to "do," Ger. machen 

Mud, 51, A.S. mark, token, meal at 
stated time. Go. mei, time, season 



Maich, maik, make, 19, Barb., O.E. 
ge-maec, equal, Ger. ge-mach, 
easy, comfortable — prim, sense 
"fit, suitable."— N.B.D. 

Maiden, The, 154, in Harvest 
Home. See clyack and kim 

Maiden, 2, 19, a girl, O.E. maegden. 
Go. magaths. Ger. MagdandMad- 
chen are not identical with the 
Go. ; has many forms in Go., as 
magus, lad, magula, lass, magathei, 
maidenhood, mawi, mawilo 

Mail, 23, rent, A.S. methel, mar- 
ket, O.N. mail speech, O.H.G. 
Mahal, assembly, O.E. maethel, 
discussion, mele, to speak, Go. 
mathl, market or meeting place. 
Go. faura-mathleis, chief speaker 
= fore-meler ; M.E. mele, to 
speak 

Mail, 28, speck, spot ; Kliige says, 
conn, with Go. mail, spot, un- 
certain, though sense is parallel : 
cog. A.S. mdl, mole (on the skin). 
Ident. is mal, a "point" of time 
in ein-mal. Sc. eirn-mail is iron- 
mould or stain on linen 

Mairch, 22, border, boundary be- 
tween properties, O.E. mearc, 
Du. and Ger. ^Mark, Go. marka, 
boundary, landmark 

Mailing, 146, a farm, as paying mail 
or rent in money. See mail 

" Shore (threatened) to raise our mailins." 
" Gentle Shepherd." 

Maill, 24, 253, Eng. nrveal. Go. 

malan, to grind in the mill 
Makkars, 98, 99, 102, makers = poets; 

Cf. Gr. TTOlTJT-qS 

jMan, 11, 16, 79, 248, Go. manna, 
as an indef. pron , Ger. man ; 
in compounds, -mana. K.E.D. 
throws doubt on the usual refer- 
ence of the root to an Ind.-Ger. 
verb, to think, "though no 
plausible alternative explanation 
has been suggested " 

Man o' bizzness, 72 

Manage, 94, to get through with 

Ma riding, 75, memorising, Lat. 
mandare as in mandate. Not in 
Jam. or N.E.D. 

Miint, 105, tu stutter, Ga. and Ir. 
manntach, toothless, stammering, 
M.Ir. mant, the gum 



GLOSSAEY 



303 



Mappies, 123, rabbits, imit. of nib- 
bling action of lips. Not in 
N.E.D. 

Mareschal, 56, 63, 64, Eng.; O.P. 
mareschal, F. mardohal, Ger. Mar- 
schalks, lit. horse-servant 

JNIarm, 82, var. of madam 

Marra, 171, a companion, a match, 
as marra-less stockings, not a 
pair ; Bu. marie, to variegate. 
Not in N.E.D. 
" Whauv gat ye that winsome marrow ? " 

Mathl, 23, Go. market-place ; v. 
niathljan. See meljan and mail 

Mati-balg, 26, Go. a meat-bag = 
wallet 

Maiidiie, 24, fulsome. Jam. mocli, 
mochy ; or. a heap (moist and 
rotting), moich, tainted meat ; 
syn. hiimphy, Bu., to sniff as if at 
a fetid odour. " He's gey ill tae 
please wi's meat ; for, fin gueede 
cabbitch wiz setten doon till 'm, 
he humpht at thim. A gae 'm 
naelhing else, an' he hid t' Uxk' 
a dish o' wint till's supper." — 
Gregor. See niaihstus and mixen 

Maurthra, 13, Go. murder 

MawUn, 129, the hare, for malkin, 
mollykin 

ilazle, mayzlin, mayzy, 172, Cu. 

Mail-arlt, 24, meal-chest (Lat. area) 

Meal-bowie, 163, small cask for hold- 
ing meal, any small barrel — 

"The bowie briskly reams" (froths). 
Fcrg. 

Mtul ffirnd, 155, garner or granary 

Mini's matt, 169 

Mihh(\s 152, 169, may be it is 

jMedial, 194, guttural elided in 
Taal 

Meidgc, 140. No. meed, Da. mede. 
I heard it as a boy when boating 
with an old fisherman. In steer- 
ing he took two points a-head, 
what he called a " meedRe," and 
kept them in line. Jam. has 
meith, meeth, meth, Ic. midc, a 
mark, mida, to mark a place. 
See mett 

Mcerder, 209, 219, 221, C. D. maar, 
Sc. mair, and = "hut" cf. F. mais 

Mocrie, 223, C. Du. a little mare 

Meisjie, 205, C. Du. 



Mel, 51, Go. time. See mail, a speck, 

meljan 
ilele, 23, O.E. to speak, O.N. 
madia, mail speech. See mail, 
rent 
Meljan, 51, Go. to be inscribed, mel, 
time. Ger. ein-nw/, Eng. a meaZ; 
as md originally denotes a fixed 
point, ana-meljan means to in- 
scribe, mark with a note 
Mena, 23, Go. moon 
Menoths, 254, Go. month, Ger. 

Monat 
Menowniis, meniioiis, 62, minnons. 

See base in mins. 
Meiishless, 87, without mense, good 
manners, discretion, lo. mennska, 
humanity, mann-r, man, Ger. 
Mensch 
Mention, 88 

Mere, 19, the sea, Du. meer, Ger. 
Meer, Go. mari in mari-saiws, the 
sea ; " conn, with Ind.-Ger. root, 
mer, to die, as the ' lifeless ' one, 
is very doubtful."— N.E.D. 
Meme-my-taiKU', 127 
Messer, 31, Ger. a knife, raaz-sahs, 
meat knife. Go. mats, A.S. mete, 
E. meat, A.S. mete-seax. Go. 
mitan 
Methinks, 35, Eng. 
^[t•tt, 69, 71, to measure, O.E. 
metan. O.Fr. meta, Du. meten, 
Ger. messen. Go. mitan. See 
meedge 
Sliohaelmas moon, 240 
Mikilins thiudanis, 13, 22, 32, 38, 
Go. the great king, Sc. muokle ; 
mikilnan. Go. to be enlarged, 
O.E. micel, O.N. mykell, Go. 
mikil 
:\Iilk, 32, O.Fr. melok, Du. melk 

(pron. melek). Go. miluks 
Mim-mou'd, mimp, 151, Cu. to talk 
niincingly ; cf. mum, mim ; pru- 
dish, reserved in discourse — 

" A bit butt an' a bit ben 
Maks a mim maid at the boai'd en'." 
Prov. 

Mind, mundon, 34, Go. to observe. 
N.E.D. lender mind notes these 
forms. — Go. gamunds, memory, 
gaminthi, memory, gamunan, to 
think, remember 



304 



GLOSSAEY 



MinJc, 130, 148, Mo. a noose or head- 
stall for a horse, monk in Fife, 
minhan-wp, coiling a rope in the 
hand, mink iip the coo's tether, a 
rinnin-mink = a slip-knot ; Gael, 
muince, a collar, muin, the neck, 
the back 

f Mins,miniza, minists,29,Go. N.E.D. 
does not connect mince with mins, 
which it traces to O.E. mincier. 
Mod. Fr. mincer, Lat. minutiare, 
but this last, cog. with Lat. 
minus, less, which is conn, with 
Go. 

Mint-cake, 185, Gu. 

Mischievous, 84, Eliz., "stress on 
mid-syll. literary form till 1700, 
now dial, and vulgar." — N.E.D. 

Mise, 211, 0. Du., proh. a var. of 
miser; cf. Sc. misert-pig, which 
see 

Misert-jjig, Fi. syn. of pirlie-pig. 
See pig 

Mislmnter, 92 

Mis-leared,70, 136, badly brought up, 
mis-lered. See lair 

Mixen, 24, Eng. a dtmghill, parallel 
stem in Go. maihstus. N.E.D. 
midden of Scand. or. from muck 
and dynge, thing or stuff. Da. a 
heap. From Go. comes, O.E. 
meox, filth, Fr. minks, and Sc. 
mauchie, q.v. 

Modags, 28, Go. angry, moody; cog. 
O.E. m6dig, Du. moedig, Ger. 
mutig, all in old sense of brave, 
high-spirited 

Modernised 0. Du., 197 

Monk, 130, 140, 148, Fi. a head stall. 
See mink 

Monosy. prets., 36 

Monij, 29, 53, 63, 84, Eng. many, O.E. 
manig, Du. menig, Ger. manch. 
Go. manag-s, many and managei, 
a multitude ; O.E. and Ger. menge 
— "Eobin Hood and his merry 
menyie " 

Mooi, 222, C. Du. ; Lat. mollis 
soft 

Moolins, 29, 123, crumbs, mool, 
to crumble (bread), var. of 
mould 

Mools, for muldes, 29, 74, the earth 
of the grave, burial, A.S. mold, 
dust, Go.mulda, muldeins, earthy ; 



dial. var. of mould ; moolie or 
mooly "not given at III. 305, 
Jam., soft, flabby, fozy. A moolie 
sort o' a chap = a duffer. The 
marbles, called commies as of 
common clay, sometimes known 
as moolies, if soft and ill-shaped. 
Mulie cheese is crumbling, fri- 
able." (J. B. F.) 

Mooss-fa, 124, 251, Ic. mus-foll, mlas, 
A.S. 

Mota, 23, Go. receipt of custom, 
mote, O.E. a village council, moot- 
hill ; motareis. Go. a publican. 
N.E.D. gives M.E. mot, imot 
under moot, a public assembly, 
but offers no Go. connection 

"Mournings," 84, 94, in Sc. only 
in plural in sense of mourning 
dress 

Mozies, 172. Jam. "a being with 
siUy intellect, Gael, muiseag, 
threatening ; " var. mwozie, Cu. 

Muckle, mikils, 29, 38, Go. See 
mikilnan 

Mull, 74, snuff box, var. of mill 

Multiple-Tpoinding, 72, Sc. law = 
action raised by holder of a fund 
to which there are several 
claimants 

Mun or mmm, 103, must, used as 
auxiliary of the f ut. = shall, will ; 
or. sense "to intend," cog. with 
mind, to remember 

Munan, 26, Go. to think, O.N. 
muna, to remember, identical 
with munu, to intend, O.E. 
munan, to think, consider. Go. 
muns, mind 

Miine, 23, 81, moon. Go. mena, 
men-oths, a month 

Munths, 17, Go. Sc. mouth, mov\, 
mouth, Du. moud, Ger. Mund, 
Fr. mlith, cog. Lat. mentum, the 
chin 

Mussel-picker, 119, oyster-catcher 

Mussel scaups, 119, scaup, form of 
scalp, bed of shell -fish from the 
thinness of the layer 

My, 94, an emphatic — my dennir 

Myn-pachts, 211, C. Du. 

My san! My carte, 33, Exclamation 
eq^xal to my certe, Eng. sooth. 
"In Jam. has to h% looked for 
under certy." (J. B. F.) 



GLOSSAEY 



305 



N 



Naaste pad, 195, C. Du. neist, nighest 
path 

Nae, 90, no. Go. na. Sans. na. 
N.E.D. " Ne, obsol., is nea. North 
and Sc. Na, giving in Sc. na, 
seems rather to be an alteration 
of ne than a genuine survival of 
the old form " 

Nap, 198, drinking cup, O.E., hnaep, 
Du. nap, Ger. Napf, obsc, O.H.G. 
hnap is O.F. hanap (see nappie). 
It. nappo, perh. horr. from Teut. 

Nap, 153, nip, pretended blow, spec, 
in "to give or take the nap" — 
knap, prob. var. of knap as 
subst., q.v. 

Nashince, 154, var. of nuisance, Bu. 

jNasjands, 52, Go. the Saviour, Ger. 
ge-nieszen in text, but Kliige conn, 
ge-nieszen, to enjoy, with Go. 
niutan, to obtain, Ger. niitzen, 
niitzlich, useful, from an or. 
sense, to adapt to one's use, to 
use ; cog. neat, »oi«< = cattle 

Near, 69, 137, stingy 

Nearder, 111, 167, 195, Cu. ; 0. Du. 
nar(d)er ; Sc. nawrer 

Neb, 125, bird's beak, N. naf, Du. 
nebbe, O.E. nebb 

Necessar, 73, 92, var. of neces- 
sary 

jNeck, 160, 204, Du. ; Ger. Nacken, 
Du. nek, summit of a hiU pass. 
N.E.D. does not conn, with nick, 
notch 

Needle, nethla, 26, Go. 

Neef, 207, C. Du. knave, Ger. Knabe, 
Gael, onapach, stout, knobby, in 
sense of well-grown 

Neem, 209, C. Du. See Nim 

Neeper, 74, 163, 195, neighbour, 
C. Du. and Sc. neebor ; Bu. 
"Fah's yir neiper in the chop 
noo ? " — Companion, bed-fellow — • 
" She's awa noo, 'an for fifty years 
she's been a gweede neiper t' me." 
— Gfregor 

Neepyin, 174, napkin, syn. hankie 

Neest, 195, ni(gh)est 

Neet, 175, Cu. night, Sc. nicht 

Negative qualities, 87, Sc. and Eng. 
for. 

Nein, 90, Ger. = nicht eines, Eng. 



"no" is A.S. na, O.N. nei, Go. n§ 

ni, Gr. vrj, Lat. ne, in ne-fas 
Neither hup nor hie, 189, Bord. 
Neive, 17, fist, neif, pi. neiflis 
Neive-fou, 85, 138, 211, handful, 

M.E. neve, O.N. hnett cf. (Go. 

hamf-s, one-handed, 17 q.v.) 
" Neiwi-ndvvi-nik-nak," 128. See 

neive 
Nek, 204, C. Du. See neck, neuk 
Ner, 168, Cu. nor after compar. 
Ner's pitten, 168, Cu. = "nor" 

(than) "is put" 
Neuk, nook, 134, " obsc. but North." 

— N.E.D. 
Neukit, 88, in four-neukit. The 

common adjectival termin. here 

is seen in nakkit, naked, where 

Go. has nakwadis (a genit. case), 

a jpart. derivative form '*nakw, 

naked. Kliige infers from these 

ancient forms that the primitive 

Teutons distinguished between 

clothed and unclothed 
Neuter of demonstratives, 38 
Newt, 148, 149, var. of evet, eft, 

O.E. efeta ; of unknown or. 
Neyfs, 64, M.E. serfs, Lat. nativi 
Nibby stick, 174, Bord., with a crook 
Nicht, 12, 24, 254, night. Go. naht-s, 

Go. nahta-mats, supper 
Nicht, 207, C. Du. niece, gutt. out 

of dent., cf. queecht = qmte. Go. 

nithjo. 
Nick, 160, notch, " obsc, but earlier 

than corr. verb notch, which is app. 

conn, with O.F. oche, F. hoohe." — 

N.E.D. See nock 
Nickit baiks, 186, Fi. biscuits 

notched on edge 
Nicks, 185, Cu. nicked, nixes 
Nijfering, 130, 187, bartering, "Sc. 

and North, obsc, perh. from 

neive."— N.E.D. 
Nim, 31, 209, Go. niman, to take, 

A.S. niman, O.N. nema, vi^o<s, a 

grove, Lat. nemus, Ger. nehmen, 

E. nimble, numb (past part, of 

nim), C. Du. neem 
Nip, 151, 153, "take a nip of one.'' 

— Bu. See nap 
Nirled catkins, 123, var. of gnarled 
Nirls, 138, measles ; or. obsc. 
Niu-klahs, 32, Go. new klekkit= 

new-born 

20 



306 



GLOSSAEY 



Nocht, 12, 63, 138, 209, nought, O.E. 

n6wilit = ne + a'wiht, A.S. na-wiht. 

nauht, Go. ne + waiht-s, Du. niet, 

E. not, Sc. nochtie, j)altry 
Non-plush, 84, var. of non-plus. 

Not in Jam. 
Noo (the), 90, just now, Du. nu, Go. 

nu, as " tho nu hweila," the noo 

while, or time 
Noos and thans, 167, now and then 
Nor, 90, for than. N.E.D. " Sc. and 

dial, of obso. or." 
Nose o' wax, 136, 140, a numskull. 

Not in Jam. 
Notour, 72, Sc. law, bankrupt, 

notorious 
Nowt, 82, 153, nolt (by a false 

analogy), O.N. naut, O.E. neat, or. 

sense, to enjoy or possess. N.E.D. 

has " nait, Sc, good at need," as 

V. "to make use of," — from Go. 

niutan, O.E. ntetan, to enjoy 







0, vowel, name soimd of, 81 

0, vowel, long sound of, 80 

tOcht, 209. See aacht, iets 

'Ods wuns, 173, Cu. an oath; of. " loot 
a wince," Burns. Both may be a 
corruption of " (God's) wounds " 

Oena, 153, an old Sc. prep. = without ; 
generally as a prefix, and syn. 
with affix, -less ; v. common in 
Go. as un, e.g. un-agands, fearless, 
Ger. ohne, Gr. a.ve.v, preserve the 
prep, use 

0^ 219, C. Du. for conj. or 

Ogan, 30, 51, Go. to dread, ogjan, 
to cause to fear, agis, awe ; cf . ug- 
some and iM7-ly, Ic. ugg-r, fear. 
See agis, awe, ug 

Ogha, 63, Gael, grandchild, -oy 

jOgre, 30, not conn, with Go. agan, 
to dread, but with Lat. orcus, a 
late borrowing from F. and It. 
— Skeat 

Ogre, Oagar-hiuuse, Ore, 154. If, 
as Skeat says, ogre is F. and a 
late borrowing, it can hardly be 
"oagar," here. Hore likely this 
is from Ic. ugg-r, fear, and cog. 
with ugly, Mg-some 

Oheim, oom, 247. See eem, eyme 



Oksel, 207, 0. Du. oxter, Sc. 

Omniefeeshent, 122 

On, 89, prep., e.g. " married on " 

Onbonny, 90, 140, on = without, Ger. 
ohne, A.S. un and bonny 

Oncanny, 90, on = without, Ger. 
ohne, A.S. un = 

Oncast, 92, cad on, term in stocking- 
knitting 

Once-t, 35, once, also aince, yince 

Oncost,^ 92, initial charges in running 
a mine, &c. 

Onding, 153 ; cf. ding on ; ding, prob. 
onomat. 

Onneat, 90, on = without, Ger. ohne, 
A.S. un 

On-weiss, un-wise. Go. un-weis= 
without wis-dom 

Oogst, oest, 199, C. Du. August, in 
S. Afr. autumn, harvest 

Oo'ies, 194 C. Du. 

Oon, 24, oven, Go. auhn, Arthur's 
oon or hove, near Falkirk, built 
of hewn stone, without mortar, 
long ago destroyed utterly 

Oot, out, prep. e.g. "oot (o') the 
hoos," " oot amon' thae neeps " 

OotUggers, out-liers, 173, Cu. 

Ootners, 170, Cu. out-landers 

Oot-weel, 171, Cu. for wale oot 

Op-sit, 218, C. Du. Cu. " sittin up," 
W. "bundling"-; Sc. up-set, feast 
on admission to burgess freedom 

Orator, 80, Eug. 

Ordinar, 92, ordinary 

Orpiet, 248. gee arbi, erd, yirp 

Orra-man, 66, farm hand for odd 
jobs, orrie, unmatched, spare, syn. 
marra-less ; prob. from A.S. or- 
rawa, Go. us, out and row or series. 
In Jam. nine meanings are given 
(Jam. III. 401), but none exactly 
applicable to Scott's lines : — 

" Donald Caird finds orra things, 
Whaur Allan Gregor fand the tings." 
J. B. F. 

Othal, 10, Eune-letter, heirloom. 

Ore. udal, tenant right, udaller, 

landowner 
Oil, oude, 207, C. Du. old, as 

familiar form of address 
Ou (die), ouwe, or oudeman, 191, 192, 

C. Du. 
Ouh, oulk, 153, a week ; cf. ouf-dag, 

the 'N-olf-dog. Same as week. 



GLOSSAEY 



307 



Ouk is a very old and widely pre- 
valent form in So. ; now only Aber. ; 
Go. wiko, Ger. Wocte, wouke in 
Chaucer, and uge=vuge in" Da. 
"Pasche oik; olkis, olkly," St. 
And. K. 8. B. 
Outliers, oot-lers, (Burns), 62, 173 
Outspans, 203, C. Du. See spang 
Over-sell or Iver-sell, 147, Mo. See 

sell, sells and thrammels 
Over-wiseness (Eliz.), 84 
'\Own, 38 (rtymes with, down), to 
own, possess, A.S. agn-ian, to own, 
Go. aigin, possessions, aigan, to 
possess, pret. aihta. See aacht 
Owre hlate, 137, over modest 
Owsen, 23, var. of oxen, Ger. Ochsen, 
Go. auhsa- Sans, ukshan, a bull. 
See ox 

" When owsen frae the furrow free 
Return sae dowf an' weary— ()." 

"Ball." 

'fOx, 250 = the carrier. Skeatderives 
from Sans, uksh, to sprinkle, not 
from veho, as in the text, and 
"therefore is ult. cog. with humid." 
Kl. says, " Or. from Sans, ukshan, 
ox, root uks, to sprinkle, or uks, 
to grow strong, and a masc. form 
of vacca, cow." Sans, uhsan, page 
17, is misprint for uksban, a bull 

■Oxter, 17, 207, armpit. Go. ams-afor 
ahsl-a, Ger. Achsel, tbe shoulder, 
under which word Kl. says : 
" Go. '"ahslafor I. -Ger. aksla, Lat. 
axilla and ala, Du. oksel " 

Oy,-oe, 63, grandchild, Gael, ogha 

Gyle, 211, Lat. oleum, Sc. ile. In 
early use, but, as in Go. alew, 
olive oil=eA.atoi', is borrowed 
from the Greek 

■Oyster-catcher, or mussel-picker, 119 



Paard, 201, C. Du., Ger. Pferd, a 

horse 
Pachter, 212, Kl. "Ger. Pacht, 

under L. Ger. influence, as Du. 

pacht is derived from Lat. pactus, 

a bargain struck ; " of. Sc. paction 
Pad, 209, C. Du. path 
Paecan, 71, M.E. ; cf. Gael, bocan, a 

spectre 



Paeg, 70, Da. 

Paialin, 169, paddling 

Paiks, 137, 179, a drubbing, or. un- 
cert. ; Jam. conn, with Ger. 
pauken, to beat a drum 

Pains, 139, ague, rheumatism 

Paith, 118, 120, path, Ger. Pfad. 
See pad 

Palall, 127, syn. beds, a sort of shovel- 
board game with the feet ; cf . pall- 
mall. "Pal-lall, surely the com- 
mon name peever should have 
been given here. The game is 
pal-lall, the piece of stone, slate, 
&c. is the peever." (J. B. F.). 
See peevor. 

Pandies, 135, 155, syn. pawmies, Lat. 
pande palmam, extend the palm 

Pannel, 72, Sc. law, the accused 

Partan's-ta,ea, 123, crab's toes, Celt. or. 

Particles with verb (Scots), as in 
Ger., 92 

Posh, 15,227, Go. paska, Easter (Gr.) 

Passive inflection, 38 

Past participle in -ed., 88 

Pat, puttit, 88 

Pattle, 160, stick to clear away 
before the plough. Paddle, "a 
farmer wi' a hand that never held 
pleugh stilt or pattle, that'll never 
do."— -ScoM 

Pawhiness, 69 

Pawky, 179, sly, artful ; paik, a 
trick, V. to deceive 
" A thief sae pawkie is my Jean, 
She'll steal a glance by all unseen." 
Burns. 

Pawn, Pavmd, 155, vallance round 
a bed ; Lat. pendo 

Pea-jacket, paida, 19, 206, Go. a 
coat of skins. " In Du. pij (pron. 
pie), and L.Ger. a woollen jacket. 
Go. paida translates X''''°'') ^ 
coat ; conn, is ^aLTrj." — Sk. 

Peasie, 148, pease! as a cry to 
pigeons. In Fi. Pud-pud ! 

Pech, 122, to draw a deep breath — 
echoic 

Pecht, peeks, elves, 71, 132, sometimes 
identified with the aboriginal Picts 

Peeack, peck, 150, to speak ^vith a 
small voice, pee-akin 

Peeay, 70, Forf. Jam. "peeoy, 
pioye, a little moistened gun- 
powder formed into a pyramidal 



308 



GLOSSAKr 



shaye and kindled at tlie top," 

still used in Forf., var. poother deil 

Peel-wersh, -welsh, 150, sickly in 

. appearance, peel = peerie, small, 

thin and wersh, insipid 
Peeler, 140, crah when changing its 

shell 
Peelu-wally, 150, syn. peel-wersh 
Peen, preen, 81, 93, a pin, Gael, 
prine, A.S. preon, Ger. Pfriem, an 
awl, Ic. prioun, Ic. prjoim, a needle 

'* I'd locked my heart in a case of gowd, 
An' preened it wi' a siller preen. 

"Ball." 

Peer, peerie, 127, 132, 133, 155, Ore. 

little — "A peerie, hyauch, small 

child or a puny calf," Ore. — Jam. 
Peerie 01 peerlie-winkie, 136, 150, the 

little finger, N. peerie, small ; 

syn. croonie-doodlie,pirli^- winkle, 

pinkie ; " not given in Jam. An' 

wee croonie-doodlie pays for a'." 

(J. B. F.). See crine 
Pees-weet, 125, 156, peesweip, pee- 

weip ; echoic word, sometimes 

given as Sc-Fr. from " dix-huit ! " 

the bird's cry 
Pell, 71, Fi. very salt. Jam. "as 

bitter's pell, as salt's pell." See fill 
Pennies each, 85, 94, 167, idiom 
Pennart, 140 
Penny, 67, in proverb 
Penny whaup, 132, var. of whip, 

weakest kind of small beer 
Perjinh, 136, finical, particular 
Phillybags, 178, Cu. 
Pickeln, 71, to play the fool ; picTde, 

in a sorry plight ; Du. pekel, 

"pekelen," Ger. Pokel, brine, 

pbkeln 
Pieg, 70, Ore, var. of pug, a form of 

puck, an imp 
Pig, 92, an earthen vessel. Gael. 

pigadh, pigeadh, piggin ; history 

obso. 
Pillow-cod, 58, pillow slip. See cod 
Pioo, 70, Ore. small quantity. See 

peeay 
Pvrlie-pig, 130, earthenware vessel 

for keeping money ; var. of peerie, 

small, and pig, a j)ot. See pig and 

misert-pig. Not in N.E.D. 
Plaxe, 212, 0. 'Du., Ger. Platz, Lat. 

platea. Go. jilatijo, street-corner, 

a borr. word 



Play fares, 127, companions 

Play yersels, 169, Fi. give yourselves 

play-time 
Pley, 72, a quarrel, plea 
Pliskie, 139, a mischievous trick. 

N.E.D. "or. unknown" 

** Pretty pliskies you've been at the day." 
Stevenaon, " Wrong Box." 

Ploat, 66, 67, 116, 130, 133, to scald, 

soak ; app. var. of plout, jjlouter, 

to splash 
Plooms, 163, plums 
Ploy, 171, a social frolic, A.S. 

plegan, to play. N.E.D. "of 

vmcert. or." 
PlunJc, 122, to play truant, Du. 

plencken, to straggle, wander. 

N.E.D. "or. obso." 
Plural, 94, in distributive sense 
Plural present in verb, 168, in s 
Poalie-finger, 66, Fi. a lame finger. 

Jam. " paulie, feeble, lame ; subst. 

slow, inactive person ; paulie- 

f ootit, flat-footed." Not in N.E.D. 
Poddlies, 140, young cole-fish 
Poinding, 72, So. law, piind, O.E. 

pyndan, to enclose in the pind or 

pound 
Pointet, 88, tidy 
Policy, 94, pleasure grounds. " This 

sense influenced by politus, 

polished, late Lat. polities, ele- 
gancy."— N.E.D. 
Poother, 14, powder 
Popular sayings, 197 
Portioner, 72, Sc. law, feuar, small 

landowner 
Pothy, 176, apothecary 
Pots, 187, Cu. 
Pouk, powk, 71, a pustule ; prob.. 

Teut. stem, pug, puk, to swell up,, 

pug, a monkey. Puck, a sprite. 

Of Celt. or. Du. and Ger. 

spuk, N. spjok, represent Scand. 

development. Pixie — " or. obsc." 

N.E.D. See spook 
Praett, 93, guile, trick. A.S., 

praetig, cunning, Norse pretta, a 

trick, Sc. prottichs, Eng. pretty, 

not Ger. prachtig 
Prappin, 124, setting up as a mark 

for stone-throwing. There is a 

Gael, prap, quick, sudden. Not. 

in N.E.D. 



GLOSSAEY 



309 



Precentor, 73, leader of singing in 

church 
Free, 97, 171, to try by tasting; 

var. of preive, by -form of prove — 

"The proof o' the puddin's the 

preein' o't." — Prov. 
Prepositions, iise of, 89, 91 
Preses, 72, president, Sc. law term 
Preterite or past time, 35, 37 
Pretty, 93, O.E. praettig, crafty, Ic. 

prett-r ; trick, Du. pret, joke, 

pratte, cunning. Sense develop- 
ment active after 15th c. Gael. 

prattick in text for protaig, and 

prob. a borrowed word 
Prigging, 154, higgling over a 

bargain ; or. obso. 
Primitive relative, 39 
Probationer, 75, 76, preacher licensed 

but not ordained to a benefice 
Process, 72, Sc. law 
fProchen, 160, Gael, brochan ; not 

conn, with E. broth 
Proheebit, 88, prohibited 
Pronominal particle, 39 
Prooie ! 148, call to a cow. Jam. 

ptrii, ptroo, pru. Cf. trooie, and 

its var. treesn, Ab. 
Prottioks, 93 
Provdflesh, 139, inflamed flesh on a 

ciit, likely to become gangrenous 
Prove, 73, put to proof 
Proverbial sayings, 67 
Publict, mtht, 12, 194 
Pucklie, 138, 145, a grain of corn, a 

small quantity ; var. of pickle 

" There was an auld wife lied a wee pickle 
tow." " Old Song." 

Puddoclcs, 121, frogs ; E. paddock, a 
toad, M.E. padde, Du. padde, pad ; 
"root spad, to jerk, the one that 
moves by jerks." — Sk. 

" There dwelt a paddie in a well." 

"Folk Rhymes." 

Puggie, 66, 70, applied to a tipsy 
man, — "a bonnie-like puggie he 
made o' himsel'." (J. B. F.) In 
my native village "Pu"" Mailin 
(Melville), a pensioned soldier, 
got his nickname from his favour- 
ite expression for a dram 

Pumfle, 65, penfold 

Puny, 133, Fr. puis ne, puin(5, Lat. 
post natus, born after 



Pussy bawdrons, 135. 
Putten, 36, for put 



See bawdrons 



Quaich, 68, Gael cog 

Quantity, 94, Sc. for 

Quarrel, 92, idiom 

Quean, 16, 18, young woman, Go. 
qwen-s, qwein-s, a woman, A.S. 
cwen, Gr. -yvvij, queen, "quinon 
widuwon," Go. a widow woman 

Queet, 152, Ab. elite, ankle. This is 
the pron. of the N.E. proverb, 
" Better be oot o' the queets than 
oot o' the fashion." See elite 

Quern, 160, 253, Go. kwairnus, a 
meal-mill, E. cor-n, ker-nel, churn, 
Sc. kirn, Ic. kirna ; or. to 
curdle or form into curds (cf. 
Sc. cum, corn), Du. kern, grain. 
See asila-quairnus 

Quhway, 78, quey, heifer 

Quickens, 145, 182, couch-grass ; 
from quick, living 



E 

B, 80, effect on contiguous vowels 
Eaaga, 133, Ore. youngest of a 

litter, Gael, ruig, ruige, a wrigling. 

See wrig 
Racial heredity, 103 
Rackon, 169, Cu. reckon 
Baenen, reen, 136, 140, noise. Jam. 

has rane, reane, tedious, idle talk, 

to rane or cry the same thing over 

and over again. Conn, are Sc. 

roun, to whisper, E. round, Ger. 

raunen — all from AS. rdn, a 

mystery 
Rag-wort, 123, 148. See bun- weed, 

weebie 
Raid,, redd, reddin' up, 62, 68, 180, 

198, separate, " redd a j)ley," settle 

a broil : or. sense, to put in 

order, make ready 
Rain, 2.3, rign. Go. ; rain, Du. and 

Ger. Regen 
Bamsch, 136, to eat voraciously, with 

noise ; Ic. hramms-a, to snatch 

violently, prob. onomat. ; Shet. 

rampse, disagreeable to taste. Da. 

ram, rank, harsh 



310 



GLOSSAEY 



Eand, 70, C. Du. 

Bands, 134, a narrow stripe ; riind, 
selvage of a web. See riind 

Bandy, 85, 137, a scold ; Gael, rann- 
taich, a songster, from rann, a 
quatrain, stave. See rune 

iJarenc^trees, 181-3, and Cu. rannle- 
bauk, on which the crook hangs. 
PerhaiDS Ic. rann, a house, and 
tjalgr, a prong, fork : rand end 
and A.S. thil joist ; Bandle-tree, 
Scott 

Bannie, 122. Reiny, rennie, the 
shrew (Shet.) 

Bantin him, 107, boisterously con- 
vivial harvest-home. See kirn 

■j-Raus, 12, 202, Go. a reed. Roer, 
C. Du. a gun (now obs.), Ger. Rohr. 
"Not conn, with E. rush."— Sk. 

Beam, 68, 132, cream ; Du. room, 
A.S. r^am, O.N. rjome, Ger. Rahm. 
Not conn, with cream 

Beamed, 68, 132, 156, creamed ; 
reamin, frothing over 

Beeld, 105, reached ; Go. rikan, 
traikjan, A.S. raecan, reach. 
Kliige — "Go. here not cog. with 
Ger. reichen." Or. sense "to 
attain to." So. a rake of coals, &c., 
is a journey with horse and cart 
to the coal-hill 

Keconise, 83, recognise 

Red, rede, to explain, unfold, n. 
counsel 

" To a red man, rede tliy rede, 
Witli a brown man break thy bread. 
At a pale man draw thy knife, 
From a black man keep thy wife." 

(J. B. F.) 

Bede, 52, 198, counsel, read a riddle ; 

Go. rathjo, a numtser, ga-rathjan, 

to count ; borrowed from Lat. 

ratio, bvit Kl. says "or. conn. 

with ratio is unthinkable " 
Redviplication, 35, 36 
Beed, 65, sheep or cattle reed, coal- 

ree, a permanent pen ; prob. 

ident. with Pictish rath, a camp 
Beek, 25, 171, 208, 256, smoke ; Go. 

rikwis, darkness, Du. rook, Ger. 

Ranch ; or. sense " what dims, 

mist" 
Reen baatjes, 207, 0. Du. rain-coats 
Beenge, rinse, 13, Go. hrains, O.N. 

hreinsa, to cleanse, Du. rein, Ger. 



rein, pure ; the Sc. may be but a 

var. of range 
Beese, roose, 68, 106, to praise, Ic. 

hress, reisa, to excite 
" There's nane that reads them far and near, 
But jeeses Rohie." Skinner. 

Beeshle, 13, for rustle, from rush. 

Go. hrishjan 
Reesht and reet, 171, Cu. for right 
Reflexive forms, 37 
Reiki, 255, Go. a kingdom, cf. 

Ushopric, root, to rule 
Eeik-s, 22, 29, Go. rich, powerful, 

Ger. reich, A.S. rice, Du. rijk, cog. 

Lat. rex 
Beim, 202, rim (of the abdomen), 

the peritoneum, rim-bursin = 

hernia, Jam., reimpje, C. Du. 
Beipet, 123, ripe, to search, A.S. 

hrypan, Ic. hrifa, to grapple, seize, 

cf. E. rifle 
Besidenter, 92, resident 
Rest Harrow, 123 
Bevlins, 208, Ore. home-made shoes 
Rib-wort, 123, 154, 163 
Big-end, 13, 129, end of the furrow, 

cog. rig-gin, ridge 
Big-gin, 13, the back, ridge of a 

house, Ger. Riicken, Du. rug, 

A.S. hrycg, E. ridge, O.N. hryggr, 

E. rick, A.S. hreac 
Rig-welted, 189, Cu. syn. of "awal." 

See rig, and, for welted, cf. 

welter 
"Big woodie," 107-130, rope oi withes 

crossing back or riggin of a yoked 

horse 
Bingle-e'd, 140, wringle-e'd. Jam. 

"havingagreatproportionot white 

in the eye of horses " and collies. 

Conn, with ring, but cf. wring, 

deformity, blemish in "Poems of 

16th 0." The disease glaucoma 
Binnin-mink, 148, a slip noose on a 

halter. See monk and mink 
Bin the cutter, 137, to fetch whisky 

in small bottle. Not in Jam. 
Bise, 127, a branch. A.S. and O.N. 

hris, Du. rijs, from Go. hrisjan, 

A.S. hrissan, rustle, Ger. Reis, 

literally the "swaying one" 
Bishet (Burns), 66, riasg, Gael, and 

Ir., land covered with sedge or 

coarse grass, ident. with rush, 

A.S. ris-ce, Du. and Ger. Rusch 



GLOSSAEY 



311 



Rizmr, 121, 126. Jam. rizards, 

rizzer-berries. See " rise " 
Bock, 161, distaflf, Ic. rokk-r, Du. 

rokken 
Boden, 159, 160, rowan-tree, Gael. 

ruadh with post-positive article 

= tlie "red" one; rowan is 

Scan. -Da. ron, the service or 

sorb tree 
Rodith, 27, 52, Go., from Go. rodjan, 

to speak, Ger. reden 
Roef, 207, C. Du. See roof 
Koes, roose, 71, 210, 0. Du. ; E. 

rouse, drinking-bout, Ork. ruz, to 

praise, boast, Ic. hrosa, rouse, Shak. 
Rogaim, 124, Ir. rag-wort 
Rohr, 12, Ger. a reed. Go. raus, 

Du. roer, Fr. roseau. Kl. says, 

"wanting in A.S. and E." See 

raus 
Boid, 137, rude. A.S. rethe, iierce, 

rough, royet, romping, tomboyish: 

prob. var. of rude, Fr. roide, strong, 

Lat. rigidus 
Boyet, 69, riotous 
Roof, 13, 25, 0. Fr. hrof, Du. roef, 

hrot, Go. roof, roost; hrost, L.Ger. 

(Heliand) 
Rooi-baatje, 206, C. Du. red-coat 
Boopie, 13, hoarse from a cold, Go. 

hropei 
Roopit, 13, 88, croaking, throa,ty. Go. 

hropei, a harsh cry, hropjan, to 

crow, roup, to auction 
Roost, 25, O. Du. roest or hinnen- 

kot, hen-roost. See roof 
Bose, 139, erysipelas, from the red 

appearance 
Boset, 134, Gael, rosead, resin 
Boun or round, 9, to whisper, 

A.S. runian, to whisper, run, a 

mystery 
Rounders, 155 
Bow, 80, roll 
Bugg'd, 223, 224, rug, 0. Du. back. 

So. riggin, Ger. Rlicken 
Bummle-gumshon, 136, rum-gunip- 

shon, common sense, A.S. rum- 

welle, spacious, and Go. pa«m-jan, 

to perceive 
Bun-deils, 70, 137. See runs, riinds 
Bunds, 70, 134, 137, Ger. Band, 

fringe, border, Du. rand, comer, 

border, A.S. rond. Go. randa, 

O. Teut. ram-ta, A.S. rvma, 



reoma ; m before d becomes n ; 
var. runes, 202 

Bung, 13, 32, 36, hrugga, Gto., Ic. 
rong, a rib in a ship, Ger. Runge, 
short piece of iron or wood, still 
used in E., Du. and Ger. ship- 
building 

Bunt in kale-runt, 68, 123. Jam. 
tree-trunk, hardened stalk, stem 
of colewort, Ger. Rinde, crust, 
cog. rand, rund, A.S. reoma, rim 
in sense of end, Go. rimis, rest, 
Sc. runch, wild mustard 

Bush, rustle, 13, A.S. hrysian, to 
rush. Go. hrishjan, to shake, Sc. 
reeshle 

Rust-platz, 195, C. Du. resting- 
place 



Sach, 217, C. Du. sighed, sooohed 
Sackless, 182, Cu. 
Saep, 210-11, Du. zuipen 
Sair, 97, sore 
Saiw-s, 19, Go. the sea 
Sahnonys, 62, salmons. Barb. 
Salt, 168, Go. ; Ger. Salz, Cu. sote 
Sand bed o' drink, 137, 140, a dipso- 
maniac 
Sandy Gam'l, 133, the pig 
Sa'r, 105, savour 
Sargent, 11, sergeant 
Sarrat, 153, Cu. served 
Sarvent, 82, servant 
Sauch, 252, M.E. salwe, sallow 
Sauchie, 217 

Sauil, 19, 255, Go. sun, Lat. sol 
Saut, 253 

Saut backit, 155, salt-bucket 
Saut-girnal, 135, box for salt, girnal 

=garnel, granary 
Saut' spell, 71. See pell 
Saw, 67, cf. saw-dust 
Saw 139, salve, ointment, Lat. 

salvus 
Saw, 13, 23, 253, sow. Go. saian, to 

sow, pres. part, saiand = the 

Sower in parable 
Sawmon-loup, 125, a Lan. boys' 

game 
Saws, 67, maxims, Ic. saga, Ger. 

sagen, to say 



312 



GLOSSAEY 



Sawtan, 70, Satan, pron. under 
influence of Heb. Satnanas, " limb 
o' Sawtan " 

Scabbet, 68, scabbed 

Scallog, scoloc, sgalag, 63, 64, N.- 
Gael., husbandman, serf 

Sch-, for primitive sk-, 195, C. Du. 

Schade, 70, 1 95, Ger. ; Sc. scaith, scaid 

Schalk, 56, 63, 64, O.T. skalko-s, 
servant, O.E. sceale, Ger. Schalk, 
rogue. See mareschal 

Sconce, 180, Cu. ; Ger. Schantz, E. 
en-sconce 

Shilpit, 223, C. Du. schuilpaat, 
skulpad 

Schulze, 64, Ger., village bailiff 

Scimes, skeima, 29, Go. lantern, 
shimmer, A.S. scima, light, Ger. 
schimmern 

Sclitter, 151, Cu. ; Sc. sclither, 
sclidder, to slip to right and left 
in walking, akin to slide, Ger. 
Schlitt-schuhe = skates 

t Scot-free, 26, is not conn, with Go. 
skatts as in text. Skeat conn, 
with A.S. scot, (soeotan, to shout), 
payment, shot ; the same sense 
and cog. forms are in Teut. 
generally 

Scrabs, 114, 163, Kinc. var. of scrubs, 
shrubs 

Screed, 13, skreitan. Go. to shred 

Scuddy, scrimpit, 151, Mo. syn. jimp 

Seap, 123, Ore. sab., to soak 

Sea,pt, 122, soaked 

Sedimateesed, 110 

Seekin, 173, North. 

Seen, 36, for saw 

Seek sorry, 137, 140, very unwilling 

Se'erday, 83, Lan. Saturday 

Seestu, 170. See you ! 

Seggs, 119, sedges 

Sekh, 217, Bu. 

Sele, sale, sells, 147, a rope, cattle- 
yoke, cog. with (reipd, a cord, 
Ger. Sell. See over or iver-sells 
^Bu.). See sells and thrammles 
(Ab.). Go. in-sai^an, tp let down 
with ropes, A.S. sal, N. sell, 
Ind.-Ger. root, " to bind " 

Set, sdt, 61, to become a person. 
" Gae hame, gudewife ; it wad 
better set ye to be nursin' 
the giideman's bairns than to be 
deavm us here." — " Waverley." 



Settle, 135, Go. sitls, a throne, Ger. 
Sessel 

Settle, 24, Go. sitan, to sit 

Sgeilm, 222, Gael. See skellum 

Shack, 64, E. dial. Colonial syn. 
for shanty 

Shanks, 163, old name for stockings, 
A.S. scanea, the bone of the leg, 
E. shin. Shank-^v/va% — "Ane 
par worsit schankis to my page." 
— 17th c. diary 

Shan't can dea't, 169, Cu. 

Sharg, 133, Ore. petulant 

Slmrgar, 133, Ang. the youngest of 
a litter, a lean person, Gael, 
searg, to wither, O.Ir. illness, 
O.H.G. suercan, become gloomy. 
" A peer shargart thing." — Gregor 

Slieelin, 146, shelling or -winnowing 
hill 

Sheep-ree, 65, sheep-fold. See Reed 

Shelly-coat, 140, kind of moth 

Sheppert, Cu. shepherd 

Sliilpit, 223, shilpie, "shrunk, 
shrivelled, thin, pinched-looking 
about the face" (J. B. F.). See 
skulpad 

Shim, 146, North., a drill harrow, 
a shim plough. Not in Jam. 

Shirk, 182, Cu., cf. Ger. Schurke 

Shoo, 28, to frighten 

Shoo, 13, to sew. Go. siujan 

Shools, 118, shovels 

Shoother, 14, shoulder 

Shot, 133, 182, a young pig, still 
commonly used in America 

Shrank, 205, C. Du. 

Shukkie mill, 159, Kinc. call of the 
wood worm as sign of approach- 
ing death ; perhaps a var. of 
shoggle, to shake, but shoog, a 
fright, gives a better sense. Not 
in Jam. 

Shut, 208, a sliding window ; schut, 
Bord. a wooden screen, A.S. 
sc^otan, shoot, Du. schut, a fence, 
screen ; shottles, sliding drawers 

Shuvve, skiuban, 13, Go. to shove, 
A.S. soofian, Du. schuiven, Ger. 
schieben 

Sib, 22, 255, related. Go. sibja, blood 
relationship, Ger. Sippe ; common 
in A.S., Fris., Du., Kr., O.N. Sif, 
honoured as goddess of the family. 
" But they micht be brocht to 



GLOSSAKY 



313 



think themselves that sib that no 
Christian will permit their wed- 
lock."— &o«, "Ant." Sib~"A' 
Stuarts are nae sib tae the King ; 
a' the Campbells are sib tae 
Argyll." (J. B. F.) 

Sic, smlk, swa-leik, 40, such, Go., 
Ger. solcher 

Siccan, 169, such an 

Sicken, 84, thicken 

Siena yin, 167, such an one 

Sidelights on social history, 92 

Sied, 68, 132, strained ; var. of sieve, 
Du. zeef, Ger. Sieb, E. sift 

Siggwan, 27, Go. to read, E. sing ; 
or. sense simply to resound 

Siggwan bokos, 27, Go. 

Sik, 39, Go. reflexive pron. 

Silly, sels, 28, Go. happy, blessed, 
Ger. selig, A.S. sel, good. Sal ! 
expletive 

Silubr, 26, Go. silver, money, as Sc. 
siller 

Sime, synu, simmons, 62, 181, Caith. 
ropes of heather. Ic. sime, a rope. 
Barb. ; Kl. sub saum, a pack-horse 
load, notes A.S. seam, E. seam 
(cf. sumpter), and regards saum as 
existing before the break-up of the 
Teutons. He traces it to cray/ia, 
Lat. sauma, a pack-saddle 

Singles, 129, bundles of gleaned corn, 
lit. gathered in single ears 

Sinteino, 13, 20, 56, Go. daily, 
always. Go. sinth, a journey, 
time, sinthan, to go, cog. with send 
(Go. sandjan). Syne and since are 
cog. with Go. seithu, late, A.S. 
sith, after, Ger. Seit 

Sinthan, 56, Go. to go, wander, cog. 
saredljan, send, A.S. sithian, to go. 
See sinteino 

Sista, 170, Cu., syn. of seestu ! 

Sitls, 25, Go. bench 

Sittin in, 172, Sc. idiom, "sittin in 
to the bottom " 

Siujan, 26, Go. sew. See sew 

Skaetchers, 129, skates ; Jam. has 
skeitches 

Skaiths, 70, injuries. Go. skathjan, 
to do scathe to, A.S. sceththan, 
Ger. Schade, scathe. " Better twa 
skaiths than ae sorrow." — Prov. 
See scaith 

Skal, skeal, 179, a bumper, Go. 



skalja, Ic. skjola, also scoll, skiel, 
A.S. scealu, scyl, E. shale, shell ; 
" a skimming dish " — Sibbald. 
Gael, scala, a bowl, skalis, goblets. 
— Royal House. Aces. 1511. 
Skalkinoda, skalkinon, 28, 56, 64, 
Go. to serve, served, Ger. Schalk ; 
skalks, Go. See schalk, mareschal 
Skap, 13, C. Du. sheep 
Skattja, 26, Go. money-changer 
Skatts, 26, Go. money, Ger. Schatz, 
O.N. skatt-r, rent, A.S. sceatt, 
piece of money. Scatt-hold is 
well known in Ore. land-holding 
Skeef, skeigli, 216, C. Du. 
Skeelyie, 25, 155, slate pencil, skaillie, 
skailyie; cog. is shell, a scale or 
husk, A.S. scell, Du. schel, Ic. 
skel ; or. sense, to peel off. Go. 
skaljas, tiles 
Skelbs, skelve, scab, 139, splinters of 
wood, a thin slice, a splinter of 
wood, Du. schelpe, a shell, Ger. 
Schelfe, a husk 
Skelhcks, 64, 128, Fi. skellock, 
skeldock, skellie, wild mustard, 
Ir. skeal-lagach ; cf . E. charlock 
Skellum, 63, 221, 222, rogue, Ger. 
and Du. Schelm, Ic. skelmir. Not 
in Jam. 
Skelly-eyed, 174, Cu. and Bord. 

_ !, 137, blows with open hand ; 
Gael, sgealb, is borrowed from 
Sc. 
Skemel, 180, 182, Cu. shemels, 

shambles 
Skiddaw Gray, 179 
Skite, 134, a squirt from the mouth, 
Ic. skvetta, to squirt, var. of shoot 
Skohsl, 28, Go. a demon, Soheu-sal, 
Ger. Scheuche, a scarecrow, from 
scherren, to shoo, scare 
Skriners, 195 

Skrire, 195, Du. skrij, Ger. schreiben 
Skuft, 19, Go. ; Ger. Schopf, a top- 
knot, O.N. skopt 
Skulpad, 223, C. Du. 
Skura, 13, Go. skura windis, a storm 
of wind ; winthi-skauro, a win- 
nowing fan, Du. schoer, Sc. shoor. 
Still in C. Du. as Groote Schoor, 
famous home of Cecil Rhodes 
Skybels, 1 15, 182, Cu. skybald, a mean, 
worthless fellow. Da. skabhals, a 
rascal 



314 



GLOSSARY 



Skylark, the, 126 

Slaan, 195, 0. Du., Ger. schlagen 

Slack, 198, in place-names. For 

metaphor, cf. gorge, gully 
Slabbery, 151, Mo. slobbery, app. to 

supping ungracefully 
Slag, 198, 222, C. Du. Cf. Ger. 

schlucken, to swallow, Sc. "slocken 

drooth," quench thirst 
Slakan, 30, Go. to strike, Ger. 

schlagen, slay, 0. Du. slaan, E. 

slog ; " slaying mutton on Sab- 
bath."— » Elg. K. S. Eecs." 
Slang, boys', 109 
Slap, 208, a- gap 
Slaup, 36, Go. slipped 
Sledderkin, 186, Ou. 
Sledders, 186, Cu. 
Slider, 186, Lan. of the ice-cream 

man, var. slithery 
Slijp, slyp, 66, 212, a sledge, Ger. 

sohleifen, to draw, Du. slijpen, E. 

slip, slippers. See Slip-a 
Slim, 207, C. Du. ; Ger. sohlimm, 

E. slim ; or. sense, slack, oblique, 

crafty, slender. Du. and Ger. 

retain the sense of "crafty" 
Sliob, 66, Ir. sliobhaim, to polish 
Slipa, 66, N. whet, i.e. to make 

slippery or smooth, Du. slijpen ; 

or. sense, to glide, in Ayrsh. 

app. to a sledge, Cu. slape-shod, 

shoes worn smooth 
Slipan, 66, A.S. slip, in Sc. to 

polish, sharpen. Cf. Du. slijpen, 

in Sc. to slide, slipe, a sledge 
Slippy, 92, slippery 
Slive, 173, sliver, a twig (Shak.), 

M.E. sliuen, to cleave, split 
Slocken, sloken, 198, 222. See slag 
Sloongin, Slinge, 137, 172, going 

about in indolent manner ; slung, 

a tall, lank booby; Ab. cog. 

slink 
Sluck, 198, Shet. See slag 
fSluit, 201, C. Du., doubtful if 

conn, with " sluice " as in the text. 

"O.F. escluse, a sluce." — Cot. 

L. Lat. exclusa, a flood-gate" — 

Sk. 
Slypet, 66, glided. Burns. See Slipa 
Small quantities, equivalent e.\pres- 

sions for, 138 
Smatchet, 136, small, mischievous 

child ; peril, small-chit 



Smeddum, 85, 136, acuteness, A.S. 

smedma, smedeme, fine flour 
Smeekin, 124, 129, smoking in causal 

sense 
Smiddy, 131, smithy 
Smit, smittel, 33, 68, 210, to infect. 

Go. bi-smeitan, A.S. be-smitan, 

to pollute, Ic. smeita, steam from 

cooking fat, Ger. Schmutz, Du. 

smet, a spot, smut 
Smoky, 104, a smoked haddock 
Smoogle the gag, 127, 155, boys' 

game. See gag 
Smore, 71, 208, C. Du. smother 
Snaw, 23, 254, Go. snaiw-s, Ger. 

Schnee 
Sneck, 135, door-latch, cf. snig, 

sniggle. See snig, sniggin 
Sneck-drawer, 85, 135, a cunning 

person, a latch-lifter 
Sned, 14, 23, 148, 182, 195, sneddin, 

Go. sneithand, snoi, neat, trimmed, 

part, of sneithan, A.S. snithan, 

Ger. schneiden, Du. snijden, — 

all, to cvit 
Snig, 187, Cu. 
Sniggin, 187, cf. sniggle, sneck, 

snook 
Snij-doktor, 197, 210, C. Du. snij, to 

cu.t. See Sned 
Snod, 14, 128, trim, neat, lit. cut 

(pret. of sned) 
Snool, 85, one mean, spiritless, Du. 

snooler, to snub 

" They snool me sair, 
They hud me doon." 

Snoove, 208, to move smoothly and 

constantly, Ir. snoimham, to 

twist 
Snotter, 136, 207, to blubber, snot, 

snuffle, A.S. and Du. akin to 

snout 
Sogers, 154, soldiers 
Some, 94, somewhat, cf. Ger. etwas 
Sonks, 201, a grassy seat, a straw 

cushion 

" He'll ride nae mair on stray sonk." 
" Jac. Ball." 

Soohies, 123, soukies, clover blooms, 
from being sucked by children for 
their nectar 
Som-dook, 132, 156, buttermilk 
Soordook sogers, 132, Loth, militia. 
See daich, daichie 



GLOSSARY 



315 



Soorocks, 123, sorrel, Ger. sauracli, 

E. sour, M.H.G. surach 
Sooth, 18, 33, 86, or. sense, being, 
existence. Go. bi sunjai, verily, 
A.S. soth, Sw. sann, Da. sand. 
My san ! var. sal, as exclam. 
Sopje, 198, C. Du., of. "soupe" 

(Biirns) 
Sounded, 35, E. 
Sowms, 156 
Sowl, 19, 26, saiwala, Go. soiil, Ger. 

Seels, A.S. sivrl 
Sown, 62, Bu. traces, soyme, chain 
by which plough or cart is drawn. 
See sime, syme, simmins, cutty- 
soam 
Spang, spong, 125, 203, var. of 

span 
Spang-whew, 182. See Spung-hewet, 

125 
Spar, 62, 140, to fasten a gate, com- 
mon Teut. " cog. with spear in or. 
sense of sticks or pole." — Sk. 
Sparwa, 20, Go. sparrow, Ger. Sper- 
ling, A.S. spearwa, lit. "the 
fluttere," Cu. spadger 
Spate, spait, speat, 68, 200, flood, 

Gael, speid, a river flood 
Speal, spilda, 25, 27, 67, Go. a writing 
tablet, A.S. speld, a torch, all 
from base, spald, to split, Ger. 
spalten, cf. Sc. speldrin, a fish 
split and dried. Cf. splinter, 
spale, spail, a lath in wooden 
houses, a chip. This word has 
been confounded with the similar 
"spell," to read. 
Spearmint, 121, a species of mint 
Speel, spele, speil, 126, 196, climb, 
A.S. spilian, Du. spelen, O.N. 
spila, Ger. spielen. Cf. "a spell 
of work," a turn 
Speengie, 121, 156, peony 
Spdr, speer, 74, 97, 196, 224, Du. 
spoor, a trail : as v. A.S. spyrian, 
Du. speuren, O.N. spyrja 

"He speer't what was't they ca'd her." 
" Old Song." 

Spelk hen, 181, Gael, spealg (borr.), 
M.E. spelke, a splinter, N. spjalk, 
Du. spalk, a splint. Cf. spelicans, 
a Du. game played with slips of 
wood, O.Du. spelleken, asmallpin 

Speogs, 181, Dumb. 



Spilda, 27, Go. a writing tablet, 
hence E. spill, a slip of wood, 
assimilated to " spell " from early 
use in schools for learning to read. 
Cf. M.E. speld, a splinter, with 
Sc. speldrin, dried fish split 
Spill, 27, Go. a fable, myth, A.S. 
spel ; Go. spillon, to relate, E. 
spell = say or tell the letters. See 
spilda 
Spilia, 25, 27, Go. a teller, spillon, 

to tell. See spilda 
Spinks, 121, pinks 
Spolk, 181, Ore; E. sjioke, spike, 

Ger. Speiche 
Spooks, 220, 223, from Du. spook, 
O.Ger. spauka, a spectre — of 
Norse or. 
Spoor, 196, 197, 224, C.Du. See 

Speer. 
Spoot gun, 123, 134, pop gun, cf. 

spout , 
Spraul, 105, sprawl, a struggle, for 
sprattle, to spar or toss the 
limbs about, N.E. sprottle, to 
struggle 
Spreckled, 167, speckled 
Sprickelt paddicks, 178, Cu. 
Sprits, 66, 200, 201, wet or spritty 
spots, covered with rushes, vars. 
spritty, sprat, spreat, Du. spruit, 
a stream, properly a spring that 
spurts out, cf. sprout, to germinate, 
spirt, Ger. spritzen, E. sprout, 
spurt 
Sprug, spug, spyugs, 125, a sparrow, 

in dial. 
Spruit, 200, 216, Du. spruiten. See 

sprits 
Spung hewet, spung toed, 125, 182, 

vars. spang-hue, spang-whew 
St. Anthony's Pig, 133, yearly on 
St. Anthony's Day (Jan. 17) 
domestic animals are brought to 
be blessed before the porch of St. 
Eusebius Church in Eome 
Stab-s, 27, Go. a letter, A.S. stafas, 
letters of alph., Ger. Buch- 
stabe, E. staff, stave (music), 
Sc. and Gael, stob, a stake, 
pale, or. something firm, the 
"graving of Runes" (Kl.) 
Staen, 23, Ab. steen, E. stone, Go. 

stains 
Staiga, 26, Go. a path or highway. 



316 



GLOSSAEY 



Du. and Ger. Steig, a street, from 
Go. steigan, to climb. See stey 

Staigs, 69, 105, 137, 147, colts, var. of 
sta^, app. to the male of different 
animals 

Stake and rise, 127, fence or wall of 
upright stakes and wattles inter- 
woven. See Rise. Not in Jam. 

Staldan, 24, Go. to own or possess, 
cf. Du. staatholder, owner of a 
stead. See steading 

Stamnis, 18, Go. a stammerer. See 
stoom 

Stang, 208, a long pole, E. sting. Go. 
us-stiggan, to push out, Ger. 
Stange, a pole 

Stanner-gaster, 153, Mo. 

Starns, 255, stars, has the adj. suffix 
n of the Go. stairno=Ger. Stern 

" Ye hills, nenr neebors o' the starns, 
Tliat proudly cock your cresting cairns." 
Bums, 

Staw, 172, a surfeit, v. to put to a 
stand, Da. staae, S. wstaa, to stand 

Stead, steading, 24, 25, Go. stads, 
home-stead, Ger. Stadt. Fi. and 
Bu. stath-el, staid-el, a small rick 

Steanies, 187, Cu. 

Steek, 207, C. Du. and So. stitch, 
stick, Du. and Ger. sticken 

Steer, 56, sJiV = disturb, A.S. Styr- 
ian, Ic. styrr, Ger. storen, cog. 
with storm 

Steg, 168, Cu. a gander ; cf. stag in 
sense of male in general 

-ster, -bus, 65, home-stead in Norse 
place names 

Stert, C. Du. 224, A.S. steort, M.E. 
stert, a tail, Du. staart, Ger. Sterz, 
lit. the "outspread." Cf. red- 
start. Start Point. " Stark-naked, 
a corr. of stert-naked." — Sk. 

Stey, 26, 208, steep, A.S. stigan, to 
climb. See staiga 

Stibna, 32, Go. voice, Ger. Stimme, 
A.S. stefn, M.E. steven 

Stile, 208, A.S. stigel, Shet. stiggy. 
See stigan 

Still an' on, 172, Sc. and Cu. 

Stime, 86, 138, So. a speck ; var. of 
skime, A.S. scima, a gleam 

" At sic an eldritch time 
O' nicht when we see ne'er a slime." 
Stinkin Elshender, 123, ragwort 
Stinkin Willie, 148 



Stink weed, 148, ragwort 

Stirk, 68, 147, a j'oung bullock, Ger. 

stark, strong, A.S. stearc, styrc 

do., Du. sterk. Go. ga-staurknan 
Stiur, Go. 21, 250, steer, calf, Du. 

and Ger. stier, Lat. taurus = strong, 

full-grown 
Stockannet, strokannet, 124, 140, 172, 

180, sheldrake or burrow duck, 

Shet. links goose. Not in Jam. 
Stoep, 25, 188, 207, C. Du. porch 
Stols, 25, Go. a throne, Ger. Stulil, 

Du. stoel, E. stool 
Stook, 128, 129, a clump of corn 

sheaves, Ger. Stiick, E. stook 
Stoom, stoomin, 137, 140, sulking, 

Ger. stumm, dumb, E. stammer 
S<oor = dust, 97, dust of battle, cf. 

stir 

" Till many a man lay weaponless, 

An' was sair wouuded in that stour." 

Stot, 196, C. Du. stuit, Go. stautan, 
to smite, Ger. stossen, to push, 
cf. stutter, cog. with Lat. tundo, 
to hammer 

Stot, 147, a young ox. Da. stud, a 
bull, E. steed, stud, A.S. steda, 
Ger.Stute; stott, a horse (Chaucer) 

Stoup an' room, 188 

Stovies, 129, var. of stew 

Straucht, 91, adj. and verb 

Strau-ja, 249, Go. bed of straw 

Stravaig, 129, to stroll, app. not only 
to people 

" The moon ha.s rowed her in a cloud, 
Stravaiging winds begin, 
To sliugsle and daud the window brods. 
Like loons that wad be in." 

Wm. Miller, 

Stravaiging, 129, strolling, Lat. 

extravagare. "Stravaigin' aboot 

in the moonlicht wi' a young 

lassie " 
Strawr-rat, 82, straw hat 
Streiket corpse, 74, stretched in the 

coffin 
Strong and weak verbs, 35 
Stroup, 201, lo. strup. Da. strube, 

the gullet 
Subjunctive, 91, 197 
Sugar-awlie, 186, Lan. sugar-ellie, 

Fi. a stick of liquorice 
Suicidal, 81, E. 
Suljo, 17, Go. sole of the foot, sandal, 

Lat. solea 



GLOSSAEY 



317 



Sully, 28, 81, silly. See silly 

Summonses, 72, summons 

Sumph, 29, 137, a lout, GaeL samph, 
a clownish fellow, Go, swamms, 
a sponge, swumfsl. Da. svamp, 
a sponge, swampig, spongy, A.S. 
swam, cnroyyos, Lat. fungus, a 
sponge, Da. sump, a swamp, E. 
swamp — all from root swim. See 
swamm 

Sumph, 29, 137, a pool, swamm, 
swamm-s, a sponge. Go. Both 
Teut. and class., as sponge, spongy; 
Da. and Sw. variant sump ident. 
with Sc. coal-mining term 

Siine, 11, E. soon. Go. sun-s 

Sunno (f.), sunna (m.), 19, 23, Go. 
sun, Ger. Sonne 

Sunu-s, 18, 247, Go. a son 

Swpperfluity, 73 

Sut-is, 11, 28, Go. sweet, Ger. susz, 
Du. zoet 

Swei-cruck, 210, sway or swing crook 

Swine-crii, 182, Cu. See criive 

Syle, 182, a straining sieve, Sw. sll, 
a strainer, L.Ger. sielen, to draw 
oif water, E. silt. The I is not 
radical, cf. Da. and Sc. sie, to filter 

Syme, 181, straw rope for securing 
thatch. See soum, simmins 

Syne, 13, 20, 56, Sc. ; full form, 
sithen-s (with adv. suflf.), sith- 
then, after that ; cf . Ger. seit-dem, 
A.S. sith, after, is Go. seith-us, 
late ; syne, sin, an early contrac- 
tion of sithens 

Sype, 172, to ooze, E. sap, A.S. 

saep, Ger. saft. See seip, sipe 

"An' Kart his swalled e'en sype 
Sant teara that day." 

SHnner. 

Syjjer, 211. See sype 
Syth hyuok, 146, scythe hook 
Swauping, 130, swapping, bartering, 
Ger. schwappen, to strike, in 
sense of striking a bargain 
Sweer, 29, 69, 97, 197, 209, im willing, 
C. Du. zwaar, A.S. swaer, O.N. 
svdrr, Ger. schwer. Go. swers, 
heavy, honoured, sweran, to 
honour, var. of sweer, sweir, 
swere, swear = sweert, lazy in 
Jam., rather reluctant, as — 

" He -was gey sweert tae pairt -wr's sUler." 
(J B, IP,) 



Sweer -hitty, 160, wrestling-game 
/Sweej'-tree, ditto, 158, 160. See 

sweer 
Swes, 26, Go. one's own property, 

cog. with Lat. suus 
Swei, sway, swing, 210 
Swein, 24, Go. swine; or. su-ina, 

j'oung of the sow 
Swingle-tree, 130, part of plough 

graith 
Swistar, 18, Go. sister, Ger. Sch wester 
Simth, swinth-s, 58, Go. strong, A.S. 
strong, very much : — 
" In the thrang o' stories tellin', 
Shakin' hands an' jokin' queer. 
Swith, a chap comes on the hallan : 
* Mungo, is our Watty liere ? ' " 

Alex. Wilacm, 

Swounded, 35, Shak. swooned 



T slurred bet. vowels, 111 ; -t(neut.), 

44, 45 
T' as def. art. 168—" t' words 'at"— 

Cu. 
Taal, 222, 0. Du., cog. with tell 
Taave, tyaave, 100, 101, Ah. See 

taw, tew 
Tables, at the Sacrament, 74 
Tackin in, 92, term in stocking- 
knitting 
Taed, taid, 129, a toad, A.S. and 

M.E. tade. See spung-taed 
Taepit, taintless, taebetless, tapetless, 

87, 138, 139, 151, Fi. manual 

dexterity. Witliless, syn. of 

thowless. Prob. taij)it for to-put 
Tag, 21, 155, var. of taws or ferule, a 

latchet. Go. tagl= tail, A.S. taegel 
Tagrida, 36, Go. wept, as if teared 
Tahjan, 12, Go. to tear. Go. tiuhaii, 

to tow, tug, A.S. te6han, te6n, to. 

pull, Ger. Ziehen, Du. touwen, to 

curry leather, theofa, O.N. to 

waulk or shrink cloth, E. taw, 

tew, to curry 
Taihswa, 17, Go. right-handed, Lat. 

dexter; cf. carrie, left hand, 

carrie-mittit, Lan. 
Taikns, 53, Go. a miracle, token, cog. 

Zeichen, so used in Luther's Bible 
Tain-jo, 5, Go. woven basket, hence 

tine, tooth of a harrow, M.E. 

"tyndis of harrowis," stag's 

antlers, cog. tooth 



318 



GLOSSAEY 



tTains, 5, 26, Go. thorn-branch. See 

tain-jo, toon 
Tait, tate, 68, 138, tiny bit, tit, teat, 

tot, Sw. tott, handful of lint or 
wool 
Tak on, 137, buy on credit 
Talitha, 2, Aram, damsel = mawilo 

(Wulf.) 
T'allen, 176, Cu. for the hallan, 

which see 
Tami-da, 36, Go. pret. of tamjan, 

to tame 
Tam-jan, 36, Go. to tame 
Tam/my-reekie, 129, boys' trick as 

pastime 
Tand, N. 203 
Tangs, 207, 0. Du. tongs 
Tante, 207, 0. Du. 
Tafs, tops, 122, fir cones ; 207, of 

beer 
Tarrow, 69, to hesitate, refuse ; tar- 

rowin', grumbling, tarre, to incite 
Taucht, 49, pret. of teach 
Taujan, Go. to do, bring out 
'fTaupie, tawpie, 85, 136, 170,a foolish 

woman, Da. taabe, a fool, Sw. 

tapig, simple, foolish — prob. not 

Fr. taupe 
Taurds, 155, taws, ferule. W. tar-o, 

tar-aw, to strike. " At the Elgin 

Academy we called it the tag." 

— Prof. Cooper. See tarrow 
Taw, 12, E. to tan leather, Go. 

tiuhan, to be ready, with many 

deriv. 
Taws, ferula, 101, 155, Gael, tas, a 

whip, scourge ; var. of tags, A.S. 

tawian, to tan, beat. See taw, 

tyaave 
Tawtiet (Burns), 183, uncombed, 

towsy, perh. conn, with tatter, 

N. totra, taltra, pi. tultrer, rags. 

The aw is accounted for by the 

elided 1. For the term, -iet, see 

nakkit 
TcMich, 12, 13, 168, Sc. tough, perh. 

Go. tahjan, to tear, guttural in 

A.S. t6h, Ger. zahe. See tiuhan 
Tchuch Jeans, 186, tough geans, a 

Glasgow sweet 
Tear, tew, 180, Cu., fidget, exert 

one's self. See taave, taw 
Tek, tai, t6k, 35, Go. take and 

took 
Tell, 92, to bid or order 



Tell, 88, to one's credit. "It's no 

tellin' ye," not to your credit 
Tempery cook, 84, temporary 
Teuchat, tchuchat, 125, the lapwing 
Teuk, took, 180, Niths. 
Teva-kudda, 100, Ore. tuva-keuthie 

— Jam. See tyaave and cod 
Tew, 101, 180, Cu. See taw, tyaave 
Tewsum, Cu. 180 
Th, sound, 14 
Thae, 91 
Time, thirr, 168 
Thahai, thahan, 31, Go. ; cog. taceo, 

to be silent 
Thai, 32, 39, 45 
Thair, thaim, 45 

Thames (set on fire), 173, temse, 
terns, A.S. temes, a sieve, Du. 
tems, a strainer : a corn sieve, 
which, if worked too quickly, 
might fire the wooden hoop. 
"Tammy not given in Jam, 
E. temse, tems, a sieve, a scarce, 
bolter" (J. B. F.) 
That, 45, 63, 90, 157 
That, for so, 90 
That, as def. art, 39, 157, 171, that 

baths, that cleek, that poker, Ab. 
Thaurban, 31, Go. to be in want, 
Ger. bediirfen, to have cause, Du. 
durven, A.S. thurfan 
Thaurnus, 23, Go. thorns 
The, 91, Go. thar, E. there ; from an 
old Tevit. demonst. tha, Ger. da, 
dort 
The, particularising, 94 
Tlie, 39, the day 
The, 30, V. to prosper, M.E. See 

theihan 
The tane and the tither, 171 
Theats, 130, ropes or traces. Ic. 
" thatt-r, cord, small rope." — Jam. 
Thee, 30, thigh 

Theel, theevil, 129, 172, 182, Fi. 
porridge-stick, E. thill, cart-shaft, 
A.S. thille, a thin slip of wood, Ic. 
thilja, a plank, Ger. Diele, E. deal 
Theihan, 30, Go. to thrive, O.E. 
ge-th6on, to thee, Ger. ge-deihen, 
to prosper ; root sense, to grow, 
flourish. " So mote I thee ! " 
common M.E. asseveration 
Thewis, thius, 24, Go. a servant, A.S. 
thdow, servant, slave, Ger. dienen, 
to serve 



GLOSSAEY 



319 



Thick, 173, Cu. 

Thig, 145, to ask, beg, Ic. thygg-ia, 
to receive as a gift, accept hos- 
pitality for a night. Da. tigger, 
a beggar 
Think shame to, 92 
Thirr, 90 

Thissilaga, 156, colt's-foot 
Thiudans, 22, Go. ; Ger. Deutsch, the 

"folk," national name 
Thiud-isk, 7, " theodisca lingua in 

Lat. texts, 788 — eccles., not polit., 

term," O.Sc. thede, a nation 
Thole, 33, 69, 70, 97, 139, endure. 

Go. thulan, to suffer, Ger. dulden ; 

cog. Lat. tolerare, all Teut. in So. 

sense, to put up with 
Thone, 38, 45 
Thoo, thou, 172, familiar 
Thoo gan, 172, Cu. 
Thowless, thewless, thieveless, 87, 

feeble, applied in Sc. to bodily 

qualities, in O.E. to mental, 

theauwe, virtues, A.S. theawas, 

manners, E. thews; "sense of 

bulk, strength, comes straight 

from the root, tu, to be strong." — 

Sk. 
Thraep, hraep, 13, 171, to argue, assert 

with pertinacity. Go. fo-o^jan, to 

cry out, hropei, clamour, Sc. roup 
Thraif, thraves, threave, 129, 171, 

twenty-four sheaves of corn, Ic. 

threfi. Da. trave, a score of 

sheaves, threve, Cu. a number 

of sheaves 
Thrang, 90, busy, A.S. thringen, 

to press, Ger. dringen. Go. 

threihan, Ger. drangen, E. throng 
Thraw, 67, to twist, A.S. thrftwan, 

var. of throw 
" Thraw-cruck" 62, twist-crook 
Thriutan, 27, Go. to threaten 
Throo-gawn, 137, through-going, 

pushful 
ITiroo-pit, 140 
Through his sleep, 89 
Thrummy cap, 134, cap of thrums, 

Ic. throm-r, margin, selvage 
Thruts-fill, 27, Go. leprosy. See fill 
Thur ana, 167, Cu.; Sc. thirr yins or 

ains 
Thut-haum, 28, Go. a trumpet, Du. 

toet-horen, Ic. thjota, to blow a 

horn 



Ticky-molie, 129, 140. The trick 
lay in fastening a long thread to 
the astragal of the window-pane. 
From this fixed end hang a short 
length with a pin or tack attached. 
A slight regular pull on the 
thread from a safe distance pro- 
duced an eerie sound in the still 
room. If surprised, it was easy 
for the boy to " cut the painter " 

Tig, 127, a tap, slight stroke ; boys' 
game ; var. of tick, tack 

Tirmner, 23, 26, 249, syn. of tree, 
wooden ; timrjan. Go. to build, 
Ger. Zimmer 

Tinder, 21, Eng. ; Go. tundja, a bush; 
prob. not related. A.S. tyndre, 
tendan, to kindle. Da. tdnder 

Tine, 26, Go. tains, tain-jo, which 
see. Prong in a harrow, stag's 
antler ; O.E. tinde, Ic. tind-r, Sw. 
tinne, a prickle, Ger. Zinne, a 
pinnacle, ult. akin to tooth 

Tmkler, 92, 153, 168, 183, tinker 

Tipt, 67, tepid 

Tirr, 231, prob. a var. of tear ; 
" most common usage not given — 
to remove subsoil above a bed of 
rock in a quarry " (J. B. F.) 

Titty, 173, sister 

Tiuhan, 12, Go. to tow, tug. See 
tew, taw, tyaave 

To, prep. 89, " no fault to him " 

t Toff, 192, doubtful if var. of topf 

Toh, 13, A.S. tough, Sc. tyuch, 
tchuch. Go. tah-ydn, to rend ; 
or. to bite. See tiuhan, tyuch 

Token, 53, A.S. tAcn, Du. tecken, 
Go. taikns, a miracle (in Leather's 
" Bible " its cog. zeichen is used) 

Took their bare feet, 88 

room, tume, 204, empty 

Toom, 202, C. Du. a bridle rein, Ic. 
taum-r, Ger. Zaum, from sense of 
reducing to order, as in E. team 
— base tau, in taw, to curry 
leather. Go. tau-jan, to cause, 
make 

Toon, 5, 41, 249, town, -ton. Go. 
tun, A.S. tiin, Du. tuin, hedge, 
O.N. tiin, homestead, Ger. Zaun, 
a hedge. Kliige finds it in Lug- 
dunum, Roman London 

Toot, 28, E. to sound a horn, Du. 
tuiten, Ger. tuten 



320 



GLOSSAEY 



Tooth, ]8, A.S. t6th=tanth, N. land, 
Go. tunthus, tooth 

Toper, 193, Cu. any tiling excellent 
in its kind 

Tothed, 200, ted, to spread new- 
mown grass, tedded ; Ic. tethja, 
to spread tath or manure, tothu- 
verk, making hay. See koil-tett 

Tove, 100, toss, Shet. See tyaave 

Tow, 68, 161, 208, and C. Du. rope, 
" An' (ir I wad anither jade 
I'll wallop in a tow." 

A.S. tow, le. to, a tuft of wool, tog 
a rope 

" There was an auld wife had a wee pickle 
tow. 
An' she wad gae try the spinniu' o't, 
She lootet her doon an' her rock took a low 
An' that was a bad beffinnin' o't." 

Alex. Boss. (J. B. F.) 

Trake, 203, to wander idly, C. Du. 

trek 
Tramp-colies, 146, Mo. hay stacks 
Trance, 176, perh. Lat. trans, across 
Trances, 146, hey soos. Mo. 
Transpire, 94 
Trap, 135, 207, Ger. Treppe, a 

ladder, Du. trap 
Traps, 92, for the unwary English- 
man 
Treacle peerie, 132, home-made small 

heer. See peerie 
Treak, 203, Cu. 
Tree, 20, 26, Go. triu, triu-weins, 

wooden 
Treesh, 148, Mo. call to a cow 
Trek, 211, 203, C. Du. 
Treviss, 131, partitions in a stahle 

forming the stall, Lat. trabs, a 

beam 
Trig, trigger, 211 
Trogger, 111, Ir. vagrants who gather 

old clothes 
Troke, trohing, 135, 152, 203, to 

barter 
Tromp, 223, C. Du. trump, Fi. a 

Jew's harp, trumpet 
Trooie, 148, Mo. 
Trowtis, 62, trouts. Barb. 
Tuig, 208, C. Du. tow, a rope. See 

tow 
TuU me, 168, Cu.; cf. So. till, intill 

for to, into 
Tummel-oar, 181, Cu. tumlin- 

wheels, primitive solid wooden 

wheels 



Tunthus, 18, Go. tooth, Lat. dens, 

dentis 
Tutor, 72, So. law term 
Twal oar, 197, twaalf uur, C. Du. 
Twal oors, 129, mid-day meal, twelve 

hours 
Twa-neukit, 88, two-cornered 
Twicet, 90, twice 
Tyaave, 100, difficulty : " my job's 

an affle tyaave" (Ab.), buckie- 

tyauve, a good-humoured wrestle 

(Bff.) 
Tyeuve, 101, Bu., laboured hard. 

See taw, tew 



U 



U, sounds, thin, and name, 81 

Ubils, 29, Go. evil 

Ubizwa, 25, Go. a porch, A.S. 
efese, a clipt hedge of thatch, 
from Go. prep, uf, under, Ger. 
oben ; lit. cover, shelter 

Udal, Udaller, 10, Ore. land ten- 
ure. See Othal 

Ug, 154 

Ug-sam, 30, Bord. 

Ug-some, 98. See ugly, ogre 

-tih, 45, Go. affix, Lat. que 

Ulbandus, 21, Go. camel. See 
elephant 

Umhm! 85 

" Urn zu," 91, Ger. for to 

Unco, 171, Cu. in or. sense, 
unknown, strange, and not an 
intensive as in So. 

Undaurni-mats, 24, Go. morning 
meal, E. undern, still in prov. 
dial. ; 9 A.M. in Paisley Burgh Recs. 

Und hina dag, 45, Go. unto this 
day 

Und hita nu, 45, Go. hitherto 

Undomous, 153, Mo. un-demus, 
incalculable ; un and deman to 
judge. — Jam. Go. ga-domjan, 
doom, judge. Syn. byous 

Unfewsom, 182, Cu. ; cf.Ger.fiigsam, 
pliant 

Unhouseled, 32, Shak., A.S. husel, 
the Eucharist, Go. hunsl, a sacri- 
fice ; or. sense, to kill 

Unhultha, 28, Go. from hultha, 
gracious, hilthan, to favour ; O.E. 
holde, faithful. Kl. connects with 



> 



GLOSSAEY 



321 



Ger. hold, O.N. hollr, A.S. hold, 

gracious • 
Unless, 90, without 
Iln-selja, 28, Go. tin-silly, i.e., 

wicked. See silly 
Un-weis, 13, Go. unlearned. See 

weiss 
Upsij, 218, 0. Du. See op-sit 
Up a heet, 169, North. 
Uppalt, 153, cessation, uphald, up- 

haitd 
Upsettin', 136, conceited hrat 
Upsie-daesies, 185, nursery prattle — 

up — down 
Up-tach, 92, quick apprehension 
Us-hlaupands, 33, Go. ; Sc. loupiii 

up, leap, A.S. hledpan, Du. 

loopen, Ger. laufen, all in sense 

to run 
Us-litha, 27, Go. paralytic. See lith 
Us-stiur-iba, 56, from simr-jan, to 

establish, confirm, E. steer, to 

guide, and steer, an ox, in prim. 

sense of "what stands firm," as 

in Ic. staurr, a post 
Uz-anan, 31, Go. to give up the 

ghost. See an-an, to breathe 
Uz-eto, 24, Go. manger, out-eater 



Val, 210, C. Du. val deure, a trap- 
door, E. fall. See moos-fa' 

Vee, 218, C. Du. See fe 

Veldt, 199, 0. Du. ; O.N. fold, A.S. 
feld, Du. veld, E. field, fell, field- 
fare 

Vel sohoen, 208, C. Du. shoes of skin. 
See fill 

Verb present with s, 90 (Scots) 

Victual, 94, rations 

Village commune, 64 

Vlei, 125, C. Du., cog. flay, M.E. 
flean, lo. fld, to slice off, Sw. 
flaga, a flake. App. to slicing off 
turf in Sc. flauch, and flauchter, 
which see 

Volksraad, 198, 0. Du. ; E. folk and 
Go. redan, to counsel, provide, 
A.S. raedan, Ger. Kat, raten, E. 
read, Sc. rede 

" An' may he better reck tlie rede 
Than ever did the adviser." 

Bums. 



Vrij, vrijers, 205, C. Du. to woo, 
wooers, Ind.-Ger. root pri, to love, 
cog. with friend. Or. sense, free 
choice, hence Du. vrij. Go. freis 
(frija), Ger. frei. See free 

Vuur, 207, 0. Du. fire 



W 

Waddjan, 25, comp. with "baurgs," 
Go. town- wall, A.S. wattel, a 
hurdle, Sc. wattles, wallet ; lit. 
"a thing woven together" 
Waa'er, 83, Lan. water 
Wad-g-er, 212, Fi. See wadi 
Wadi, 26, Go. a pledge, E. wed. Go. 

waddja-bokos, a bond 
Wadmel, 100, Ore. ; E. wad, a bundle 
of stuff, Ic. vodmal, a plain 
woollen stuff, Ger. Watte, a fishing- 
net, like Ic. vathr, stuff wound 
together. Of. E. weeds, dress. 
See mail 
Wadn't cud dea't, 169, Cu. idiom 
Wad-set, 26, 155, 212, a mortgage, 
wad, a pledge ; cf. Lat. vas, vadis. 
See wadi 
Waer, 62, Barb, sadder ; comp. cf. 

wae, woe 
Waffle, 137, a vagabond, waff, strayed 

" To wear up three Tvaff ewis strayed on the 
bog."—" Gentle Shepherd." 

Waggari, 17, Go. a pillow, A.S. 

waggare, wange, cheek, jaw, E. 

wang-tooth, O.E. and Ger. Wange 
Waian, 255, Go. root of E. weather 
Wair, 248, Go. world, A.S. wer- 

geld, Ger. Welt, Lat. vir 
Wairdless, 87, spendthrift, without 

ward, guard or prudence 
Wairilo, 17, Go. the lip, A.S. weler 
Wairthan, 48, Go. to become, arch. 

E. worth, Ger. werden 
Wairthus or wairdiis, 24, Go. a 

host, Ger. Wirth 
Wale, waled, 33, 183, 192, 219, Go. 

waljan, to choose, Ic. velja, Ger. 

wahlen, cog. vrith will 
Wallop, 53, 156, Mo. the lapwing, 

wallock and to waUach, to use 

many circumlocutions 
Wallowit, 49, withered, A.S. weal- 

wian, to roll, wallow ; cf. Lat. 

volvo, to roll 

21 



322 



GLOSSARY 



Walshoch, 153, weak and watery ; cf. 
walsli, welsche, insipid ; Jam. 
Teut. gselsch ; A.S. gaelaa, wanton- 
ness, pride. See galsh 

Wamme, 29, Go. spot, O.E. wem, 
A.S. wem, a scar, a blemish 

Wandjan, 34, Go. to wend, tnrn, 
went 

Wange, 18, jaw, cheek, A.S. wange, 
Ger. and O.E. the cheek. The 
molars are sometimes called wang- 
teeth. See wangere, A.S. pillow, 
bolster 

Wand, 90, once 

Wap, 172, 174, a disturbance, "to 
kick lip a wap," to throw quickly, 
" wappit war wyde," thrown quite 
open, M.E. wappen, to beat, strike 
— "AUit. Poems," Amours 

JVardle, 16, Ab. world 

AVarem, 209, C. Du. warm 

TVarsle, 97, to sidle along, struggle, 
wrestle 

Wasti, 19, 254, Go. dress, Lat. vestis, 
ga-wasiths, was clad 

Watch weds, 187, Cu. for game of 
"Scots and English," weds, 
pledges, as in wad-set, which see 

Water brash, 139, a symptom of 
indigestion 

Water droger, 133. Cf. droch, a 
dwarf 

Wato, 253, Go. water 

" Wattled cotes," 15, 67, Milton. See 
withe, withy, waddja 

Wauken, wakand, 53, pres. part, of 
wauk, to be on the wake or 
watch 

" The waukia' " (watching) " o' the fauld." 
AU. liaTnsay. 

Waukit, 65, wauk, to full cloth, 
render callous, as the palm by 
hard work — 

" Till hia waukit hoofs were in a blister." 
"Jac. Ball." 

Waur, wairs, 29, 97, Go. ; E. worse 

Waurms, 20, Go. worm 

Waurtja, 26, 48, Go. ; E. ort, wort, 
root, Ger. Wurz 

Waxin kernels, 182, Cu. wax ker- 
nels, Fi. an indurated gland, 
often in the neck 

Wean, 66, Lan. child ; obsc. or. 

Wearin, a, 173, Cu. a decline, Sc. 



Wearing-down process, 194 

Weary alone, to, 92 

Wecht, 124, close sieve used in 

winnowing corn 
Wed, 187, Cu. See wadi 
Wedder, 21, a sheep, wether. Go 

withrus, a lamb ; or. sense, a 

" yearling " 
Weebie, 123, 148, the ragwort, Fi. 

Not in Jam. 
Weed, 179, E. dress (Shak.) 
Weed-clips, 173, Cu. 
Weed, 139, an illness 
Weel-eddicate, 88, well educated 
Weel-hained, 130, well-preserved, 

hain, have to spare. See hained 
Ween, 30, expect, fancy. Go. wenjan, 

to expect 
Weet, 209, C. Du. pron. wait, as on 

the Borders ; wat, wot 
Wee wifikie, 106, little wifie 
Weigan, 23, Go. to fight, A.S. wig, 

a warrior 
Weihs, weihsta, 26, 249, Go. street 

corner, Lat. vicus, a wick, -wich 
Weina, 26, Go. wine. Cog. Lat. 

vinum, from which it is borrowed 
Weina-basi, 15, Go. the grape, lit. 

wine-berry 
Weird, 69, werd, weerd, A.S. wyrd, 

fate, Go. wairthan, and Ger. 

werden, to come to pass ; werdie, 

69, feeblest bird in a nest, 

" Ilka nest has its werdie." Prob. 

conn, with weird, wyrd, as the 

luckless, unfortunate. (J. B. F.) 
Weis (weece), 11, Go. we 
Weiss, 83, wyce 
Weitan, 51, Go. to see, to wit 
Well-caumed, 135, cam-stone, white 

clay hardened. "Teut. kalmey- 

steen." — Jam. 
Wer, 16, A.S. a man, as in wer- 
gild, weor-o\d, Lat. vir. See 

wair 
Wer-old, 16, O.E. world, A.S. weor- 

old — comp. of Ic. verr. Go. wair. 

Lat. vir. a man, and old, M.E. 

elde, old age, Go. aids, an age — all 

in sense " an age of man " 
Wersh, 86, 153. See walshoch 
Weyt, 182, Cu. wecht, Fi. 
Wh {imt.)=W,B2 
Wha, lohaii', 14, 40, who, interr. 
Whan, hwan, 32, Go. when 



GLOSSARY 



323 



Whaup, 119, greater curlew— ono- 

matop. 
Wheen, quheyne, 69, 86, 94, 138; 

cf. whang, a large piece, Lat. 

ciineus, a wedge : quhan in place 

names, as Quoth-quhan 
JVheenge, 30, 136, E. whine, A.S. 

waman. Kl. thinks the cognate 

Ger. weinexi probably from Gj. 

and Ger. wai, woe (as interj.) and 

Go. wainags, unhappy, tearful, 

and compares with Go. hwainon, 

to wee]p 

" A' ye whingin Whig carles." 

" Old Song." 

Wheesh, 13, hush, Go. ms 
Wheetie, 148, call to ducks 
Whicks, quickens, 182, Cu. 
Whid, whidding, 14, rapid movement 

" He heard the bows that bauldly ring. 
An' arrows whidderia hym near by.^' 
" Old BaU." 

Whiles, for sometimes, 167 

Whi-lk, 14, 40, which 

WTiill, 90, until 

Whilst, whiles, whilie, 35, 90 

Whins, winds, 83, E. 

Whip t' cat, 188, Cu. 

Whisps, 83, E. wisps 

■\White, whet, 14, 30, E. to sharpen, 

A.S. hwettan, lo. hwettja, to 

sharpen, incite, Go. hwass, sharp 
Whittret, 124, prob. Ic.hvat-r, quick, 

bold ; pet name for a youngster 
Whol, 174, pool in a river, Bord.; 

Ger. Welle, a billow 
Wliopan, 48, Go. to boast, whoop 
Who's owt t' dog, 169, Cu. idiom 
Whummle-bore, 139, 140, 151, cleft 

palate ; onomatop. as affecting 

speech 
Wicht, waihts, 12, Go. a thing, E. 

wight, whit, Ger. Wicht 
fFicfe = corners, ^'vrickin a iore,"Q8, 

wic, an open bay, Ic. vik, creek 
Widdy, 25, 67, 252, withe, Sc. wattles, 

Da. vidie, halter or rope of willow 

or hazel twigs, hence the gallows. 

See Go. waddja. 

" Ye cheat the widdie, rogue." 
Widow woman, 18, 35, 247, widuwo, 

Go. ; cf. Lat. vidua 
Wife, 209, C. Du. wifie 
Wife-day, cum-mether, Cu. 181. See 

Cummer's Feast 



'ig, 181, North, tea-cake, Du. 

wegge, a kind of cake, Ger. Week, 

wheaten bread, or. sense in O.N. 

vegge, a wedge. See wheen 
Wigs, 23, Go. wayside 
Wig-leader, 82, E. whig 
Wiht, 12, olden form of whit 
Wiljan, 255, Go., cf. will, well 
Willie-miln, 66, Ei. door-catch 
Willie-waucht, 85, a hearty draught 

of liquor. Not in Jam. 
Wiltit, 49, walwjan, Go. to roll, E. 

welter, waltz, wallow, A.S. weal- 

wian, -wyltan, to roll round 
Wime, Wambe, 18, 58, belly, Go. 

wamba, Ger. Wamme, E. womb 

" Our wames e'en to our riggin bane 
Like skate fish clappin.' 

*' Puddin' Leezie." 

"Wince, loot a" (Burns), 173, an 
oath, perh. corr. of "wounds." 
See"'Odswuns." 
Windy, 63, 92, boastful 
Wining, 145, app. for winding 
Winister, 146, instr. for vnnding 
straw ropes. Not in Jam. 

Winthi-skauro, 23, Go. wind or 
winnowing fan. Du. schuren, a 
barn, as in the Taal (with Go. 
hard pronunc), Groote Schoor, the 
Cape Town house of Cecil Rhodes, 
now Government House for 
S.-Af. Union. See Skura windis 

Wintrus, 23, Go. winter 

Wipe, 172, a blow, a retort, the act 
of rubbing to clean, a blow, stroke, 
A.S. wipian, cf. whip, wsp 

Wippin, 83, E. for a whippin 

Wirset, 233, worsted, from name of 
a village near Norwich 

Wirth, 24, Ger. ; Go. wairdus, 
house-father 

Wis, 32, Go. whish 

Wisan, 51, 56, Go. to be, was 

Wit-an, 27, 51, 255, Go. wit, wot, 
Sc. wat, Ger. wissen 

Wite, -id-ioeit-jan, 30, 206, Go. to 
reproach, A.S. aet-witan, ed- 
witan, from Go. weit-jan, to give 
one the wite (So.) or blame, and 
witan, to know, Du. wijten, to 
blame. Twit from M.E. at-witen. 
Wite keeps the or. long vowel 

"Nae man can wyte me wi' theft.' 

"Eoblloy." 



324 



GLOSSARY 



Withon, 14, Go. to shake, cf. Ger. 
Wedel, tail or tip of a fan ; akin 
to Go. waian, to blow, wave, 
wind 
Without, 90, for unless 
"Withra, 48, 216, Go. against, mth- 
stand, A.S. witlire, M.E. wither, 
resistance, E. withers 
AVitoda-fasteis, 27, Go. scribe, lawyer, 
witoth, the law, and fastan, to fast 
Witoda-laisareis, 27, Go. teacher of 
the law. Go. witoth, a law, from 
witan, to know, and laisjan, to 
teach 
Witters, 154, withers. Not in Jam. 
Wlappit, 53, wrapt, folded, lapwing, 
lapper, lappel, lappet, from Go. 
walwjan, to roll 
Wleiz-s, 18, Go. countenance, anda- 
wleizns, and, against, and wlitan, 
to look, Ger. Antlitz, M.E. anleth, 
A.S. white, brightness, beauty. 
Go. wlisjan, to smite in the face 
Wlispyt, 61, Barb, lisped 
fWludja, 17, Go. the countenance, is 
mistake in text for ludja, a var. of 
wlits. See wleiz-s 
Wochen-bett, 205, C. Du. See kraam 
Wods, 32, Go. w6ds, mad, Shak. 
wood, A.S. wod, Du. woede, Ger. 
Wuth. Or. sense of divine 
frenzy is in Woden, Odin, and 
Lat. vates, a seer 
Wok, 11, Go. pret. of wakan, to 
wake, watch, us-wakjan, to wake 
from sleep, Ger. wachen 
Won't can come, 169, Cu. idiom 
Wopjan, whoop, 30, Go. weep, Eng. 
whoop. Or. sense of weep was 
an outcry, lament 
Words and phrases, 197 
Words for relationship, 194 
Wort, 26, 48, E. root. See waurtja 
Worth, 48, obs. E. ; Go. wairthan, 
A.S. weorthan, Du. worden, Ger. 
werden, to become 
Wrack, 145, weeds piled up for 
burning, sea-weed, E. var. of 
im-eclc, Da. vrag, wreck, Ic. raqa, 
to throw away, raaga, drift weed 
Wrig, 133, 140, youngest of a litter 
or brood, Ic. raqa, to throw away 
as refuse. See wrack 
Writer, 72, chamber lawyer 
Wroh-jan, 30, Go. to accuse, from 



wrohs, an accusation, Ger. rtigen, 

to censure, Ic. f^raegja, A.S. 

wregan, E. be-wray 
Wud, 32 mad, furious 
Wuldor, 52, A.S. glory, praise. Go. 

wulthus 
Wulfs, 251, Go. ; E. wolf 
Wup, 33, to bind round with cord, 

E. whip, Go. weipan, to wreathe, 

wip-jo, a crown. Root, vi. to bind 
Wurr, wuz, mz-na, 51, 73, 74, 91 

168, for were 
Wurr'm, 80, worm 
Wyce, wise, 97, 106. See weiss 
Wyliecoat, 182, Cu. 
Wyrd, 23, fate. See -weird 



Yaar, 148. In Jam. as " Yaur (red), 
species of fucus used by children 
for painting their faces." Attrib. 
to Newhaven fishermen 

Yammer, 151, 221, C. Du. jaumer, 

or. yell, var. whimper 

" While the bairns wi' rmirnin' yammer 
RoTin' their sabbin mither flew." 

Ale'z. Wilson. 

Yclept, 84, O.E. p. part, of obs. verb 
clypian, to call 

Yea, 48, 56, A.S. geo, E. yea. Go. 
ja,jai,jah 

Yeld, 68, 132, a cow with milk dried 
up, Ic. gelde, giving no milk, 
Sw. gall, barren, Ger. gelf, said of 
a cow. Kluge gives the older 
Ger. form, gi-alt, as if from alt. 
See geld 

Yellow-yite, 124, 156, yellow-yorlin, 
yellow-hammer, yellow yoldrin. 
"No cross reference to yeldrin, 
and here, in small type, yellow- 
yite, the commonest name." (J. 
B. F.) 

Yorlin or Yarlin, 156. Prof. Cooper 
often heard these rhymes — 

" Yallow, yallow, yarlin, 
Drink a drap o deil's blood 
Ilka May mornin'." 

He adds the note that boys hated 
this bird, and used to stone it. 
This was a very widely diffused 
bit of folk-lore, a survival of the 
early legend that Judas Iscariot 



GLOSSAEY 



325 



was transformed into the bird, 
perhaps due to the yellow gaber- 
dine of the Mediseval Jew 

Yett, 62, var. of gate 

Yird, yirdit, 49, buried — Erde, var. 
of earth 

Yirp, 248, Bu. act of fretting, yirpin, 
fretful 

Yiss, 78, yes. Highland speaker 

Yode, 34, O.E. went 

" Yokin, a," 34, " he yohit on me." 
Jam. to engage in a quarrel; var. 
of yoke, to join, Go. waurda jinka, 
wordy strife 

Yon, 51, Go. jains, that, jaind, 
jaindre, yonder, Ger. jener 



Yooer, 177, 178, udder, in form like 
Du. uijer, North, yure, Ger. enter, 
like udder, follows the Teut. type 
udra 

Young, juggs. Go., 53, Ger. jung 

Yowe, 21, ewe, Lat. ovis. Go. awi-s, 
awi-str, awi-thi 

Yuckie, 153, itchy, also prov. E. ; 
Du. jeuken, Ger. jucken, to itch 



Zuipen, 210, Du. See seap, sijp 
Zwaar, 209, C. Du. ; Sc. sweer, in 

slightly different sense, comp. 

zwaarder 



■••V" Dr. Wm. Craigie, co-editor of " New English Dictionary," in a note 
to me, says, with reference to p. 5 of the text, where tun is compared with Go. 
tains and tain-jo, " Connexion between tun and tains is very doubtful, as the 
vowels do not belong to the same series." Again, with regard to the parallel, 
p. 14, between whet and white (a stick), "The former represents O.E. 
hwettan and the latter O.E. thwitan. The older form of whittle is thwitel, 
and Sc. whang =thong, early thwang." 

It is but fair to say that Dr. Craigie has seen only the first sheet or two 
of the text. 



SCOTO-FEENCH SECTION 



The head word is always Scots ; the French follows. Meanings will be 
found in the text. A few words have been introduced here though they 
have not been included in the text, but these are distinguished by the 
absence of any reference. 

The Glossary is intended to be taken as a whole, so that a word not 
found in the one section may be looked for in the other. 



Abillzeaments, 236, habillement 
Accrese, accresce, aocress, 239, ac- 

croissement 
Aiver, 21, 71, horse, goat, &c., O.F. 

avdr, avoir, property, "having," 

E. aver-age.~N. E.T). 
Allya, 228, 235, alli6 
Ashet, 239, assiette 
Aumous, 242, almesse, alms 
Awal, 65, 189, awald, of a sheep 

lying helpless on its back, avaler, 

F. to gulp down, descend, Lat. 
ad vallem, O.F. avaler, to descend, 
fall (Spenser) 

Awmrie, 235, 242, aumonerie ; 
aumry, chest, O.F. aumoiren, 
Lat. armarium, depot of arms 



B 



Babies, 231, babiole. It. babbeo, 
bauble, babble, " a pet form of babe 
from common root " 

Babuttis, 230, bibs, Fr. bavette 

Backet, bucket, 66, 68, 155, 209, 
in saut-backet, dim. of back, Du. 
bak, trough, tub, F. bao, ferry- 
boat, dim. baquet 

Bain, 66, 156, 209, Sc. a bucket, F. 
bain, It. bagno, Lat. balneum, 
bath, obsc. E. N.E.D. tub, Jam. 
boin, boyen, bine, washing tub 

Bajan, bejant, 75, 240, first-year 
student, bajan, F. bec-jaune, yellow 
beak, Ger. Gelb-Schnabel 

Banns, 74, same as ban, a pro- 



clamation, F. ban, Med. Lat. ban- 

num 
Barley, 240, parley, parler 
Bases, 236, base, "app. an E. 

application of base, 'bottom' to 

a short skirt from waist to knee." 

— N.E.D. 
Bass, a door - mat, Sc.-F. base, 

M.E. has, baas, basse 
Bavard, 230, F. baveur 
jBawbee, 240, has biUon. This origin 

questioned in N.E.D. 
Bawsent, bawson, 223, O.F. bauzan, 

It. balzano, Lat. balteus = striped 

with white 
Beaver, 240, bevoir 
Begyte, 150, Sc. foolish, "nasty 

begoyt creature," Bff. Fr. bigaut, 

ass or fool. — Jam. 
fBioker, 237, 238, bitch. M. Amours 

says, " I do not think F. becqtiee 

has anything to do with bitch or 

bicker." He notes, also, that " les 

trois Rois" refers to Twelfth Night 

or Epiphany (Jan. 6) 
Bilgets, 238, O.F. billete, billets. 
Boge, 230, bougie. 

Boise, 233, O.F. busse, buss, a fishing- 
boat, Dii. buis 
Bonet, 233, O.F. bonet 
Bonnie, 97, bonne, fair 
Bools, 127, 238, Sc; F. boule, Lat. 

bulla, a bubble, a round thing. 

-N.E.D. 
Boss, of a shield, 207 ; cf. emboss, 

F. bosse 
Bowie, 68, a milk-bowl, Sc. milk 

dish, usually referred to F. buie, 

but possibly dim. of bowl 



GLOSSAEY 



327 



Brace, 240, bras, O.F. brace, bras, 

"width, of the two arms 
Brash, in water-brash, 139, F. 

brfeche, broken stuff. — Imp. D. 
Brisket, 66, 201, Sc. chest, meaning 

and apparent form identical with 

Fr. brechet 
Bruit, 234, brute, bruit 
Bruttit, 236 
Buist, 231, 235, 237, O.F. bostia, 

boite 
Bowet, 240 

Butry, 240, biitor, a dull fellow 
Buye, 230, buie 



Cadie, 242, cadet, Lat. capitatus 
Gaisse, 233, O.F. casse, F. chSsse, 

Lat. capsa 
Callandia, 118, 229, callants, Du. 

kalant, a customer, F. chaland, 

prob. borr. from Du. 
Calsey,169, 237, 242, causey, chaussee, 

late Lat. calceata, stamped with 

the heel 
Caprus, 233, copperas, couperose, 

Diez's cupri rosa, more prob. cup- 

rosa, short for aqua c. = copper 

water, Ger. Kupfer-Wasser, and 

" assoc. with rose merely an etym. 

fancy."— N.E.D. 
Capitane, 236, O.F. capitaine 
Castoclts=chou-stocks, 68, 242, chou 
Certes, certie, 240, certes. " In 'my 

cerlies, my certie,' the word may 

be identical with certes, M.E. and 

O.F., but history of the phrase 

not clear."— N.E.D. 
Chaffing, 231, chauffer 
Chamer, chaumer, 229, chambre. 
Chandlers, 231, 232, O.F. chandelier, 

chandelle 
Chapelet, 233, Chapeau 
Chesbol, 236, the poppy, caisse. " In 

Prompt. Parv. cheese-bowl, but 

confounded with chibol, F. 

ciboule, Lat. csepuUa, onion bed, 

csepa, onion." — N.E.D. 
tCheetie-pussie, 68, 135, 240, chat. 

Prob. not from chat, but a mere 

call 
Chicknawd, 234, chiquenaude 
Chirurgeon, 238, O.F. cirurgien. 

The pron. ch=k is modern 



Choffer, 235 

Chyres, 232, O.F. cha-ife-re, chaire in 

eccles. sense, Lat. cathedra 
Cissills, 232, O.F. cisel, F. ciseau, 

Lat. csedo, to cut 
Close, 240, clos 
Cog, 68, bucket ; prob. same as 

cog, or cock-boat, O.F. cogue, Ic. 

kug-gr, a ship. — N.E.D. 

" I ^ie them a skelp as they're creepin' 
Wi' a cog o' guid swats." — " Auld Sang." 

Coggie, 160, dim. 

Condie, 120, 172, 240, conduit, F. 

conduire 
Contigue, 239, contigue 
Corbie, 242, corbeau, O.F. corb, 

corbin, corbel 
Corf, 229, corbeille 
Cowe, 68, Jam. cow, twig, broom, 

besom (curler's), O.F. coe, F. 

queue 
Cracklins, cracknel, 130, F. craque- 

lin, or a var. of Du. krakeling, 

crackle 
Cramoisie, cramasie, 229, cramoisi 
Oreesh, 68, 81, grease, 63, O.F. 

craisse=graisse, fat, Lat. crassus, 

grassus, Gael, cr^is. 
Crusie, 135, F. creuset, crucible; 

O.F. cruseul, creuseau, craicet, E. 

cresset 
Cry, 87, dcrier 
Cummers, 74, 121, 205, 240, F. 

commfere 
Curchessis, 230, O.F. couvrechds, pi. 

of couvrechef 
Custock, 68, 242, kale stock, cabbage 

stalk, chou, Lat. caulis 



D 



Deas, deece, 155, generally a long 
seat or bench, O.F. deis, F. dais, Lat. 
discus, a quoit, later Lat. a table 

Delaverly, 153, Bff. ; O.F. delivre, 
free, at liberty, obsc.. — N.E.D. 
M.E. delaverly, in an overflowing 
manner.- E.D.D. "That Mr. 
Waverley looks clean made and 
deliver." — Scott 

Devald, deval, 153, Bff.; North, 
stopped, left off, F. devaler, to 
descend, devall, to cease. "The 



328 



GLOSSAEY 



last of the old Dvikes of Gordon 
used to quote the saying in the 
text here as said by one of his 
farmers in the Cabrach on a wet 
season." — Prof. Cooper 

Disjonis, disjune, 230, 235, dejeCmev, 
Lat. jejunus, fasting 

Dite, 239, O.F. dit, saying. "After 
1500 only So."— N.E.D. 

Dornick, 230, cloth of Tournay 

Douce, 242, doux, O.F. dols, Lat. 
dulcis, sweet 

Dour, 97, 242, North. F. dur, hard 

Dresser, 1, 155 ; O.F. dresseur, F. 
dressoir, Med. Lat. directorium 

Drogs, 238, drogues — in use in 14th 
0. ; or. uncertain 

Dule-weid, 106, 230, weed of deuil 

Dool, dole, 242, O.F. doel, Lat. 
dolium, grief 

Dusty-foot, 184, Sc.-Fr. trans, of pie 
poudreux, pede pulverosus= pie- 
powder 

Dyvour, 72, 115, 240, 242, devoir, 
"or. unoert. — may be same as diver 
= drowned in debt."— N.E.D. 

E 

•[Eglantine, 26, last syll. not conn, 
with tine. Go. tains, as given in 
text, but from O.F. aiglantier, 
L. Lat, aoulentus, j)rickly 

Entress = enter and -ess, after duresse, 
largesse, "chiefly So. — right to 
enter."— N.E.D. 

Essay, 236, essaie 

Essonyie, 33, essoin, Go. sunja, trath, 
sunj6u, to excuse (may be O.H.G.), 
O.F. essoyner, from ex and sonia, 
sunnis, lawful excuse. — N.E.D. 

Evite, 239, eviter, Lat. evitare. " In 
18th-19th 0. almost peculiar to So. 
writers "—N.E.D. 

Exeem, 239, exempter, Lat. eximere. 
"Chiefly Sc."—N.E.D. 

Exerce, 239, O.F. exercer, Lat. 
exeroere; "Chiefly Sc."— N.E.D. 

Exoner, 239, exon(5rer, Sc. law term 

Expede, 239, expddier, Sc. law term 

F 

Fagots, 135, 182, F. bundle of sticks. 
In Cumb. faggot is a term of 



reproach, corroborating the Camp- 
beltown interpretation given in 
the text. N.E.D. has, "a term of 
abuse app. to a woman " 
Fascherie, fachous, fashous, 86, 97, 
240, O.F. fascherie, faoheux, fSoh- 
eux, fftcher : — 

"Troth, Caesar, whiles they're fashed 
eneuch."— " Twa Dogs." 

Fattrels, 240, O.F. fatraille, fatras = 
things of no value 

Fent, 240, f ente, Lat. findere, to split 

Fleggearis, 230, flfeche 

Fond, foond, 238, fond, foundation ; 
superseded in 18th c. by fund, 
Lat. fundus 

Foy, 208, O.Du. foey, a compact, 
from foi, faith, covenants being 
confirmed by eating and drink- 
ing together 

Frenges, 232,238, O.F. frenge, frange, 
Lat. fimbria, border 

Fushonless, 186, 240, foison 



G 

Gabarts, 232, capjpers, gabare 
Gadge, 238, O.F. gauge, F. jauge 
Gag, 127, 155, 240, gage, also gig, 
geg ; pledge in security, F. gage, 
var. of wage, wed, O.F. g(u)age, 
Go. wadja. Fife term in boys' 
game, "smoogle the gag," else- 
where, as in the West, pronounced 
"geg." The Glasgow term, "gegg," 
a trick, quoted in N.E.D., but 
not now so used, may be a var. 
of geek, begeck, in sense of hoax, 
play a trick on, and therefore not 
connected with "gag," "geg." — 
N.E.D. ^^ ^ ° 

Gansel, gansald, gansallin, 136, 140, 
insolent retort, prop, garlic sauce 
for goose, O.F. ganse aillie, later, 
gance d'aulx, in same sense ; ailia 

farlic. Kl. "Ger. giinsel, from 
lat. consolida, whioli name the 
old herbalists applied to all heal- 
ing plants 
Ganzeis, 230, arrows, prob. contr. of 
eiigin ; of. Burns's " gin-horse." 
" Obsc. or. — an Ir. gainne of 
similar meaning, but word not 
known in O.F."— N.E.D. 



GLOSSARY 



329 



Gawkie, 242, gauche. " Of difficult 

etym., conn. \\'itli gauche has grave 

difficulties."— N.E.D. 
Geans, 127, wild cherry, O.F. guigne 
Gey, 74, intensive, very, tolerable, 

middling, var. of gay, F. gai 

(from 12th c.) 
Gloy, 62, Ore. straw ropes. Not in 

Jam. F. (dial.) glui, barley straw, 

prob. Flem. and N., and thus 

came to So. 

'* Quhais rufis laitly full roucli thykyt war, 
Wytb stra or gloy by Romulus the wycht." 
Doug. Aen., 8, 11, 31. 

Giglot, 137, a romping girl, F. 

gigelot (14th c), conn, with giggle 
Girnel, 135, garnel, sp. So. a bin 

for corn, meal, or salt, influenced 

by F. grenaille, refuse corn, O.F. 

grenier, Lat. granarium 
Gote, 172, goat, a ditch, water-way, 

O.F. gote, goutti&re, gutter 
Gree, 242, O.F. gre, Lat. gradus, a 

step. 
Grogram, 231, gros-grain 
Grozets, 127, 240, grossarts, groser, 

grozart, sp. So. gooseberry, F. 

groseille, with r for I 
Gusty, 242, gout 

H 

Hallion, halones, 160, idle, worthless 
fellow ; or. unoert. Of. F. haillon, 
rag.— N.E.D. 

Hashy, 151, untidy, hash, some- 
thing cut up into small pieces — 
verb, to hash ; F. hacher, hache, 
hatchet 

fHaverel, 240, poisson d'avril 

Hogmanay, 104, last day of the year, 
cake-day ; obsc, but app. of F. 
origin. — N.E.D. 

Hotch, 178, 242, Du. hotsen, to jog, 
jolt, Ger. dial, hotzen, F. hocher, 
to shake.— N.B.D. 

" To pay the hygane towmont'a rent, 
John Doo cam hotohin' east." 

Hurcheon, 234, hdrisson 



Jambs, 135, 240, 241, sides of a fire- 
place, as if legs, jambe, F. ; Gael. 
camb, crooked ; late Lat. gamba, 
hoof, leg 



Jigot, 241, gigot 

Jootelegs, 242, Jacques de Liege 

Joist, 241, O.F. ■ 



Lettron, 238, lutrin, O.F. letrin 
Lowe, 53, 234, allouer 
Lozen, 139, var. of lozenge, F. 
losange 



M 

Maister, 134, 209, maltre 
Mashlum, mazlin, 183, coarse cake 

made of mixed grains, O.F. mesteil, 

F. ni^teil, Du. masteluin, Lat. 

mistus, mixed 
Mell, maU, 133, Shet., a broad fist, 

mason's mallet, cog. with maul and 

with F. mail 
MeU, 242, meler 
fMessan, 183, Jam. from Messina or 

F. maison, N.E.D. prob. a house, 

Gael, meas-an, meas-chu, a lap-dog 
Mishanter, 92, corr. of misadventure, 

O.F. mesaventure 

"For nivver syne ever they ca'd as they 
came, 
Did sic a mishap and mishanter bef a' me." 

Mooter, multure, 70, mill-fee for 

grinding corn, O.F. molture, F. 

mouture, Lat. molitura 
Mowles, 234, mule 
Mummers, 104, actors in dumb show, 

"F. mommeur, prob. of Teut. 

or.=mum."— N.E.D. 
Muntar, 237, montre 



N 

Nappie, 198, ale, prop, a wooden 
bowl, A.S. hnaep, Du. nap, a 
drinking cup, O.F. hanap. Low 
Lat. hanapus, E. hanaper, 
hamper 

Nottar, 238, notaire 







Oblissis, obUsohement, 236, 239, 
obliger 

22 



330 



GLOSSAEY 



Olfend, 21, A.S. camel, O.F. 

olifant, elephant, M.E. olifaimt, 

Go. ulubandus 
Oralog, 229, horloge 
Osill, 234, oiseau 



Pace, 241, peser 

Paitrick, 124, 234, partridge, per- 

drix 
Palmer, 104, tawse, ferula, pawmie, 

Lat. palma, F. paume 
Panse, 237, panser 
Pantonis, 229, 234, patin, a skate 
Parisli, pairish, 241, paroisse 
Parsell, 234, persil, parsley 
Pasoh, 15, 186, 229, Paque for 

Pasque, Go. Paska= Easter 
Passments, 233, passementerie 
Pauchlin, 212. Jam. — Under 

bachle, a pendicle, O.F. bachle, 

as much land as twenty oxen 

could plough in an hour 
Pawmie, 134, paume, Lat. palma 
Pawrlies, 130, parlies, var. of parlia- 
ment cake, parler 
Peevor, 127, pavenr, F., syn. with 

pealall, girl's game 
Pend, 241, pendre 
Pery, 238, pirouette 
Petticoat-tails, 241, petits gateaux 
Pie-powder, 184. See dusty foot 
Plack, copper coin = 4d., Sc, introd. 

by Fleming's plaque, a "metal 

dish " 
Plash, 173, Ou. to trim a hedge, to 

intertwine branches, O.F. plais- 

sier, Lat. plectere, cog. pleach. — 

Shah. 
Plumbe damies, 232, prune de damas 
Poopit, 73, Sc. pulpit, Fr. pupJtre 
Popinjay,241,papegai,papingo,from 

O.F. papegau 
Pottage, 85, 235, potage 
Pouches 123, poche 
Protticks, 84, Sc. 
Prattick, 93, Gael. Jam. prattik, 

F. pratique, astrology 
Provost, 80, O.F. prevost, pr6v6t, 

Lat. prsepositus, a prefect 
Pup^ettis, puppie, 231, 241, poupde 
Pursie, 234, pourcif, for M.F. poussif 



R 



Ribbet, dressed corner-stones in a 
building ; raboter, to plane 

Rose, a watering-can, arroser, lit. 
to bedew. " Gang and rooser the 
claise on the green." — Gr. 



S 



Saim, 130, sayme, pro v. E. seam, lard, 
fat ; Lat. sagina, fatness, F. sain. 
It. saime 

Sasine, 73, So. law term, O.F. saisir, 
saisine, L. Lat. sacire, to put in 
possession, seised — Shak. 

Say, 230, sole 

Sconce, 202, E.— "a small fort. Da. 
skandse, Ger. Schanze, a fort, prob. 
O.F. esconser, to hide" — Sk. 
See sconce 

Sooryettis, 237, O.F. escorcher. 
" 6 buistis scrotcheitis and con- 
fectis presentit to my Lord Duke 
Chatterlhaut in this town." — 
" Glasgow Records," 1574 

Servet, 235, serviette 

Siedge, 235, sifege; a seat. — Spenser 

Sklate, 241, eclater 

Sorn, 69, 201, to sponge upon, sornin, 
sponging, sorners, parasites, O.F. 
sorner, to cheat, sournois, mali- 
cious. It. sornione, a sneak 

Sowder, 234, soother, soudure 

Spaul, 241, ^paule 

Stoep, 25, 188, 207, C. Du. (5tape, 
a halting place 

Stour, 56, dust (of battle), O.F. 
estour, Teut. or. 

Suker, 232, sucre 

Suldarts, 234, soldart 

Suplee, 239, supisl^er 

Sybows, 241, ciboule, O.F. cibo, Lat. 
cepa ; cf. chesbol, a poppy 

Syer, 238, O.F. essuier, esuer 



Taffetas, 230, taffetaa. " Ane hand 
senyie (Fr. enseigne) of talfitie 
of the tonnes cuUouris." — 
"Stirling Records," 1622 



GLOSSAEY 



331 



Tailzeour, 92, 230, teelyir, tiler, teil- 

leur 
Tap, 238, toupie 

Tansy,^148, O.F. tanasie, athanasie, 
Gr. dOavaa-la, immortality. Not 
in Jam. 
Tapischere, 230, tapisserie 
Tarre, 69, tirran, Ore. to cross, pro- 
voke. Under "tarry," Skeat 
shows it is due to confusion of 
M.E. tarien, to irritate, and M.E. 
targen, to delay, from O.F. targer, 
Mod. F. tarder, L. Lat. tardicare, 
tardus, slow. We also find O.F. 
tarier, to vex. Of. O.Sc. targe, to 
beat, rate severely. "Tarveal, 
fretful."— "Elgin K. S. Records" 
Tassis, 230, tasse 
fTawpie, 136, 242, taupe; French 

or. doubtful 
Thrammels, thrammel, 147, stall- 
fastening of a cow, E. trammel, 
F. tramail, a net, Sc. trammel- 
net 
Tinoler, 232, dtinoelle 
Tirlets, 236, tiraiUer 
Tooly, toolye, tulzie, 107, 184, 241, Cu. 
combat, a quarrel, broil. Jam. 
O.F. touiller, to mix 
Toy, 243, toque. Da hoved-toi, 
headdress 



Trances, 135, 146, a passage inside 

a house, F. transe 
TraveUoure, 232, 236, travaiUeur 
Trebuchet, 232, tr^buchet 
Trencher, 231, 235, tranchoir 
Truncheor, 235 
Treviss, 131. 140, 176, 241, O.F. tref, 

Lat. trabs, a beam 
Triacle, treckle, 234, triacle, 

" treacle," Cot., Mod. F. th&iaque 
Tripans, 231, trypan 
Trockit, 151, bartered, F. troquer, 

to barter, E. truck 
Turcusses, 231, O.F. torser 
Tureen, 241, terrine 
Turse, 231, O.Fr. trusser, torser 

(Lat. tortiare, to twist, bind up) ; 

cf. tirr 
Turner, 241, tournois 
Tweel, 241, toile 
Twis, 230, dtui 

V 

Vacations, 128, long holidays at 

school, Fr. vacanoe 
Valour, 236, valeur 
|Vie, 23. Not, as in text, conn. 

with Go., but contracted from 

O.F. envie, M.F. envier, Lat. in- 

vitare 



*V® I have to thank Mons. F. J. Amours, B.A., for carefully revising 
the foregoing section (8c. Fr.) in the light of his exceptional knowledge 
of old and modern French as well as of Lowland Scots. 



PRINTED BY WILLIAM GREEN AND SONS, EDINBURGH.