Glossary
The student of Scots dialect will not always find the quoted vernacular running through the text quite pure, many words having been unconsciously modified by a too free use of phonetic spelling.
A
Adder-stane, the adder-bead charm.
Adowe, stir.
Airless, heirless.
Airt, direction.
Anon, immediately, thereupon.
Ask, newt.
Ava, at all.
Awsomly, in fear.
B
Backgane, not thriving, wasting.
Bags, entrails.
Bayillis, bailies.
Bees Bizin’, noises in the head caused by alcohol.
Beldam, an old woman.
Beltane, the festival of May first.
Bek, bake.
Benison, prognostication for good.
Benshee, a banshee or fairy, really an Irish fairy.
Berry, thresh.
Besome, broom.
“Best Aucht,” the most valuable possession, usually a horse or ox, claimed by the superior on the death of a farm tenant.
Bickering, moving noisily.
Bien, prosperous.
Biggit, built.
Binwud, ivy.
Black-Spauld (Spaul), a pleuritic disease of cattle.
Blew Spot, a significant witch-mark also another term for “dede-nip.”
Blinmens’ Baws, common puff-ball (devil’s snuff-box).
Blinking, attractive, comely.
Bluidy-fingers, foxglove.
Bogle-bo, hobgoblin.
Boor-tree, elder-tree.
Bowcail, cabbage.
Bowte, to strike against.
Brattle, a clattering sound.
Breckan, bracken.
Breers, briars
“Brocken,” the important mediæval place of witch festival in Germany (see Faust).
Brose, pease-meal mixed with boiling water.
Bumbee, humble-bee.
Butter-skep, butter-basket.
Byke, a wasp’s or bee’s nest.
C
“Ca cuttie ca,” called upon to eat freely, even greedily.
“Cannie Moment,” significant time.
Cantie, canty, contentedly.
Cantrip, charm or spell.
Cap, caup, a wooden bowl.
Carle, a man.
Certes, certainly.
Champit, bruised.
Channel-stane, curling-stone.
Chessel, the tub for pressing cheese.
Chicken-wort, chicken-weed.
Chist (Kist), a wooden box.
Chowed, chewed.
Clowt, cloth.
Cog, a wooden domestic vessel.
Cogfu’, the full of such a vessel.
Compeared, appeared.
Coupe, to empty or capsize.
Couters, thick mucous secretion.
Couthie, in rude comfort.
Cower, to bend down.
Cowes, bushes, more particularly of the broom.
Cowsherne, cow-dung.
Craft, croft or field.
Crone, hag, old woman.
Crousely, proudly.
“Crummie,” a term for cows with usually crooked horns.
Crune, a murmuring sound, sometimes threatening.
Cruppen, contracted.
D
Dead-beli, See text, pages 210 to 213.
Dede-chack, See text, pages 210 to 213.
Dede-drap, See text, pages 210 to 213.
Deid-licht, See text, pages 210 to 213.
Dede-nip, See text, pages 210 to 213.
Dede-spall, See text, pages 210 to 213.
Dede-speal, See text, pages 210 to 213.
Dead-watch, See text, pages 210 to 213.
Deil’s Milk, milky sap.
Dempster, judge.
Deeray, disorder.
Divination, conjuration.
Dome, doom.
Donnert, stupid.
Door (Dour) here used (page 59) in the sense of sour or astringent.
Drabbled, slobbered.
Drubbing, thrashing.
Drugget, coarse woollen cloth.
Drumlie, thick.
Dwined, pined away or wasted.
E
Een, eyes.
“Effigies Clericorum,” a mock poem on the clergie when they met to consult about taking the Test in the year 1681 (printed A.D. MDCXVII.).
Elfin, fairy.
Esheite, forfeited.
F
Fald, fold.
Farintosh, whisky.
Fash, trouble.
Fearie, used here (page 203) in the sense of fearless.
Feat, tidy.
Feats, clever doings.
Fecket, under-jacket.
Fen, to strive hard for the means of livelihood.
Fey, a small field or croft.
Fient, no one at all.
Firsle, to rustle.
Fleyed, frightened.
Flutterbaws, puff-balls (see blinmens’ baws).
Foggy, mossy.
Forfochten, exhausted.
Fowk, people.
Frenziet, eccentric, mad.
Fumart, pole-cat.
G
Gall, bile.
Gars, makes or compels.
Gaur, to compel.
Gellocks, earwigs.
Girn, girning, whining, or fretting.
Glamour, bewitchment.
Gled, kite.
Glented, sparkled, gleamed.
Glower, to gaze intently.
Gowan, mountain daisy.
Gowk’s Spittles, plant froth (discharged by an insect, Cicada).
Greets, cries or weeps.
Grinwan, a noose of horse-hair attached to a stick or rod.
Grun, ground, referring to the grinding of grain.
Gyre-carline, a mother-witch.
H
Haed, possessed.
“Haggert wee granum,” a rather ragged small old woman.
Hag-ridden, bewitched (lit., ridden by a witch).
Hald, hall.
Hale, well, in good health.
Hallow-eve, the night before All-Hallow.
Halve, a hand-fishing net on a wooden frame.
Hannie, suitable, a fitting time.
Hantle, much.
Haurned, roasted.
Haurpan, brain-pan or skull.
Hawcket, probably finely chopped.
Haws, fruit of the hawthorn.
Herezeld, the best beast on the land, given to the landlord on the death of a farm tenant.
Heriot, the fine exacted by the superior on the death of a tenant.
Herrie, confiscate.
Heugh, a small height or eminence.
Hip o’, shoulder or edge of.
Hinnie-suckles, honeysuckle.
Hoose-riggin’, roof.
Hooves, abdomen, (lit., swollen by gaseous distension).
Howe, depth.
Houk, to dig up.
Howlet, an owl.
Hows, house.
Hynt, caught up.
I
Ilk, the same name.
Ill e’e, evil eye.
J
Jimp, neat and slender.
Jow, ringing of a bell.
K
Kain, rent or exchange in kind.
“Kelly,” Satan, Old Nick.
Kep Skaith, avert evil.
Keppit, caught.
Kilted, tucked up.
Kimmer, witch-wife or “gossip.”
Knag, keg, or wooden vessel.
“Knock the Big,” to hull the barley.
Kow, a goblin.
Kye, cows or oxen.
L
Lair, quagmire, to entice into a quagmire.
Lammastide, August, beginning of.
Lave, remainder.
Lift, vault of the heavens.
Lingle, leather-thong.
Lochen, small loch or tarn.
Loofie, fingerless glove.
Loupes, jumps.
Louring, lowering of clouds.
Louthe, abundance.
Lowne, silent, still.
Lowse, loosen.
Lugs, ears.
M
Malefices, offences.
Malison, prognostication for evil.
Mart, a fattened ox (killed at Martinmas for winter use).
Maun, must.
Maut, meal.
Meal-ark, meal chest.
Meall, male.
Meikle, much.
Meil, meal.
Mettle, with spirit.
“Milked the Tether,” extracted the milk by witchcraft through the halter.
Minnie, mother.
Mools, earth or soil.
Mort-Cloth, funeral pall.
Mou’, mouth.
Muir-ill, a disease specially affecting black cattle.
N
Naig, riding-horse or nag.
Napple-roots, heath peas.
Neers, kidneys.
Neist, nearest or next.
Nettle-stingers, nettle leaves.
Nieve, hand or fist.
Nob, nose, also boat’s prow.
Nool-shearings, horn parings.
Nowt, oxen (a corrupt form is noat).
O
O’erswak, sound of breakers.
Onstead, home or farm-steading.
P
Paddock, a frog.
Pawky, shrewd and crafty.
Pawt, movement of foot, kick.
Philibeg, a pouch worn in front of a kilt.
Pickle, small quantity.
Pig, an earthenware vessel.
Pingle, a small pan.
Pirn, a reel.
Pizion, poison.
Plotcock, the Devil.
Poulder, gun-powder.
Poyntis, points.
Pow, head or skull.
Preens, pins.
Puddocks (Yellow), here (page 58) probably the toad-stool fungus.
Pyckering, pilfering.
Pyet, magpie.
Pyked, picked.
Q
Quarter-ill, a disease of cattle affecting one limb or quarter only.
Queen (Quean), girl, damsel.
R
Rasps, raspberries.
“Rave the Thack,” tear the thatch.
Reamin, full to overflowing.
Rede, wild.
Rede, counsel.
Reid, red.
Remeid, remedy.
Riddle, sieve.
Riddle-turning, divination by means of a riddle balanced on the points of scissors.
Rinnen Doon (Darn), a disease of cattle with diarrhœa present.
Rippish, cleanly.
Resset, receive.
Rossen, clump of thorns.
Routh, abundance.
Rowans, mountain-ash berries.
Rue, regret.
Rydand, riding.
Rye-bowt (Rybat), hewn stone.
S
Sain, to make the sign of the cross.
Sall, shall.
Samin, same.
Sark, shirt or chemise.
Saugh, willow.
Sawns, sands.
Scaith, injury.
Scaum, thin mist.
Scarrow (Scarrie), stony incline.
Sclater, wood-louse.
Scrunked, dried (lit., shrunk).
Segg, yellow iris plant.
Sheip, sheep.
Shearings, clippings or parings.
Shieling, a shepherd’s hut.
Shilped (Shilpit), puny and shrunken.
“Sich and Grein,” sigh and regret.
Side-ill, a disease of cattle named from the situation of the disease.
Siew, sieve.
Sindrie, sundry.
Skaith, injury.
Skellet, dead-bell.
Skimes, side-glances.
Skirl, a shrill cry.
Slade, glided.
Slaverin’, saliva running down.
Slockened, quenched, i.e., put out.
Sludge, miry-mud.
Smoored, smothered.
Sorning, exacting free board and lodging.
Sough, moaning as of wind.
Sowens, a dish made by steeping, fermenting, and then boiling the husks or siftings of oats in water.
Spangs, leaps or bounds.
Spatter’d, dropped.
Spence, country parlour.
Spurtle, porridge-stick.
Stance, stand.
Starnies, stars.
Stavering, sauntering.
Stick and Stowre, completely.
Straughted, straightened in preparation for burial.
Stricken Hour, a full hour.
Stue, stew or concoction.
Sughs, moaning of the wind.
Swarfed, swooned.
Sweir, reluctant.
Switching, threshing with a thin stick or switch.
Syne, afterwards.
T
Tade, toad.
Tail-ill, a disease of animals affecting the tail.
“Tak’ the Gait,” peremptory dismissal.
Tain Alowe, caught fire.
Tappin, the crest of a hill.
Tate, spot (lit., a small lock of hair).
Thackless, roofless.
Thigging, begging.
Thraw, a twist.
Threid, thread.
Thrissles, thistles.
Tirled, rattled at the door.
Tod, a fox.
Toom, empty.
Touk of Drum, sound of drum.
Tredded, trodden.
Trysted, made an appointment with.
U
Unca, unusually.
Unchancy, ill-omened.
Unsonsy, ill-proportioned.
Unyirthly, unearthly.
V
Vaunty, inclined to be boastful.
Vacans, holidays.
W
Walpurgis Night, Eve of First of May, a night of witch revelry (see witch Sabbath).
Wauchie, clammy.
Warbles, a parasitic worm disease of cattle.
Water-ill, a disease of the kidneys in cattle.
Wattles, wooden roof supports on which the thatch is placed.
Whomel’d, turned round and round (lit., upset).
Whorled, wheeled or spun.
Wight, man or fellow.
Wind a Clew, a witchcraft rite in which a reel of coloured thread is wound.
Winglan, walking feebly.
Wirreit, strangled.
Wis, know.
Witch’s Sabbath, the gathering together of all the witches of Scotland on the evening between the first Friday and Saturday of April.
Withre-shines, contrarily (lit., against the sun’s course).
Wons, dwells.
Wylie, wily.
Wyme, belly.
Wyte, blame.
Y
Yaird, yard or garden.
Yell, barren, dry.
Yestreen, last night.
Yill-boat, ale-barrel or brewing tub.
Yirbs, herbs.
Yowled, howled.
Yule, Christmas, also Hogmanay (December 31st).
Footnotes
1 The Well of the Co’, Kirkmaiden, once much celebrated for the healing and medicinal properties of its waters.
2 These berries make excellent preserves.
3 Heather after being burned.
4 “Confessions of Isobell Goudie.”
5 Dwining.
6 Shall be.
7 Stubble.
8 Kiln.
9 Sighing.
10 A famous haunt of witches in the parish of Rerwick.
11 Extract from King James’s Daemonologie concerning Sorcery and Witchcraft (1597):—
“The persons that give themselves to witchcraft are of two sorts, rich and of better accompt, poore and of baser degree. These two degrees answere to the passions in them, which the divell uses as means to entice them to his service: for such of them as are in great miserie and povertie, he allures to follow him, by promising unto them great riches and worldly commoditie. Such as though rich, yet burne in a desperate desire of revenge, he allures them by promises to get their turne satisfied to their heart’s contentment.”
12 “The witch mark is sometimes like a blewspot, or a little tate, or reid spots, like flea-biting; sometimes also the flesh is sunk in, and hallow, and this is put in secret places, as among the hair of the head, or eyebrows, within the lips, under the armpits, et sic de ceteris.” Mr Robert, minister at Aberfoill, in his Secret Commonwealth, describes the witch’s mark—“A spot that I have seen as a small mole, horny, and brown-coloured; through which mark, when a large brass pin was thrust (both in buttock, nose, and rooff of the mouth) till it bowed and became crooked, the witches, both men and women nather felt a pain nor did bleed, nor knew the precise time when this was being done to them (their eyes only being covered).”—Law’s “Memorials,” ed. by C. Kirkpatrick Sharpe.
13 The extreme penalty took two forms. The condemned were either in the first place strangled or, to use an old expression, “wirreit” and then burned; or, worse still, they were straightway burned quick (alive).
14 Thessr = Treasurer.
15 Printed in Dumfries by his brother, Robert Rae, 1718.
16 The Parish of Glencairn, Rev. John Monteith.
17 Coshogle mansion-house or keep, belonging to the Douglases, was situated on the hill overhanging the Enterkine burn, above the farm-house of the same name. A marriage stone, built into a cottage wall, is all that remains of the structure.
18 Sir James Douglas of Parkhead, styled Lord Torthorwald as having married the heiress of that barony, was afterwards run through the body on the High Street of Edinburgh by a nephew of Captain James Stewart, and died without uttering one word. On clearing away the rubbish, which till lately covered the pavement of the Chapel at Holyrood House, his tombstone was found, with this mutilated inscription:—“Heir lyes ane nobil and potent Lord James Douglas—and Cairlell and Torthorall wha mariet Daime Elizabeth Cairlell, air and heretrix yr. of, wha was slaine in Edinburgh ye 14 day of July, in ye yeir God 1608.”—Law’s Memories.
19 Another theory associates the fairies with the dwarfish Lapps or Finns who, driven out of their own country, settled in the outlying districts of Scotland.
20 The mother of William Nicholson the poet, a native of Borgue, where her family had long been settled, and a woman of great intelligence, often told that in her day there lived a man belonging to Borgue parish whose mother and grandmother had been examined before the Kirk-Session regarding his having been carried away by the fairies.
21 “Brownie” here synonymus with “Fairy.”
22 Langhill (now Longhill), adjacent to the Rispain Roman Camp, about a mile from Whithorn on the Glasserton Road.
23 Roodmass: The festival of the finding of the Holy Cross (May 3rd).
24 “When the mother’s vigilance hinders the fairies from carrying her child away, or changing it, the touch of fairy hands and their unearthly breath make it wither away in every limb and lineament like a blighted ear of corn, saving the countenance, which unchangeably retains the sacred stamp of divinity. The way to cure a breath-blasted child is worthy of notice. The child is undressed and laid out in unbleached linen new from the loom. Water is brought from a blessed well, in the utmost silence, before sunrise, in a pitcher never before wet; in which the child is washed, and its clothes dipped by the fingers of a maiden. Its limbs, on the third morning’s experiment, plump up, and all its former vigour returns.”—Allan Cunningham, in “Cromek’s Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song.”
25 The leaden figure of a man connected with a cascade, once a prominent feature of the gardens.
26 Simpson’s History of Sanquhar.
27 The “Brownie” of Scotland corresponds with the “Robin Goodfellow” of England.
“Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And, stretched out all the chimney’s length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And crop-full out of door he flings
Ere the first cock his matin rings.”
—Il Penseroso
28 A communion cup, belonging to M‘Millan, the well-known ousted minister of Balmaghie, and founder of a variety of the species Covenanter. This cup was treasured by a zealous disciple in the parish of Kirkcowan, and long used as a test by which to ascertain the orthodoxy of suspected persons. If, on taking the precious relic into his hand, the person trembled, or gave other symptoms of agitation, he was denounced as having bowed the knee to Baal, and sacrificed at the altar of idolatry; and it required, through his future life, no common exertion in the good cause, to efface the stigma thus fixed upon him.—Note to original edition.
29 Several striking examples of wraith appearance may be found in Wilson’s Folk-lore of Uppermost Nithsdale (1904).
30 A wonderfully graphic account of a manifestation of “deid lichts” to a Dumfries lady occurs in the Dumfries and Galloway Monthly Magazine, 1822, p. 169.
31 The dog.
32 “Open lock, end strife,
Come death and pass life.”
—“Meg Merrilees” in Guy Mannering.
33 There seems to have been some variation in this usage. On the Borders, for example, the door was usually left wide open. (See Preparatory Note to “Young Bengie,” Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.)
34 Bearing upon this last statement of Mr Dudgeon’s, the writer has been told of a comparatively recent instance in the parish of Anwoth.
35 “In the second session of the first Parliament of James VII., held at Edinburgh, 1686, an Act was passed called the ‘Act for Burying in Scots Linen,’ in which it was ordained, for the encouragement of the linen manufactures within the kingdom, that no person whatsoever, of high or low degree, should be buried in any shirt, sheet, or anything else, except in plain linen or cloth, of Hards made and spun within the kingdom, and without lace or point. There was specially prohibited the use of Holland, or other linen cloth made in other kingdoms: and of silk, woollen, gold, or silver, or any other stuff than what was made of Hards spun and wrought within the kingdom, under the penalty of 300 pounds Scots for a nobleman, and 200 pounds for every other person for each offence. One-half of this penalty was to go to the informer, and the other half to the poor of the parish of where the body should be interred. And, for the better discovery of contraveners, it was ordained that every minister within the kingdom should keep an account and register of all persons buried in his parish. A certificate upon oath, in writing, duly attested by two “famous” persons, was to be delivered by one of the relatives to the minister within eight days, declaring that the deceased person had been shrouded in the manner prescribed; which certificate was to be recorded without charge. The penalty was to be sued for by the minister before any judge competent; and if he should prove negligent in pursuing the contraveners within six months after the interment, he himself was liable for the said fine.”—Life and Times of Rev. John Wightman, D.D., of Kirkmahoe.
36 Scots money, equal to one-twelfth value of our present currency, abandoned after 1760.
37 Cere-cloth—a cloth smeared with wax, put upon the body after a modified embalming, only used, on account of its expense, by the rich.
38 “An old antiquarian friend, long since dead, told me that Sir Robert had grown so corpulent in his latter days that his body could not be decently carried down the winding stair for burial; and that accordingly a portion of the wall between the two windows looking on to the Plainstones had to be temporarily removed, and that through the wide vacancy thus created the coffin was lowered down. My informant, who was old enough to remember all about the taking down of the lodging in 1826, added that the appearance of the wall between the windows justified the tradition.”—Letter from Wm. M‘Dowall, Esq., author of the History of Dumfries, to Lieut.-Col. Alexander Fergusson, author of the Laird of Lag.
39 A corrupt form of the Latin “dirige,” from a Catholic chant for the dead.
40 A commonly used term for the dead bell is “skellat.”
41 The bell here referred to was the old bell of St. Ninian, the “Clog Rinny” or bell of Saint Ninian, made of malleable iron coated with bronze, and which only measured 6½ inches in height. It is mentioned in the accounts of James IV.: “March 17, 1506, in Penyghame to ane man that bure Saint Ninian’s bell IX.s.” It was in existence at old Penninghame in 1684 when Symson wrote, one hundred and seventy years after. It is described and illustrated in Wilsons’ Prehistoric Annals of Scotland (1857).
42 Curiously enough, a few years ago, workmen engaged in the Portpatrick water and drainage scheme stumbled upon a large cavernous space at the very place where the reputed sounds of the ghostly pipe music were heard.
43 Lodnagappal (Celtic): The swamp of the horses.
44 Patiesthorn, situated at the north end of Parton Mill, overlooking Drumrash and Skirmers and the Ken below Kenmure Castle. There is no house now—only Patiesthorn Wood.
45 Captain John Garmory of the Bardsea, lost afterwards with all hands on the passage from Liverpool to the Water of Urr.
46 Walter Bower, or Bowmaker, Abbot of Inchcolm.
47 The account of these wonderful happenings was published in the form of a chapbook, and obtained a large circulation.
48 The first appearance that Coul made was to Dr Menzies’ servant at a time he was watering his master’s horse. At some subsequent appearance, while the lad was upon the same business, whether Coul had done him any real harm, or that the lad had fallen from his horse through fear and contusion, is uncertain, but so it was that the lad was found dead on the road.
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