Last of my #Scotstober round-ups. It's late due to me starting a new role at work and just being so tired every evening. But I managed to keep up, though I missed mervaill as I did neep and tumshie separately.
Word of the Day 27: 'sklent' which means meaning things to do with slanted or sideways, including a sideways glint of light or look, or to move sideways. Willie Hershaw is a contemporary poet, musician and playwright working in Scots. His poem captures the action of a night sky with the verb use of sklent perfectly.
Starry Nicht
Stars sae heich
abuin the muin
cauld and changeless
sklentan doun.
Stars o frost
bruckle as braith
kyth like howp
melt like faith.
Word of the Day 28: 'bauchle' - an old shoe or slipper. This poem by Sir Alexander Gray is not what I expected from an economist, but his poem 'Scotland' rings beautifully to this poet missing her adopted home.
This is my country,
The land that begat me.
These windy spaces
Are surely my own.
A contemporary of MacDiarmid, Gray also translated many European poems into Scots. His poem 'Grief' is a touching elegy.
Grief
What ails you, you puir auld body?
What gars you greet sae sair?
Hae you tint the man that’s been kind to you
This forty year and mair?
O, I didna greet when I tint him,
Nor yet on the burrel-day;
But though I saw to the hoose and the byre,
God kens that my hert was wae.
But this mornin’ I cam on his bauchles;
What cud I dae but greet?
For I mindit hoo hard he had wrocht for me,
Trauchlin’ wi’ sair, sair feet.
Day 29 'skreich' usually used as shriek, but there are also the phrases 'skreich o lavrocks' or 'skriech o day' meaning daybreak. I've found it in 'Mornin' a translation of Du Fu's poem in Chinese by Brian Holton a Scots translator and poet. Originally published in The Scores Journal.
Mornin
translated from the classical Chinese
Ane
Skreich o day at the sunnyside o the Southron Palace,
Rimie air keps a thousan rigs an bens;
Nou a kintra bodie is traivellin his lane,
Trees an haar convoyin him i the dawin.
A braw merlin passes seilintlike owreheid,
A hungert corbie comes eident doun ti feed;
A’m that dwaiblie A’ll niver muve nae mair,
A leaf tremmles, faas on the river puil.
Twa
A sail on the watterfit sets oot i the grey dawin,
Ma outlan yett’s steikit conter the cauld;
In tuim shaws, yalla leafs dounfaa,
In this lown kintra, an oncome o white sea-maas.
The pedisters is weit, but gey droukit nae mair,
The lift fairs, the clouds gae hauf-roads awa;
On Carlin Braes whit an unco winter it’s been,
Yestreen on a suddentie, hurls an hurls o thunner!
Day 30 Word of the Day 'mervaill' was difficult because it's an old word, not really used after the 1700s. It means a miracle or to wonder at something. To be honest, I'm too tired to scour old Scots texts trying to find it. So we'll move on to easier beasts.
Day 31 'tumshie or neep' which means turnip. Scots used to carve turnips for lanterns for Halloween. I've tried it once and it was really difficult because they are so hard.
For neep I found a sweet poem by Gerry Cambridge 'Field Days', not all in Scots, but it has a great sense of character with the use of Scots. Gerry edits the great The Dark Horse Magazine which has promoted many Scottish poets over the years.
Field Days
Old Davie still did much farm work by hand.
Tae thin neeps, ye gae up an doon thae rows.
Leave jist yin each six inches, sae it grows.
The thought of lunch was a breeze-fanned island,
What is the time? our common famous question.
The shrinking patch of field still to be weeded
was joy and thought we’d be no longer needed.
He’d blow through his lips: Gerad, ye’re the best yin
O thae young uns that come here!
Or biggest fool
I sometimes thought, those languid days
After the last exams, when I skipped school.
But no jam pieces nor hot tea’s tasted more
Significant than that field’s, and strongest praise
The two green pounds each day’s end, my limbs sore.
And for tumshie, which can also mean a foolish person, I used a quote from a poem by Janet Paisley "tushie waled tae dree the weird, / poued frae a cauld yirth." It's about a girl digging up turnips. I couldn't find the whole poem though it was printed in The Hunterian Poems, poems written on items in Glasgow Unviersity's Hunterian Gallery.
Janet Paisley was another poet I worked with in my time in Scottish publishing. She sadly passed recently, but her work and her approach to writing was important when I first started out.
And done. I have to admit, I'm relieved as it was hard keeping up with the challenge. I learned so much about Scots and about Scottish literature, names I'd never come across, poems and poets that touched and inspired me. Thanks to Dr Michael Dempster for organising #Scotstober and to all the writers, artists, translators, academics and everyone interested in Scots who took part.
