Scotstober: Days 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16

Five more Scots words for you to discover through poetry and song for #Scotstober - a celebration of the Scots language. 

Scotstober Word of the Day 12: 'stramash' - meaning an uproar or a disturbance. Poem by J K Annand who was mostly known for his children's rhymes.  

Street Talk

There was a rammie in the street,

A stishie and stramash.

The crabbit wifie up the stair

Pit up her winda sash.

“Nou what’s adae?” the wifie cried,

“Juist tell me what’s adae.”

A day is twinty-fower hours, missis,

Nou gie us peace to play.

“Juist tell me what’s ado,” she cried,

“And nane o yer gab,” cried she.

D’ye no ken a doo’s a pigeon, missis?

Nou haud your wheesht a wee.

“I want to ken what’s up,” she cried,

“And nae mair o yer cheek, ye loun.”

It’s only yer winda that’s up, missis.

For guidsake pit it doun.

Day 13: Word of the Day 'dour'. One of the most well known Scots words, meaning 'hard, stern, sullen, gloomy'. Marion Angus' poem captures that grim atmosphere in her poem 'The Tinker's Road'. Here's a link to her collection by the same name, well out of print. 

The Tinker's Road

The broon burn’s speerin’,

Frettin’ a’ the wye,

“What gars ye gang,

Auld Tinker’s Road,

Whaur there’s naither fouk nor kye,

“Kirk nor croft nor mill,

A’ thing lane and still?”

But it’s aye “Haud on”

Wi’ the Tinker’s Road

Fur the far side o’ the hill.

Stannin’ stanes gloomin’,

Grim an’ straucht an’ dour—

“An unco place for a Tinker’s Road

On sic a ghaist-rid moor!”

Ghaist or witch or de’il,

Stanes o’ dule an’ ill,

It’s aye “ Hing in ”

Wi’ the Tinker’s Road

Fur the far side o’ the hill.

The black thorn’s maenin’,

“O rauch winds, let me be !

Atween ye a’

Ye’ve brak ma he’rt,

An’ syne I canna dee!”

Weerin’ til a threid,

Smoored wi’ mosses reid,

The soople road wins ower the tap

An’ tak’s nor tent nor heed.

Day 14: 'stookie' - a plaster cast. Word of the Day 13: 'stookie' - a plaster cast. I found a lovely wee poem by Angela Blacklock-Brown on the StAnza Poetry's Poetry Map. So happy to share this site, not only because one of mine appears on there. A great site with some amazing work. 

Ben Gulabin

(Glenshee)

Snaw crooned ben

toorin abuin,

still as a stookie,

nae wun skirlin.

Hairst's gowden chaff

keeks thru the white

an the brig, quate as the sabbath,

stauns wi the gates snecked ticht.

Day 15: 'lowp' which usually means to leap or jump as in the English equivalent lope, but I've most often heard it in Glasgow used as an expression of pain 'mah heid is lowpin'. Here's a lovely tune by the singer-poet Sheena Blackhall who uses a North-Eastern version of Scots often cried Doric.

Braes o Skene

Tune: Plooman Laddies

Fan first I cam tae the Braes o Skene,

The corn parks they stood thick an green.

Chorus: Noo ferm rigs, they growe hooses gray,

Anither change comes wi ilkie day.

The milkin kye gaed frae park tae byre,

An Hillie’s wids fed a lowpin fire.

The bramble buss fulled the berry pan,

The chaumer bed held the orra man.

Noo cottar bairns they hae roved awa,

An swallas bigg in the kitchie waa.

The toon creeps oot like a swallin tide,

Haps steen an lime ower the kintraside.

Fin lost I cam tae the Braes o Skene,

The fowk war gaen an the fermhoose teem.

Word of the Day 16: 'grue'. A new word and a new poet for me today. The DSL seems to mostly define grue as a shudder of fear or cold. This beautifully wrought poem Pietà by Alastair Mackie uses Scots with scalpel precision. A contemporary and friend of George Mackay Brown, the Orkney poet, Mackie's life was tragic and inspiring. You can read about his life here. It's especially interesting his reaction to how schooling beat his Scots out of him.

Pietà

Her face was thrawed.

She wisna aa come.

In the trams o her airms

the wummin held oot her first bairn.

It micht hae been a mercat day

and him for sale.

Naebody stoppit tae niffer.

His life bluid cled his breist

wi a new reid semmit.

He’d hippens for deid claes.

Aifter the boombers cleck

and the sodgers traik thro the skau

there’s an auld air sterts up –

bubblin and greetin.

It’s a ballant mithers sing

on their hunkers i the stour

for a bairn deid.

They ken it by hert.

It’s the cauldest grue i the universe

yon skelloch.

It niver waukens the deid.

More Scotstober Fun: Days 10 and 11 - Older examples of Scots

A reminder of the word list here for Scotstober, where Scots words are explored through writing. 

Word of the Day 10: 'sprauchle' - means to move slowly and awkwardly or a person who does so. I have to admit I hadn't come across this poem before and struggled to find anything. It didn't help that it could be several ways. As Scots fell out of use and Scots speakers discouraged from using it because it was seen as uneducated or coarse, it became primarily a spoken language. This is reflected in the spelling which is erratic because people spell it how they say it. 

Even the Scottish Poetry Library didn't have an entry that used sprauchle, so I did some deeper internet diving and through the DSL (Dictionary of the Scots Language/Leid) found a poet called Henry Scott Riddell (1780-1870) who wrote a poem that used the word in a song. Even the poem was hard to find, buried in an internet archive.

Geordie Tair’s Courtship

 

Air — "Willie was a wanton wag"

A wilfu' man maun hae his way,

 

At least, if he's like Geordie Tait,

Ae night when lately he wad gae

 

To court his curlie-headed Kate.

The rains rushed doun spate after spate,

• And murky were the moorlands grey.

Yet manfully he took the gait —

A wilfu' man maun hae his way.

 

He thocht to loup the Bogle syke.

 

But landed in it to the chin,

And seiched, and said, Do as ye like.

 

Ye canna cool the love within.

Near was he borne out-owre the linn,

 

Ere he gat spraugheled to the brae ;

But then, my sooth ! how he did rin ! —

 

A wilfii' man maun hae his way. 

And if you're interested in the song he based the words on here's a wee link. 

Day 11: 'bourach'. I knew the word, meaning 'a mess, confusion, a crowd', but finding a poem wasn't that easy. It's hit mainstream media lately as it was used in politics as 'clusterbourach' to describe an absolute mess, as in Brexit. But finding it in a short Scots poem. I branched out and found it in a translation by Robert Forbes in the mid-1700s of Ajax's Speech from Ovid's Metamorphoses, describing the moment when his men settle down to listen to him. 

The wight an’ doughty Captains a’ 

Upo’ their doups sat down; 

A rangel o’ the common fowk 

In bourachs a’ steed roun.

The use of bourach here is brilliant because it shows the disorganised mess of the common soldiers beyond the Captains - an English translation describes it as "when the captains were seated, and the rank and file were standing, in a circle, around them". 

I think the Scots does so much more, using bourach.

Little is known about Forbes other than he was a hosier based in London, but what this wee stanza reminds me, and I think it's often forgotten, that Scots used to be a language used broadly enough that it needed classics translated into so they could be understood by those who could read, Gavin Douglas' translation of the Aeneid for example in 1513.

I'm really enjoying all this research, it's been a while since I've read older versions of Scots. 

Scotstober - Days 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9

More Scotstober words and poems. I've found most of my poems through the Scottish Poetry Library, a great resource of all Scottish poetry. I hope you're enjoying this taste of Scots as much as I am finding these poems, many of which I've never come across before. 

Word of the Day 4: shoogle - to sway or wobble. Stuart A Paterson uses the word and lots of other physical and perfectly descriptive words in this whimsical, but recognisable moment. 

Breenge

This morning, as the 372 shoogled

through Carsethorn, hirpled

wabbit past the kirk and through

dreich smirr hoyed down from

droukit braes above, I saw

a coupit yowe in a kelpit lea,

beelin-eened cuddies lean over a hazelrawed

dyke to lour at me, a fug of speugs

loup out of nowhere on

a whigmaleerie of peerie wings,

imagined I heard a lintie sing beyond

the engine’s pechin skreigh,

thought waukrife of a wattergaw,

time prismed to language’s muckle flaws

& need for a never-ending breenge,

thirlt to the whyles forfochen

adventure of it all.

Day 5: 'eldritch' - ghostly, unearthly. A short but beautifully poem by Ken Sutherland.

The Vixen 

The vixen skreichs I the wuid

at the hinmaist o’ the day;

thon’s an eldritch cry

frae the day-daw o’the warld

yit souns for us this nicht.

It hauds intilt oor desires, oor hopes,

forby oor benmaist fear.

It’s you an me alane my luve

aye seekin ane the ither,

it’s dreid unchancie weird

micht thwart oor socht thegitherness.

I’ll ne’er faddom my luve for you

mair nor the tod kens his desire,

gyte for the vixen.

Day 6: Word of the Day 'dreep - to drop is how I've always heard it, as from the top of a wall, but it has many other meanings according to the DSL, including drip and drippings. Walter Wingate has a lovely poem 'A Night's Rain' which gives  great imagery it. 

A Night's Rain

The thunder clap may clatter –

The lichtnin’ flare awa’:

I’m listenin’ to the water,

And heed them nocht ava.

I canna think o’ sleepin’:

I canna hear eneuch,

The sang the trees are dreepin’,

The music o’ the scheugh!

And ‘neath the roof that’s drummin’

Wi’ mair than rhone can kep,

Wi’ faster fa’ is comin’

The plop upon the step.

My famished flowers are drinkin’

In ilka drookit bed:

An’ siller blabs are winkin’

On ilka cabbage bled.

And in my blankets rowin’

I think on hay an’ corn –

I maist can hear them growin’:

We’ll see an odds the morn.

Day 7: I've heard 'skoosh' used in various ways, a bottle of fizzy juice, a spray of water, but also something being very easy. Matthew Fitt's poem plays with the onomatopoetic sounds of Scots, including 'skoosh'. Matthew's a strong voice in the Scots language through Itchy Coo Press with its Scots versions of famous children's books and rhymes and through his own writing. 

Fireworks aff the Castle

Fireworks aff the Castle

Goin WHEECH, WHEECH, WHEECH

Bairns in the library

Gettin WHEESHT, WHEESHT, WHEESHT

Cans o Irn Bru

Goin SKOOSHITAY, SKOOSHITAY, SKOOSH

Fitbaw in the playgroond

Gettin DOOSHITAY, DOOSHITAY, DOOSH

The snaw blaws in fae Norroway

And nips your TAES, TAES, TAES

We go skitin on wir sledges

Doon the BRAES, BRAES, BRAES

The rain comes doon in buckets

And it’s WEET, WEET, WEET

Your teeth is sair fae sweeties

And it’s GREET, GREET, GREET

You’re oot wi pals and aw the time

It’s BLETHER, BLETHER, BLETHER

But when awthin’s wrang and no goin right

Jist go and tell your MITHER

When awthin’s wrang and no goin right

Jist you coorie in wi MITHER

Day 8: 'Dreich' meaning wet, gray, miserable weather. Jackie Kay was Scotland's second Poet Laureate, our Makar. And this poem captures that sense of loss one feels after leaving a home through the lens of losing one's language. 

The Old Tongue

Jackie Kay

When I was eight, I was forced south.

Not long after, when I opened

my mouth, a strange thing happened.

I lost my Scottish accent.

Words fell off my tongue:

eedyit, dreich, wabbit, crabbit

stummer, teuchter, heidbanger,

so you are, so am ur, see you, see ma ma,

shut yer geggie or I’ll gie you the malkie!

My own vowels started to stretch like my bones

and I turned my back on Scotland.

Words disappeared in the dead of night,

new words marched in: ghastly, awful,

quite dreadful, scones said like stones.

Pokey hats into ice cream cones.

Oh where did all my words go –

my old words, my lost words?

Did you ever feel sad when you lost a word,

did you ever try and call it back

like calling in the sea?

If I could have found my words wandering,

I swear I would have taken them in,

swallowed them whole, knocked them back.

Out in the English soil, my old words

buried themselves. It made my mother’s blood boil.

I cried one day with the wrong sound in my mouth.

I wanted them back; I wanted my old accent back,

my old tongue. My dour soor Scottish tongue.

Sing-songy. I wanted to gie it laldie.

Day 9: 'kail' - meaning cabbage, often used in 'kail-yaird/yard' referring to a small garden, but also to a romantic ideal of Scotland in literature, of quaint, wee villages and rural romantics. Here's a Burns poem that exemplifies this style.

There Grows A Bonnie Brier Bush

There grows a bonnie brier bush in our kail-yard,

There grows a bonnie brier bush in our kail-yard;

And below the bonnie brier bush there's a lassie and a lad,

And they're busy busy courting in our kail-yard.

 

We'll court nae mair below the buss in our kail-yard,

We'll court nae mair below the buss in our kail-yard,

We'll awa to Athole's green, and there we'll no be seen,

Where the trees and the branches will be our safeguard.

 

Will ye go to the dancin' in Carlyle's ha';

Will ye go to the dancin' in Carlyle's ha';

Whare Sandy and Nancy I'm sure, will ding them a',

I winna gang to the dance in Carlyle ha'.

 

What will I do for a lad, when Sandy gangs awa?

What will I do for a lad, when Sandy gangs awa?

I will awa to Edinburgh, and win a penny fee,

And see an onie bonnie lad will fancy me.

 

He's coming frae the north that's to fancy me,

He's coming frae the north that's to fancy me;

A feather in his bonnet, and a ribbon at his knee;

He's a bonnie bonnie laddie, an yon be he.

Corona Virus Week Four: Filling Time

I almost forgot about this. I haven't lost track of time due to the kids' schooling and their obsession with Easter, but it's trying to keep all the new things I'm juggling. To stay on top of so many projects, my studies, little jobs around the house and my daily writing.

I've managed to keep up so far with my poem of day challenge for GloPoWriMo. I've written eleven first drafts, some about our Corona Virus isolation, but a few other subjects have popped up. It's strange how you can sometimes fine a new way to approach a familiar prompt. I've had the prompt 'green' about four times now in various challenges and I've usually managed to come up with new subjects to write about, sometimes hitting it in a roundabout way like the green-eyed monster of jealousy. It's nice to get back into the flow and it is just that. I often don't have the time and head space to try and write until the evenings, but they just come, lumpy and rough, but I've managed to get the shape of a poem down every day so far.

I need to make a video reading of one of my poems for an upcoming online journal launch. It's nice that the magazine has found a way to launch in this situation and that for once I can 'attend', but I'm not keen on recording myself reading a poem. The audio one I made last week for my poem in Not Very Quiet was difficult enough. I'm not a comfortable reader, so trying to appear natural and calm while I record myself and try and remember my poem will be nerve-wracking. And also finding a quiet space to do it with a houseful of inquisitive and noisy kids will be almost impossible. If the wind would stop blowing so hard and cold, I'd consider doing it outside. I'll link of course once the launch happens. Try not to laugh.

For my poetry writing month poem for this week I thought I'd stick with women from Scotland. I came across Kathleen Jamie through her nature writings before I found her poetry. Her book Findings introduced me to a different side of Scotland while I was first living in high-rise flats in Glasgow. Her poem 'The Tradition' taken from her collection The Bonniest Companie finds a connection with me on many levels, not only it's connection to the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014.

The Tradition

For years I wandered hill and moor
Half looking for the road
Winding into fairyland
Where that blacksmith kept that forge

Who'd heat red hot dragging links
That bound me to the past,
Then, with one almighty hammer-blow
Unfetter me at last.

Older now, I know nor fee
Nor anvil breaks those chains
And the wild ways we think we walk
Just bring us here again.

I'm dreading going back to school work on Tuesday, it's been a nice break with the kids, working in the garden, on crafts. I think we're all tired of the isolation and I've seen a lot of people easing themselves out more due to the nice weather and holiday. The shops were jammed when I went for my weekly stock-up and to the hardware store for repair supplies. I'm afraid we'll see an upturn in infections and deaths in two weeks time. Listen to the guidance and be safe.

Corona Virus Week Three - Chinks of Light

The online magazine Not Very Quiet, a bi-annual online women's poetry journal, has included my poem 'The Wedding Suit' in their latest issue. There's even an audio file of me reading it. Sorry, I know I'm like everyone else and hate the sound of my own voice, but ouch, I'm so not ready for that. There's dozens of poems, that I have to admit I haven't had a chance to peruse yet, but it looks like a great mix from the titles.

The new Scotland-based magazine Driech has included three of my poems in Issue 2 with poets like Chrys Salt and Hugh McMillan. An honour for me to be included in their ranks and to have my work wend its way home. An issue only costs £3, including postage and a year subscription £10 post free and that's 6 issues now they've gone bi-monthly, so it's a great way to support a small magazine in these tough times for not too much effort on your bank account. 

And I've also had two poems appear in a recent issue of erbacce, the magazine connected with erbacce press which was a surprise as I had submitted them last year for their annual FREE poetry prize (still open until May 1 2020!!) and I know they didn't win that, but I didn't hear anything back, so once they announced the winners I assumed that was it. So it was a nice surprise to receive the issue in the mail this week. I guess I made a sort of long list. Read their guidelines very carefully for the prize, but it's worth giving it a go. 

And back to reality. If you had asked me 3 days ago how I was, I'd probably have broken down in tears. Home schooling is breaking me, but I've had a few days respite as the kids were away to their dad's so I've been able to catch up with my studies, go to the allotment, hang some photos that have been sitting unloved for years, do some reading and crafting and, most importantly for the blog, join in with Angela Carr's new 30 day writing challenge which coincides with GloPoWriMo (or NaPoWriMo if you insist on being US-centric) the poetry writing month which encourages people to write a poem a day. And so far because of the isolation I've been able to keep up. Four new rough drafts done and as soon as I hit Publish for this I'll start on the next one. 

In honour of GloPoWriMo, I usually include a poem by a poet I like. This time I'm including The Hill Burns by the Scottish writer Nan Shepherd. I have to admit I've never read her poems before, but I've recently started her book The Living Mountain which is part of a online read-along started by nature writer Rob MacFarlane. I  haven't been able to keep up with the read-along and discussion, but it's worth following Rob on Twitter and reading his books, he has a lovely way with words and inspiring people to explore nature and to write about it. I've only managed The Wild Places and The Lost Words (written with Jackie Morris and with her beautiful illustrations, a magical book) so far as it's hard to get his books here, but I'm in a queue of about a million waiting for his latest book Underland once the libraries reopen here in Helsinki. 

Anyway, I found this poem by Nan Shepherd and it encapsulates the feeling I get from The Living Mountain, that reverence and connection to nature, to Scottish nature particularly. It reminds me of my time last summer walking in Puck's Glen in Argyll. 

The Hill Burns

So without sediment
Runs the clear burns of my country,
Fiercely pure,
Transparent as light
Gathered into its own unity,
Lucent and without colour;
Or green,
Like clear deeps of air,
Light massed upon itself,
Like the green pinions,
Cleaving the trouble of approaching night,
Shining in their own lucency,
Of the great angels that guarded the Mountain;
Or amber so clear
It might have oozed from the crystal trunk
Of the tree Paradisal,
Symbol of life,
That grows in the presence of God eternally.
And these pure waters
Leap from the adamantine rocks,
The granites and shists
Of my dark and stubborn country.
From gaunt heights they tumble,
Harsh and desolate lands,
the plateau of Braeriach
Where even in July 
The cataracts of wind
Crash in the corries with the boom of seas in anger,
And Corrie Etchachan
Down whose precipitous
Narrow defile
Thunder the fragments of rock
Broken by winter storms
From their aboriginal place;
And Muich Dhui's summit,
Rock defiant against frost and the old grinding of ice,
Wet with the cold fury of blinding cloud,
Through which the snow-fields loom up, like ghosts from a world of eternal annihilation,
And far below, where the dark waters of Etchachan are wont to glint,
And unfathomable void.
Out of these mountains,
Out of the defiant torment of Plutonic rock,
Out of fire, terror, blackness and upheaval,
Leap the clear burns,
Living water,
Like some pure essence of being,
Seen only by its movement.

The poem is so vivid and visceral, it makes me miss the country even more. Sorry, to hit you hard with names and links this week, amazing what you can remember and manage when you've had some actual time and distance to focus on yourself.

Back to the grind tomorrow, but it's a four day week this and next week due to the Easter holiday, so that will help a bit. 

I hope you're all holding up and finding bright spots to help you get through.