The Ulster-Scots writings of Sir Samuel Ferguson
Author: Philip Robinson
Date: 2013
Source: Ullans: The Magazine for Ulster-Scots, Nummer 13 Hairst 2013
Philip Robinson
Sir Samuel Ferguson
Samuel Ferguson (1810-1886) was a poet, barrister, antiquarian, artist and public servant. He was President of the Royal Irish Academy and wrote many essays on Irish antiquities, being particularly renowned for his antiquarian work on ogham inscriptions in the British Isles. These essays were edited by his widow, Lady Ferguson (who also published his biography, Sir Samuel Ferguson in the Ireland of his day). In 1867 he became Deputy Keeper of Public Records in Ireland. In the course of his life he published many volumes of verse, some of the epic poems being based on Irish and Antrim legends. His collected poems, Lays of the Western Gael, appeared in 1865, and his epic poem Congal in five volumes first appeared in 1872.
Congal has become the classic literary work on the south Antrim kingdom of Dalnaraide and on the Battle of Moira, fought just outside the village of Moira between the High King of Ireland (Domnall II) and the King of Dalnaraide (Congal) in 637. This battle was hailed by Sir Samuel Ferguson as ‘the greatest battle ever seen in Ireland’, and much of Dr Ian Adamson’s writing on the subject of this battle and the 7th century Cruithin kingdom acknowledges this. Congal, at the time of the Battle of Moira, was not only King of Dalnaraide (which he ruled from his ‘capital’ at Rathmore, near Antrim town and close to the Ferguson family home), but also over-King of Uladh, a confederacy of smaller kingdoms that included Dalriada in North Antrim and Dal Fiatach in north and east Down. Ten years before the battle, Congal had become over-King of all Uladh. However, after killing the High King of Ireland Congal was defeated by Domnall, the new high king, and fled to Scotland, vowing to return. In 637 he did so in search of revenge and, aided by a host of other Scots, Picts, Anglo-Saxons and Britons, advanced from north Antrim through Dalriada. Tara, the seat of the High Kings of Ireland, was his objective, but the Battle of Moira resulted in his final defeat.
Samuel Ferguson’s other published poems included a number of ‘Ulster Ballads’, dealing with Ulster-Scots subjects but written in English. The best-known of these is ‘The Ballad of Willy Gilliland’ the story of which will be described more fully later. (See also, ‘Wullie Gillilann o Glenquhurrie’ by John Erskine in Ullans, Nummer 4, 40-41).
Ferguson, who had a deep attachment to the Antrim of his childhood, has been described as the most important poet of the 19th century from an Ulster-Scots background. It was his unfulfilled ambition to chronicle and publish the early history of county Antrim based on information from the Irish Annals he had been abstracting. He was knighted in 1878 for his work in reorganising the Public Records. Few people, however, realise that his writings include both poetry and prose written in Ulster-Scots.
He was educated at Belfast Academy, the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and Trinity College, Dublin, but never graduated. Indeed he held no academic rank till the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on him in 1865 by the university in Dublin, after the publication of the Lays of the Western Gael. Between 1845 and 1846 he went to Europe where he made sketches of cathedrals and churches dedicated to Irish saints, and he studied painting and sculpture in Italy. Some of his sketches are in the Linen Hall Library, Belfast. He became Queen’s Counsel in 1859 and Doctor of Laws in 1864.
Nine years after his death, Lady Ferguson published the biography of her husband, including the following references to his early years:
Samuel Ferguson of Standing Stone, in the county of Antrim, the paternal grandfather of Sir Samuel Ferguson, had by his wife, Hessy Owens, a daughter and six sons, amongst whom he left a good estate, around and including the little town of Parkgate, Co. Antrim. The Ferguson property was situated in and about the valley of the Six-Mile Water, which empties itself into Lough Neagh near the town of Antrim. Here stands one of the earliest of the Irish round towers, and not far distant may be traced the remains of the royal fort of Rathmore Moy-Linny. The region is dominated by the moat of Donegore. This fine earthwork is a conspicuous object in the landscape. It commands an extensive view over a rich and undulating country to Lough Neagh, with its expanse of waters and boundary of distant mountains. To the north rise the Connor Hills and the wedge-like mountain of Slemish. At the base of the moat, or rath, stands the pretty church of Donegore. Here, on its lower slopes included in the churchyard, is the burying-place of the Ferguson family, and in this plot of ground repose the mortal remains of the Poet and Antiquary who is the subject of this biography. He lies amid scenes endeared to him from childhood, and often described by his pen. He sleeps among kindred dust on an Irish green hillside.
The Ferguson family came from Scotland early in the seventeenth century … The immediate progenitors of the Fergusons migrated to Antrim from south-western Scotland.
Although Samuel Ferguson was born in Belfast, and had lived in the city, the Ferguson family farm was at the ‘Four-mile-burn’ at Parkgate (near Doagh), county Antrim. This was where Samuel spent much of his early years, in the townland of ‘Ferguson’s Land’ in the Parish of Donegore. When he died in 1886, he was buried in the family plot at Donegore Church. The inscription on his gravestone reads:
SACRED TO THE BELOVED MEMORY OF SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON, KNT., Q.C., LL.D., DEPUTY KEEPER OF THE RECORDS OF IRELAND, PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY, WHO DIED ON THE 9TH OF AUGUST 1886, AGED 76 YEARS.
The Ferguson and Gilliland ancestry of Sir Samuel Ferguson was researched and compiled by his grand-niece, the immediate connections being described as follows:
The Fergusons in Co. Antrim were originally Presbyterians; and Sir Samuel, in his ballad of ‘Willy Gilliland,’ included in Lays of the Western Gael, tells the story of a Covenanting ancestor who came to Ireland at the time of the persecutions in Scotland. Ellen GILLILAND, who married John FERGUSON, father of Samuel of Standingstone, and was great-grandmother of Sir Samuel, was descended from this hunted Covenanter. The burying place of the family is at Donegore in Antrim.
The Four-mile-burn
The Four-mile-burn, where Samuel Ferguson spent much of his childhood, divides the Parishes of Kilbride and Donegore, and flows down from the Big Collin mountain at Tildarg. On the north side of this mountain lies the Glenwhirry valley, home of the Gillilands, his other main body of Ulster-Scots relatives. The burn continues past Donegore Hill and between Parkgate and Doagh into the Six-mile-water.
This river receives an early mention in a report on customs in Ulster in 1637 as a staging-post on the trade route between Antrim and Carrickfergus. We are told that when Lord Caulfield was exporting pipe staves from Tyrone he was ‘forced to bring them over the Lough Neagh and land them near Antrim, and from thence to a place called Four Mile Water near Carrickfergus’.
The farms of Samuel Ferguson’s relatives are recorded in the Griffith survey, compiled when Ferguson was about 40 years old, as being situated on both sides of the Four-mile-burn. They were in the townlands of Ferguson’s Land on the Donegore Parish side, and Crawford’s Land, on the Kilbride Parish side.
The Fergusons at Four-mile-burn
The home farm of Samuel Ferguson’s father, John Ferguson, was beside Parkgate, in the townland of Ferguson’s Land, where the Four-mile-burn flows.
Hearth Money Rolls for 1666 and 1669 give us the earliest glimpse of the members of Sir Samuel Ferguson’s family that settled from Scotland in the parishes of Donegore and Kilbride, beside Doagh. They do not appear in the townland of Ferguson’s Land where Sir Samuel’s father was born, but were then concentrated nearby in the townlands of Holestone and Ballyclaverty. Here we have John Ferguson, Thomas Forgison, Henry Forgison, John Ferguson, and Widow Forgison, with some of the Forgisons in the 1666 Roll appearing as Fergusons in 1669.
In 1770, a George and a James Ferguson from this area signed a petition against local ‘Hearts of Steel’ outrages and, in the subscriber lists for the local poet Samuel Thomson’s book of Ulster-Scots poetry published in 1799, we find a ‘Thomas Ferguson, Four-Mile Burn’. This is significant, as this volume of Ulster-Scots poems would have been familiar to the young Samuel Ferguson.
Ulster-Scots literary connections
Sir Samuel Ferguson later described the territory of the Ulster-Scots bards in the upper Six Mile Water valley as a ‘little rustic Arcadia’ which had given rise to poets such as James Campbell of Ballynure, Thomas Beggs of Ballyclare, Samuel Turner of Ballyeaston, Samuel Walker of Roughfort and, of course, Samuel Thomson of Carngranny — all writing in what Ferguson called ‘the Scotch language’.
John Hewitt describes the same area as the epicentre of the Antrim ‘bards’, where they were ‘on their home ground’. He makes the connection between this literary upsurge and a ‘little swarm of [book] clubs, Ballyclare, Doagh first and second, Ballynure, Carnmoney, Carngranny and the Four Towns’. The Four Towns Book Club drew its membership from the four townlands of Mallusk, Craigarogan, Kilgreel and Ballybarnes, and their membership included the bards Samuel Thomson, Thomas Beggs and Samuel Walker, and the United Irishmen Jamie Hope and Luke Mullan.
Two lesser-known poets from this ‘arcadia’ (John Fullarton of Ballynure and John Dickey of Donegore) had their books of poetry reviewed favourably by Sir Samuel Ferguson shortly after their publication in the 19th century. In his essay, ‘Attractions of Ireland, No 3, Society’ (Dublin University Magazine, Vol. 8, December, 1836), Ferguson wrote:
The Scotch have a national literature; a Scottish school of science, and a purely Scottish school of poetry and romance. … It matters not whether Scotland was peopled from Ireland, or Ireland from Scotland; the Scottish race is the same in both countries. … Again let us suppose our traveller at Belfast; here in like manner a drive of ten miles will place him among the representatives of the Scottish lowlanders of the time of the Covenant. Among them he will find the national dialect of Scotland as broadly and almost as primitively spoken as that of England in the district he is supposed to have last visited. Scotch language, Scotch looks, Scotch habits will strike him wherever he turns; we must, however, admit that no discernible trace of peculiar Scotch costume is likely to arrest his attention. Indeed the lowland costume, at the period of this settlement, was not distinguished by any very remarkable feature except the bonnet, and the bonnet has generally been doffed for the ordinary felt hat in both countries. The long stockings rolled over the knee, are, it is true, still seen on some primitive individuals; but the cases are few, and the wearers looked on, to use the phrase of the country, as ‘doited auld bodies.’ It is remarkable that the recollection of the mother country is scarcely, if at all, cherished; yet there is a perfect similarity of habits and disposition. In nothing does this appear so strongly as in the popular taste for poetry. Robert Burns’ own parish was not more deeply imbued with the love of song than the central district of the county of Antrim. We could enumerate at least a dozen rustic poets whose works have been published from time to time in a district not more than fifteen miles in length by ten in breadth. The last volume which emanated from this little rustic Arcadia is entitled ‘Feudal Scenes’ by John Fullarton.
Ferguson continues in this article to give a positive review, with extracts from Fullarton’s book. (Fullarton was a member of the Four Towns Book Club, and wrote biographies of many of the other members, including Thomas Beggs.)
‘Ulster Ballads’ and other poems by the young Samuel Ferguson appeared in the Dublin University Magazine, Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine and the Ulster Magazine during the 1830s and 1840s. Although written in English, ‘The Ballad of Willy Gilliland’ probably resonates most strongly with his Ulster-Scots roots. It tells of an ancestor of Ferguson’s great-grandmother, Ellen Gilliland. Willy Gilliland had fled in Covenanting times from Scotland to Ireland, and was fishing one day in the Glenwhirry river:
It was a summer evening, and, mellowing and still,
Glenwhirry to the setting sun lay bare from hill to hill;
For all that valley pastoral held neither house nor tree,
But spread abroad and open all, a full fair sight to see,
From Slemish foot to Collon top lay one unbroken green,
Save where in many a silver coil the river glanced between.
But the Covenanter had been tracked down by his foes. His horse was captured and taken to Carrickfergus. The subject of the rest of the ballad is the story of Willy Gilliland’s journey from Glenwhirry, past the Four Mile Burn, to Carrickfergus, where he managed to recapture his horse at the North Gate of the old town wall.
In terms of actual writing in Ulster-Scots, Ferguson published a short Ulster-Scots novel, ‘The Wet Wooing: A Narrative of Ninety-Eight’, in Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine (1832). This story was written in ‘kail-yard’ style, with superb Ulster-Scots dialogue between the characters and English connecting prose. It is again set in Glenwhirry (with an excursion from Carncastle via the Gobbins to Strangford by sea thrown in). Importantly, woven into ‘The Wet Wooing’ is the earliest of Ferguson’s Ulster-Scots poems, called ‘The Canny Courtship’.
The Canny Courtship
Young Redrigs walks where the sunbeams fa’;
He sees his shadow slant up the wa’ —
Wi’ shouthers sae braid, and wi’ waist sae sma’,
Guid faith he’s a proper man!
He cocks his cap, and he streeks out his briest;
And he steps a step like a lord at least;
And he cries like the devil to saddle his beast,
And off to court he’s gaun.
The Laird o’ Largy is far frae hame,
But his dochter sits at the quiltin’ frame,
Kamin’ her hair wi’ a siller kame,
In mony a gowden ban’:
Bauld Redrigs loups frae his blawin’ horse,
He prees her mou’ wi’ a freesome force —
‘Come take me Nelly, for better for worse,
To be your ain guidman.’
‘I’ll no be harried like bumbee’s byke —
I’ll no be handled unleddy like —
I winna hae ye, ye worryin’ tyke,
The road ye came gae ’lang!’
He loupit on wi’ an awesome snort,
He bang’d the fire frae the flinty court;
He’s aff and awa in a snorin’ sturt,
As hard as he can whang.
It’s doon she sat when she saw him gae,
And a’ that she could do or say,
Was — ‘O! And alack! And a well-a-day!
I’ve lost the best guidman!’
But if she was wae, it’s he was wud;
He garr’s them a’ frae his road to scud;
But Glowerin’ Sam gied thud for thud,
And then to the big house ran.
The Glowerer ran for the kitchen dorr;
Bauld Redrigs hard at his heels, be sure,
He’s wallop’d him roun’ and roun’ at the floor,
As wha but Redrigs can?
Then Sam he loups to the dresser shelf —
‘I daur ye wallop my leddy’s delf;
I daur ye break but a single skelf
Frae her cheeny bowl, my man!’
But Redrigs’ bluid wi’ his hand was up;
He’d lay them neither for crock nor cup,
He play’d awa’ wi’ his cuttin’ whup,
And doon the dishes dang;
He clatter’d them doon, sir, raw by raw;
The big anes foremost, and syne the sma’;
He came to the cheeny cups last o’ a’ —
They glanced wi’ gowd sae thrang!
Then bonny Nelly came skirlin’ butt;
Her twa white arms roun his neck she put —
‘O Redrigs, dear, hae ye tint your wut?
Are ye quite and clane gane wrang?
O spare my teapot! O spare my jug!
O spare, O spare my posset-mug!
And I’ll let ye kiss, and I’ll let ye hug,
Dear Redrigs, a’ day lang.’
‘Forgie, forgie me, my beauty bright!
Ye are my Nelly, my heart’s delight;
I’ll kiss and I’ll hug ye day and night,
If alang wi’ me you’ll gang.’
‘Fetch out my pillion, fetch out my cloak,
You’ll heal my heart if my bowl you broke.’
These words, whilk she to her bridegroom spoke,
Are the endin’ o’ my sang.
[Sir Samuel Ferguson, 1832]
In his biography (Sir Samuel Ferguson in the Ireland of his day), Lady Ferguson also provides us with an otherwise unpublished Ulster-Scots poem ‘A New Year’s Epistle to Robert Gordon, M.D., dated the 1st of January 1845’. This 20-verse poem in ‘Standard Habbie’ (Burns style) is written in excellent Ulster-Scots, and had been copied by Lady Ferguson from a manuscript copy, ‘so far as she could decipher, the very illegible writing. The Northern or Scottish dialect added to the difficulty, the words being unfamiliar’. Robert Gordon was a childhood friend whose family was from Islandmagee in east Antrim. He and Ferguson corresponded regularly, but on this one occasion, the ‘epistle’ was a poem which begins:
A Guid New Year I wish you, Gordon.
Hech! Forty-four has been a hard ane …
The following verses reflect on their childhood friendship, and on the unfulfilled ambitions ‘Rab’ and Samuel once had.
A New Year’s Epistle to Robert Gordon, M.D., dated the 1st of January 1845
A Guid New Year I wish you, Gordon.
Hech! Forty-four has been a hard ane,
And on our backs has laid its burden
Wi’ pressure fell;
Still, hae we had our orra guerdon
Within oursel’.
To haud us up, and reconcile us
To that sour Madam Fortune’s malice,
Wha o’ the Muse has aye been jalous
Sin auld blind Homer
Beggit his bit amang Greek billies
Revolting from her.
And bonny bairns to grace the country,
You canna hae thae sweet wee gentry
Without the wife and the pantry
And hoose and a’.
That, reckonin’ up my sorra’ inventry,
Won’t suit ava’.
Oh bonny hizzie, braw and gaucie,
Thou minds me I was young and saucy
When first adown Life’s sunny causey
— I stepped fain,
And thocht nane ither like the lassie
I thocht my ain.
Thou was the Muse, my bonny thing,
That first did plume my fancy’s wing,
And raised me frae the miry ring
O’ warldly wark,
Up through the heaven o sang to spring
Like ony lark.
And bonny were the lays we sung
In thae bricht days when I was young,
And thou wast fairer than the tongue
O’ mortal man,
Or tongue ’twixt lips o’ angels hung,
Could speak or ken.
Yet yesterday it seems nae mair,
And thou was blyther than the air,
And all around thee fresh and fair
And kind and sweet:
The vara grun’ did greener wear
Beneath thy feet.
Since then I hae seen mony a face,
And mony a form o’ youthfu’ grace,
And mony a lassie high in place
Weel to gang wi’;
But, och, I never saw the lass
I looed like thee!
But odsake, man! I maunna bore ye
Wi’ this auld everlastin’ story
O’ birkies wha frae dreams o’ glory
And love awauken,
To find themselves by Chronus hoary
Half owertauken.
And, hech! eld’s hirplin’ up belyve,
For, for a lad that’s yet to wive,
And born intil this bizzin’ hive
In aughteen-ten,
This aughteen hunner forty-five
Is brawly ben.
And in thae five-and-thritty seasons
O’ greetin’s, mitchins, learnin’ lessons,
Dreamin’s and coortin’s, tears and kissin’s,
Fechts and sae forth,
What hae I dune, bune ither messens,
O’ guid on Earth?
Whaur’s a’ the visions I hae painted?
Whaur’s a’ the braw sangs I hae chaunted?
Whaur’s a’ the bletherin’ hopes I’ve vaunted
O’ fame and gain?
And Whaur’s the precious life I’ve panted
Awa’ in vain?
Fient haet o’ me can either tell
Or guess ; but here I am mysel’,
As fou o’ sperit as a stell,
And gleg as ever
At head-wark or the random spell
O’ clishmaclaver.
And, aiblins though at times mislasted
Wi’ grievous thochts o’ moments wasted,
Auld frien’s estranged, and green hopes blasted,
As birkies will
When the mid line o’ life they’ve crossed it,
I’m happy still.
For ilka day I’m growin’ stranger
To speak my mind in love or anger;
And, hech! ere it be muckle langer,
You’ll see appearin’
Some offerin’s o’ nae cauld haranguer
Put out for Erin.
Lord, for ae day o’ service done her!
Lord, for ane hour’s sunlight upon her!
Here, Fortune, tak’ warld’s wealth and honour,
You’re no’ my debtor,
Let me but rive ae link asunder
O’ Erin’s fetter!
Let me but help to shape the sentence
Will put the pith o’ independence,
O’ self-respect in self-acquaintance,
And manly pride
Intil auld Eber-Scot’s descendants
Take a’ beside!
Let me but help to get the truth
Set fast in ilka brother’s mouth,
Whatever accents, north or south,
His tongue may use,
And there’s ambition, riches, youth,
Take which you choose!
But dinna, dinna take my frien’s;
And spare me still my dreams at e’ens,
And sense o’ Nature’s bonny scenes,
And a’ above;
Leave me, at least, if no’ the means,
The thocht o’ love!
Adieu, my boy; the nicht’s worn through,
Aurora’s beasts are yokit-to,
And through the pouthery mornin’ dew
Come, micherin’ keen:
We’ll see what stalls they’ll hae in view
Next New-Year’s e’en.
[Sir Samuel Ferguson, 1845]
The recipient of this epistle in verse, Dr. Robert Hunter Gordon (1815-1857), was born in Belfast, the son of John and Catherine Gordon. His father was a Belfast grocer and wine and spirit merchant, while his mother was the daughter of the Rev. William Holmes of Islandmagee. It was the thatched, white-washed home of his grandparents that became Robert’s childhood rural haunt and the inspiration for his writing — associations that were in a way remarkably similar to those of his lifelong friend Samuel Ferguson with the Four Mile Burn and Glenwhirry.
A Glossary of Ulster-Scots words used in Sir Samuel Ferguson’s writings
This glossary has been compiled to provide not only a gloss for the poems A Canny Courtship and A New-Year’s Epistle, but also a record of the wealth of Ferguson’s Ulster-Scots vocabulary from the extensive passages of Ulster-Scots dialogue in his novel, The Wet Wooing. The latter source is particularly important, as it purports to be the vernacular speech of the Glenwhirry district rather than ‘poetic literary Scots’. This dialogue is rich in idiom and authentic in context, and Ferguson even provides the occasional footnote revealing his own experience of particular terms, for example:
I attempted to salute her, but she held me at bay with her hand. ‘Hech, lad! Ye’re no blate — is it knievin’ troots* ye think ye are?’
*‘knieving trouts’ (they call it tickling in England) is good sport. You go to a stony shallow at night, a companion bearing a torch; then, stripping to the thighs and shoulders, wade in; grope with your hands under the stones, sods and other harbourage, till you find your game, then grip him in your ‘knieves,’ and toss him ashore.
I remember when a boy, carrying the splits for a servant of the family, called Sam Wham. Now Sam was an able young fellow, well-boned and willing; a hard-headed cudgel-player, and a marvellous tough wrestler, for he had a backbone like a sea-serpent; this gained him the name of the Twister and Twiner. He had got into the river, and with his back to me, was stooping over a broad stone, when something bolted from under the bank on which I stood, right through his legs. Sam fell with a great splash upon his face, but in falling jammed whatever it was against the stone. ‘Let go, Twister,’ shouted I, ‘’tis an otter, he will nip the finger off you.’ — ‘Whisht,’ spluttered he, as he slid his hand under the water; ‘May I never read a text again, if he isna a sawmont wi’ a shouther like a hog!’
[In The Hamely Tongue, James Fenton describes another word for the same sport under the name ginnle: ‘catch (trout) by hand (gently easing the trout against a stone or the bank before grasping at the gills)’.]
a coortin’ — courting
a’ — all
ae — one (adjectival)
aff — off
aiblins — possibly
ain — own
alang — along
amang — among
ance — once
ane — one
arena — aren’t
atween — between
aught — anything
aughteen — eighteen
auld — old
ava’ — at all
awa’ — away
aye — always
bail ye — guarantee
bairns — babies
ban’ — band
baudrons — cats
bauld — bold
beggit — begged
belyve — at once
ben — inside
biggit — built
billies — comrades, friends
birkies — conceited fellows
bit — dear little (adj.)
bizzin’ — buzzing
blate — shy, timid
blawin’ — blowing
bletherin’ — talking nonsense
bluid — blood
blyther — happier
bonny — pretty
bouk — size
brae — hill
braid — broad
braid-claith — broadcloth
braw — attractive
brawly — nicely
bricht — bright
briest — breast
bristled — broiled, toasted
bumbee — bee
burn — stream
butt — into the kitchen
byke — beehive
byre — cowshed
cankered — bad-tempered
canna — can t
cannily — cautiously
canny — careful
catched — caught
cauld — cold
causey — lane
chaunted — chanted, sang
cheeny — china
chiels — youths
cled — clothed, dressed
clishmaclaver — gossip
cloured — hit a blow
colly — collie, sheep-dog
coortin — courting
couldna — couldn’t
crack — chat
creeshy — greasy
crock — earthenware vessel
crouse — bold
cusin — cousin, relative
cuttie — small, cheeky person
dang — fell heavily
daur — dare
dauredna — didn’t dare
de’il — devil
deein’ — dying
deeit — died
deevil — devil
delf — crockery
dinna — don’t
discoorsin’ — explaining
dochter — daughter
doited — tottering
dolochan — trout
donsie — unfortunate
doon — down
doug — dog
droukit — soaked
dune — done
dunt — thump, shove
dwamin’ — fainting
dyke — hedge
e’en — evening
eld — old age
eneugh — enough
expeckit — expected
fa’ — fall
fain — lovingly
fashious — annoying
fechtin’ — fighting, quarrelling
fechts — fights
fient — fiend, the devil
forgie — forgive
fou — full
frae — from
freesome — ? [possibly an error for fleesome ‘frightening’]
frichten — frighten
frien’ — friend
gae — go
gaed — went
gait — way, manner
gane — gone
gang — go
gang your lane — go by yourself
garr’d — compelled
gaucie — large, well-rounded
gaun — gone
gied — went
gin — if
gleg — quick, keen, sharp
glowerin’ — stare wide eyed
gowd — gold
gowden — golden
grun’ — ground
guerdon — reward
guid — good
guidman — husband
hae — have
haet — a bit
hail billy weel met — hail fellow well met
hame — home
hangit — hung
hantle — large number
haud — hold
head-wark — concentration
hear till him — listen to him
hech! — Ach!
hereawa — hither
herry — harry, rob
himsell — himself
hirplin — hobbling
hizzie — young girl
hoastin’ — coughing
hoose — house
hoots — bother!
howsomever — however
hunner — hundred
i’ — in
I’se — I shall
ilka — each
ill-faur’d — ugly
impurence — impudence
isna — isn’t
ither — other
jaups — splashes, small drops of liquid
jo — love (my jo)
kame — comb
kamin’ — combing
ken — know
kennin’ — knowing
knieve — fist
knievin’ troots — tickling trout
knowe — hillock, knoll
laird — lord
lane — alone
lang — long
langer — longer
lap — wrap
lass — girl
lasses — girls
lassie — girl
leddy — lady
limmers — scoundrels
loo’ed — loved
loupit — jumped
loups — jumps
lowin’ — sheltering
lugs — ears
mair — mair
maun — more
maunna — mustn’t
meat — food
mensefu’ — polite
menseless — rude
messen — cur
micherin’ — warm and cheerful
minds — remembers
mitchin’ — sneaking off (school)
mony — many
moss — peat bog
mou’ — mouth
muckle — great
nae — no
nane — none
natur — nature
ne’er — never
neist — next
nevoy — nephew
nicht — night
no — not
noo — now
o’ — of
och — oh
odsake — for God’s sake
ony — any
orra — extra
oursel’ — ourself
oursells — ourselves
ower — over
owertauken — overtaken
peats — turf
poke — bag
posset-mug — small beaker
pouthery — powdered
prees — tastes, tries
puir — poor
pyed — paid
qu’et — quiet
raw — row
redd — clear
riggin’ — ridge
rin — run
sae — so
sair — sore
sall — shall
sang — song
sark — shirt
sark-frill — shirt-tail
saul! — by my soul!
saut — salt
sawmont — salmon
sax — six
scud — smack
scunner — sickener
settle — wooden box-seat / bed
sheltie — pony
shouthers — shoulders
sic — such
siccan a — such a
siller — money, silver
sin’ — since, ago
skelf — fragment, splinter
skirlin’ — shrieking
slipe — sledge
sma’ — small
snorin’ — roaring
sorner — scrounger, robber
sornin’ — scrounging, plundering
sorra’ — sorrow
speel — climb
speerin’ — asking
sperit — spirit
splits — slivers of bog-wood used to give light
splore — escapade
square — squire
stane — stone
stell — whiskey still
stoup — wooden water vessel
stranger — stronger
streekin’ — sticking out
streeks — sticks out
sturt — bluster
syne — since, ago
ta’en — taken
tak’ — take
tawpie — giddy person
tay — tea
thae — those
the morn’s e’en — tomorrow night
thegither — together
thereawa — thither
thocht — thought
thole — suffer, endure
thrang — crowd
thritty — thirty
tint — taint
troot — trout
twa — two
twal — twelve
tyke — dog, cur
vara — very
verra — very
virginney leaf — tobacco
wa’ — wall
wa’s — walls
wabster — weaver
wad — would
wadna — wouldn’t
wae — woe
wark — work
wauken — awaken
waur ++’ — worse for
wean — child
wecht — weight
wee — small
weel — well
weemen — women
weshed — washed
wha — who
wham — whom
whang — hit
whaur — where
whilk — which
whisht — (be) quiet
whup — whip
wi’ — with
wifie — married woman
winna — won’t
wonner — wonder
warldly — worldly
wrang — wrong
wud — wood, would
wut — wit
wyliecoat — long under-waistcoat
ye — you (singular)
yett — gate
yokit-to — tied to
yoursell — yourself
Next: Hogmanay Origins and Traditions
Previous: Tha Thoarn Tree
Contents: Ullans: The Magazine for Ulster-Scots, Nummer 13 Hairst 2013
