Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/148

124 (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 woodbine. 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, probably 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 illustrates 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 hrak, 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 suggested the hated Jew, probably Judas Iscariot himself. In the cabbage rows a pit-fall (a "faw," German "Falle") was 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-föll. When snow covered the ground the barn "wecht" or close sieve was the favourite snare.

There was no thought of egg-collecting. The herried 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