Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/174

150 Bullers in this connection, as well as the figurative application to a great growth under an accession of heat and rain—“Everything's bullerin out.” Norse influence is very notable in the river valleys running up from the Solway. On the other hand, Gaelic had surprisingly little influence, even in Moray. I gathered but one notable specimen, greesh, an old-fashioned fireplace of clay, built against the "gavel” of the cottage. Just such an one Bums's father set up in the “auld clay biggin.” It is the early Irish gris, fire. Shaw notes the diminutive grushach, hot, glowing embers, and Chambers, in the delightful “Popular Rhymes,” gives it in a Dumfriesshire variant of the “Wee Bunnock": “There was an old man and an old wife, and they lived in a killogie. Quoth the auld man to the auld wife, Rise and bake me a bannock.' So she rase and bakit a bannock, and set it afore the greeshoch to harden.” The Orcadian kiln-huggie is the fireplace of the kiln. To these may be added a very common Morayshire word, doubtless of native origin, howp, a mouthful, as in the expression, "Let's see a mouthfu' o' watter."

Small communities tended to foster the personal, and generally uncomplimentary, form of familiar criticism. My friend had several peculiar specimens of this class, which I give at random:—Be-gyte, a variant of the more usual be-gowk, to cheat, e.g. “I was terrible be-gytet," said a man who had unwisely married a second time; dirdum, a scolding, overbearing dame, but usually a disturbance, blame; galsh, rubbishy talk, e.g. “A galshin crittur, only a lot o galsh an' nae eediefaction in't;" gutty, as a big-bellied bottle—Wright quotes from the Ayrshire story, “Dr. Duguid,” “A gutty we chiel that gaed aboot the toon wi' knee breeks on"; pee-akin, sickly, puling, e.g. "Yer like a deein chicken, a pee-akin thing," a variant of the West of Scotland peel-wersh, sickly; peerie-weerie, “ terrible weak stuff,” a variant of the Glasgow peelie-wally. In Lanarkshire the little finger is peerie or peerlie-winkie. In Banff “peeack” is the chirp of a young bird, or any one with a small, insignificant voice, “Faht kyn's (sort) yir noo minister?” “He's jist a mere peeack. We hardly saw 'm i' the poopit, an'he cheepit an’ squeakit like a moos aneeth a firlot“ (corn measure). “Yir chuckies ar peeackin gey muckle, an' hingin thir wings, I doot