The Weatherhouse
Page 23
GLOSSARY
a’thing
everything
begeck
disappointment
begrutten
tear stained
bide bydin
stay, remain; staying
bike
wasps’ nest
bit
little, scrap of
blithe
happy
brose
oatmeal and milk or hot water
cantle up
brighten up
cantrip
piece of mischief
canty
lively, cheerful
chiel
lad
cloor
dent
clout
rag
collieshangie
animated talk
connach
devour; spoil
crack
gossip
craiturie
little creature
a crap for a’ corn and a baggie for orrels
an appetite for absolutely anything and then some (literally: a bag for leftovers)
deil
devil
delvin
digging
dirds
bangs (vb)
dirl
ring (vb)
dour
stubborn
dunt
a blow
a dunt on the riggin
not all there (dent in the roof)
(neither) echie nor ochie
not the smallest sound
e’en
eyes
fee’d
hired
fey
peculiar, other-worldly
ficher
fiddle, fidget
fient
never! not a! (lit: devil!)
fleggit
startled
flinchin
deceitful promise of better weather
forbre
besides
fyle
soil, make dirty
gar
cause to
gey
rather
a gey snod bit deemie
a rather neat little maid
girned
complained
glower
scowl
grat
cried
greetin
crying
haggar
clumsy hacking
halflin
teenager
hap
cover up
hotterel
a swarm
hine awa’/up
far away/up
ilka
each, every
inen
in among
keek, keeing
peek, peeking
kye
cattle
lift
sky
to lippen to
to trust
loon
boy, lad
lousin time
end of the working day
lowe
blaze
lugs
ears
neuk
corner
newse
chat
nieve
fist
nyod
(an exclamation, lit: God!)
orra
odd, miscellaneous
pi
pious, sanctimonious
pleuch
plough
pooches
pockets
preens
pins
pyet
magpie
queets
ankles
rax
stretch
roup
a sale or public auction
sark
shirt
scran
scrounge
scuttered
fiddled about
shank
stocking being knitted
sharger
half grown creature
sheepy silver
flakes of mica (in a stone)
sic nannie sic horsie
like master, like man
snored
smothered (in snow)
snod
neat
soo’s snoot
pig’s nose
spoot-ma-gruel
any unappetising food
steekit
shut
stite
nonsense
swacker
more supple
tackie
tig (child’s game)
thrawn
stubborn
timmer knife
wooden knife (useless)
tinkey
tinker
trig
neat
wae
woeful
wantin
lacking
waur; nane the waur
worse; none the worse
whiles
at the same time
yon
that
yowies
pine cones
About the Author
THE WEATHERHOUSE
Anna (Nan) Shepherd was born in 1893 and died in 1981. Closely attached to Aberdeen and her native Deeside, she graduated from her home University in 1915, and went to work for the next forty-one years as a lecturer in English at what is now Aberdeen College of Education. An enthusiastic gardener and hill walker, she made many visits to the Cairngorms with students and friends and was a keen member of the Deeside Field Club. Her last book, a non-fiction study called The Living Mountain, testifies to her love of the hills and her knowledge of them in all their moods. Her many further travels included visits to Norway, France, Italy, Greece, and South Africa, but she always returned to the house where she was raised and lived almost all her adult life, in the village of West Cults, three miles from Aberdeen on North Deeside.
Nan Shepherd wrote three novels, all well received by the critics: The Quarry Wood (1928), followed by The Weatherhouse (1930) and A Pass in the Grampians (1933). A collection of poems, In the Cairngorms, appeared in 1934, and The Living Mountain was published in 1977. She edited Aberdeen University Review from 1957 to 1964, contributed to The Deeside Field, and worked on editions of poetry by two fellow North East writers, J.C. Milne and Charles Murray. She was awarded an honorary degree by Aberdeen University in 1964, and her many friends included Agnes Mure Mackenzie, Helen Cruickshank, Willa Muir, Hugh MacDiarmid, William Soutar, and Jessie Kesson.
Copyright
First published in 1930 by Constable and Co. Ltd, London
First published as a Canongate Classic in 1988
by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2009
by Canongate Books
Copyright © Sheila M. Clouston, 1930
Introduction © Roderick Watson, 1988
All rights reserved
The publishers gratefully acknowledge general subsidy from the Scottish Arts Council towards the Canongate Classics series and a specific grant towards the publication of this title
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84767 802 7
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