142-410: A brownie or broonie ( Scots ), also known as a brùnaidh or gruagach ( Scottish Gaelic ), is a household spirit or hobgoblin from Scottish folklore that is said to come out at night while the owners of the house are asleep and perform various chores and farming tasks. The human owners of the house must leave a bowl of milk or cream or some other offering for the brownie, usually by
284-546: A Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad terminal and the town of Port Arthur . Stillwell claimed that brownies had spoken to him since he was four years old, and said he always took their advice regarding anything from where to build to whom he would marry. He later stated that the brownies had warned him not to build his terminal in Galveston as the town would be destroyed in a tidal wave. Brownies have traditionally been regarded as distinct and different from fairies . In 1777,
426-470: A boggart , wreaking havoc across the whole town. An old wise man, however, managed to summon him and banish him to the Red Sea . Elements of this story recur throughout other brownie stories. The Manx name for a brownie is Fenodyree ( pronounced [fəˈnɑðəɾi] ). The Fenodyree is envisioned as a "hairy spirit of great strength", who is capable of threshing an entire barn full of corn in
568-503: A horseshoe on it upside-down so the brownie would have a place to sit. The brownie at the Portway Inn in Staunton on Wye reportedly had a habit of stealing the family keys and the only way to retrieve them was for the whole family sit around the hearth and to set a piece of cake on the hob as an offering to the brownie. Then they would all sit with their eyes closed, absolutely silent, and
710-522: A vicar of Beetham wrote in his notes on local folklore, "A Browny is not a fairey, but a tawny color'd Being which will do a great deal of work for a Family, if used well." The writer Walter Scott agreed in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border , in which he states, "The Brownie formed a class of beings distinct in habit and disposition from the freakish and mischievous elves." Modern scholars, however, categorize brownies as household spirits, which
852-572: A "thick little man". The man in these descriptions may have been conceived as a brownie. In the late nineteenth century, the Irish folklorist Thomas Keightley described the brownie as "a personage of small stature, wrinkled visage, covered with short curly brown hair, and wearing a brown mantle and hood". Brownies are usually described as either naked or clothed in rags. Brownies of the Scottish Lowlands were said not to have noses, but instead had merely
994-905: A 1996 trial before the Census, by the General Register Office for Scotland (GRO), suggested that there were around 1.5 million speakers of Scots, with 30% of Scots responding "Yes" to the question "Can you speak the Scots language?", but only 17% responding "Aye" to the question "Can you speak Scots?". It was also found that older, working-class people were more likely to answer in the affirmative. The University of Aberdeen Scots Leid Quorum performed its own research in 1995, cautiously suggesting that there were 2.7 million speakers, though with clarification as to why these figures required context. The GRO questions, as freely acknowledged by those who set them, were not as detailed and systematic as those of
1136-625: A Scots language listing. The Ferret, a UK -based fact-checking service, wrote an exploratory article in December 2022 to address misconceptions about the Scots language to improve public awareness of its endangered status. In Scotland, Scots is spoken in the Scottish Lowlands , the Northern Isles , Caithness , Arran and Campbeltown . In Ulster , the northern province in Ireland , its area
1278-451: A Welsh scholar of Celtic culture and folklore, records a story from Monmouthshire in his 1901 book Celtic Folklore about a young maid suspected of having fairy blood, who left a bowl of cream at the bottom of the stairs every night for a Bwbach . One night, as a prank, she filled the bowl with stale urine. The Bwbach attacked her, but she screamed and the Bwbach was forced to flee to
1420-427: A bowl of milk and a bannock that had been left out for the brownie. They sat down together to eat them, but the brownie sat between them invisibly and whenever either of them tried to eat the bannock or drink the milk, the brownie would steal it from them. The two maids began arguing, each accusing the other of stealing her milk and bannock. Finally, the brownie laughed and cried out: "Ha, ha, ha! Brownie has't a'!" If
1562-649: A brownie at Overthwaite in Westmorland was known as "Tawny Boy" and a brownie from Hylton in Sunderland was known as the " Cauld Lad of Hylton ". Brownies are said to be motivated by "personal friendships and fancies" and may sometimes be moved to perform extra work outside of their normal duties, such as, in one story of a brownie from Balquam, fetching a midwife when the lady of the house went into labour . In 1703, John Brand wrote in his description of Shetland that: Not above forty or fifty years ago, every family had
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#17330855214531704-470: A brownie is Bwbach ( pronounced [ˈbuːbaχ] ). Like brownies, Bwbachod are said to have violent tempers if angered. The twelfth-century Welsh historian Gerald of Wales records how a Bwbach inflicted havoc and mischief upon a certain household that had angered him. The 19th-century folklorist Wirt Sikes describes the Bwbach as a "good-natured goblin" who performs chores for Welsh maids. He states that, right before she goes to bed,
1846-586: A brownie, or evil spirit, so called, which served them, to which they gave a sacrifice for his service; as when they churned their milk, they took a part thereof, and sprinkled every corner of the house with it, for Brownie’s use; likewise, when they brewed , they had a stone which they called "Brownie’s stane", wherein there was a little hole into which they poured some wort for a sacrifice to Brownie. They also had some stacks of corn, which they called Brownie's Stacks, which, though they were not bound with straw ropes, or in any way fenced as other stacks used to be, yet
1988-462: A collection of children's nursery rhymes and poems in Scots. The book contains a five-page glossary of contemporary Scots words and their pronunciations. Alexander Gray 's translations into Scots constitute the greater part of his work, and are the main basis for his reputation. In 1983, William Laughton Lorimer 's translation of the New Testament from the original Greek was published. Scots
2130-433: A continuum ranging from traditional broad Scots to Scottish Standard English . Many speakers are diglossic and may be able to code-switch along the continuum depending on the situation. Where on this continuum English-influenced Scots becomes Scots-influenced English is difficult to determine. Because standard English now generally has the role of a Dachsprache ('roofing language'), disputes often arise as to whether
2272-427: A fit of passion. Those who saw him described him as a naked boy. He was said to clean up anything that was untidy and make messes of things that were tidy. The Menehune of Hawaiian folklore have been compared to brownies as well, seeing they are portrayed as a race of dwarf people who carry out work during night time. The family cult of deceased ancestors in ancient times centred around the hearth, which later became
2414-470: A green sark!" The laird ordered for a green shirt to be made for the brownie. It was left out for him and he disappeared forever. People assumed he had gone to Fairyland . In the nineteenth century, the pothook used to hang pots over the fire was made with a crook in it, which was known in Herefordshire as the "brownie's seat" or "brownie's sway". If the hook did not have crook on it, people would hang
2556-412: A hearth), fireplace , oven , smoke hood, or chimney . Hearths are usually composed of masonry such as brick or stone . For millennia, the hearth was such an integral part of a home , usually its central and most important feature, that the concept has been generalized to refer to a homeplace or household, as in the terms "hearth and home" and "keep the home fires burning". In the modern era, since
2698-472: A human criticizes him, or if a human laughs at him. Brownies are supposedly especially angered by anything they regard as contempt or condescension. The brownie at Cranshaws in Berwickshire is said to have mown and thrashed the grain for years. Then someone commented that the grain had been poorly mown and stacked, so, that night, the brownie carried all the grain to Raven Crag two miles away and hurled it off
2840-403: A kind of demon . King James VI and I describes the brownie as a demon in his 1597 treatise Daemonologie : ... among the first kinde of spirites that I speak of, appeared in the time of Papistrie and blindness, and haunted divers houses, without doing any evill, but as it were necessarie turnes up and down the house: and this spirit they called Brownie in our language, who appeared like
2982-472: A more phonological manner rather than following the pan-dialect conventions of modern literary Scots, especially for the northern and insular dialects of Scots. Hearth A hearth ( / h ɑːr θ / ) is the place in a home where a fire is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for cooking , usually constituted by at least a horizontal hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos (a low, partial wall behind
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#17330855214533124-674: A name for the Lowland vernacular. The Gaelic of Scotland is now usually called Scottish Gaelic . Northumbrian Old English had been established in what is now southeastern Scotland as far as the River Forth by the seventh century, as the region was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria . By the tenth century, Middle Irish was the language of the Scottish court , and the common use of Old English remained largely confined to this area until
3266-547: A name! 'Tis Puddlefoot they call me!" Then he vanished forever and was never heard again. If the family gives the brownie a gift of clothing, he will leave forever and refuse to work for the family. The first mention in English of a brownie disappearing after being presented with clothes comes from Book Four, Chapter Ten of Reginald Scot 's The Discoverie of Witchcraft , published in 1584. Sometimes brownies are reported to recite couplets before disappearing. One brownie from Scotland
3408-530: A national framework by providing a series of standard bands of wealth applicable to each county and city. Published lists are available of many returns and the original documents are in the Public Record Office . The most informative returns, many of which have been published, occur between 1662–1666 and 1669–1674. In Greek mythology , Hestia is the goddess of the hearth, while in Roman mythology Vesta has
3550-434: A non-domestic task outside of their usual repertoire. Brownies are almost always described as solitary creatures who work alone and avoid being seen. There is rarely said to be more than one brownie living in the same house. Usually, the brownie associated with a house is said to live in a specific place, such as a particular nearby cave, stream, rock, or pond. Some individual brownies are occasionally given names. Around 1650,
3692-413: A number of paradigms for distinguishing between languages and dialects exist, they often render contradictory results. Broad Scots is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum , with Scottish Standard English at the other. Scots is sometimes regarded as a variety of English, though it has its own distinct dialects; other scholars treat Scots as a distinct Germanic language, in the way that Norwegian
3834-641: A person attempts to present a brownie with clothing or baptize it, it will leave forever. Regional variants in England and Scotland include hobs , silkies , and ùruisgs . Variants outside England and Scotland are the Welsh Bwbach and the Manx Fenodyree . Brownies have also appeared outside of folklore, including in John Milton 's poem L'Allegro . They became popular in works of children's literature in
3976-612: A representative sample of Scotland's adult population) claim to speak Scots to varying degrees. The 2011 UK census was the first to ask residents of Scotland about Scots. A campaign called Aye Can was set up to help individuals answer the question. The specific wording used was "Which of these can you do? Tick all that apply" with options for "Understand", "Speak", "Read" and "Write" in three columns: English, Scottish Gaelic and Scots. Of approximately 5.1 million respondents, about 1.2 million (24%) could speak, read and write Scots, 3.2 million (62%) had no skills in Scots and
4118-510: A rough-man: yea, some were so blinded, as to believe that their house was all the sonsier , as they called it, that such spirites resorted there. The folklorist L. F. Newman states that the image of the brownie fits well into a Functionalist analysis of the "old, generous rural economy" of pre-Industrial Britain, describing him as the epitome of what a good household servant of the era was supposed to be. Belief in brownies could be exploited by both masters and servants. The servants could blame
4260-577: A single hole in the centre of their face. In Aberdeenshire , brownies are sometimes described as having no fingers or toes. Sometimes brownies are stated to appear like children, either naked or dressed in white tunics. Like the Phooka in Irish folklore, brownies are sometimes described as taking the forms of animals . As a rule, they can turn invisible , but they are supposed to rarely need this ability because they are already experts at sneaking and hiding. A story from Peeblesshire tells of two maids who stole
4402-508: A single night. The Fenodyree is regarded as generally unintelligent. One Manx folktale tells of how the Fenodyree once tried to round up a flock of sheep and had more trouble with a small, hornless, grey one than any of the others; the "sheep" he had so much difficulty with turned out to be a hare. The exact same mistake is also attributed to a brownie from Lancashire and the story is also told in western North America . Like other brownies,
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4544-451: A suitable medium of education or culture". Students reverted to Scots outside the classroom, but the reversion was not complete. What occurred, and has been occurring ever since, is a process of language attrition , whereby successive generations have adopted more and more features from Standard English. This process has accelerated rapidly since widespread access to mass media in English and increased population mobility became available after
4686-451: A vicious poltergeist , who made banging noise and other strange noises and pulled pranks on the man. The man eventually moved out. Briggs calls this an example of a brownie turning into a boggart. Silkies were also sometimes believed to appear suddenly on roads at night to lonely travellers and frighten them. Another Silkie is said to haunt the grounds of Fardel Hall in Devonshire . This one
4828-471: A vulnerable language by UNESCO . In a Scottish census from 2022, over 1.5 million people in Scotland reported being able to speak Scots. Given that there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing a language from a dialect , scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Scots, particularly its relationship to English . Although
4970-422: A wide range of materials, such as stone or left unlined. They were used for cooking, heating, and the processing of some stone, wood, faunal, and floral resources. Occasionally site formation processes—e.g., farming or excavation—deform or disperse hearth features, making them difficult to identify without careful study. Lined hearths are easily identified by the presence of fire-cracked rock , often created when
5112-464: A woman who lived next door to the inn. Everyone in the locality knew about Charlie and he was believed to sit on the beam of holly wood over the fire, which was known as the "clavvy" or "clavey". Once, when the woman was having dinner with a local farmer, the servants set the table at the inn with "silver and linen", but, as soon as they left the room and came back, Charlie had put all the table settings back where they had come from because he did not like
5254-531: Is a language variety descended from Early Middle English in the West Germanic language family . Most commonly spoken in the Scottish Lowlands , the Northern Isles of Scotland , and northern Ulster in Ireland (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots ), it is sometimes called: Lowland Scots , to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic , the Celtic language that was historically restricted to most of
5396-575: Is also used, though this is more often taken to mean the Lallans literary form . Scots in Ireland is known in official circles as Ulster-Scots ( Ulstèr-Scotch in revivalist Ulster-Scots) or "Ullans", a recent neologism merging Ulster and Lallans. Scots is a contraction of Scottis , the Older Scots and northern version of late Old English : Scottisc (modern English "Scottish"), which replaced
5538-589: Is closely linked to but distinct from Danish . Native speakers sometimes refer to their vernacular as braid Scots (or "broad Scots" in English) or use a dialect name such as the " Doric " or the " Buchan Claik ". The old-fashioned Scotch , an English loan, occurs occasionally, especially in Ulster. The term Lallans , a variant of the Modern Scots word lawlands [ˈlo̜ːlən(d)z, ˈlɑːlənz] ,
5680-552: Is in Scots, for example. Scott introduced vernacular dialogue to his novels. Other well-known authors like Robert Louis Stevenson , William Alexander, George MacDonald , J. M. Barrie and other members of the Kailyard school like Ian Maclaren also wrote in Scots or used it in dialogue. In the Victorian era popular Scottish newspapers regularly included articles and commentary in the vernacular, often of unprecedented proportions. In
5822-695: Is lykest to our language..." ( For though several have written of (the subject) in English, which is the language most similar to ours... ). However, with the increasing influence and availability of books printed in England, most writing in Scotland came to be done in the English fashion. In his first speech to the English Parliament in March 1603, King James VI and I declared, "Hath not God first united these two Kingdomes both in Language, Religion, and similitude of maners?" . Following James VI's move to London,
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5964-464: Is said to do this on the behalf of spirits of the restless dead, who cannot sleep because of the presence of hidden treasure. When these spirits fail to succeed in persuading a living mortal to remove the treasure, they have the Bwbach whisk the person away instead. Briggs notes that this other aspect of the Bwbach 's activities makes it much more closely resemble the Irish Phooka. John Rhys ,
6106-503: Is said to have angrily declared: Red breeks and a ruffled sark! Ye'll no get me to do your wark! Another brownie from Berwickshire is said to have declared: Gie Brownie a coat, gie Brownie a sark, Ye'se get nae mair o' Brownie's wark. Explanations differ regarding why brownies disappear when presented with clothes, but the most common explanation is that the brownie regards the gift of clothing as an insult. One story from Lincolnshire , first recorded in 1891, attempts to rationalize
6248-415: Is said to manifest in the form of a "beautiful young woman with long, golden hair, wearing a long silken gown" and supposedly guards a hoard of treasure buried on the grounds. Few people have seen the spirit, but many claim to have heard the rustling of her silk dress. She is believed to quietly strangle anyone who comes near finding the treasure. The folklorist John Gregorson Campbell distinguishes between
6390-478: Is said to protect orchards; Awd Goggie scares children away from eating unripe gooseberries ; and Melch Dick guards nut thickets. The Kilmoulis is a brownie-like creature from the Scottish Lowlands that is often said to inhabit mills. He is said to have no mouth, but an enormous nose that covers most of his face. He is fond of pranks and only the miller himself is able to control him. American businessman Arthur Stillwell reported that brownies told him to build
6532-575: Is sometimes used in contemporary fiction, such as the Edinburgh dialect of Scots in Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (later made into a motion picture of the same name ). But'n'Ben A-Go-Go by Matthew Fitt is a cyberpunk novel written entirely in what Wir Ain Leed ("Our Own Language") calls "General Scots". Like all cyberpunk work, it contains imaginative neologisms . The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
6674-551: Is supposed to have joyfully sung before disappearing: Here's a cloak, and here's a hood! The Cauld Lad of Hilton will do no more good! It is possible that the Cauld Lad may have simply thought himself "too grand for work", a motif attested to in other folk tales, or that the gift of clothing may have been seen as a means of freeing him from a curse. A brownie from Jedburgh is also said to have desired clothing. The servants are reported to have heard him one night saying, "Wae's me for
6816-550: Is used to describe the Scots language after 1700. A seminal study of Scots was undertaken by JAH Murray and published as Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland . Murray's results were given further publicity by being included in Alexander John Ellis 's book On Early English Pronunciation, Part V alongside results from Orkney and Shetland, as well as the whole of England. Murray and Ellis differed slightly on
6958-529: Is usually defined through the works of Robert John Gregg to include the counties of Down , Antrim , Londonderry and Donegal (especially in East Donegal and Inishowen ). More recently, the Fintona -born linguist Warren Maguire has argued that some of the criteria that Gregg used as distinctive of Ulster-Scots are common in south-west Tyrone and were found in other sites across Northern Ireland investigated by
7100-662: Is usually treated as a subcategorization of fairy. Brownies and other household spirits differ significantly from other fairies in folklore, however. Brownies are usually said to dwell alongside humans in houses, barns, and on farms; whereas other fairies are usually said to reside in places of remote wilderness. Brownies are usually regarded as harmless, unless they are angered; other types of folkloric fairies, however, are typically seen as dark and dangerous. Finally, brownies are unusual for their solitary nature, since most other types of fairies are often thought to live in large groups. Briggs notes that brownies are frequently associated with
7242-593: The Fenodyree is believed to leave forever if he is presented with clothing. In one story, a farmer of Ballochrink gave the Fenodyree a gift of clothes in gratitude for all his work. The Fenodyree was offended and lifted up each item of clothing, reciting the various illnesses each one would bring him. The Fenodyree then left to hide away in Glen Rushen alone. Especially in Yorkshire and Lancashire, brownies are known as " Hobs " due to their association with
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#17330855214537384-549: The Clerk of the Peace between 1662 and 1688. A revision of the Act in 1664 made the tax payable by all who had more than two chimneys. The tax was abolished by William III in 1689 and the last collection was for Lady Day of that year. It was abolished in Scotland in 1690. Hearth tax records are important to local historians as they provide an indication of the size of each assessed house at
7526-510: The Covenanters , a Scottish Presbyterian movement, were being persecuted. Food goes missing from the farm of Walter of Chaplehope, leading villagers to suspect it is the "brownie of Bodsbeck". In the end, it turns out that the "brownie" was actually John Brown , the leader of the Covenanters. Hogg later wrote about brownies in his short story "The Brownie of Black Haggs" (1828). In this story,
7668-470: The English Dialect Dictionary , edited by Joseph Wright . Wright had great difficulty in recruiting volunteers from Scotland, as many refused to cooperate with a venture that regarded Scots as a dialect of English, and he obtained enough help only through the assistance from a Professor Shearer in Scotland. Wright himself rejected the argument that Scots was a separate language, saying that this
7810-488: The Lares of ancient Roman tradition. Descriptions of brownies vary regionally, but they are usually described as ugly, brown-skinned, and covered in hair. In the oldest stories, they are usually human-sized or larger. In more recent times, they have come to be seen as small and wizened. They are often capable of turning invisible, and they sometimes appear in the shapes of animals . They are always either naked or dressed in rags. If
7952-501: The Linguistic Survey of Scotland . Dialects of Scots include Insular Scots , Northern Scots , Central Scots , Southern Scots and Ulster Scots . It has been difficult to determine the number of speakers of Scots via census, because many respondents might interpret the question "Do you speak Scots?" in different ways. Campaigners for Scots pressed for this question to be included in the 2001 UK National Census . The results from
8094-660: The MacFarlane clan was said to have been nursed and raised by the wife of an ùruisg . The Graham clan of Angus told stories of an ùruisg that had once worked for one of their ancestors as a drudge. The Maclachlan clan in Strathlachlan had an ùruisg servant named "Harry", possibly shortened from "the hairy one". The MacNeils of Taynish and the Frazers of Abertarff also claimed to have ùruisg servants. Ùruisg were also known as ciuthach s or kewachs . A story on
8236-706: The Protestant Church of Scotland adopted the 1611 Authorized King James Version of the Bible; subsequently, the Acts of Union 1707 led to Scotland joining England to form the Kingdom of Great Britain , having a single Parliament of Great Britain based in London. After the Union and the shift of political power to England, the use of Scots was discouraged by many in authority and education, as
8378-772: The Romance languages via ecclesiastical and legal Latin , Norman French , and later Parisian French , due to the Auld Alliance . Additionally, there were Dutch and Middle Low German influences due to trade with and immigration from the Low Countries . Scots also includes loan words in the legal and administrative fields resulting from contact with Middle Irish , and reflected in early medieval legal documents. Contemporary Scottish Gaelic loans are mainly for geographical and cultural features, such as cèilidh , loch , whisky , glen and clan . Cumbric and Pictish ,
8520-579: The Scottish Highlands , the Hebrides , and Galloway after the sixteenth century; or Broad Scots , to distinguish it from Scottish Standard English . Modern Scots is a sister language of Modern English , as the two diverged from the same medieval form of English. Scots is recognised as an indigenous language of Scotland by the Scottish government, a regional or minority language of Europe, and
8662-461: The Second World War . It has recently taken on the nature of wholesale language shift , sometimes also termed language change , convergence or merger . By the end of the twentieth century, Scots was at an advanced stage of language death over much of Lowland Scotland . Residual features of Scots are often regarded as slang. A 2010 Scottish Government study of "public attitudes towards
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#17330855214538804-579: The University of Aberdeen , and only included reared speakers (people raised speaking Scots), not those who had learned the language. Part of the difference resulted from the central question posed by surveys: "Do you speak Scots?". In the Aberdeen University study, the question was augmented with the further clause "... or a dialect of Scots such as Border etc.", which resulted in greater recognition from respondents. The GRO concluded that there simply
8946-409: The hearth . Brownies are described as easily offended and will leave their homes forever if they feel they have been insulted or in any way taken advantage of. Brownies are characteristically mischievous and are often said to punish or pull pranks on lazy servants. If angered, they are sometimes said to turn malicious, like boggarts . Brownies originated as domestic tutelary spirits, very similar to
9088-542: The Crowns in 1603, the Standard English of England came to have an increasing influence on the spelling of Scots through the increasing influence and availability of books printed in England. After the Acts of Union in 1707 the emerging Scottish form of Standard English replaced Scots for most formal writing in Scotland. The eighteenth-century Scots revival saw the introduction of a new literary language descended from
9230-587: The English brownie, which lived in houses, and the Scottish ùruisg ( pronounced [ˈuːɾɯsk] also ùraisg or urisk ), which lived outside in streams and waterfalls and was less likely to offer domestic help. Although brownies and ùruisg s are very similar in character, they have different origins. Ùruisg s are sometimes described as half-man and half-goat. They are said to have "long hair, long teeth, and long claws". According to M. L. West , they may be Celtic survivals of goat-like nature spirits from Proto-Indo-European mythology , analogous to
9372-449: The Kingdom of Great Britain, there is ample evidence that Scots was widely held to be an independent sister language forming a pluricentric diasystem with English. German linguist Heinz Kloss considered Modern Scots a Halbsprache ('half language') in terms of an abstand and ausbau languages framework, although today in Scotland most people's speech is somewhere on
9514-510: The Philosopher's Stane , a Scots translation of the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , was published by Matthew Fitt . The vowel system of Modern Scots: Vowel length is usually conditioned by the Scottish vowel length rule . The orthography of Early Scots had become more or less standardised by the middle to late sixteenth century. After the Union of
9656-601: The Roman fauns and Greek satyrs . Passersby often reported seeing an ùruisg sitting atop a rock at dusk, watching them go by. During the summer, the ùruisg was supposed to remain in the solitude of the wilderness, but, during the winter, he would come down and visit the local farms at night or take up residence in a local mill. Wild ùruisg s were troublemakers and vandals who perpetrated acts of butchery, arson, and ravaging, but, once domesticated, they were fiercely loyal. Wealthy and prominent families were said to have ùruisg s as household servants. One chieftain of
9798-480: The Scots language was also featured. It was found that 1,508,540 people reported that they could speak Scots, with 2,444,659 reporting that they could speak, read, write or understand Scots, approximately 45% of Scotland's 2022 population. The Scottish Government set its first Scots Language Policy in 2015, in which it pledged to support its preservation and encourage respect, recognition and use of Scots. The Scottish Parliament website also offers some information on
9940-467: The Scots language" found that 64% of respondents (around 1,000 individuals in a representative sample of Scotland's adult population) "don't really think of Scots as a language", also finding "the most frequent speakers are least likely to agree that it is not a language (58%) and those never speaking Scots most likely to do so (72%)". Before the Treaty of Union 1707 , when Scotland and England joined to form
10082-573: The Scottish Executive recognises and respects Scots (in all its forms) as a distinct language, and does not consider the use of Scots to be an indication of poor competence in English. Evidence for its existence as a separate language lies in the extensive body of Scots literature, its independent – if somewhat fluid – orthographic conventions , and in its former use as the language of the original Parliament of Scotland . Because Scotland retained distinct political, legal, and religious systems after
10224-622: The Standard English cognate . This Written Scots drew not only on the vernacular, but also on the King James Bible , and was heavily influenced by the norms and conventions of Augustan English poetry . Consequently, this written Scots looked very similar to contemporary Standard English, suggesting a somewhat modified version of that, rather than a distinct speech form with a phonological system which had been developing independently for many centuries. This modern literary dialect, "Scots of
10366-497: The Union, many Scots terms passed into Scottish English. During the 2010s, increased interest was expressed in the language. The status of the language was raised in Scottish schools, with Scots being included in the new national school curriculum . Previously in Scotland's schools there had been little education taking place through the medium of Scots, although it may have been covered superficially in English lessons, which could entail reading some Scots literature and observing
10508-680: The activities of those such as Thomas Sheridan , who in 1761 gave a series of lectures on English elocution . Charging a guinea at a time (about £200 in today's money ), they were attended by over 300 men, and he was made a freeman of the City of Edinburgh . Following this, some of the city's intellectuals formed the Select Society for Promoting the Reading and Speaking of the English Language in Scotland. These eighteenth-century activities would lead to
10650-446: The advent of central heating , hearths are usually less central to most people's daily life because the heating of the home is instead done by a furnace or a heating stove , and cooking is instead done with a kitchen stove /range (combination cooktop and oven ) alongside other home appliances ; thus many homes built in the 20th and 21st centuries do not have hearths. Nonetheless, many homes still have hearths, which still help serve
10792-467: The ballad of " Young Bekie ", in which he warns Burd Isbel, the woman Bekie is pledged to marry, that Bekie is about to marry another woman. He also appears in the ballad of " Willie's Lady " in which he also provides advice, but offers no practical aid. Briggs notes stories of other household spirits from British folklore who are reputed to haunt specific locations. The "cellar ghost" is a spirit who guards wine in cellars from would-be thieves; Lazy Lawrence
10934-521: The book" or Standard Scots, once again gave Scots an orthography of its own, lacking neither "authority nor author". This literary language used throughout Lowland Scotland and Ulster, embodied by writers such as Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Murray , David Herbison , James Orr, James Hogg and William Laidlaw among others, is well described in the 1921 Manual of Modern Scots . Other authors developed dialect writing, preferring to represent their own speech in
11076-557: The border between English and Scots dialects. Scots was studied alongside English and Scots Gaelic in the Linguistic Survey of Scotland at the University of Edinburgh , which began in 1949 and began to publish results in the 1970s. Also beginning in the 1970s, the Atlas Linguarum Europae studied the Scots language used at 15 sites in Scotland, each with its own dialect. From the mid-sixteenth century, written Scots
11218-407: The brownie feels he has been slighted or taken advantage of, he will vanish forever, taking the prosperity of the house with him. Sometimes the brownie is said to fly into a rage and wreck all his work before leaving. In extreme cases, brownies are even sometimes said to turn into malicious boggarts if angered or treated improperly. A brownie is said to take offence if a human observes him working, if
11360-414: The brownie for messes, breakages, and strange noises heard at night. Meanwhile, the masters of the house who employed them could use stories of the brownie to convince their servants to behave by telling them that the brownie would punish servants who were idle and reward those who performed their duties vigilantly. According to Susan Stewart, brownies also resolved the problem that human storytellers faced of
11502-427: The brownie was doing all the work and refused to return until all the servants had been re-hired. Traditions about brownies are generally similar across different parts of Great Britain. They are said to inhabit homes and farms. They only work at night, performing necessary housework and farm tasks while the human residents of the home are asleep. The presence of the brownie is believed to ensure household prosperity and
11644-481: The cliff, all the while muttering: It's no' weel mow'd! It's no' weel mow'd!— Then it's ne'er be mow'd by me again; I'll scatter it owre the Raven Stane And they'll hae some wark ere it's mow'd again! A brownie can also be driven away if someone attempts to baptize him. In some stories, even the manner in which their bowls of cream are given is enough to drive the brownie away. The brownie of Bodsbeck, near
11786-560: The complementary decline of French made Scots the prestige dialect of most of eastern Scotland. By the sixteenth century, Middle Scots had established orthographic and literary norms largely independent of those developing in England. From 1610 to the 1690s during the Plantation of Ulster , some 200,000 Scots-speaking Lowlanders settled as colonists in Ulster in Ireland. In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one. The name Modern Scots
11928-403: The creation of Scottish Standard English . Scots remained the vernacular of many rural communities and the growing number of urban working-class Scots. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the use of Scots as a literary language was revived by several prominent Scotsmen such as Robert Burns . Such writers established a new cross-dialect literary norm. Scots terms were included in
12070-458: The date the hearth was last used via the process of radiocarbon dating . Although carbon dates can be negatively affected if the users of the hearth burned old wood or coal, the process is typically quite reliable. This was the most common way to cook, and to heat interior spaces in cool seasons. In the Byzantine Empire a tax on hearths known as kapnikon was first explicitly mentioned for
12212-449: The dead and states that, like the banshee in Irish folklore, "a good case" could be made for brownies to be classified as ghosts. Nonetheless, she rejects this idea, commenting that the Brownie has "an adaptability, individuality and a homely tang which forbids one to think of him as merely a lingering and reminiscent image." In seventeenth-century Scotland, brownies were sometimes regarded as
12354-585: The deaths of those she loves. The novel never reveals whether Merodach is actually of supernatural origin or if he is merely a peculiar-looking servant. Charlotte and Emily Brontë were both familiar with Hogg's stories and his portrayal of Merodach may have greatly influenced Emily's portrayal of her character Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1847). Brownies are also briefly referenced in Charlotte's novel Villette (1853). The late nineteenth century saw
12496-434: The earlier i-mutated version Scyttisc . Before the end of the fifteenth century, English speech in Scotland was known as "English" (written Ynglis or Inglis at the time), whereas "Scottish" ( Scottis ) referred to Gaelic . By the beginning of the fifteenth century, the English language used in Scotland had arguably become a distinct language, albeit one lacking a name which clearly distinguished it from all
12638-496: The earliest traditions, brownies are either the same size as humans or sometimes larger, but, in later accounts, they are described as "small, wizened, and shaggy". They are often characterized as short and rotund, a description that may be related to mid-seventeenth-century Scottish descriptions of the Devil . Two Scottish witchcraft confessions , one by Thomas Shanks in 1649 and another by Margaret Comb in 1680, both describe meetings with
12780-744: The early twentieth century, a renaissance in the use of Scots occurred, its most vocal figure being Hugh MacDiarmid whose benchmark poem " A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle " (1926) did much to demonstrate the power of Scots as a modern idiom. Other contemporaries were Douglas Young , John Buchan , Sydney Goodsir Smith , Robert Garioch , Edith Anne Robertson and Robert McLellan . The revival extended to verse and other literature. In 1955, three Ayrshire men – Sandy MacMillan, an English teacher at Ayr Academy ; Thomas Limond, noted town chamberlain of Ayr ; and A. L. "Ross" Taylor, rector of Cumnock Academy – collaborated to write Bairnsangs ("Child Songs"),
12922-412: The evil Lady Wheelhope orders that any of her male servants who openly practises any form of religion must be given over to the military and shot. Female servants who practised religion are discreetly poisoned. A single mysterious servant named Merodach stands up to her. Merodach is described as having "the form of a boy, but the features of one a hundred years old" and his eyes "bear a strong resemblance to
13064-475: The eyes of a well-known species of monkey." Characters in the novel believe Merodach to be a brownie, although others claim that he is a "mongrel, between a Jew and an ape... a wizard... a kelpie , or a fairy". Like folkloric brownies, Merodach's religion is overtly pagan and he detests the sight of the Bible. He also refuses to accept any form of payment. Lady Wheelhope hates him and attempts to kill him, but all her efforts mysteriously backfire, instead resulting in
13206-509: The family who lives there, but, like a brownie, she is said to perform chores for the family. A famous Silkie was reported to haunt Denton Hall in Northumberland. Briggs gives the report of a woman named Marjory Sowerby, who, as a little girl, had spoken with the last remaining Hoyles of Denten Hall, two old ladies, about the Silkie and its kindness to them. They told her that the Silkie would clean
13348-482: The farmer she was meeting with. Hobs are sometimes also known as "Lobs". Lob-Lie-by-the-Fire is the name of a large brownie who was said to perform farm labour. In Scotland, a similar hearth spirit was known as the Wag-at-the-Wa. The Wag-at-the-Wa was believed to sit on the pothook and it was believed that swinging the pothook served as an invitation for him to come visit. He was believed to pester idle servants, but he
13490-505: The fifteenth century, much literature based on the Royal Court in Edinburgh and the University of St Andrews was produced by writers such as Robert Henryson , William Dunbar , Gavin Douglas and David Lyndsay . The Complaynt of Scotland was an early printed work in Scots. The Eneados is a Middle Scots translation of Virgil 's Aeneid , completed by Gavin Douglas in 1513. After
13632-406: The floor, washes the dishes, and lays by the fire. According to Briggs, like most other early brownies, Milton's Lubbar Fend was probably envisioned as human-sized or larger. In many early literary appearances, the brownie turns out to be an ordinary person. The Scottish novelist James Hogg incorporated brownie folklore into his novel The Brownie of Bodsbeck (1818). The novel is set in 1685, when
13774-415: The gift of them, yet still refused to stay after receiving them. At night, people were supposed to have heard him working and somberly singing: Wae's me! Wae's me! The acorn is not yet Fallen from the tree, That's to grow to the wood, That's to make the cradle, That's to rock the bairn, That's to grow a man, That's to lay to me. After the servants presented him with a green mantle and hood, he
13916-489: The greatest storm of wind was not able to blow away straw off them. Brownies are virtually always male, but female brownies, such as Meg Mullach (or "Hairy Meg"), have occasionally been described as well. They are usually envisioned as ugly and their appearances are sometimes described as frightening or unsettling to members of the houses in which they reside. They received their name from the fact that they are usually described as brown-skinned and completely covered in hair. In
14058-496: The growth and profusion of children's literature, which often incorporated fantasy. Brownies in particular were often thought of as especially appealing to children. Juliana Horatia Ewing incorporated brownie folklore remembered from her childhood into her short story "The Brownies", first published in 1865 in The Monthly Packet and later incorporated into her 1871 collection of short stories The Brownies and Other Tales . In
14200-470: The hearth and kindle fires for them. They also mentioned "something about bunches of flowers left on the staircase". Sowerby left the area in around 1902 and, when she returned over half a century later after World War II , the Hoyles were both long dead and the house was owned by a man who did not believe in fairies. The stories about the Silkie were no longer told and instead the house was reputed to be haunted by
14342-496: The hearth is the part of the fireplace where the fire burns, usually consisting of fire brick masonry at floor level or higher, underneath the fireplace mantel . The word hearth derives from an Indo-European root , *ker- , referring to burning, heat, and fire (seen also in the word carbon ). In archaeology , a hearth is a firepit or other fireplace feature of any period. Hearths are common features of many eras going back to prehistoric campsites and may be either lined with
14484-676: The hearth. Like brownies, Hobs would leave forever if presented with clothing. A Hob in Runswick Bay in North Yorkshire was said to live in a natural cave known as the "Hob-Hole", where parents would bring their children for the Hob to cure them of whooping cough . The Holman Clavel Inn in Somerset is also said to be inhabited by a mischievous Hob named Charlie. The story was recorded by the folklorist R. L. Tongue in 1964 immediately after he heard it from
14626-458: The heat from the fires inside the hearths chemically altered and cracked the stone. Often present are fragmented fish and animal bones, carbonized shell , charcoal , ash, and other waste products, all embedded in a sequence of soil that has been deposited atop the hearth. Unlined hearths, which are less easily identified, may also include these materials. Because of the organic nature of most of these items, they can be used to pinpoint
14768-512: The human residents of the home are expected to leave offerings for the brownie, such as a bowl of cream or porridge, or a small cake. These are usually left on the hearth . The brownie will punish household servants who are lazy or slovenly by pinching them while they sleep, breaking or upsetting objects around them, or causing other mischief. Sometimes they are said to create noise at night or leave messes simply for their own amusement. In some early stories, brownies are described as guarding treasure,
14910-525: The island of Eigg told of a ciuthach that lived in a cave. In some parts of Scotland, similar domestic spirits were called Shellycoats, a name whose origin is uncertain. A figure named " Billy Blind " or "Billy Blin", who bears close resemblances to both the brownie and the Irish banshee , appears in ballads of the Anglo-Scottish border . Unlike brownies, who usually provide practical domestic aid, Billy Blind usually only provides advice. He appears in
15052-603: The language in Scots. In September 2024, experts of the Council of Europe called on the UK Government to "boost support for regional and minority languages", including the Scots Language. The serious use of the Scots language for news, encyclopaediae, documentaries, etc., remains rare. It is reportedly reserved for niches where it is deemed acceptable, e.g. comedy, Burns Night or traditions' representations. Since 2016,
15194-567: The language used in different situations. Such an approach would be inappropriate for a Census." Thus, although it was acknowledged that the "inclusion of such a Census question would undoubtedly raise the profile of Scots", no question about Scots was, in the end, included in the 2001 Census. The Scottish Government's Pupils in Scotland Census 2008 found that 306 pupils spoke Scots as their main home language. A Scottish Government study in 2010 found that 85% of around 1000 respondents (being
15336-502: The late nineteenth century and continue to appear in works of modern fantasy. The Brownies in the Girl Guides are named after a short story by Juliana Horatia Ewing based on brownie folklore. Brownies originated as domestic tutelary spirits, very similar to the Lares of ancient Roman tradition, who were envisioned as the protective spirits of deceased ancestors. Brownies and Lares are both regarded as solitary and devoted to serving
15478-571: The local dialect. Much of the material used was often Standard English disguised as Scots, which caused upset among proponents of Standard English and proponents of Scots alike. One example of the educational establishment's approach to Scots is, "Write a poem in Scots. (It is important not to be worried about spelling in this – write as you hear the sounds in your head.)", whereas guidelines for English require teaching pupils to be "writing fluently and legibly with accurate spelling and punctuation". A course in Scots language and culture delivered through
15620-470: The maid must sweep the kitchen and make a fire in the fireplace and set a churn filled with cream by the fire with a fresh bowl of cream next to it. The next morning, "if she is in luck", she will find the bowl of cream had been drunk and the cream in the churn has been dashed. Sikes goes on to explain that, in addition to being a household spirit, the Bwbach is also the name for a terrifying phantom believed to sweep people away on gusts of air. The Bwbach
15762-487: The medieval Brittonic languages of Northern England and Scotland, are the suspected source of a small number of Scots words, such as lum (derived from Cumbric) meaning "chimney". From the thirteenth century, the Early Scots language spread further into Scotland via the burghs , which were proto-urban institutions first established by King David I . In fourteenth-century Scotland, the growth in prestige of Early Scots and
15904-591: The medium of Standard English and produced by the Open University (OU) in Scotland, the Open University's School of Languages and Applied Linguistics as well as Education Scotland became available online for the first time in December 2019. In the 2011 Scottish census , a question on Scots language ability was featured In the 2022 census conducted by the Scottish Government , a question in relation to
16046-471: The members of the house. Both are said to be hairy and dress in rags and both are said to demand offerings of food or dairy. Like Lares, brownies were associated with the dead and a brownie is sometimes described as the ghost of a deceased servant who once worked in the home. The Cauld Lad of Hilton , for instance, was reputed to be the ghost of a stable boy who was murdered by one of the Lords of Hilton Castle in
16188-621: The missing keys would be hurled at them from behind. Although the name brownie originated in the early 16th century as a dialect word used only in the Scottish Lowlands and along the English border, it has become the standard name for a variety of similar creatures appearing in the folklores of various cultures across Britain. Stories about brownies are generally more common in England and the Lowlands of Scotland than in Celtic areas. Nonetheless, stories of Celtic brownies are recorded. The Welsh name for
16330-485: The motif by making a brownie who is accustomed to being presented with linen shirts become enraged upon being presented with a shirt made of sackcloth . The brownie in the story sings before disappearing: Harden, harden, harden hamp, I will neither grind nor stamp; Had you given me linen gear, I have served you many a year. Thrift may go, bad luck may stay, I shall travel far away. The Cauld Lad of Hilton seems to have wanted clothes and to have been grateful for
16472-451: The nearby farm every night with wet feet and, if anything was untidy, he would put it in order, but, if anything was tidy, he would hurl it around and make a mess. The people of the area feared him and did not go near the road leading up from the water at night. A man returning from the market one night heard him splashing in the water and called out to him, addressing him by the nickname "Puddlefoot". Puddlefoot exclaimed in horror, "I've gotten
16614-517: The neighboring farm of Hafod y Ynys . A girl there fed him well and he did her spinning for her, but she wanted to know his name, which he refused to tell. Then, one day when she pretended to be out, she heard him singing his name, Gwarwyn-a-throt , so he left and went to another farm, where he became close friends with the manservant, whose name was Moses. After Moses was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field , Gwarwyn-a-throt began behaving like
16756-420: The newspaper The National has regularly published articles in the language. The 2010s also saw an increasing number of English books translated in Scots and becoming widely available, particularly those in popular children's fiction series such as The Gruffalo , Harry Potter , Diary of a Wimpy Kid , and several by Roald Dahl and David Walliams . In 2021, the music streaming service Spotify created
16898-401: The old court Scots, but with an orthography that had abandoned some of the more distinctive old Scots spellings and adopted many standard English spellings. Despite the updated spelling, however, the rhymes make it clear that a Scots pronunciation was intended. These writings also introduced what came to be known as the apologetic apostrophe , generally occurring where a consonant exists in
17040-453: The other English variants and dialects spoken in Britain. From 1495, the term Scottis was increasingly used to refer to the Lowland vernacular and Erse , meaning "Irish", was used as a name for Gaelic. For example, towards the end of the fifteenth century, William Dunbar was using Erse to refer to Gaelic and, in the early sixteenth century, Gavin Douglas was using Scottis as
17182-497: The past (e.g. Corby or the former mining areas of Kent ). In the 2022 census conducted by the Scottish Government , it was found that 1,508,540 people reported that they could speak Scots, with 2,444,659 reporting that they could speak, read, write or understand Scots, approximately 45% of Scotland's 2022 population. Among the earliest Scots literature is John Barbour's Brus (fourteenth century), Wyntoun 's Cronykil and Blind Harry 's The Wallace (fifteenth century). From
17324-424: The payment due at Michaelmas and half at Lady Day . Exemptions to the tax were granted, to those in receipt of poor relief , those whose houses were worth less than 20 shillings a year and those who paid neither church nor poor rates . Also exempt were charitable institutions such as schools and almshouses , and industrial hearths with the exception of smiths' forges and bakers' ovens. The returns were lodged with
17466-409: The place where offerings would be left for the brownie. The most significant difference between brownies and Lares is that, while Lares were permanently bound to the house in which they lived, brownies are seen as more mobile, capable of leaving or moving to another house if they became dissatisfied. One story describes a brownie who left the house after the stingy housewife fired all the servants because
17608-405: The purposes of warmth, cooking, and comfort. Before the industrial era, a common design was to place a hearth in the middle of the room as an open hearth, with the smoke rising through the room to a smoke hole in the roof. In later designs which usually had a more solid and continuous roof, the hearth was instead placed to the side of the room and provided with a chimney . In fireplace design,
17750-412: The reign of Nikephorus I (802–811) although its context implies that it was already then old and established, and perhaps it should be taken back to the 7th century AD. Kapnikon was a tax raised on households without exceptions for the poor. In England, a tax on hearths was introduced on 19 May 1662. Householders were required to pay a charge of two shillings per annum for each hearth, with half
17892-413: The remainder had some degree of skill, such as understanding Scots (0.27 million, 5.2%) or being able to speak it but not read or write it (0.18 million, 3.5%). There were also small numbers of Scots speakers recorded in England and Wales on the 2011 Census, with the largest numbers being either in bordering areas (e.g. Carlisle ) or in areas that had recruited large numbers of Scottish workers in
18034-455: The same role. In ancient Persia, according to Zoroastrian traditions, every house was expected to have a hearth for offering sacrifices and prayers. In traditional Albanian folk beliefs , the Vatër , the home hearth, is a spiritual link between past, present, and future generations of the tribe , linking ancestors to the family today and to descendants tomorrow. Hearth is also a term for
18176-515: The seventeenth century, anglicisation increased. At the time, many of the oral ballads from the borders and the North East were written down. Writers of the period were Robert Sempill , Robert Sempill the younger , Francis Sempill , Lady Wardlaw and Lady Grizel Baillie . In the eighteenth century, writers such as Allan Ramsay , Robert Burns , James Orr , Robert Fergusson and Walter Scott continued to use Scots – Burns's " Auld Lang Syne "
18318-472: The story, a selfish boy seeks a brownie to do his chores for him because he is too lazy to do them himself. A wise old owl tells him that brownies do not really exist and the only real brownies are good little children who do chores without being asked. The boy goes home and convinces his younger brother to join him in becoming the new household "brownies". Ewing's short story inspired the idea of calling helpful children "brownies". Scots language Scots
18460-525: The thirteenth century. The succeeding variety of Northern Early Middle English spoken in southeastern Scotland is also known as Early Scots . It began to further diverge from the Middle English of Northumbria due to twelfth- and thirteenth-century immigration of Scandinavian-influenced Middle English–speakers from the North and Midlands of England . Later influences on the development of Scots came from
18602-422: The time. The numbers of hearths are generally proportional to the size of the house. The assessments can be used to indicate the numbers and local distribution of larger and smaller houses. Not every room had a hearth, and not all houses of the same size had exactly the same number of hearths, so they are not an exact measure of house size. Roehampton University has an ongoing project which places hearth tax data in
18744-451: The town of Moffat in Scotland, left for the nearby farm of Leithenhall after the owner of Bodsbeck called for him after pouring his cream, instead of letting him find the cream himself. Sometimes giving the brownie a name was enough to drive him away. A brownie who haunted Almor Burn near Pitlochry in Perthshire was often heard splashing and paddling in the water. He was said to go up to
18886-807: The twentieth-century biographer of James Boswell (1740–1795), described James's view of the use of Scots by his father Alexander Boswell (1706–1782) in the eighteenth century while serving as a judge of the Supreme Courts of Scotland : He scorned modern literature, spoke broad Scots from the bench, and even in writing took no pains to avoid the Scotticisms which most of his colleagues were coming to regard as vulgar. However, others did scorn Scots, such as Scottish Enlightenment intellectuals David Hume and Adam Smith , who went to great lengths to get rid of every Scotticism from their writings. Following such examples, many well-off Scots took to learning English through
19028-468: The unending repetition and futility of labour. As immortal spirits, brownies could neither be worn out nor revitalized by working, so their work became seen as simply part of "a perpetual cycle that is akin to the activities of Nature herself." An entity referred to as a "drudging goblin" or the "Lubbar Fend" is described in lines 105 to 114 of John Milton 's 1645 pastoral poem L'Allegro . The "goblin" churns butter, brews drinks, makes dough rise, sweeps
19170-585: The varieties of Scots are dialects of Scottish English or constitute a separate language in their own right. The UK government now accepts Scots as a regional language and has recognised it as such under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . Notwithstanding the UK government's and the Scottish Executive's obligations under part II of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages,
19312-477: Was a "quite modern mistake". During the first half of the twentieth century, knowledge of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary norms waned, and as of 2006 , there is no institutionalised standard literary form. By the 1940s, the Scottish Education Department 's language policy was that Scots had no value: "it is not the language of 'educated' people anywhere, and could not be described as
19454-652: Was increasingly influenced by the developing Standard English of Southern England due to developments in royal and political interactions with England. When William Flower , an English herald , spoke with Mary of Guise and her councillors in 1560, they first used the "Scottyshe toung" . As he found this hard to understand, they switched into her native French. King James VI , who in 1603 became James I of England , observed in his work Some Reulis and Cautelis to Be Observit and Eschewit in Scottis Poesie that "For albeit sindrie hes written of it in English, quhilk
19596-415: Was not enough linguistic self-awareness amongst the Scottish populace, with people still thinking of themselves as speaking badly pronounced, grammatically inferior English rather than Scots, for an accurate census to be taken. The GRO research concluded that "[a] more precise estimate of genuine Scots language ability would require a more in-depth interview survey and may involve asking various questions about
19738-406: Was said to enjoy the company of children. He is described as a hideous, short-legged old man with a long tail who always dressed in a red coat and blue breeches with an old nightcap atop his head and a bandage around his face, since he was constantly plagued by toothache . He also sometimes wore a grey cloak. He was often reported to laugh alongside the rest of the family if they were laughing, but he
19880-400: Was strongly opposed to the family drinking any beverages with more alcohol content than home-brewed ale . He is said to have fled before the sign of the cross . A female spirit known as the Silkie or Selkie , who received her name from the fact that she was always dressed in grey silk, appears in English and Scottish folklore. Like a ghost, the Silkie is associated with the house rather than
20022-432: Was the notion of "Scottishness" itself. Many leading Scots of the period, such as David Hume , defined themselves as Northern British rather than Scottish. They attempted to rid themselves of their Scots in a bid to establish standard English as the official language of the newly formed union. Nevertheless, Scots was still spoken across a wide range of domains until the end of the eighteenth century. Frederick Pottle ,
20164-491: Was translated into Scots by Rab Wilson and published in 2004. Alexander Hutchison has translated the poetry of Catullus into Scots, and in the 1980s, Liz Lochhead produced a Scots translation of Tartuffe by Molière . J. K. Annand translated poetry and fiction from German and Medieval Latin into Scots. The strip cartoons Oor Wullie and The Broons in the Sunday Post use some Scots. In 2018, Harry Potter and
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