Home» Word of the Month» January 2008

Scots Word for January

Broch

image of moonring borrowed from NASA, click to visit their website
With the unsettled and chilly weather we have been having, there have been a good few nights when it has been possible to observe a broch around the moon. This is a pretty reliable indication that the weather is about to take a turn for the worse. In Caithness or Banff this weather sign goes by the descriptive name of a 'cock's ee', while in Ayrshire you might look for a 'fauld'. Whatever you call it, it is a sign of violent weather, and the further out the broch is from the moon, the closer the storm: 'The further the broch, the nearer the rauch.'

Broch is the same word that is used for the structures, found in Orkney, Shetland and the adjacent Scottish mainland, consisting of a round tower with inner and outer walls of stone. In fact, a broch can describe any circle or halo as in J. Stewart's lines (1857): 'Wi draps o drink on Saturdays, there's some gets roarin fou; There's quarrelin, an crakit croons, an een wi brochs o blue.' Broch can also refer to a circle around the tee in a curling rink (a brocher is a stone between the rings) or a ring drawn on the ground for a children's game of marbles.

Its origin is the Old English 'burh' which gives us the modern word 'burgh', and so we find broch in the sense of burgh or town as in R. Chambers' Popular Rhymes (1870), where we learn that 'Musselbrogh was a brogh When Edinbrogh was nane'. To anyone from the North East, however, the Broch means Burghead and Fraserburgh and W. Gregor's Folk-Lore of North-East Scotland (1881) claims that 'Aberdeen will be a green, An Banff a borough's toon, But Fraserbroch 'ill be a broch When a' the brochs is deen'.

The Scots column is written by Director Christine Robinson. You can contact her with any questions.