Dr Michael Dempster

Its day seiven o #Scotstober 2025! The day's wird is: kinnen

Love is all you need: Remembering The Kingis Quair

Alan Riach discusses The Kingis Quair – a poem attributed to King James I of Scots (1394–1437), & described by C.S. Lewis as “the first modern book of love”
#Scotstober #medievalsky #poetry
www.thenational.scot/news/1737200...

Its day sax o #Scotstober 2025! The day's wird is: quair

Its day five o #Scotstober 2025! The day's wird is: peedie

Its day five o #Scotstober 2025! The day's wird is: peedie

Its day fower o #Scotstober 2025! The day's wird is: dwang

Its day three o #Scotstober 2025! The day's wird is: dewar

Its day twa o #Scotstober 2025! The day's wird is: footer

“I’ll nae longer tolerate this climate of wholesale copulation, it’s costin me a fortune! And I’m tellin yow I’ll no huv ye footerin wi ma chauffeur…”

—from “Mr Puntila & his Man Matti” (1999) by Peter Arnott, translated from Bertolt Brecht
#Scotstober #drama
asls.org.uk/publications...

As she went in the sound of her father’s voice, raised to make a point in some discussion and she could hear Robert Eldman saying ‘yes, I’m sure that’s so’, and the rattle of crockery. Sunday evening tea. Like a taste in the mouth the memory of them, those countless long since Sunday tea-times, with Mrs Cuffee futtering about getting the table laid and ‘Children’s Hour’ on, always something about saints or explorers who were Christians and competitions she never entered and Uncle Mac saying ‘good night children, everywhere’, and it was always cheese for tea or cold meat with halved tomatoes and Cuffee would be upstairs and she would half help her mother and half listen to the wireless and Mr Cuffee would be in the garden smoking a pipe and listening to the evening birdsong.

“Like a taste in the mouth the memory of them, those countless long since Sunday tea-times, with Mrs Cuffee futtering about getting the table laid and ‘Children’s Hour’ on…”

—Alan Sharp, A GREEN TREE IN GEDDE (1965)
(A new edition of which is coming very soon …)
#Scotstober

Sydney Goodsir Smith Prolegomenon The Deevil’s Waltz Rin an rout, rin an rout, Mahoun gars us birl about, He skirls his pipes, he stamps his heel The globe’s gane gyte in a haliket reel. There, the statesman’s silken cheats, Here, the bairnless mither greits, There, a tyrant turns the screw, Here, twa luvers’ broken vows. Enemies out, enemies in, Truth a hure wi the pox gane blinn, Nou luvers’ lips deny luve’s name An get for breid a chuckie-stane, We kenna hert, we kenna heid, The deevil’s thirled baith quick an deid, Jehovah snores, and Christ himsel Lowps in the airms o Jezebel.

The sweit that rins frae his thorned brou Is black as the staunan teats o his cou In the waltz o tears, an daith, an lies, Juliet’s fyled wi harlotries. O luve itsel at Hornie’s lauch Skeers lik a caunel i the draucht, The dance is on, the waltz o hell, The wund frae its fleean skirts is snell. It whups black storm frae lochan’s calm, Sets banshees in the house o dwaum, Gars black bluid spate the hert o me —An watters guid-sirs’ barley bree! A few damned feckless fanatics Wad halt the borneheid dance o Styx, Their cry o truth the whirlwind reaps, For pity’s deid, and mercy sleeps. Orpheus alane dow sauve frae deid His ravished Bride gin but she’d heed— Ay, truth an luve like Albyn’s life Hing wi a threid, kissed be a knife. Ilk derkenin owre some huddered toun The pipes an fiddles screich an boom, The cauldron’s steered by Maestro Nick Wi a sanct’s shin-bane for parritch-stick. He lauchs his lauch, the angels greit Wi joy as they dine on carrion meat; Ablow, bumbazed, dumfounered cods, We seek the starns in dubs an bogs. Oor ingyne’s deaved, oor mous are shut, Oor saul contract like a runkled nut, Een cannae see the trees for the wuid An hert is cauld for want o bluid.

For want o luve we live on hate, For want o Heven praise the State, For want o richts we worship rules, For want o gods the glibbest fules. Obey, Obey; ye maunna spier! (Libertie’s disjaskit lear!) While Cloutie pipes it’s crime tae think, —It’s taxed e’en higher nor the drink! O, rin an rout, we birl about, Tae the rhythm o the Deil’s jack-boot, Black as auld widdie-fruit, Mahoun Bestrides a kenless mappamound.

For want o luve we live on hate,
For want o Heven praise the State,
For want o richts we worship rules,
For want o gods the glibbest fules…

—Sydney Goodsir Smith, “Prolegomenon: The Deevil’s Waltz”
in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS
#Scots #poem #poetry #Scotstober #richts
asls.org.uk/publications...

a cartoon character is dancing in a field with a yellow background . ALT: a cartoon character is dancing in a field with a yellow background .

I was thinking earlier about my favourite Scots words, then found out that today is the first of #Scotstober. The word that led me down this path was: maukit (alt. mawkit); which means filthy, dirty, manky, mingin, hingin, boggin, and generally maggot-ridden.

#Scotstober 2nd #Footer

Some say faffy, Scots say footery.

Tae ding up oor new smart tele wis gey a footer.

#Scotstober: Fouter

Fae Moby-Dick, Ch. 16

Noo, this ploy o Queequeg’s, or raither Yojo’s, titchin the walin o wur craft; A didnae like thon ploy at aw. A haed no a tait lippent on Queequeg’s wit tae pint oot the whauler best fittit tae cairry us an wur weirds siccarly. 1/2

Ower mony fittert aboot, luikin fer somethin, tae haud ontae. Anely, thay coudnae find onythin while reakin oot. © Stefanie Neumann - @KokopelliBFree #Scotstober 2025-02nt footer

Ower mony fittert aboot, luikin fer somethin, tae haud ontae. Anely, thay coudnae find onythin while reakin oot.

---
(Ah'm nae native spikker)

#Scotstober 2025-02nt #footer
#WriteInScots #Scots #Doric
#WritingCommunity

Confused Confused Look GIF ALT: Confused Confused Look GIF

Gonnae try tae keep up wi #Scotstober. Glaikit: (adj., of a person); stupid, slow, dozy, dimwitted, thick as mince, no very richt, no very bricht, a general dunderheid.

Wha remembers the ticker tape machine frae schuil physics? Yaisin ane wis a richt footer and maist o the time yir teacher tellt ye whit ye should o fund oot. #Scotstober

gin yer feelin hardly gay
turn yer eirs owr essa-way
why at neyht must-shud we play? wit att we lose on passin day

when de moon dus bring her leyht
chills frill frosts o fluttered freyht
worried sick o mebbes an meyhts
i cannet mek mi wrongs fro reyhts

#ottawavalley #dialect #language #scotstober

#Scotstober
#Haiku
#Footer
#Translation

Fit an affa footer
Tae nae hae’t aa yer ain wye
Til ye mind on her…

What an effort
To not have it all your own way
Until you remember her

#Scotstober #Footer

And today's offering, also from Moot.

#Scotstober 1st
Airticle 14
1. Awbody hes the richt tae seek tae enjoy in ither countries asylum frae persecution.
2. This richt mayna be cried on in the case o prosecutions genuinely arisan ower the heids o nonpolitical crimes or o acts contrair til the purposes and principles o the Unitit Nations.

Am nae fae Scotland but ah've stayed here lang enough to ken a wee bitty Scots. Gonnae try a wee pairt o the Declaration o Arbroath for this yin:
"We nae fight fae honour, nae richis, nae glory, but ainley for freedom"

#Scotstober day 1, Richts.

Its day twa o #Scotstober 2025! The day's wird is: footer

My native tongue.

I was taught as a child that speaking this way was wrong. It's lovely that Scots is now recognized as an official language. Hopefully, the negative baggage dumped on generations of Scottish people will be lifted from the shoulders of Scottish children.

#Scots
#IndyRef2

#Scotstober we won oor linguistic richts!

#Scotstober we won oor linguistic richts!

Hou it stertit vs hou it's gaun

Scotstober 2025

Awbodie kens that the bestest buik iver wrut is “Moby-Dick; or, The Whaul” by kenspeckle Scottish scriever Herman Melville. Weel, Av taen it upon masel tae owerset pairts o the buik intae Scots for #Scotstober this year, AN THARE NOCHT YE CAN DAE TAE STOP ME!!! 1/3

#Scotstober: Richts

Whit ur the Richts o Man an the Leeberties o the Warld but Lowse-Fish? Whit aw chiels’ harns an threaps but Lowse-Fish? Whit’s the principle o kirkie belief in thaim but a Lowse-Fish? Whit tae the vauntie smouterin whilliegoleeries ur the thochts o thinkers but Lowse-Fish? 1/2