Written By Naomi Bulger
I heard recently that there were more than 100 Scottish words for rain.
Musical, melodic words like spindrift (spray whipped up by the wind) and aftak (an easing or lull in a storm or rain). Hilarious, fun-to-say words that you’d swear were made up, like drookit (absolutely drenched) and daggle (to fall in torrents).
And words that seem to be plucked straight out of a Scottish novel, transporting you through time and space to a place where “wild” still holds meaning, and ghosts in tartan haunt your imaginings. Yillen (a shower of rain, especially with wind), uplowsin (heaving rain), smirr (a fine rain drizzle), and goselet (a soaking, drenching, downpour).
The day we hiked to the falls that tumbled into Loch Ness, rain settled in a smirr only ten minutes after we’d started out. But walking through it was not a misery, but a joy. Ralph was fairly sure he had spotted the Lach Ness Monster (“or maybe it was a turtle head”) in the cold waters, and we watched the tiny waves through the trees and raindrops for signs of monsters, dinosaurs or turtles.
When we reached them the roar of the falls, swelled by melting snow, was almost primal. We had to shout to be heard but still the wind snatched our words and swept them into the spindrift before hurtling them into the lake below.
I bent my body into the wind and stood on the platform overlooking the brutal, yellow torrent, inside the spray. What is the Scottish word for rain that falls up, not down? The spray lashed my face and I was drookit in seconds, dripping and frozen and truly, joyfully alive.
There is a tiny drop of Scottish blood in me, on my mother’s side. My great-grandmother was born in Scotland, with the surname Calder. Calder is a highland clan that once was powerful up near Inverness. It doesn’t have a chieftain any more, but it does still have a motto:
“Be mindful.”
