Gàidhlig / English
Corracha-cagailt

Corracha-cagailt

Posted by Edit on Thursday 8 September 2016

Now that the nights are getting colder and darker, a word related to fire wouldn’t go amiss.

This week’s word, corracha-cagailt or corra-chagailt (which also appears in many other forms), originates from the Isle of Lewis. According to Macbain’s Gaelic dictionary, it consists of the words còrr, ‘point’ and cagailt, ‘fire, hearth’ and refers to coloured flames that appear when a fire is about to go out. When raking with a poker through the remains of the fire – a mixture of ashes and embers – at this time, small flames of the colours of the rainbow will appear. This is more likely to happen on a cold, frosty night.

These flames were believed to be evil spirits and according to Am Faclair Beag, parents would say tha tìde agad a dhol dhan leabaidh mus beir na corrachagan-cagailt ort (‘it is high time to go to bed before the corrachagan-cagailt catch you’) to make the children go to bed on time.

According to the same dictionary, corra-chagailt also had quite a different meaning: sometimes it would refer to a ‘fire-side soldier’, a lazy person who never leaves the fire-side.

In modern usage, the word is used for ‘salamander.’

Are you familiar with this interesting word? Please leave a comment below or on our Facebook or Twitter pages.
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