Gàidhlig / English
Rè

Rè

Posted by Edit on 30th March 2017

This week I will be looking at different Gaelic words for the moon.

It seems likely that easga (eDil esca) was the original Goidelic word for the moon. Similarly to many cultures around the world, however, the moon was a mythical object among the Gaels. Its cyclical behaviour of waxing and waning, reminiscent of birth and death, and the fact that it normally only appears in the night sky, invoked respect among the Gaels. Hence, euphemisms were often used instead of referring to the moon directly.

As we know, the word gealach  – meaning simply ‘the white one’  – is the most common of such euphemisms and the only one which has survived extensively through to our own day. But there were other words too; one of them was rè. According to the Fieldwork Archive, rè was collected in South Uist but it seems like it was used as a name for the moon in most Gaelic dialects and also in Irish. 

Today, rè is usually used as a preposition in expressions such as rè na h-oidhche, ‘during the night’. Rè, however, is also a noun, meaning ‘existence’ or any defined amount of time, as in the expression fad mo rè ’s mo latha ‘during my day and generation’ and bith-rè ‘lifetime’. As the moon takes a certain amount of time to go through a cycle, rè, as well as mìos (‘ month’) was used as a name for the moon itself.

Are you familiar with rè as a word for the moon? Do you have other words for the moon? If so, please let us know below or on Facebook or Twitter.
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