Gàidhlig / English
Tòimhseachan is Dubh-fhacail

Tòimhseachan is Dubh-fhacail

Posted by Kate on Thursday 8th June, 2017.
I recently found a story in Gairm entitled ‘Cas Shiubhail an t-Sléibhe’ which translates as, ‘The Foot that Travelled the Hillside.’ In the story, the old woman, Caoinnseag, tries to uncover the identity of the guest in her house. The turning point of the story is centred around a particular riddle the old woman challenges him with. She recites the following verse:

“Two brows, two seers,
Two ears, two tallows,
And two crooked jawbones,
Eight fisted talons,
The head’s high speaker
And four shanks with marrow.”
 
To which the guest answers:
 
“So the man who carves the head has a right
The the eyes, jowls and brains,
The ear with it roots,
Jaws son, cheek and temple.”
 
What do you make of this? It is no easy task to make out the meaning of the above verses but I like how strange and surreal they are! It appears that many characters in the old stories will present the hero with a riddle in order to test them.

The ingenuity of the Gael is apparent from the hundreds of riddles, enigmas and tongue-twisters that were gathered. They were created for everything: every animal and element, fruit, tree, even pieces of clothing.The DASG team tried some of these out, and you may listen to them here:

You will find the text versions of riddles for the d' fhaileas (your shadow); cadal (sleep); a' chrubag (the edible crab) on the Corpus.

There is a funny proverb for the shore crab and a riddle for the cow’s udder, in the Fieldwork Archive. The English translations for all riddles are found the book, Gaelic Riddles and Enigmas.

This book also shows us that the like can also be of use to us. I learned this, and it came in useful for me when I went fishing with my father, please refer to the last voice on the above recording, to listen to this:

How is a haddock recognised over a whiting?
—A black spot on the haddock, and a long tale on the whiting.
 
There are hundreds of riddles and rhymes still in use by the Gael. Please get in touch on Facebook or Twitter or below with any you may know.
 
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