DASG Blog

Brùchd

After a fizzy drink you might burp, i.e. ‘a bhith a’ leigeil brùchd’. But rather than talking about that meaning of the word, I’ll be exploring another that relates to seaweed!

Especially in Skye and Lewis, brùchd is also used to mean seaweed thrown up by the sea. This was gathered into heaps to ferment for months, and then used as a fertilizer.

Some informants emphasized the first part of the meaning — ‘seaweed driven ashore’ — as was recorded by natives of Crowlista, Lewis; as well as of Staffin and Kilmuir, Skye. Others in Lewis and Skye explained that it meant a ‘heap of rotting seaweed’.

We can find another form, brùig, further south in Uist and Tiree. One person from South Boisdale in Uist described it as meaning ‘a large amount of seaweed which has rotted’. And Fr. Allan McDonald’s dictionary describes it as ‘fermented seaweed (tobhar an deaghaidh brachadh)’.

Does the word then come from the fact that the sea ‘belches’ — ‘a’ brùchdail’ — or pours out the seaweed onto the shore? Or is brùchd connected to ‘brachadh’, the process of fermentation?

According to MacBain’s dictionary, the word comes from the Old Norse ‘brúk, dried heaps of seaweed’. This is supported by the fact that it is difficult to find south of Tiree and, indeed, there is a common cognate in Orkney and Shetland.

In Marwick’s Orkney Norn, there is an entry for ‘brook [...] a bed or deep layer of seaweed on the beach, a mass or heap of ‘ware’’. And in Shetland, the phrase ‘brook o waar’ means ‘a heap of seaweed on a beach’.

Orcadians and Shetlanders distinguish between ‘waar/ware’ and ‘tang’. The first describes types of seaweed that grows under the low water mark, whereas ‘tang’ grows above and can be reached at low tide. It tends to be ‘waar’ that is swept onto the shore, gathering in heaps or ‘brooks’.  In Orkney, there is the phrase ‘ware time is a sair time’, according to the Orkney Wordbook, in reference to the spring work of using seaweed as a fertilizer.

There is a similar distinction made in Gaelic.

Dwelly is clear that brùchd refers to red seaweed or ‘feamainn dearg’ that is swept ashore — this is the ‘waar’. ‘Feamainn dubh’ (black seaweed) or ‘feamainn ghearraidh’ (cutting seaweed) is the other type which could be cut at low-tide — the ‘tang’.  Types of ‘feamainn dubh’ include knotted wrack, serrated wrack and channelled wrack. ‘Feamainn dearg’ could include oarweed, kelp and sometimes dulse.

In a recording, Nan MacKinnon from Vatersay tells how the cut seaweed would be towed by skiffs after cutting. This was called a ‘maois’ elsewhere.  In Gaelic, she says that the seaweed would be gathered and allowed to go bad, and once it had gone bad it was called a brùig. It might be ‘feamainn dubh’ rather than ‘feamainn dearg’ that was gathered in this example.
 

Can you tell us more about the wonderful world of seaweed? Or do you know any other words that Gaelic-speaking islanders share with Orcadians and Shetlanders?

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