Gàidhlig / English
Sgarbhlaich

Sgarbhlaich

Posted by Tòmas on 10 August 2017

According to an informant from Glen Tarff, near Fort Augustus, sgarbhlaich refers to ‘loose stones, usually on a mountainside’. Two others had sgarbhlach, with the same meaning, in Glenurquhart and Kershader, in Lewis.
 
I’m familiar enough with scrambling up this type of loose falling stones. One time I was trying to get to the shoulder of Buachaille Etive Mòr, when I found a frog in front of me. Really! The frog apparently lived high up on the sgarbhlach. We could also call this type of place a ‘sgàirneach’ or a ‘sgrìodan’.
 
Sgarbhlaich or sgarbhlach are really forms of the word ‘garbhlach’. Many Gaelic speakers will recognise this to mean ‘rough ground’, 'hilly or rocky terrain'.
 
The word reminds me of Òran na Cloiche (The Song of the Stone) by Dòmhnall Ruadh Phàislig (Donald MacIntyre). After it was taken from Westminster Abbey in 1950, he wanted the Stone of Destiny to stay in Scotland:
 

’S gur coma leam i ’n Cearrara
An Calasraid no ’n Calbhaigh
Cho fad ’s a tha i ’n Albainn
Nan garbhlaichean cas

[I don’t care whether it’s in Kerrera
Callendar or Calvay
As long as it’s in Scotland
Of the steep, rugged land.]

 
And in the poetry of Uilleam Ros he speaks of the country:
 

O mhachraichean gu garbhlaichean,
O uisge-Thuaid gu Arcamh chuain,
O Dheas gu Tuath gu leir

[From the lowlands to the highlands,
From the Tweed to the Pentland Firth,
From the South to the North altogether]

 
‘Garbhlaichean’ especially seems to represent the Highlands here. This is similar to how ‘garbh-chrìochan’ is sometimes used to describe the geography of the region in which the Gaels lived historically. But ‘Na Garbh-chrìochan’, or the Rough Bounds, is also a specific area running from Ardnamurchan to Knoydart.
 
If there’s ‘garbhlach’, we can also find ‘cruadhlach’ — ‘hard, rocky ground’. The opposite of it is ‘boglach’, a common word meaning a bog or marsh. It might be possible to cross a ‘boglach’ by finding a path of ‘cruadhlach’. In Ireland, there is the term ‘mínleach’ which is a ‘tract of grassland’ or ‘fine pasture’ — in otherwords, the opposite of ‘garbhlach’ just as ‘mìn’ is the opposite of ‘garbh’.
 
Similar words ending with ‘- lach’ include ‘cunglach’, a ‘narrow defile, cleft’; ‘broclach’ which is a badger or fox’s den; and we looked at ‘breunlach’ already on this blog.
 
I like the sound and idea of the word ‘sgreablach’. This describes thin, light and stony soil. The earth itself is like a ‘sgreab’, a thin crust or scab! To grow oats in it, as people would, is like ‘sgreabadh ’s sgrìobadh’, scratching a living from the land.
 
 
Can you tell us anything about ‘sgarbhlach’, ‘garbhlach’ or ‘sgreablach’?

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