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Meuran Nan Daoine Sìthich
When it comes to nature, there is no shortage of rich Gaelic vocabulary, particularly in relation to the names of plants. Many Gaelic plant-names contain the word sìth or sìthich, referring to the fairy folk, including meuran nan daoine sìthich, meaning ‘foxglove’ (lit. ‘the thimble of the fairy people’), which is our focus for this week. The name was collected in Killin, Perthshire, and is a much more evocative description of the plant than the literal miotag an t-sionnaich (‘glove of the fox’), which was given by the same speaker.
In Dwelly’s dictionary, there are ten different Gaelic names given for foxglove, all of which are connected to the ‘otherworld.’ Most are connected with fairy folk (meuran nan cailleachan-sìth / meuran-sìth (‘thimble of the fairy women / fairies’), lus nam ban-sìth (‘flower of the fairy women’) and cluigean na mnàtha sìthe (‘earring of the fairy women’), but there are also a couple of names which are not so light-hearted (meuran nan cailleach marbh (‘thimble of the dead women’) agus meuran a’ bhàis (‘thimble of death’). Meuran nan cailleach marbh also appears in the DASG Fieldwork Archive, given by a speaker from Harris.
If we take a look at the Corpus, the latter name, meuran nan cailleach marbh is used in Gaelic literature, in Aig Taigh na Beinne by Katherine Whyte (1911). It also appears in a more academic title, Gaelic Names of Plants by John Cameron (1883), along with three other names for ‘foxglove’: meuran sìth, meuran nan daoine marbh and lus nam ban sìth.
Which Gaelic name do you most commonly use for ‘foxglove’? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter.
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