Oran Buaile – Teiris a bhò

You may have noticed I have a bit of a thing about cows...

Part of the reason I chose "Tairis" as a name for my website is that I found a definition given in Macbain's Dictionary that described its meaning as:

tairis! int. The dairymaid's cry to calm an unruly cow at milking. 

Ordinarily, however, it means:

tairis -e, a. Kind, sincere, loving. 2 Compassionate, tender-hearted, soft, tender, kindly, urbane. 3 Confidential. 4** Trusty, faithful, loyal. 5** Acceptable. Cha tairis leam ur fàilte, your invitation is not acceptable to me; guth tairis nam bàrd, the mild voice of the bards.

And while the latter definition seems apt in itself, the former meaning tickled me enough for it to stick in my head. When the time came to buy a domain name I couldn't think of anything else so that's what I went with.

One thing I always wondered, though, was that in all of the milking songs I'd seen (in places like the Carmina Gadelica), the term was always absent. I figured maybe it was either a very localised term that Carmichael never came across, or else perhaps Macbain himself had kind of... made it up? Misheard it? Today, though, I came across the following song thanks to Google, and things make a bit more sense now. The song itself was recorded by the folklorist "Nether Lochaber," the pen name of Rev. Alexander Stewart, who lived in the area he took his pseudonym from. In the song we have teiris, not tairis, though Dwelly gives Macbain's spelling and lists teiris! as a local variant of the same word, recorded in Poolewe – which is in the Nether Lochaber area. As a plain old verbal adjective, however, the word teiris is listed as meaning:

teiris ** va & n. Tame, quiet, as unruly cattle. 2 Stop. 3 Be at peace.

So it all makes a bit more sense to me now.

Gaelic milking songs were kind of legendary – folklorists of the nineteenth century often liked to note that Highland cattle were some of the best milkers in the world, and it was said that a cow of the Highlands wouldn't give milk unless the dairy maid sang to it a soothing song. Since I can't find the song recorded by Rev. Stewart published anywhere else, I thought I'd transcribe it here (the site I found it on has a poorly done OCR transcription).

As this piece notes, the song was originally published in the Inverness Courier, though no date's given for that. In the copy I found, though, the date given is Saturday 23 March 1895, and it's interesting that this is from an Australian newspaper, the Northern Star from New South Wales. Anyway, here it is, with the newspaper's own write up. I've transcribed it as best I can, though some of it was difficult to read. I'll note that some of the words have the accents in the wrong place, as far as I can tell, but I've kept it all as-is and I haven't updated any spellings either. The translation is as given in the paper, though it's not completely literal – there's an extra line added in (and hopefully the table comes out OK; Blogger can be finicky with tables so if the formatting's off, apologies):

The following Oran Buaile or Shieling song, as sung in the Highlands of Scotland, was taken down from the words of a woman still living in Adnamurchan, and sent to “Nether Lochaber,” who gave it a place in the INVERNESS COURIER. It will be interesting to Highland readers, many of whom have perhaps heard it sung:

ORAN BUAILE	A MILKING SONG
Teiris a bhò Teiris an t’ aghan beag Teiris a bhò Teiris a Chaòmhag; Bleoghnaidh mi bhò Le lamh bhog nach goirtich i, Mo dhearn mar an sìde, Bleoghnaidh mi ‘Chaòmhag.	Gently my cow. Gently my little heifer, gently! Gently my cow, Be gently and quiet, my darling: I will milk the cow With soft hand that will not hurt her; With the palm of my hand soft and smooth as silk, I will milk my darling.
Bi laghach, a bhò, Bi laghach, bi ceanalta, Bi siòbhalta, ceanalta, Laghach, a runag; Gheibh i bad feoir, Is leaba de’n rainnich ‘nam, Gheibh i min air burn lainnir, ’S am bainne cha diult i.	Be nice, now, my cow. Be nice and be gentle, Be quiet and gentle, [And all you should be now –] Of all pets the dearest! She will get a nice wisp of hay, And a soft bed of ferns from me, With (a drink) of meal on crystal-clear water, And (meantime) she will not refuse me her milk.
Bheir i am bainne dhomh, ’S i bheir am bainne dhomh, Criosalt no buarach Cha luaidh mi ri m’ eudail, Cha thog i eas idir, ’S cha teann i ri crosdachd, Mar a ni an crodh mosach nach tuig ach a bhéurla!	She will give me her milk, Ay, her milk she will freely give me; Foreleg fetter or handset shackles Shall not be so much as mentioned in connection with my darling; She will not lift a leg, Nor will she show any ill-temper, Such as is only shown by the nasty cows That understand only the English language!
Tha’n t’sine bhog, bhlàth Aig martan an aigh, Tha ‘bainne bog, blàth, ‘Se fo bharr a ta cùraidh; Mo ghaol is mo chíali Air an aghan bheag, lurach, Fhuair mise do ghealladh, Am bainne orm nach diult thu.	Soft and warm is the teat Of my charming little cow; Soft and warm, too, is her milk Under its froth of delightfullest odour. My dear and delight Is the beautiful little heifer; She has given me her promise That she will not refuse me her milk.
Mach thu ’n an ionaltraidh, Mach thu ’n an ionaltraidh, Mach thu ’n an ionaltraidh, Moch maduinn a màireach, Bi’dh ‘m féur thu’n na glùn dhuit ‘An Doire-na-Giubhsaich, Bheir thu dhachaidh làn ùth, ’S cinnt’ nach diult thu dhomh pàirt deth!	Out to the grazing ground, Out to the grazing ground, Out to the grazing ground, To-morrow morning early! The grass will reach well up to thy knee In Doire-na-Giubhsaich (the Fir Tree Woodlands); She will thence carry home a full udder, And sure I am that she will not there-of refuse me a fair, full share.

There is considerable humour in the song, as in the way the heifer’s character is exalted at the expense of the Ayrshire cattle of the township, who are spoken of with contempt as only understanding English, while her own heifer (a genuine West Highlander, we warrant her!) is so thoroughly up in Gaelic that she understands its every word! TEIRIS is a term of conciliation and kindness used in soliciting the friendship and good behaviour of cattle in stall – something like the “Gently, now,” of a good-natured groom when astride a steed disposed to be skittish. To be of effect it has always to be uttered in a conciliatory, or in what may be called a wheedling tone of voice. It is never addressed to horses; only to the bovine race, in their every stage of growth from clashed to extremest old age.

The saga of the costume, and other things...

The run-up to Samhain was so busy I forgot to do a links post for it... You can blame Rosie for that one, mostly.

It's been nearly eight years since we moved into this house and it's only recently that I've learned that the valley we live in officially has its own microclimate – notable enough that sciency types study it and stuff. While everywhere else around us, even just five minutes away, is under a foot or so of snow, some winters we've barely had a frost let alone a hint of a snowflake, that kind of thing. Over the years I've noticed that the seasonal shifts tend towards extremes around here (in comparison with the surrounding area) and they're either very late or very early. In particular, things like fruit ripening on bushes or trees can happen up to a month or more later or earlier than just down the road, so if I were to time our celebrations by the usual markers – things like first frost, first fruits, and so on – then sometimes I'd be celebrating one festival at the same time as another, or with only a week or so apart.

Since that's become clear I've mostly stuck with aiming for the fixed dates (or as close as I can), but at the same time I've been trying to learn the seasonal rhythms of our little valley. Living by the coast there are obvious markers like the storms we get in spring and autumn (and throughout the winter), and there are those things that aren't much different from anywhere else around us – the length of the days and so on. One thing that Tom said recently has stuck with me: He's been looking forward to winter because he gets to see the stars again. He doesn't just mean in the sense that he often has to go to bed before the sun sets during the summer; round here, during the summer months the night sky never gets truly dark, especially at the full moon. Not compared with the winter, anyway, so in the summer months you only get to see a few stars twinkling away up there. When the nights draw in, though, you can make out bands of the milky way (we live far away enough from any cities that we get a good view of the night sky in winter), and it's a very different view. So one thing I've come to view as an indication that winter is on its way is the night sky; when we can see that thick band right above our heads, it's definitely not summer anymore.

For festivals like Samhain, it's hard not to celebrate it on the fixed date anyway, especially since it's so tied up with Hallowe'en. The kids are at that age where Hallowe'en is serious business now, and Rosie (who's always been more keen on playing dress up than Tom has) in particular has taken her costume very seriously this year, so our preparations for Samhain this year have seemed like they've almost been never-ending. She's been so excited about Hallowe'en – wearing her costume to school for the parade, going out guising, bringing home all those SWEETS (dear gods, the sweets) – that she's actually been losing sleep over it. Several times she'd come down and tell me she couldn't sleep because it's just so exciting. In particular, her plans for her costume have been very specific and she just couldn't wait for everyone to see it. And guess who had to make it, eh?

I'll spare you a good chunk of the details, but suffice it to say that at the tender age of eight, Rosie is officially in the grip of But What Will My Friends Say?, along with It's All Wrong And Nobody Understands, GUH. It's not quite as bad as the teenage years yet, but dear gods I could do without the child insisting on the most inappropriate costumes for an eight-year-old, ever (no, Rosie, you will not be wearing an opaque blue body stocking and nothing else). So there was something of a battle over what a certain somebody was going to wear, and of course, at this time of year, that's the most important thing when you're eight. In Rosie's world, at least.

The situation reached crisis levels at one point, mainly because her first idea wasn't possible in the "I'll order you the costume and that's sorted" sense, at least, and every other idea she had wasn't possible (or appropriate, I felt) either. Rosie wanted to be a supervillain – none of your goodies, please (although Madam Vastra from Doctor Who was briefly considered), so we had a limited range to work with, let's say. She was hesitant to have a costume tailor-made in case it turned out badly and she looked silly, but in the end I convinced her to at least let me try. If it did turn out badly, I promised her we'd do something else instead.

So, long story short, I ordered two pairs of leggings – one red, one black – and two tops, also one red/one black, and set about cutting them in half and sewing them together to make a Harley Quinn costume. One of Mr Seren's white t-shirts was sacrificed to make the cuffs and the collar. Rosie's experience of the character is from the Lego Batman game, so she wanted the original jumpsuit version of her costume (and frankly, given the other options/iterations of the character, that was the only version she was going to get), although she conceded that a two-piece version would be more practical than the jumpsuit itself. Thankfully she didn't find the jester-style hat appealing, so I didn't have to make that.

If I do say so myself, it all turned out rather well in the end. We'll ignore the fact that after unpicking the leggings apart to sew the one red and one black leg back together, I ended up sewing two left legs. But never mind.

Tom's costume was easy, he wanted to recycle his Minecraft Steve costume into an Enderman (another character from the game, who throws pumpkins, apparently), although it took a little fixing after rescuing it from the garage, and we had to make a new head. Then disaster struck – the school decided that kids wouldn't be allowed to wear make-up, face paints or masks "in case it scared the little ones." Which is kind of the point, no? Weapons and other kinds of props like wands weren't allowed, either, nor "inappropriate footwear," so Rosie decided that she didn't want to wear her costume for school if she couldn't do the whole thing. Parents and family were no longer invited to the parade, either (hmph).

The kids were both outraged and upset (it was a last minute announcement which made it worse – most of the kids at school had already decided on their costumes and it meant that most of them either couldn't do them properly, or at all because of the new rules). Tom was at least eventually allowed to take his costume in so the teacher could decide if it was too scary to wear for the parade, but all in all it hardly seemed worth the effort. Nana came to the rescue for Rosie and dumped a load of old dance clothes on her, which used to belong to my nieces, so she eventually decided to go as "America" in red, white and blue, with a hastily made statue of Liberty as a pointed comment about her FREEDUMBS, which had been unjustly taken away by the head teacher's arbitrary and illogical decision-making (the kids were allowed masks, weapons and/or face-paints for the evening disco, along with footwear of their choosing, so the ban on "weapons" and such was hardly a safety reason). So for school, this is what we ended up with:

And then for Oidhche Shamhna itself (Hallowe'en) Tom wore his costume again and Rosie did her Harley Quinn costume. Because I'd made it, damn it, and she was gonna wear it:

We got some coloured spray for her hair but it's not very obvious in the photos, but she was very happy with how it turned out in spite of the fact that she hated every second of having her hair sprayed. She's decided she quite fancies having black hair, though.

So the run up to Samhain was mainly taken up with making all of the costumes and props that were needed, and then trying to get the house in order in time for the evening. After spending so much time on making stuff, a good clean and tidy was desperately needed.

The night before our celebrations began I carved the turnips and pumpkins:

And felt pretty pleased with myself because I managed to carve a turnip without ballsing things up
with the knife going accidentally off course, for the first time ever.... There's something satisfying about a hard won carved tumshie. I missed a trick with the pumpkins, though – the cat pumpkin was Rosie's choice, but I could've done the other one to match Tom's Minecraft pumpkin. Oh well.

Decorations were put up and the Saturday went verrrry slooooowly for two excited kids who were forced to tidy their rooms and make their beds. Eventually it came time for them to go guising (or galoshans, as we call it in this neck of the woods) and Mr Seren took them out with the neighbour's kid. I decided to do a beef stew with dumplings for our evening feast because it was something I could mostly leave to its own devices while I was concentrating on fielding guisers, and it's a good wintry meal so it seemed apt.

While the kids were out I set up a bucket of water for the dookin', and lit the whole house by candle-light. The lanterns were put up at the window to let the guisers know they were welcome, and I did some quick devotions to get the evening officially started. We didn't get nearly as many guisers as we usually do – normally the streets would've been full of kids in costumes with a harried parent in tow, but I think maybe because it was a Saturday night a lot of people were at parties instead this year.

The kids came back with a good haul of treats and they set to the dookin' with enthusiasm. The neighbour's kid looked at us as if we had two heads when he realised we were going to actually dunk our faces in the water for the apples, though – he'd only ever done it by trying to spear the apples with a fork. He and Rosie opted for that method, which I think is what they do at school (though they didn't hold it between their teeth like you're supposed to), while Tom did it old style. Unsuccessfully, but doggedly nonetheless:

Eventually, as water began to spread all across the floor and he was no nearer to getting the apple, I told him to use a fork. It took some persuading and he wasn't going to make things easy on himself, though, so he did the teeth method with his fork. And finally won his apple after many, many attempts.

We had dinner as the neighbour's kid was called for his, and then he came back and we carried on our wee party, but as usual all of the excitement of the day saw them tire out pretty quickly. Rosie was barely awake by 9:30pm so it was time for her to shower to get all of the dye and face-paints off.

I'd seriously overdone things and needed a good sit down by that point – I could barely walk – so once the kids were tucked in the rest of the night was pretty low key for me. Before bed I spent some time making some offerings to finish off the evening, chatted with the ancestors (with honourable mention of Eddie and Yoda, the two pets we've lost in the last year – Rosie's convinced Eddie's been around), welcomed in the winter and made prayers of blessing and thanks, and left some food out for any ancestral visitors overnight, and then went to my bed. I slept a deep and dreamless sleep that night.

I was still suffering for my efforts the following day – it was worth it, though – and I decided to stay home while Mr Seren took the kids to the in-laws for the afternoon. The car journey wouldn't have done me any good. That wasn't before Mr Seren and the kids went out to buy a new iPad to replace the one that had finally given up the ghost (har), and they came back with the most tasteful artwork for me, ever:

Which now graces my living room, on the wall above the sofa where I typically sit. It was an apology from the kids, really – they'd got into trouble that morning for not listening to either Mr Seren or me, in spite of dire warnings, and I'd eventually had to go tell them off. Standing up was a little too much at that point and I couldn't help but burst out crying, so that freaked the kids out and made them feel terrible. But I was very touched by their thoughtful gesture.

By the time they came bearing woolly cows I was feeling a lot better, and I managed to sain the house and put the meal I'd left for the ancestors outside as an offering. I still haven't managed to find a satisfactory sort of shelf (or something) to put near the pond, where I can put my offerings out of the way of the dog's reach, so they're still currently going up on the wall on the other side of the patio. I need to figure something out for that.

But we've successfully ushered in the winter here, I think – I hope. As much as I'm not exactly the greatest or most enthusiastic seamstress, I ended up enjoying the opportunity to make both costumes for the kids. It allowed me to do a little extra protection work, too, cutting or sewing or painting deiseil, and sewing in or painting a few protective symbols for them for when they'd be out and about. It did mean that the preparations for our celebrations were a little lengthier than usual, but that in itself provided an opportunity for time to contemplate and meditate on things, and it also seems apt in the sense that winter itself seems to be taking its time in arriving, although the predictions are that it will be a cold and bitter one, once it does.

In spite of the fact that I over did things (physically, at least) I'm glad that for once I managed to do all of the things I wanted to. I chose to push myself. I suppose in a way I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, in spite of my limitations these days. I know, though, that it's not the trappings that are important, as such – doing is all well and good, but it's kind of pointless if you don't have that connection, that communication... But at the same time those trappings help provide a focus, and become devotional acts in themselves, and it's something I wanted to do. In a way, I think it's something I needed this time, too.

Getting ready for Samhain

For as long as I've been doing this - for ten years now - I've been striving to find a good balance between focusing on doing (or more to the point, figuring out what the doing entails) and experiencing.

To begin with, in the early days of figuring out what I could do and how I could express myself in ritual as I celebrated the festivals, I concentrated an awful lot of energy on making sure I did stuff and making sure that what I was doing was as authentic as I could make it. Was I doing it all right? In the right order? What if I missed something out that was really important? Over time I learned - with a little wisdom from friends - that perhaps I was concentrating on the details a little too much. I realised that I needed more of a balance between doing stuff and actually appreciating why I was doing these things. I realised I was getting so caught up in trying to make sure I was doing things right that I was getting distracted from actually appreciating the experience.

So from that point I eased off on worrying about the details and focused more on the experiential side of things, focusing on why I was doing all of this, and who for. And I suppose it became easier to do that because I had a little more experience anyway - once I accepted that not everything was always going to go according to plan, not everything would be able to fit in nearly, I realised that I'd managed to figure out a comfortable rhythm and pace for my ritual expressions, and had a better idea of the kind of things that worked for me, things that didn't, and where my own limits were. I was becoming more confident, which helped free up space to concentrate on finding more of a connection with the gods, spirits, and ancestors. I'd finally accepted that it's all well and good trying to fit a bunch of stuff in, but if you try to do so much that you end up too focused on ticking off things on your To Do list than actually appreciating why you're doing any of it, things will always be more stressful than spiritual. Which kind of becomes self-defeating, really.

Things evened out a little and I felt more settled. But then as the kids got older and began asking questions, I realised that while my personal practice was sorted, all of a sudden I was having to figure out how to explain things to the kids and engage them as well. The good thing about all that is that it keeps things fresh. As their perspective changes, so does mine. The hard part is that as they're constantly changing and growing (mentally, emotionally, physically), you have to readjust your own ideas about what they can really grasp, and try to gauge just how much they can take on board at any one time. But on the whole, as a family, we have a good rhythm going when it comes to celebrating the festivals now - I know what I'm doing (hurrah!), the kids know what to expect, and rub their hands with glee at the prospect of yummy food and fun stuff to do. And so on. So that's good. Something's working.

At the same time, I'm still trying to maintain that balance between the doing and the experiencing, as well as balancing the needs of my kids along with my own. As much as we have the bare bones of our festival practices down, I like to add in a few different things for each festival so things stay fresh. It's easy (for me, I guess I should add) to get complacent about what we're doing when it's all been done before, and I don't want the kids to get bored, either. So finding new stuff to do - even if it's just trying out a new recipe or two for the feast, buying new cookie cutters to make different kinds of decorations or treats this time round, and so on - is something I always try to think of, to add to our festival repertoire and make the occasion special.

So for this Samhain, I've started getting things going already. One of the things I like to do for each festival is clean and tidy the house from top to bottom - as best I can, considering I'm not always physically capable. At the moment my back's in an OK state (touch wood) so I've decided to get on with some of the bigger tasks that need dealing with. First off, there's decorating the kitchen, which we haven't done anything to since we moved in, and it was starting to look shabby. So all the dents in the walls have been filled in and smoothed out, and painted over. All of the random crap that accumulates on the kitchen sides has found a home (or been stuffed into a cupboard or drawer if it can't be thrown out, more like), and pictures that have needed a place to hang have finally gone up (including the very tasteful cow-themed coasters I got last Christmas, which I vowed were too good to use and needed to be framed).

Next up is tackling the hallway, which is also looking a little worse for wear as well. We have some more bits and pieces that need to find a home up on the walls, but also, since we're getting to Samhainn, I want to finally get around to making a dedicated space for my ancestors. I'm pretty limited in what I can do there because I don't know much about most of them (my grandad was adopted, my nan won't talk about her family except in general terms, so there are big gaping holes there). Things are a bit less murky on my mother's side, but I don't really know any names beyond my grandparents. I know mum has a fair few photos, though, so I've asked her to send me some. Most of them are pretty crap in quality, but there's enough that I can get started with - if not up on the walls, then in a photo album that I can annotate, or something. My original plan was to put them up in the kitchen, on the wall opposite my wee shelf shrine, but Mr Seren isn't too keen on the idea of eating his dinner in the presence of a wall of dead people (least of all his mother-in-law's relatives, I guess!). So I'll figure something out.

And finally, my nephews are coming up this weekend for a short visit with my mother (it's their half term next week), so I'm planning a Samhainn party for the kids this weekend. With the kids wanting to go guising with their friends at Hallowe'en it's much easier to do the partying separately now. We've yet to sort costumes out for the day, but Tom has a glow in the dark skeleton onesie that he wants to wear for the party and I might get my nephews and Rosie some matching outfits so they can all dress up. I have some pumpkins and tumshies at the ready for carving, and I'm looking up some ideas for vaguely traumatising party food - Frankenstein's finger sandwiches, ghostly fishcakes and "eyeballs" made out of lychees to go in some witches' brew, that sort of thing. Seeing as I was never allowed to celebrate Hallowe'en as a kid my mother will no doubt disapprove, but tough.

Heilan' coo's mostly...

Ooooooh yeah, down a bit...That's it...

Susie likes having a good wash. She's a show heifer, so she needs to look her best before the judges come and see her. Today she only had a shampoo and blow-dry (no, really), but usually she'd have a bit of conditioner rubbed in too. Timotei is the best, apparently. It takes about 5 litres per cow. Coo.

We met Susie (Siusan) today at a family event in Glasgow, along with some of her friends. And her daughter, also called Susie:

Mum is Susie Ruadh ('red'), while daughter is Susie Dubh ('black'), because one day this wee calf will end up black all over, just like her dad. Susie Dubh was only born in April, while I think her mum must be at least four or so.

Susie Dubh lapped up all of the attention and enjoyed a good scratch or two, especially on her chest and all the hard-to-scratch places a cow might have (at the front anyway!). They have very soft and thick coats. I could've petted them all day.

This is their friend, Una Ruadh:

In addition to a good bit of grass or hay, it seems they enjoy nibbling on zips and licking body warmers given half a chance. One little girl was horrified when she realised that her beautiful purple body warmer was covered in cow schleb. It seemed rude not to point out what the cow was doing to it once I noticed...

I don't think I noted this one's name down:

She's only a yearling, and is obviously unimpressed with being shown off to the great unwashed. Some of her friends had a little adventure recently, after a dog walker let their three dogs off their leads to run rampage through the country park where the herds of Highland cow's graze. As a result of the dogs giving the yearlings some unwanted attention, several took fright and stampeded, taking down fences and hedges until they ended up in the south-side of Glasgow. I think seven managed to escape from the park and end up in the city, and one of them apparently even wandered into a mechanic's garage, damaging a few cars before being rounded up safely and taken home (imagine explaining that one to the insurance company!). Luckily, none of them were injured, just a little freaked. If this is one of the heifers involved, she's not telling. She's feeling a bit coy:

Who, me?

The heilan' coos had a few friends along too, including a very chirpy-looking Anglo-Nubian goat:

And a Welsh badger-faced lamb:

For once, I met some horses that didn't hate me - these were Clydesdales, called Duke and Baron:

 

They enjoyed a good scratch too.

So, to conclude: I got to pet some heilan' coo's, and now I can die happy...