BIELD

MOTHER’S Day tomorrow put me in mind of this week’s word. Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) defines bield variously as “protection, shelter”, “a place affording shelter”, and “a protector”. Early examples date back to the 18 century, as in James Kelly’s Collection of Scottish Proverbs (1721): “Every Man bows to the Bush he gets beel of”. Burns’ poem Winter of Life (1796) is also cited: “My trunk of eild [age in general], but buss or bield, Sinks in time’s wintry rage”.

The term survives into the modern period, and not only in poetry. Lavinia Derwent, in her 1979 autobiography A Border Bairn, gives us the following description: “Pheasants and partridges were expert at camouflage, making simple bields on the ground amongst heather and bracken, carefully covering them with dead leaves or grass before flying off to forage for food”. DSL also records the following verbal pitch-side instruction from Selkirk in 1993: “Use that [rugby] pitch – it’s better bieldit”.

Bield is still in use in the 21st century. A short story, Tim’s Tales: Jamie and the elder tree, by Tim Porteous, published in the East Lothian Courier of December 2020, uses it thus: “He set aff hame, but stopped fir a moment tae turn roond an look at the elder tree. Its bare branches hud been sculpted by the wind, and wi the backgroond o’ snaw, it looked like a figure bent ower; an image o’ an auld wummin makin a bield fir her bairn”.

Scots Word of the Week is written by Pauline Cairns Speitel, Dictionaries of the Scots Language https://dsl.ac.uk