January 2012
5 posts
Hello! I was just searching around to see if anyone on tumblr spoke Gaelic, and I happened upon your blog. I'm from Scotland and I'm really interested in learning Gàidhlig. Would you say it's a particularly difficult thing to do?
Hello! My apologies for not replying to your message before now, I’ve just seen it! There are fantastic resources to learn Gaelic in Scotland; you could do a distance-learning course on the phone with Sabhal Mòr Ostaig (the Gaelic College on Skye), called ‘an Cùrsa Inntrigidh’, which is for beginners. Or you could look up Ùlpan classes (http://www.ulpan.co.uk/u/) to see if they have any in your local area. I’ve heard Ùlpan classes are fantastic; I’m hoping to attend classes with them when I move to Scotland myself. ;)
Is úar gáeth
i ndorus tige na lláech;
batar inmaine laích
bítis etrainn ocus gaíth.
The wind is cold
in the doorway of the warriors’ house;
beloved were the warriors
who stood between us and the wind.
(This elegiac verse is recited by Rónán in the tragic tale “Fingal Rónáin”.)
Ted Hughes :: 'Wind'
This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet
Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.
At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. Once I looked up -
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,
The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap;
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house
Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,
Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.
Ted Hughes
Ah, apparently tomorrow is Diluain Traoighte | Handsel Monday, which is always on the first Monday of the New Year. You give folk a gift of silver (coins). If silver crosses your hands on this day you won’t be stuck for money for the year. Another tradition learned from my grandad, which he got from his Auntie Mary, who married a Glasgow man. (Another Glasgow relative I’ve just recently learned about!)
