Forgotten Ground Regained

The Brough o Birsay

Glossary for “The Brough o Birsay”
The holm’s belt wis bilinbrichtly roon the toons oparrotbeaks; the packmens’prog ca’d the faem hoggies.Aboon stey-gates, stauninstane-biggit, the lanesomeherd o wave-heich mar-beastsheized up, strang, its bleeze-leam.
Photograph by Colin Mackenzie
  • The Brough o Birsay: a tidal island off the north-west coast of The Mainland of Orkney, home to the remains of Pictish and Norse settlements.
  • holm: an islet, especially in a river or near a mainland, commonly applied to those off larger islands in Orkney and Shetland.
  • holm’s belt: a kenning, meaning the sea
  • bilin: boiling
  • brichtly: brightly
  • toons: towns
  • parrotbeaks: puffins
  • toons o parrotbeaks: a kenning, meaning puffin nesting sites
  • packmen: traveling merchants, extended metaphorically to mean clouds
  • prog: a piercing weapon or instrument, a goad
  • packmens’ prog: a kenning, meaning the wind
  • ca’d: drove
  • faem: foam
  • hoggies: young sheep
  • faem hoggies: a kenning, meaning waves
  • aboon: above
  • stey gates: steep paths
  • staunin: standing
  • stane-biggit: stone-built
  • lanesome: lonesome
  • herd: one who tends or watches over sheep or cattle
  • wave-heich: wave-high
  • mar-beasts: sea beasts
  • lanesome herd of wave-heich mar-beasts: a kenning, meaning lighthouse
  • heized: raised
  • strang: strong
  • bleeze-leam: blaze-light
A Note on Form
This poem follows an Old Norse form called dróttkvætt ‘court metre’ which uses 8 line stanzas with six metrical positions per line, where alliteration links two syllables in odd-numbered lines with the first syllable of even-numbered lines. Dróttkvætt, unlike other Germanic alliterative metres, also uses internal-rhyme in each line: in odd-numbered lines two syllables end in half-rhyme (-ip, -up) and in even-numbered lines two syllables end in full-rhyme (-eet, -eet). The second of these syllables is always in the fifth metrical position. Dróttkvætt makes heavy use of kennings, verbal circumlocutions which stand in place of a noun. While found in other Germanic poetry, kennings in dróttkvætt are often long, elaborate, puzzle-like constructions. These poems, written in modern Scots, illustrate why dróttkvætt was favored by Norse court poets to demonstrate their poetic agility (and one-up their rivals).
Copyright © Colin Mackenzie, 2024 First printed in Forgotten Ground Regained, New Series, Issue 5, Winter, 2025
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