GREIM CUTHAIG

This Gaelic proverb was once well-known on Coll and, presumably, throughout the rest of the Gaelic speaking world as well. With grateful thanks to Betty MacDougall and Katina MacDonald.

It was considered unlucky to hear the cuckoo on a fasting stomach so it was the custom to eat a bite immediately on awakening - 'greim cuthaig'. It was also unlucky on a fasting stomach to see, on first leaving the house, the hind-quarters of a lamb or foal, a snail on a bare rock or stone or a stonechat on a turf dyke. If, when it took wing, it went towards the graveyard, the observer would be carried there before the year was out.

The following verse was composed by a young woman who saw the four unlucky signs and lost her husband and three children before the year was out.

Chuala mi chuthag's gun bhiadh 'nam bhroinn,
Chunna mi seilcheag cur lic luim;
Chunna mi uan (no searrach) 's a chuilaibh rium,
Chunna mi Clacharan air garradh-toll
Thuig me nach rachadh a'bhliadhna leam
Chaill me fear-an-taighe's mo chlann!

I heard a cuckoo without food inside me
I saw a snail on a bare rock,
I saw a lamb (or foal) with its back to me
I saw a stonechat on a turf dyke
I realised that the year would not go well for me
I lost the man of the house and my children.