Scots word of the week

Blithemeat

IN this season of Thanksgiving, I wondered how many thanksgiving traditions we Scots have. The Dictionary of the Scots Language offers many instances of thanksgiving, which mainly relate to church services. Blithemeat is defined as “a thanksgiving feast after the birth of a child”, or “the meat distributed among those who are present at the birth of a child, or among the rest of the family”.

Sadly, this feast seems to have been lost in modern times, although it does live on in the recorded history of our festivals.

From the 2007 Scottish Life and Society: A Compendium of Scottish, Ethnology: “Blithemeat or merrymeat for instance had three areas of application, the first food eaten by the midwife and female friends of the mother who alone were present at the actual birth”.

Cheese often featured in these feasts, as in this early example from Dougal Graham’s Collected Writings (1779): “Ye’s a [you all] get bread and cheese to the blyth meat”. Being Scotland, there was also something to drink with your blithemeat, as enthusiastically recorded by A Balfour writing in the Edinburgh Magazine of June 1823: “Syne we had the blithe-meat — fine, rich buttered saps, an’ capfu’s o’ nappy ale, that gart [made] our lugs crack”.

Sometimes something stronger was offered: “Either some dainty or a drink of whisky should be given to those in attendance at a birth, immediately after the arrival of the child. This is called blythe (or blythe’s) meat”.

Scots Word of the Week is written by Pauline Cairns Speitel, of Scottish Language Dictionaries, 9 Coates Crescent, Edinburgh EH3 7AL https://dsl.ac.uk