Colin S.K Walker - Scottish Proverbs

This edition published in 2021 by
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Copyright Colin S.K. Walker

First published in 1996

The right of Colin S.K. Walker to be identified as
Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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The definition of a proverb is no simple matter and has occupied scholars from Ancient Greece until the present day. Lord John Russell defined the proverb as the wisdom of many and the wit of one. The celebrated Spanish writer Cervantes said that a proverb is a short sentence drawn from long experience. Generally it is accepted that a proverb is a short, pithy traditional saying, which contains some widely accepted knowledge, or which offers advice or presents a moral. This present volume also contains many phrases and sayings which are not strictly proverbs as we use the term today, although we may still think of them as such. This situation arises because, prior to the eighteenth century it was common for the term to include metaphors, similes, and descriptive epithets. I have included these rogue phrases or sayings, as much for the continuance of the tradition established by previous collectors, as from the difficulty of finding any easy rule by which to distinguish them. The essence of a proverb lies in it being a traditional saying i.e. something which has commonly passed from one generation to another by word of mouth. Hence it would not seem appropriate to reject any of these rogue sayings as their usage embraces much that is essential to the true proverb. In his book On the Lessons in Proverbs (1852), Richard Chevenix Trenchard says that there is one quality of the proverb which is the most essential of all:

popularity, acceptance and adoption on the part of the people. Without this popularity, without these suffrages and this consent of the many, no saying, however seasoned with salt, however worthy on all these accounts to have become a proverb, however fulfilling all other its conditions, can yet be esteemed as such.

What is the importance of proverbs to Scottish culture and heritage? Proverbs can provide us not only with the wisdom gathered by our forebears but also with a unique insight into the way of life or social mores of past generations. Many of the proverbs contained in this book date from a pre-industrial Scotland, when the majority of people still lived off the land or sea, and hence contain the rich vocabulary associated with these disappearing or extinct lifestyles. A strong impression is created of a society in which hard work was necessary merely to subsist, and the Scottish Protestant work ethic is well to the fore in many of the sayings. Although we would no longer consider them to be politically correct, there are a considerable number of proverbs relating to marriage guidance, or giving advice to men on how to deal with women. From these sayings we can trace the changes which have taken place in our society. As the poet William Motherwell put it, in his eloquent introduction to Hendersons book of Scottish Proverbs in 1832:

The study of proverbs may be more instructive and comprehensive than the most elaborated scheme of philosophy; and in relation to changes in the manners of people, their customs, and various minute incidents connected either with places or persons, they often preserve particulars which contemporary history has failed to record.

For any true student of Scottish culture, the proverb has a twofold reason for being studied: (1) for its own intrinsic worth, and (2) for its associations with the wisdom of past generations of the race.

In many ways, a book of proverbs can be said to contain the philosophy of the common people, or a nations distilled wisdom. (The latter phrase would seem particularly appropriate when one counts the number of Scottish proverbs relating to drink!)

Perhaps the strongest thread running through most of the proverbs contained in this book relates to the Scottish nations pawky sense of humour. For a language such as Scots, with its rich oral tradition, it is essential that we not only conserve the proverbs of the past, but also record new ones which reflect the times and places in which we now live. Proverbs are an essential part of our living culture and heritage, and should be valued as such. In his book A Complete Collection of Scottish Proverbs (1721) James Kelly bears testimony to the widespread use of proverbs at that time. He says that: there were current in society upwards of 3,000 proverbs, exclusively Scottish.

He adds:

The Scots are wonderfully given to this way of speaking and, as the consequence of that, abound with proverbs, many of which are very expressive, quick, and home to the purpose; and, indeed, this humor prevails among the better sort of the commonalty, none of whom will discourse with you any considerable time, but he will affirm every assertion and observation with a Scottish Proverb.

From this statement we can see what a massive sea-change has taken place in society as regards the proverbial mode of intercourse. In Kellys day it was common practice in conversation to strengthen an argument or illustrate a point by using a proverb. According to Lord Bacon, proverbs:

serve not only for ornament and delight, but also for active and civil use; as being the edge tools of speech which cut and penetrate the knots of business and affairs.

Proverbs can be seen in some ways as the germ of moral and political science. However, they are the product of the common people, and do not owe their origins to the ivory towers of academia or to baronial mansions. For this reason the use of proverbs was considered vulgar by later generations of educated Scots, and their formal application was almost prohibited by the rules of polite society. The coming of a more educated and industrialised society also brought about a change in the method of communication. Oral transmission of a societys knowledge ceased to be the preferred method of communication and was instead replaced by the written and printed word.

I am greatly indebted to the works of the great Scottish proverb documentors of the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Fergusson, Henderson, Hislop, Kelly, and Ramsay) for many of the older proverbs.

It seems like poetic justice that Fife (proverbially known as the Kingdom of Fife, though it never had a King) can claim to be the home of the first written collection of Scottish proverbs. It was made by David Ferguson, a minister from Dunfermline in the latter half of the sixteenth century, put ordine alphabetico when he died in 1598, but not published until 1641. His collection by the time of his death amounted to 945 sayings, and were given without any comment or explanation. They were printed in Edinburgh without an authors preface but instead with an address from the printer in which he said:

I know that there may be some that will say and marvell that a minister should have taken pains to gather such proverbs together; but they that knew his forme of powerfull preaching the word, and his ordinar talking, ever almost using proverbiall speeches will not finde fault with this that he hath done.