The Crookit Widdi - What Was and Ever Is

The crookit widdi hieds ahin’
The purple shuther o’the Bin.

An crookit roadie skirts a’round
Gets lecht at time frae gold when bloom.

An’ crookit hoosies crouch near by,
That aince stood prood agains’the sky.

Poor crookit fowkies  Noo a ‘gone
But still this crookit life moves on!

G.F. Murray, Buckie
F is for Fraser
April 2005


partial translation

The crooked woods hide behind
The purple shoulder of the Hill
(Heather covered Ben/hill named“Bin” was a family farm)
lecht=lit golden at times by prickly broom =“when”
hoosies=houses

Written after speaking with a sad old country lass had lamented the loss of old homesteads
ike the Lawrence’s that fell down when they emigrated.


In the Doric language - a local coastal dialect from Aberdeen to Inverness.
I now believe this might be the dialect I heard Grandma speaking to other’s when I stayed there as a kid-
not the Gaelic.
Although that to is possible I suppose.