DLÒTH

DLÒTH, 119: If corn were to lodge thro’ rain or wind and all lay the same way without being twisted and mixed together. Theirte gun robh arbhar a’ laigh’ air an aon rathad air a dhlòth. The same could be said of wool and the like. Dlòth arbhair, 118, a handful of straw – am beum a bhios aig duine ’na làimh a’ buain. [Cuir air a dhlòthaidh e, arrange it going the same way – said of thatch. N.S.] 

 

DLÙTH, 40, gathering home the harvest = cròdh[adh]. Am an dlùthaidh. Sgian dlùthaidh, a pocket knife, folding.

 

Dwelly has dlòth: “Handful of corn or grass cut with one stroke of the reaping hook.” A similar use is seen in Mull man John Macfadyen’s book of 1890, An t-Eileanach: “he said, with the last dlòth in his hand”

It also features in Mo Reul Iùil, in Smuaintean fo Éiseabhal by Dòmhnall Aonghais Bhàin: “You have beautiful curly locks / Like corn marigolds / In smooth arches / And the comb putting it an dlòth”

I have only heard locally of dlùthadh, for collecting the corn, rather than dlòth, although they are clearly connected.

Faclan bhon t-Sluagh gives three different uses of dlòth: twice in South Uist it’s used to mean that the stubble is of even length after scything the corn. Two uses in North Uist and Lewis refer to dlòth as a handful of cut corn. One use recorded in Antigonish, Cape Breton is closest to Fr Allan’s meaning in 119: “air a dhlòth e.g. grain laid in an orderly swathe after the mower.”

 

 

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