Waulking songs ( gd, Òrain Luaidh) are Scottish

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...

s, traditionally sung in the

Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...

language by women while

fulling Fulling, also known as felting, tucking or walking ( Scots: ''waukin'', hence often spelled waulking in Scottish English), is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of woven or knitted cloth (particularly wool) to elimin ...

(waulking) cloth. This practice involved a group of women, who traditionally prepared cloth, rhythmically beating newly woven

tweed Tweed is a rough, woollen fabric, of a soft, open, flexible texture, resembling cheviot or homespun, but more closely woven. It is usually woven with a plain weave, twill or herringbone structure. Colour effects in the yarn may be obtained ...

or tartan cloth against a table or similar surface to lightly felt it and shrink it to better repel water. Simple, beat-driven songs were used to accompany the work. A waulking session often begins with slow-paced songs, with the tempo increasing as the cloth becomes softer. As the singers work the cloth, they gradually shift it to the left so as to work it thoroughly. A tradition holds that moving the cloth anticlockwise is unlucky. Typically one person sings the verse, while the others join in the chorus. As with many folk music forms, the lyrics of waulking songs are not always strictly adhered to. Singers might add or leave out verses depending on the particular length and size of tweed being waulked. Verses from one song might appear in another, and at times the lead singer might improvise to include events or people known locally. The chorus to many waulking songs consists of

vocables In the broadest sense of the word, a vocable is any meaningful sound uttered by people, such as a word or term, that is fixed by their language and culture. Use of the words in the broad sense is archaic and the term is instead used for utterances ...

, in which some of the words are meaningless, while others are regular Gaelic words (such as ''trom''), but sometimes have no meaning in the context of the song. The vocables serve a function similar to 'tra la la' or 'hey hey hey' in other song forms. Some waulking songs have a strict verse-and-chorus structure. In other songs, the vocables are sung at the end of each line of a verse. In a song like S Fliuch an Oidhche ('Wet is the Night'),'' also known as ''Coisich a Rùin ('Come on, My Love')'', the last two lines of one verse become the first two lines of the following one. A tradition holds that it is bad luck to repeat a song during a waulking session, which may explain in part both the many verses of some songs and the large number of songs. While fulling is a common practice across the world, it is only in Scotland that music became so strongly associated with it as to become an important cultural feature of the country. Waulking is rare in Scotland today, mostly confined to the

Outer Hebrides The Outer Hebrides () or Western Isles ( gd, Na h-Eileanan Siar or or ("islands of the strangers"); sco, Waster Isles), sometimes known as the Long Isle/Long Island ( gd, An t-Eilean Fada, links=no), is an island chain off the west coast ...

, where it is carried out as a celebration of heritage. The last true waulking (for the purpose of making cloth) is believed to have occurred during the 1950s. During the

Highland clearances The Highland Clearances ( gd, Fuadaichean nan Gàidheal , the "eviction of the Gaels") were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860. The first phase resulte ...

, traditional methods of waulking spread with the

Scottish diaspora The Scottish diaspora consists of Scottish people who emigrated from Scotland and their descendants. The diaspora is concentrated in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, England, New Zealand, Ireland and to a lesser extent A ...

. In

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

, and in particular, on

Cape Breton Island Cape Breton Island (french: link=no, île du Cap-Breton, formerly '; gd, Ceap Breatainn or '; mic, Unamaꞌki) is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The island accounts for 18. ...

, waulking is known as ''milling''. Although in Scotland women waulked cloth, in Nova Scotia both men and women took part in ''milling frolics''. The practice continues as a cultural celebration today.

In media

The act of waulking, complete with a song, was showcased in Season 1 of '' Outlander''. As Claire Fraser travels the MacKenzie lands with her husband Jamie's party to collect rents, she spends time with a group of women who are waulking wool. The act of waulking, complete with a song and the phrase "waulking the tweed," are shown in the Season 9 Christmas Special of ''

Call the Midwife ''Call the Midwife'' is a BBC period drama series about a group of nurse midwives working in the East End of London in the late 1950s and 1960s. The principal cast of the show has included Jessica Raine, Miranda Hart, Helen George, Bryony Hanna ...

''. When the midwives journey to the Outer Hebrides, one of their patients participates in waulking tweed, which is shown as a communal activity for the island's women.

External links

*
Waulking Song , AI Enhanced 1941 Film
by

Jack Cardiff Jack Cardiff, (18 September 1914 – 22 April 2009) was a British cinematographer, film and television director, and photographer. His career spanned the development of cinema, from silent film, through early experiments in Technicolor, to fi ...

Powell & Pressburger The British film-making partnership of Michael Powell (1905–1990) and Emeric Pressburger (1902–1988)—together often known as The Archers, the name of their production company—made a series of influential films in the 1940s and 1950s. T ...

fame in 1940/ 41
Information about waulking and milling from the Halifax, Nova Scotia Gaelic milling group ''An Cliath Clis.''

* ttp://www.houseofscotland.org/waulking.html More information on waulking songs at ''HouseOfScotland.com.'' {{Cape Breton folk music Scottish culture Work music Scottish folk songs Scottish Gaelic language

In media

See also

External links