This lack of light, typical of a November afternoon, comes from ‘myrkr’, in Old Norse, once spoken in lands where in winter “cheery day-light thro’ the mirk ne’er blinks” (Robert Fergusson 1773). No wonder many of the dictionary quotations containing this word are decidedly bleak, like this one from D. G. Mitchell’s Clachan Kirk (1917): “The present day is mirk, an’ the weeks aheid mirker”. Dungeon mirk and pit mirk plumb the very depths of darkness; Colin Donati used “pit mirk thirl” aptly in an astronomical context to describe a black hole. The Chronicle of Perth, a register of remarkable occurrences, chiefly connected with that city, from the year 1210 to 1668, refers to “The eclips of the sone Setterday callit the mirk Setterday, 25 Februar 1597”. Figuratively, in John Service’s Dr. Duguid (1887) “The times were kittle, and men's minds were but slowly struggling through the mists and mirks of superstition to the brighter day”. “A mirk mirrour is a mans minde” is a proverbial metaphor from Fergusson’s collection (1641) which finds an inelegant parallel in Henryson’s poem, Sum Practysis of Medecyne (a1500): “It is ane mirk mirrour, Ane uthir manis ers”. Bad things happen in the mirk, such as being catch’d wi warlocks, as Tam o Shanter almost was, or the mishap of a nocturnal pedestrian in J. Mitchell’s Bydand (1918): “I hinna jist been richt sin' a byous mirky nicht That I missed my fit, an' tummelt in the dock”. But it is an ill wind (or a mirk nicht) that does not work for someone as attested by the records of Perth Kirk Session (1619) “It wes murk nicht ... at the ower golf hoill ... he hed tuyse (twice) ado with hir;”. Furthermore, as the J. Lumsden poem (1896) reminds us “The mirkiest hour – whan there's nae mune – Precedes the day”.

Scots Word of the Week is written by Chris Robinson of Scottish Language Dictionaries.

This week's Word is spoken by Fife poet and teacher Willie Hershaw