Autumn

HAIRST – AUTUMN

The season of autumn is made up of three months – September, October and November. In the Scots language the season is called the hairst. Hairst comes originally from a Common Germanic word which is believed to have taken the form *harbistoz about two thousand years ago. We find this word taking the forms hærfest in Anglo-Saxon (giving modern English the word harvest) and haust in Old Norse. The three months which make up this season – September, October and November – take the same forms in Scots as they do in English, though in the case of November the ‘o’ tends to be lost and it is pronounced as ‘N’vember’.

The autumn brings with it the wettest weather in Scotland, which continues into the winter. This is very true of the western regions of Scotland, such as the Highlands, which experience much longer and heavier rainfall than other regions of the country. At this time of the year low air pressure (called depressions by meteorologists) is brought into Scotland by westerly winds coming in from the Atlantic. Low air pressure is closely associated with higher winds and warming air. As air meets higher ground it is forced to rise upwards and leads to cooling which will produce clouds and rain. So it is unsurprising that mountainous and upland regions draw more rain at this time, such as Argyll, Dunbartonshire and Inverness which are very rainy compared with more lowland regions to the south and east of the country. Indeed, Argyll is among the wettest areas not only of Scotland, but the entire UK. Along with these rains come some of the strongest winds in Scotland, usually blowing up from the south west and affecting the western islands and Highlands, though some of the most dramatic short term gusts are to be experiences in the north east (see spring).

Please click on the audio files below to hear some words and sayings in Scots associated with autumn weather.