HAAR, n.

Sitting in a restaurant in early May, overlooking the Forth estuary, you can frequently see the haar creep inexorably in from the water and up into the nearby streets. By the time you’ve finished your meal the whole area will be engulfed with this fine sea mist.

Dictionaries of the Scots Language defines it as:

“A cold mist or fog, generally used on the east coast for a sea-mist".

Also

“A cold, easterly wind”.

An early example comes from William Nimmo’s History of Stirlingshire (1777):

“In the months of April and May, easterly winds, commonly called Haars, usually blow with great violence, especially in the afternoons”.

Indeed. How often has a morning and early afternoon started with blazing sunshine only to be slowly overcome by the haar in the late afternoon.

Ian Rankin captured it well in his 1992 novel Strip Jack:

“It was dark outside, and foggy too, a haar drifting in across the city from the North Sea. In a haar, Edinburgh seemed to shift backwards through time”.

The atmospheric romance of Edinburgh in mist also appealed to this writer in the Sunday Post (2021):

“When I moved to Edinburgh as a teenager, I discovered the haar. An eerie mist that rolls in off the Forth at the docks in Leith leaving its mark across all corners of the city. When it happens, you are instantly transported to the Edinburgh of Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson”.

There’s even a restaurant in St Andrews which takes its name from it, calling itself simply, Haar Restaurant.

This Scots Word of the Week comes from Dictionaries of the Scots Language.

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