Hornie golach
Horned gollach or just plain golach; according to Dictionaries of the Scots Language these are names for the earwig. And
“There are many other names in Scots for the earwig, including clipshears, forkie-taillie, twitchiebell, switchpool, collieglean, gullack and gavelack.”
(Sunday Post, 2014)
As unlikely as it might seem, they can be harbingers of good luck. From John Jack’s An Historical account of St Monance (1844):
“The horned golock … is … esteemed a very lucky creature, and … the good housewife … will frequently put herself to considerable inconvenience … rather than incommode this lucky insect in its grovelling pursuits”.
It’s probably all in the context.
“I never eat raw vegetables, having observed years ago that they are bedroom, lavatory and playing fields for a wide variety of horny and squashy gollochs…”.
(The Scotsman, 1989)
More positively:
“The horny gollach’s an awesome beast, Souple and scaley; He has twa horns an a hantle o feet An a forky tailie”.
(George Burnett, Book of Scottish Verse, 1932)
And there’s this from The National:
“Either Scots is teeterin on the verge o awmaist bein taen seriously, or it has been decidit by a cabal o heidbummers somewhaur that the auld leid is feenished, politically haunless and could nae langer herm a hornie golach, sae why no embrace it?”.
(Matthew Fitt, 2016)
In 2020, Scots Hoose published a story by Shaun Johnston called The Forkie Gollach:
“Jordan wis standing there with a great big forkie gollach … and put it right in the middle o ma poke o chips and pushed doon wi his finger.”
This Scots Word of the Week comes from Dictionaries of the Scots Language.
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