Joan and Peggy Ann were both wondering about the phrase ‘dree my own weird’ which appeared in the previous blogpost. It’s more likely to be pronounced ‘dree ma ain weird’ really but anyway, if you look up the word dree in the Oxford dictionary it’ll tell you that it’s a verb which is either archaic or Scottish and it means – to endure.
Weird is also in that dictionary and its meaning is – destiny or fate. So the whole thing means to submit to your destiny.
Nowadays people tend to use that phrase to mean that they will plough their own furrow, in other words – do their own thing, which is a slightly different meaning altogether.
It’s a very fatalistic view of things which could be peculiarly Scottish for all I know. We’re also very fond of saying – What’s for you will no’ go by ye. In other words – if it’s meant to be, it will be.
It stems from the belief that when you are born your whole future is already mapped out and nothing can change your destiny. For some people it’s a religious thing – it is a form of Calvinist predestination really; in Scotland it’s difficult to escape Calvinism – but people who follow astrology must have a similar outlook.
Good old Calvinism ;( Thanks for the definition! I love all these sayings but people here would think me quite strange if I started talking like that!
Peggy Ann,
In fact they would think that you were another kind of weird altogether!
I’m not a Scot although married to one. I don’t believe everything in life is predestined. We have some power to change our destiny and choose one path rather than another. Nevertheless, it is clear to me that life is going to happen to me, willy nilly, and there are times enough when I have no alternative but to play the cards I’m dealt. Considering this question, I thought of the phrase, plough the furrow that is in front of you, before I read this post. We are all set upon this earth to achieve what we may, but constraints are ever there, to a greater or lesser degree.
Graham Thomas,
I think that to plough my own furrow is a good translation of the phrase to ‘dree my own weird’, but I think it sounds better in Scots. Thanks for dropping by with your thoughts.
Katrina
Dree my ain weird does suggest something predestinate.
Magnus Magnus used the term ‘a predestinate tragedy’ in his foreword to James Kennaway’s novel Household Ghosts published by Canongate.
Calvinism had collapsed in Scotland by the 19th Century; Robert Burns was unfortunate in that a pocket of it had survived in Ayrshire.
William McIlvanney told a friend that his mindset was a bit Calvinistic.
When my friend asked if Willie had read Calvin he replied. ‘Nobody reads Calvin.’
Shortly after this I bought a bunch of Calvin’s Bible Commentaries in a book sale (published by Eerdmans in America) and was struck by how accomplished he was in hermeneutics.
In his famous book The Institutes he only mentions predestination in the last quarter of the text; God electing to save some was a dark mystery to Jean Cauvin and did not bear looking into too closely; he grieved for lost souls which was why he opened the doors of St. Pierre’s in Geneva every day.
*John Piper about Calvin in Geneva* : YouTube.
I am agnostic but I have been impressed by services in Scottish Calvinist churches.
J Haggerty Glasgow
John Haggerty,
I’m am atheist but I still feel that Calvinism has some merit, but I must admit that I’ve never read anything about Calvinism. I don’t believe that Calvinism had collapsed in the 19th century. It was very much in control in many places, I’m thinking particularly of Kirriemuir and J.M. Barries’s books such as The Little Minister and others, they’re worth reading! I think that I sort of imbibed my parents’ version of it, with a fairly strict Presbyterian upbringing (Glasgow/Dumbarton). But that could be boiled down to “Do as you would be done by” which always seems like just common decency to me. However, I think it is interesting that even RCs in Scotland in the past somehow had Calvinistic traits, such as the feeling that if something good happens – it’ll have to be paid for by something bad happening, even if it’s just the weather.