Stories of the Sea Mither and Teran are among Orkney's oldest legends, perhaps invented to explain the vagaries of weather and other naturally occurring events. In Shetland fishermen petition Sea Mither to afford them protection from the Devil.
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There are several marked paths, including fairly easy ascents of Oxen Craig and Mither Tap that start from the centre.
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Sea Mither is a spirit of summer days that quells the turbulent sea waters around the northern isles of Scotland. Shetland islanders, particularly fishermen, seek her protection from the Devil. Control of the seas is maintained by Teran, the spirit of winter, until Sea Mither arrives around the time of the vernal equinox in mid-March. Both spirits are invisible to humans.
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Meanwhile, in the snug, women wearing hairnets and expressions as hard as anthracite would foregather over halves of stout and mither in incomprehensible Lancastrian idioms.
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The seas of Orkney are calm during the periods of Sea Mither's reign. Sea Mither, or Mither of the Sea, is a mythical being of Orcadian folklore that lives in the sea during summer, when she confines the demonic nuckelavee to the ocean depths. Each spring she battles with her arch-enemy Teran, another spirit of Orcadian legend capable of causing severe winter storms, to gain control of the seas and the weather. Eventually Sea Mither overcomes Teran and sends him to the depths of the ocean, but the effort of keeping him confined there along with her other benevolent labours during the summer exhaust her, until in the autumn Teran takes advantage of her weakness to wrest control from her once again.
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The Lost Gate is a fantasy novel by Orson Scott Card. It is the first novel in the Mither Mages trilogy. The second novel is The Gate Thief and the third one is Gatefather.
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No details are given as to where she spends the winter, but during the storms caused by Teran the fishermen were consoled that Sea Mither would return refreshed and powerful in the spring, to again oust Teran from his malevolent grip over the seas.
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Though not particularly high, compared to other peaks within Scotland, the mountain is very prominent, owing to its isolation and the relative flatness of the surrounding terrain, and dominates the skyline from several viewpoints. The peak that stands out the most visually is Mither Tap (518 m, 1699 feet) and from its top there are good views of the county to the north and east. Most of the tops lie along an east / west ridge, with the exception of Millstone Hill (409 m) an outlier or spur which is separated from and to the south of the main ridge. Mither Tap has an Iron Age fort on its summit.
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Mither is defined in the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue as the Scots variant of "mother", which may particularly reflect oral Orcadian use. The name of her opponent, Teran, is local Orkney dialect meaning "furious anger", and may be a derivative of ', Norse for "angry".
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Eventually Sea Mither overcomes Teran, relegating him to the depths of the ocean; inclement summer weather is caused by Teran's attempts to escape. During summer months the Sea Mither also keeps the demonic nuckelavee creature confined, and undertakes benevolent labours: she empowers aquatic creatures with the ability to reproduce; warms and calms the seas; and instils a softer song-like quality to the gentle summer breeze. According to folklorist and Orkney resident, Walter Traill Dennison, during Sea Mither's reign in summer the conditions reported by islanders may have "tempted one to believe that the Orkney archipelago had become the islands of the blessed." But the continual work she undertakes to keep everything calm and the strain of maintaining control over Teran gradually tires her.
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It is located in farmland at an altitude of c. on a terraced hillside leading up to a prominent summit called Mither Tap. It has been suggested to once have consisted of 12 stones, 4 of which remain standing, with another four fallen, the final four presumed to have been moved.Logan, J., Archaeologia, 22, pp. 200–2, 1829.
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As autumn approaches, Teran takes advantage of Sea Mither's exhaustion to break free, and conflict between the two starts again. The power struggles cause the weather to change with darkening skies and howling winds. This time, Teran triumphs in the conflict termed the "Gore vellye". Control of the ocean and weather is returned to Teran and Sea Mither is forced to leave.
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She believed an academic examination of all such sites would reveal a message, through the archaeological 'language' needed for such examination. The findings of her investigations included rubbings from hundreds of archaeological specimens of various sites and were published at her own expense. She carried out an excavation on the Mither Tap of Bennachie. Some of her theories were considered eccentric to her contemporaries.
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Original pews in the Kirk of St Nicholas in Aberdeen The Kirk of St Nicholas is a historic church located in the city centre of Aberdeen, Scotland. It is now officially known as the "Kirk of St Nicholas Uniting" as it has membership of both of the Church of Scotland and the United Reformed Church. It is also known as "The Mither Kirk" (mother church) of the city. The church has a dark mahogany interior.
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The Gate Thief is a fantasy novel by Orson Scott Card. It is the second novel in the Mither Mages trilogy. In this sequel to The Lost Gate, bestselling author Orson Scott Card continues his fantastic tale of the Mages of Westil who live in exile on Earth. Here on Earth, Danny North is still in high school, yet he holds in his heart and mind all the stolen ourselves of thirteen centuries of gatemages.
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" That very same day Miss Jeanie did die, And hame came Auchanachie, hame frae the sea; Her father and mither welcomed him at the gate; He said, "Where's Miss Jeanie, that she's nae here yet?" Then forth came her maidens, all wringing their hands, Saying, "Alas for your staying sae lang frae the land! Sae lang frae the land, and sae lang on the fleed! They've wedded your Jeanie, and now she is dead.
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In common with many other locations, the Oldmeldrum line did not actually enter the town it was intended to serve. The station was at Strathmeldrum, some 5 minutes walk downhill to the south from the main square. Then, it was surrounded by fields - with fine open views, particularly westwards to Bennachie's Mither Tap. Today, the station area is hemmed in on all sides, with housing to the north and east and a large industrial site on its southern and western boundaries.
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One of the more important Celtic customs was in the production of mead (fermenting of honey with water), in medieval times the alcoholic drink had mystical and religious qualities, a noted example was Lindisfarne Mead, produced by the Celtic Monks on Holy Island. The word ‘mither’ derives from the mether, which is a mead drinking vessel. People are said to get ‘confused and bothered as a result of too much mead’.Bee Laws, Moore Group Mead is also associated with the wife of Ailill and Sovereignty Queen, Medb.
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It was constructed in 1961 and coverage includes north east Scotland, from St. Andrews in the south to Fraserburgh in the north, including the city of Aberdeen. It also covers much of the North Sea coast between Dunbar and Berwick, although this coverage is not deliberate. It is also a feature in Durris Primary's newest logo created in 2000 (the logo shows the mast on the hill with the sun and three trees). It can be seen from the summit of Mither Tap, near Insch, Aberdeenshire and can also be spotted at night on the road down from the Lecht Ski Centre.
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The outside was bonny, the inside was snug, But whit I mind best o' was the wee wally dug. It stood in a corner, high up on the shelf, And keepit an ee on the best o' the delf. It was washed twice a year, frae its tail tae its lug, And pit back on the shelf, was the wee wally dug. When oor John got mairrit tae sweet Jeannie Blue, The auld folks they gied him a horse an' a coo, But when I left the hoose, ma hert gied a tug, For a' mither gied me was the wee wally dug.
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Orcadian tales were strongly influenced by Scandinavian mythology with a blending of traditional Celtic stories. Folklorist and writer Ernest Marwick describes the Sea Mither and Teran as "pure personifications of nature." Several ancient myths were based upon the natural elements of the turbulent and ever changing sea surrounding Orkney, but the stories of the two spirits are among the oldest legends on the islands. People had to be able to explain the vagaries of weather and other natural life cycles without the benefit of science; Traill Dennison hypothesises that this is why "the imagination of some half savage" may have formed the foundations of the myth.
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In common with many other sea monsters it is unable to tolerate fresh water, therefore those it is pursuing have only to cross a river or stream to be rid of it. The nuckelavee is kept in confinement during the summer months by the Mither o' the Sea, an ancient Orcadian spirit, and the only one able to control it. Orcadian folklore had a strong Scandinavian influence, and it may be that the nuckelavee is a composite of a water horse from Celtic mythology and a creature imported by the Norsemen. As with similar malevolent entities such as the kelpie, it possibly offered an explanation for incidents that islanders in ancient times could not otherwise understand.
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The following stanza from Robert Burns' song is introduced in the beginning of her story. 'O whistle, an' I'll come to ye, my lad; O whistle, an' I'll come to ye, my lad: Though father and mither should baith gae mad, O whistle, an' I'll come to ye, my lad. Robert Burns Like her 1967 release Whistle and I'll Come, she sets up the hero and the heroine of When Birds Do Sing (1970) against the theme of John Keats' poem "La Belle Dame sans Merci" ("The Beautiful Lady without Pity"). Although "La Belle Dame sans Merci" opens with a description of the knight in a barren landscape, "haggard" and "woe-begone", it is the heroine Lindsay in When Birds Do Sing (1970) who shares such sentiment.
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The nuckelavee is the most malevolent of the demons in and around the Scottish islands, without any redeeming characteristics. The only entity able to control it is the Mither o' the Sea, an ancient spirit in Orcadian mythology who keeps the nuckelavee confined during the summer months. In common with other mythical sea monsters, with the possible exception of kelpies and the nuggle of Shetland, it is unable to wade through fresh flowing water, therefore it can be escaped by crossing a stream. Tammas managed to escape from the nuckelavee after he inadvertently splashed it with water from the loch he was alongside; this briefly distracted the monster, allowing Tammas to run over to a nearby channel of fresh water and jump to safety on the opposite bank.
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Commenting on the sparseness of the information about Angus's life, Chalmers warns against extrapolating it from her poetry: "The pity is that rather than recognising her skill at transforming the particular into the universal, critics have sometimes allowed conjecture about her private life to stereotype and define the poet, thereby influencing their evaluation of her work."Quoted on the Scottish Poetry Library site. Verse by Marion Angus has appeared in many anthologies, including Living Scottish Poets (Benn, [1931]), Oor Mither Tongue: An Anthology of Scots Vernacular Verse (Paisley: Alexander Gardner, 1937), Poets' Quair: An Anthology for Scottish Schools (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1950), and more recently The Faber Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry (London, 1992), The Poetry of Scotland, Gaelic, Scots and English (Edinburgh, 1995), and Modern Scottish Women Poets (Edinburgh, 2003). Her most frequently anthologized poem is about Mary, Queen of Scots, "Alas, Poor Queen", written partly in standard English.
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From The New Testament in Scots (William Laughton Lorimer 1885- 1967) Mathew:1:18ff :This is the storie o the birth o Jesus Christ. His mither Mary wis trystit til Joseph, but afore they war mairriet she wis fund tae be wi bairn bi the Halie Spírit. Her husband Joseph, honest man, hed nae mind tae affront her afore the warld an wis for brakkin aff their tryst hidlinweys; an sae he wis een ettlin tae dae, whan an angel o the Lord kythed til him in a draim an said til him, “Joseph, son o Dauvit, be nane feared tae tak Mary your trystit wife intil your hame; the bairn she is cairrein is o the Halie Spírit. She will beir a son, an the name ye ar tae gíe him is Jesus, for he will sauf his fowk frae their sins.” :Aa this happent at the wurd spokken bi the Lord throu the Prophet micht be fulfilled: Behaud, the virgin wil bouk an beir a son, an they will caa his name Immanuel – that is, “God wi us”.
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