The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #128732 Message #2884784
Posted By: Cuilionn
12-Apr-10 - 09:53 AM
Thread Name: BS: Nice Fish
Subject: RE: BS: Nice Fish
Forgive a linguistic aside, but this thread reminds me why I love Gaelic: it has words/definitions like this:
"LANNAIR, lanir, n.f. radiance, gleam; the phosphoric glitter of scales of fish in the dark, glitter of swords, etc."
--A Pronouncing and Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language by Malcolm MacLennan, Acair/Mercat Press
In the popular Gaelic song "Oran na Maidheann Mhara," (The sea-maiden's song), the selkie woman offers her departing words to her landed family after recovering her long-lost seal skin. She longs to return to the beautiful world under the water's surface, a world full of silver caves and glimmmerings/glitterings (lainnearachd)that no eye has ever seen in the court of palace of a king.
I suspect it is the living glory of the shimmering fish this selkie remembers and longs for.
Huzzah for the beauty of fish, edible and otherwise!