'runts o kail' - don't think that'll be celery Craig. I think it's colewort, or kale as we would better know it i.e a brassica with a braw stalk for banging on doors.

Voices From Their Ain Countrie, the poems of Marion Angus and Violet Jacob, edited by Katherine Gordon, published by the Association for Scottish Literary Studies in 2006 is well worth getting.