// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did Cain's kids say? We're Abel children.
(Redirected from Kain bairns)
Cain bairns or kain bairns were infants who, according to Scottish superstition, were seized by warlocks and witches, and paid as a tax or tithe to the Devil.[1][2][3] Càin is a Gaelic word for a tribute, tax or tithe, and is the origin of the Lowland Scots term "kane",[4] while "bairn" means a child.[5]
The word was in use along the Scottish Borders, according to Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.[1]
Notes
[edit]- 1 2 Mackay, Charles (25 June 1888). "A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch: With an Introductory Chapter on the Poetry, Humour, and Literary History of the Scottish Language and an Appendix of Scottish Proverbs". Ticknor – via Google Books.
- ↑ Warrack, Alexander (1911). A Scot's Dialect Dictionary. ISBN 978-1902407098.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) - ↑ Murray, John (1874). The Ballads and Songs of Scotland. Macmillan and Company. ISBN 9780999255889.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) - ↑ "Dictionaries of the Scots Language:: SND :: kane". Dictionaries of the Scots Language. 2004. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018.
- ↑ "Dictionaries of the Scots Language:: SND :: bairn". Dictionaries of the Scots Language. Archived from the original on 5 April 2015.
References
[edit]- MacKay, Charles (1888). A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch. Ticknor.
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