Bothy noun a dwelling or shelter
‘We passed a few scattered bothies, smoke rising from thatched roofs, but the inhabitants and their beasts seemed all within, secured against the cold.’ (Outlander)
In the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL), bothy has various meanings for different types of shelter: ‘Living quarters, permanent or temporary, used to house workmen engaged in a locality; a building near the fishings used by salmon fishers; a shelter on a hillside for shepherds or climbers; an independent building on a farm or part of the farm steading, used to house unmarried male farm servants’. The latter meaning is evoked in A Plooman’s Lament (William Cocker, 1932): ‘I’m fee’d tae a fermer in Fife…, I was ne’er sae hard-wrocht in my life: It’s mair like a jile than a ferm. The bothy is waur than a sty: The caff bed [chaff mattress] wi’ loupers is rife; Ye’re no’ as weel hoosed as the kye [cattle]…’
Not all bothies were as undesirable. They were often warm places where workers gathered and made their own entertainment: ‘the men … gathered round the farm kitchen or fire or in the bothy at night and engaged in a “sang aboot.”’ (1977 History Workshop). Hence the term ‘bothy ballad’.
Bothies also offer shelter to walkers or climbers in times of danger or when the Scottish weather closes in, as reported in the Sunday Post (November 2020): ‘Offering refuge at the foot of famous peak, The Devil’s Point, the [Corrour] bothy has provided shelter and, at times, saved lives. It did just that for Ralph Storer, who believes that had he not been able to seek shelter at the bothy during a blizzard in 1982, he would not be here to tell the tale…’.
Bothy shelters range from abandoned crofts and other farm buildings to luxurious purpose-built dwellings, such as this one described in The Scotsman of December 2020: ‘Bard Architects, … has been awarded a top award from the Glasgow Institute of Architects for its cutting edge bothy, Taigh Bainne, in Eriskay. The structure commissioned by the Laverty family, who also earned themselves an award from the GIA for “Client of the Year”, presents itself as a modern bothy with a cosy interior and exceptional views…’.