Thrawn adjective stubborn, obstinate
‘He let the reins go slack across the horse’s neck. Not even a thrawn-minded creature like Gideon would give trouble here, he felt.’ (The Fiery Cross)
Thrawn is frequently used with reference to stubbornness and absolute conviction. It is perfectly defined by Alexander Stewart in Nether Lochaber (1883) as: ‘A perverseness of disposition and a thrawnness of temper.’ The sort of characteristic that led to this expostulation: ‘When I baptised you these five years syne, if I’d kent what a thrawn wee bugger you’d turn out to be, I’d have dropped you in the basin…’ (Colin Mackay, The Song of the Forest, 1986.)
However, an article in the Scotsman (2006) proclaimed Calum’s Road on Raasay a symbol of ‘thrawn determination’. Given that Calum MacLeod built his two-mile island road single-handed, thrawnness clearly can be a highly admirable characteristic. It’s probably safe to say, though, that this usage is not flattering: ‘Ye thrawn-faced, slack-twisted muckle haythen.’ (Samuel Crockett, Lad’s Love, 1897.)
Thrawn is derived from the Scots verb ‘thraw’ and shares its Old English ancestry with modern English ‘throw’. One of the early senses of throw was to twist, entwine or turn, and this meaning survived in Scots although falling out of use in English. R D C Brown, in his Comic Poems of the years 1685 and 1793, makes that sense very clear in this simile: ‘as thrawn’s an S’.
A Dewar Willock offers a literary extension of this sense in Rosetty Ends (1887): ‘When the coorse o’ their true love gaed thrawn’. And speaking of true love, there’s this sad cautionary tale from William Hutcheson’s Thrawn Kate (1937): ‘Had he but said ae angry word! Had I but stormed and grat! Good kens I meant to be his burd, And he was sure o’ that. A broken heart he tholes, I trow, Wi’ silent, angry pride, Or he had been in Scotland now, And I had been his bride.’
You can see from that why thrawn is the ideal word to describe a certain twisted or cross-grained streak in the character of many Scots, both human and animal. Here’s a feline you don’t mess with: ‘Thrawn, Ugsome, Vengefie an Wicked the meenister’s cat wis an X certificate cat.’ John Murray gives a near-unbeatable performance of the Minister’s Cat in Scots (1996).