The Little Book of Scottish Rain

Scots offer a playful tour through rain’s many names, capturing weather’s whimsical character.

Bleeters come and bleeters go,

they never, never stay –

if it’s not raining now

more rain is on the way.

It’s widely reported that Eskimos have over 50 words for snow. Given the equivalent ubiquity of rain in Britain’s northern climes, it is not surprising that Scots have coined just as many (and possibly many more) expressions for the many different types of precipitation that fall from our skies.

In this book Ron Butlin introduces 50 of the most colourful Scottish words for rain in humorous and memorable verse, imaginatively accompanied with illustrations by Tim Kirby.

Ron Butlin is an award-winning poet, playwright, novelist, short story writer chidlren’s au-thor and librettist whose works have been translated into many languages. He regularly gives creative writing workshops in schools, and was Edinburgh Makar from 2008 to 2014.