Beware the Trows

[Errogie]

Now the real winter has kicked in it's the time of year for trows to emerge from their underground homes.

They're well known for mischief in Shetland so if you're passing a green knoll on the way home from the pub beware of the wee man who asks you in to a ceilidh, it could be a long visit. In the meantime I've got the fiddle on the kitchen table and running through some trowie tunes from the islands.

[oldmarine]

Now the real winter has kicked in it's the time of year for trows to emerge from their underground homes.

They're well known for mischief in Shetland so if you're passing a green knoll on the way home from the pub beware of the wee man who asks you in to a ceilidh, it could be a long visit. In the meantime I've got the fiddle on the kitchen table and running through some trowie tunes from the islands.
Sounds like a true Shetlander.

[shazzap]

I never had the pleasure of thier company, when i lived on Shetland. But you painted a very interesting picture there. Can we have the rest of the story please.

[canuck]

When does the ceilidh begin? :)

[Kenn]

Do tell us more errogie and just what chunes will you be playing to for the wee men?

[Errogie]

Well there are several different ways to pick up their music. The classic Rip Van Winkle experience is when you end up in the barnstorming party and emerge in the cold light of dawn with your head buzzing with the music only to discover that your surroundings aren't so familiar any more and your attire is slightly out of fashion.
Alternatively you sit down on the green hillock for a snooze or a norrag (gaelic) and the music seeps into your unconscious mind so you awaken with it and have to hasten on home in order to reproduce it on an instrument, in Shetland of course the fiddle but the piping tradition also records very similar under the earth encounters not to mention the records of nasty little old men being left in cradles in the place of infants!

Good examples are "Garster's Dream" from Fetlar picked up while asleep on a "Trowie Knoll", "Da Trowie Burn", and "Vallafield" from Unst where a man sat down to light his pipe under a rock face and heard the music coming from inside the rock, all in Tom Anderson's "Ringing Strings". Sorry I don't know how to post a recording but try Googling Shetland Trows and you'll certainly get some more background to the tradition.

Meanwhile the snow flakes continue their peristent, lazy drift outside the window smothering every sound or is that one of those addictive viral dance tunes that persisits inside your head and then starts to trickle into feet and fingers?