Carrying the straw around was a ‘burden’

IN my early days straw came loose from the threshing mill in the barn – there were no balers to make it into neat bundles, no bunchers to pack it into handy packages, no straw carriers or blowers.

At Whitehall making windlins was a constant task – large windlins for the feeder and cow byres, medium for the yearalts, small windlins for the calfie byres. It was an early morning task before it got light enough to see outside in winter, the paraffin oil lantern’s warm flickering glow making shadows dance on the barn wall.

Rats scurrying out of sight, mice, too, rustling in the straw. A pigeon or two resting on the easwas.

Easwas, for the uninitiated, is the flat ledge on the top of the stone walls on which the rafters sat, handy for storage of many things in a low building but too high in the straw barn. Doors kept the gale outside.

Oddly, in William Tait’s diaries he makes no mention of making windlins, though making simmins was a frequent enough task for wet days. Usually the cattlemen made their own windlins, though on a bad day the other men could be found doing that task, storing the windlins in high stacks around the barn walls.

The stable at Whitehall was blessed by having a door directly through a wall into the back of the straw barn so carrying windlins along a windswept passage in a howling gale was not required.

All the rest of the stock accommodation was fiercely exposed around the square.

Windlins were not just handy but took care of loose straw in the wind. The men could carry quite amazing burdens of windlins under each arm, how they did it I never did learn. They loaded up in the barn, eased sideways out of the door and were off to whatever byre needed straw.

Saturday was a day when straw windlins would be carried to the byre for the cattlemen, which gave them a slightly easier Sunday. The cattle buildings were in a square around the central dung midden, out one door and in at another.

I do not remember any loose straw being carried at Whitehall except loading a cart for a crofter or “building oot”.

Later at Greenland Mains I was introduced to carrying a “burden” of straw. The steading was all enclosed, passages leading directly from one building to another. The only outdoor bit was a short step to the back court; out and in a few yards and sheltered. Much straw was carried there to bed the cows that usually went out during the day to the flats beside Loch Heilen. Sometimes if we had a surplus to get rid of it went into that back court to be trampled under.

A “burden” was built up in the barn with a four-toed graip, layers of loose straw being carefully stacked, pancake-style, man-high. Then a shoving of the graip into the base of the burden, helped in by a tackety boot, making sure it was deeply embedded.

There followed a careful lifting and tipping towards the man who would carry some of the weight on his hip. It was a balancing act and if not done properly the whole heap would fall away to be redone.

In my days at Greenland Mains I worked with the cattle during the winter with Jock Coghill, the cattleman, an expert and monstrous burden carrier. The only byres were the milking byre and the sucklers-cum-feeders’ byre, otherwise it was all loose courts. Straw was carried along the narrow passageways to fill the straw racks and also to throw over the racks into the courts for the cattle to half spread with a toss of their heads, and we would finish it off ourselves.

The other method of carrying a burden of straw was with a length of rope, enough to lay on the ground in an off-and-back loop. On that loop the cattleman built a burden of straw, then took the loose ends back over the top and through the loop, pulling tight ready for the off. It took a bit longer to build than a graip burden but held more, and was more secure for the great outdoors. The amount of straw carried was unbelievable.

That same method was used for many tasks worldwide. I once saw in 1979 some Chinese women carrying huge burdens of firewood over the border from China into Hong Kong using the same technique.

There is nothing new under the sun.

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