veesick

English

Etymology

Ultimately from Old Norse vísa (“verse, strophe, stanza”) (perhaps via Norn [Term?]), whence also Danish vise (“song, ballad, ditty”).

Noun

veesick (plural veesicks)

1. A Norn song or rhyme, a ballad in Shetland or Orkney.
   • 1914, Alfred Wintle Johnston, Amy Johnston, Old-lore Miscellany of Orkney, Shetland, Caithness and Sutherland ..., page 28:

     Football was the amusement of the men while the brief day lasted, dancing and veesicks (impromptu rhymes) the fun of the evening. Trows, being excessively fond of dancing, always tried to join the revels, but this they can only do in the […]

   • 1971, John Geipel, The Viking Legacy: The Scandinavian Influence on the English and Gaelic Languages, David & Charles, page 95:

     During his visit to Shetland, Low was fortunate in obtaining two local versions of a veesick, the first from Cunningsburgh on the south Mainland:

     'Myrk in e Liora,

     Luce in e Liunga,

     Timin e, Guestin e guengna'

     and the second from the northern island of Yell:

     'Mirka Lora,

     Lestra Linga,

     […]

   • 1990, Nancy Cassell McEntire, Sitting Out the Winter in the Orkney Islands: Folksong Acquisition in Northern Scotland:

     The ballads were commonly recited in winter by the fireside while the veesicks were the verses which used to accompany the old ring dances, once an essential feature of social gatherings. That ballads were recited as well as sung is not at […]

   • 2013, F. Marian McNeill, Silver Bough Volume 3, →ISBN:

     Sometimes the gue—the ancient two-stringed violin of the islands—would appear; sometimes one of the company would sing a Norn veesick while the young people performed a circular dance, their steps changing with the tune.
     […]
     With the decay of the Norn language in the eighteenth century (though many Norn words still survive in the Orkney and Shetland dialect), the veesicks gradually disappeared. Scottish dances were introduced into the islands, and […]