Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

Hide Quotations Hide Etymology

Abbreviations Cite this entry

About this entry:
First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

PIRIE'S CHAIR, n.comb. Hell, or some special region of Hell. Nonce, in ballad usage. Hence a form of punishment in boys' games (see quot.). [′piriz]Sc. 1828 P. Buchan Ballads I. 96:
In Pirie's chair you'll sit, I say, The lowest seat o hell.Sc. c.1894 in Child Ballads (1956) V. 365:
One boy stood back against the wall, another bent towards him with his head on the pit of the other's stomach; a third sat upon the back of the second. The boy whose head was bent down had to guess how many fingers the rider held up. The first asked the question in doggerel rhyme in which Pirie, or Pirie's chair, or Hell, was the doom threatened for a wrong answer. I remember Pirie (pron. Peerie) distinctly in connection with the doom. Pirie's chair probably indicates the uncomfortable position of the second boy (or fourth, for there may have been a fourth who crouched uncomfortably on the ground below the boy bending), whose head or neck was confined in some way and squeezed after a wrong answer.