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A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)

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First published 2001 (DOST Vol. IX).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

Soland(e)-guse, Solan(e)-goose, n. Also: -end-, -en(ne-, -yn-, sollan-, -en- and -guis, -gooss. Pl. -geis(s)(e, -gies, -gees(e, also, once, as one word, solangeese. [17th c. Eng. solund goose (1651), solan goose (1668), soland geese (1678); Soland n. and Guse n.¹] The gannet.(a) 1531 Bell. Boece I xxxvii.
In it [sc. the Bass Rock] ar incredible noumer of soland geis; nocht unlik to thir fowlis that Plineus callis see ernis 1596 Dalr. I 25/1.
Sche is a sey guse … or that foul rather quhilke Plinius calles ane picarine commonlie now ane solande guse 1596 Dalr. I 55/18.
The neist ile named Elȝa, … abundes in solend geis 1598 Household Bks. Jas. VI and Anne 9 Aug.
Item ane soland guis xii s. 1661 Ray Remains 191.
Innumerable of the soland geese(b) 1583–4 Reg. Privy C. III 624.
Be casting of nettes and huikis … to draw and alluir the auld solane geise to the boittis 1592 Acts III 614/1.
How proffitable the solane geis … quhilkis hantis … within the Ile of Bas … ar to the commoun weill of this realme 1592 Acts III 614/2.
Lyk as thai haue nocht ceissit … to tak and slay the saidis solane geis … for thair fedderis onlie for the saidis solane geis quhen thai depairt fra the said ile … ar auld and leyne, vnable for ony manis meitt ?1549 Monro W. Isles (1961) 67.
Mony solenne geis [B. soland-geisse] are in this ile ?1549 Monro W. Isles (1884) 36.
Solan geise 1633 Sibbald's Orkn. & Shetl. 5.
Rocks, … yeilding no commodity … but skarts and solane gees Urquhart Rabelais (Gargantua) xxxvii.
Coots, solan-geese, curlews 1675 Lauder Jrnl. 281.
For a solen goose 29 pence 1682 Irvine Nomenclatura 7.
Alysa … is well furnished with all sea-fowl, especially with solan-geese 1688 Edinb. B. Rec. XI 277.
It. the best sollan goose, £1 4 s. 1689 Melville Corr. 113.
The sollen gies and other fowls is mor than sufficient to sustean the garrison 16… Ouchterlony in Macfarlane's Geog. Coll. II 24.
Kittiwauks nothing inferior in tast to the solangeese of the Basse 1700 Misc. Hist. Soc. I 394.
I tooke a very severe collicke, for which I blamed a solyn goose, a part whereof I had eat 1701 Foulis Acc. Bk. 295.
Solen gees 1704 Foulis Acc. Bk. 355.
Solen gooss