Merry Christmas!
Welcome to another (the penultimate) edition of my festive weird words project.
This time I’ve chosen a word believe to be derived from manx folklore. Qualtagh can also be spelt ‘Quaaltagh’, although I’m unsure of the reason why.
It took a bit of digging to find the meaning, but it’s a great word you might be able to use very soon!
Here is what i’ve found out about Qualtagh
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Qualtagh
Wikipedia describes qualtagh as…
n Scottish, Northern English, and Manx folklore, the first-foot (Scottish Gaelic: ciad-chuairt, Manx: quaaltagh/qualtagh) is the first person to enter the home of a household on New Year’s Day and is seen as a bringer of good fortune for the coming year
Interesting Literature published a list of 5 useful words for specific days of the year. They describe Quaaltagh as…
The first person you meet on New Year’s Day.
They also explain that the word came from Manx (the celtic language of the Isle of Man).
So if I’m the first person to arrive at your home on new years day, I’ll be labelled the Quaaltagh, and hopefully I’ll bring you good fortune.
I’ll expect some Quality Streets too!
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Thanks for reading 💜🎄🎄
Creative Steph 