G, GORT, ivy in the Ogham alphabet. The bird ... - Rodney Mackay

of southern England, "those that would grind corn for a mess
of milk, cut wood, or do any manner of drudgery work."
Some were engaged in "sweeping houses, in exchange for
setting of a pail of good water, victuals, and the like,
following which they (the householders) should not be
pinched, but find money in their shoes, and be fortunate in
their enterprises." Those living apart from men walked,
"about midnight, on heaths and desert places, and draw men
out of their way and lead them all night a by-way, or quite
barre them of their way..." According to Keightley all of
this breed were cleared from England about the reign of
Elizabeth I, "or that of her father at the furthest."
The gillie dubh is partially remembered in our eastern
provinces of Canada as the gilloc, jillick, jillock or jullic,4
phonetic spellings for a word that also used to be employed
to describe a quantity of alcohol, or its container, the
measure being related to the Scottish gill, which is less
than a quarter pint. Also recalled in the lumbering
expression "jill-poke", "Any log or tree that interfered with
the movement of timber while yarding on sleds or in the
drive."5 Canadian tales of this creature are common:
Sutherland Hall at Bonny River were reasonably large for
the year seventeen eighty-three, when they were built by a
gentleman who had been a major in the Queen's Rangers.
This former soldier was one of the Scots who fought as
mercenaries for the British in the Revolutionary War. A one
time resident of Virginia, he lost his estates there and was
in "reduced circumstances" when his regiment was
disbanded in New Brunswick. His "growth-potential" was
sufficient for a "gillie dubh" to move with him to British
North America. Nicknamed the "cold lad" for the breeze that
he carried about him, the gillie was a peculiar houseservant.
Every night, the regular staff heard him
disassembling the kitchen, and knocking things about if they
were left too neatly. The workers soon saw the advantage
4Pratt, Dictionary Of Prince Edward Island English, p. 65,
5Smith, George, Timber, p. 25.