Wooden Cradle, Caithness, late 18th or early 19th century

This simple wooden cradle is constructed of a single piece of wood and topped with a bent wood circular hood.  The end-posts cant steeply inwards and extend below the base of the cradle where they are tenoned to broad plain rockers. Simple round finials top the base end-post and the cradle has the marks of three wooden pegs on each side though two of the pegs on one side are missing. It was found in Weydale, a remote settlement in Caithness and probably dates from the late 18th or early 19th century.

Weydale, where this simple cradle was found, is a remote crofting settlement in a valley to the southeast of Thurso, a coastal town known in the late 18^th century for its linen production.  Weydale was an area defined by its livestock grazing and flagstone quarries. The owner of this cradle may have had it made by a local joiner and it could have been passed down through generations as a family heirloom.  Elements of its style and shape were common to many cradles made in the Highlands in the nineteenth century.

The cradle’s circular hood, broad rockers and wooden pegs are characteristically Scottish and reflect the needs of communities living in rural dwellings.  Hoods were often draped in fabric, perhaps to shut out light or to protect babies from falling ceiling thatch.  In line with its humble materials and circumstances the cradle would have been lined with folded blankets or a simple mattress filled with chaff, hay or straw.

Broad rockers allowed the cradle to be rocked by foot freeing hands for the knitting or sewing that formed part of the industry of women living in remote rural households.  A nineteenth century Scottish cradle song called ‘O can ye sew cushions?’ mirrors the rhythms of rocking and stitching:

I biggit the cradle upon the treetop, 
And aye as the wind blew, my cradle did rock. 
And hush a baw baby, O ba lil li loo, 
And hee and baw, birdie, my bonnie wee doo.

This cradle has lost some of its pegs, but in its original form six pegs would have anchored woven or knitted tapes that were laced across the top to of the cradle to swaddle the baby and protect it from harm.  Writers on Scottish folklore have noted that cradles held rich symbolism in rural communities like Weydale and that a physical criss-crossing of tapes may also have been seen as a form of symbolic protection against evil spirits and fairies.