Why I won’t bother to coorie down with a book on a non-existent trend

According to the author, Coorie is the Scottish version of hygge – the Nordic phenomenon of making life homely and comfortable with candles, low lighting, cinnamon buns, hot chocolate and anything that makes dreich winter months a tad mair enjoyable.

Now, this Danish (and wider Nordic) custom of creating cosy, convivial atmospheres to promote wellbeing is authentic, ubiquitous and has generated millions for the whole of Scandinavia as travellers seek out the soothing charms of hot chocolate cradled by candlelight before a snowy vista.

READ MORE: The Faroes can teach us how to make big ideas a reality in months not years

Sadly, coorie is not the same – no matter how financially appealing it is to stroke a Nordic word out and insert a grammatically weird bit of Scots instead.

The aim of coorie is apparently “to try to lead a quieter existence where the endless pursuit of work is balanced by small pleasures”.

Now that is indeed an admirable way to live – I’m trying to have a quieter existence myself. But sadly, it isn’t a long-standing Scottish tradition.

Au contraire.

Most of our ancestors had hard, hard lives with no time or money for small pleasures – at least not the type depicted in The Art Of Coorie. Few country folk had the spare time, energy, good enough ground or permission to fish, hunt or even keep a garden. Today the ability to achieve a gentler work/life/nature balance is still the preserve of a lucky few – folk who should recognise their unusual, good fortune and not try to validate it through the fluffed up creation of a pseudo national tradition.

Great writers in centuries past have quickly detected the Scots apparent disdain for comfort. In 1775 Dr Samuel Johnson observed that Scots valued only ornamentation of the mind and tended to tolerate small wants. In short he thought we were an ideas-driven bunch who tholed hardships – partly because we had no control over them and partly because we didn’t bother much with “fripperies”. Most Scots were poor, insecure and owned nothing. Presbyterianism had pushed back against the “worldly excesses” of the Catholic Church. The greatest skill in life was simple survival – the greatest pleasure the ceilidh or gathering, with music, songs and companionship.

Of course, Scots do recognise the urge to coorie in or doon – looking for a wee cuddle or spot of shelter. But Bennett’s book has next to nothing to do with that simple human impulse. It’s about things. Most are expensive, a few are simple and, bizarrely, one is a Swiss cheese plant.

Yet Bennett insists that her hip and upmarket version of “coorie” is a “longstanding Scottish tradition [which] has helped nurture the astonishing creativity Scotland is famed for, despite an often harsh and unforgiving climate”.

Now c’mon lass, that’s just not true.

Coorie was essentially invented last Christmas by VisitScotland, who claimed the Gaelic word “còsagach” – from which “coorie” is supposedly derived -- would soon rival the Danish concept of hygge. Gaels like novelist Calum L MacLeòid disputed VisitScotland’s definition and explained that còsagach shares its meaning with còsach, meaning damp, mossy or fibrous ground. Others claimed it means an insect hole. See Gaels – See the glorious Art of Many Meanings.

Anyway, Bennett evidently just picked up VisitScotland’s lead, replaced the troublesome còsagach with “coorie” and presumably hopes to clean up.

With its snappy albeit slightly meaningless title and enthusiasts like Kirsty Wark and Neil Oliver, the book has already entered the Scottish hardback top 10.

But that doesn’t make it authentic.

According to playwright David Greig: “The Scottish Art Of Coorie – in so far as such a thing exists – is the creation of working-class women trying to protect their weans from the brutalising effects of poverty.”

Well quite. David tweeted a link to Paddy Bell and The Corries singing Coorie Doon or The Miner’s Lullaby. The song is beautiful – the context fairly grim. A mum sings to her bairns about their dad working down the mines with “darkness, dust and damp … so you can coorie doon and dream”.

This is how Scots use the word.

This – a supportive quote by Lynne Coleman of The Fashion Annual – is not: “Everyone in Alba knows how to do a cracking coorie, and for the rest of the world this guide will have you native in no time.”

Yip – that is the sound of five million natives gnashing their teeth.

But never mind the promotional blurb, what does The Art Of Coorie actually contain?

From the sneak online preview, I can see pictures of a charming wee bothy/hut. Fine – but the reality is that Scotland has far, far fewer such wee wooden cabins than any other country at a wooded latitude. We have 500 wooden huts. Norway has 579,000 for the same population.

So the hut is lovely but sadly atypical. Hut-ownership is not a Scottish tradition.

Mind you, the most concentrated pattern of land ownership in the developed world is. The gey “coorie” Monarch Of The Glen was painted while real locals were being cleared from glens.

It appears the book doesn’t bother itself with such grim realities.

Somehow cultivating Swiss cheese plants gets a mention in the book alongside a section on coorie camping (complete with two or three smallish cushions, a sheepskin, an ice cool box for coorie cocktail ingredients and battery operated tea lights to avoid setting fire to the tent.)

Anyone? Me neither.

Tweed is also coorie. Purlease. The Harris woven material has many fabulous qualities but softness and all-enveloping warmth are not amongst them.

In fact Harris Tweed probably represents the real Art of Scotland – the Art of Thrawn. It’s tough, keeps the rain out (for a while) and once earned Hebridean crofters much-needed cash from all-controlling, absentee landowners.

But all of this is merely daft. For me the most annoying assertion is that: “Unlike hygge, which is more of a cosy contentment, coorie is about embracing the outdoors.” Sadly this is utter bollocks. The Nordics enjoy cosy indoor contentment precisely because they are outdoors in nature whenever humanly possible – enjoying cross-country skiing all winter long in Norway and ice swimming after saunas in Finland. The Scots, by contrast, are a largely urban and indoors race – alienated from nature and the outdoors by keep-out signs and the very different culture of the folk who own our land.

Now fair play. Anyone who’s swum in freezing Scottish lochs – and the author has – deserves some admiration. Maybe we are getting a tad oversensitive about a small, grammatical misuse of a genuine Scots word. Indeed, maybe Scots like myself are just annoyed that someone has come here and seen what we couldnae -- a non-existent trend ready to be coaxed into money-spinning life.

Besides, folk like fab writer Louise Welsh actually love the book. She wrote: "The Art of Coorie shows it is possible to be sumptuous and simple at the same time. A gem of a book that offers a new perspective on Scotland."

Fine – many folk will roll with the general conceit of The Art Of Coorie and not find their hackles rising. But I won’t be one.

There’s nothing more annoying than having traditions titivated and sold back, shorn of natural speech patterns and the inconveniently grim realities that left maist Scots with nothing but bodily warmth to give away for free.

Essentially, hygge is a real phenomenon enjoyed by the vast majority of Nordic citizens who can relish the wee comforting things in life because their societies are the most equal and progressive on Earth.

Coorie is a made-up “tradition” based on the luxuries enjoyed by a small set of wealthy people – now dangled before the developed world’s most unequal society like cultural baubles.

So The Art Of Coorie or the Miner’s Lullaby.

I ken which version of comfort has the bonniest chime for me.