Odin's Eye Blog

This is a Hen-Pen-Dirlo

All you need is a tattie and the biggest hen feathers you can find. The feathers in the example aren’t quite big enough for it to be fully effective.  

The idea is to throw it up in the air and it would twist and twirl – dirl – in the air currents. It might even roll across the field, and would need to be caught!

It was called a tattie craa in some places across Orkney.

There’s also a tune called the Hen-pen-dirlo, written by Jennifer Wrigley and on the Wrigley Sisters’ album Skyran

The Hen-pen-dirlo (reel) on The Session

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