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Dictionars o the Scots Leid

A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)

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First published 1971 (DOST Vol. IV).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

Mule, Muil, Mool(e, n.⁵ Also: mull-, muil(l)e, moul, mowle. [North. e.m.E. mowle (1641); var. of Muld(e n.¹ with usual assimilation of -ld > -l.In the mod. dial. as mule, muil(l, mool, moul(l, mul(l, meel, meal, mil(l etc., and also, as mool, mooil, mowle, meal etc. in mod. Eng. (chiefly north. dial.).]

1. plur. Soil, particles or lumps of earth. a1578 Pitsc. I. 369/5.
Quhene scho come on Scottis ground scho … inclynnit hir self to the earth and tuik the mullis thairof and kissit

b. Attrib. (in sing. form): Made of earth or soil. — 1618 Trial Isobel Inch 5.
Ane mayd was makand muill pictures and portraittis of clay

2. (Chiefly plur.). The earth of the grave. b. Put for: The grave, death.c. Under ane mule, in the same grave, dead together. d. In Cristiane mules, in Christian burial.(a) 1638 in Law Memor. Pref. lix.
The very earth was raised and the mules were so heaved up that they could hardly keep them down 1645 Rutherford Tryal Faith 258.
The mules of the holy grave(b) 1621-40 Melville Commonpl. Bk. 48.
My bed itself is lyk the graue, … My cloathes to muilles that I must haue To cover me most meit a1689 Cleland 10.
Spads and shovels To cover the dead with turffes and muiles(c) 1636 Chron. Perth 34.
The moulis wer turnit on him in his grawe 1640 Maister George Blacke His Masterlesse Men .
Of the superfluus superstition of hallowed mowles, and church-burials(d) 1683-4 Dick Testim. 47.
When at the call of the last trumpet you have raised up your heads through these moolesb. a1689 Cleland 102.
Tho I were hasting to the moolesc. 1596 Dalr. I. 69/19.
The rest I pas ouer, of quhilkes mony now vndir ane mule and lump of clay ly togitherd. 1663 Nicoll Diary 395.
Sindry barones and gentillmen quhais corps wer not sufferit to be bureyed in Cristiane mules (as it is so callit)

3. plur. The remains of a buried corpse; corpse-earth or -dust. 1605-6 Welsh Forty-eight Serm. 442.
[God] shall keep the very mools of thy rotten carcase in the graue, or in whatsomever part of the earth or of the sea that, although they be scattered pickles, ten thousand miles sundry, yet they shall be kept Ib. 92, 152.

4. a. sing. ? A crumb, a fragment. c1460 Alex. (Taym.) 863.
And all that cunȝeit gold be the leist mule Amangis men he delt with litill dule

b. plur. Fragments, parings [of a ? dead person's nails (? as sense 3)]. 1662 Highland P. III. 26.
That the thing they put in the pocks is the mooles of ane unchristened bairnes threid nailes