Pirie’s Chair

“The lowest seat oʹ hell.” “If you do not mend your ways, you will be sent to Pirie’s chair, the lowest seat of hell.”

“In Pirie’s chair youʹll sit, I say,

The lowest seat oʹ hell;

If ye do not amend your ways,

It’s there that ye must dwell.”

Child’s English and Scottish Ballads: The Courteous Knight.

⁂ Pirrie or pyrrie means a sudden storm at sea (Scotch pirr). “They were driven back by storme of winde and pyrries of the sea.” (North: Plutarch, p. 355.)

· ·

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.