Rovinj la bus de la viecia bullroarer

la bus de la viecia

la bus de la viecia — 'the voice of the old woman / of the witch' (Rovinj dialect).

When the first cold came — cu scumenzia a fa frido, in the children's own dialect — the buzzing slats came out in Rovigno: small rectangles of wood, a hand's length and little more, whirled against the greying autumn sky. The roar they made had a name of its own, la bus de la viecia — the voice of the old woman, of the witch — the same dark-voiced hag the boys of Trieste heard shrieking in their orange-crate blades forty miles up the coast.

La romba mandata dal legno... era detta 'la bus de la viecia' ('la voce della vecchia', 'della strega'), proprio come a Trieste.

The roar sent out by the wood... was called 'la bus de la viecia' ('the voice of the old woman', 'of the witch'), just as at Trieste.

Battaglia 1925:208

Particulars

Object

Small rectangular slat, no more than about twenty centimetres, whirled in the air.

Function

Children's toy brought out in autumn, 'cu scumenzia a fa frido' — when it begins to get cold; its roar was named the voice of the old woman, of the witch.