Sc. Forms: 5 sukkin, swken, 5–7 suckin, 6 su(c)kyn, 9 shucken, 7– sucken. [Variant of SOKEN. The orig. meaning is ‘resort’ (sc. to a particular mill).]
1. The duty and liability of tenants within a district astricted to a mill. (See THIRLAGE 2 and cf. SOKEN 2 b.) † Also occas. the meal ground at such a mill.
1423. Charters, etc., of Edinb. (1871), 55. With the suckins, thryl mulris, and al freedomes langand thairto.
1488. Acta Dom. Audit. (1839), 124/2. Þe wrangwis withhalding of þe þrell multure and sukkin awing to þe said alexandris mylne.
15[?]. Aberd. Reg., V. 16 (Jam.). He com nocht to grynd his quhyt in thair mill as he that aucht suckyn thareto.
1641. Acts Parl. Scot., Chas. I. (1814), V. 657/1. Sex bollis of moulter or suckin quhilkis perteinet to the Carmelite freires of the said burcht.
1711. in Nairne Peerage Evidence (1874), 138. All and haill the lands of Hardhaugh and Chimieshill with ye multures suckens sequells and knaveship therof.
1806. R. Jamieson, Pop. Ballads, I. 294. Her daddie, a cannie ald carl, Had shucken and mouter a fouth.
2. The lands astricted to a mill; = THIRL sb.2 1 c; also, the population of such lands.
Cf. INSUCKEN, OUTSUCKEN.
1754. Erskine, Princ. Law Scot., II. ix. (1757), 210. The lands astricted, (which are called also the thirle or sucken).
1799. J. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 397. The greatest difficulty arises, where the mill belongs to one proprietor and the sucken to another.
1820. Scott, Monast., xiii. Those of the Sucken, or enthralled ground, were liable in penalties, if, deviating from this thirlage,… they carried their grain to another mill.
1872. Innes, Lect. Scot. Legal Antiq., ii. 47. The sucken, as we call the population thirled to a mill.
b. transf. The area of a bailiff’s jurisdiction; the district within which one practises or carries on business.
a. 1688. J. Wallace, Descr. Orkney (1693), 93. Sucken, A Bailiffrie, so much ground as is vnder the Bailiffs Jurisdiction.
1871. W. Alexander, J. Milne’s Songs & Poems, Introd. p. ix. He afterwards commenced business as a shoemaker … in the parish of Durris, where he had a sufficient ‘sucken’ to employ two men besides himself. Ibid. (1871), Johnny Gibb (1873), 117. The younger Dr. Drogemweal, who had settled ‘doon throu’,’ so as to be beyond the limits of his father’s ‘sucken.’
Hence Suckener, a tenant of a sucken; Suckening, the astriction of tenants to a mill.
1636. Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot., 215/2. In lie suckning, thirling, et astringendo burgenses.
1754. Erskine, Princ. Law Scot., II. ix. (1757), 214. Where there is neither an explicite constitution of thirlage, nor proof of services of any sort, performed by the suckeners, the dominant tenement can claim none.
1797. Statist. Acc. Scot., XIX. 67. The millers … oppress the suckeners.
1820. Scott, Monast., xiii., note. Perquisites demanded by the miller, and submitted to or resisted by the Suckener as circumstances permitted.
