Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/194

178 "In reference to cutting the last straws of corn during harvest at Spottiswoode (Westruther parish) the term 'cutting the queen' was almost as often used as 'cutting the kirn.' The process of cutting the kirn at Spottiswoode was as follows. After dinner on the rig, all the shearers being assembled, one of the shearers submitted himself to be blindfolded; then a reaping-hook was put into his hand. After being turned twice or thrice about by his brother shearers, he was ordered to go and cut the 'kirn.' His bamboozlement in failing to reach the standing corn as well as his often going in the opposite direction and cutting imaginary straws added greatly to the hilarity. After he had tired himself out or given up his task as hopeless, another man took his place; this continued until the 'kirn' was cut. The successful competitor was tossed up in the air with 'three times three' on the arms of his brother harvesters. To decorate the room in which the kirn supper was held at Spottiswoode as well as the dancing-room (granary) two women on the Spottiswoode estate every year made 'kirn dollies' or 'queens.' From the great number of kirn-suppers and dances held at Spottiswoode the large number of kirn dollies looked like a rustic portrait gallery." [This implies that the kirn queens were kept from year to year.]

"In Westruther parish it was considered a most unlucky thing for a mower or shearer during hay or corn harvest to cut with his scythe or reaping hook while making his first swathe a grey or coloured snail through the middle. Such a thing was looked upon as making the scythe or hook so blunt that in spite of the most prodigious efforts the worker might make his whole day's work would be effectually retarded. The only way to break the spell was to leave work and go home and rest for that day. An old man, now dead many years, who was parish beadle, firmly believed in that. If he cut a snail in the morning he immediately knocked off and went home saying 'his scythe was as blunt as a bittle' (an instrument used for beating or beetling clothes) 'and wodna cut a winnelstrae' (flower-stalk, or withered grass). The reason he assigned was that grey or coloured snails as well as grey cats were great favourites of the fairies. He said the fairies often held their revels in the stubble-fields. The harvesters coming early to work often disturbed the fairy revels, upon which the fairies, to conceal themselves, hid in the shells of the snails; the latter always making room for them. He said if you cut a grey or