Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/114

 96 Collectanea,

rather contemptuously as being " maist awfu' supersteetious " and is a keen critic of him and his ways.

My principal informant, with whom I have gone over Miss Cameron's paper in detail, is an intelligent elderly man who has alternately worked in the pit and the boat for over thirty years. His acquaintance with the subject is thus pretty thorough, and many of the customs and beliefs have been impressed on him through his being " checkit " for breaches of them. I found that the great majority of " fraits " mentioned by Miss Cameron are still common to "the Kingdom." Some small additions and differences I will mention here.

" Buying wind," if it ever existed in Fife to the same extent as in the Highlands, has now degenerated into cultivating the good- will of certain old men by presents of drinks of whisky. The skipper of the boat " stands his hand " (/>., stands treat) freely to those worthies before sailing. " Of coorse it's a' a heap o' blethers," said my informant, " but a' the same I've kent us get some extra gude shots when the richt folk was mindit."

If one of the crew while at sea carelessly throws off his oilskins so that they lie inside out, an immediate rush is made to turn the exposed side in again. Should this not be done it is apt to induce dirty weather.

At sea it is unlucky, as stated by Miss Cameron, to mention mimsfer, salfno?t, hare, rabbit, rat, pig, and porpoise. It is also extremely unlucky to mention the names of certain old women, and some clumsy round-about nomenclature results, such as " Her that hves up the stair opposite the pump," &:c.

But on the Fifeshire coast the pig is par excelletice the unlucky being. " Soo's tail to ye ! " is the common taunt of the (non- fishing) small boy on the pier to the outgoing fisher in his boat. (Compare the mocking " Soo's tail to Geordie ! " of the Jacobite political song.) At the present day a pig's tail actually flung into the boat rouses the occupant to genuine wrath. One informant told me that some years ago he flung a pig's tail aboard a boat passing outwards at Buckhaven, and that the crew turned and came back. Another stated that he and some other boys united to cry out in chorus, " There's a soo in the bow o' your boat ! " to a man who was hand-line-fishing some distance from shore. On hearing the repeated cry he hauled up anchor and came into harbour. There is also a Fife belief (although it is chiefly spoken of now in