Page:History of Buckhaven.pdf/4

4 ye binna de like to me.' An article of good neighbourhood they had, whoever was first up in a good morning, was to raise all the rest to go to sea; but if a very bad morning, piss and go to bed again till break of day, then raise Wise Willie who could judge of the weather by the blawing of the wind.-Then freedoms were to take all sorts of fish contained in their takets, as lobsters, partens, podles, spout-fish, sea cats, sea-dogs, flucks, pikes, dick-puddocks, and p-fish.

Again, these people are said to have descended from one Tom and his two sons who were fishers on the coast of Norway, who in a violent storm were blown over and got ashore at Buckharbour where they settled; and the whole of his children were called Tom'sons, and soon became a little town by themselves, as few of any other name dwelt among them. This is a traditional story, handed down from one generation to another. They keep little communication with country people about them, for a farmer in those days thought his daughter cast away, if she married one of the fishers in Buckyharbour; and on the other hand, Witty Eppie, the ale wife, wad a sworn, “Be go laddie, I wad rather see my boat and a' my three son's dadded against the Bass, or I saw ony o' them married to muck a byre's daughter, a wheen useless tapies it can do naething but puck at a tow rock, and cut a corn they can neither bait a hook not rade a line, be go laddie, nor gather purriwinkles.