Page:Shetland Folk-Lore - Spence - 1899.pdf/146

 agility of a stag. But on the other hand, if the wave is likely to strike abaft the mast, the helm is put up with all speed, and the boat flees away from the angry wave, leaving it to spend its fury astern.

About the middle of May the wives set their kirns, milk-spans, and raemikles (butter kits) in the well stripe to steep. The youngsters were employed to search for four-leaved smora (clover), the finding of which was considered extremely lucky, and anyone possessed of this holy plant was considered proof against the evil designs of witches.

Johnsmas was the season when witchcraft was most dreaded, and persons skilled in the black art deprived their neighbours of the profit of their milk and butter. Every housewife tried to keep her own, and used every precaution which seemed to her essential for this end.