Page:Shetland Folk-Lore - Spence - 1899.pdf/161

 its origin was traditionally said to be as follows. The giant Saxe came to Kirkatoon, where dwelt a famous howdie (midwife), whose services were required at his residence, and not finding a suitable fastening for the beast that he had brought to carry the cummer, he drove the monolith into the ground and pushed his thumb through it, making a hole, into which he tied his horse's rein.

About the beginning of the century doctors were few and far between, and the professional V.S. altogether unknown.

Although our forefathers enjoyed a greater immunity from disease than we, whose constitutions are weakened by a foreign dietry, yet then, as now, both man and beast were liable to disease, the true nature of which was a mystery to our forefathers. In every parish there were persons who claimed to be possessed of the power to treat the sick. Most forms of illness were supposed to be either an “evil onwaar,” or “hurted frae da