Page:Shetland Folk-Lore - Spence - 1899.pdf/194

 öse is strae for?” No. 2 replies: “Strae is for mony a guid öse, particularly ta mak' saat cuddies (small baskets for salt) o'. What öse is strae for?” No. 3 answers: “Strae is for mony a good öse, if it wis bit ta mak' a wizzie o'. What öse is strae for?” And so on, round and round, until someone at last failed to find a use for straw that had not been previously mentioned.

We who live in these days have our social gatherings, our picnics and soirees, our balls and club meetings, etc. These names were unknown to our forefathers. Yet we learn that they were a highly social people. It was in their nature to rejoice with them that rejoiced and to weep with them that wept. The fishermen tarried for one another, and the husbandman did not consider his own work completed until his neighbour's crop was in the yard. They had not acquired