Page:Shetland Folk-Lore - Spence - 1899.pdf/213

 is doomed to disappointment; but he comforts himself by saying:

Further:

Better patiently to bear one's own troubles alone, than to publish them abroad as material for gossip.

These are expressions of a disappointed lover, or the spinster doomed to single bliss.

This saying is given as a rebuke to one who aspires beyond her position.

Several of these old sayings show that the Shetlanders were a people accustomed