Page:Shetland Folk-Lore - Spence - 1899.pdf/41

, and these were not prepared either as bait or lure by crushing or bruising, but by chewing in the mouth; and I presume the Picts were as expert as we are in the art of chewing, and far in advance of us in chewing apparatus.

The craigstane or bersit was to the ancient dweller of our islands what the fishing boat is to the modern fisherman. They were among his most valuable possessions, supplying him with the means of subsistence when other sources were exhausted. May we not suppose that those old marks were originally intended to give the maker some sort of proprietary right to that particular craigsitting (as they are sometimes called), and would probably descend from father to son?

Now, while the Picts were living peacefully among the hills and round the voes and creeks of Shetland,—tending their sheep, cultivating plots in sheltered nooks, brewing their heather beer, gathering shell-fish and birds’ eggs in their season