Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 7 1889.djvu/219

Rh melon was brought to the scribes; they broke the melon in two: there was no fish inside the melon. Then they said: 'The judge is mad; carry him off to the madhouse.' Then, when they asked him: 'How many months are there in the year?' He answered, 'Twelve months.' 'How many days in a month?' He replies to them) 'Thirty.' 'How many weeks in the month?' He replies to them, 'Six.' 'And how many days in the week?' He replies, 'Eight.' They ask him: 'Where are the fish?' He answers them: 'In the melons.' They said: 'The judge is still mad.' One day his wife asked him: 'When they ask you where are the fish? tell them: In the sea.' He said to her: 'The fish are in the melons!' She replied: 'The fish are in the sea.' He answered: 'Very well.' When they came and asked him, he replied: 'The fish are in the sea.' They said to the judge: 'Good! he is no longer mad.' When he had gone home, his wife said to him: 'When a judgeship falls to you, you ought to walk uprightly. I put the fish in the melons, because you do not walk uprightly!' Then he said to her: 'From this day forth I will walk uprightly. .

BREAD.

I.

ORTY or fifty years ago not much wheaten bread was used by the common people in the North of Scotland. Oatmeal—and barley-meal cakes—formed the chief bread. When they were spoken of, they were not called "oatcake," or "oat-cakes," but "brehd," "ait-brehd," or "behr-brehd,"