Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixvi. (1922), No. 3 5 



He makes the significant statement (13, 62) : — 



*' The Scots in general, particularly the lower classes, are 

 not fond of pork." 



John Graham Dalyell (7, 425) writes reg-arding- the Scottish 

 pork taboo : — 



''In the year 1691 a question was put, ' Why do Scotch- 

 men hate swine's flesh?' and unsatisfactorily answered. 

 ' They might borrow it of the Jews.' The same prejudice^ 

 though infinitely abated, still subsists. Yet it is not known 

 that swine have been regarded as mystical animals in Scot- 

 land. Earlier in the seventeenth century, the aversion to 

 them by the lower ranks, especially in the North, was so 

 great, and elsewhere, and the flesh was so much undervalued 

 that, except for those reared at mills, the breed would have 

 been extirpated." 



Dalyell was evidently not aware that the pig was really what 

 he would call a '' mystical animal." 



In Sinclair's ''Statistical Account" the minister of 

 Ardchattan and Muckairn, Argyllshire, writing c. 1792, says : 

 " The deep-rooted prejudice against swine's flesh is now 

 removed." The minister of Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, is 

 found stating : " The people of this part of Scotland had 

 formerly a superstitious prejudice against swine." 



Captain Burt, writing about 1730, says (4, I, 118): — 



" Pork is not verv common with us but what we have is 

 good. I have often heard it said that the Scots will not eat 

 it. This may be ranked among the rest of the prejudices ; 

 for this kind of food is common in the Lowlands and 

 Aberdeen, in particular, is famous for furnishing families 

 with pickled pork- for winter provision as well as their 

 shipping." 



Burt was generalising from isolated and exceptional facts. 

 Jamieson, his annotator, wrote in the 1818 edition : — 



" The aversion of many of the Scots, both in the High- 

 lands and Lowlands, to eating pork had nothing supersti- 

 tious connected with it. They could not eat fat of any kind, 

 not being accustomed to it." 



Jamieson was evidently quite ignorant regarding the lore 

 connected with the pig. 



