6 THE UNAPPRECIATED FISHER FOLK. 
matter where they are located, whether at “Fittie” in 
Aberdeen, or at Portel, near Boulogne, or in the Rue de Pollet 
of Dieppe, are largely imbued with a feeling of superstition ; 
they can read the clouds at night or morning, and discern 
signs and omens in nearly every passing circumstance. 
They have their pet aversions, their likes and dislikes. In 
some villages the mere advent of a stranger would detain 
the men from going to sea for hours ; the impression of a 
mysterious foot on the sand has before now caused conster- 
nation in a fishing village; the flight of a few harmless 
crows over their boats has struck terror to the souls of 
stalwart men who have faced death many a time and oft on 
the raging waters, and have courageously battled with the 
storm-king in the cause of the dear ones at home. In 
fisher villages it is the rule to wed within the community ; 
no fisherman would think of bringing home a “stranger 
woman,” to be jeered at by his friends and companions. 
In some communities there is a wonderful scarcity of sur- 
names, and identity is preserved by the use of what are 
called “to-names” (added to), or “nicknames” as they 
may be called ; thus a family of Fluckers, in which all the 
common Christian names have been over and over again 
exhausted, will be designated by some personal mark, as 
“gley’d Johnnie,” or “ dumpie (short) Johnnie,” and so on 
ad infinitum through a long range of names of persons, 
places, and things; such appellations being necessarily 
recognized in courts of law, and in all kinds of civil and 
criminal deeds and documents. The following is a rather 
curious example of the way of using a ¢eename. A fisher- 
man of the name of Alexander Mair, who rejoiced in the 
nickname of “Shavie,” being confined for a debt in the 
prison of Banff, had occasion to write to his wife at Port- 
knockie, and some wag thus addressed the letter : 
