CHAP, x.] FITTIE. 449 



obtained, with its delicate flavour of peat-reek. The manu- 

 factured Finnan or yellow haddock, smoked in a huge ware- 

 house, is more plentiful, of course, but it has lost the old relish. 

 It is pleasant to see the clean fireside and the clear peat-fire in 

 the comfortably -furnished cottage, with the children sitting 

 round the ingle on the long winter evenings, listening to the 

 tales and traditions of the coast, the fish hanging all over the 

 reeking peats, acquiring the while that delicate yellow tinge so 

 refreshing to the eyes of all lovers of a choice dish. 



Footdee, or "Fittie" as it is locally called, is a quaint 

 suburb of Aberdeen, figuring not a little, and always with a 

 kind of comic quaintness, in the traditions of that northern 

 city, and in the stories which the inhabitants tell of each 

 other. They tell there of one Aberdeen man, who, being in 

 London for the first time, and visiting St. Paul's, was surprised 

 by his astonishment at its dimensions into an unusual burst 

 of candour. "My stars!" he said, "this maks a perfect feel 

 (fool) o' the kirk o' Fittie." Part of the quaint interest thus 

 attached to this particular suburb by the Aberdonians them- 

 selves arises from its containing a little colony or nest of 

 fisher-folk, of immemorial antiquity. There are about a hun- 

 dred families living in Fittie, or Footdee Square, close to 

 the sea, where the Dee has its mouth. This community, like 

 all others made up of fishing-folk, is a peculiar one, and 

 differs of course from those of other working-people in its 

 'neighbourhood. In many things the Footdee people are like 

 the gipsies. They rarely marry, except with their own class ; 

 and those born in a community of fishers seldom leave it, and 

 very seldom engage in any other avocation than that of their 

 fathers. The squares of houses at Footdee are peculiarly 

 constructed. There are neither doors nor windows in the 

 outside walls, although these look to all the points of the 

 compass ; and none live within the square but the fishermen 

 and their families, so that they are as completely isolated and 



