500 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[April 7, 1882 



crop*, iinlpaa lli''«'nrp pmlorlwl liy nottiiijf. Tlipy niuonilili' on the 

 ■mm Iwrka nf linrai'ii niul pirk llii<m inin liolna, nml iirv niiarhiovnaR 

 ill many wbx. 'I'lioy nn- vi'n- Intc in t!">"lt •" ri>o«t, nml iid' I'nrly 

 iMlir in t)i» niorniti^r, nml nro Kn IkiIiI tlint tlicy oflon rnmo " with 

 nmny n ulnlily llirt nml lliKtor " iiiln IliK vcmnrlah nhori' I won 

 ■iltini;. I m-vrr nnt<lii'<l nn n.<ii<iMiililnKi- iif Ihrni f(ir nny li-ii^rth of 

 timn wilhiiiil lifiiiif ronvinrol tlmt tlifro wnn a Ni-stor nniniif^ thrm 

 to li'ml llii'ir niiiri-nKMitii. Aliiii){ the fii'n-iihon< thoy nri> very 

 nniiininir. for lhi'y"tnki' llio nir " in the rvoninfr. xontoil nn iinnil- 

 linnka fnrini; t)ii> niiiil, with their miiiitha npon. They nr<' thrcnt- 

 i>ninj{ to <li'voiir thp K'ttlrm, nml n irimndo ia jiiat now lK'in)f wn({cd 

 nsninnl thoin, hut their imiiio in I^K>"n- (" Unbeaten Truck« in 

 Jnpnn," vol. ii., p. IMI.) — From Salare. 



I'AIKV "FOLKLORE" OF SHETLAND. 



LIKK nil of the i-lnns to which the innjoritv of thorn hi'Ionp, the 

 Shptlnmlcr« arc slronRly inihuiHl with a holicf in the Rujjer- 

 imtiiml. They seem half axlianiecl to confess it, hut the fact is soon 

 iliscnvercd hy tljuse who have nny intercourse with them. Many of 

 their nuperstitioiisare of Scandinavian origin, and have been hnndcd 

 down from their Norse ancestors. 



The principal character in all their poblin tales is the drow, or 

 fairy, a beiiip supposed to linvo great power and ninlignity, and 

 capable of doing great harm both to men and cattle. The diows 

 are Ijolieve*! to inhabit knolls or hillocks, and when a person meets 

 them, if he has not a Bible in his pocket, he must draw a circle 

 round about him and say, "InUod's name, keep back." In paralysis 

 thodrowsare saiii to have taken away the affected limb, and to 

 have put a log of wood in its place, the entire absence of sensation 

 in the diseased member being adduced as proof of the assertion. 

 C<msumption is said to be owing lo their taking away the heart, 

 and this complaint is thought to be cured by dropping molted lead 

 into water till a triangular )>iece is obtained, which is hung round 

 the patient's neck, and placed as near as possible to where his heart 

 onght to be. 



Within the last few years witches, or wise women, have been 

 consulted in reg-.ird to ca'cs of sickness, by men apparently pos- 

 sessed of good sound sense, and some of them even elders of the 

 Kirk. The advice given is a sort of charm, similar to tho.se im- 

 puted to the witches of the seventeenth century, to which there are 

 many allusions in the various Presbytery records of the period. 



Touching for the king's evil is still a devout article of faith in 

 Shetland ; but in order to be effectual it must be gone about with a 

 certain degree of ceremony. A silver coin of Charles II., one of a. 

 small number e.\pres8ly manipulated by the merry monarch for the 

 purpose, and bestowed on some favourite from whom they found 

 their way into these islands, is first laid upon the ntllictcd person's 

 tongue, and then carefully passed over the nffectcd jmrt, in the case 

 of a male, by the third or Ecventh daughter ; in that of a female by 

 the third or seventh son, of a family belonging to one father and 

 mother. In going through this process great precaution must bo 

 used lest the iiersim 0|)erated upon should obtain a sight of the 

 coin, for then the spell would be broken. We have heard it 

 repeatedly affirmed that those who have been treated in this 

 manner, and according to proper form, have invariably been cured. 

 and great regret expressed that the only remaining" coin in the 

 island invested with this healing virtue is lost, and cannot be 

 recovered. 



There are also many superstitions connected with the sea. When 

 they arc about to set out to the haaf, they think it unlucky to meet 

 a minister, to call anything by its right name, to make a false step, 

 or to do anything else that may be ominous of trouble and disaster. 

 Should nny of these accidents occur, they will turn back and refuse 

 to venture, although the weather bo propitious, the sen calm, and 

 everything else favourable for the expedition. When at sea the 

 minister is called the " upstander," or the " lodar," the manse is de- 

 nominated the '• liKhir's still lioil," nnd the kirk the " banie house ; " 

 every part of the boat's furniture in like manner receiving a change 

 of np|>ellntion. 



The iH'lii'f in omens nnd jmrtents is carried in Shetland to a greater 

 extent th.in one would imagine. Talking to a man one day, we hap- 

 pended to mention the fact of our having seen a lamb which hud 

 been dn>ppe<l ver>- early in the season. To our surprise, he suddenly 

 l)ocnmc very gnive. but said nothing. The reason for this change 

 m his demeanour turned out to be an inipressiim that enrlv-dropped 

 lambs were " no cnnny," nnd were ominous of evil. '• fko folk nt 

 Hargnetter." he snid. nfier n thoughtful silence, "had a lamb 

 tiropiwd on New Venr's Day, nnd their son was killed by falling over 

 the banks the same year." 



The strange reluctance to save a drowning man. from the wild 

 nnd absurd notion that to do so would be to incur the certainty of 



receiving some wrong or injury at hi« hands, and which is so well 

 inlriMhued into Kir Wnltej- Scott's novel of " Tlio I'iratc," if it ever 

 was common in Shetland, is now everywhere extinct, and there is 

 not a man in the islands who would hesitate to do all in his jiower 

 to aid a fellow-creature if lie saw him in peril from the waves. It 

 is lo be ho|)cd that all such baneful sujterstitionB will soon dis- 

 np]ienr before the advance of education. 



A. W., IN "Tiir, Antiqi-abiax WUojizixe." 



Diphtheria Commi sic.^ted by Cats. — Dr. William Bnnce, of 

 Oherlin, (•., sends o report of the following cases to the Seio 

 Ynrk Medical Recnril. March 4 :— On May 1, 1»»H1, ho was called to 

 see a boy four years of age, of (Jerman parentage, and one of six 

 children ; he was found to have di|)hthcria. On the following day 

 the youngest daughter, two years of age, presented symptoms of 

 the same disease, and on the next day the father and two more 

 children were attacked. After this date all the other members of 

 the family, except the eldest boy. contracted the disea.se. A 

 thorough examination of the house elicited no source of con- 

 tagion, but in the bam a cat was found having the characteristic 

 lesions of diphtheria. On inquirv-, he ascertained that this cat 

 during its period of sickness had been played wth bv the 

 children. On August 20, 1881, he saw. with his son. Dr. W. C. 

 Bnnce, a lady, eighteen years of age. wlio had diphtheria of a 

 very severe type, which terminated fatally on the third day. In a 

 short time the disease developed in the mother and remaining two 

 daughters. A half-grown cat in the room was found to have well- 

 marked diphtheritic membrane in the throat; it was also ascer- 

 tained that its mother and four other kittens had been in the same 

 condition. The girls had endeavoured to cure the cats by removing 

 the deposit, in this way exposing themselves to the contagious 

 influence of the disease. After the recovery of these cases, and the 

 removal of the diseased animals, the spread of the disease ceased. 

 He thinks it fair, therefore, to conclude that the diseased condition 

 of the cats was the cause of the diphtheritic manifestations in the 

 cases reported. Mention is made of these cases as they are of 

 importance in the consideration of comparative medicine. 



The Welsh TT. — Wc have a fixed and settled conviction that the 

 English language is the very best language in existence, and that 

 all foreign tongues whatsoever are mere lingoes, wholly unworthy 

 of our sublime consideration. Now there is no doubt a great deal 

 of sound truth in this view ; for even French and German i)hilo- 

 logists have been known to hoh* that English, because of its relative 

 simplicity and logical development, its freedom from the childish 

 fetters of gender and inflection, will ultimateh- become the common 

 medium of intercourse for the whole world. But our firm and 

 profound belief in the absolute superiority of our oivn tongue has 

 always made us very disdainful of other people's. There is a 

 genuine substratum of reality in the old joke about that typical 

 .lohn Bull who wouldn't learn French to talk to the mossoos, 

 but thought the mossoos niight learn English if they wanted 

 to talk to him. This universal English feeling, however, 

 seems to reach its culminating point when the foreign 

 language with which we have to deal is Welsh. Most 

 " Sa.^ons " have a congenital horiiir and dread of the Cymric 

 tongue, which they absurdly declare to be full of consonants and 

 absolutely unpronounceable. As a matter of fact, Welsh is far 

 softer and more vocal than our own harsh Teutonic speech, for it 

 lies about lialf-way between English and Italian, so far as the 

 relative predominance of vowels or consonants is concerned : and 

 lest my reader should view this para-ioxical statement with suspicion, 

 taking me for a Welshman in disguise. I hasten to add that I am 

 not in any way connected with Wales, and that I shared all the 

 common Saxon prejudices on this matter myself until I began to 

 learn a smattering of Welsh for philological purposes. Almost 

 all the terror and mystery of those awesome combinations 

 of letters which are wont so greatly to frighten us is remove* 

 in a moment, as soon as people have discovered the simi>le 

 fact that ic is a vowel, and not a consonant, its phonetic 

 value being merely that of our own no. Cwm and Drws look very- 

 terrible indeed until one knows that they are jn-onounced like 

 Combe and Dnice j while the fearsomeness of Llwch disappears 

 entirely as soon as we recognise that it is nothing more than the 

 Scotch Loch in nn unfamiliar guise. Yet. in spite of the perfect 

 transparency and regularity of Cymric phonetic spelling, ten thou- 

 sand English tourists continue every yctr to talk about those jaw- 

 hr(*aking long Welsh names, which aiv utterly unpronounceable hy 

 English lips merely because they have never taken the trouVile to 

 get up the most elementnrj' rules of the language, as they would get 

 up a little (ierman before going up the Rhine, or a little Italian 

 before trj-ing a winter at Bome or Florence. — From " Some English 

 Place Names" in the Coniliill Haautinc for November. 



