FOLK-LORE FROM UN ST. i8i 



those remnants alive. It was considered very unlucky 

 to use the English or ordinary name of anything when 

 at sea. All nouns were there obliged " to suffer a sea 

 change into something rich and strange," so that con- 

 versation in a Haaf-boat must have been the most odd 

 medley of English, Norse, nicknames, and nautical 

 terms. I am told that this habit is still kept up to a 

 certain extent in one or two localities, and an intelli- 

 gent Shetlander, to whom I am indebted for a great deal 

 of folk-lore, tells me that when he was a boy he was 

 often severely reprimanded by the old fishermen for 

 daring to use a land term when afloat. May not many 

 nautical phrases have their origin in some such cus- 

 tom ? When our jolly tars are jabbering the lingo 

 so unintelligible to landsmen perhaps they are just 

 mangling the language of their sea-king sires ! 



Notwithstanding the satirical jokes of other pro- 

 vincialists, the Shetlanders continue to " take pride " 

 in calling themselves a distinct people, quite alien to 

 Celt or Saxon, and bound to Scotland by few ties of 

 kinship. Their habits, tastes, accent, physiognomy, 

 are Scandinavian, and they have little sympathy with 

 Celtic traits of character. Doubtless these marked 

 differences were weakened at the time that Patrick Stuart 

 and a horde of Scottish thieves infested Shetland, but 

 the Norse element soon asserted its superiority again, 

 and though the names of the intruders became common 

 enough, yet the islanders never became Scotchmen, 

 therefore the dialect only resembles the Scotch when 

 they meet upon Scandinavian ground. 



