had a certain understanding of its scope, and they formed a needed link between me and the older people. The younger people did not, of course, themselves possess such a fund of Norn vocabulary as the older generation; but they had better opportunity than I had to question the old people, and, in general, could more easily obtain information from them. Where the rarer words were concerned, I myself sought and afterwards obtained confirmation regarding them from the older people.
On the occasion of my visits to Shetlandic homes, especially evening visits which gave the best results, I often took up two definite subjects for discussion in one evening, in order to become acquainted with the older words and expressions connected with these subjects: as for example, everything belonging to the house, the daily activities, the activities peculiar to each season of the year: weather; sea; fishing, the question of the fishermen’s tabu-language having to be handled carefully; and much else; without, however, keeping my inquiries closely directed to the subject chosen when circumstances showed that more diffuse conversation, involving the discussion of different subjects, might yield a good result, especially when many people were present.
It was of special importance to get the rarer words brought out, such words as had either become obsolete within the memory of people, or were about to become obsolete; words that had been used by the parents and grand-parents of the generation now living,— and which were far from being readily remembered even by the older people. But, as soon as interest was awakened and people began to search their memories, such forgotten or half-forgotten words often appeared again. There were, as a rule, in each neighbourhood where I made a stay, one or more young men and women who took notes for me.
At each new place to which I came in the course of my travelling about, I went through, either wholly or partly, the old dialect material I had collected in other places. It was an effective means of getting my collection enlarged by corresponding words at each new place. It gave people at once an idea of what I sought and immediately drew out variants, often entirely different words from those I had for the same thing.
While it was comparatively easy to get names of material objects, it was a somewhat different question with ideas, as, for example, words denoting states of mind, behaviour, jocular words, pet- and nicknames, etc. These could only now and then be obtained by direct questioning; the words were for the most part not just at hand; they might come on chance occasions and had often to be caught in the course of conversation.
A number of the districts I visited twice, partly because there was evidence that my first visit had awakened such a lively interest in the old language that many people had begun to take notes, which I wished to examine before I left the Islands; and partly because, in the interval since my first visit, I had elsewhere collected new material which I wished to go through at places that were of special
