Page:Shetland Folk-Lore - Spence - 1899.pdf/182

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Folk-Lore

was ever devoted to this imaginary being, for—

When Broonie got a cloak or hood,
He did his master nae mair good.”

One of the most interesting appendages of the croft was the sheep krö. Here lads and lasses met to roo the sheep and mark the lambs, and sometimes in scarce years to kavel the lambs. The krö is a small round enclosure into which sheep are driven, and to facilitate the driving small branch dykes run out in two directions from the krö. These were termed soadin or rexter dykes, and sometimes steugies. In the krö the uniformity of colour observable in other flocks is wanting. Here is a blending of numerous shades, black, white, brown, and grey being the most common, while there is a sprinkling of blyeag (dirty white), shaela (steel gray), moorit (the colour of brown peat), and catmuggit (having the belly of a different colour). Everyone knew his own sheep by the

marks cut in their ears. No two persons

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