Page:Shetland Folk-Lore - Spence - 1899.pdf/202

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Folk-Lore

the skjos were well stocked with fish for the approaching Yule festivities. During stormy weather the men were occupied in making numerous articles for domestic use from straw, such as kessies, mael böddies, skebs, toyegs, flakkies, rivakessies, simmond-chairs, saat kuddies, etc.

The women were occupied carding and spinning wool, although the manufacture of wadmil had long ceased. The making of cloth for home wear was universally practised, and in almost every township there could be found the professional wobster (weaver), whose busy shuttle seldom stopped the livelong winter. Here and there were persons of artistic skill whose business it was to taat bed rugs with wool dyed in blue lit, skrottie, kurkalit, aald man, or yellowin' girs. The social disposition of the people led them to spend much of their time, especially the long winter evenings, in each other's houses, whiling away the time in telling

stories of the sea, tales of adventures with

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