Shetland Folk-Lore
vious year, and is counted hard work. Forn means to be fed.
The wisdom of limiting one's expenditure to their resources is well expressed in the sayings:
“Bake as ye're bodin.”
“Cut your claes accordin' to your claith.”
“Measure your green accordin' to your gray.”
The mistress of the house was looked upon as the maet-midder, and hungry bairns did not consider her exhausted larder, and often cried for a kröl when the mael-pock was empty. Even the head of the house forgot the very limited resources of his better-half. Hence the following old sayings:
“A hungry man is an angry man.”
“Hungry dogs never bark weel.”
“Hungry bairns greet sair.”
“It's a braw wife that brings butt what's no ben.”
“The thing can sair dee an' me, that canna sair twa or three.”
“They that gi'e me [a] little wid see me livin'.”
In olden times the people were largely
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