Shetland Folk-Lore
ages the islands have derived from being severed from Norway:
“A' the guid we ever got frae Scotland wis dear mael an' greedy ministers.”
An old, forgotten custom is commemorated in the following proverb:
“Ye'll no forget da stane whaar ye got a sair bane.”
This refers to the custom of riding the scattald marches, on which occasion a boy got a flogging at each march stone to stimulate his memory.
The last of these old saws I will quote is one I heard many years ago from my friend, Mr. James S. Angus. It survives in the old Norse tongue, and is almost as old-fashioned in sentiment as it is in language, but it breathes the true Old Norse spirit and is full of the wisdom of our forefathers :
“Gött a taka gamla manna ro.”
Or, as Dr. Jakobsen has rendered it:
“It is good to take old men's advice.”
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