might be "T' the lånart,"[1] that is, to the landward. The answers meant of course the very opposite. Or the reply might be something impossible, as "Awa t' the back o' the meen,"[2] as a Buckie man said.
The pig[3] was held in detestation, and the words "swine" and "chat" were never pronounced; if they were pronounced some misfortune would soon come. The flesh of the pig was not used as food by many. I was told lately by a St. Combs man that his father was at Cromarty a good many years ago, and had occasion to borrow a pot in which to cook his dinner from another St. Combs man. His dinner consisted of pork. When it came to the knowledge of the man that had given the pot in loan that pork had been cooked in it, he was in a great rage, and the pot underwent a great deal of scrubbing to purify it. There are some yet that will not taste the flesh of pig or domestic fowls, "hens, cocks, deuks, dryaaks,"[4] in the words of my informant. (St. Combs.)
The word "cat" (St. Combs) lies under the ban. A man told me that one suggested to him when a boy to go to the door of a certain fisherman's house and call out "Cat." He did so. The fisherman was engaged in some work by the side of the fire. No sooner did he hear the word, than he seized the tongs, and threw it at the head of the offender. It was caught on the corner of the "bun-bed," and fell, "An gehn it hidna deen that, I hidna been here the nicht," said the man.
In Broadsea the animals which are looked upon as unlucky are, besides the hare, the rabbit and the "rottin" (rat). The salmon lies under the ban, and is called "the beast wi' the scales."
In St. Combs, on the other hand, the rat is looked on as lucky, and the arrival of rats in a house is regarded as the harbinger of money. The idea of rats leaving a house or a ship foreboding disaster is quite general.
