II.
1. If a young woman is in the habit of burning bread when baking, or letting the meal fall on the floor or in the fire, she will not prove a thrifty wife, and the saying is :
"Never mairry the lass,
It (that) burns the bread or spills the meal,
She'll ne'er dee weel t' child nor chiel" (man).
Of one that spills the meal when baking the saying was : "She'll come to be glaid t' lick the mill-waas (mill-walls)." (Pitsligo.) Told by one to whom the words have been said.
2. If the leaven is not properly made, holes break in the cake when being rolled out, and the baker is reproved with the words that "she is bakin' oot the miller's ee," or "the miller's een." (Pitsligo.) Told by one to whom the words have been said.
3. Before Christmas, as much bread was baked as sufficed for the whole period of it. It was called "the Yeel brehd." (Keith.) In Strathdon the cakes for the Christmas season had all to be baked before daybreak. The usual practice is to begin to bake by two or three o'clock in the morning, so as to have the work completed in proper time. In Pitsligo the baking of it began after all the household was settled up for the night, and finished before morning. Told by one who was in the habit of doing it.
4. A woman should not sing during the time she is baking. As long as she sings during the time she is baking she will greet (shed tears) before the bread is eaten. (Pitsligo.) The notion in Corgarff is that if a woman sings during the time of baking she will lose a near relative by death. The same notion is held with regard to the washing of clothes and the making up of a bed.
5. If the bread breaks in the act of being baked, strangers will share in the eating of it. (Corgarff, Pitsligo.)
6. A woman when baking should not allow the "girdle" to hang empty over the fire. As long as it hangs empty, so long will she have to sit on the "bride-steel" (bride-stool, i.e. the seat on which
