Northvegr - Old-Lore Miscellany

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Old-Lore Miscellany

Page 3

AN ORKNEY TOWNSHIP BEFORE THE
DIVISION OF THE COMMONTY
III.
(Continued from Vol. III., page 207)

        The furniture, like the cooking utensils, was of the plainest description. The high straw-backed and hooded stools were reserved for the master and mistress of the house, while the other inmates were content with the low, round straw stool, without a back, or with a hasso cut from a tuack of burra. Burra is a kind of grass which grows in moory soil in the hills and mosses. Being of a hard, bristly nature, and growing in a circle with its mass of roots, it, when dug up carefully with a moor spade and dried in the sun, formed a neat stool. Another important article in the kitchen was the speunecubbie, made of gloy and bent. The spoons were all made of rams' horns, and were chiefly the work of tinkers, though some houses had a spoon-set in which the horns were moulded. Except the gate-legged table, the largest piece of furniture was the bink, a large slab of blue, smooth stone, resting on a wooden frame or on two flag-stones fixed in the ground. The bink took the place of the modern dresser, and on it were arranged the bowls and tinnies for family use, while underneath were placed the pails, pots, and other cooking utensils. Another bink was the sae-bink---a round recess in the wall just between the out-by and the but-end. A flagstone was here built in horizontally which, with its projecting edge rounded, formed a convenient shelf for the sae. The sae was a water-tub, with lugs formed by two opposite staves longer than the others, and having large holes in them through which a long, round stick, called the sae-tree, was passed, when the sae was carried to and from the well. The water was lifted or oused with a bummie, a wooden dish made in the same style as the sae, but with only one longer stave, which stave, projecting above the others about three inches, formed the handle. Water carrying was usually done by the women; and no light task it was even for two well-built women to swing a heavy sae with ten gallons of water shoulder high, and bare-footed to carry this home over broken ground and heathery brae.
        Though furniture was scanty, the storage capability of the kitchen of sixty years ago was provided for by the great number of recesses in the walls. First there was the almery, a pantry or meat press about four feet high and two feet wide, with three or four stone shelves eighteen inches apart. The limited supply of dishes was kept here as well as the food. The almery was usually built into the side wall of the house, and opposite it, on the other side wall, was a deeper and darker, recess, the neuk-bed. This was formed on the outside of the house by building three sides of a wall with a shed roof of flags, leaving an apartment inside measuring six feet by four. The front of the neuk was on a line with the inside of the side wall, and the opening was narrowed by two large flag-stones, set on edge, one at each end of the bed, leaving an aperture about two feet wide for entrance.
        The mid-gable, as it was called, was the thick stone wall dividing the ben-end from the but-end or kitchen. This latter room bore also the name of in-by or abune-the-fire to distinguish it from out-by or ahint-the-fire, and here a goodly number of the live-stock lived and throve in this combined bed-room, dining-room, and kitchen of the Orkney farmer. In the dividing wall opposite the fire, and near to the floor, there were four recesses, each about eighteen inches high by eighteen inches wide. Here the brods or mother geese laid their eggs and hatched their young, while a young pig or two and a litter of pups gambolled about the floor, and disputed the rights of the family to the surroundings of the kitchen fire.
        Beyond the mid-gable was the ben-end, which was reached through the cellar door. On the ben side of the gable, and in the centre of the wall, there was a recess called the quern-ladder or quern-bink, where the burstin' and the malt made from bere were ground. This bink was of circular shape, and built after the fashion of the sae-bink, but on a larger scale. The only articles of furniture in the ben-end were a wooden box-bed, with long doors panelled and hinged, and a clothes press to match. Sometimes these box-beds had doors at back as well as front, and instead of long doors, had short ones, which ran in grooves when being opened or closed. This room was considered to be the best bed-chamber, and was occupied by the master and mistress of the house. When more sleeping accommodation was required, additional beds were so arranged as to form a small closet at the back. This got the name of the ale-hurry, and here the pigs (earthenware jars) of ale were kept.
        Very few houses could boast of any flooring or pavement. The cold clay, devoid of any covering, carpet, or rug, was deemed comfortable enough for man as well as beast. Where the soil was of a damp nature, stones were placed under the four posts of the ben-bed to prevent the wood from rotting. Warmth, comfort, and sanitation, were little thought of in those days; this ben-end was a veritable cave, possessing neither fire-place nor windows, and destitute of light but that admitted by the small sky-lights which pierced the thatched roof. This light only served to reveal the fact that the plaster on the walls was of the coarsest description possible, and decidedly unsanitary, being composed of clay, scrubbs (husks of oats), and cow-shaurn (cow-dung). The scrubbs acted as binding material to the clay, while the shaurn both gave a smoothness to the compost, and lent to the yellow clay a dull kakhi shade.
        The only pleasing thing to attract the eye in a rural hut of this kind was the neat way in which the straw simmons were laced from side to side over the mane-tree (the ridge) to form the inner side of the thatch, and make a firm foundation for the straw covering. For a time the new yellow simmons brightened the otherwise sombre colouring of the farmer's abode, but when the all-pervading smoke had done its work of dyeing, and the dampness of the atmosphere had turned the adhering soot into a substance resembling tar, which dropped more or less freely in accordance with changes of the atmosphere, the neat twist of the simmons was no longer recognisable as a thing of beauty. In wet weather liquid soot ran in slow streams down the walls from every cupple foot, while it dropped here and there from the ridge. It was no uncommon thing for an inmate to get one of these sticky drops in the cuff (nape) of the neck or in his porridge bowl or bummie.
        Some skill was required to roof a thatched house. First there were the cupples of Highland birk twisted and knarled as they had come from the woods, and without any squaring or dressing. They rested on the slightly sloping wall head, and were secured there by the aisens or wa' plates---flag-stones fitted to the foot of each cupple and projecting over the outside wall about three or four inches. About three and a half feet above the aisens a lath or laight was nailed upon the cupples on either side of the roof, and a similar laight was fastened to the cupples on each side of the ridge. These four laights, extending the whole length of the roof, formed a framework for the thatch. The end of a simmon was fixed to the laight on one side, brought over the upper laights, then round the laight on the other side, and over the ridge again, and so on the simmon was passed till the whole roof was shut in by a web-work resembling darning. This process was called "needling the roof." Thin flag stones, their lower ends resting on the aisens, and the upper on the side laights, were placed along the whole length of the roof on both sides. Simmon work and flag-stones were then covered over with straw spread to the depth of nearly a foot. To prevent the straw from being blown away simmons were placed at intervals over the ridge from side to side, coming down nearly to the aisens. Bendlin' stones were hung in the loops of the simmons to weight them down, but such a precaution often failed to keep on the straw in a gale, and many a time after a stormy night the farmer awoke to find his roof tirved (stripped), and even the flag-stones shifted. But for the shelter of the close box-beds, the inmates would have been exposed to the full force of the gale and the drifting snow. In heavy rains precautions were taken to keep the beds dry. Small tubs called ceulers, tin pails, or wooden buckets, were placed on the roofs of the beds; and, if the thatch was faulty, there was a ceaseless splash until the rain abated.
                                                        JOHN FIRTH.
                                (To be continued).

A VISIT TO SHETLAND IN 1832.
(From the Journal of Edward Charlton, M.D.)
III
(Continued from Vol. III., page 216).

        "An old skipper and his crew of young lads, who did not reach Fair Isle till the Saturday, sailed on one tack for thirty-six hours, with a strong breeze, ere they came in sight of that island. A few hours more and their strength would have been exhausted, as they were almost lifted out of the boat by the inhabitants of the Fair Isle. These poor fellows had taken with them no other provision that their customary scanty stock of meal and water for the three days, and this they had consumed upon the Thursday morning, having been out from the Monday previous on the open sea.......Towards the end of the storm a boat containing several bodies was washed ashore on the beach near Lunna, on the Eastern Mainland.......In my excursions through Unst, Fetlar and the Mainland it was indeed often a melancholy task to enter a cottage. There sat the poor widow silent and sad, and her speechless grief contrasted strongly with the poor little children playing around the fire all unconscious of their heavy loss. Sometimes two or three of these poor widows would be met together to bewail their common bereavement, and again and again did a mother, a wife, or a daughter hurry out to me as I passed to ask for news of the boats. If perchance I had heard a report of any more having been saved, their grateful eyes would glisten with hope, and the simple pious exclamation of 'Oh, God! dat dere may be mongst dem my guidman,' burst from their lips. Few cottages were there that had not to deplore the loss of a father, a brother, or a son. In general the male part of the inhabitants bore their loss with silent resignation, but often, in spite of all their firmness, a tear would steal down their cheeks as they recounted to me the closing scene of a brother's or a father's life, when they saw him at one moment pulling as stoutly and as strongly as they could do, and at the next he was swept away from their side, one cry as with outstretched hands he was hurried past, and then all was undistinguished amid the hissing waves and the roaring winds. But the grand anchor of the widows' hope was the account brought by the 'Norna' of an American outward-bound vessel, which had hailed them when running before the wind, to the effect that she had five boats' crews on board. This was indeed a strong ray of hope for the desolate. They told me they were sure of their husbands and friends being amongst the number; but, alas, the joy of hope realized was reserved for a few. It was in the month of January, 1833, that five of the lost men returned to their native islands, having been actually carried out to America by a vessel which hailed the 'Norna.' But their skipper, the pride of the east coast fisherman, was not of their number. He had been the last to leave the boat, and as he ascended the vessel's side a tremendous sea threw his own frail bark high into the air, and it descended with resistless force upon the head of the unfortunate man when thus on the very threshold of escape. Such are the particulars of this disastrous storm, and at the mention of it during the next hundred years the Shetlander will tremble and pray that such a calamity may never occur in his days. Thursday, July 26^th.......The collector Fea came off and announced that the period of our detention had expired."
        "As soon as we landed we called on Mr. Ogilvy, where, as I discover duly recorded in my journal, we found good wine and ugly children. (6) Thence in company with Mrs. Henderson's eldest son, John, (7) who was subsequently my constant companion throughout the islands, I walked along the shore to the south-east of the town and gathered some chitons among the stones within high water mark. They were almost all of the species lævigatus, but one chiton ruber rewarded me for my toil. How well do I remember the strange aspect that everything bore to me, how every corner of the beach was examined for specimens, and each, as I got possession of it, seemed in accordance with my hopes to be something that I had never seen before."
        "The terminus of our walk was a lake on the right of the road to Scalloway. (8) It was, I believe, on the banks of this lake that Dr. Fleming shot a specimen of the red-necked phalarope, for this bird, though it breeds in Orkney, is yet extremely rare in Shetland, nor is it mentioned by Graba as occurring in Ferro. (9) But then there was an additional object of interest. On an island, near the centre of the lake, are the foundations of an ancient burgh or stronghold of the ancient northmen." (10) A description of the burgh is given from Hibbert's Shetland, p. 280. "Around the banks of this lake I found a large quantity of the jasione montana, which is also noticed by Neill, (11) but in fact this plant abounds in every part of the Shetland islands. Wherever there was any extent of soft turf it was covered with this plant, whose lovely blue contrasted with the equally abundant pink flowers of the dianthus deltoides, formed an agreeable carpet to conceal the rugged conglomerate rocks."
        "We returned to dine at the house of Mr. Hay, (12) who is reputed to be by far the richest merchant in Shetland. Riches no doubt are necessary to him, for he has a family of 13 or 14 children. Strawberries are not unfrequently cultivated with good success around Lerwick, and we had a large dish of them to-day from Mr. Hay's garden." In the evening they crossed the Sound to Gardie and he "was much pleased with the excellent order in which Mr. Mouat's grounds were kept, and the house too would not have disgraced a gentleman's park in the south. (13) In the drawing-room a stuffed specimen of a wryneck (14) attracted my attention, and I was informed that this poor wanderer from the south had been taken in Delting a few years before. Returned to supper at Mr. Hay's and then proceeded to Lerwick to sleep at Mr. Ogilvy's."

Endnotes

6. ? Charles Ogilyy, of Seafield, banker and merchant, Lerwick (whose sister married Vice-Admiral William Hamley, whose son was the late General Sir Edward Bruce Hamley, K.C.B.) children alive in July 1832 were Charles b. 1826, d. in Victoria 1903, John b. May, 1832, d. in Melbourne 1895, and Jane Fea b. 1828. Back
7. John Charles Henderson of Gloup. See Vol. III., p. 159, f.n. 2. Back
8. The Loch of Clickemin. Back
9. A breeding station is recorded in Unst in 1867, by Dr. Saxby, The Birds of Shetland, p. 215. Back
10. Now attributed to the pre-Norse period. Back
11. A Tour through Orkney and Shetland, 1806, p. 69. Back
12. William Hay, of Hayfield, merchant and banker, Lerwick, b. 1787. d. 1858, m. thrice and had 16 children by his first and second wives. Back
13. William Mowat of Garth, d. 1836. Back
14. Dr. Saxby in The Birds of Shetland, p. 141 reports that this bird was found in Shetland only twice, viz., a specimen shot by Major Cameron in the summer of 1867, in a field of his own at Gardie House where it is preserved, and another picked up dead on the sea-beach in Unst in 1871. What has become of the specimen which was in Gardie in 1832, in the possession of Major Cameron's predecessor and uncle, William Mouat? Back

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