Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1890-12-27

battle. Occasionally few break through
the line and escape. AS rule the school
is doomed. Once driven into shoal water
where they can only founder in mighty
struggles, or high and dry on land, where
they often toss themselves in their mad
efforts to escape, their butehery, which is
always savage and sickening sight, pro-
ceeds with wonderful dispatch. In this
bloody work the hardy and powerful Shet-
land women take a gleeful and almost
frenzied part.
The chief industry of the Shetlanders
must always be that of fishing. Cod, ling
and herring are taken. The boats former
ly used were ''sixerns," or ancient six
cared boats, of about twenty feet keel,
and 'sfiddle-shaped" at bow and stern; but
the great loss of life in 1881, which oc-
Cured in the "Haaf, or deep-sea fishing
with long lines, in which ten boats went
down and fifty-eight fishermen persisted,
paved the way for the adoption of the
large decked boats, described in a recent
article of this series on the herring fisher
les of Scotland. Cod and ling fishing is
extensively prosecuted, many of the Shet-
land smacks going as far as the Farce Isl
ands and to Iceland. The number of these
two varieties of fish taken by Shetland
vessels in 1888 was ], ,5j6, 446, representing
a weight of $3.50, 900 pounds when cured
and dried; more than one-third of this
class of fishing for all Scotland for the
same year. In general, however, Shetland
annually produces fully one-half of the
total catch for Scotland.
The Shetland crofter differs little in
character and environment from the Scot
tish Highland crofter of the north and
west shores of the Scottish mainland. He
is God-fearinG, rugged, hardy, honest,
GorI IL.
two impulses of being, in living and right
living. If he possesses faults they are in
herited rather than acquired His sodden
fatalism, despite his almost fierce religious
faith, is the outcome of those curious su-
perstitions of all lowly races living along
side the material relics and remains of Pa
gan progenitors; and his apparently easy
going nature, which cheerily contemplates
most of the burdens of home-life and
croft-toil falling upon his faithful spouse,
is the traditional one existing among all
seafaring people. The islands being deep
ly indented with woes, or arms of the sea,
the crofts are generally situated along the
shores of these. Croft-holdings comprise
from three to ten acres of arabic land,
with hill-pasture in common. The latter
is known here as scattalli, pronounced by
the natives ''scathold;;" but the land is
reckoned by so many merks value, the
merll being an old Morse coin worth about
three dollars and twenty-five cents-thus
"five-merk croft" s'twenty- -merk
croft" etc., the value, rather than the size,
of the croft being thus indicated.
The "truck" system, that barbarous ini-
guilty still prevalent in some portions of
our own country, which formerly kept
Shetlanders in precisely the same abhor-
rent condition of slavery as that suffered
h., 4l,a oE T,,l.
and Illinois, having a few years since been
extirpated from Shetland by the game
British public sentiment which fxed ''fair
rents for Scottish crofters generally, the
i Shetland fisher-crofteTs "a Q prosperous
and content upon their bits of land, as the
result of their labor upon the crofts and
in fishing; for every Shetland peasant is
| both fisher and crofter. At each crofts
home will be found few sheep, great
| hocks of geese, often n COW, and always
the stumpy little Shetland pony and cart
The ponies are very hardy, wondrously
| sure-footed, and, being as much compan-
ions as beasts of burden, are left pretty
much to the freedom of their own wills
when not required for use.
These ponies are of course used in al
manner of carrying capacities like the lit
| tie donkeys of the Azores, but one irresist
IDLY connects them in the thought witt
| peat-carrying You can hardly turn YOU
| eyes upon any road or pathway in Scot
land without somewhere seeing Shetland
pony half hidden under great straw pan
niers, or "maysies," as the natives cal
them, going for or returning with peat
while the Shetland guidwife or maidel
jogs along in company, knitting with az
almost savage sedulousness and energy
But there is another carrier here that doe
almost the work of the Shetland pony
That is the Shetland woman. All the ma
nure for the crofts, comprising thousand
of tons of gathered seaweed, the million
of fish in the operations of landing an
curing, and large portion of the peat,
carried not on ponies backs, but on tn
backs of women in the universal sskashie
of the islands. This is creel made {
twisted and woven straw like the "ma,
! sizes" 1t is also written ''cassie," and il
pronunciation is best indicated in tn
J spelling "kyshire." or ''kishie." Shetlan
women step off nimbly with from sevent
TO eighty pounds weight in their SIX
: shies," but knit, knit, knit forever al
/ forever. Peat is the principal burden, Fl
there is no wood-fuel in Shetland. Near
all the high interior surface of the islan'
i consists of wild, dreary scattalds or pea
8 mosses, common for pasture as well as Fl
{ peat; and from these nine-tenths of 4
e Shetlanders secure their funeral supple
t For peat-cutting in Shetland a long, ms
g row spade with sharp iron edge, and
d iron plate some seven inches long, plac
e at right angles, is used Peat-banks
n beds are generally three peat-lengths
# depth, ann the size of the ''toysker,"
IS the peat-spade is called, determines I
N size of the peat. When cut each block
,e about one foot long, six or seven inch
'e broad, aud about three inches thick I
E peats are then laid in rows ON the ban
d ike unbaked brick. for the first dryiI
ID After lying for three weeks they are tn
re ssraised !" that is, stood on ends in SIN
piles, for complete drying. Leading
1s peats" is taking them home in the "mi
r sizes" on the ponies backs, or in the %
Is shies'' on the womens' backs, when Il
t. are usually 'tstaeked" alongside the cab
Il for winter use, as on the Scottish ma
rs land.
e. The stranger will still find many curiS
of and interesting relics of olden days a
y ways in Shetland The ancient village
n sstoun''' of Sound, two miles from L
It wick. is q veritable nest of odd, old f
nj and things The inhabitants pique the
a selves on possessing the exact spot
ly ground on which their ancestors dwelt
re- more than thousand years. They sh
re- fine scorn for "oopstart Lerwjck" in
ly oft-quoted couplet,
a. ssSound was Sound when Lerwiclz WAS naae;
ed Sound1l be Sound when Lerwiek is dune''-
ct and the Sound wives" still visit Lerw
of on Saturdays with their s'kashies" on Il
'o- backs, their knitting in full swing, I
rs; their noses high in lofty contempt, w
Ity ing on one another until all are done "
ar their errands OF shopping, and then
ar turning to Sound the embodiment
an naughty liberation. The old impleme
.he of labor and ancient costumes age
rty common in some quarters. Yon will
Sc find men clad in jackets and trous
as reaching a little below the knee, of rou
s39 ly-tanned sheep-skins, the large blue |
ate nets of the Tam OfShanter variety on Z
ne heads. and their feet encased in ssrivlil
the the sspampootas" of the half-na
the wretches of the Irish Arran Islands,
as" sisting of oblong patches of rawhide,
ent over the feet with thongs. Tho hal
of next the foot; and the sole and sides
the are covered. The ancient s'cliyinsn or
tongs frequently weigh twenty poui
ear Grain is universally cut with the sic
ops threshed with the fail and winnowed
st. being tossed in the breeze. The old W
of en- harrow is common; crooked wo,
net plouohs are still seen: MANY houssh
/ to possess the quern or stone hand-mil
ush old as Aryan history; and little hut
hile water-mills, where larger querns
ms, whirled about by rude wheels ag
ces, which water from little rills is shot
Iced zontally, and where the grain is fed
the the upper stone by hand, are numero
lake the islands.
ting The Shetlanders as q people are