Children continue with the fosterer perhaps six years; and cannot, where this is the practice, be considered as burdensome. The fosterer, if he gives four cows, receives likewise four, and has, while the child continues with him, grass for eight without rent, with half the calves, and all the milk, for which he pays only four cows, when he dismisses his dalt, for that is the name for a fostered child.—Johnson’s Journey.
THE IRISH PEOPLE.
Holinshed, speaking of the Irish, observes:—“Greedy of praise they be, and fearful of dishonour; and to this end they esteem their poets, who write Irish learnedly, and pen their sonnets heroical, for the which they are bountifully rewarded; if not, they send out libels in dispraise, whereof the lords and gentlemen stand in great awe. They love tenderly their foster children, and bequeath to them a child’s fortune, whereby they nourish sure friendship,—so beneficent every way, that commonly 500 cows and better are given in reward to win a nobleman’s child to foster; they love and trust their foster children more than their own. Proud they are of long crisped bushes of hair, which they term libs. They observe divers degrees, according to which each man is regarded. The basest sort among them are little young wasps, called daltins: these are lacqueys, and are serviceable to the grooms, or horseboys, who are a degree above the daltins. The third degree is the kaerne, which is an ordinary soldier, using for weapon his sword and target, and sometimes his piece, being commonly so good marksmen, as they will come within a score of a great cartele. The fourth degree is a gallowglass, using a kind of poll-axe for his weapon, strong, robust men, chiefly feeding on beef, pork, and butter. The fifth degree is to be a horseman, which is the chiefest, next to the lord and captain. These horsemen, when they have no stay of their own, gad and range from house to house, and never dismount till they ride into the hall, and as far as the tables.”
MARRIAGE.
The minister of Logierait, in Perthshire, in his statistical account of that parish, supplies us with the following curious information on this and other marriage ceremonies:—“Immediately before the celebration of the marriage ceremony, every knot about the bride and bridegroom (garters, shoe-strings, strings of petticoats, &c.) is carefully loosed. After leaving the church, the whole company walk round it, keeping the church walls always upon the right hand; the bridegroom, however, first retires one way, with some young men, to tie the knots that were loosened about him, while the young married woman, in the same manner, retires somewhere else to adjust the disorder of her dress.”
NEEDFIRE.
The following extract contains a distinct and interesting account of this very ancient superstition, as used in Caithness: