Читать книгу Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland. Collected Entirely from Oral Sources онлайн

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Oatmeal, taken out of the house after dark, was sprinkled with salt, and unless this was done, the Fairies might through its instrumentality take the substance out of the farmer’s whole grain. To keep them from getting the benefit of meal itself, housewives, when baking oatmeal bannocks, made a little thick cake with the last of the meal, between their palms (not kneading it like the rest of the bannocks), for the youngsters to put a hole through it with the forefinger. This palm bannock (bonnach boise) is not to be toasted on the gridiron, but placed to the fire leaning against a stone (leac nam bonnach), well-known where a ‘griddle’ is not available. Once the Fairies were overtaken carrying with them the benefit (toradh) of the farm in a large thick cake, with the handle of the quern (sgonnan na brà) stuck through it, and forming a pole on which it was carried. This cannot occur when the last bannock baked (Bonnach fallaid) is a little cake with a hole in it (Bonnach beag ’s toll ann).13