Filed under things you didn’t know could kill you:
In 1900, Alexander Crighton, aged 11, from Montrose, died after a single orange pip got stuck in his intestine. It created a small lesion which became gangrenous. He died within a week.
Always chew your pips!
Dundee Courier, 18th December 1900. pg. 4
Sure apple cider vinegar is great, but wait til you hear about crab vinegar…
One hopes it was crab-apples and not shore crabs…
On Good Friday 1882, 147 people in Inverness became severely ill after eating hot cross buns. While not fatal, they all experienced vomiting, tremors, and a dry throat. An unidentified alkaloid poison was found in the spice mix. The case was never solved.
To be honest though, hot cross buns do that at the best of times…
Dundee Courier. 11th April 1882. pg. 4
Inverness Courier. 13th June 1882. pg. 2
n. Mutton from dead sheep.
On the 21st January 1794, a sudden storm hit the Solway Firth area causing major floods. The toll, found at low tide on the Beds of Esk was:
1840 sheep
9 cattle
3 horses
3 people
45 dogs
180 hares
and innumerable smaller animals.
It was remembered as the Goniel Blast.
Dictionary of the Scots Language. https://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/goniel
Hyslop, J.D. and R. Hyslop (1912) Langholm as it was : a history of Langholm and Eskdale from the earliest times. John Menzies & Co, Edinburgh, pg. 850
In May 1895, 3 men broke into several Windygate businesses. Items stolen were:
20lbs of polony sausages
4lbs of steak
a box of railway lamp matches
They planned to feed 40 rough sleepers in the old brickworks at Muiredge. One man testified for the prosecution, one got 6 months, one got 3 months.
Polony here refers to Scottish polony a traditional sausage once common in the Northeast (and not baloney, bologna sausage etc.). More info (and source of pic) here: https://macdonaldbutchers.co.uk/scottish-polony-online-butchers/
Someone from Caithness on Twitter was surprised to hear about polony being eaten in Fife and Dundee (a polony supper is apparently worth a trip to Caithness!) As MacDonald Butchers note on their site, it’s not easy to find information on polony, and certainly it appears that polony in this sense of the word isn’t in the Dictionary of The Scottish Language (dsl.ac.uk).
Dundee Advertiser, 18th June 1895, pg. 2.
“Goths” in Scotland were pubs aimed at LOWERING alcohol consumption and were to be strictly unwelcoming (no billiards, no gambling, no dominoes!). Gothenburg System pubs were shareholder owned and used profits to fund local community projects.
While they used to be common across the Central Belt and Fife, there may only be one pub left that is still run with the Gothenburg System (The Dean Tavern in Newtongrange, nr. Dalkeith, which was opened in 1899).
On the Monday immediately preceding the Dalkeith Hiring-Fair in October (2nd Thursday of the month), Musselburgh celebrated a day known as Pie Monday.
To correctly celebrate Pie Monday everyone *must* have a hot mutton pie for tea, as simple as that.
It is meant to have started when a baker’s horse was lamed in Musselburgh as they were on the way to Dalkeith with a full cart of pies and something had to be done to prevent waste! They sold so well that the following year he was sold out before getting to Dalkeith and so it became a yearly tradition.
Musselburgh let it fall by the wayside and no longer celebrate hot mutton pies in October. They should sort that out!
Source
Stirling, R. McD. (1894) Inveresk Parish Lore from Pagan Times. T.C. Blair, Musselburgh. 284pp.
PANDORE. n. large oyster from Prestonpans. Supposed to be big because of the proximity to the doors of the saltpans. Prestonpans oyster fishers would sing “dreg sangs” to charm the oysters into their nets. “Oysters are a gentle kin, wullna tak unless ye sing”
In January 1856 the Provost of Dingwall had a dinner party that left two Catholic priests and a laird dead. The cook’s servant brought her monkshood (a,b) instead of horseradish (c,d) for the roast beef. The provost had them planted 18″ apart in his garden.
In 1614, Elgin asked their bakers to stop stealing the gravestones from the kirkyard to make their bread ovens. It wasn’t their first warning and it’s not clear they stopped!
