In 1840s Fife, a deserted spouse could have their marriage annulled if they set a place at the dinner table and shouted out the door for the absent spouse to come eat. After a year plus one day, they were free to marry again.
Every evening a fresh table setting had to be put out when the jilted spouse was ready to eat, and every time they’d have to call out that dinner was ready. Think it was to demonstrate good faith that you *wanted* your spouse to come home.
n. putting a person on trial after you have drowned them
Story is that a man wouldn’t leave his cell so the folk of Cupar flooded it, accidentally drowning him. Cheated out of a trial, they put his body in the stand anyway.
see also: JEDDART JUSTICE. n. putting a person on trial after you have hanged them
In Fife mining communities a burn on the skin was thought to be cured by holding the afflicted body part close to a flame. The fire was supposed to “draw oot the heat” from the burn.
Simpkins, J.E., MacLagan, R.C., and D. Rorie (1914) County Folklore Vol. VII. – Examples of printed folk-lore concerning Fife with some notes on Clackmannan and Kinross-shires. Sidgewick and Jackson, London. pg. 408
In October 1888, A Pittenweem boy aged 13 wrote menacing letters pretending to be Jack the Ripper (or his brother, “Rab the Beginner”) to local people saying they’d be murdered. Some took the threats seriously. The papers published the letters. He was fined £5.
Fife News, 22nd December 1888, pg. 6.
Fife Herald, 19th December 1888, pg. 4.
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 15th December 1888, pg. 3.
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.
In 1704, one of the “Pittenweem Witches” Beatrix Layng met the devil on Ceres Moor. She knew because he appeared as a black dog. This is Ceres Moor today, and my pup, Scout. She is rarely a devil. Layng denied being a witch, but adamant she had been chatting with Satan himself. Layng was released from prison after paying £8 and eventually pardoned by Queen Anne in 1708.
In 1787 or 1788, Louis XVI banned the import of Burntisland “mould” into France. Dug from the hills above the town, the “mould” was apparently used in making ceramics and was treated as a credible threat to the French ceramics industry.
Nechtan, King of Picts asked a saint to build Dargie Kirk at Invergowrie. The devil (in Fife) threw 2 sheeplike boulders at the site, but hit the Tay river instead. This was the basis of Thomas the Rhymer’s prophecy on the Yowes o Gowrie.
Dundonians argue that the devil lives in Fife, but Fifers take a different stance.
Prior to the 17th Century, Cupar was flanked by a sizable loch and wetland. Since drained, it required a ferry to cross it (dashed line) and kept the Lords of the Congregation and Mary of Guise’s armies apart in 1559. The Bonnygate and Crossgate are marked in red for ref.
In October 1785, Vincenzo Lunardi flew a hydrogen-powered balloon from George Heriot’s School in Edinburgh to Coaltown of Callange, near Ceres in Fife– a distance of 46 miles. It was the first successful aerial journey in Scotland.
