Newhaven] FISHER SUPERSTITIONS. 305
polis of an ancient kingdom, this people remain unlucky ; of hares, terrible ! Should a reference
- in costume, and dialect in manners (?the man in the black coat ;?- .and Friday is an
and mode of thinking. The cus- unlucky day for everything but getting married;
toms, laws, and traditions of their forefathers I and?to talk of a certain man named Brounger
appear as if they had been stereotyped for their
use.?
They believe in many of the whimsical and ideal
terrors of past generations, and have many superstitions
that are not, perhaps, entirely their own.
While at sea, if the idea of a cat or a pig float
across the mind, their names must not be uttered,
-* e
135
-
is-according to the writer quoted-sure to
produce consternation.
John Brounger was an old fisherman of Newhaven,
who, when too feeble to go to sea, used to
ask for some oysters or fish from his neighbours on
their return, and if not amply supplied, he cursed
them, and wished them-on their next trip-?? ill
306 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Wardie.
In this district evidences have been found of the
luck,? and it sometimes came ; to propitiate him,
his moderate demands became, ere he died, an
established claim. Hence it would seem that now
to say to a crew at sea, ?(John Brounger ?s in your
head-sheets,? or ?? OR board of you,? is sufficient to
cause her crew to haul in the dredge, ship their
oars, and pull the boat thrice round in a circle, to
break the evil spell, and enough sometimes to make
the crew abandon work.
But apart from such fancies, the industrious
fishermen of Newhaven still possess the noble
qualities. ascribed to them by the historian of
Leith, in the days when old Dr. Johnston was
their pastor : ?It was no sight of ordinary interest
to see the stem and weather-beaten faces of these
hardy seamen subdued by the influence of religious
feeling into an expression of deep reverence and
humility, before their God. Their devotion seemed
. - I mansion, pleasantly situated on the sea-shore, about
to have acquired an additional solemnity of character,
from a consciousness of the peculiarly
hazardous nature of their occupation, which,
throwing tKem immediately and sensibly on the
protection of their Creator every day of their lives,
had im5ued them with a deep sense of gratitude to
that Being, whose outstretched arm had conducted
their little bark in safety through a hundred storms.?
In the first years of the present century there
was a Newhaven stage, advertised daily to start
from William Bell?s coach-office, opposite the Tron
church, at ten am., three and eight p-m.
We need scarcely add, that Newhaven has long
been celebrated for the excellence and variety of
its fish dinne&, served up in more than one oldfashioned
inn, the best known of which was, perhaps,
near the foot of the slope called the Whale
Brae.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
WARDIE, TRINITY, AND GRANTON.
Wardie Muir-Human Remains Found-Banghalm Bower and Trinity Lodge-Christ Church, Trinity-Free Church, Granton Road-Piltoa
-Royston--Camline Park-Grantan-The Piers and Harbours-Morton?s Patent Slip.
WARDIE MUIR must once have been a wide, open,
and desolate space, extending from Inverleith and
Warriston to the shore of the Firth; and from
North Inverleith Mains, of old called Blaw Wearie,
on the west, to Bonnington on the east, traversed
by the narrow streamlet known as Anchorfield
Bum.
Now it is intersected by streets and roads,
studded with fine villas rich in gardens and teeming
with fertility; but how waste and desolate the
muiland must once have been, is evinced b i those
entries in the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer
of Scotland, with reference to firing ,Mons Meg,
in the days when royal salutes were sometimes
fired with shotted guns !
On the 3rd of July, 1558, when the Castle
batteries saluted in honour of the Dauphin?s marriage
with Queen Mary, Mons Meg was fired by
the express desire of the Queen Regent; the
pioneers were paid for ?I their jaboris in mounting
Meg furth of her lair to be schote, and for finding
and carrying her bullet from Wardie Muir to the
Castell,? ten shillings Scots.
Wardie is fully two miles north from the Castle,
and near Granton.
native tribes. Several fragments of human remains
were discovered in 1846, along the coast of
Wardie, in excavating the foundations for a bridge
of the Granton Railway ; and during some earlier
operations for the same railway, on the 27th
September, 1844 a silver and a copper coin of
Philip 11. of Spain were found among a quantity
of huiiian bones, intermingled with sand and shells;
and these at the time were supposed to be a
memento of some great galleon of the Spanish
Armada, cast away upon the rocky coast,
In the beginning of the present century, and
before the roads to Queensferry and Granton
were constructed, the chief or only one in this
quarter was that which, between hedgerows and
trees, led to Trinity, and the principal mansions
near it were Bangholm Bower, called in the
Advertiser for 1789 ? the Farm of Bangholms,?
adjoining the lands of Wamston, and which was
offered for lease, with twelve acres of meadow,
?lying immediately westward of Canonmills Loch;??
Lixmount House, in 1810 the residence of Farquharson
of that ilk and Invercauld; Trinity
Lodge, and one or two others. The latter is
described in the Advertiser for 1783 as a large
