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Gammerstang commented on the word good man's croft
(noun) - It was customary for farmers to leave a portion of their fields uncropped, which was a dedication to the evil spirit and called good man's croft. The Church exerted itself for a long time to abolish this practice, but farmers . . . were afraid to discontinue the practice for fear of ill luck. I remember a farmer as late as 1825 always leaving a small piece of a field uncropped, but then did not know why. At length he gave the right of working these bits to a poor labourer, who did well with it, and in a few years the farmer cultivated the whole himself.
--James Napier's Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland, 1879
January 16, 2018