In this account of the Gipsies in Fife, the horde which at one period resided at the village of Lochgellie are frequently referred to. But it is proper to premise that this noted band were not the only Gipsies in Fife. This populous county contained, at one time, a great number of nomadic Gipsies. The Falkland hills and the Falkland fairs were greatly frequented by them;[96] and, not far from St. Andrews, some of the tribe had, within these fifty years, a small farm, containing about twenty acres of waste land, on which they had a small foundry, which the country people, on that account, called "Little Carron." As my materials for this chapter are chiefly derived from the Lochgellie band, and their immediate connexions in other districts not far from Fife, their manners and customs are, on that account, brought more under review. [96] In Oliver and Boyd's Scottish Tourist, (1832), page 181, occurs the following passage: "A singular set of vagrants existed long in Falkland, called _Scrapies_, who had no other visible means of existence than a horse or a cow. Their ostensible employment was the carriage of commodities to the adjoining villages, and in the intervals of work they turned out their cattle to graze on the Lomond Hill. Their excursions at night were long and mysterious, for the pretended object of procuring coals, but they roamed with their little carts through the country-side, securing whatever they could lift, and plundering fields in autumn. Whenever any enquiry was addressed to a Falkland _Scrapie_ as to the support of his horse, the ready answer was, 'Ou, he gangs up the (Lomond) Hill, ye ken.' This is now prevented; the Lomond is enclosed, and the _Scrapies_ now manage their affairs on the road-sides." The people mentioned in this extract are doubtless those to whom our author alludes. The reader will notice some resemblance between them and the tribe in the Pyrenees, as described at page 87.--ED.