The Folk-Lore Society volume of 1903 records two linked Unst traditions. At Burrafirth, and at another place near Norwick, there is a piece of ground called the field of the dead, uncultivated because no one must put a spade in it or misfortune would follow. A woman once broke the taboo and dug part of the death-rig. Soon after her best cow died. She dug again the next year and sowed corn. Then her husband died, and after that she let the rig alone. The belief is that death-rigs are battlefields.
The same book quotes Edmondston and Saxby on Swinaness in Unst, too sacred to put a spade into, because sea-kings fought there. A man who turned a small bit of turf there and sowed corn found the stalks full of blood and the ears dropping salt tears instead of dew.
Spence adds a Blue Mull story from Unst, linked to a legendary battle between Picts and Norsemen, in which land that was cultivated had to be given up because the corn stalks were filled with blood. Spence took the battle to be a Pictish one, which is tradition, not history.
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