Licking thumbs on a bargain

11 March · Scotland

No longer kept

In Scotland a sale was sealed by the two parties licking their thumbs and pressing them together. Old Scottish court decrees upheld bargains on the proof that the parties had licked thumbs on them. Among the Scots-descended people of Ulster, two people who agreed on something would still say they might lick thumbs on it.

We may lick thooms upo' that.

From Chambers's Book of Days, vol. 1, p. 359. Read the original

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