Although coal waste blackened its beaches and silted up its now non-existent harbour, it later became a Fife coast holiday resort and recreation area for locals.

[6] The first element is probably related to the Sc verb buck, bukk, ‘to pour forth, gush out’ (DSL), perhaps describing the coastal waters at Buckhaven, which is situated at a point where the Fife coastline swings a little further out into the North Sea.

The second element is certainly Sc haven ‘harbour’, and the ‘fishers of Buckhaven’ are mentioned in the earliest known record from 1527 (Fraser, Wemyss ii no.

By degrees they acquired our language and adopted our dress, and for these threescore years past have had the character of a sober and sensible, an industrious and honest people.

There is no doubt that the people of Buckhaven were regarded as different in speech and manners from surrounding communities, and it is probably in this context that such stories grew up (Millar 1895 ii, 50).

One Paul Buk, a Dane, is recommended by the Synod to the Presbytery of Kirkcaldy in 1652 (Stevenson 1900, 384); such local encounters might have confirmed folk in their belief that Buckhaven was foreign.