Australians will be celebrating New Year’s Eve by staying up until midnight and letting off fireworks – or maybe just getting an early night and sleeping through it all. It’s interesting to know that our Scottish cousins will be doing similar things, although there are some special traditional celebrations that might seem a little surprising to us.
In Scotland, New Year’s Eve is known as Hogmanay, from the Scots language, or Oidhche Challain in Gaelic. Many parts of Scotland, particularly the islands to the west and north, continued to use the Julian calendar for a century or more after the Gregorian calendar, the one we use today, became the norm. As a result, Hogmanay or Oidhche Challain celebrations took place on what we would think of as 12 January before settling onto 1 January.
In the early twentieth century, it was seen as a night when young folk – and the young at heart – could let their hair down. Large groups of lads roamed the villages, the biggest of them dressed in an animal skin and the rest in white. In high spirits, they made a lot of noise. As they approached a house, they would circle around it, then demand to be let in. The householder would only let each boy in after he recited a rhyme.
Inside the house, the high jinks continued. The boys would dance around, hitting the lad in animal skins with shinty sticks, or whatever was to hand. He would respond by cleansing the house with smoke and reciting a special poem. The householder would thank the lads with freshly baked bannocks and other food to be taken away and enjoyed later at a midnight feast. Some would give pennies, and the village shop would stay open so the boys could exchange them for more treats.
Girls were not excluded – they would stay up late, enjoy the feast and play games with the boys.
Folklore suggests that if we go back to the nineteenth century and beyond, these customs were carried out by adults, not children. They gave an opportunity for communities to renew their bonds of neighbourliness, and to redistribute a little food and drink from those better off to those less well off.
People in smaller Scottish communities still make a habit of visiting each other on Hogmanay, to share good wishes for the coming year. Drams would be shared, and housewives would proudly produce the baking they had worked on for days in advance – black bun, shortbread, and other celebratory foods. Customarily, visitors would bring a small gift for the woman of the house.
If the first visitor over the threshold after midnight was a dark-haired man, the year ahead was expected to be a lucky one – and if it was a fair-haired woman, the year would be difficult. The gifts became formalised into the giving of coal, whisky, black bun or shortbread, and salt, symbolising an abundance of warmth, food and drink for the coming year. So the relatively modern tradition of first-footing developed.
The founders of white settlement in Glen Innes were mostly Scottish, and perhaps their spirits still influence our district. It may not count if it’s pre-arranged, but if you happen to know a dark-haired man you could try inviting him over to your place at a minute past midnight. And ask him to bring some coal, whisky, shortbread and salt – it can’t do any harm!
