Welcome to 2024! As you may know, New Year’s Day is my second favorite holiday (after Hallowe’en, naturally). And what better way to ring in the new year, in our season of All Things Scottish, than with some Scottish New Year’s traditions!
Although Myrtle’s Scottish adventure takes place in the spring, one can easily imagine the Hardcastle crew visiting the auld hame for the holidays!
New Year’s has a special place in the Scottish calendar, full of unique festivities born in Scotland and observed worldwide. Celebrations begin during the Daft Days, the week between Christmas and New Year’s (or, for some, stretched out for the whole twelve days of Christmas). The term comes from 18th century poet Robert Fergusson, who captured the spirit of this week in his poem “The Daft Days.”
Now mirk December’s dowie face
Glowrs owr the rigs wi sour grimace,
While, thro’ his minimum of space,
The bleer-ey’d sun,
Wi blinkin light and stealing pace,
His race doth run.…For nought can cheer the heart sae weel
As can a canty Highland reel;
It even vivifies the heel
To skip and dance:
Lifeless is he wha canna feel
Its influence.
Fergusson’s Scots verse perfectly contrasts the dreich, dreary weather without, against the merry spirits within—and the Daft Days are still warmed with music, dancing, song, and festive gatherings to chase off winter’s chill.
In the 1897 Punch Almanack, Mr. Punch observes a Scottish custom: “The first foot in a house brings good or ill luck for the year.” Judging from his hosts’ reactions, 1897 will be a good ‘un! (Personally, I’m rooting for the wee bulldog.)
As the Daft Days wind down, Scots gear up for Hogmanay, the celebration of New Year’s Eve. A Scots word of uncertain heritage, Hogmanay (pronounced, roughly, HUG-ma-nay) might come from ancient Greek (“holy month”), French (“the new year”), or Gaelic, or Norse, or… Whatever etymological theory you subscribe to, the holiday itself is all Scottish! Age-old traditions have been recorded at least since the 16th century and hold firm to this day.
The Glasgow Looking Glass, c 1825, depicted upper-crust Scots rather enthusiastically ringing in the new.
Many Hogmanay traditions embrace Scotland’s ancient heritage, including fire festivals and mummers’ processions. Communities big and small across Scotland put on local Hogmanay celebrations—just like watching the ball drop here in the States. Music, dancing, feasting, and toasts bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new.
Edinburgh’s Tron Kirk (church) was the informal home of Hogmanay celebrations for centuries. This 19th century image shows revelers carrying fireballs and torches—still a feature of the big night.
At the stroke of midnight, a tradition we all know ensues: the singing of Robert Burns’s famed “Auld Lang Syne.”
Burns’s sentimental poem about old times was based on old Scots folk songs, and has been associated with its familiar tune almost since its inception. But its international fame as a New Year’s Eve song is a 20th century arrival, thanks to Scots-Canadian bandleader Guy Lombardo, who often featured the song as a nostalgic nod to the Old Country and its traditions. Beginning in 1929, Lombardo’s Royal Canadians performed one of the earliest nationally-broadcast New Year’s Eve radio shows in North America. One year “Auld Lang Syne” happened to fall at the stroke of midnight—and a worldwide tradition was born! People all over the globe began singing about drinking a cup of kindness when the year turns over… and the song soon made its way back home for Hogmanay.
Some fifteen years before its appearance in Punch, this 1882 depiction of First Footing from Illustrated London News demonstrates how far across Victorian Britain Scotland’s New Year’s customs had spread.
Amid the revelries, one of the most auspicious observances is First Footing: the first guest to visit “after the bells” will portend whether the new year will bring good luck or bad. Tradition holds that a dark-haired stranger is the luckiest, and a blond forfends ill fate! (ecb shoves husband C.J. away from the door…) The First Footer must bring gifts: whisky, salt, coal or peat, and bread or black bun (fruitcake wrapped in pastry), to symbolize good cheer, flavor, warmth, and prosperity.
Black Bun (BBC) Click here for a recipe and more!
Now, these gifts are only the traditional suggestions, of course. Any house would surely feel lucky indeed to have their guests appear bearing, say, a gift of books instead! (For all those New Year’s Resolutions to read more!) A lovely volume of Burns’s poetry, your favorite Victorian mysteries, some Sir Walter Scott to while away the chill winter evenings…
Here in the U.S. we’re all heading back to work on Tuesday, but in Scotland the festivities continue through 2 January—so we shall not hold it against you if you want to celebrate a wee bit mair.
However you ring in 2024, we in the Myrtleverse are wishing thee and thine the happiest and luckiest of new years!
