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Customs and Traditions, Myths and Legends
Stirling Thompson:
From heartoscotland.com...
Christmas in Scotland
What is Christmas in Scotland really like? The following article was written by a young Scotswoman willing to share with Americans how the Scots celebrate Christmas.
A Real Scottish Christmas
Dear Americans.
I have entitled this article "A Real Scottish Christmas" and I hope that it gives interested people some insight into how the average Scot spends the festive season. Personally, I'm spending this year snowboarding in France, but for the majority of Scots stuck with it, here's how it goes:
Christmas shopping in Scotland: Apart from the supermarket "Christmas Savings Stamps", which start earlier, this now starts just before Hallowe'en, when the shops start filling up with a variety of gift ideas. The big out of town shopping centres tend to start their decorations earliest, but keen to attract shoppers to town centres, which are losing business to the out of town centres, local councils light up the streets and encourage shops to stay open later in competition. The bigger cities are now attempting a more classy look by putting fairy lights into the trees that are there all year round, while smaller towns tend to get multicoloured light bulbs into a big fir tree in the town centre. These get gradually smashed by young people in the run up to Christmas leaving one or two at the top by December 24th.
The advertising also gets into full swing round about Hallowe'en so that the children have plenty of time to drive their parents mad asking for the latest toys. Also in shopping centres Santa's Grottos appear, where children queue up to go in and ask Santa for what they want at Christmas, and get given a small toy.
Letters to Santa: Children at this time often start to make Christmas lists, which are lists of the presents they want. Some children send this list to 'Santa' in Lapland by one means or another. I was told that you could burn this on the fire and the list would go up the chimney and get to Santa that way. However my parents "living flame" fire was behind glass so that never really worked.
Decorating Houses: The next exciting thing that happens is that people start to decorate their houses. These decorations are getting gradually more outrageous as the years go by with the humble plastic tree and bits of tinsel strung across the ceiling being replaced by light up musical Santas climbing into windows and fake snow being rolled out across roofs. We don't tend to get real snow any more due to global warming (hence going to France). Children can join in the countdown by using advent calendars, which have little doors that you can open for every day in December with a little picture behind, ending on Christmas Eve.
On Christmas Eve: The children are in a frenzy of excitement waiting for their presents. Practice at this point varies; I used to have big presents put under the Christmas tree to find in the morning as well as a stocking for smaller presents at the end of the bed for Santa to come and fill in the night ready for me to find in the morning. Some families used pillow cases instead of stockings, and some don't see the point of stockings at all and just go for the big presents. We eat ordinary food on Christmas Eve.
On Christmas day: Usually families will get together to open their presents and have a big Christmas lunch. Everyone looks hopefully out of the window to see if it will snow, and I remember it did once. Presents are unwrapped carefully so that the wrapping paper can be used again. Often dads and grandpas get socks. Lunch is usually turkey with all the trimmings and one or two glasses of wine or champagne. Pudding is usually a Christmas cake - some people who don't like fruit cake may have a Yule log, which is a chocolate cake from Sweden. Most people have Christmas crackers and eat their dinner wearing a paper crown. Following this the whole family get together in front of the TV and fall asleep in front of either:
1. "The Wizard of Oz" or
2. "The Sound of Music" or
3. "The Queen's Speech" (always at 3pm).
At tea time, our family liked to have a light supper of bread and butter and smoked salmon, and more crackers if there are any left.
Thus ends Christmas and we all wait for a few days until Hogmanay. (Ed. note: Hogmanay is New Year's)
Hogmanay is the time of year when children get to stay up until 12:00 am. It goes like this:
1. Sit up watching 'hoochter choochter' music on the telly and trying not to fall asleep. For many years a comedy show called 'Scotch and Wry' was shown, even for several years after the death of the main character. Now we have pictures of the tourists in the streets of Edinburgh.
2. Just before midnight, go to your neighbour's across the road, where they will be waiting with bowls of mixed nuts and a glass of wine. Some (generally older) people may at this point drink whiskey. Remember to take a lump of stone symbolising a piece of coal for good luck. This is called "First Footing".
3. At "the bells" (on the telly), everyone stands up and stands in a circle with their hands crossed, holding hands with the people on either side of them, and sings 'Auld Lang Syne' while feeling slightly embarrassed.
4. Stay for a bit to make an effort and then go home and climb gratefully into bed.
The younger and more adventurous may go round to more than one person's house and take them all a lump of stone, and will get drunk. If there are a lot of people about in the streets, everyone will wish each other a happy new year and kiss each other on the (usually) cheek. This is what used to happen in Edinburgh but can no longer because the whole town is full of tourists who don't know what to do and the people who live in Edinburgh aren't allowed across town without a ticket.
January the 2nd is also a Scottish holiday. However we have two less public holidays than England throughout the rest of the year to make up for it.
I hope you have enjoyed this little slice of Scottish life, and you have my best wishes for recreating it in America.
Merry Christmas!
Well, there you have it! Sounds like Americans and Scots don't differ too much in our ways of celebrating that most commercial of holidays - but as we say in America: "It's for the children."
Parker Thomson:
--- Quote from: Stirling Thompson on September 16, 2008, 05:37:12 AM ---Jock Tamson's Bairns
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"We're a' Jock Tamson's Bairns" (Lowland Scots for we're all John Thomson's children) is a popular saying in Scotland and the far north of England, and is known in other parts of the world. Nowadays, the phrase is often used to mean "we're all the same under the skin"
--- End quote ---
My Siblings and I went to visit my Grandfather's birthplace in Fenwick. Somewhere along the way, we went to the Pilochry Games. Anyway, I thought I would throw on the Thomson Tartan kilt and walk around. I t did not take me long to figure out that in Scottish Games, the only ones wearing kilts are contestants and old guys. Some old guy came up to me and asked what I was competing in. And I told him I was just there as a spectator. He said " Aye, Amercian?" I told him yes and why we were there, to visit Grandfather Thomson's birthplace. So then he said, "Aye we're all John Thomson's bairn." I have to admit that I said, " Uhhh- what?" I figured it meant something about all Scot's kinship in the context.
Stirling Thompson:
From Folk lore of Lowland Scotland by Evelyn Balantyre Simpson 1908
FAIRIES
"Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a hunting
For fear of little men.
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together,
Green jacket, red cap
And white owl's feather."
Wm. Allingham.
...
Northern fable explains to us how the gay wee folk and gnomes were turned into a useful path, when the world was young. Odin had spied from his high seat wicked dwarfs and sprites in mischief. He sent Hermod, the Flying Wind, to bid them speak with him. The "light elves were surprised at the summons, not quite knowing whether to feel honoured or afraid. However, they put on their prettiest manners and went clustering after Hermod like a swarm of lady birds." They were very inquisitive, but became awed when they saw Odin in the Judgment Hall, and hung back in the doorway, peeping over their comrades' shoulders. They had to be beckoned to, two or three times, and finally shoving one another, and whispering timidly, they reached his footstool. "Then Odin spoke to them in calm, low, serious tones about the wickedness of their mischievous propensities. Some of the very worst of them only laughed in a forward, hardened manner, but a great many looked up surprised and a little pleased at the novelty of serious words, whilst the light elves all wept, for they were tender-hearted little things." Odin named the two dwarfs whom he had seen murdering the wise man, and so pleased were they at their fame they leapt up and danced and boasted of their misdeeds. Then Odin thundered with disapproval at them, condemned the wicked dwarfs to live far underground from henceforth, and throw fuel upon the earth's fire; those who had only been impishly mischievous were to hammer in the gold and diamond mines, and only at night return to breathe the upper air. Chattering with fear and rage they departed, but the light elves stood with their joyous faces bedimmed with tears and begged Odin to forgive them, as they had done no one any harm. Sage Odin asked if they had ever done anybody any good, and they confessed, with innocent candour, that they had never done anything at all. "You may go then," said Odin, "to live amongst the flowers and play with the wild bees and summer insects, but you must find something to do or you will work mischief like the dwarfs from idleness."
The elves explained they were such foolish little people and had no one to guide them, so Frey, the genius of clouds and sunshine, was sent for, and promised to teach the brainless, useless elves to burst the folded buds, to set the blossoms, to pour sweetness into the swelling fruit, to lead the bees through the honey passages of the flowers, to make the single ear a stalk of wheat, to hatch the birds' eggs and teach the young to sing. Delighted were the elves at the course of study that Frey suggested, and away they went with him to Altheim, and so the frivolous elves became our tricksy, pretty fairies, who, like Puck, sing merrily:—
"In the cowslip's bell I lie.
Where the bee lurks there lurk I."
Oberon and Titania and all their mimic train dance lightsomely before us in poetry and romance, for they have been made into familiar spirits for us by pen and brush. These are the inconsequent fairies of northern fable, but those denizens of Elfinland who live in Scotland have been described by the people preserved in folk lore, and also ministers of the gospel have written what they believe to be facts about these fairies. The Rev. Mr. Kirk of Aberfoyle, at the beginning of last century, published a book describing these contrairy sylvan pigmies. He says: "They are a kind of astral spirits between angels and humanity, being like men and women in appearance and similar in many of their habits. They live in subterranean habitations, and in an invisible condition attend very constantly on men. They are very fond of human children and pretty women, both of which they will steal if not protected by some superior influence. When people offend them they shoot flint-tipped arrows, and by this means kill either the persons who have offended them or their cattle. They cause these arrows to strike the most vital part, but the stroke does not visibly break the skin, only a blae mark is the result visible on the body after death. These flint arrow heads are occasionally found, and the possession of one of these will protect the possessor against the power of these astral beings and at the same time enable him or her to cure diseases in cattle and women."
Another divine in 1670, Lucas Jacobsen Debes, in his description written from Thorshaven in the Faroes, complains "of the fairies disturbing his congregation and sometimes carrying off his hearers." The Rev. Lucas must have surely delivered very spiritual discourses when he drew around him those teasing elves, who could lend their aid when they listed as a choir invisible. Perhaps his congregation were not averse to these fairy visits, or did not object to being lifted from out of hearing of the good man's lengthy discourse. We must bear in mind that the people of previous times led less artificial lives than we do. As a modern writer says: "When we were children we did not say at such a distance from the post-office or so far from the butcher's or the grocer's, but measured things from the covered well in the wood, or by the burrow of the fox in the hill. We belonged then to God and His works and to things come down from the ancient days. We would not have been greatly surprised had we met the shining feet of an angel among the white mushrooms upon the mountains—for we knew in those days immense despair, unfathomed love, every eternal mood— but now the draw-net is about our feet."
As we have grown in civilisation we have lost many instincts once granted to mortals. We have undoubtedly acquired knowledge, and thereby power, on many subjects, but our progenitors, along with'untamed races and animals, had faculties of sight, smell, and hearing which education and indoor life has blotted out from our list of attainments. They lived close to nature, who was a kind old nurse to the children who cuddled close to her, and she gifted them with a keener range of vision than we possess. They therefore may, for aught we know, have seen face to face their good neighbours of whom so much has been said and sung....
Thomas Thompson:
Stu
Thanks for that reminder of a time more innocent than ours. I think our children missed the best part of youth by NOT spending time in the woods listening ONLY to the wind and birds.
Stirling Thompson:
Found this interesting...
Scottish Naming Traditions
The following is the traditional method of naming offspring used by those of Scottish descent during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and before.
First son after father's father
Second son after mother's father
Third son after father
Subsequent sons after great-grandfathers, uncles, cousins, neighbours, minister, doctor, schoolmaster, laird etc.
First daughter after mother's mother
Second daughter after father's mother
Third daughter after mother
Subsequent daughters after great-grandparents, aunts, cousins, neighbours, minister's wife, doctor's wife, schoolmaster's wife, laird's wife etc.
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