RHYMES CONNECTED WITH NEW-YEAR OBSERVANCES. THE last day of the old year, and the first of the new, are generally observed throughout Scotland with much festivity. Till a recent period, this festivity approached to license, and, from the frantic merriment which reigned in most minds, the time was called the Daft (that is, Mad) Days. Now, these follies are much corrected. The only other day about this period which was held in any respect was Handsel Monday that is, the first Monday of the year-on which day people made presents (handsels) to their friends, particularly to those of tender age. Handsel Monday was also a favourite day for family meetings; and in some rural districts it is still such; but in these cases the day according to old style is usually preferred. Christmas and Twelfth Night, days so much observed in England, attract no regard in Scotland: the latter may be said to be not only unrecognised, but unknown. This is no doubt owing to the persevering efforts made by the Presbyterian clergy, for a century after the Reformation, to extinguish all observance of Christmas. In the Highlands alone, and amongst Episcopalian families in large towns, is the festival of the Nativity held in any regard. In the Lowlands, there exists amongst the people only a shadowy traditionary idea of its character as a holiday and day of feasting. The boys have a rhyme— On Christmas night I turned the spit, I burnt my fingers-I find it yet. And in Fife there is another stanza alluding to its festive character Yule's come, and Yule's gane, And we ha'e feasted weel; Scotland has also in its time partaken of the old religious rites with which Christmas used to be celebrated at the peasant's fireside. The boys are still well acquainted with the rhyme alluded to in Ellis's edition of Brand's Popular An tiquities, as having been descriptive of, or allusive to, a certain domestic ceremony Yule, Yule, Yule, Three puddings in a pule ! Crack nuts and cry Yule ! These are faint memorials of the Scottish Christmas or Yule, but they tend to illustrate the remark of Coleridge as to the difficulty of altogether erasing the marks of that which once hath been.' They show that even a high religious principle may fail to extinguish the humblest and homeliest custom, if it once be a custom, and have any recommendation from the universal taste for amusement. Old ballads allude to the hallow (or holy) days of Yule 'When the hallow days o' Yule were come, And the nichts were lang and mirk, Then in and came her ain twa sons, And their hats made o' the birk.' -The Clerk's Twa Sons of Owsenford. It is here to be observed that Christmas was only known in Scotland by the term Yule, a word also retained in some parts of England. The Court of Session had its 'Yule vacance;' people spoke of keeping good clothes for 'Pace and Yule;' and there was a notable proverb, to the effect that a Green Yule makes a fat kirkyard;' which, by the way, modern statisticians ascertain to be not true, the fact being, that a hard winter is always the most fatal to human life.* Yule, or Iol, was in reality the great annual festival of the ancient Scandinavians--a time of unlimited feasting, drinking, and dancing; and upon it the early Christian missionaries ingrafted the festival of the Nativity, in order to give as little disturbance as possible to the customs of the people. Thus, in celebrating this festival, the name of the old one was naturally retained. An intelligent anonymous writer informs us that in Forfarshire a tenacious clinging to Christmas observances was observable so late as the latter half of the eighteenth century. 'On Christmas-Eve, better known by the name of Yule-Een, the goodwife was busily employed in baking her Yule bread; and if a bannock fell asunder, after being put to the fire, it was an omen that she would never see *See Quetelet, Sur L'Homme. another Yule. . . . From the cottar to the laird, every one had fat brose [oatmeal in a menstruum of skimmings] on Yule-Day morning, after which all were at liberty to go where they pleased. The day was a kind of saturnalia, on which the most rigorous master relinquished his claim to the service of his domestics. The females visited their friends, and the young men generally met at some rendezvous, to try their skill as marksmen at a wadd-shooting— that is, firing with ball at a mark for small prizes of blacksmith or joiner work. These were paid for by the contributions of the candidates (each laying down his twopence or threepence), and carried off by him who hit nearest the mark. . . . When darkness prevented the continuance of shooting, a raffle in the alehouse generally followed, while cards and hard drinking closed the scene.'-Correspondent of Literary and Statistical Magazine, 1819. While thus endeared to the people, the clergy were indefatigable in their efforts to put down all Christmas observances whatever. The writer just quoted tells us a pertinent anecdote relative to a certain Mr Goodsir, minister of Monikie, in Forfarshire, who made it a rule to go over as much of his parish as possible on that day, ‘that he might detect his parishioners in any superstitious observances. Upon a visitation of this kind, he entered the village of Guildy, and inspected every house, to see whether the people were at their ordinary employments, or if they were cooking a better dinner than usual. One old wife, whose pot was playing brown over the fire, saw him coming through her kail-yard. She had just time to lift off the pot, but in her agitation could find no better place to hide it than below her bed-cover. This accomplished, she had got seated at her spinning-wheel by the time that his reverence entered, who paid her some compliments upon her conduct, contrasting it with that of some of her neighbours, who showed less disposition to comply with the austerity of his injunctions. Maggy, in her solicitude to escape detection, overshot her own mark, for she echoed her minister's remarks so zealously, that he felt a pleasure in prolonging his stay; but unfortunately for both, during the bitter censure of those who offered unrighteous sacrifice, or still "longed for the flesh pots of Egypt," Maggy's pot set fire to the bedclothes, and the smoke came curling over the minister's shoulders. Maggy started up, flew to the bed, and in her hurry to remove the clothes, overset the tell-tale pot, splashing Mr Goodsir's legs with the hot and fat broth, &c. The consequence may easily be conjectured. Maggy's conduct was reported to the elder of the quarter; she became the laughing-stock of her neighbours; and had further to do public penance before the congregation for the complicated crimes of heresy and hypocrisy.' But we hasten from Christmas to Hogmanay-from the shadow to the substance. Hogmanay is the universal popular name in Scotland for the last day of the year. It is a day of high festival among young and old-but particularly the young, who do not regard any of the rest of the Daft Days with half so much interest. It is still customary, in retired and primitive towns, for the children of the poorer class of people to get themselves on that morning swaddled in a great sheet, doubled up in front, so as to form a vast pocket, and then to go along the streets in little bands, calling at the doors of the wealthier classes for an expected dole of oaten bread. Each child gets one quadrant section of oat-cake (sometimes, in the case of particular favourites, improved by an addition of cheese), and this is called their hogmanay. In expectation of the large demands thus made upon them, the housewives busy themselves for several days beforehand in preparing a suitable quantity of cakes. A particular individual, in my own knowledge, has frequently resolved two bolls of meal into hogmanay cakes. The children, on coming to the door, cry 'Hogmanay!' which is in itself a sufficient announcement of their demands; but there are other exclamations, which either are or might be used for the same purpose. One of these is Hogmanay, Give us of your white bread, and none of your gray! What is precisely meant by the mysterious word hogmanay, or by the still more inexplicable trollolay, has been a subject fertile in dispute to Scottish antiquaries, as the reader will find by an inspection of the Archæologia Scottica. A suggestion of the late Professor Robison of Edinburgh seems the best, that the word hogmanay was derived from 'Au gui menez' ('To the mistletoe go’), which mummers formerly cried in France at Christmas. At the same time, it was customary for these persons to rush unceremoniously into houses, playing antic tricks, and bullying the inmates for money and choice victuals, crying, 'Tire-lire (referring to a small money-box they carried), maint du blanc, et point du bas.' These various cries, it must be owned, are as like as possible to Hogmanay, Give us of your white bread, and none of your gray! Of the many other cries appropriate to the morning of Hogmanay, some of the less puerile may be chronicled— Get up, goodwife, and shake your feathers, And dinna think that we are beggars; The following is of a moralising character, though a good deal of a truism : Get up, goodwife, and binna sweir, And deal your bread to them that's here; One is in a very peevish strain; but, as saith the sage, 'Blessed is he that expects little, for he will not be disappointed' My shoon are made of hoary hide, The most favourite of all, however, is much smarter, more laconic, and more to the point, than any of the foregoing— My feet's cauld, my shoon's thin; Gie's my cakes, and let me rin! It is no unpleasing scene, during the forenoon, to see the children going laden home, each with his large apron bellying out before him, stuffed full of cakes, and perhaps scarcely able to waddle under the load. Such a mass of oaten alms is no inconsiderable addition to the comfort of the poor man's household, and tends to make the season still more worthy of its jocund title. |