Two great books on Scottish customs

[kilted2000]

Recently I’ve been doing some rereading and I wanted to recommend two books that’s might be of interest for people here. One is Highland Folkways by I.F. Grant. It was published in the early 60s by the founder of the Highland Folk Museum and contains all sorts of information about people’s day to day life, what houses were like, food, the seasons, tools, clothes including kilts.


The other is Scottish Customs by folklorist Margaret Bennett. It has first hand accounts of birth, marriage, and funeral traditions from Martin Martin in the 17th century to transcriptions from a few years ago. It covers all of Scotland.


There is so much questionable ‘history’ out there so it’s nice to hear from more reliable sources of what people did and believed in. They’ve also given me the chance to test my Gaelic and Scots knowledge.

[BobF]

Recently I’ve been doing some rereading and I wanted to recommend two books that’s might be of interest for people here. One is Highland Folkways by I.F. Grant. It was published in the early 60s by the founder of the Highland Folk Museum and contains all sorts of information about people’s day to day life, what houses were like, food, the seasons, tools, clothes including kilts.


The other is Scottish Customs by folklorist Margaret Bennett. It has first hand accounts of birth, marriage, and funeral traditions from Martin Martin in the 17th century to transcriptions from a few years ago. It covers all of Scotland.


There is so much questionable ‘history’ out there so it’s nice to hear from more reliable sources of what people did and believed in. They’ve also given me the chance to test my Gaelic and Scots knowledge.

I have Margaret Bennett’s book, and while it wasn’t what I’d hoped it would be* it’s an excellent read. I’m maybe halfway through it.

*What I was hoping to find were clues to customs and mannerisms that might have filtered down from my Ayrshire-born great-grandparents to me without being aware of their source. Some were obvious, like the nursery rhyme that was always used to amuse infants (“Roon aboot, roon aboot, catch a wee moosie” (while drawing circles in the child’s palm), “up again, up again, in its wee hoosie!” (Walking your fingers up the child’s arm and tickling under the armpit)). My niece still does this to this day with her children. Another thing that I only recently realized might have origins back in Scotland was my grandmother’s practice of making a money cake for any of the grandchildren’s birthdays. I understand there was a custom of putting a coin into a cake or a clootie dumpling for a certain holiday. My grandmother expanded that a bit by putting enough coins in that everyone would get one. There were several pennies, fewer nickels, even fewer dimes, and a solitary quarter, each wrapped in a bit of waxed paper and inserted into the cake before it was frosted. Those are the sort of customs I was looking for, hoping to identify more things we still do that my great-grandmother brought over with her and possibly go back quite a few more generations.

[Pleater]

The nursery rhyme is associated with a pretty common tickling amusement - in the north of England it is 'round and round the garden'.

It was usual to offer a child a coin, usually the highest denomination one in use at the time, at the first meeting - a very young baby will grip it if it is placed in their palm - it was supposed to somehow confer good sense with money in later life.

Although I was born in 1951 I was gifted several gold sovereigns which my mother kept in her jewellery box - it had a supposedly secret compartment in the lid, but we went to live with my father's parents and grandad was a bit of a chancer - the gold sovereigns evaporated, but they seem to have had the desired effect.

The usual coin placed in the Christmas pudding was a silver three penny piece (as opposed to the bronze coloured threpny bit) and they were seen in change given after Christmas after being spent by the lucky one. They were supposed to be saved up but I suspect that was something more honoured in the breach than in the observance. It was usually contrived for the youngest person to find the coin when at the family table, but at more formal dinners it was left to chance and a warning was given before the guests were served. In some households there was not just a coin but small silver charms suitable for bracelets or watch chains - though a young man could get into all sorts of difficulties if he found a charm and offered it to a young lady who then interpreted it as more than intended.
Actually I have a minute silver abacus which was a pudding surprise.

At new year 'first footing' was common all over Britain I believe, but particularly in Scotland and the north. The 'lucky bird' should be a young man with dark hair and should bring in bread and coal, putting the bread on the table and a lump of coal on the fire - hopefully using tongs for the coal, after knocking on the door soon after midnight and calling out 'old year is out the new year is in, please will you let your lucky bird in' - bird being old English for a youth of either sex. Younger first footers might get a coin and some Christmas cake, older ones might get a dram or drink, of mulled wine or ale and if not in a hurry to be away some cake and cheese. In Yorkshire it is still normal to offer cheese with Christmas cake.

My father's mothers family ended up in Yorkshire after being cleared off land in Scotland and my dad's cousins married into families with similar stories, so there were a fair few Mc surnames and a fair number of first names on the school registers of the area.

Anne the Pleater.