It has become something of a meta-tradition, around these parts anyway, to wax lyrical about and reflect upon traditions associated with this time of year at, well, this time of year. So, like the new year now with us, lets have at it…
…so, it's become familiar for Scotland (and in particular Edinburgh) to proclaim its status as the home of Hogmanay and to show the world ‘how it's done’. ‘No Scotland, no party’, right?
But what if its no party, no Scotland?
The gatherings, the organised and spontaneous ceilidhs (in the wider, truer sense, exclusive of the confected, country dance-based affairs many make a singular association to this reference with) are the party. Yes, that also includes (but is not exclusive to) the world (in)famous street party in Edinburgh.
Let's be honest, like many things in Scotland’s ‘Disney-fied’ capital city (or, 'City of Capital'), it's an organised, confected affair, directed mainly at tourists. Other than the celebration itself, it has very little to do with Hogmanay traditions, practised of yore, in these lands, as the year turns, and everything to do with corporate capture of and extraction of profit from them.
Originally an informal street party, focused on the Old Town High Street’s Tron Kirk, since 1993, when it became officially ‘organised’, that focus has shifted onto the much more open and tourist amenable Princes Street. Of course, it has now become a contemporary tradition, with associated celebrations and fireworks leading the way for new year celebrations emulated in cities all over the world.
But let's stick with the honesty – call it a choice, call it a resolution - start as we mean to go on. They, the contemporary celebrations and traditions, were always intended as a corporate capture of Hogmanay, the brand. Almost inevitably this has distorted the meaning, or at least the cultural lens through which it is viewed, the why and how of Hogmanay celebrations. It has become based less and less in genuine Scottish tradition, with its ancient roots, and more and more in romanticised versions of them as increasing profit seeking and extraction.
As the cultural ‘machinery’, the media and means through which the Edinburgh street party has laid claim to ‘brand Hogmanay’, this year, waited, with baited breath, and ultimately was deprived of its regularly scheduled New Year's content, Edinburgh Council, faced with intensifying weather warnings (and of course the worsening weather itself, as preparations were due to be completed in the hours ahead of sold out outdoors events) made the call to cancel it. Almost inevitably, this translated into shrieking headlines of ‘Hogmanay Cancelled!’. And, of course, ‘disgruntled’ or ‘disappointed’ tourists, fortunes spent and romanticised hopes dashed, provided bulk to the copy which followed.
Let's be clear, some Hogmanay celebrations were cancelled, Hogmanay was not.
As with previous occasions, when poor weather saw the Edinburgh outdoor Hogmanay celebrations cancelled (in 2003 and just an hour before the street party was due to begin in 2006) and indoor events continued, an opportunity to change the media narrative, to redress the perceptual cultural imbalance, to focus on Hogmanay’s traditional practise and the multifarious other traditions associated with it, allowing them to take centre stage, was missed. Alongside it, so too was a chance, to remind the world, through a primed media, of them as the foundational roots of the street party and all other Hogmanay celebrations, also missed.
Hogmanay, despite linguistic debate over older origins and etymology, the word (with three most prominent modern theories deriving it from either a Gaelic/Goidelic, Norse or French root), with its currently predominant spelling (among many other, older and regionally differing variants), in Scots language simply means the ‘last day of the old year’. It has become synonymous with the celebration of the new year in the Scottish manner.
It is also associated with, presaged and followed by, extended celebrations. Some of these occur before Hogmanay, others on the morning of Ne'erday (New Year’s Day), others still, in some cases, on January 2nd (traditionally a bank holiday in Scotland), and others yet again, most associated with the ‘Daft Days’, which extend beyond January 6th.
Customs and traditions vary throughout Scotland but usually include ‘gift giving’ and ‘first- footing’, or visiting friends and neighbours, with a particular focus on the ‘first foot’ to pass over the threshold into the house, the first guest of the new year.
Many of the customs associated with a new year in Scotland are concerned with, derive from, the threshold it represents. As such, many of their origins have migrated from the traditional Celtic new year, of Samhain, whilst also incorporating other significant customs and traditions associated with the winter solstice.
In this sense, like many cultural traditions in Scotland, they can be seen as an amalgam of Celtic, Norse, Gaelic and Highland culture generally, with some course adjustments thrown in, along the way, to adapt and accommodate for changing religious or social mores generally.
Until relatively recent times, Christmas was not widely celebrated as a festival in Scotland. Winter solstice related traditions and customs, much like Norse Yule, later incorporated or evolved into and associated with the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’) were. There is widespread evidence that this more extended period is what the ‘Daft Days’, as interstitial or intercalary days, accomodate.
Gifts given by first footers not only echo wider, cross-cultural traditions of 'luck giving' but also, more specifically, that of ‘Handsel Monday’. This is when presents were given in Scotland, on the first Monday of the new year. Among the rural population, Auld Handsel Monday Was a compound remnant tradition and, like many Samhain/New Year customs, retained relics of its pagan origins.
In line with wider pagan and ancient traditions, as well as with versions of Hogmanay celebrated across the Celtic, Norse, Gaelic, Goidelic and Anglo-Saxon worlds, etymology of the word, handsel, in regional variations, is still debated. There is a general linguistic acceptance of a derivation which can be traced to old Saxon usage, with it meaning ‘to deliver into the hand’.
It refers to ‘hand sized’ presents, tips or gifts of money, given as tokens invoking good luck, particularly at the beginning of something. Modern housewarming gifts derive their origins from the same root.
An 1825 glossary marks ‘Handsel Monday’ as an occasion ‘when it is customary to make children and servants a present’. On this day, small gifts, tips or tokens were expected by servants, as well as by the postman, the deliverers of newspapers or other goods, service workers, ‘beggars, scavengers and all persons who wait upon the household’.
Many of its traditions migrated to Boxing Day, which eventually, amid widespread and changing cultural observations, supplanted it. One which appears not to have, is that in which if the ‘handsel’ was an object rather than money, tradition had it that this must not be sharp, or it would ‘cut’ the relationship between giver and recipient. Others, like the more general custom or superstition of ‘handselling a purse’ (wherein a new purse would not be gifted without placing money in it for luck) passed into wider custom.
Many of these seemingly precautionary traditions, alongside those concerning ‘energic exchange’, which luck-based customs generally are, indicate strong connections between them and Scottish Gaelic cultural traditions, particularly those associated with Hansel Monday. It is known as Dilvain Traioghte, or ‘Drained Monday’ In Scottish Gaelic.
There are also particularly strong associations at this time, much like Chinese New Year, with money as the customary handsel, symbolising both luck and prosperity for the year to come. The customary dates associated with these traditions, extending much later into January than those associated with the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’, derived from them, also reflects contemporaneous reluctance, among the rural population of Scotland, to change from the old Julian to the new Gregorian style calendar.
The conditional nature of time and space, of thresholds and of luck, as well as perception of them, are integral to all Hogmanay, handsel, Yule and most Christmas traditions, many of which are derived from its winter solstice related precursors. As with other traditions worldwide, associated with threshold times or places, there is an element of ‘transgression’ associated with this conditionality.
Many of the ‘odd’ seeming, in a contemporary context, customs associated with the Daft Days (often similar to those now associated with Samhain or Hallowe'en) have their roots in this, as do those migrated from the earlier Celtic and Gaelic traditions of marking the new year at Samhain. Torchlight processions and the fire-based associations, from which modern-day fireworks set off as the new year is ushered in derive their associations, are likewise derived from solstice traditions of keeping a light burning through the darkest days.
Most general and localised customs, associated with Hogmanay, have their derivations in these same roots. One of the most striking examples is the fireball swinging procession which takes place each year in Stonehaven.
Local people make up wire ‘balls’, filled with old newspaper, sticks, rags and other dry flammable materials, up to a diameter of two feet, each attached to around three feet of wire, chain or nonflammable rope. As the Old Town House bell sounds, to mark the new year, these are set alight then marched, in a procession, up the High Street, from the Mercat Cross to the Cannon and back.
The burning balls are swung around heads as it does. At the end of the procession, they are cast into the harbour.
Much like other general and localised fire festivals of this nature (such as the ‘burning of the Clavie’ in Moray), winter solstice and new year fire traditions have a strong purification or blessing-based derivation. This can also be seen in the widespread Scottish rural tradition of ‘saining’ (Scots, v., n., ‘protecting, blessing’).
Whilst there are local and regional variations to this tradition, they have in common that, early on Ne'erday's morning, householders drink and then sprinkle ‘magic water’ from a ‘dead and living ford’ (being a ford over which the dead and living cross) around the house and outbuildings, for livestock. After the sprinkling of the water in every room and space, on beds, bedding and their inhabitants, the house and buildings are sealed up tight and branches of juniper are set on fire and carried throughout.
The juniper smoke is used to thoroughly fumigate the buildings until it causes sneezing and coughing. Then, all doors and windows are thrown open, to let in the fresh air of the new year.
Almost inevitably, restorative alcoholic drinks are then administered and the household sits down to their first meal of the new year. Many of the food related customs, including roast dinners and steak pies, as solstice related, sustaining meals, have their roots in these traditions too.
Whilst the custom of singing (and related dances to) ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is now common in many countries, as Hogmanay passes into Ne’erday, extending out from Scotland, is associated with ‘letting bygones be’ and ‘seeing out the old, ushering in the new’, Burns based his writing of it on traditional, earlier sources, also rooted in those same traditions. Across Scotland, as it is now around the world, versions of the song and its associated dance, as their derivations, mark the passing over the threshold into a new year.
They were sung and danced, practises followed, across Scotland, last night into today, as they are every year, extending ancient traditions into modern life. Scotland's (or, even just Edinburgh's)Hogmanay was not cancelled.
Of course, perhaps there is some (scant?) consolation to be gained for tourists who had come to join in, to celebrate these traditions, some in places where they originate from, many more at the cancelled Edinburgh street party, as today they brave wind and rain, or being soaked and purified (delete as perceived), to be found in other elemental purification rituals associated with Hogmanay and Ne’erday.
The traditional cleansing, heart stopping New Years Day wild swim, is best typified by the aptly named (and wider etymologically associated) ‘Loony Dook’, held annually at South Queensferry. Not for the faint hearted, particularly as the Met Office issues new warnings for the whole of Scotland today, for ice and snow, perhaps it may be a perfect start for those most disappointed by last night’s cancellations.
Having paid for accommodation and indoor events, then embracing the cold which comes alongside almost all traditions associated with this time of year in Scotland (including romanticised notions of winter weather), and take it as a reality check, just as so many customs and practises have been, are. Perhaps before setting off to explore more of Scotland and it is ‘Daft Days’.
Perhaps also even considering, that leaving the sanitised version of it all wrapped up in a cancelled Edinburgh street party bow, ‘sained’, purified, they have given a handsel to their hosts and have engaged in much more ancient traditions than any romanticised notions they may have brought with them on their visit. For most, its likely a vain hope.
Regardless, this blog wishes them aw, you aw, awb’dy a grand 2025. Let it be a guid new year, where we remember the mistakes (or inevitabilities, eventualities) of our quantum determined past, traditions, customs, rituals and symbols, so that, for the next year and every year thereafter, we can make better decisions and choices (not resolutions, the urge towards which derives, has always derived, from them, just better choices and decisions, personally, for your family and friends, your communities, for humanity and the only planet it has to sustain itself upon) in our futures.
Guid nicht and joy tae aw. A h-uile là sona dhuibh 's gun là idir dona dhuib.