HOGMANAY: A SCOTTISH FESTIVAL

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19463, 31 December 1934, Page 6

HOGMANAY: A SCOTTISH FESTIVAL

The start of the New Year has the very desirable use of enabling everybody to enjoy a recurrence of Christmas .jubilation, but for Scottish folk it has a greater significance—New. Year’s Eve is Hogmanay, and there is a crescendo of convivial excitement until the hour of midnight.

In Scotland, Christmas was celebrated in the English manner, except that there was no Boxing Day holiday to folloAV. But to celebrate the New Year, Scotland really lets itself go. It is her own exclusive festival; and no one visiting the north of Great Britain on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day could fail to realise that he was in the midst of national festivity.

By midnight on New Year’s Sve all the central places in the -towns are occupied by hilarious crowds, and as soon as the clocks begin to strike circles .are formed and hands are clasped for the singing of “Auld Lang Syne,” the best-known song in the British Empire. “ Should auld acquaintance be forgot” they sing, and it is the sacred moment when all class distinctions are forgotten and every good Scot looks forward hopefully to a New Year from which everyone will benefit. After this there begins the “ first footing,” when dark-haired people bring luck to their friends by being the first to cross their threshold. Fair-haired people are not mascots on this occasion.

Then there is the ceremony of “ burning out the old year,” which will be observed as usual this evening at Biggar, in the Lanarkshire uplands of Scotland. Bonfires are lit near the Mercat Cross and on the surrounding hills at 9 o’clock in the evening and remain alight until well into New Year’s Day. Care is taken to keep household fires burning through the night, as it is considered unlucky to light one on New Year’s Day. If a household fire goes out during the night, the house-wife rekindles it from the still glowing embers of the public bonfire.