Religion in Scotland

Valerie Galbraith

Religion has played a fundamental role in both the character of the Scots and many of their longstanding traditions. Prior to Christianity Druidism, a form of sun-worship, was the religion of Scotland. Both Hallowe'en and Hogmanay can be traced back to this early religion.

Hallowe'en
Hallowe'en dates back to pre-Christian times, and was an important festival in Scotland and other Celtic countries for centuries. Its pagan roots led to the Kirk attempting its abolition, along with other Druid festivals, in the 17th century. Although older people did give up Hallowe'en, it survived among the young long after its original significance was forgotten.

For children of my generation in Scotland fifty years ago, Hallowe'en was one of the principal events of the year. But its proximity to Guy Fawkes' Day (5th November) created some confusion, so that the later tradition of Guy Fawkes got entangled with the earlier one. A key element of the original Hallowe'en, bonfires, probably made this entanglement inevitable, the Hallowe'en sacrificial bonfire being replaced by the burning of Guy Fawkes' effigy on 5 November.

The two most important traditions we celebrated were "guisin" and "dookin for apples". Guising is the root of North America's "trick or treat". We dressed up - "disguised" ourselves - in outlandish clothes, often our older siblings' or parents' cast-offs, and painted our faces. We made turnip lanterns.

Pumpkins were totally unknown in Scotland, but the faces we cut in our turnips were identical to those in today's pumpkin lanterns.

A group of us, with our turnip lanterns, would go round our neighbours' houses, hoping we would receive a few pennies to help buy fireworks for Guy Fawkes' Day. As often as not we would get sweets or nuts instead. Although some of our parents were agin guising, regarding it as a form of begging, we usually had to do a turn - singing a song or reciting a poem - before we got our penny or sweet. This tradition may originally have been linked to Hogmanay and have moved to Hallowe'en over the centuries.

After the guising we would gather at one of our houses to "dook for apples". The apples would be floated in a tin bath (sometimes a real bath) and you tried to catch an apple with you teeth, arms behind your back. Few could do this without getting wet, which for us was the main attraction. But the roots of this tradition are also very old, linking back to ancient Druidical worship. Apples were the fruit of life, and grew abundantly in Avalon ("Apple Land"), the Celtic paradise. An apple offered a passport to the Celtic other world. Putting the apples in water represented the Celtic ordeal by fire. In the Middle Ages witches were ducked in water: if they sank they were innocent; if the floated they were guilty.

Another common tradition was trying to take a bite of a treacle scone, suspended on a string, again with your hands behind your back. The treacle was usually layered on really thickly, to make sure that there were some very sticky faces.

Hogmanay
Yuletide was another of the Druid festivals, the feasting lasting several days. This now encompasses both Christmas and Hogmanay (New Years Eve). In England, the feast of the Nativity was the principal holiday but in Scotland, Hogmanay and the first week in January - the "hallowed days of yule" - were by far the more important. It may surprise some of you to know that Christmas day was not a public holiday in Scotland until the end of the 1950's. No doubt this was because of the efforts of the Presbyterian clergy after the Reformation to rid the country of Catholic holy days.

Until the middle of the 19th century Hogmanay, as well as Hallowe'en, was when children dressed up and went singing their yuletide rhymes from door to door. The author of "Popular Rhymes of Scotland" published in 1841, describes children, sixty years earlier, dressed in sheets folded to form an ample pocket which was filled with cakes they had collected on their rounds. Housewives prepared special cakes for the children who sang before their houses:

"Get up, good wife, and shake your feathers,
Dinna think that we are beggars;
For we are bairns come out to play,
Get up and gie's our hogmannay."

Another tradition which has died is that of giving gifts on Hansel-Monday, the first Monday of the week after New Year. Not only children and servants were given gifts but animals too. Farmers would lay in each manger extra feed. This is alluded to in Burns' poetry, when patting his horse he says:

"A gude New Year I wish thee Maggie,
Hae, there's a nip to thy auld baggie."

Other New Year traditions, however hold firm. Houses are made ready for parties and work stops. Dark men were always popular at the dawn of the New Year. To this day in Scotland it is considered unlucky for the first person to cross the threshold (the "first foot") to be anything other than dark-haired. A red or fair-haired man - and certainly a woman - would not bring prosperity to the household.

It was a Druid practice to keep watch on the night when the old year died. Now people gather in Market Squares to hear the town clock or church bells ring out the old and ring in the new. After this people go off to "first foot". With bottle in pocket (whisky of course) they go from house to house to wish each other "Happy New Year". The bottle from the pocket is put on the host's table for everyone to help themselves and on leaving it is put back in the pocket ready for the next table.

Sunday in Scotland
The characteristic of Scots which made the biggest impression on John Macky, travelling in Scotland in 1723, was "their religious soberness and decorous observance of the Sabbath." He noted that "there is nothing of the gaiety of the English, but a sedate gravity on every face, without the stiffness of the Spaniards; and I take this to be owing to their praying and frequent long graces which gives their looks a religious cast." He believed no other nation observed the Sabbath as strictly as the Scots. Everyone prayed in their family before going to church and between sermons they fasted and read the bible. After supper (a good meal on Sunday) they sang psalms. He expected on Sunday as in England roast beef and pudding for dinner but was offered instead, either bread, butter and an egg, or to fast until after the evening sermon when they would have a hot supper. This is a tradition which lasted until very recently. Whereas in England roast beef and Yorkshire pudding is still the traditional Sunday lunch, the good Scots housewife would spend her Sunday morning in church not in the kitchen.

In the middle of the 19th century, Dean Ramsay records experiences of travelers on the Sabbath. A geologist was breaking some specimen minerals with a pocket hammer when he was approached by an old man on his way to church who said quietly, "Sir, ye're breaking something there forbye the stanes!" An English artist asked a local man the name of a picturesque castle he was passing. The reply was "It's no the day to be speerin' sic things!"

Not only work for gain, but any form of pleasure on a Sunday was considered a sin. Such crimes as whistling in the street, walking in the fields, making candles or a barber shaving customers were punished by a seat in kirk on the "cutty stool", while a sermon was preached to the sinner in front of the congregation. The more serious crimes of fornication or drinking after ten on the Sabbath would give rise to hour long sermons, but had the advantage of being a good source of gossip. Quite a common offence was the playing of the bagpipes on Sunday. At Ashkirk in 1588 James Moffat was charged with "pyping at bridals" and was ordained to stand at the kirk door with a pair of sheets about him, barelegged and barefoot, and after everyone was in then go to the place of repentance and this to continue "Sabbathlie induring their wills".

In other countries holy days would be a time of feasting and celebration but not in Scotland. As a friend of ours said recently to a party of young Italians, perhaps only partly in jest: " We're Presbyterian; we're no allowed to enjoy ourselves."

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