Hogmanay and First Footing.
After the Bells at Hogmanay in ordinary times many Scots would then grab a few things together, in my days it would be your New Year bottle and maybe some shortbread, you would then go First Footing.
The term literally means the “first foot to step into a house after midnight is still common in Scotland. This is still full of tradition and even superstition. In order to ensure good luck for the house, the first foot over the door should be male, dark; traditionally they should take symbolic gifts such as a lump of coal, shortbread, salt, black bun and whisky. Blonds & redheads, and especially females with this hair colouring first-footers were considered bad luck.
The gifts meant the household would be safe and warm and have enough food for the year. These days, however, whisky and perhaps shortbread and the famous black bun are the most common gifts first-footers take. Of course most hosts would have plenty of food and drink in to offer to their guests.
When I was a youngster, we used to go first footing around the parents of my friends, often not get home until the wee small hours. I remember feeling more like an adult, aged about 16 and being welcomed in, special memories spending time with the likes of my mums best friend Nicky Bruce, who would more often than not be at her mother’s house, Phemie. One of the other houses was that of Grace Fortune, who always had the best home made soup to warm us up before we traipsed to the next house, usually my Uncle Findlay and Auntie Margaret just down the street, I can still remember the route we used to take and all the houses we visited.
For others the party went on until the next day, or even the day after that, one of the best parties was always a couple in Park Avenue, where we lived, it was always one of the last of the New Year ones, Ann Tytler and John Hyslop had the best music, and was within easy falling home distance at the end of the night.
In the years that followed when I lived in Edinburgh First Footing wasn’t as prevalent as in the towns and villages, people in Edinburgh used to gather at the Tron Kirk for "the bells” but The City usually now lay on a street extravaganza on Princes Street with concerts from top artists and a firework display from the Castle. I am not a great fan of massive crowds so I missed the more personal days at Loanhead, people singing the auld songs and reciting a few verses of Rabbie Burns, happier days indeed.
I’ve looked out a few old Hogmanay rhymes from the auld times………..
‘Get up, goodwife, and shake your feathers,
And dinna think that we are beggars;
For we are bairns come out to play
Get up and gie‘s our hogmanay!’
“A guid New Year to ane an` a` and mony may ye see!”
“Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.”
“Open the door for the auld year
/ It is the pairtin-time:
/ Open the door for the new year “
We’ve three bonnie bottles, but the third ane’i toom,
Gin the road ran whisky, it’s mysel’ wad soom ! *
But we’ll stan’ while we can, an’ be dancin’ while we may,
For there’s twa we hae to finish, an’ it’s Hogmanay.
“My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,
My den is all a cosy glow;
And snug before the fire I sit,
And wait to feel the old year go”
“Wi’ muckle glee, but little din,
At doors the lassies sentries keep,
Nae auld, camshauchled warlock loon,
Nor black, wanchancie carlin
Sall cross ae threshold o’ the toun
Till ilk lass gets her darlin’ person
A Guid New Year I wish thee, Maggie!
Hae, there’s a ripp to thy auld baggie
Tho’ thou’s how-backit now, an knaggie,
Thou could hae gaen like any staggie
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
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