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L O W L A N D S - L - 02 January 2007 - Volume 03<br>======================================================================<br><br>From: <span>Sandy Fleming <<a href="mailto:sandy@fleimin.demon.co.uk">sandy@fleimin.demon.co.uk
</a>></span><br>Subject: <span>LL-L 'Tradtions' 2006.12.30 (04) [E]<br><br></span>> From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>> Subject: Traditions<br>> <br>
> Thanks, Jonny. <br>> <br>> In the big cities of the north, kids used to dress up and go from door<br>> to door "begging," which involves serenading. Grown-ups still have<br>> fancy-dress party on New Years Eve. It's much like Halloween and like
<br>> the Scottish Hogmanay guising that Sandy talked about. <br><br>Ron,<br><br>Guising in Scotland is done at Halloween, not Hogmanay. At Halloween<br>children would (at least until the American thing started catching on
<br>here) go from house to house in disguise. At each house they'd be<br>invited in and all would give some entertainment, either individually or<br>in groups. This would be, for example, a song, a poetry recitation or
<br>playing a musical instrument. They would then be rewarded with sweets,<br>fruit or, most usually in my memory, money.<br><br>I suppose another reason for the demise of this custom is that most<br>households have TV for entertainment now, and as with minor-language
<br>programming, anything that gets in the way of Coronation Street or Dr<br>Who will soon be pushed aside. 'Trick or Treat' is perhaps just more<br>suited to modern living as the visits are brief and unintrusive.
<br><br>Indeed there are other things that weren't particularly considered as<br>traditions that I think are now much rarer because of TV and now<br>probably also computers. When I was young, houses with elderly people
<br>used to be targets for constant visiting, so that at evenings and<br>weekends every chair in the house would be filled with people who were<br>there not just to visit their aged relatives, but also because they knew<br>
there would always be lots of other people to talk to. There also seemed<br>to be an unspoken code about use of the doors. The back door was always<br>unlocked and people who were just visiting would just walk in. But if<br>
there came a knock to the front door the head of the house would answer<br>it and everyone would go quiet and listen to find out who the stranger<br>at the front door might be and what their mission was!<br><br>It was also not unusual to hear people serenading each other at the door
<br>as they were leaving. A popular routine was for the departing guests to<br>sing a few of the more suitable verses of "We'r no awa tae bide awa" and<br>the hosts to sing "Haste ye back, we loe ye, dearie" and so on. If you
<br>walked though a town late at night you might every now and again see the<br>light of a doorway and people standing in it singing and talking and you<br>knew their guests were departing.<br><br>loe /lu:/ - love<br><br>
These days the only tradition of the protracted departure I see<br>regularly is amongst the Deaf. These days the tradition of the Deaf Club<br>is declining and Deaf people more often meet in pubs. A familiar sight<br>at closing time is a member of the bar staff going around asking, "Who's
<br>hearing? Is anybody hearing?" so that they can get them to tell<br>everybody it's time to leave. The hearing in the group aren't usually<br>willing to spread the bad news, so nothing happens (the correct solution
<br>is to flash the lights - some bar staff know this!). Everybody finally<br>gets outside, but then there may be some people still standing signing<br>in the street for an hour or two after, which is OK because signing<br>
keeps you warm!<br><br>Sandy Fleming<br><a target="_blank" href="http://scotstext.org/">http://scotstext.org/</a><br>
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