LL-L 'Traditions' 2006.12.17 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L * 17 December 2006 * Volume 02
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L 'Traditions' 2006.12.10 (02) [E]

> From: Obiter Dictum <obiterdictum at mail.ru >
> Subject: LL-L 'Traditions' 2006.12.09 (03) [E]
>
> Ron het geskryf:
> >>Please allow me to add that on List, besides New Year's Eve
> >>and Hogmanay, December 31 is also known as "Sandy the
> >>Fleming Day," since it's your birthday and thus a great
> >>occasion for your fellow listers to celebrate.

I'll be 50  =:|

> From: Clarkedavid8 at AOL.COM
> Subject: Traditions
>
> The cinders of the fire would glow for days, which was great fun as
> they
> could be used to start further fires. Halloween is a US (re-?)import
> into
> England and wasn't celebrated or noticed much when I was a child. Nor
> was New  Year.

Halloween, including guysing, is certainly old in Scotland. I think it
could really only have been exported from Scotland to America, where
they used pumpkins instead of turnips and "trick or treat" instead of
"guysing".

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Traditions
>
> Here's a question for Sandy and our other amis Ã(c)cotophones:
>
> Are there any Christmas songs in Scots, or has Scots been considered
> to "low" for such a thing?  I'm asking because I've never come across
> such a song.

The school records in our village (Ormiston, East Lothian, Scotland)
show that the first time the children got Christmas day off school was
in 1917. It looks like the idea might have been brought back by soldiers
returning from WW1. Which also shows how unusual it must have been for
customs to travel at all before television and films.

Of course, the New Year was celebrated in Scotland long before then.

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/
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