A new year, and best wishes to all!

Before the month of January leaves us entirely (Burns Night is here already, and that's for the next chapter), I need to catch up on a couple of the various ways the New Year is celebrated in north-east Scotland!

When I returned to Aberdeen from my Christmas holidays in the States on January 5, several of my classmates had been to a fire festival on New Year's Eve in the town of Stonehaven, not far south of Aberdeen. It's an annual festival with ancient origins.

Fire festivals mark the beginning of a new year in a dramatic way, with delegated townsfolk carrying flaming torches, baskets, and barrels through their village as everyone else lines the streets and cheers them on. The fire festivals may be associated with pre-Christian rituals where fire is used to ward off evil spirits and to purify the village for the coming year. Stonehaven's Fireballs, Burghead's Burning of the Clavie, and the Shetland Isles' Up Helly Aa festivals are all part of this kind of tradition.

I couldn't be in Stonehaven this year, as I was celebrating the turning of the New Year with music and dance at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. But while I was playing music there, my classmates sent me the video clip (above) from Stonehaven. It's short, but it conveys the excitement! Just before midnight on New Year's Eve, led by a bagpiper and accompanied by drummers, about 45 townspeople march to the harbor as they whirl flaming baskets around their heads on long wire handles. When everyone reaches the harbor, they throw their flaming fireballs into the sea. When the last of the fireballs has been tossed and extinguished, a huge fireworks display celebrates the beginning of a new year.

Putting the finishing touches on the Clavie

But New Year's doesn't end on January 1 in Burghead, about 3 hours' drive northwest of Stonehaven. On January 11, 2019, our class and teachers rented a minivan and drove from Aberdeen to Burghead, Moray for the old Julian calendar New Year. There, another fire festival celebrates the turning of the year: the Burning of the Clavie (pronounced CLAY-vee). The Clavie is a giant torch comprised of a half-barrel, nailed to the top of a stout white wood pole with supports to keep it steady. Only traditional hand tools (like a very large round stone instead of a hammer!) are used to make the Clavie and to hammer the huge nail through it into the pole.

A modern hammer, showing the scale 
of  the actual hammer used

Pieces of firewood (staves) are loaded into the half-barrel, and the Clavie is carried to a spot near the Clavie King's house in the town of Burghead. Around 5:30 pm, people begin gathering there, and wait while the Clavie King and his assistants ignite the staves. An air of quiet excitement surrounds us. A few volunteer (?) police wardens keep a path clear for the men who carry the burning Clavie, which is supported on the top of the head of each man who takes a turn carrying it. The whole Clavie, filled with fuel and staves, and set aflame, weighs about 225 pounds, more or less. They use a secret recipe for the fuel, which is a highly flammable mixture!

At 6:00 pm, with its staves burning brightly and snapping sparks into the chilly night air, the Clavie is hoisted onto the head of the first Clavie man to carry it for a short distance through the town. The procession will stop many times to lower the Clavie, add more fuel to it, and transfer it to another man to carry it a bit further. They stop at houses and businesses along the way, sharing the flaming staves with townsfolk to light their own hearth fires from the Clavie. The final destination, about 45 minutes later, is the site of an ancient Pictish fort at Doorie Hill, overlooking the sea, and the Clavie is safely secured where everyone below can see it as it burns like a signal fire.  Here are a couple of video snippets you might enjoy:

  

Everyone seems to be turning out for this night's celebration, which will last only about two hours. Families, small children, dogs, a few visitors from outside Burghead (like us!), all follow the Clavie to the rampart of the fortress and watch as it burns. It's a festive and social occasion; the children are just as excited as the adults, and I didn't hear anyone wailing to go home.

Every few moments, a few brave Clavie team men climb up on the wall where the Clavie is secured and throw more fuel onto it. The renewed fire hisses, snaps, and towers into the night sky. They take a few good whacks at it now and then to dislodge some flaming staves. As the staves fall to the ground, people scramble to get their own piece of the Clavie, which is good luck for the next year. Finally, the Clavie itself burns out and collapses onto the wet ground, and everyone can get a bit of the Clavie. (Yes, I got a piece, too!)

The rest of the evening is spent visiting several pubs in the town, having some of the local brews, or trying some of the excellent local whisky choices. The Glen Moray distillery is not very far away (in Elgin), and that's only one of many in the area.

We made it back to the University by about 1:30 am, having had a lovely time celebrating the beginning of the new year:

You might (or might not) recognize some of these same folks as members of a Galoshins mummers play that we inflicted upon some undergraduates just putting their toes into a a bit of folklore... Here, we are trying out different disguises for the play. I can honestly say that we rehearsed this, although our audiences probably wouldn't have known. But we had a great deal of fun, and it flowed a lot better by the third time we performed it.


 
  

 

                                         

 

Note the piece of wood hanging over the door?
That's our very own piece of the Clavie, put
 there by our Institute Director, Dr Tom McLean (also cleverly disguised in the picture to the right, where he looks a bit unsure of the sanity of his MLitt students). 

Happy New Year to all, and more news to come soon! (I need to divide these topics up into shorter, manageable chunks.) Next time, more entertainments, and a bit more travel!

Cheers, and thanks!
Mara