'It is ordinary among some Plebians in the South of Scotland, to go about from door to door upon New Year's Eve, crying Hagmane," noted the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence in 1693.
In earlier centuries they might have cried Hogunnus if they were Celts or used the Scandinavian word Hoggo-nott, or even the Flemish hoog min dag. Whatever its derivation, it eventually became the great whisky-soaked celebration we now know as Hogmanay.
Meanwhile, the old custom of first footing appears to have been replaced by the street party or Jools' Annual Hootenanny on TV. In rural areas it was killed off by the breathalyser, although it was certainly going on in Angus when I was young. I have a distinct memory of being aged about seven or eight, lying in the back seat of the car as we lurched down icy roads long after midnight. My mum would tell me every 10 minutes to go back to sleep as my father kept driving slowly into the blizzard. At some point he stopped, got out and stood swaying in front of the headlights. I watched as he wrestled to hoist his kilt and have a pee.
Suddenly he disappeared from view and tumbled into a ditch. He re-emerged covered in snow, dusted himself off, got back behind the wheel and we drove home. This is not to condone drink driving, which society has rightly condemned as being beyond the pale, but just to show how times have changed. Still, it was fairly extraordinary behaviour for the local MP.
The whisky writer and occasional film star Charlie MacLean remembers traditional Hogmanays on Arran as a child: "Although people would sometimes go to the pub before the bells, there was a superstition to see in the New Year in your own house. Then, after midnight, you went first footing, starting with the older people. Everyone carried a bottle of whisky and wherever you went you would be given a dram and then you'd offer one in return. Later on people would gather at a farm that was legendary for hosting spontaneous ceilidhs and would stay there until five in the morning."
Of course, the first foot through the door is supposed to be that of a tall, dark stranger bearing gifts – a lump of coal, a black bun and a bottle of Scotch. Dark-haired because that signifies good luck, as opposed to a blond, axe-wielding Viking which is not such a good omen. Celebrating the winter solstice in the Nordic tradition is said to have come to Scotland in the seventh or eighth century. Interestingly, the Greeks have a version of first footing, pothariko, which clearly didn't come from the Vikings.
That Hogmanay has always been a big deal in Scotland has a lot to do with the Presbyterians who effectively abolished Christmas as a papist festival from the Reformation until well into the 20th century. That is nearly 400 years of just one big bash at the end of the year. One imagines that Scotch whisky has been fuelling the party from the start.
Our national spirit was originally produced on farms after the harvest whenever there was grain to spare. It was thus a seasonal product as the recent, excellent BBC series Addicted To Pleasure made clear. In it, the narrator Brian Cox talks of a "drinking season" after the year's graft, which must have seen its peak around New Year. After days or weeks of festivities, the whisky either ran out or was rationed so it would last until the following harvest. At Hogmanay it flowed freely as the most convivial of spirits. As Cox put it: "There is something fundamentally honest about whisky, the drink that rhymes with hospitality."
Hogmanay has since become big business – worth an estimated £30 million to Edinburgh alone, yet for all its commercialisation, the Scots still do it better than anyone else. Here it is the real McCoy. Elsewhere it is a pale and somewhat contrived facsimile with people going through the motions singing Auld Lang Syne. Think of the Queen holding hands with Tony Blair in the Millennium Dome in 2000. No wonder she looked miserable. She just wanted to be with her family at Balmoral. Whether you will be tucked up in bed or out carousing, here's wishing you a very happy New Year.
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