Hogmanay

[Oresai]

:D


Scotland's New Year's Eve Celebrations or Hogmanay

Only one nation in the world can celebrate the New Year or Hogmanay with such revelry and passion – the Scots! But what are the actual origins of Hogmanay, and why should a tall dark stranger be a welcome visitor after midnight?

It is believed that many of the traditional Hogmanay celebrations were originally brought to Scotland by the invading Vikings in the early 8th and 9th centuries. These Norsemen, or men from an even more northerly latitude than Scotland, paid particular attention to the arrival of the Winter Solstice or the shortest day, and fully intended to celebrate its passing with some serious partying



Found here....http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/Scotland-History/Hogmanay.htm

[Oresai]

CELEBRATING ORKNEY STYLE!

The Kirkwall Ba’ is a rough and ready game played through the streets of Orkney twice a year and it is definitely not for the faint hearted!
Christmas and New Year are celebrated the world over in many different ways with lots of varied traditions but nowhere are they celebrated in quite as boisterous fashion as they are in Orkney.

Every Christmas and New Year’s day shopkeepers and householders in Kirkwall board up their windows and doors in preparation for the traditional ba’ game involving several hundred players and crowd.

The ba’ is a kind of street rugby that starts at Mercat Cross in front of the cathedral when the ba’ is thrown up into the crowd at one o’clock and the two teams the Uppies – those born south of the cathedral - and the Doonies – those from the north side of the cathedral – begin their epic battle.

The aim of the game is to get the ball into the "goal" – the Uppies aiming to get the ball up against a wall in the south of the town and the Doonies hoping to put the ball into the harbour at the north.

Tactics are quite simple really with a huge scrum building around the player with the ball in the middle and each side trying to manipulate it towards their goal while the other tries to halt their path.

Sometimes breaks are made from the scrum and the ba’ moves quickly down the winding lanes of Kirkwall before the opposite team regroup and halt its path once more. The ba’ has even been sneaked through houses or across rooftops in a bid to win!

There are no rules in the ba’ and although it tends to be rough and tumble there is an air of courtesy among the players who have to heave and push for hours on end to bring the game to a conclusion, which often doesn’t happen until early evening.

When one team finally manages to reach their goal the ba’ - a cork dust filled leather ball specially hand crafted for each game – is awarded to a player from the winning side and takes pride of place in their home.

The exact origins of the ba’ are unclear but it is thought to have evolved from early Yule celebrations and is the only mass football game left of the many which were once held across Scotland and England.

Its known the ba’ has been played in Orkney since at least the mid 17th century but the style of the game has changed over the years and originally it was kicked and rarely handled whereas in the modern game it is picked up and carried.

The New Year Ba’ was the most important game for many years until in the late 19th century the Christmas Day Ba’ started to gain in popularity and now both are important occasions.

Over the centuries many legends have sprung up around the ba’ with the most popular and well known of these being the story of the evil tyrant Tusker, who had prominent protruding canine teeth.

The evil Tusker was defeated by a young Orcadian man who rowed across the Pentland Firth to track him down and returned to Orkney on horseback with Tusker’s severed head tied to his saddle.

But during the journey the dead Tusker’s protruding teeth punctured the man’s leg and the wound became infected killing him. The legend says before he died the Orcadian managed to stagger into Mercat Cross where he threw the tyrant’s head into a crowd of townsfolk who were so outraged they kicked the head through the streets in anger.

There is also a suggestion that the ba’ may have originated as a fertility rite as it was believed that if the Uppies won they would be rewarded with a bountiful harvest whereas if the Doonies were victorious there would be plentiful catches of fish.

Whatever the true origins of the Kirkwall Ba’ it has become an integral part of the Orcadian calendar and is sure to remain an important occasion for centuries to come.


source....http://www.new-year.co.uk/orkney.html

[Oresai]

An intriguing series of Yule traditions involved some of the islands' many standing stones. Remnants of these still survive, although most have been transplanted to New Year.

The most widespread of these beliefs involved certain standing stones which gained the power to move. These megaliths would usually walk to a nearby loch, where they dipped their heads into the water, or in some accounts, drink.

It was generally thought to be bad luck to see these walking stones, so locals would avoid the areas surrounding the stones until well after sunrise on New Year's Day.



Source (a beautiful site :) )
http://www.orkneyjar.com/tradition/yule/yuless.htm

[Oresai]

Auld Lang Syne...traditionally sung, with linked arms, around the world on midnight of the New Year. :)



"Auld Lang Syne" is a Scottish poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to the tune of a traditional folk song (Roud # 6294). It is well known in many English-speaking countries and is often sung to celebrate the start of the new year at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day.

The song's (Scots) title may be translated into English literally as "old long since", or more idiomatically, "long long ago"[1] or "days gone by". The phrase "Auld Lang Syne" is also used in similar poems by Robert Ayton (1570–1638), Allan Ramsay (1686-1757), and James Watson (1711) as well as older folk songs predating Burns.[2] In his retelling of fairy tales in the Scots language, Matthew Fitt uses the phrase "In the days of auld lang syne" as the equivalent of "Once upon a time." In Scots syne is pronounced like the English word sign.


source...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne