SHORE OR MAUNDY-THURSDAY.
This was the Thursday before Easter, and was known in the Hebrides as “La Brochain Mhòir,” the Day of the Big Porridge. It was now getting late in the spring, and if the winter had failed to cast a sufficient supply of seaweed on the shores, it was time to resort to extraordinary measures to secure the necessary manure for the land. A large pot of porridge was prepared, with butter and other good ingredients, and taken to the headlands near creeks where seaweed rested. A quantity was poured into the sea from each headland, with certain incantations or rhymes, and in consequence, it was believed, the harbours were full of sea-ware. The ceremony should only be performed in stormy weather. Its object no doubt was, by throwing the produce of the land into the sea, to make the sea throw its produce on the land.
GOOD FRIDAY (Di-haoine na Ceusa).
The Gaelic name means literally Crucifixion Friday. The day was the Friday before Easter, and was observed in memory of our Lord’s Passion. There was hardly any belief that had a stronger hold on the Highlander’s mind than that on no account whatever should iron be put in the ground on this day. So great was the aversion to doing so that the more superstitious extended the prohibition to every Friday. As a matter of course no ploughing was done, and if a burial was to take place, the grave was opened on the previous day, and the earth was settled over the coffin with a wooden shovel. The origin of the observance perhaps was that our Saviour’s sepulchre had been previously prepared, being a new tomb hewn out in the rock.
It was said that if the day be cold, it is colder than any other, in fact the coldest day of the whole year.
EASTER (Càsg).
The proper day for keeping this festival, the anniversary of our Lord’s resurrection, was at one time the cause of bitter controversies in the Christian world. It was first a subject of keen dispute between the Eastern and Western Churches, and again between the Church of Rome and the Irish and British Churches. The feast is moveable, and depends on the time of the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Owing to rectifications of the calendar introduced at Rome, but unknown to the British Churches, two different days had come to be observed, and by the seventh century the discussion as to which day was the correct one had become so warm and the difference so scandalous that the civil powers interfered and the question was settled in favour of the Church of Rome by Oswy, King of Northumbria, at Whitby in 664. The Celtic clergy were accused of being Quartodecimans (a very good word in a controversy), that is, of keeping the festival, according to the Jewish mode of calculation, on the fourteenth day of the month Nizan, whether that day fell on a Sunday or not. The accusation is now universally acknowledged to be ill-founded, but it is likely they followed the Alexandrian rule on the point, by which the Easter festival could not begin till the eighth of March, a rule which had been at one time observed by the Church of Rome itself. Neither the cycle followed during the controversy by the Celtic Church, nor that followed by the Romish Church, is that now prevailing, so that if one day was of more value than another for the festival, both parties were in the wrong.
The rule now observed in the Highlands is “seven short weeks from Shrovetide to Easter,” Shrovetide being “the first Tuesday of the New Moon in Spring,” or, Easter is “the first Sunday of the second wane of the moon in spring” (chiad Di-dòmhnaich de ’n dara earra-dhubh san Earrach).
The name “Càsg” is but the Gaelic form of the Hebrew Pascha. The change of P into C, K, or Q is well known in philology, and the most noticeable difference between the Welsh and Gaelic branches of the Celtic tongue is, that the latter has an aversion which the former has not to p as an initial consonant, preferring c instead. Lhuyd (Arch. Brit., p. 20) says, “It is very remarkable that there are scarce any words in the Irish (besides what are borrowed from the Latin or some other language) that begin with P, insomuch that in an ancient alphabetical vocabulary I have by me, that letter is omitted; and no less observable that a considerable number of those words whose initial letter it is in the British begin in that language with a K or (as they constantly write) C.” He then quotes as illustrations, W. Pask, Easter, Ir. Kasg; Corn. Peneas, Whitsuntide, Ir. Kinkis; W. pen, a head, Ir. keann, etc. He quotes from Vassius instances of a similar change in the interrogatives and relatives of the Greek Ionic dialect. A readily recognised instance is the change of the Greek ἱππος into the Latin equus.
On Càisg Sunday, the sun was believed in the Highlands of Scotland, as in Ireland, to dance soon after rising, and many respectable people are to be found who say they saw the phenomenon. The alternate glancing and darkening of the sun on a fitful spring morning was no doubt often so construed by those who stared too long at a brilliant object.
A liability to north wind has made “Gaoth tuath na Càisg” (the north wind of Easter) a proverbial expression. The most trying part of the spring is still to come, and it is an expression employed to moderate excessive joy, and to put people in mind that the cares of life are not all past yet, that there is “a long spring after Easter” (Earrach fada ’n déigh Càisg).
Another expression, reminding men that it is not too late to acquit themselves of their duties or hold rejoicings, is “a Feast can be kept after Easter” (Gleidhear cuirm an déigh Càisg).
Easter was a particular holiday with the young, and preparations were made for it long beforehand. Every egg that a boy could steal or lay his hands on unobserved, was hid by him in the thatch of an out-house, or in a hole in the ground, under a turf, or wherever else he thought his treasure would remain undiscovered. When the great day came, he and his companions, each with his collection of eggs, went away to some retired spot, at a distance from the houses, and beyond the probability of being disturbed by their seniors. Here they had a grand feast of pancakes, and enjoyed themselves uncontrolled. The eggs were deemed of no use unless they had been secreted or stolen, and this originated, perhaps, in a feeling that with honestly or openly got eggs the feast was not so entirely independent of the older people.
The reason why eggs were used at all is supposed to be from an egg being emblematic of the resurrection.
Two Sundays were held as Càisg. The second was distinguished only by a better feast than usual in the houses. The first Sunday was called “Big Easter” (Càisg mhòr), and the Sunday after it “Old Men’s Easter” (Càisg nam bodach), corresponding to the English Low Sunday.