SCOTLAND.
Fastren’s E’en is celebrated annually, after the Border fashion, in the month of February, the day being fixed by the following antiquated couplet:
“First comes Candlemas, syne the New Moon;
The next Tuesday after is Fastren’s E’en.”
Crowdie
is mentioned by Sir F. M. Eden (State of the Poor, 1797, vol. i. p. 498) as a never-failing dinner on Shrove Tuesday, with all ranks of people in Scotland, as pancakes are in England; and that a ring is put into the basin or porringer of the unmarried folks, to the finder of which by fair means it was an omen of marriage before the rest of the eaters.