We are all of us familiar with the usual ceremonies which usher in the New Year—the sitting up to watch the Old Year out and the New Year in, the ringing of the church bells immediately after the last stroke of twelve, the handshaking, and exchange of greetings. But in England generally, New Year’s Day is of little account as a festival, being overshadowed by Christmas. In Scotland, on the other hand, New Year’s Day holds the more important place, and consequently New Year’s Eve, as a day of preparatory observances, ranks above Christmas Eve. New Year’s Eve in Scotland is known as Hogmanay, a term which is also applied to the customary gift for which children go round and beg on this day. The name and the custom are not, however, confined to Scotland, being also found in certain of the northern counties of England (Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks.). Much has been written about the history of this word, but beyond the generally accepted statement that it is of French origin, its precise derivation still remains obscure; cp. Norm. dial. hoquinano, haguinelo, cries on New Year’s Eve; hoguilanno, a New Year’s gift. On the last day of the year, children go in companies chiefly to the houses of the better class, singing some such rhyme as: Rise up, gude-wife, and shake your feathers, Dinna think that we are beggars, We’re girls and boys come out to-day, For to get our Hogmanay, Hogmanay, trol-lol-lay. Give us of your white bread, and not of your grey, Or else we’ll knock at your door a’ day (w.Sc.); or in shorter form: Hogamanay, hogamanay, Gi’s wor breed-an’-cheese, an’ set’s away (Nhb.). In earlier times it was also customary for youths to go round dressed up as guisers, performing at their neighbours’ houses a Hogmanay masque. Sometimes they went round just after midnight to enter the houses in the capacity of first-foot.
New Year’s Day
The superstitious practice of first-footing belongs also to Scotland and northern England. The first person who crosses the threshold after midnight on New Year’s Eve is the first-foot or lucky-bird, and the prosperity or misfortune of the household during the ensuing year depends on what manner of man is then admitted. On no account must the first-foot be a woman. In most places the luckiest kind of first-foot is a fair-haired man. A man of dark complexion, a flat-footed man, or one afflicted with a squint brings bad luck. But in some parts of Yorkshire where the lucky-bird is the first person who enters the house on Christmas Day, if it is a dark-haired man who thus ‘lets Christmas in’, he is welcomed as a bringer of good luck, whilst a red-haired man is esteemed a harbinger of ill-luck. On the whole, the safest plan was that of engaging some recognized lucky person to undertake the office of first-foot, instead of leaving the matter in the hands of wayward chance.
Another old Hogmanay-night custom was that of fetching the ream-water (Sc.) from the well. This could only be done by a woman, in some places only by a spinster. As soon as the clock had finished striking twelve, some female member of the household would hurry pitcher in hand to the nearest well, in order to be the first to skim off the water lying near the surface and bring it home; for whoever could secure this, the ream, crap or floo’er of the water, would bring in good fortune for the whole of the year.
A writer in Notes and Queries for Jan. 3, 1852, quotes the following song sung by children in South Wales on New Year’s morning, when carrying a jug full of water newly drawn from the well:
Here we bring new water
From the well so clear,
For to worship God with
This happy New Year.
Sing levez dew, sing levez dew,