Saturday’s bairn maun work for its living,
But the bairn that’s born on the Sabbath day
Is lucky, and bonnie, and wise, and gay.”
During the period of infancy—particularly, prior to receiving the sacrament of baptism—the utmost watchfulness had to be maintained lest the fairies should steal away a healthy child and leave a weakly infant of their own in its stead. A fairy child, it seemed, when it fell ill could be restored to health only by human milk. When there was a suspicion that a substitution of the kind had been effected—and this was jaloused if a child became extra fractious—a common and effectual test was to hold the youngster over the fire. If it was a changeling it would disappear up the lum with a “puff.” If not, it would remain, perhaps to be burned, and be more fractious than before. Still there was satisfaction if it stood the test. Various superstitious rites were practised by the skilly wives to prevent catastrophe. The child immediately after birth might be turned three times contrary to the course of the sun. The bed containing the mother and child might be drawn to the centre of the floor, where the nurse would wave an open Bible over them three times—once for each person in the Holy Trinity—and adjure the evil spirits, by the name of all that was sacred, to depart to whatever place they came from. The sign of the cross made on the floor in front of the bed, or on the husband’s nether garments laid at the foot of it, might suffice also to keep the elves aloof.
After a birth the mother was not permitted to cross the threshold of the door after the hour of sunset till she was “kirkit,” lest the fairies should carry her off to nurse their children.
Baptismal customs were more ceremonious then than now. A young unmarried woman invariably carried the child to church. In her hand she took with her a slice of bread and cheese, wrapped up, and fastened with a pin taken from the child’s dress, and this she presented to the first male passer she met. This person constituted the child’s “first-foot”—it had not previously been allowed to cross the doorstep; and if he was a dark-haired man, there was good luck for the child; if fair, the reverse would happen to it.
Connected with this practice, Dr. Classon tells an amusing story. An English Duke had arrived in Glasgow on a Sunday, and was wandering in the streets during the time of afternoon service, when a young woman came up to him with a child in her arms, and offered him a piece of bread and cheese. In vain he protested that he did not know what she meant—that he had nothing to do with her or her child—that he was an entire stranger—that he had never been in Scotland before—that he knew nothing of the usages of the Presbyterian Kirk, being of the Church of England, and that she should give the “piece” to somebody else. The young woman was deaf to all his arguments, and held out authoritatively the bread and cheese. Thinking, probably, that the lass had not given him credit for what he had said, he told her in perfect simplicity that he was the Duke of ⸺, and that he had just arrived at a hotel in the city, which he named. Her answer shut his mouth—“Though ye were the king on the throne, sir, ye maun tak’ that bread an’ cheese.”
Marriage was set about with rites and usages, some of which were peculiarly funny. First of all, in respect to date, the fateful month of May had to be avoided. If the “send,” or bridal party, in going to or from the manse, met a funeral procession or a hearse on the way, it was a bad omen. When the bride entered her house for the first time, she had to be careful to step over the threshold, if she would be lucky. An oaten cake, or a cake of shortbread, was broken over her head, usually by the mother of the bridegroom, as she entered. In some instances the bread was placed on a plate and thrown over her head. If the plate was broken, so much the better luck. Then the links of the crook were put round her neck, and she was led to the meal girnal and compelled to take up a handful of meal. On the morning after marriage, in some parts of the country, the youth of both sexes, or perhaps females, would assemble out of doors, along with the newly-married couple. A basket would be transmitted among them, and gradually filled with stones until it reached the bridegroom, when it would be suspended from his neck. On receiving some more additional load, his affectionate helpmate, to testify her sense of the caresses he had lavished on her, would cut the cord and relieve him of the oppressive burden. The person who declined to comply with the latter ceremony would have come under a certain degree of discredit.
Liable at all times to the malevolent influences of the “Evil Eye,” in addition to the many other ills already indicated, human life in the olden time was a serious matter. If a person died suddenly, or was laid aside by any sickness or disease, which the doctor might not readily comprehend the nature of, he was declared to have fallen the victim to an evil eye. When a death occurred the corpse was dressed and laid out in the manner still in practice, but with this addition—the friends laid on the breast of the deceased a wooden platter containing a small quantity of salt and earth, separate and unmixed—the earth an emblem of the corruptible body; the salt an emblem of the immortal spirit. No fire was allowed to be lit in a room where a corpse was kept; and it was reckoned so ominous for a dog or a cat to pass over it, that the poor animal was at once laid by the heels and killed without mercy. If a mourner’s tear falls on the shroud, the spirit of the deceased might in consequence be so disturbed that it could not rest in the grave. During the several nights that intervened betwixt death and interment, the friends and neighbours took their turn at “sittin’ up wi’ the corpse,” and were provided with a candle, a Bible, and a bottle of whisky. This practice was known as the “Lykewake,” and its main purpose was to protect the body of the deceased person from supernatural interference. If a funeral cortege proceeded to the kirkyard in an irregular and straggling manner, it was accepted as a portent that there would ere long be another funeral in the same family.
In a village in Aberdeenshire, we read in the Statistical Account, where it was believed that the ghost of the person last buried kept the gate of the churchyard till relieved by the next victim of death, a singular scene frequently occurred when two burials were to take place in one churchyard on the same day. Both parties hurried forward as fast as possible to consign their respective friend in the first place to the dust. If they met at the gate, the dead were thrown down till the living decided by blows whose ghost should be condemned to porter it. Suicides were denied the right of Christian burial, and were interred either within the crossing of two public roads, with a stake driven through the body to hold it down, or were deposited in the march or ditch dividing two lairds’ lands—as in the case of “Jenny Nettles,” the heroine of the old song—and had a huge cairn of stones raised over the spot for the same purpose of protection.