Part 29 (1/2)

CHAPTER XV

NEW YEAR'S DAY

Principle of New Year Customs--The New Year in France, Germany, the United States, and Eastern Europe--”First-footing” in Great Britain--Scottish New Year Practices--Highland Fumigation and ”Breast-strip” Customs--Hogmanay and Aguillanneuf--New Year Processions in Macedonia, Roumania, Greece, and Rome--Methods of Augury--Sundry New Year Charms.

Coming to January 1, the modern and the Roman New Year's Day, we shall find that most of its customs have been antic.i.p.ated at earlier festivals; the Roman Kalends practices have often been s.h.i.+fted to Christmas, while old Celtic and Teutonic New Year practices have frequently been transferred to the Roman date.[113]

The observances of New Year's Day mainly rest, as was said in Chapter VI., on the principle that ”a good beginning makes a good ending,” that as the first day is so will the rest be. If you would have plenty to eat during the year, dine lavishly on New Year's Day, if you would be rich see that your pockets are not empty at this critical season, if you would be lucky avoid like poison at this of all times everything of ill omen.

”On the Borders,” says Mr. W. Henderson, ”care is taken that no one enters a house empty-handed on New Year's Day. A visitor must bring in his hand some eatable; he will be doubly welcome if he carries in a hot stoup or 'plotie.' Everybody

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should wear a new dress on New Year's Day, and if its pockets contain money of every description they will be certain not to be empty throughout the year.”{2}

The laying of stress on what happens on New Year's Day is by no means peculiarly European. Hindus, for instance, as Mr. Edgar Thurston tells us, ”are very particular about catching sight of some auspicious object on the morning of New Year's Day, as the effects of omens seen on that occasion are believed to last throughout the year.” It is thought that a man's whole prosperity depends upon the things that he then happens to fix his eyes upon.{3}

Charms, omens, and good wishes are naturally the most prominent customs of January 1 and its Eve. The New Year in England can hardly be called a popular festival; there is no public holiday and the occasion is more a.s.sociated with penitential Watch Night services and good resolutions than with rejoicing. But let the reader, if he be in London, pay a visit to Soho at this time, and he will get some idea of what the New Year means to the foreigner. The little restaurants are decorated with gay festoons of all colours and thronged with merrymakers, the shop-windows are crowded with all manner of _recherche_ delicacies; it is the gala season of the year.

In France January 1 is a far more festal day than Christmas; it is then that presents are given, family gatherings held, and calls paid. In the morning children find their stockings filled with gifts, and then rush off to offer good wishes to their parents. In the afternoon the younger people call upon their older relations, and in the evening all meet for dinner at the home of the head of the family.{4}

In Germany the New Year is a time of great importance. Cards are far more numerous than at Christmas, and ”New Year boxes” are given to the tradespeople, while on the Eve (_Sylvesterabend_) there are dances or parties, the custom of forecasting the future by lead-pouring is practised, and at the stroke of midnight there is a general cry of ”Prosit Neu Jahr!”, a drinking of healths, and a shaking of hands.{5}

New Year wishes and ”compliments of the season” are

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familiar to us all, but in England we have not that custom of paying formal calls which in France is so characteristic of January 1, when not only relations and personal friends, but people whose connection is purely official are expected to visit one another. In devout Brittany the wish exchanged takes a beautiful religious form--”I wish you a good year and Paradise at the end of your days.”{6}

New Year calling is by no means confined to France. In the United States it is one of the few traces left by the early Dutch settlers on American manners. The custom is now rapidly falling into disuse,{7} but in New York up to the middle of the nineteenth century ”New Year's Day was devoted to the universal interchange of visits. Every door was thrown wide open. It was a breach of etiquette to omit any acquaintance in these annual calls, when old friends.h.i.+ps were renewed and family differences amicably settled. A hearty welcome was extended even to strangers of presentable appearance.” At that time the day was marked by tremendous eating and drinking, and its visiting customs sometimes developed into wild riot. Young men in barouches would rattle from one house to another all day long. ”The ceremony of calling was a burlesque. There was a noisy and hilarious greeting, a gla.s.s of wine was swallowed hurriedly, everybody shook hands all round, and the callers dashed out and rushed into the carriage and were driven rapidly to the next house.”{8}

The New Year calling to offer good wishes resembles in some respects the widespread custom of ”first-footing,” based on the belief that the character of the first visitor on New Year's Day affects the welfare of the household during the year. We have already met with a ”first-foot” in the _polaznik_ of the southern Slavs on Christmas Day. It is to be borne in mind that for them, or at all events for the Crivoscian highlanders whose customs are described by Sir Arthur Evans, Christmas is essentially the festival of the New Year: New Year's Day is not spoken of at all, its name and ceremonies being completely absorbed by the feasts of ”Great”

and ”Little” Christmas.{9}

The ”first-foot” superst.i.tion is found in countries as far apart as

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Scotland and Macedonia. Let us begin with some English examples of it. In Shrops.h.i.+re the most important principle is that if luck is to rest on a house the ”first-foot” must not be a woman. To provide against such an unlucky accident as that a woman should call first, people often engage a friendly man or boy to pay them an early visit. It is particularly interesting to find a Shrops.h.i.+re parallel to the _polaznik's_ action in going straight to the hearth and striking sparks from the Christmas log,[114] when Miss Burne tells us that one old man who used to ”let the New Year in” ”always entered without knocking or speaking, and silently stirred the fire before he offered any greeting to the family.”{10}

In the villages of the Teme valley, Worcesters.h.i.+re and Herefords.h.i.+re, ”in the old climbing-boy days, chimneys used to be swept on New Year's morning, that one of the right s.e.x should be the first to enter; and the young urchins of the neighbourhood went the round of the houses before daylight singing songs, when one of their number would be admitted into the kitchen 'for good luck all the year.'” In 1875 this custom was still practised; and at some of the farmhouses, if was.h.i.+ng-day chanced to fall on the first day of the year, it was either put off, or to make sure, before the women could come, the waggoner's lad was called up early that he might be let out and let in again.{11}

The idea of the unluckiness of a woman's being the ”first-foot” is extraordinarily widespread; the present writer has met with it in an ordinary London restaurant, where great stress was laid upon a man's opening the place on New Year's morning before the waitresses arrived. A similar belief is found even in far-away China: it is there unlucky on New Year's Day to meet a woman on first going out.{12} Can the belief be connected with such ideas about dangerous influences proceeding from women as have been described by Dr. Frazer in Vol. III. of ”The Golden Bough,”{13} or does it rest merely on a view of woman as the inferior s.e.x? The unluckiness of first meeting a woman is, we may note, not confined to, but merely intensified on New Year's Day; in Shrops.h.i.+re{14} and in Germany{15} it belongs to any ordinary day.

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As to the general att.i.tude towards woman suggested by these superst.i.tions I may quote a striking pa.s.sage from Miss Jane Harrison's ”Themis.” ”Woman to primitive man is a thing at once weak and magical, to be oppressed, yet feared. She is charged with powers of child-bearing denied to man, powers only half understood, forces of attraction, but also of danger and repulsion, forces that all over the world seem to fill him with dim terror. The att.i.tude of man to woman, and, though perhaps in a less degree, of woman to man, is still to-day essentially magical.”{16}

”First-foot” superst.i.tions flourish in the north of England and in Scotland. In the northern counties a man is often specially retained as ”first-foot” or ”lucky bird”; in some parts he must be a bachelor, and he is often expected to bring a present with him--a shovelful of coals, or some eatable, or whisky.{17} In the East Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re a boy called the ”lucky bird” used to come at dawn on Christmas morning as well as on New Year's Day, and bring a sprig of evergreens{18}--an offering by now thoroughly familiar to us. In Scotland, especially in Edinburgh, it is customary for domestic servants to invite their sweethearts to be their ”first-foots.” The old Scotch families who preserve ancient customs encourage their servants to ”first-foot” them, and grandparents like their grandchildren to perform for them the same service.{19} In Aberdeens.h.i.+re it is considered most important that the ”first-foot”

should not come empty-handed. Formerly he carried spiced ale; now he brings a whisky-bottle. Shortbread, oat-cakes, ”sweeties,” or sowens, were also sometimes brought by the ”first-foot,” and occasionally the sowens were sprinkled on the doors and windows of the houses visited--a custom strongly suggesting a sacramental significance of some sort.{20}

Before we leave the subject of British ”first-footing” we may notice one or two things that have possibly a racial significance. Not only must the ”first-foot” be a man or boy, he is often required to be dark-haired; it is unlucky for a fair- or red-haired person to ”let in” the New Year.{21} It has been suggested by Sir John Rhys that this idea rested in the first instance upon

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racial antipathy--the natural antagonism of an indigenous dark-haired people to a race of blonde invaders.{22} Another curious requirement--in the Isle of Man and Northumberland--is that the ”first-foot” shall not be flat-footed: he should be a person with a high-arched instep, a foot that ”water runs under.” Sir John Rhys is inclined to connect this also with some racial contrast. He remarks, by way of ill.u.s.tration, that English shoes do not as a rule fit Welsh feet, being made too low in the instep.{23}

Some reference has already been made to Scottish New Year customs. In Scotland, the most Protestant region of Europe, the country in which Puritanism abolished altogether the celebration of Christmas, New Year's Day is a great occasion, and is marked by various interesting usages, its importance being no doubt largely due to the fact that it has not to compete with the Church feast of the Nativity. Nowadays, indeed, the example of Anglicanism is affecting the country to a considerable extent, and Christmas Day is becoming observed in the churches. The New Year, however, is still the national holiday, and January 1 a great day for visiting and feasting, the chief, in fact, of all festivals.{24} New Year's Day and its Eve are often called the ”Daft Days”; cakes and pastry of all kinds are eaten, healths are drunk, and calls are paid.{25}

In Edinburgh there are striking scenes on New Year's Eve. ”Towards evening,” writes an observer, ”the thoroughfares become thronged with the youth of the city.... As the midnight hour approaches, drinking of healths becomes frequent, and some are already intoxicated.... The eyes of the immense crowd are ever being turned towards the lighted clock-face of 'Auld and Faithful'' Tron [Church], the hour approaches, the hands seem to stand still, but in one second more the hurrahing, the cheering, the hand-shaking, the health-drinking, is all kept up as long as the clock continues to ring out the much-longed-for midnight hour.... The crowds slowly disperse, the much-intoxicated and helpless ones being hustled about a good deal, the police urging them on out of harm's way.

The first-footers are off and away, flying in every direction through the city, singing, cheering, and shaking hands with all and sundry.”{26}

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One need hardly allude to the gathering of London Scots around St. Paul's to hear the midnight chime and welcome the New Year with the strains of ”Auld Lang Syne,” except to say that times have changed and Scotsmen are now lost in the swelling mult.i.tude of roysterers of all nationalities.

Drinking is and was a great feature of the Scottish New Year's Eve. ”On the approach of twelve o'clock, a _hot pint_ was prepared--that is, a kettle or flagon full of warm, spiced, and sweetened ale, with an infusion of spirits. When the clock had struck the knell of the departed year, each member of the family drank of this mixture 'A good health and a happy New Year and many of them' to all the rest, with a general hand-shaking.” The elders of the family would then sally out to visit their neighbours, and exchange greetings.{27}