Will and Kate Sitting In A Tree K.I.S.S.I.N.G.

Kate Middleton is to be Prince William's bride, hurrah. I for one shall be perfectly content to watch the nuptials from the comfort of the sofa, wearing the inevitable commemorative sweater and leg-warmer combo and munching from an array of cold meats  and sausages on sticks laid out upon the coffee table. Lambrini shall be quaffed and twiglets shall be crunched.

I feel no shame about this intended grossly sentimental display of carnivorous fashion blindness as I shall be paying for all of this celebratory tomfoolery out of my own pocket. As, I am certain, Kate and William shall be.

The idea that the taxpayer would be expected to shell out for a Westminister Abbey wedding complete with designer frocks and limousines as has been suggested elsewhere is obviously a ludicrous ruse to hide the happy couple's real intention.

They are of course planning a good old-fashioned Orkney knees up which traditionally eschews fancy venues and puts the emphasis on fun, family and copious amounts of booze.

The night before the wedding, Kate's mother shall pop her daughter's feet into a bath full of water, dropping a ring in under her toes to be retrieved by the bridesmaids who shall be washing the feet of the bride. Whichever girl finds the ring shall be the next to marry.

The wedding shall of course take place during the waxing of the moon as ceremonies held during the waning phase are bad luck. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays are lucky days for weddings.

On the morning of the nuptials, Kate's mum shall serve everyone a stiff glass of gin at ten o'clock in the morning and the wedding party shall be led down to the church by a piper who has attached ribbons to his instrument.

'Hansel', that is pieces of cheese and bread shall be served immediately after the party arrive back at the bride's house and a bridecake of oats and caraway seeds shall be broken over poor Kate's head. This cake contains yet another ring and a button. The girl who finds the ring shall soon be wed herself and the boy who finds the button shall be a bachelor forever.

And then the dancing.

The Bride's Cog

As the evening progresses a 'cog' full of a heady mixture of home brew, whisky, sugar and spices shall be passed around the wedding party, all of whom shall take a drink.

Kate shall then retire to her boudoir to change for bed, whereupon male members of the wedding party, having secreted themselves within and without the chamber, shall burst out and try to steal bits of her wedding finery. Kate shall have taken some beefy, older women up with her to combat this assault, however, and a fight to the death shall ensue.

The cog shall return, full of plain ale this time, two hours after everyone has gone to bed as Kate's mother visits all the party guests in their bed rooms and offers them another drink just in case they are not quite steaming enough to have passed out completely. This revelry shall continue for the next two days or until the drink runs out.

I can't wait to watch it all unfold.

Photographs from the Tom Kent collection and information from Walter Traill Dennison's Orkney Weddings and Wedding Customs.

Oooh oooh ooh oooh oooh...

The obvious subject for a post today would, of course, be Guy Fawkes a.k.a. Bonfire Night. Therefore, I dutifully searched our catalogues and bookshelves for mentions of relevant traditions/folklore/reminiscences.

The only thing that I could find, however, was an audio tape made in 1976 of a BBC programme called Island Calendar, which Ernest Walker Marwick used to make. The notes for the programme say:

(Guy Fawkes) 5th of November. Total alien - not traditional.

Indeed, the next traditional celebration would be Martinmas on the 11th of November but that date is now better known for being Remembrance day. So all that I can show you is this photograph of fireworks taken during a Stromness shopping week.

I don't really know where I'm going with this... basically that there's nothing to see here... It's Friday afternoon, let's dance around with Patti Labelle with her tip-top hit 'New Attitude'.

Point to your clothes when she sings "new dress!" Point to your head when she sings "new hair!" Gesture with your index finger like a sassy lady on the Ricki Lake show when she sings "Brand new ideas as a matter of fact I've chaaaaanged for good."

Happy bonfire night!

Neeping Oor Heeds.

As is usual on the 1st of November, the citizens of Kirkwall picked their way into work this morning through a gluey crust of flour and eggshells. It is the custom here for a certain section of the populace to bombard the buildings of the town with both.

Lat night we received visits from 'trick or treaters' who were called 'guisers' in my day. A party piece of a song or joke is usually performed in exchange for sweets, but some of our delightful visitors did not bother with this irksome duty. Others did not even have costumes on and were clearly about 25.

Most of the revellers last night had pumpkin lanterns. When did people stop using turnips? Memories of Hallowe'ens past are always infused with the stink of hot neep.

In the not-so-distant past, Hallowee'n used to be a very special night for young, unmarried women. It was the only night of the year that they could peek into the future and glimpse their future husband.

One tradition was to eat a salt herring before bed in the hope that an apparition of their future spouse would glide into their room with the offer of a glass of water.

In the Orcadian parish of Orphir, hopeful girls took a live coal from the fire, submerged it hissing into water and tucked it under a piece of turf. In the morning, the turf would be broken in half to reveal fibres the colour of the future husband's hair.

Braver lasses used to sit in the barn all night with a sieve and a knife because then (of course), a ghostie of the hubby-to-be would drift past the doorway. Other girls used to go into the fields at night and walk around a corn-rick, arms outspread, expecting to touch the ghostie hand of said h-t-b. Aaaaggghhhh!!!!!!

I don't know about anyone else, but I much prefer today's tradition of sitting in front of the X-factor results show whilst munching upon the excessively large supply of sweets that only the visits of 3300 children could use  up.

Information taken from the Ernest Walker Marwick Collection D31/72/1/26

More sieve information here and here

'Penny for me pop...'

Bonfire night in Orkney is linked to the old Hallowmass, one of the four main pagan festivals including Yule, Beltane and Midsummer.

Hallowmass signalled the end of harvesting when malevolent forces roamed the land and darkness reigned once more.

In Stromness, the children of the town traditionally spend the 5th of November parading, not with a guy, but carved turnips. The grotesque heads can be ghouls, aliens, animals or even topical figures or celebrities. The common cry is 'penny for me pop?, 'pop' being 'Pope'; a reminder of the days when effigies of the Pope were burned on a bonfire!

Photograph copyright Keith Allardyce, taken from the wonderful book on Stromness 'Sea Haven' by Bryce Wilson and with a foreword by George Mackay Brown.