Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/265

 First-Foof in the British Isles. 257

account in Forfarshire, but Mr. Craigie has heard of the Aberdeenshire people keeping " Yeel", i.e., Yule, on Jan. 5, or Christmas Day, Old Style, which he puts down to a probable Norse element in the population.

The Gaelic festival in Dundee is always held on Jan. 12, if possible (for they try to have it on a Friday^: this means Jan. I, Old Style. Mr. Craigie, however, wrote^to me next day to modify this, in the following terms, and the correc- tion is very instructive as to the struggle going on, so to say, between the old Celtic year and the Roman calendar :

" I remembered yesterday that I had made a slight mistake in what I had said about the Gaelic Festival in Dundee. The regular meeting was, and is, held on or near Nov. 12 {i.e., Oidhche Samhna, Old Style), and the one on Jan. 12 or so was an extra one, which has been given up for some time now. The ' Hallow-E'en' one still goes on.

" We, of course, call the day before the New Year, Hogmanay (in Gaelic, Oidhche Callain). The old New Year's Day is pretty well given up in the Lowlands now.

" In a number of The Gael (a magazine which came out from 1871-77) there was a list of the different seasons of the year according to the Celtic calendar, with the places of all the chief days, like Beltane, Samhuinn, etc., given." — W. A. Craigie.

The next communication (dated March 29, 1892) is from the Rev. John M. Gillington, Yarmouth, Isle of Wight :

" My acquaintance with the custom is on this wise :— When I was assistant-curate of St. Peter's, Athlone, the ist Royal Regiment was in barracks there. This regiment was originally the Royal Scots Guards, the body-guard of the Scottish kings. They came to London with James VI, when he became King of England, Eventually they became the ist Regiment of Foot in the Standing Army.

"When they ceased to be formed of Scotchmen, I have no idea, but when I knew them they had nothing Scotch about them except the regimental traditions. These are kept up, and amongst them the custom of first-foot. I lodged in the house of a widow of a sergeant-major of that corps. He had served with

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