Hogmanay ( , The Concise Scots Dictionary Cambers (1985) ) is the Scots word for the last day of the old year and the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner. It is normally followed by further celebration on the morning of New Year's Day (1 January) and, in some cases, 2 January—a Scottish bank holiday. In a few contexts, Hogmanay is used more loosely to describe the entire period consisting of the last few days of the old year and the first few days of the new year. For instance, not all events held under the banner of Edinburgh's Hogmanay take place on the 31st of December.
Customs vary throughout Scotland and usually include gift-giving and visiting the homes of friends and neighbours, with particular attention given to the first-foot, the first guest of the new year.
Etymology The etymology of the word is obscure. The earliest proposed etymology comes from the 1693 Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, which held that the term was a corruption of a presumed () and that this meant "holy month". The three main modern theories derive it from a French, Norse or Gaelic root.
The word is first recorded in a Latin entry in 1443 in the West Riding of Yorkshire as ."hogmanay, n.". OED Online. December 2014. Oxford University Press. (accessed 22 December 2014). The first appearance in Scots language came in 1604 in the records of Elgin, as hagmonay.William Cramond, The records of Elgin, 2 (Aberdeen, 1903), p. 119 "delatit to haue been singand hagmonayis on Satirday". Subsequent 17th-century spellings include Hagmena (1677), Hogmynae night (1681), and Hagmane (1693) in an entry of the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence.
Although Hogmanay is currently the predominant spelling and and the predominant pronunciations, several variant spellings and pronunciations have been recorded, including:Robinson, Mairi (ed) The Concise Scots Dictionary (1985) The Scottish National Dictionary Association
(Roxburghshire)
(Shetland)
(Shetland)
with the first syllable variously being , , , or .
Possible French etymologies The term may have been introduced to Middle Scots via French. The most commonly cited explanation is a derivation from the northern French dialectal word , or variants such as , and , those being derived from 16th-century Middle French meaning either a gift given at New Year, a children's cry for such a gift, or New Year's Eve itself.Campbell, John Gregorson (1900, 1902, 2005) The Gaelic Otherworld. Edited by Ronald Black. Edinburgh, Birlinn Ltd. p. 575: "'Hogmanay' is French in origin. In the northern French dialect, it was , going back to Middle French (cf. ), meaning a gift given on New Year's eve or the word cried out in soliciting it." The Oxford English Dictionary reports this theory, saying that the term is a borrowing of (literally "To the mistletoe be the new year") a medieval French cry used to welcome the new year consisting of an unknown first element plus "" ("the new year").
This explanation is supported by a children's tradition, observed up to the 1960s in parts of Scotland at least, of visiting houses in their locality on New Year's Eve and requesting and receiving small treats such as sweets or fruit. The second element would appear to be ('the New Year'), with sources suggesting a druidical origin of the practice overall. Compare those to Norman and the obsolete customs in Jersey of crying , and in Guernsey of asking for an , for a New Year gift (see also ). In Québec, was a door-to-door collection for people experiencing poverty.Roy, Pierre-Georges Les petites choses de notre histoire Garneau (1944)
Compare also the apparent Spanish cognate /, with a suggested Latin derivation of "in this year".
Other suggestions include ("lead to the mistletoe"), ('bring to the beggars'), ('at the mistletoe the new year', or ('(the) man is born')."Hogmanay", Scotland.org. Retrieved 14 May 2009.
Possible Goidelic etymologies
The word may have come from the Goidelic languages. Frazer and Kelley report a Manx new-year song that begins with the line To-night is New Year's Night, Hogunnaa but did not record the full text in Manx.Frazer, Sir James George The Golden Bough 1922Kelley, Ruth The Book of Hallowe'en (1919) Kelley himself uses the spelling Y Kelley, Yuan Fockleyr Gailckagh as Baarlagh (1866) The Manx Society whereas other sources parse this as and give the modern Manx form as Hob dy naa.Folk-lore – A Quarterly Review of Myth, Tradition, Institution and Custom Vol II (1891) The Folk-lore Society Manx dictionaries though give (), generally glossing it as "Hallowe'en",Broderick, G. A Handbook of Late Spoken Manx Niemeyer (1984) Fargher, Douglas Fockleyr Baarle-Gaelg (1979) Shearwater Press same as many of the more Manx-specific folklore collections.Moore, A.W. Manx Ballads & Music (1896) G R Johnson
In this context, it is also recorded that in the south of Scotland (for example Roxburghshire), there is no , the word thus being Hunganay, which could suggest the is intrusive.
Another theory occasionally encountered is a derivation from the phrase (, "I raised the cry"), which resembles Hogmanay in pronunciation and was part of the rhymes traditionally recited at New Year but it is unclear if this is simply a case of folk etymology.
Overall, Gaelic consistently refers to the New Year's Eve as ("the Night of the New Year") and ("the Night of the Calends").MacBain, A. Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language (1896)Dwelly, E. The Illustrated Gaelic–English Dictionary (1941)Mark, Colin The Gaelic-English Dictionary (2004) Routledge
Possible Norse etymologies Other authors reject both the French and Goidelic theories and instead suggest that the ultimate source for this word's Norman French, Scots, and Goidelic variants have a common Norse root.Harrison, W. Mona Miscellany (1869) Manx Society It is suggested that the full forms "Hoginanaye-Trollalay/Hogman aye, Troll a lay" (with a Manx cognate ) "Hogmanay, Trollolay, give us of your white bread and none of your gray"Chambers, R. Popular Rhymes of Scotland (1841) W&R Chambers p. 165 invoke the hill-men (Icelandic , compare Anglo-Saxon ) or "elves" and banishes the trolls into the sea (Norse 'into the sea').Repp, Þorleifur On the Scottish Formula of Congratulation on New Year's Eve – "Hogmanay, Trollalay" (1831) Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Vol IV Repp furthermore links "Trollalay/Trolla-laa" and the rhyme recorded in Percy's Relics: "Trolle on away, trolle on awaye. Synge heave and howe rombelowe trolle on away", which he reads as a straightforward invocation of troll-banning.Percy, Thomas Percy's Reliques (1765)
Possible Scots etymology In 1865 correspondence, the question was raised whether the word Hogmanay derived from hogman (or hugman), a type of inferior bread, regarded as "strangers' bread" or "alms bread". This connection is rooted in much older history; hogman was first recorded in circa 1320 as the lowest of three distinct grades of loaves donated by Robert the Bruce to the canons of Restenneth Priory, as written in the Register of the Great Seal of Scotland.
This connection was further clarified in 1888 correspondence, where a contributor named 'A Fifer' noted that in Fife, the day was not known as Hogmanay but was instead called Cake-day. This name referred to the cakes (Scots for fancy bread or currant loaf) traditionally distributed when children and the poor went door-to-door. Likewise, the author suggested that in other parts of Scotland, the name evolved from Hogman-day, eventually softened to Hogmanay, referring to the hogman given out in the same way.
More recently, in 1992, it was noted how the traditional rhyme - 'Gi'e us a piece o your white bread, And eke a bittoc o' your grey, Wi' brown laif dawds for Hogmanay' - directly reflected this same historic record of three different grades of loaves, with the least desirable left for Hogmanay.
Origins It is speculated that the roots of Hogmanay may reach back to the celebration of the winter solstice among the Norse, as well as incorporating customs from the Gaelic celebration of Samhain. The Vikings celebrated Yule, which later contributed to the Twelve Days of Christmas, or the "Daft Days" as they were sometimes called in Scotland. Christmas was not celebrated as a festival, and Hogmanay was the more traditional celebration in Scotland. This may have been a result of the Protestant Reformation after which Christmas was seen as "too Papist".Bogle, Lara Suziedelis. "Scots Mark New Year With Fiery Ancient Rites", National Geographic News, 31 December 2002
Hogmanay was also celebrated in the north of England, down to and including Richmond in North Yorkshire. It was traditionally known as 'Hagmena' in Northumberland, 'Hogmina' in Cumberland, and 'Hagman-ha' or 'Hagman-heigh' in the North Riding of Yorkshire.
Customs There are many customs, both national and local, associated with Hogmanay. The most widespread national custom is the practice of first-footing, which starts immediately after midnight. This involves being the first person to cross the threshold of a friend or neighbour and often involves the giving of symbolic gifts such as salt (less common today), coal, shortbread, whisky, and black bun (a rich fruit cake), intended to bring different kinds of luck to the householder. Food and drink (as the gifts) are then given to the guests. This may go on throughout the early morning hours and into the next day (although modern days see people visiting houses well into the middle of January). The first-foot is supposed to set the luck for the rest of the year. Traditionally, tall, dark-haired men are preferred as the first-foot.
Local customs
An example of a local Hogmanay custom is the fireball swinging that takes place in Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, in northeast Scotland. This involves local people making up "balls" of chicken wire filled with old newspaper, sticks, rags, and other dry flammable material up to a diameter of , each attached to about of wire, chain or nonflammable rope. As the Old Town House bell sounds to mark the new year, the balls are set alight, and the swingers set off up the High Street from the Mercat Cross to the Cannon and back, swinging the burning balls around their heads as they go.
At the end of the ceremony, fireballs still burning are cast into the harbour. Many people enjoy this display, and large crowds flock to see it,Stonehaven Fireball Association photos and videos of festivities. Retrieved 31 December 2017. with 12,000 attending the 2007/2008 event.Aberdeen Press and Journal 2 January 2018. "around 12,000 turned out in Stonehaven to watch the town's traditional fireball ceremony." Retrieved 3 January 2008. In recent years, additional attractions have been added to entertain the crowds as they wait for midnight, such as fire poi, a pipe band, street drumming, and a firework display after the last fireball is cast into the sea. The festivities are now streamed live over the Internet. Another example of a fire festival is the burning the clavie in the town of Burghead in Moray.
In the east coast fishing communities and Dundee, first-footers once carried a decorated herring. And in Falkland in Fife, local men marched in torchlight procession to the top of the Lomond Hills as midnight approached. Bakers in St Andrews baked special cakes for their Hogmanay celebration (known as "Cake Day") and distributed them to local children.
Institutions also had their own traditions. For example, amongst the Scottish regiments, officers waited on the men at special dinners while at the bells, the Old Year is piped out of barrack gates. The sentry then challenges the new escort outside the gates: "Who goes there?" The answer is "The New Year, all's well."'Hogmanay Traditions ' at Scotland's Tourism Board. Retrieved 21 December 2007.