This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 edition. Excerpt: ... compounded of warm ale, whisky, and sugar--a most heady mixture--which was carried about in copper kettles, and dispensed in the streets, as well as in every household favoured by the visit of a first-foot. But the kettle with its hot pint has long been superseded by the everlasting whiskybottle. First-footing is still in high favour amongst the mass of the population, great faith being placed in the good or bad luck attending a first-foot or individual who first enters a house on New Year's morning; and it so happens that the man or woman enjoying the reputation of being lucky is specially solicited to act as first-foot to several families, who keep their doors fast locked till the expected visitor arrives. The first-foot must not enter a house empty-handed, and therefore brings bread and cheese, in addition to the indispensable bottle. "The folk will be visiting you with their bottles on New Year's morning," said a clerical friend to old George Cooper, the present centenarian of Caithness. "Ay," answered George,"they only bring bottles to my house; but when they gang to yours, they tak' a nine-gallon cask." The most extraordinary and inexplicable Hogmanay custom in Scotland is that called "burning the clavie," which annually enlivens the fishing-village of Burghead, on the Moray Firth. Its origin and import have hitherto baffled the researches of the learned. The "clavie" consists chiefly of a tar-barrel, which, being ignited in the gloaming, is carried about the town in triumph, and then deposited on the top of a neighbouring eminence, from which, however, it is speedily displaced, and rolled down to the bottom. The unmeaning ceremony is concluded by the crowd knocking the blazing...