Thursday 17 January 2008

THE AULD NEW YEAR

New Year's Day in Scotland is January 1st. However, some years ago (1960s) I recall an elderly lady who lived in the north of Scotland (Gairloch, Wester Ross) telling me about going around the houses with a pillowcase asking for sweeties at the "Auld New Year", i.e. a fortnight after the January 1st date.

When looking into this, I found people who did not know this custom and stated that it, therefore, could not have been the case.

However, when nothing showed up on Google I asked Iseabail – our walking dictionay – and all is made clear.

January 1st officially became the first day of a new year in 46 B.C. when Julius Caesar established the Julian calendar, i.e. decreeing that the New Year should start on 1 January.

In 1582, the Gregorian calendar was introduced, and Roman Catholic countries began to celebrate New Year's Day on January 1. This calendar heralded a slow but gradual introduction, Scotland in 1600; Germany, Denmark and Sweden about 1700; then Britain and its colonies in 1752.

The Gregorian calendar is the one commonly used today. However, in outlying areas (like the north of Scotland) they continued to celebrate New Year using the Julian calendar.

The reason I couldn't find information about this custom is because the word "Auld New Year" doesn't appear to be used anymore. However once Iseabail pointed out that it was a custom in the north of Scotland, therefore, try the Gaelic word for it: 'Calliunn" (meaning "calendar" from Latin). Success!

This website here (Bernaray, Outer Hebrides) shows that the custom is still practiced. The author states:

"Calluinn is an ancient tradition, to mark the start of the old new year (under the Julian calendar, before it switched to the Gregorian calendar c.1600AD). Berneray is one of the very few places to still celebrate this date. In past years, it used to be teenagers and young men who wandered around the houses, collecting food. Nowadays, the school children of the island go round the various houses, reciting an old Gaelic rhyme, and collecting sweets and money." And, indeed, there is a photo of the youngsters coming to the door.

Meanwhile some final photos to finish off both the New Year – Gregorian and Julian – dates:


New Year on the boat aboard Seol-na-Mara in Ardrishaig



New Year in a Mountain Bothy



New Year in a Highland Cottage

3 comments:

Unknown said...

The Old New Year is still well celebrated here in Gairloch and surrounding areas. Traditionally locally there is a large community ceilidh in Poolewe village hall, amongst other things.

Also the opening and closing ceremonies of the year of Highland Culture 2007 were held on the Old New Year.

I guess if you'd searched for "old new year" you would have found thousands (266,000!) of entries in Google by the way, rather than a couple of hundred for "Auld New Year".

I think the reason for that is simple - "Auld" is a Scots word, heavily used in the south and east, but not much used in the Gaidhealtachd - "Old" is far mor ecommon here.

Cheers

Alex
Two Lochs Radio
Gairloch

Calendar Nerd said...

Hi,

This is a really interesting subject you've raised here.

However, there's a few things that need to be clarified.

Great Britain (Scotland included)used the Julian calendar until 1752. The official start of the year (New Year's Day) prior to 1752 was 25 March.

However, in Scotland New Year's day was changed from 25 March to 1 January in 1600.

in 1752 Great Britain made a legislative change which saw the introduction of the Gregorian calendar.

Here is the interesting bit that leads to your story: At the time of the change in 1752, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the old Julian calendar, which meant that GB had to remove 11 days from the calendar to leap-frog it forward to align GB with Europe.

This was achieved by removing the dates 3-13 September 1752. In other words 2 September was following by 14 September. This had the net affect of bringing New Years celebrations forward 11 days. Hence your story of people celebrating Auld New Year's 11 or 12 days after the official event. You can find similar story about old Christmas day etc.

More info at my web site:

http://sites.google.com/site/scotlandscalendar/

Happy to discuss....Col

Alex said...

Another side effect of the 18th century calendar twiddling is that tax, finance and public accoutning purposes our year starts on April 5.

Since the middle ages it had always been "Lady Day", March 25, which was effectively our New Year's Day, and for all legal purposes it still would be, except for that 11 day jump to correct the calendar. So they wouldn't lose 11 days' revenue in that tax year, the authorities just added the 11 days on the end, so now our legal/fiancial year starts on April 6.

To simplify accounting, it's usual now for the corporate/public sector tax year to run whole months April 1 to March 31, but the personal income tax year still runs from April 6 for everyone in the UK.

Alex