By Paul Frin
Like many parts of the UK, Scotland has a long and curious history of japery connected with the first day of April. Pranks would be played and rituals enacted that, on any other day of the year, would either be frowned upon or actively outlawed.
Here is a selection of a few of the more notable Scottish April Fool traditions:
Tethered pigs in the Trossachs
Kilmahog, in the Trossachs, is situated where St Chug’s chapel once stood, and the 17th-century burial stones can still be seen. A number of stones show the (barely discernible) outline of a pig.
It was believed that, on 1 April each year, the Devil sent his minions to play tricks on the villagers. In readiness, the people would adorn their torsos with wild garlic and blacken themselves with peat and mud, then they would wear a snout-mask carefully crafted from reeds. This, they reckoned, disguised them from the cloven-hooved harbingers of evil that infiltrated the village on the first day of April.
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At dusk, they would unmask themselves and pounce upon the unsuspecting village pigs, surprising their quarry. The aim was to tether the beast to their ankle – but, if the pigs were not compliant (and thus too evil), they were hung from the mercat cross. The surviving pigs had to stay attached to their new master until a new day dawned. The villagers were thus considered forever saved from the clutches of the devil, and a pig was marked on their eventual gravestone as a reminder to Old Nick. Antlers, anticlockwise An old Highland tradition for All Fools’ Day was enacted at the “big hoose” on the Achnawharry estate near Strathpeffer. On every other day of the year, the ordinary workers – ghillies, gardeners, cooks – were, on pain of eviction from their tied cottages, barred from entering the grand trophy room, the walls of which were hung with the stuffed heads of every creature that had ever lived and died on the 26,000-acre sporting estate. There were the heads of stags, weasels, pine martens, sheep, stoats, goats, otters, golden eagles, sea eagles, peregrine falcons, capercaillie, tawny owls, short-eared owls and sea owls – along with beasts such as tigers and rhinoceroses brought back by the sons of the clan from their expeditions to Africa and beyond. The trophy room also contained the finest collection of claymores to be found outside the armoury of Edinburgh Castle. From midnight to midday on 1 April, however, the lower classes were allowed to sneak into this treasure store – the great oak-beamed door was deliberately unbarred on the stroke of midnight – and could remove whichever animal heads took their fancy. Small wooden ladders, known as “proppers” were used in reaching the higher trophies. Then, come first light, the womenfolk – this being a female-only part of the tradition, whereas only the men climbed the proppers – would parade around the exterior of the house while each balancing the head of a stag, otter, owl etc on their own head, tied under the chin using a strap made from goat-gut. They would slowly circle the house seven times anticlockwise or widdershins, singing as they went: “Oh th’ heids o’ the beasts, muckle an’ mild / We woch’d their antlers, beaks an’ ears.” And as they circled, the clan chief would toss items of silver cutlery towards the semi-disguised singers. After gathering up these spoons, knives and forks, the husbands, sons and brothers of the singers would then, on All Saints’ Day seven months later, sell the silverware at Dingwall market as a means of providing Christmas money for their families. Frogs in Throsk The village of Throsk, in Stirlingshire, was home to the curious and somewhat chaotic game of jouk-ba’. A precursor of rugby – but in a way more akin to what some would now recognise as American football, given that players could be tackled even when they didn’t have the ba’ or ball – the idea was to get from one end of the village street to the other by jouking, or dodging, the players on the opposing team. There were also similarities to the Ashbourne Shrovetide football game in Derbyshire – except that, in Throsk, the ba’ was actually a large iron bucket full of peaty pond-water. This was of course carried rather than kicked. (The few reported attempts to kick it resulted in quite serious foot injuries.) From 1633 until Victorian disapproval saw jouk-ba’ discontinued in the 1890s, this bucket was required to contain a minimum of seven live frogs. A goal would only be awarded if both a designated chalk-line at either end of the village was crossed, and if the bucket was seen to contain the requisite number of amphibians. Jouk-ba’ was chaotic and messy, involving teams of up 60-a-side from either end of the village. One common tactic was to over-stock the bucket with frogs, in the hope that at least seven would have neither jumped out nor been slopped out by the time the goal-line was crossed. A further curiosity – regarded as very unfair by some, but enshrined in a local by-law (which still stands, even though the game is long extinct), was that the team for which the kirk minister played was awarded two goals of a start. A Shetland stink The first of April on the Shetland island of Unst has always been known as Da Day o’ da Vaam. “Vaam” is a dialect word (probably Norse or Norn in origin) which has a variety of meanings, ranging from spirit or atmosphere to, more commonly, smell or stink. “Dere’s a right vaam fae yon grice” (there’s a terrible smell from that pig) would be one example. Da Day o’ da Vaam is specifically about smell, the more unpleasant the better – and in Unst, rather than playing tricks for an April fool, the habit is to unleash the most horrible smell possible in the most unexpected way or place. The legendary Unst bus shelter, an internet sensation due to its varied decor, is for the morning equipped with a carefully rotted mixture of fish-heads and seaweed. Younger and less responsible members of the community may let off stink bombs in school or throw them into unsuspecting strangers’ houses – but the traditional habit of nurturing colossal farts and unleashing them as silently as possible in as contained a space as possible is now frowned upon, after a serious injury to the colon of one over-eager participant. The origins of the tradition are obscure, but are believed to relate to the washing up of the carcass of what was thought to be a blue whale on the beach at Haroldswick. The date is uncertain, but was probably in the latter half of the 18th century. Already rotting, its deterioration produced a “vaam” of such horror that a desperate attempt was made to blow it up using caches of military gunpowder. This took place on 1 April. Unfortunately, this succeeded only in spreading the rotten whalemeat over houses, gardens and people, who consequently suffered an even worse smell. And so Da Day o’ da Vaam was born in a massive shower of noxious blubber. And it has been nurtured in stinking and laughter ever since.Donate to us: support independent, intelligent, in-depth Scottish journalism from just 3p a day
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