We get a lot of odd requests at ScotClans. despite living here all our lives (well apart from a year in Carlisle but I don’t like to talk about that!) and thinking we know pretty much all there i to know about Scottish Traditions we do here about ceremonies that are a complete mystery to us.

Perhaps the most common one we here about is the ‘Kirking of the Tartan’. This ceremony takes place on a Sunday close to St Andrew’s day when clan leaders march in procession into their local church, each carrying a sample of their clan tartan. At the culmination of the event the swatches of tartan are brought to the front and blessed.

It was a good few years ago when we first heard about this and like so many others had to immediately fire up the old web browser to find out what it was all about. As far as we are aware this ceremony has NEVER been carried out in Scotland. Some people claim that this ceremony dates back to the days after Culloden when the clans were proscribed from wearing their tartan and that the clan people hid samples of tartan to preserve their heritage, however research quickly uncovers this event as only dating back to 1941 and was introduced in the United States by the Rev. Peter Marshall at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.

Another one we here a lot about is the ‘hand tying ceremony’ this is related to a pagan ritual of binding the hands during a wedding ceremony to signify union. It is also connected to ‘handfasting’ which is also a sort of ‘trial marriage’ which would last for a year and a day - gosh a Marriage with a get out clause! who called them primitive! In recent years though (and due in no small measure to the film Braveheart) an element of ‘Tartanry’ has crept into this - we get many requests for strips of tartan to use at these ceremonies where the couple is bound with the husband’s tartan to signify here entry into the ‘clan’.

I guess most people on these shores would sneer at this and call it as the title suggests just pure Brigadoon nonsense (that’s the version with Gene Kelly) but its all too easy to be cynical about so called ‘traditions’ that appear to have sprung up from nowhere. Lets be honest its easy for us to be steeped in tradition. We only have to walk out of our office to stand on the spot where the French fought against Scots in the 1560’s during the Siege of Leith - ancient history and traditions surround us - for the descendants of families who emigrated generations ago, many during the infamous ‘Clearances‘ there is no such luxury, so let them have their own traditions, it does no harm and in a way helps promote Scotland worldwide.

I have on caveat though - there has to be a limit. In one story i read a Scot was guest of honour at a St Andrew’s ball in Chicago. at the peak of the festivities a large trolley was wheeled in on which sat a large tartan tea cosy - suddenly a girl popped out of the middle in a tartan dress much to the Scots astonishment. a whispered voice informed him ‘that’s the ‘haggis lassie’ its traditional!’ - just one word… Nooooooooooooooooo!

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Have you heard of an odd Scottish tradition? why not tell us about it

‘Scotland’s Birth Certificate’ describes the earliest surviving record of the country’s existence. This ancient document which is 1,000 years old is being held in the national library of France, where it has been since the 17th century.

A campaign has been launched top return this unique piece of Scotland’s past returned to Scotland. MSP Margo MacDonald and archaeologist and presenter of the BBC’s ‘The History of Scotland’ Neil Oliver, are actively joining the campaign.

The Manuscript contains the very first mention of the country Albanium - the Latinised version of the Gaelic name for Scotland. The rare text is a list of the 12 Kings of the House of Appin - Scotland’s first Royal Family. And charts the particularly bloody decade of Scotland’s history from the reign of Kenneth MacAlpin to Kenneth II, who died in 995. It explains how Scotland was unified under the Alpin family.

Translations of the text reveal a very bloody account of each of the Kings and their achievements. Of Kenneth I it says “He attacked Saxonia six times; and burnt down Dunbar and captured Melrose”, but that he died of a “tumour” in the palace of Fortevoit. The authors also wrote of their intollerance of what was considered failure of King Aed, who ruled from 877 to 878, it was written: “The shortness of his rule has left nothing memorable to history; but he was killed in the town of Nrurim”.

We at ScotClans will be avidly following this campaign and are extremely keen to read a translation of this document in full.

Yes we know its only October but this latest offering from ScotClans list of ‘homespun’ products has arrived just in time. We teamed up with our very good friends at Edinblythe, who have been making fantastic cards for some time to come up with something special.

After a little trial and error we finally came up with a design that comfortably incorporates a full colour clan crest, tartan image and a traditional Scottish winter scene. Thanks to ‘print on demand’ we are able to offer small runs of cards (packs of 5) all custom printed with clan crest and tartan.

We have had a trawl on the old ‘interweb’ and as far as we can see there are no other similar cards out there so we will be extending the range very soon to cover lots of other events and holidays such as Easter, Birthdays and of course any anniversary of us ‘Stuffing the English’

The cards are big enough to comfortably accept a large denomination note (though they may struggle to contain enough Zimbabwean dollars to buy a pair of socks) but otherwise if your loved ones like their cards to have that reassuring sound that only a crisp note can give then feel no fear.

Clan Christmas Cards

Bob Dylan’s music has inspired generations of music lovers. He has now named his own personal inspiration as our favorite Scots poet Robert Burns.

When asked which lyric or verse had the largest impact on his life he chose the 1794 song A Red, Red Rose, which is mostly known as poem, it was originally wrote as a song, penned by the man regarded as Scotland’s national poet.

According to some experts it was based on a song Burns heard a girl singing.

Burns himself, a great pioneer of the Romantic movement, referred to it as a ’simple old Scots song which I had picked up in the country’.

Dr Gerard Carruthers, director of the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow, said: ‘A Red, Red Rose is one of the greatest love songs of all time. It’s a song that resonates down the ages. It’s part of the Burns song canon.

‘It’s one of his most emotive and emotional, perhaps his biggest expression of love.

‘Burns was a hugely committed artist who dealt with everyday emotions and big emotions so in that sense it’s not a surprise he’s influenced Dylan.

‘I imagine Dylan will still be loved in 200 years as much as Burns is.’

No-one is absolutely sure if these gruesome villains existed, or if they were just English propaganda to blacken the Scottish name after the Jacobite rising, but if you had been traveling in Galloway a few hundred years ago, you probably wouldn’t have wanted to test the truth yourself!

Sawney Bean and his wife were loving parents: passing on their trade to their 14 children; sharing their seaside home with all their 32 grandchildren; having huge family get-togethers whenever there was food to be had.

But you wouldn’t have wanted to be invited to one of those gatherings.

For Sawney Bean and his incestuous tribe were thieves, murderers and cannibals, and they ate all their guests.

The Beans lived a mile-long sea cave on the Galloway coast in the South West of Scotland, the entrance hidden at high tide.

If ever an unwary traveller or two passed along the coastal hills close to their home, the whole tribe would leap out of the heather and grab them, and take them back to their cave, either to eat them fresh, or to pickle them for hungrier days.

Legend says Sawney Bean and his wife reaped this disgusting harvest, with their growing number of children and grandchildren, for nearly 25 years.

It wasn’t that no-one noticed the travellers going missing, and occasionally people were worried by stray limbs washed up on beaches miles away, but they didn’t know who was taking them.

If concerned citizens searched the coast, they never found the cave, with its entrance underwater. And if they were suspicious of anyone, it was the innkeepers and tavern owners who were often the last to see the missing travellers alive. Several innocent people were hanged for murders they never committed in the years that the Beans were prowling the coasts and hills.

One day, a couple leaving a local town fair one evening were attacked by a horde of men, women and children. Under the onslaught of nails and hands, the wife fell from her horse, so her husband, laying about himself with sword and pistol, had to watch with horror as the young women who had pulled his wife down started to rip into her raw flesh and drink her blood.

The young husband was fighting hard and well, but he could never have fended off the whole tribe all night, if another band of fairgoers hadn’t appeared, also on the way home along the same path. As soon as the Beans heard this larger group approaching, they ran off.

But for the first time they had left a witness. A witness to the attacks, a witness to the cannibalism, and a witness to the direction of their escape.

Safely escorted by his rescuers, the lucky widower told his story and showed the mutilated body of his wife to the authorities in Glasgow, who contacted the King in Edinburgh, who brought a whole regiment of soldiers and an army of hounds to hunt for the murderers.

The men might have missed Sawney Bean yet again, but the bloodhounds were attracted to the cave, not just by the scent of the Beans, but by the stench of the limbs hung up to dry all along the walls of the sea cave.

So the 48 Beans were captured by the King’s men, at the back of their long and stinking cave. They were walked all the way to Edinburgh, then executed, every single one of them.

The men and boys bled to death after their hands and feet were cut off. The women and girls watched their fathers, brothers and sons die, then they were all burnt to death.

And travellers could then roam the Galloway hills as safely as any other part of Scotland.

But legend does not tell us what Sawney Bean requested for his last meal.

This legend was told for Scotclans by Lari Don, a storyteller and writer, who loves to tell tales from Scotland and all over the world to audiences of any age in any venue (she particularly enjoys tents and forests but has so far avoided caves). More details on www.laridon.co.uk

The BBC has begun the re-broadcast of the series ‘Scotland’s Clans’ with the story of Clan Armstrong. This was broadcast here in the UK on Monday night and is available online on the BBCi Player.

I have to say that the presentation was first rate and whilst there will no doubt be a few that will not be pleased that the program is not stuffed with ‘facts’ (spurious names, dates, and references to this or that charter of 14 somethingorother) The program did give a very well balanced view of the position of the clan in Scotland’s history.

Obviously the program centred on the Armstrong’s Riever past and the clan’s betrayal by the Stuart monarchs.

I’d hate to have to sift through all the emails and letter that the BBC will no doubt get at the end of this series from all of those ‘outraged’ that their clan are not included (’dear sir, why has the Bellshill branch of the clan macshuggle not been included given our contribution to the world of steam driven lawnmower production in the late 19th century? Our clan chief lives at 19 shaleheap view rise, auchenmurtle etc etc’) but even the BBC don’t have the resources to cover all but the most significant.

Still to come are: Cameron, Campbell, Fraser, Mackenzie, MacLeod, MacDonald, MacGregor

The long awaited functionality to add new clans to the site database has finally been completed so weve managed to add 10 new Clans. We are still researching the History and People pages but have posted up the crests and tartans for each new clan as well as filling up the clan shops - here is the list of new clans:

Cockburn Dalziel Inglis MacLellan Melville Middleton Brown (Broun) Watson Weir Young

I came across a great story to read in full follow this link.

Legend / oral history has it that the clan Maclain of Lochbuie chief had a son called Ewan ‘with the small head’. concerned that they wouldn’t inherit the clans castle and it’s lands on the chiefs death Ewan continuously hassled his father. During an argument Ewan hit his father on his head with a sword. Ewan’s father furious with Ewan complained to his brother who was chief of the MacLeans of Duart. Ewan’s uncle seeks revenge on Ewan and challenges him to battle.

On the eve before the battle Ewan comes across a washer woman at the ford of a river ( a bad omen) The clothes are clean but at she washes them blood flow from them. Ewan asks her who will win the battle tomorrow. She tells him if he gets served butter without asking for it with his porridge then he will be victorious in battle. Ewan annoyed at this answer curses the washer woman. The next morning the servants don’t bring the butter and he shouts at them ordering it. The battle doesn’t go well, Ewan aptly is hit on the head with a sword which takes the top of his head off, he manages to mount his horse, but dies as it gallops off the battle field

The clan MacLaines of Lochbuie are supposed to be haunted by Ewan The Headless and feel his presence when one of the clan dies. I would love to hear any other great Scottish legends

Pebbles based company Holland and Sherry are in the process of weaving what will be one of the worlds most expensive tartans. The tartan is to be woven from 100% Mongolian cashmere. This extraordinary fabric will cost around £200 a metre to the trade so it’s estimated that a kilt made in this tartan would set you back around £3,000!

The tartan which was designed to reflect the colours of the local countryside will be unveiled at the up-coming ‘Dressed to Kilt’ show in New York and will definately be aimed at the top end of the market. Our resident kiltmaker is already looking forward to making her first £3,000 kilt (and presumably being taken out to dinner by the bloke who can afford it!).

There’s a competition running down here in sunny Leith at the moment to find the greatest ever ‘Leither’. The historic port of Leith to the north of Edinburgh (though now part of the city) has had more than its fair share of characters and names such as The Proclaimers, Irvine Welsh, Sculptor Paolozzi and the Leith Hibs legend Lawrie Riley. However one name stands our for us so we at Bletherskite want to get some support behind our choice, none other than the ‘lady mayoress of Leith (sic)’ Mary Moriarty.

Mary, originally from Corstorphine was an antiques exporter but fell into a pub one day and never left! Her bar; The Port of Leith is one of the most famous bars in the world among the nautical community. There can’t be a merchant sailor (or pirate for that matter) who hasn’t left their hat behind the bar, only to reclaim it the following year.

Entering the Port of Leith is like coming through the back of a wardrobe and appearing in the land of Bohemia - the atmosphere on a week night is slow and relaxed like a scene from ‘Trees Lounge’ but at the weekend the bar transforms into something magnificent! The oddball clientele appear to hail from the seven seas, the gay community, the local hardcases, artists and the odd pimp and his posse but this potential molotov cocktail is shaken but never stirred - by 10pm the bar is normally packed on top with dancing clientele and the whole spectacle is watched over by the ever present Mary Moriarty (we say ever present because some years ago a figurehead replica of her was mounted over the bar so she can never leave).

I have taken many a visitor round the bars and I’ll frequently say to them ‘We will end up in the best pub in the world’, they of course scoff at the claim during our preamble crawl around the King’s Wark. Shore Bar etc but within 10 minutes of entering the Port, warm beer in hand they were singing along with the crowd with a smile as broad as the Firth of Forth.

For services to the Leith Community, despite of the damage her establishment has caused my liver we want to recognise the fantastic Mary Moriarty. She is the last great character in our little corner of ‘Embrae’ and deserves all the praise we can pile upon her.