Olden Days Death (and Some Humour)

Here's a couple of anecdotes about death and dying in the 'good' old days.  The first concerns a certain Johnny Baxter of Montrose, ordered by the doctor to give his wife a sup of whisky in her extremity.  The doctor called again a few hours later and questioned Johnny about whether he had actually administered the spirit to his spouse.

 'Weel, as fae's daith, doctor' he said.  'I got the whusky for her, but ye see, ye tellt me she couldna last till morning, and that naething would dae her ony guid, so I jist thocht it's a peety tae waste guid whusky, and so doctor -' he issued a mighty sigh '- I jist took the drappy mysel.'

   The doctor's face showed strong disgust, so Johnny added quickly to redeem himself, 'I gied her the hooch [whiff] of it.' [Scottish Life and Humour, p. 83.]

   The second story concerns a man attending the funeral of an Angus farmer's wife long, long ago. He was weeping fit to burst and had been in the same condition at two other funerals in the recent past.  One of the other mourners asked why he was so grievously affected:

   'John, man, what's wrang wi ye? I'm sure she wisnae ae drap's bluid tae ye.'

   'It's no that,' John replied tearfully.  'A'body's wives are deein but mine!'
   [Scottish Life and Character, p. 465.]

The Lyke Wake and Funeral Superstition

Did the distant generations of Scots have a unique attitude to death?  Maybe so.  One of the most interesting accounts of death and its customs in rural Angus concerns the parish of Kinnell.  The following extracts are from Glimpses of Men and Manners About the Muirside (pp. 178-180):

During the nights previous to the internment friends and neighbours took their turn, generally in pairs, to remain in the room where the corpse lay, provided with a candle, a Bible and a bottle of whisky. A tale is told of what really took place at a 'lyke wake' in this district many years ago.  The scene was a portion of an old castle, part of which had been patched up and turned into a farmhouse.  The aged mother of the farmer had died, and two elderly females were watching by her remains.  the corpse was laid out of an old-fashioned 'press bed,' having a shelf at the foot. The watchers, seated before the bed with a candle, etc., on a small round table, had fallen into a dose.  A well-filled bolster placed on the shelf at the foot of the bed, struck and upset the table, waking the good women from their slumbers, and they, thinking the deceased had come to life again, flew down the stairs in great alarm, gasping out 'She's risen!' 'she's risen!'

The hour at which a death occurred in a village the bellman was informed, and however late or dark the night he passed along the tinkling dead-bell to call attention to his intimation.  The bellman summoned all to the funeral, and for anyone to absent himself  was regarded as a discourtesy to the dead and an insult to the living.  It was only after the year 1700 that the presence of the minister was usual.  

There were many superstitions connected with funerals...if the funeral party walked to the place of burial in a straggling manner, it was regarded as an omen  that another death would soon occur under the same roof.

   Edwards also observed regarding the watch over the corpse (pp. 181-2):

From the moment of death until the departure of the funeral procession to the place of burial...the corpse was watched...by parties of friends and neighbours, who relieved each other.  Silence was observed, but this did not prevent the consumption of much ale and whisky.  Among the poorer classes the internment took place soon after death, in order to lessen the cost of watching, but the well-to-do deferred the funeral for about a week, and sometimes a fortnight, in order that the hospitality of the house might be more extensively offered and enjoyed.

The Parish Mort-Cloths

In centuries past, when there was no bier or coffin to contain the recently departed person, the body was wrapped in a parish mort-cloth, which covered it until it reached the place of burial.  Parishes often had several of these, a basic one and a grander one, for the poorer and more well-off parishoners. They were hired out for funerals and were a useful source of revenue for kirk sessions.  On 13th September 1702 it was recorded that Dun was hiring out its mort-cloth to those in the parish for £1 10 shillings and to outsiders for £2 10 shillings. Fees elsewhere were highly variable.  An old lady called Erskine, buried in Montrose in 1674, was charged £6 6 shillings 8d for use of the best morth-cloth.  The list of those who used the small and large mort-cloths in Dundee between 1655 and 1817 has been compiled by the Friends of Dundee City Archives.

   But sometimes charges for use of the mort-cloth were waived; for instance, in the case of the following in Auchterhouse in February 1694:

In regard Patrick Ogilvie hath borne the burden of David Edieman, his father-in-law, for some years bye gone, and that he was unable for work, therefore the session determined that he should pay nothing for the mortcloth at his burial, he being in a mean condition. [Annals of an Angus Parish, p. 143.]

   On 10th February 1724 the kirk session of Auchterhouse enacted:

(1)That there should only be a sixpence paid for the use of the second mort-cloth att children's burialls. (2) That all plaids upon corps (corpses)shall be discharged (forbidden) in time comeing, and that poor people who are not able to pay shall have the use of the second mort-cloth gratis, (3) That none without the parish bury here without our mort-cloth. 

   The Rev. Inglis notes that poorer people sometimes used plaids to wrap the remains of their loved ones in as they could not afford the mort-cloth fees.

   The minister and another man from Auchterhouse journeyed to Dundee on 2nd December 1716 to purchase two new cloths.  The cost of the better one, 'made with all furniture requisite', was the remarkable sum of £198 Scots, or £16 10s sterling.  The poorer one was 'English cloth, unmade, for the meaner sort', and cost £25 : 12s Scots, or £2, 2s,8d. sterling.  In 1646 the kirk-session of Brechin was obliged to buy another mort-cloth when their was stolen by English troopers.


   In earlier days a burial box was sometimes used, wherein the body in its winding sheet was transported to the grave, then deposited when the bottom of it was withdrawn.  In 1563 the General Assembly ordained

that a bier should be made in every country parish, to carry the dead corpse of the poor to the burial-place, and that those of the villages or houses next adjacent to the house where the dead corpse lieth, or a certain number out of every house, shall convey the dead corpse to the burial-place, and bury it six feet under the earth .

The mort-cloth, too, was used sometimes in later years to cover bodies which were contained in proper coffins.

   The Rev. Inglis relates how the fine velvet of a mort-cloth in the Carse of Gowrie was purloined by a Frenchman who had designs on it for another purpose:

When the French prisoners of war, in the early years of last century, were taken from the port of Dundee to Perth prison by road, they frequently were billeted in the Parish Church of Inchture. A French prisoner getting his eye on the beadle's best velvet mort-cloth managed to secure it, and got it under his arm ready to proceed with it to Perth. The beadle, however, missed it, pounced upon the culprit when he was on the march, and when he asked him what he meant to do with his mort-cloth, he said, 'It was just the very ting for velvet slippers.' [An Angus Parish in the Eighteenth Century, p. 81.]

Illustration of Auchterhouse House from cover of Annals of An Angus Parish

Some Sources

D. H. Edwards, Glimpses of Men and Manners About the Muirside (Brechin, 1920).

William Harvey, Scottish Life and Character in Anecdote and Story (Stirling, 1899).
Violet Jacob, The Lairds of Dun (London, 1931).
William Marshall, Historic Scenes in Forfarshire (Edinburgh, 1875).
Rev. W. Mason Inglis, An Angus Parish in the Eighteenth Century (Dundee, 1904).
Rev. W. Mason Inglis, Annals of An Angus Parish  (Dundee, 1888).

William Sinclair, Scottish Life and Humour (Haddington, 1898).