Not Death Again! More Lyke Wake Customs and Tales

   In a previous post I wrote about the historical rituals and customs surrounding death death.  That piece discussed parish mort-cloths (for people who could not afford coffins) and lyke wakes, the long-standing ceremony where community members sat with the deceased in the house until the time of burial.  (That article can be viewed here.)

   As you can't have too much of a good thing, more details about the customs and traditions in this macabre, but unavoidable, aspect of mortality, are hereby provided.

The Lyke Wake and The Dairgie

   One surprising aspect of the lyke wake is the fact that it often involved many local people in a gathering which was marked by frivolity and amusement rather than solemn watchfulness.  My previous article on the subject suggested that the event was attended mostly by close friends of the deceased, usually older members of the community.  But the evidence presented below shows that young people in the area often made up most of the members at a lyke wake and they were far from dour in their behaviour.

   The following quote is from a writer who called himself Taodunus and appeared in The Scots Magazine as 'Customs and Superstitions of the Scottish Peasantry, at Births and Burials,'  (volume 83, 1819, pp. 219-224):

Until of late years, it was not only common, but admitted of few exceptions, for a great number of persons to assemble together at night in the house where the corpse lay, and there hold the lykewake.  The party consisted generally of young people of both sexes, where every species of rustic amusement, except singing and dancing, was entered into with avidity.  Rural sports and games were adopted, and generally so contrived, as to produce forfeits, which gave a good pretext for tousling and kissing the lasses.  The company was regaled with bread and cheese, beer and a dram; and the mirthful hilarity of the party was generally as unlike the occasion of their meeting as it is almost possible to conceive.  A new squad assembled next evening, and the same scenes were repeated nightly until the corpse was interred.

   When a boy about fifteen, I recollect being of being one among twenty at a lykewake, and so excellent were the sports, and so keenly did they engross the attention, that I and one or two more attended two successive nights, without having had any sleep through the intermediate day.   I conceive this fact as sufficiently illustrative of what was generally going on upon these occasions.  The house was so often so full, that there were not seats for the company; and I have seen the bed-side where the corpse lay uncoffined occupied by two or three, from the want of other accommodation.  An old friend of mine related to me a whimsical anecdote that occurred at a lykewake where he was present.

     The company being short of sitting room, two young fellows were seated on the front of the bed, where the corpse was stretched; according to the fashion of the times, one of the young men had a leathern belt about his waist, buckled over his jacket; his companion, an arch wag, recollecting that the deceased had a crooked figure, slily and gently lifted up the dead man’s hand, and fastened the crooked finger in his companion’s belt; then rising with an air of indifference, he walked to the door, from which, with counterfeited emotion he called to the company that a house on the village was on fire; all got up attempting to rush out; among the rest the man on the bed-side also arose, but felt himself suddenly pulled back, and as he supposed by the dead person behind him: so powerful was the impression, that he fell backwards  across the bed in a swoon, from which he was with much difficulty recovered.

   He later gives details of  customs which used to prevail both before and after the actual funeral:

Very absurd customs of feasting on these occasions formerly prevailed.  On the evening before the funeral, a number of the neighbours, male and female, were invited to the 'coffining;' and immediately after the funeral, the same females and others concerned assembled to what is still termed the dairgie, probably a corruption of dirge, although the rites observed are very dissimilar...

   Among those in the better ranks, such as respectable farmers and tradesmen, the company are all seated in the barn, where they partake of a good dinner, and sit for an hour or two after, drinking toddy, sometimes wine.  Formerly it was nothing uncommon for the company to get very tipsy, before rising from the table, but the practice of dinners is wearing out, or, when they do take place, the guests, with a decorum more suited to the occasion, rise very soon after. 

Different Practices in Dundee and Arbroath

   Taodunus remarks on the sombre clothes at Arbroath funerals and the serving of drams (or a choice of drinks at more affluent houses) at the house of the deceased. Crowds of two hundred or more were not unusual.  He disapproved of the Dundonian custom of mourners appearing in their work clothes - 'weavers in their dirty linen jackets, and shoemakers with their greasy aprons' - and notes that people are seldom invited into the house.  Poverty of the industrial workers is ascribed to the latter custom.

General Superstitions and Customs Around Death

   Taodunum also gives some interesting living superstitions concerning the passing of life, one of two of which may be unique:

At death, many freits [superstitions] are still observed, some of which are strange enough.  When a person is dying, no one in the house, of whatever age, is allowed to sleep, - for this I have heard no reason, farther than it was unlucky.  Ir is also believed, that, when a person dies unseen, they who first discover them will die in a similar manner.  When one expires, the clock is immediately stopped and the dial-plate covered with a towel; mirrors are also covered in a similar manner.  All the cats belonging to the house are caught, and put in immediate confinement.  The reason given for this is, that they would endeavour, if possible, to pass over the corpse, and the first that they crossed after would be deprived of sight.

   When the body is dressed and laid out, a Bible is often put below its head, while a plate with salt, and another with a piece of green turn, is placed on the breast.  It is also a common practice in some quarters of this country, should the corpse be conveyed to the church-yard in a cart, for some one immediately after the coffin is put upon the cart, to say, 'Now, what is that horse and cart worth?'  I have been at some pains to learn what was meant by this, but never could receive any other reply but that it was the custom.  Among the lower classes, the female relatives crowd about the door when the corpse is carrying out, and frequently give most audible vent to their grief; sometimes the widow will insist upon carrying her deceased husband's head part of the way to the grave.  The husband always walks to the church-yard and lays in his wife's head.

    

The Deadly Joke Which Went Fatally Wrong

   Taodunum also gives a story from the 18th century which concerns the schoolmaster of Monifieth, Mr William Craighead.  This shorter version of the tale  below, however, is by the Rev Charles Rogers, from his book Scotland, Social and Domestic, Memorials of Life and Manners in North Britain  (London, 1869, pp. 121-2):

In some of the outlying districts the proceedings of the latewake culminated in a festival, at the chesting of the corpse. This took place on the night preceding the funeral, the festivity being known as the dargies or dirgies. The occasion was often attended with boisterous levity and merry-making. When the apartment became crowded, some of the company would seat themselves in front of the bed in which the corpse lay uncoffined. On such occasions the company looked upon the remains of mortality without feelings other than those which would prompt the merry laugh or excite the ill-timed jest.

   Persons whose education might have led society to expect becoming behaviour at their hands, indulged in practical jesting at the lykewake. About the close of the last century a dargies was held in the parish of Monifieth, Forfarshire. A large gathering took place in the chamber of the deceased. Among the number was Mr. William Craighead, the parish schoolmaster, a man of some literary attainments, and author of a popular system of arithmetic. There had been much romping and giggling on the part of the female portion of the watchers, and Mr. Craighead unwisely judged that an alarm which he planned with a confederate would check the evil. Having induced the watchers to leave the apartment for a little, he hastily removed the corpse into the barn, while his confederate lay down in the bed, habited in the dead man's shroud.  it had been arranged that on a renewal of the merriment he should rise up to startle the company.  the gaiety had some time been resumed, when Mr Craighead, surprised that his confederate gave no sign, opened the shroud and found that he was dead.  The impressive event put a perpetual stop to the improper merriment of the dargies in that district of the Lowlands.

   This tale had much currency in the Victorian era (something to do with their obsessive morbidity) and I published a previous version of this tale from Catherine Crowe's The Night Side of Nature (1848)  in a previous article.  (It can he read here).

One of Monifieth's old kirks