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

A Tales of Two Museums: The Angus Folk Museum and Glenesk Retreat & Folk Museum

A rather plaintive, short piece regarding two museums in the county.  The Angus Folk Museum in Glamis has been permanently closed for a number of years due to the condition of the building in which it is housed.  The Glenesk Retreat and Folk Museum is also closed for restructuring, but it will return as an attraction for visitors. 

   The Glenesk Folk Museum at the Retreat was set up in 1955 by Miss Greta Michie, a local farmer's daughter and school teacher, based on Scandinavian folk museums she had visited in Norway. The Retreat (which was a former hunting lodge of the Earls of Dalhousie) houses an extremely large collection of artefacts, some of which are now on display in the museum. In 2004 a community purchase and subsequent major refurbishment of circa £800,000 took place.  One room inside shows a rural Victorian parlour, with all the furnishings of the period, from harmonium, bonny china plates, plus tapestries.

Greta Michie

   There is, inside the museum a large spinning wheel, extraordinarily more than 300 years old, which allegedly belonged to a lady named Jessie Cattanach who had the distinction of being more than  feet in height, nearly a giantess in her day.  You can also see a 17th century box bed and a large collection of old children's and adult's clothes.  There are many thousands of objects in storage on site, many of which will be shown to the public when the displays change in the future.

The Retreat in the 1970s

   The Angus Folk Museum was also instituted by the efforts of one remarkable woman, Jean, Lady Maitland, who was inspired by the Highland Folk Museum, Am Fasadh, and wanted to emulate something which would cover Angus and Strathmore.  She first set up a collection in Rescobie manse and opened to the public in September 1953.  It moved to its more permanent home in an old cottage in Kirk Wynd in Glamis in 1957 and there it remained till the present.  Additions were made to the buildings in the 1970s, which was also the decade when the National Trust for Scotland took over its ownership.   

   The buildings here date back to the late 18th century, but sadly they have become dilapidated, leading the museum to permanently close.  The National trust for Scotland have advised they hope to find alternative premises for the fine collection and one hopes it will not be too long before an announcement to this effect is made.  

Other museums are available (and open) in Angus.

*** 2021 Update. The National Trust for Scotland have announced that a refurbishment to the House of Dun near Montrose will include much of the material (and more) which was formerly housed in the Angus Folk Museum at Glamis.

The Laird of Balmachie's Wife - A Fairy Story and Other Fairy Traditions

Fairy tales set in Angus are unfortunately quite rare, but I came across the following one recently. This was printed in Folk-Lore and Legends, Scotland, published by W. W. Gibbings, London, 1889, but is sourced from an earlier published work (detailed below):

In the olden times, when it was the fashion for gentlemen to wear swords, the Laird of Balmachie went one day to Dundee, leaving his wife at home ill in bed. Riding home in the twilight, he had occasion to leave the high road, and when crossing between some little romantic knolls, called the Curhills, in the neighbourhood of Carlungy, he encountered a troop of fairies supporting a kind of litter, upon which some person seemed to be borne. Being a man of dauntless courage, and, as he said, impelled by some internal impulse, he pushed his horse close to the litter, drew his sword, laid it across the vehicle, and in a firm tone exclaimed 'In the name of God, release your captive.'

   The tiny troop immediately disappeared, dropping the litter on the ground. The laird dismounted, and found that it contained his own wife, dressed in her bedclothes. Wrapping his coat around her, he placed her on the horse before him, and, having only a short distance to ride, arrived safely at home. Placing her in another room, under the care of an attentive friend, he immediately went to the chamber where he had left his wife in the morning, and there to all appearance she still lay, very sick of a fever. She was fretful, discontented, and complained much of having been neglected in his absence, at all of which the laird affected great concern, and pretending much sympathy, insisted
upon her rising to have her bed made. She said that she was unable to rise, but her husband was peremptory, and having ordered a large wood fire to warm the room, he lifted the impostor from the bed, and bearing her across the floor as if to a chair, which had been previously prepared, he threw her on the fire, from which she bounced like a sky-rocket, and went through the ceiling, and out at the roof of the house, leaving a hole among the slates. 

   He then brought in his own wife, a little recovered from her alarm, who said, that sometime after sunset, the nurse having left her for the purpose of preparing a little candle, a multitude of elves came in at the window, thronging like bees from a hive. They filled the room, and having lifted her from the bed carried her through the window, after which she recollected nothing further, till she saw her husband standing over her on the Cur-hills, at the back of  Carlungy. The hole in the roof, by which the female fairy made her escape, was mended, but could never be kept in repair, as a tempest of wind happened always once a year, which uncovered that particular spot, without injuring any other part of the roof.

   The setting of this story is quite significant.  The Cur Hills were a series of mounds in the parish of Monikie, described in the following fashion by the Rev. William Maule in the 1791 Old Statistical Account:

Near the 8th milestone, E. from Dundee, there is a ridge of small hills, called the Cur-hills, where within these 14 years several stone coffins have been found.  In the vicinity of the same place, were found upward of 6 feet below the surface of the earth, several trees, oak, fir and birch.  There were also found urns, covered with broad stones, below which were ashes, supposed to have been human bodies reduced to that state by burning.  To the south of the Cur-hills were found several heads of deer, and horns of a very large size, among marl, about 9 feet below the surface.

   This was evidently regarded locally as an unusual, possibly an uncanny place.  In the 1940s an earth house or weem (also called a souterrain) was found here, at Carlungie.  This souterrain (designated Carlungie I) is in an area rich with archaeological finds.  Its setting is described in The Souterrains of Southern Scotland, F. T. Wainwright (1963, p. 149), where the Cur Hills is described as the most southerly  of 'two long mounds of fluvio-glacial sand and gravel.'  Was the subterranean structure known about before (and subsequently forgotten)?  Such mysterious underground tunnels were the subject of whispered associations elsewhere - notable in the Barns of Airlie (which will be the subject of a following article).

   The story of 'The Laird of Balmachie's Wife' first appeared, I think, in an article in The Scots Magazine titled 'Customs and Superstitions of the Scottish Peasantry, at Births and Burials,' by a resident of the Carse of Gowrie who called himself Taodunus, but who was originally a native of the Monikie area (volume 83, 1819, pp. 219-224).

   As well as the fairy story he gives traditions about funerals which I have included in another post and some other fairy and associated traditions he received from a female source who also gave him the Balmachie tale.

Respecting the kidnapping of children, the same creditable old woman told me, that, upon one occasion, when she was a hafflin' cummer, about sixteen years of age, she was left with the charge of an unchristened wean during the night; while watching, she was seized with a supernatural drowsiness, and dropt asleep; something tapped her on the shoulder, which awaked her, and looking up she saw a wee woman clad in green, rocking the cradle with her foot, and very busy untying the child, which she had nearly accomplished, when Janet, in great affright, exclaimed, 'Lord preserve us!' upon which her unwelcome visitor immediately disappeared.   My narrator was reckoned a respectable woman, and was never known to be guilty of wilful falsehood.

   Kidnapping by fairies is a common feature in British fairy tales, with the victim often replaced by a 'stock', as in the first tale.  Interesting too that these fairies or elves conform to the latter-day description of them as very diminutive folk, when in previous centuries they had appeared often as full sized.

'The Beauty of Ballumbie' -

Fairy Kidnapping or Infanticide?

   Another darker tale was related to Taodunum:

Janet told also of a beautiful girl, with a skin so purely while and transparent, that her veins apepared through it like silver streams, and her cheeks like 'the bonnie blushing rose leaf.'  She was famed all over the country under the appellation of 'the Beauty of Ballumbie'...

   The girl became pregnant and delivered a baby boy when she was 15, which prompted her maiden aunt to expel her from her some.  So the girl took her child and went to live in a nearby hovel.  One day she was not seen in the neighbourhood, so her neighbours gained entry to the bothy through a hold in the roof, 'for there was no window that would admit them'.

When within, they found the door barred on the inside; the infant dead in bed, with the appearance of having been strangled; no mother there, and her clothes lying by her bed-side, as if she had put them off upon going to sleep.  Strange and various were the conjectures about her most extraordinary disappearance.  One party maintained that she had become insane, murdered her child, and made her escape by the roof; for, from the construction of the windows, and the door being fastened on the inside, all egress any other way was impossible.  Another, and by far the most numerous party, most firmly believed that she had been carried to Fairyland,a s it was known that she had taken no clothes with her, and had never been heard of, dead or alive.

   Extraordinarily, the girl reappeared after 7 years, 'late of an evening'.  She said that she and her child were carried away through the air to the back of the hill of Duntrune, where:

as they passed, there was light in the house of Duntrune, and some of the fairies expressed a fear of being discovered by a lady, who, it seems, had power over them; but another answered, that Puck had given one of the maids a colic, and the lady was attending her in a low room on the other side of the house.  That they then entered the hill, and came to a grand palace, the particulars of which she was not at liberty to describe.  That she continued to nurse the boy, whom she still imagined her own, and sing that time nursed other six to the King and Queen of Fairyland; the milk never having left her breast until about a month before her return, when she understood, from overhearing a private conversation, that she would have no more milk till she was again a mother.  

Duntrune House

   The fairies agreed to send her back to the mortal world, in the hope she would again get pregnant so they could use her wet-nurse services once more.  In tradition, fairies often had difficulties nursing their own offspring and had to utilise unwilling humans.

   While in the other world the girl had received a gift of very fine scented ointment to be used to anoint the eyes of her nurslings, under the instruction never to let it touch her own eyes, for it would make ordinary humans blind.  But eventually she applied the salve to her eyes and it hurt excessively, but she did not go blind.  Instead, it gave her supernatural vision and the power to see fairies walking through the world.  

She had lived thus, courted and caressed, always 'wooed but never won,' and many a time saw the fairies mingling in the affairs of men, when one day happening to be in a fair, she met King Oberon in a juggler's booth.  Less upon her guard than usual, she asked him how he did, and was proceeding to inquire upon her infant charge [she believed her real son was still in Fairyland]...when Oberon asked her how she knew him, as he did not think she could have seen him.  She unthinkingly replied, that she saw him with her left eye.  Upon which he blew something like dust into it,  and blasted its sight for ever.  The hapless girl returned from the fair, with one eye minus, and her future views of Fairyland and its inhabitants for ever lost. Her face was much disfigured, and, no longer an object of admiration, she was neglected by the one sex, and shunned by the other; grief and disappointment soon furrowed her cheeks; she became grey-haired at thirty, and died soon after with all the external marks of old age. 

   Why Oberon was in the juggler's tent, we shall never know.

Restless Places - Asylums and Mental Hospitals in the Dundee Area

I have seen the Asylum they lately have made,
And approve of the plan, but indeed I'm afraid
If they send all the people of reason bereft
To this Bedlam, but few in the town will be left.
For their passions and drink are so terribly strong
That but few here retain all their faculties long.
And with shame I must own, that the females, I think.
Are in general somewhat addicted to drink!

   The above was the comic remark of the English poet Thomas Hood during a stay in Dundee in 1815. Although there was recognition that mental illness had to be treated with care there is evidence enough of ill treatment before, during and after its onset. Here's a haunting record of a nameless inhabitant of a mental institution in Dundee in the early 19th century which says something about the conditions in society during his age:

A boy, fifteen years of age, was admitted an inmate of  the Dundee Lunatic Asylum, having become imbecile from fright. When twelve years of age he was apprenticed to a light business, and some trifling article being one day missing, he was, along with others, locked up in a dark cellar. The children were much alarmed, and all  were let out, with the exception of this poor boy, who was detained until past midnight. He became from this time nervous and melancholy, and sunk into a state of insensibility, from which he will never recover. The missing article was found on the following morning, exculpating the boy from the guilt with which he had been charged.

[On Superstitions Connected With The History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery, Thomas Joseph Pettigrew (London, 1844), p. 100.]

    Hundreds of people, nameless or barely remembered now, passed through the doors of asylums, orphanages, institutions for the impoverished and the like over the decades.

     Prior to the establishment of separate facilities for those who had psychiatric disorders, those afflicted were confined in a little room in an upper flat of Dundee's Town  temporarily before being sent to Montrose Asylum*.  According to James Myles (Rambles in Forfarshire (Dundee, 1850), p. 52) at least one of those incarcerated there committed suicide, dashing his brains out against the walls.

Dundee Lunatic Asylum

Dundee's Lunatic Asylum was formed as part of the infirmary in the first decade of the 19th century, funded by voluntary contributions, and formally established in 1820 as a  separate entity, with premises in Albert Street.  Subscriptions were first raised after a meeting of the infirmary in 1800, with contributions being raised, including £100 from the town magistrates.  Building was certainly underway by1812. 

   In 1824 there were upwards of 70 patients in the asylum. Their living conditions were described as being at least humane:

None are confined to their apartments, in fine weather they are generally found in the airing grounds, pursuing those avocations and amusements to which they are directed by their former habits and taste.  Some are engaged in reading; some in playing on musical instruments; some in drawing; some are employed in manual labour in the garden; here a party is seen at cards; there a couple are intent at backgammon; some females are sewing; some knitting or spinning; some voluntary engage in the work of the house; while it must be added with regret that there are others from whom the eye of the keeper must not wander.

[History of the Dundee Royal Lunatic Asylum, Davie Rorie (Dundee, 1912), p. 19.]

   In 1833 it was recorded that almost all patients were usefully occupied. The female patients made clothes for themselves and for the male patients. Male patients were mostly employed weaving cloth for use in the establishment or for sale locally, or picking oakum, plus gardening activities.  

   Among the surprising visitors to the asylum was the American dwarf and entertainer General Tom Thumb.  Rorie reports:

This remarkable little Yankee dwarf delighted many of the patients. Some of them thought he was a doll and were anxious to touch him that they might be satisfied whether he was or not.

Charles Sherwood Stratton (1838 –  1883), 'General Tom Thumb'

   In 1875 the institution became the Dundee Royal Lunatic Asylum.  A year previous to that the directors purchased Westfield Farm in Liff to establish a new asylum.  The area covered was around 110 acres.  Gowrie House and Westgreen were established on the site. The public part of the facilities could accommodate up to 400 patients, while the private asylum (Gowrie House) had room for 62 patients. Dundee District Lunacy Board operated Westgreen from 1903 onward, but Dundee Royal Lunatic Asylum at Gowrie House continued as a separate entity. 

 In 1959 the District Asylum (Westgreen) and the Royal Asylum (Gowrie House) were amalgamated, and became known as the Dundee Royal Mental Hospital. The Westgreen body became Royal Dundee Liff Hospital in 1963. Following opening of psychiatric wards at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee in 2001, Liff was closed.  

Liff Hospital in the late Victorian era

Strathmartine Hospital

The history of Strathmartine Hospital, just north of Dundee, is intimately linked with Baldovan House, which was close by it.  While the latter property has, in the past few decades, been demolished in a piecemeal fashion, the structure - or rather the shell - of Strathmartine lingers on, wholly derelict, a prey to arson and vandalism.

   Baldovan was home to a branch of the Ogilvy family and the original house was built in the early 18th century, though extensively remodelled during the following century.  The first name of the institution on the site was Baldovan Hospital. 
  
   The plaque on the foundation of the institution reads:

The Foundation Stone of this Building, erected by

Sir JOHN and Lady JANE OGILVY,

As an Asylum for the Treatment of Defective Children,

was laid on the 7th day of July, 1853, by

The Grand Lodge of Scotland;

John Whyte Melville, Esq., of Bennochy, Deputy Grand Master Mason,

officiating,

Assisted by all the lodges in Dundee.

Architects - Messrs. Coe and Goodwin, London.

Builders - Charles and Alexander Cunningham, of this parish.

   
 The orphanage on the site opened on 30th November 1854 (housing 30 children) and the Asylum opened on 6th January 1855.  As an orphanage , hospital, and indeed a haven for 'imbecile' children it was unique in Scotland and only the second such establishment in Britain.  






   In 1856 there was a change of name to Baldovan Asylum and eleven years later the asylum concentrated its attention on the care of mentally handicapped children. It ceased to function as an orphanage because it was thought the presence of mentally ill inmates would have a detrimental affect on the children.  By 1879 there were 70 children living there. At the start of the 20th century the buildings were expanded, housing 160 children in 1904, and in 1925 the trustees established an incorporation to manage the hospital to serve the children from the countries of Angus, Kincardine, Aberdeenshire and Perthshire.  Strathmartine Hospital, as it became in 1959, was brought into the NHS in 1948 and there was further expansion and rebuilding in the early to mid 1960s.  Indeed, as late as 1980 two new wards were opened.  But decommissioning of  began in the 1980s and it was closed completely in 2003.  Its subsequent sale to a development company resulted only in decay and dereliction.  Fires were repeatedly set in the building, notably in 2016, resulting in partial destruction and demolition. 

  Baldovan House had a physical decline comparable to the adjacent hospital.  It was sold to developers in the late 20th century by Sir David John Wilfrid Ogilvy, but the intended development never occurred.  The deterioration continued through the 1970s and beyond.  A 13 year old boy playing in the building tragically died there by accident in 2002 and the range of buildings was subsequently demolished.  

    Those interested in further material about Strathmartine can read Jimmy Laing's book Fifty Years in the System (1992).  Another resource, this time dedicated to the hospital, is the website Strathmartine Stories

*A previous post looked at the history of Sunnyside Hospital near Montrose, whose most famous patient was the father of Arthur Conan Doyle (story here).

King Crispin and Corpus Christi in Dundee and Montrose

A Confusion of Festivals?

This article end with a discussion of St Crispin's Lodges, part of a fraternity network which flourished for a while in the 19th century.  In Angus, there were lodges in both Montrose and Dundee (the latter had two lodges at one point).  The devotion to this saint was a feature of the Shoemaker or Cordiner trade, and in Dundee at least, prior to the Reformation, their allegiance was to the feast of Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ.  The Crispin link to Montrose is less clear, though I personally suspect the earlier local devotion to the Holy Rood was transformed at a later stage in history to St Crispin.

The Feast of St Crispin and St Crispianus - 25th October

The Feast of Corpus Christi (Dies Sanctissimi Corporis et Sanguinis Domini Iesu Christi) - Thursday after Trinity or the Sunday after the Most Holy Trinity as its proper day (usually May/June).

The Feast of the Cross - 14th September.

   The medieval and early modern cult of St Crispin in Scotland and elsewhere in Britain has been, possibly purposely,  confused with the earlier Catholic feast of Corpus Christi.  The feast was popularised in western Europe in Liege during the 13th century and became widespread during the next century.  Apparently the feast was known in Scotland in 1327, at the tail end of the reign of Robert I.  By the 15th century the festival involved, in northern England, processions and elaborate plays, which again spread into Scotland.  Another import (but via Flemish rather than English sources) was the feast of the Holy Blood, which was particularly popular in towns among the mercantile population.  The Holy Blood procession in Bruges claimed to have been imported there following the Second Crusade.  There was confusion, in Scotland as elsewhere, between Corpus Christi and the saints Crispin and Crispianus, though the latter two were honoured as associated saints.  In October 1506 and October 1507  James IV made an offering of forty shillings for 'bred' and 'lichts' for 'Saints Crisipine and Crispianes'.

  There were several festivals associated with the Holy Rood which became popular in Scotland and more widely in the British Isles.  September 15th was designated the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, or Holy Rood Day.  The celebration was supposed to have been instituted to mark the recovery of the Cross by the emperor Heraclius in the year 629.  

   In our area, Montrose notably maintained a pilgrimage centre focused on the blood of Christ, which attracted significant numbers of pilgrims from the region on holy days.  Regarding the site of the church of the Holy Rood in the town, James Mackinlay quotes J. G. Low's The Church of Montrose as follows:

Occasional references are made to a chapel, named the 'Rood Chapel.'  Whether this chapel stood adjacent to the Parish Church, or was erected in that portion of the common links now covered by streets and houses, and extending between the foot of the School Wynd and the south end of the Pier Wynd, is now a matter of conjecture.  Certain it is, that in this district various places bore names indicative of the proximity of a building dedicated to the Holy Rood.  Between the points mentioned we find the 'Rood hill,' which from early times was crowned with  the 'Rood mill,' and which stood in the neighbourhood of Hill Street.  At the foot of Lady Balmain Street stood the 'Rede wallie,' or Rude well, for supplying the burghers with water before the introduction of water from Glenskaino.

    The same author also highlights the Rood Fair that was held in the burgh in May. Rood Day, incidentally, was an auspicious time to ask to supernatural intervention to prevent ill luck.George Black reports: 'In Angus, on the evening preceding Rood-day (May 3rd), a piece of a branch cut and peeled and bound round with red thread was placed over the byre-door, to avert the evil eye.'  

Early Records of Corpus Christi in Dundee

   

Unlike many of the other tightly knit trades in the burgh the Cordiners, or Shoemakers, did not have their own altar in the burgh kirk.  Their devotions centred initially on Corpus Christi, the Holy Blood, and this affiliation was transmuted over the course of time into St Crispin.    The crafts guilds were tightly knit bodies, whose sense of identity went beyond mere mutual economic self interest.  In may places and cases they lived and worked closed together.  So in Dundee we had the Cordiners and Tanners occupying the evocatively named Wooden Land in the Overgate.  

 A list from St Mary's Church in Dundee, apparently dated (but probably 16th century), itemises the paraphernalia needed for the procession in the burgh records of Dundee give some idea regarding the complexity and scope of the event and also how much religious iconography was incorporated into the procession:

sixte of crownis, six pair of angel reynis  [wings], three myteris, cristis cott [coat] of lethyr with the hoses and glufis, cristis hed, thirty one suerdis, thre lang corsis of tre [wood], sane thomas sper, a cors til sane blasis, sane johnis coit, a credil and thre barnis maid of clath, twentie hedis of hayr, the four evangellistis, sane kathernis wheil...sane androwis cros, a saw, a ax, a rassour, a gully [large] knyff, a worm [serpent] of tre, the haly lam of tre, sane barnaras castel, abraamis hat and heids of hayr

   This procession was enacted every year on the Thursday after the feast of Trinity.

   While the attitude of the reformed religion obviously frowned upon the veneration of saints and iconography, it seems that the cult of Corpus Christi was not transformed into the more acceptably secular King Crispin (or even the halfway St Crispin) overnight.  

Another Religious Cult Pageants in Dundee - St Osbert

Religious pageantry in Dundee is poorly evidenced compared with some other burghs unfortunately and the secular plays and revelries which took place in the Playfield on the western side of the ancient town will be considered in a following post.

   There is a fairly faint record of annual devotion to another saint who was patron of the Baxter or Baker profession.  This was the annual 'St Osbert's Pastime' which occurred in no less than five east coast burghs:  Dundee, St Andrews, Perth, Haddington, and Edinburgh.  The scant record of this devotion comes only from the minute books of the Perth kirk session, from 1577-8 when the Protestant authorities were outlawing such idolatry.  The record alludes to someone on horseback, a drummer, and another participant wearing 'the devil's coat', with stern admonitions against the mumming observed in the procession apparently.  A record from Dundee dated 16th August 1486, states that John Richardson, Deacon of the Baxter Craft of Dundee, and others, bought from Thomas Turnour of Sanct Johnstoun, a new mass book, which they offered to 'Sanct Towbart’s Altar', in the church of Dundee. In local records of the next century the saint's name had altered to Sanct Cobortt, an evident confusion with St Cuthbert.
   
   Osbert was a saint, and bishop of Dunblane (or Strathearn), who died in the year 1231.  Possibly coincidentally, he is known to have attended a church conference in Dundee in 1230.  Whether his link with the town began then or soon afterwards is not known, but it would be pleasant to think he was remembered locally after this visit.  I do not know the reason why he was specifically honoured by the Baxter profession.

The Later Dundee Procession of King Crispin

The Cordiners, or Shoe Makers, one of the Nine Trades of Dundee were the group particularly associated with the cult of Corpus Christi and linked with the procession of it in the town.  The 18th century oil painted frieze, 35 feet in length,  detailing the annual event was displayed on the wall of the guild's room within the Trade's Hall in Dundee.

   According to a letter (by someone signing themselves as R.) in the Dundee Courier on Tuesday 5th May 1874, the painting commemorated the St Crispin's Procession as held on 25th October 1787:

The painting was begun by Mr Methven, a house painter by profession. He was also an artist of considerable ability. Mr Methven died, leaving his picture incomplete, and it was finished by the late Henry Harwood. When the Clydesdale Banking Company purchased the Trades Hall property, they made considerable alterations on it, and the Crispin painting was cut from the walls, and deposited, I believe, in the art department of the High School. Is the painting of sufficient value or interest to claim a place in the Albert Institute? and would it be worth employing a competent person to examine and restore the painting?

   Happily the picture was saved and now resides in the city's McManus Gallery service. Alexander Methven's original work was begun in 1787 and the frieze was completed  by Harry Harwood around 1825.  The depiction of the procession shows the Earl Marshall on a black horse and the King's Champion in armour and on a white horse, then King Crispin, with four pages holding his royal train.  Then comes the Convenor and the Deacons of trades, then the Craftsmen, wearing satin coats and knee breeches.  While the procession is undoubtedly set in Dundee (with the Law, Auld Steeple and Tay protrayed in the background), as the scenery in the background shows, it seems that some of the costumes at least came from afar.  Another character in the procession appears to be the turbaned Auld Mahoun, the Saracen.  

  The Trades Hall incidentally was opened only a few years before the date of this procession and previously the representatives of the ancient trades all met in specific areas of the Howff graveyard in the town.  

   

   A. H. Millar states that there was no procession held in Dundee between 1787 and 1822, though this is not certain.  He quotes the Dundee Advertiser of 3rd October 1822, describing the revived procession which took place in the burgh the previous day:

The rarity of the procession attracted the curious and the idle, and the High Street was crowded to excess for upwards of two hours. From the want of previous arrangement to keep off the excessive crowd, the procession advanced with difficulty and labour hard, and only the equestrians, such as the Champion, the Earl Marshal, and a few other grandees were visible above the mass of heads.  As the procession moved up the Overgate, a pedlar contrived to perch his person upon a table in front of his shop.  But no sooner did His Mock Majesty appear than the table broke down, and the fall of the pedlar was construed into a profound reverence to Crispin.

 Despite Millar's statement that this was the last showing of the adherents of St Crispin on the streets of Dundee, they did appear in public through the following decades, such as at the opening of the Baxter Park and the marriage celebrations for the Prince of Wales in the 1860s.

St Crispin's Societies in Dundee and Montrose

In 1770 the Cordiners of Edinburgh had some of their processional robes dispatched to Dundee. 

Edinburgh's procession must have been grander than Dundee's or any other.  It was in Edinburgh too that the formal setting up of St Crispin's societies into masonic style lodges was formulated, possibly in the very early 19th century. 

   These trade societies had their own membership criteria and rituals and were constituted as local bodies which looked after the welfare of their members.  It seems likely that they were started during the mid or early 19th century, though they had ceased to be active by the end of the Victorian era. The Shoemaker trade link is evidence in other Scottish communities:  Kilmarnock, Stirling, Falkirk, Dalkeith, Dunfermline, Kelso. The records of the Shoemaker's Friendly Society (St Crispin's Lodge), Montrose, can be found in the Angus Archives. There are other records held in national archives in Edinburgh relating to the lodges in both Dundee and Montrose.

   The records surviving appear to be somewhat sporadic.  There is correspondence sent to Edinburgh St Crispin officials in 1862, referring to an old associate of the Montrose lodge who had been Sir Hugh for thirty years, which tells us something of the longevity of that branch and also that it had its own pageant performances.  But, according to Sandra Marwick:

A reading of the Montrose record for the 1860s gives the impression of a literary and convivial society more than one devoted to Crispianism. Early entries are given over to accounts of papers read by various members; an anecdote of a shoemaker in December 1866 and 'The Duties of Young Men to the Community' in the following month...Much space is given to discussions and descriptions of convivial evenings and St Crispin anniversaries involving decisions about having 'Braddies' [bridies] served for supper.

   Complementing these records, which suggest a rather humdrum sort of club, Marwick notes that the mystical rituals of initiation into the order only survive in handwritten records from Montrose Royal St Crispin Society and Dundee Lodge No. 19.  These relate to entry into the second order, the Knights of St Hugh.  There also exist documents relating to initiations into the third order, the Court of Masters, in Dundee and rules relating to the operation of this order in Montrose.  The mumbo-jumbo contains allusions to Celtic mythology as well as more recognisable 'mysticism' derived from freemasonry.

  

   The Dundee script of the initiation makes it all sound rather harmless and quaint, the last gasp of a tradition that died with the dawning of the twentieth century:

Crispianus:       Who comes?

Inside Guard:    Crispins upon tramp.

Crispanus:         From whence?

Inside Guard:    From the lodge of St Crispin.

Crispanus:         Whither bound?

Inside Guard:    To visit the shrine of the noble St Hugh.

Crispanus:         Indeed!  Dangerous a journey.

Inside Guard:    Yes. These hearts are sealed and protected by the sacred lance of St Crispin.

Crispanus:         Got a passport?

Inside Guard:    No, but I have one for them.

Crispanus:         Then give it to me!

Further Reading

Steve Boardman and Eila Willliamson, The Cult of Saints and the Virgin Mary in Medieval Scotland (Woodbridge, 2010).

George F. Black, 'Scottish Charms and Amulets,' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 27 (1892-93), pp. 423-526.

Brian John Hayward, Folk Drama in Scotland, Phd. Thesis, Glasgow (1983).

Cosmo Innes, 'A Few Notices of Manner from the Older Council-Books of Dundee,' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2 (1855), pp. 347-9.

James Murray Mackinlay, Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland, Scriptural Dedications (Edinburgh, 1910).

Sandra M. Marwick, Sons of Crispin: The St Crispin Lodges of Edinburgh and Scotland (Cambridge, 2014).

Alexander Maxwell, The History of Old Dundee (Edinburgh and Dundee, 1884).

A. H. Millar, Haunted Dundee (Dundee, 1923).

Elizabeth P. D. Torrie, Medieval Dundee, A Town and its People, Abertay Historical Society Publication No. 20 (Dundee, 1990).

http://ninetradesofdundee.co.uk/cordiners/

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).

Arbroath's Gallushun Play

Annual revels in the form of community plays, sometimes called Mummers' Plays, were once common in the British Isles.  In Scotland, however, they were very localised, with communities in the Borders and the west of Scotland being most conspicuous in having these annual ritual events. Lothian and Fife had them too, in lesser numbers.  Angus had hardly any at all, except for Arbroath, which makes the record of James McBain in Arbroath Past and Present especially valuable.  

   Hogmanay revels of course continued into modern times (and other Angus Hogmanay rhymes will be considered in a separate article), but these plays were something exceptional and in most cases continued for many generations.  The play featuring Galoshan, Gallushun or Galoshin (there are many variants) and a host of stock characters acted out mock battles, death and resurrection, motifs which could be fairly ancient.  In some communities, interestingly, the plays were performed at Halloween instead of New Year.

   The only Galoshans event which continued without break (barring World War Two) into the present was at Biggar, though there have been recent revivals in various forms, with festivals throughout Scotland taking on the Galoshans name. Is there any 'deep' ritual meaning in the play?  That contention is highly debatable.  Apart from the fragmentary text contained in McBain's book there was a complete play version sent to The Scotsman in the following year by a man who stated it was given to him by an elderly relative who remembered it 'from Forfarshire' and the east of Scotland.  The relevant texts do not match, but perhaps we shouldn't be surprised as there was much fluidity in different versions.

The Arbroath Play

   Here is McBain's introduction about the event from Arbroath Past and Present (pp. 341-2):

The old Scotch method of celebrating Hallowe'en has been so graphically depicted by our national poet that no other hand need attempt to picture it, but the word recalls to our recollection the annual reproduction by our Arbroath youth of the old Scotch drama... [called] 'Gallshuns'.  The 'get- up' was simple enough.  All that was required of the actors was to blacken their faces and furnish themselves with wooden swords, and they were ready to go to their audience, for the audience did not come to them.  The play began by the hero Gallashuns fiercely and boastingly announcing his determination to withstand 'all comers'.

   The opening words of the play text are given, but unfortunately not a lot else as the author concentrates on a partial summary of the plot:

                                       Gallashuns! Gallashuns! Gallashuns is my name!
                                       With a sword and pistol by my side
                                       I hope to win the game!

But the others soon find a champion, who as fiercely confronts the braggard, exclaiming:

                                       The game, sir! the game, sir! is not into your power!
                                       I'll slash you and slay you in less than half an hour!

They fight desperately, till, amid derisive laughter, Gallshuns falls, sorely wounded.  Then enters the doctor:

                                       Here come I, Doctor Brown,
                                       The very best doctor in all the town,

who very soon cures the wounded warrior.

   We are unlikely to know when Arbroath's play was first performed or, indeed, when it ended and the exact text is also lost to us, barring the miraculous finding of a lost manuscript.  But the bits we have are certainly intriguing, coupled with other evidence gathered below.  Was the 'Angus' text performed somewhere else in the county?  We'll probably never know.

   

The Play in the Carse of Gowrie

   Did it originate in Angus though? Brian Hayward thought it reminiscent of the versions he had seen which came from the Stirling area.  It certainly differs somewhat from the fragmentary Arbroath version above, except for the 'Doctor Brown' lines.  However, it is worth looking a little further afield.  Hayward does not seem to have been aware that there was a record of the play being performed in the Carse of Gowrie, just west of the county of Angus.  (The only localised version he identified is one from Crieff, much further west.)  The Rev,. Philip (Songs and Sayings of Gowrie, pp. 48-49) acknowledges that the play is widespread and that there are different versions.  He speculates the central character - Galatian - is the legendary Calgacus who fought against the Roman Agricola at the Battle of Mons Graupius in the first century.

   Interesting too, that this version has as a character Judas, who spouts some pertinent place specific lines, which again do not tie in with the Arbroath or 'Angus' texts:

Here comes in Judas;
Judas is my name;
If ye put not siller in my bag,

for guidsake mind our wame !

When I gaed to the castle yett,

and tirled at the pin,

They keepit the keys o' the castle,

and wadna let me in.

I've been i' the east carse,

I've been i' the west carse,

I've been i' the Carse o' Gowrie,

Where the cluds rain a' day pease and beans,

And the farmers theek houses wi' needles and prins. Etc.

                The Angus Text

'The New Year Mummers' Tale of Golaschin'The Scotsman, 31 December 1888 (p. 5)

The correspondent who sent in the following Angus version of the New Year play wrote from Hamilton on 27 December 1888 and signed himself only as W.G.D.  Frustratingly, he does not localise the version anywhere particular in the county.  His letter begins with this information:

Sir, The following version of this ancient and curious play (of which, I believe, traces are found in most countries in Europe) I have taken down from the lips of an old lady relative, according as she remembers it to have been said, sung and acted in her younger days in Forfarshire and the eastern counties of Scotland. I do not know whether it has ever been printed in its present form, but it is worth preserving.  though the rhyme is somewhat halting, I give it in its original doggerel for as recited to me.     

                                         

                                                  

                

   
                                                

                 

                                     

                             

                              

   

                            

             

   It is worth noting that the 19th century folklorist Dr R C Maclagan apparently had access to another version of the play set in Angus, for he cites a character in his text named Bol Bendo (see The Silver Bough,3, 155.)

Sources Consulted

Brian John Hayward, Folk Drama in Scotland,  Phd. Thesis (Glasgow, 1983).

Sir William Duguid Geddes, 'The Burlesque of "Galatian."  The Guisards of Scotland,' Scottish Notes and Queries, 2 (1889), pp. 145-7.

F. Marion Macneill, The Silver Bough, volume 3, A Calendar of Scottish National Festivals, Hallowe'en to Yule (Glasgow, 1961). 

James M. McBain, Arbroath Past and Present (Arbroath, 1887).

Rev. Adam Philip, Songs and Sayings of Gowrie (London and Edinburgh, 1901).