Rituals as Old as the Hills

November 2001

Tom McKean

At midnight on Hogmanay, swinging blazing baskets of burning wood and paraffin round their heads, a group of up to 50 strong men and women carry on the ancient tradition of the Stonehaven Fireballs. Their midwinter fire festival is as old as any, though the present revival appears to be about 150 years old.

‘Invigorating!’ says Bill Emslie, a key organiser. ‘You do it once, you want to do it again the next year.’

Remains and revivals of ancient fire festivals are dotted around Scotland: the Comrie Flambeaux, the Biggar and Wick bonfires, Lerwick’s Up-Helly-Aa, the Stonehaven fireballs, and the Clavie at Burghead, all that remains of once widespread and diverse celebrations. Braemar had a fireball ceremony, and Bettyhill a burning of the boat.

‘Uphellie Even’ was celebrated in Morayshire at least as far back as the 16th century. Queen Victoria herself was partial to a good fire and she had Beltane fires lit on hilltops across the country in celebration of the old Celtic festival. (Remnants of the ancient practice in which she was taking part can be seen in place names like Tullybelton — from the Gaelic for Beltane Hill — where fires would have burned annually over many centuries.)

Back in Stonehaven, shortly before midnight, the swingers gather at the Auld Toon Cross. Their fireballs have been made over the previous few nights, under Bill’s watchful eye.

“We make them out of netting wire the Council kindly give us… and we supply the ingredients,” Bill continued. “So the wire is made intill a ball, a round ball, an then it’s secured at the base. Before we actually seal up the top we put in usually pine cones an very small wood chips, bound up in old cotton shirts. Then we put it all together inside the basket, take it down to the old town, and then the paraffin is put into it, an then it’s lit at the Auld Toon Cross.”

The swingers circulate from the Cross to Cannon Corner (site of a captured Napoleonic cannon) with their fireballs, which weigh between 12 and 20 pounds.

“Mind you they do double up with the weight of the paraffin you put into it. An then the resistance that you feel, the momentum and you’ve got to walk straight! It is a very gruelling task.”

As each ball nears the end of its life, the swinger walks to the harbour slipway, and with one last swing, heaves the ball into the water.

half, its bottom fixed to a four-foot-six post, the ‘stack’, with a smiddy-made nail, driven in with what is said to be a Pictish throwing stone. A new nail was used each time, while there was a smith in the village, but the same one has now been used since the 1920s. Six barrel staves are then nailed between the post and the bottom of the barrel to stabilise it, with a gap left for the carrier’s head.

The Clavie finished, a dram is had, and the crew disperses to await the following afternoon when they gather at the King’s house, dressed in boiler suits, wool jackets, stout boots, leather or wool hats and leather, or other fireproof gauntlets, all soot- and tar-stained from previous years’ service. The barrel is brought round to the Aul Manse dyke, and from nowhere a crowd begins to gather, in no time reaching hundreds. The King lights the Clavie with a burning peat, to three cheers from the crowd, and the procession begins.

The first carry goes to the King (or in former days, some newly-married man), who, putting his head between the staves below the burning barrel, lifts it up.

“First filled, it weighs aboot two-an-a-half hundredweight, which is an awful lot for one person tae carry,” says Dan. “Sometimes it’ll be so full that when whoever’s carryin it tips it back it’ll come runnin doon; burned necks are fairly a matter o course on Clavie night. A doctor friend, who’d seen the Clavie for the first time, said tae ma wife, ‘A’ve certified people for doin less than that!’ That sort o sums it up,” he says with a laugh.

Carries are short and changeovers frequent. As fuel burns and staves are distributed, the Clavie gets lighter; now is the time for young crew to have a go, perhaps a first timer.

“Ye take some o the weight on your head, so ye’re only liftin it, at the most, a foot off the ground. So it’s not as bad as it sounds. It leaves ye with stiff neck an shoulders an back for a few days, but ye can’t not carry it.”

The route never varies, weaving through the old town, perhaps round its ancient boundaries, stopping at hotels and particular houses to throw a burning barrel stave or fragment in the door to bring luck to the house. What kind of luck, few ever say. Perhaps, in former days, such burning splinters were used to relight hearth fires for the New Year. It is ill fortune to drop the Clavie, not least because of the danger to the carrier and those around him. A close eye is kept on the weather, therefore, as a frosty night makes for a difficult carry indeed.

Eventually, the procession winds its way to Doorie Hill, at the heart of the old Pictish fort, where the Clavie post is wedged into a stone pillar — the altar — and a small barrel and more staves added to it. The hill is then immolated in waves of tar and creosote, thrown by the crew, to the cheers of the crowd now several thousand strong. The conflagration continues, sometimes enveloping the entire hilltop, until the barrel, weakened by burning, and sometimes a few taps from an adze, collapses. The crew move in, breaking up the remains and distributing pieces to onlookers, keeping what they need to give or to send to their own families and friends.

The stack is retrieved, complete with nail, and carried from house to house with the crew as they first foot round the village on a habitual route. Now is the time to wish people a Happy New Year. At last the crew can a have a dram, or two, or three. The rest of the village is still quiet, but soon comes to life as free traditional food, like tatties an herrin or broth, and music are offered at favoured households, hotels and pubs. Though the making and burning of the Clavie is a male ritual, women play a large role in the village celebration as a whole. Nowadays, they act as stewards during the actual procession, keeping the crowds at a safe distance from the crew and the Clavie.

Hogmanay has always been a communal event, a time when the world was turned upside down: adults disguised themselves, children misbehaved, clothes were worn inside out, and pranks were played. Into this time of change, disruption, and turning, come the fire festivals, rituals that cleanse the old year and bring in the new, with its lengthening days. Some once had a darker side, where a scapegoat was chosen and sacrificed for the good of the community in the coming year.

These festivals are as old as the hills, of course, with many a fishing village burning a tar barrel or a small boat. Today, Stonehaven and Burghead host the only remnants. Following the World Wars, both went through lean years, but a dedicated few felt strongly enough about them, and enough townsfolk concurred, that they are now stronger than ever.

“It’s my ambition to see the fireballs carry on for as many years as they’ve been going,” says Bill Emslie. “And they say they’ve been going on for hundreds o years. And the idea of the fire, you know, has been goin, tae get rid of evil spirits, since pagan times.”

Naturally, with ever-growing media coverage, and more complex safety measures required by local councils, the events have changed in character. For a time, when Archangel tar barrels became unavailable to the Clavie crew, whisky barrels were used; now Dan builds his own, closer to the original shape. So important is the tradition that when asked for one of his handmade barrels for a local museum exhibit, Dan gave them a less well formed one; only the best should be burnt on Clavie night.

As Dan says, “They elected me, A don’t know why, bit A think really they know that A’m a stickler for tradition, steeped in tradition. They knew A wouldn’t allow it tae alter in any way, or be modernised. Over the years ye hear suggestions about, ‘Why don’t ye have a pipe band in front o ye?’ Bit the thought maks ma blood curdle. Ye can’t have anything like that. It’s got tae be tradition an nothing else. It’s so important. Important not jist tae Burghead, it’s important tae the whole of Scotland and all ower the world, that these traditions are kept alive and unchanged.”

Part of the pressure for change comes from the huge increase in numbers. “It is a spectator sport,” notes Bill, “but it is a participating sport, really, because we’d do it whither there was anybody there or not. This year there wis seven thousand.”

Dan agrees: “A’ve got mixed feelins aboot the media. A don’t think they really try tae get intae the understanding of it. They’re surprised that something as barbaric as this can go on, an that people put their head under the burning Clavie. They think we’re primitive here, but I think that’s what we really want them to think,” he laughs.

Though some intimacy has undoubtedly been lost, the events continue to be celebrations of community in which locals and outsiders may play a part. As Lachie Ralph says, the crowd’s “all a blank, really. Jist the Crew an the Clavie. Everythin else is forgotten about. Ye’re all there, ye’re all helpin one another. It’s somethin else, like. Families are carryin it, rather than jist Brochers by themselves.”

Tom McKean is an American folklorist with wide interests in Scottish tradition, particularly the song traditions of the North-east and the western Highlands. He is a Research Fellow at the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen.

This is an article from the November 2001 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, subscribe to Leopard Magazine.