The Infant

Newburgh
It is still considered unlucky by many to use a new cradle for a newborn infant. Old cradles are, therefore, in special request and are constantly borrowed to avoid the mysterious peril of using a new one.

To gar claes gae through the reik; to pass the clothes of a newborn child through the smoke of a fire a superstitious rite which has been used in Fife in the memory of some yet alive, meant to ward off from the infant the effects of witchcraft.

Dunfermline
It was believed to be uncanny to weigh an infant before it was a year old, or to let the moon shine on its face while it was asleep. It was also very desirable to cut an infant’s nails for the first time over an open Bible.

Twins

St. Andrews
The Rock Dove (Columbia Livia). When domesticated they have four broods in the year, always two at a time—male and female. Hence a boy and girl are called “a doo’s cleckin’.”

The Mother

It was strongly believed that if a pregnant Woman stepped over “ a cutty’s clap,” that is, a place where a hare had lain, her child, when born, would have “the hare-shach,” or hare-lip.

Childbirth Feast

Kinghorn, Minutes of Kirk Session, 4 March 1645.
Taking to your consideratione also another abuse of mixt meetings of men and women meerlie for drinking of cummerscales as they call it. The prejudice which persons lying in childbed receives both in health and meanes being forced not onlie to beare companie to such as come to visit but also to provide for theire comeing more than either is necessarie or theire estate maye beare. considering also that persons of the better sort carrie a secrit dislike to it and would be gladly content of ane act of this kynd that there might be to them some warrand against exceptions which might be taken be friends and neighbours if the ancient custome were not keeped be such, upon thir considerations the minister and elders of the sessioun discharges & inhibits all visits of this kynd.

The custom here referred to was that of meeting to drink the health of a newborn child. It was considered dangerous to the health or beauty of the child if the visitor did not empty his or her glass.

Newburgh
Long after the middle of the 18th century, the dainty provided for friends and neighbours on the occasion of the birth of a child was oatmeal cakes crumbled and fried in butter, which were named butter-saps. To say that you had partaken of these saps in a house was equivalent to saying that a birth had occurred in the family.

Baptism

Newburgh
The custom of taking a bit short­bread or other kind of cake along with, and sometimes pinned up in the dress of, a child conveyed to church for baptism, still prevails in Newburgh. This cake is known as “the Bairn’s Piece,” and is presented to the first person that is met on the way to the church.

Dunfermline
There was an old custom attended to at the time of the baptism of infants in the church, and it is still carried out in some quarters. That was for the male infants to
have the ordinance administered to them first, if there happened to be both males and females presented. It was thought that if a girl were baptized before a boy, the girl would be likely to have a beard and the boy to be of a feminine disposition.

Marriage

Caution Money. Ballingry
The practice of two male friends of the parties waiting on the Session-Clerk, and with their names, depositing the stipulated fee. Therewith was conjoined what was termed “laying doon the pawns “, that is, the making of a small consignment in guarantee that the marriage would be solemnized. In the parish of Ballingry, Fifeshire, the consignment was in 1670 fixed at two dollars. It was ruled by a Kirksession in 1666 that “the pawn” or money should “remain in the clerk’s hand for the space of three, quarters of a year after the marriage.”
Rogers.

Marriages in the Seventeenth Century
Curious customs with regard to marriages were in force in many Fifeshire villages during the seventeenth century. After being proclaimed on three successive Sabbaths, the marriage could not take place until a pledge, usually amounting to five pounds Scots, had been lodged with the kirk-session. At a stated time after the marriage, if meanwhile the couple had behaved themselves, to the satisfaction of the session, this sum was returned, but if not, the money was forfeited and went to the support of the poor. Many a time the expectant bridegroom had not such a sum as five pounds in his possession, and in that case a kindly friend or neighbour would lend him the money.

When the marriage of a wealthy couple took place the
bridegroom was expected to contribute very liberally to the poor-box; so that marriage in Fife would seem to have been rather a costly affair in olden days.

The marriage ceremony was performed by the minister in much the same way as at the present day. In the subsequent festivities the pipers played a very important part. The proceedings would seem to have been generally of a most uproarious nature, judging at least from the following minute of Aberdour kirk-session, dated January 1653: “It is reported by some of the elders that there is ane great abuse at brydalls, with pypers and the like.”
To put down rioting and disorder at weddings this session, who seem to have held the poor bagpipe-players responsible for much of the trouble, ordained that those who were about to be married must consign two dollars into the treasurer’s hands, which should be restored after the marriage, provided there had been no abuse by pipers; but, in the event of such abuse, the said two dollars were to be confiscated for the use of the poor. The pipers usually accompanied the marriage party from the house of the bride’s relations, to that of the bridegroom.

“Penny weddings,” or, as they were sometimes called then, “Penny bridals,” were very popular in Fife in the seventeenth century. Each guest paid a penny for the privilege of taking part in the festivities, and so great was the uproar often made by these “paying guests,” in order, presumably, to get as much excitement for their money as possible, that at length, in 1647, we read: “The Presbytery of St. Andrews passed an Act restricting the number of persons at weddings to twenty, and the number present at contracts and baptisms to six or seven, and this Act was extended by the Synod to the whole of Fife.”

Marriages in the Nineteenth Century
Newburgh
Marriages are now celebrated in this neighbourhood with customs of which no positive explanation can be given.
The best man (groomsman) and the bridesmaid go arm in arm to fetch the bridegroom, and conduct him (and afterwards the other guests) to the dwelling of the bride, where the marriage ceremony is performed, though less than a hundred years ago it was usually performed in the church. After the ceremony, and just as the newly-married couple are leaving the house, a plate containing salt is at some marriages stealthily broken over the head of the bridegroom, and as they leave the door the customary shower of old shoes is thrown at them. The bride and bridegroom head the procession, they are followed by the bridesmaid and best man, and the rest of the bridal party, all walking two and two, arm and arm, to the bridegroom’s house, where a supper is prepared for the wedding guests. On the arrival of the bridal party at the bridegroom’s house, his mother, or nearest female relative, breaks a cake of shortbread over the head of the bride as she sets her foot on the threshold, and throws the fragments to the door to be scrambled for by those who assemble outside on marriage occasions. A fragment of the cake is coveted by young maidens, to lay under their pillows at night, as a spell for ensuring dreams of those they love. It is deemed specially unlucky for a marriage party to take any by-path or to turn back after they have once set out for their new home.

Ballenbriech Castle
About two hundred years ago, a gentleman, called by the name of Earl Andrew, then lived in that castle and is said to have been a very wicked man; and the whole barony of Ballenbriech, which is pretty extensive, then belonged to him, though he now occupies only a very small space of ground in the churchyard of Flisk. While he resided there he claimed it as his right, as the Baronial Lord, to have the first night of every bride that was married in his barony. There was a young woman who lived up on the hill above, in a farm, I believe called Cauldcotes, whose turn came to be married, but was not willing to surrender up that night to him, which she considered as not belonging to him, either by the divine or human laws.

Accordingly, the night previous to her marriage, she went down to see Earl Andrew, taking with her a young calf and a pound of butter, by way of a present. The Earl was very complaisant, letting her see all the curiosities of the place, and among other things an instrument he had for fixing those that were obstreperous or non-compliant, to remind her of what she might expect. She got him persuaded to go into it himself, to see how it would answer, and immediately fixed him in it. She rubbed him well with butter, and then, fastening the calf upon him, left him in that predicament. This according to the account, had the desired effect. She not only escaped, but it is said it also fairly put an end to the practice for the future; but, for the affront put upon him, the farm of Cauldcotes had to pay a wedder sheep to the castle annually, for a long time after, as a fine, which I suppose is now commuted into money.

Priest’s Right
A strip of land in the farm of Ladifron, belonging to Mr. Paterson of Cunoquhie, is called the temple, There is a tradition, that a priest lived here, who had a right to every seventh acre of Ladifron, and to the taking dung as left on the ground every seventh night.

Weavers’ Funerals. Dunfermline, 1687
One of the most ancient and respected customs of the craftsmen’s associations was that which constrained the members to attend the funerals of any of their deceased confreres. Among the weavers, no one was permitted to “gang pairt of the road and then turn back,” and each and every freeman was obliged to mark his respect for the departed by assisting to carry the bier, or to be one of its attendants “all the waie to the kirk­yard.”

Midnight Funeral: Ghostly Procession. Auchtertool
A lady who had spent much of her youth in the parish, lately told the writer that in her childhood an old servant, a native of the parish, gave her an account of the tradition current in the district regarding this burial [that of one of the Skene family, who had been involved in the Rebellion]. The Earl of Moray of that day allowed the body of the deceased Skene, which had been brought from France, to be taken to Halyards; and from thence at the ” mirk midnight,” accompanied with torchbearers, old retainers of the family, bare the body by the “ Lady’s Walk” and straight across the field, according to their old burial custom, to the Kirk of Auchtertool, where it was placed in the vault. The narrator added this interesting and picturesque detail, that every year on the same night in the month of August a ghostly procession comes along the “Ladies’ Walk” to the Kirk of Auchtertool, bearing a shrouded coffin shoulder-high, and attended by a piper clad in the tartan of the Skenes, playing an ancient Lament. No one of late seems to have observed this procession, or have heard the wail of the pipes, but it would never do for anyone belonging to the parish to doubt that it takes place as has been recorded. Stevenson.

Suicide. Monimail
There has been but one instance of suicide for many years. This event was rendered remarkable by the manner of interment. The body was brought from the house, through the window, and buried, under night, at the extremity of the parish. A proof at once of the force of old superstitious customs.

Newburgh
Towards the end of the last century the corpse of a suicide had to be lifted over the walls of the churchyard in Newburgh; the superstitious belief being that if it was permitted to enter by the gate, the next child that was carried to the Church for baptism would end its days by self-destruction. This superstition died out by slow degrees. Scarcely fifty years ago, two old women remembering what they had seen in their youth, watched with eager curiosity the funeral procession of a suicide in Newburgh, as it approached the churchyard porch, where a very slight accidental stoppage took place. Imagining that the old superstitious practice was to be put in force, they immediately set off to see the end, exclaiming, “They’re no gaun to let her in yet”; but they had not run many paces when the whole procession disappeared within the churchyard gate, and this form of superstition was for ever extinguished amongst us.

Newburgh
There was an old story of a far-back laird of Inchrye House who had brought home a black wife. He was very cruel to her and she died. Some time after, he died also, and was duly laid out. During the night a noise was heard in the death-chamber, and on going up the terrified attendants” felt an awfu’ smell o’ sulphur,” and found the corpse sitting up in bed. It was popularly supposed that he had been visited by “Auld Nick. “

Brunt Laft. St. Monans
In the upper regions of the Kirk, accessible by a stair in the steeple, there was a certain peculiar recess called the “Brunt Laft.” Respecting the origin of this title there is only one opinion extant.

During the benighted ages of superstition and priestly domination, numerous were the helpless victims that perished in the flaming faggots under the conviction of witchcraft; and St. Monans being much infested with such notable beings, was not behind in the discharge of its duty. The Kirk Hill was the arena where such flagrant exhibitions formerly took place; the beadile being the principal executioner. After the faggots were exhausted, his special duty was toscatter the ashes towards the four winds of heaven, and to deposit the burnt fragments of the bones in the recess before mentioned in order to record the transaction. Hence it was denominated the “Brunt Laft.”

Inchcolm
Tradition relates that two male infants, supposed perfect in all the organs of speech, were placed upon this islet (some say Inchkeith), under the surveillance of a person deaf and dumb, and totally secluded from intercourse with any speaking machine, in order to ascertain what language they would acquire by the mere tuition of nature; and if the authority already quoted be at all worthy of credence, in process of time the two innocent exiles returned to the mainland conversing fluently with each other in pure Celtic accents, alleged to be the language of their parents.

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