Fife Folklore - Festive Season

Saundy Claw or Santy brought small gifts for children, but adults paid little attention to Christmas and, until the Second World War, it was not even a holiday. Shops and work places were all open as usual.

Auld Year’s day was much more commonly used than hogmanay for the last day of the year. Children called it cake day and went round in the forenoon, carrying baskets, to their friends’ homes, where they were given
shortbread, cake, an orange and an apple. Some people still gave the older traditional penticut, an oddly-shaped plain biscuit with a few carvey (carraway) seeds on top. Sometimes the children would chant:

Gi’es ma cakes an’ let me rin,
Ma feet’s cauld, ma shune’s thin,
So gi’es ma cakes an’ let me rin.

Adults too, invited each other to “see and come in for yer cakes” and most shop-keepers handed over a little extra, a few sweets or a quarter of tea perhaps, saying “Here’s yer cakes”.

Ferl, The Oxford Dictionary gives ferl as a quadrant shape, but in the East Neuk aferl was always a whole circle of shortbread. Until the Thirties, shortbread was a luxury kept for special occasions and, at New Year, the
bakers’ windows were full of beautifully decorated feris made to order. A good fishing at Yarmouth was sure to produce a fine display of extra large ferls with a drifter in white icing across the centre, its name and number
forming a border.

Soirees
Parties. They were generally connected with Sunday School and held at Christmas. There might be an occasional Magic Lantern Show but the programme usually consisted of traditional singing games and individual recitations or songs. Tea and a poke (a paper bag) containing three or four buns, were served, and all the paper bags were-eventually blown up and burst.
It was only at a so ‘ree that one was likely to see a Christmas tree. Until after World War II there were few, if any, in Scottish homes, churches, shops and streets.

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