Lightening the darkness

Death and re-birth

Orkney is an archipelago of some seventy islands off the north coast of Scotland. For many centuries it was a Norse colony, only coming under the jurisdiction of the Scottish crown in 1468. Even today the indigenous folk express their independent spirit by claiming direct Viking descent. But habitation of the islands pre-dates these seafaring warriors not by centuries but by millennia. There are settlements, tombs and ring circles that pre-date the pyramids. Not just a handful either. At the last count there were 2993 Neolithic sites on Orkney which works out at roughly eight per square mile. And within the area of most concentrated splendours, West Mainland – which was granted World Heritage Site status in 2000 – is a cairn or chambered tomb called Maeshowe that catches the last rays of the dying sun each winter solstice.

Every year, on the 21st December, the shafts of the shortest day's afternoon sun enter a narrow passageway and illuminate the inside chamber for about twenty minutes. This remarkable event draws onlookers year after year from far afield and for those with a 'remote' interest there's a webcam trained on the cairn. Such mathematical and architectural precision is astounding. Ritualistically it's as if that ancient, unknown culture wanted to mark the passing of the year whilst psychologically capturing a little of the sun's warmth for the dark days ahead.

These Neolithic sun-charters were event organisers nonpareil: 5000 years later we can still get caught up in their mysteries. But there's festivity of more recent origin too. If you come to Orkney in advance of the Solstice you might catch the lighting of the magnificent Christmas trees at Kirkwall and Stromness. The firs come from Hordaland (Orkney's twinned region of Norway) and are decked in simple white lights. This magical sight is in sharp contrast to the rowdy, sprawling game of street football that is played in Kirwall every Christmas and New Year's Day. A leather ball (the Ba') is thrown in the air outside St. Magnus Cathedral and a swarming mass of locals – apparently divided into two teams – heave and rag about the town until one side gains the advantage and a winner is declared. It's that wild Viking blood.

Party-time

Traditionally, Christmas has never been such a shindig in Scotland as New Year. Credit for this goes to the Protestant Reformation, but now in a more secular age Scotland enjoys a double whammy: Christmas like everyone else and HOGMANAY.

Hogmanay is the Scot's name for New Year's Eve or Old Year's Night and it's a celebration quite unlike anyone else's. The word's etymology is uncertain. Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon and Old French each proffer possible roots: New Morning; Holy Month; Gifts. A new interpretation – in the light of all the kissing and embracing that follows 'the bells' at midnight – is that it's an ancient imperative to 'hug many'!

Edinburgh and Glasgow now hold spectacular, ticketed festivals which attract in the region of 100,000 serious party-goers every year. Leading up to the multiple hugging at 0:01am both city centres are ablaze with fireworks and torchlight processions and the air is full of the sound of many bands with their drums, guitars and fiddles and – from the responding crowds – the sound of chanting, whistles and popping champagne corks.

The giving of gifts, the firing of guns and canons and the sounding of ships' sirens are all traditional markers of midnight at Hogmanay. And in Scotland, after the clock's struck twelve, the bright-eyed go 'first footing'. This means a visit to neighbours or friends with mandatory whisky and cake and optional lump of coal (the thinking maybe that the host can gauge how much of the first item has been consumed by which of the second two items the guest throws on the fire). Another tradition is that it's good luck if the first person across your threshold is tall, dark and handsome. In other words undeniably Celtic and not one of those ubiquitous, blond and horned Vikings for whom PR stood for anything but public relations.

Fire, as a symbol of purification and lighting the darkness, plays a major part at these festivals and at celebrations across the country from the huge street bonfire at Biggar in Lanarkshire to the Ancient Ceremony of Swinging Fireballs at Stonehaven, south of Aberdeen. One of the biggest and most dramatic fire festivals of all is Up Helly Aa, which takes place in Lerwick, Shetland on the last Tuesday of January when locals dressed as Viking warriors drag a 'longship' through the dark streets before ceremoniously setting it alight.

Hands across the world

The spirit of the old giving way to the new whilst bringing to mind the lasting values of comradeship and kindness is, of course, immortalised in Robert Burns' Auld Lang Syne sung in many a home and hall far beyond Scotland's borders on New Year's Eve.

January is a month topped and tailed by Scotland's National Poet. The fact that Auld Lang Syne is virtually a universal leitmotif for New Year and the fact that the poet's birthday on 25th January is celebrated by millions throughout the world from Australia to Russia to the United States by way of an unequivocally inimitable supper bears witness to one of Scotland's greatest legacies to the world: the praise of love, friendship and humanity.

Winter is a great time to come to Scotland. Friends, as always, are assured of a very warm welcome. Strangers equally. For we're sure, in time, that they too will be friends.

For more information on Burns Suppers (rituals and recipes) click here.