For Auld Lang Syne

From blazing fireballs to torchlit parades, Scotland's ancient fire rituals welcome the New Year

- by ALLY HEATHER

IT'S time to see oot the auld year and welcome in the new. I'll be in Stonehaven for the bells this year, with a big mob of pals. We'll be carrying on at least three ancient Scottish New Year traditions: taking part in a ceilidh, a fire festival and a rendition of Auld Lang Syne, an old song reworked by Robert Burns.

I suppose a fourth tradition we will be part of will be the taking on of a good skelp of whisky.

Singing Auld Lang Syne is an incredibly durable tradition and is part of our influence on the world.

This sweetly sad song of parting was once sung to me in the Tatra mountains by a handful of vodka-swilling Poles as we brought in the New Year back in about 2015. I was the only Scot there, but everyone in the hostel joined in with the chorus.

One younger Polish guy sang the entire thing, verse after verse in dense Scots. Hoared snow on the ground and breath fogging the air, and a dozen Polish lads and lasses in their 20s belting a Scots peasant anthem from 300 years ago.

A few years later, I was hosting an Abraham Lincoln/Rabbie Burns event in a private club in Philadelphia. The vast ballroom was wood-panelled, the table whisky was $200 a crack and the service was silver.

I asked if everyone knew the song, and the clear majority nodded. And when the band struck up their rendition of Auld Lang Syne towards the end of the night, the guests joined in heartily.

I'm sure that you have shared this song at New Year, perhaps here at home, perhaps further afield.

One way that this song became so global was through our exportation of Hogmanay.

Scots èmigrès to Australia, Canada, USA and beyond created Scottish societies, formed Burns Clubs and joined the international constellation of St Andrews Societies that light up a map of our diaspora.