Burning the Clavie

At Burghead on the Moray Firth the Clavie was burned on New Year’s Eve by the old style calendar, which now falls on 11 January. Seamen and coopers sawed a tar barrel in half, fixed the smaller part to a pole called the spoke with a nail driven home by a stone, since no hammer was allowed, and packed it with tarred wood, which was lit from a burning peat. Men took turns to carry the flaming Clavie round the town, and a stumble was once thought to foretell disaster to the place and death to the bearer. Burning brands were thrown to the crowd and kept as charms, and formerly the Clavie was carried round every boat in the harbour and grain thrown into each for luck. It ended on a stone pillar on the hill called the Doorie, and the Clavie is still burned there every January.