Cutting Off the Fiddler’s Head

Waldron’s history of the Isle of Man says that through the twelve days of Christmas every barn was in use and every parish hired fiddlers at the public charge. On Twelfth Day the fiddler laid his head in a girl’s lap while someone asked him whom each girl present would marry, and whatever he answered was trusted like an oracle. If he paired two people who disliked each other the fun ended in tears. Because the fiddler was then finished for the year, this was called cutting off his head.