St Serf’s Day at Culross

St Serf was held to be the patron saint of Culross, whose church was dedicated to him as well as to the Virgin Mary. On his day, 1 July, early in the morning, the whole town gathered, men and women, young and old, and carried green branches through the streets, decked the public places with flowers and spent the rest of the day in festivity. The minister writing in the Statistical Account of Scotland, whom Brand quotes among his parish wakes, said the procession still went on in the 1790s, but had been moved from the saint’s day to the king’s birthday.