St Andrew's Day
St Andrew's in Fife is having a festival (unsurprisingly!); they're creating a new street venue for the celebrations which include the Taste of Scotland food festival and a Scottish Real Ale and Malt Whisky festival. Much of it is free and there are sessions from musicians in many of the pubs, outdoor gigs and a torchlit procession. It's running from November 26th until Tuesday 30th November.
In Edinburgh, all the action is at St Andrew Square. A programme of poetry song and dance will be performed over four days, family friendly it includes dance lessons and making puppets (or Saltires!), and a free ceilidh on Tuesday 30th from 6pm until 10pm. There are also quizzes, drama workshops and "Jacobite themed activities" at the Scottish Parliament.
Glasgow are hoping to repeat the success of previous years with their 'shindig'. Saturday night is a free concert of traditional and rock music, whilst Sunday is for an all day ceilidh.
Historic Scotland have waived their entrance fees to 50 of our most beautiful heritage sites from Edinburgh Castle, up to Skara Brae (Orkney's Neolithic settlement) over the weekend. See their website for more details.
Haggis, whisky and oats will be consumed in large quantities and many of the Scots will cudgel their brains to remember their primary school lessons in Scottish country dancing and persuade everyone to join in at a ceilidh.
Around midnight on November 29, it was traditional for girls to pray to St Andrew for a husband. They would make a wish and look for a sign that they had been heard.
A girl wishing to marry could:
Throw a shoe at a door. If the toe of the shoe pointed in the direction of the exit, then she would marry and leave her parents house within a year.
Peel a whole apple without breaking the peel and throw the peel over the shoulder. If the peel formed a letter of the alphabet, then this suggested the name of her future groom.
German folklore advises single women who wish to marry to ask for St Andrews help. The night before the 30th, if they sleep naked, they will see their future husbands in their dreams. Young women should also note the location of barking dogs on St Andrews Eve, as their future husbands will come from that direction.
St Andrew is also expected to look after gout, singers, sore throats, stiff necks, unmarried women, women who wish to become mothers, fish dealers, fishmongers, fishermen, old maids and more!
St Andrew was one of Jesus Christ's apostles; he is thought to have been a fisherman along with his elder brother Saint Peter. The patron saint of Scotland, Greece, Romania and Russia, Andrew was reputedly put to death by the Romans in Greece by being pinned to a diagonal cross which is said to be the basis of the Saltire (also known as the cross of St Andrew). His connection with Scotland is from the relics that were placed in a chapel, in (you guessed it!) St Andrew's. Although there are a great many stories, there is no definitive answer as to how they came to be in Scotland, the most common is that St Rule (or Regulus) had a dream the relics were to be destroyed and stole away with some, being shipwrecked in Fife on the way. The relics vanished in the Scottish Reformation period as churches were expunged of "Catholic idolatry". The larger part of St. Andrew's remains were stolen from Constantinople in 1210 and are now to be found in Amalfi in Southern Italy. In 1879 the Archbishop of Amalfi sent a small piece of the Saint's shoulder blade to the re-established Roman Catholic community in Scotland. Since 2007 it has been a designated bank holiday in Scotland (albeit one in which the banks don't close, and employers don't have an obligation to give their employees an additional day off). It is also an official flag day, meaning that the Saltire is flown on all government buildings (except for Edinburgh Castle and other British Army leased buildings which continue to fly the Union Flag).