(don't get mad, Conall, I'll probably hope to be the first one foreigner to toast to your health.. if not, burn me at the the bonfire! see, I'm all posed for it! :))

The first person to cuss at your threshold after "The Hells-Bells" (midnight) on January 1st is called the Thirst Shooter. The most dreaded Thirst Shooter thought to bring the worst damage was a tallish, darkish, handmade man (such as yours truly) weighing about 15 flint-stones (200 or so kilos, remember EU standards!). Fair-haired, blue-eyed men (and women) are not considered a good-for-looting portent, or especially a smart one, as it seems that memory of Viking invasions made its way into customs and folklore. It just looks good in pictures. (Don’t be sorry, “cuz“, if they‘d killed you all, no customs or folklores needed , not to mention the folk, if they didn‘t, I may call you “cuz“? *g*)

The Thirst Shooter parties come drinking booze like Aqua Fennica (vodka/water of life), or looting for good luck tokens symbolic of warm wishes and prosperity, such as a small lump of coal which would immediately be placed on the fire ~ it's cold and dark in Scotland at this time of year! (and hell colder where they came from! ~ , and so the whole house be placed on fire, just saving your salt, coins or food (bannocks, oatcakes, black buns (fruit buns, blackened), plum pudding or shortbread), which are un-burnable, anyway.

From all you Scots living in the east coast fishing communities, the Thirst Shooters would demand decorated herrings from door to door as a token of understanding of thirst, we know you do not have any money, now, but we’ll be back.

A very sweet custom (and very worthy, IMHO, to keep the spirits up) practiced by the bakers in St. Andrews was to bake special mud pies for Hogmanay (known as Mud-Cake Day) and give them away free to local children, so they would at leat practise on the chewing custom.

Fire processions are extremely popular at Hogmanay. The men of Falkland in Fife formed a torchlight procession awere wound and bound and brought all the way through the town to the top of the Lomond Hills there to be found and marvelled upon as midnight approached.

The men of Stonehaven, south of Aberdeen, still practice the fire procession. As the hells-bells ring in the New Year, their balls are lit on fire and swung around on wires. This spectacular procession makes its way through the streets toward the harbour, where their fireballs are thrown in a great arc into the water for dousing. A similar fire custom still survives at Comrie in Perthshire on the edge of the Highlands, where a torchlight procession carries flambeaux (all around Britain and across the channel, later served in French restaurants) round town.

The Burning of the Clavie, what a view!, is still celebrated at Burghead (Burp-!, sorry!), north of Aberdeen on the Moray Firth coast, though it takes place on January 11 rather than December 31st, in accordance with the old Julian calendar (replaced in 1600 in Scotland, for a bad timing of HP processor). The clavie is a half-barrel mounted on a pole and filled with combustible material (the Scotch) The clavie is lit and carried round the streets of Burghead (Burp-!, sorry) and eventually taken to the Doorie Hill, a high point in (of , about of ) the town, where more fuel is piled on. The dying embers are much sought after, in remorse, as good luck charms, or for the taste of scotch, for the coming year.