Grampian Club > Scotland, social and domestic

150 Scotland, Social and Domestic.
breakfasted on fat brose* in the farmer's kitchen.
Handsel Monday is now claimed by farm-servants as a
holiday.
Old Candlemas, the thirteenth of February, was a
yearly gala day among the young. There was a festival
in every village school. In the morning the children
proceeded to the school-room, clad in holiday attire.
They were received by the schoolmaster with marks
of consideration, and each placed in his hand a sum of
money. The schoolmaster offered each pupil an orange,
the eating of which constituted the first portion of the
festival. The money handed to the schoolmaster was
originally applied to an illumination of the school-room,
and the occasion was styled "the Candlemas bleeze."
This application of the fund was latterly abandoned,
and the schoolmaster substituted a social entertainment
to the young folks. During this celebration the boy
and girl who had presented the greatest largesses
were proclaimed king and queen ; they received coronal
bands on their heads, and were enthroned on a dais at
the upper part of the room. Ceremonial introductions
and state attentions to these royal personages, in which
the schoolmaster joined, rendered the proceedings abun-
dantly joyous. " In some schools,"' writes Mr. Sheriff
Barclay, "the king and queen were carried by the under-
graduates shoulder high, though not with much comfort
and less grace." "On Candlemas Day," writes Mr.
McDowall, " Latin scholars were required in their
converse with each other, in and out of school, to speak
exclusively in that tongue." t
* Brose prepared with suet.
t History of Dumfries, by W. McDowall. Edinburgh, 1867. 8vo.
P. 596.