- skip - Brewer’s

Clavie

.

Burning of the Clavie on Newyear’s eve (old style) in the village of Burghead, on the southern shore of the Moray Frith. The clavie is a sort of bonfire made of casks split up. One of the casks is split into two parts of different sizes, and an important item of the ceremony is to join these parts together with a huge nail made for the purpose. Whence the name clavus (Latin), a nail. Chambers, who in his Book of Days (vol. ii. p. 789) minutely describes the ceremony, suggests that it is a relic of Druid worship, but it seems to me to be connected with the Roman ceremony observed on the 13th September, and called the clavus annālis. The two divisions of the cask, I think, symbolise the old and the new year, which are joined together by a nail. The two parts are unequal, because the part of the new year joined on to the old is very small in comparison.

1

 

previous entry · index · next entry

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

previous entry · index · next entry

Claret
Claret
Claret Cup
Claret Jug (One’s)
Classic Races (The)
Classics
Claude Lorraine (i.e. of Lorraine)
Claus (Santa)
Clause
Clause Rolls (Rotŭli clausi)
Clavie
Clavileno
Claw
Claw-backs
Claymore or Glaymore
Clean
Clean (To)
Clean and Unclean Animals
Cleaned Out
Clear (verb)
Clear the Court