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First Foot & The Dark Man Of Luck

MrRING

MrRING

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I ran across this curious quote in my Forgotten English desk calendar, and thought it was worth writing down on the board!

BRUNETTES AND FIRST FOOTING
It is still considered important in North Chesshire that the first person to cross the threshold on New Year's Day shall be a dark-haired man. A fair man is very unlucky and a red-haired one even more so. A woman is worse, whatever the color if her hair. To avoid the risk of such disastrous visits the master of the house, if he is dark, goes out just before midnight. As soon as the clock strikes, he is admitted as the "First Foot". If he happens to be fair, a suitably-coloured friend does it for him, and in some districts a dark man will go round the village, being warmly welcomed at every house as a luck-bringer. He generally carries with him a piece of bread, a piece of coal, and some money so that the family shall want neither food, firing, nor wealth during the year. It was formerly thought unlucky to let anything be taken from the house until something had been brought in. Hence the importance of First Foot gifts.

- from Christina Hole's TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS OF CHESHIRE, 1937
 
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brownmane said:
A friend of mine told me of this one. Her dad was Welsh.
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In Scotland (I lived there some years ago) a large lump of Coal was the thing that was given to the house that was being visited along with 'a bag of bottled liquid' at New Year, which kept the home fires burning.
I also discovered that by using a reasonably largish lump of pre-washed coal placed into a bowl of cold water did wonders for crisping-up and re-invigorating the greenness of lettuce leaves and the like!
 
Way back in the early 1970s I did a bit of first footing with my friend; we left the New-Year party we were at and went to another one nearby with a lump of coal. Surprisingly, we were let in and had a great time. Difficult to find real coal nowadays, so maybe the tradition has disappeared.
 
eburacum said:
Way back in the early 1970s I did a bit of first footing with my friend; we left the New-Year party. Difficult to find real coal nowadays, so maybe the tradition has disappeared.
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That's very true! Yet it seems it's still setting the tradition in and around the North/North East at this time. . .
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/f...eenshire/5216269/lidl-coal-hogmanay-scotland/
"Other supermarkets might not be so freely obliging though?"
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:)
 
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MrRING said:
from Christina Hole's TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS OF CHESHIRE, 1937
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This is substantially consistent with (now almost entirely-forgotten) Hogmanay traditions in Lowland Scotland, and to a less-observed extent in the Highlands.

In the 1980s, it was still considered normal to go "First Footing" from midnight onwards right through until after 4am, and householders (indicating their willingness or otherwise by lights & curtains) would be expected to provide repeated hospitality to complete strangers and friends alike.

Groups of stravaiging revellers would always ensure the tallest/darkest man would be at the front of the group, and they would always carry coal & strong drink with which to compensate the householder for the use of their toilets/seats/food & drink.

I strongly suspect that this mode of expected behaviour also originally took place at many other festivals across the year (certainly similar but more-sedate shenanigans even happened on Christmas Eve, and definitely at Lammas: also before that, on the old Quarter days as well, such as the "Flittin' Fridays" for farm workers).

But they've all withered away, and will continue to disappear, (or like Halloween just become commercialised ersatz shadows)....that was all back when people actually lived, and interacted with one-another. Before gentrified isolation and the watching of screens just depicting reality became compulsory, with people sitting indoors terrified of unseen imagined demons from the physical world.
 
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First footing was the norm when I was growing up in Glasgow during the 80's, I was the one forced out into the cold just before midnight, even though I was not tall, dark or handsome as tradition dictates, and let in just after midnight, I would then hand over a lump of coal and some silver money.

It was a fun tradition, is it really dieing out?
 
Frideswide said:
I think covid will have been the final nail in the coffin :(
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I fear you are absolutely correct....

(And, whilst I am expectationally-forbidden from making any fundamental Covid critique comments within this broader forum, it is the very pinnacle of irony that such a nebulous & non-lethal disease has killed-off so much more than merely its prophesied (or future) victims).
 
My mum from Scotland remembered this. Except you were supposed to have an Orange in one hand and a lump of coal in the other. Don't even know where you could get a lump of coal now. And knock on some of my neighbour's door & they'd call the cops.
 
When I was growing up in Devon we had a Scots neighbour who used to go round to all the houses in our road with a lump of coal (and I think he brought either bread or salt too?). It was supposed to bring luck and prosperity. My brother was staying this New Year, we went out New Year's Eve and came back after midnight and he had brought a lump of coal with him, especially so he could be the first over the threshold carrying his coal.

Mind you, we're an odd family. He might never heard of 'first footing' and just wanted to get in the warm with his pet coal lump.
 
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