Nuptial question

**pascs** · 30th June 12, 10:31 PM

Its certainly a much nicer tradition than the weird Scottish wedding tradition of the Blackening

**MacSpadger** · 1st July 12, 03:32 AM

Originally Posted by pascs

Its certainly a much nicer tradition than the weird Scottish wedding tradition of the Blackening

Haha,

my Ma's folks were Feemen from around Mintlaw, Inverurie, New Deer, New Pitsligo (and I was raised there too, farm to farm). She actually has old photos of one of the men in the family being blackened for his wedding between the wars. He was tied to a chair and paraded through the village. Now that is a very old Scottish wedding custom! I don't know if it was part of the Horsemen's Word, but it certainly seemed to be Horsemen's Word men it happened to. I might have a skewed perspective, as practically ever male in the maternal side of the family was initiated. I saw a book recently about the Horsemen's Word that claimed it died out after WW1, but it was still going in a diluted form around Ellon, Dyce and Black Dog in the 70's.
The bride only needs to be Scottish, of course, and it gets applied to women more than men.
That said, the worst example I saw was going to work one morning in 1977 or 1978. It was early in the morning, and there was some scaffolding on Union Street, Aberdeen, where the old BHS stores used to be. A naked man was tied to the scaffolding, about level with the second floor, in the shape of the crucifixion. He had been there all night. He was covered in gunk of all sorts. He was painted black from head to foot, except for his genitals which had been painted with red oxide, (which would have been a pain to remove, literally). To the uniniated it could have been a scene from a horror movie.
To those that knew, "Aye, that'll be the groom, then".

EDIT**Had a look on Youtube, The Blackening is still thriving!
Here's your genuine Scottish wedding tradition, folks!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssXCd...ayer_embedded#!

And here is part one of a 5 part male "blackening", just in case anyone should think I'm overstating the cruelty that friends inflict "because it's traditional"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGK37...eature=related