Burning the clavie

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Burning the clavie is an ancient Scottish custom still observed at Burghead, United Kingdom, a fishing village on the Moray Firth. The clavie is a bonfire of casks split in two, lighted on 11 January, i.e. the first day of the year by the Julian Calendar. One of these casks is joined together again by a huge nail (Latin clavis; hence the term, it may also be from Scottish Gaelic cliabh, a basket used for holding combustibles). It is then filled with tar, lighted and carried flaming round the village and finally up to a headland upon which stands the ruins of a Roman altar, locally called the Douro. It here forms the nucleus of the bonfire, which is built up of split casks. When the burning tar-barrel falls in pieces, the people scramble to get a lighted piece with which to kindle the New Year's fire on their cottage hearth. The charcoal of the clavie is collected and put in pieces up the cottage chimneys, to keep spirits and witches from coming down.

The Burning of the Clavie celebrates the New Year, old style, which falls on 11 January (unless 11 January is a Sunday, in which case the celebration is held on 10 January). The Clavie is a half-cask, mounted securely on a pole, and filled with staves of wood and inflammable liquid.

The burning Clavie is carried through the streets of the town by the members of the Clavie Crew, who must be natives of the town to qualify. It is followed by a procession of hundreds of onlookers. On the route through the town, the Clavie Crew hands pieces of the Clavie - smouldering pieces of wood - to householders to ensure good luck for the ensuing year.