The Burning of the Clavie

In the Morayshire fishing village of Burghead, the folks burn the Clavie on 11th January to see in the New Year, according to the old calender ("Auld New Year" as my dad would say) ... I've always wanted to go and see this and we headed across tonight ... got the timing a bit off (and stopped for a fish supper in Portsoy :-) ) so by the time we arrived, the procession taking the Clavie about had finished and it was already on fire in its place up on the hill. This was very atmospheric. Here, folks are queueing up to try and get bits of burning wood from the remnants of the Clavie in order to get good luck in 2011. Soon after I took this the fire was doused, so we were lucky to see it at all ... learned my lesson and next year, we will go a lot earlier in order to see the Clavie being paraded around the village.

Happy New Year !