From stargazing to a festival of fire: five activities to light up the UK’s dark winter months

16.11.2023 - 17:51 / theguardian.com

“We,” says the Brocher, face lit by fire and dark with soot, “have creosote in our blood.” In their blood, on their hats, on their boots, down their backs – the Brochers, and in particular the Clavie Crew, have creosote everywhere, except in their whisky. They take that with water, a substance they otherwise disdain as being fine for quenching a thirst but a terrible thing to allow near a bonny flame.

Some definitions: Brochers are residents of the Broch, a local name for the village of Burghead, on the Moray coast. The Clavie Crew are the men responsible for the Burning of the Clavie. What is the Clavie? A large wooden barrel full of tarred staves which is set on fire and paraded through the busy streets before being carried up a small hill and set on top of a round stone altar. There, before cheering crowds, creosote is flung on by the bucketload and the barrel burns until it collapses. The fire ritual, which may have roots in the Pictish past, takes place on 11 January, to see in the new year. Brochers, being stubborn folk, have yet to make the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.

Overseeing all this is the Clavie King, Dan Ralph. Attending the Clavie ritual – as I have had the privilege to do on three occasions – you can sometimes catch flashes of this wee man in his peacoat with his sea-dog look, directing the crew and tending the flame. A person of great energy and purpose, he is in his 70s and has been King since 1988. It is not a role from which one retires. “Oh no,” he says. “You go on until you die.” As the local undertaker, he would know.

The UK has a number of fire rituals, such as Up Helly Aa in Shetland and the bonfire spectaculars of Sussex, each with its own character and history. I sense a kinship between these and the marking of the winter solstice at prehistoric monuments such as Stonehenge, Newgrange in Ireland and the chambered tomb of Maeshowe in Orkney. A flaming torch held aloft by an islander dressed as a Viking or a beam of light creeping down an ancient passageway at sunset on the shortest day both seem part of the same human impulse. Such occasions help us appreciate darkness and cold as a stage upon which the light, natural or human-made, makes its welcome entrance. They are, in a way, rehearsals for spring. Fire now, snowdrops soon.

When I close my eyes and think of the Clavie, I see the crew as shadows against the blaze; the faces of local people lit with fire and joy; the last sparks swirling up into the night as people draw near for their bit of blackened wood – which they keep as a blessing on the year. It is one of the great sights of Scotland. The heat and flame and tarry reek are a lighthouse in the midnight sea of winter.
Peter Ross

Peter Ross is