"As soon as the brightening glow of the eastern sky warns the anxious house-maid of the approach of Christmas Day, she rises full of anxiety at the prospect of her morning labours. The meal, which was steeped in the _sowans-bowie_ a fortnight ago, to make the _Prechdachdan sour_, or _sour scones_, is the first object of her attention. The gridiron is put on the fire, and the sour scones are soon followed by hard cakes, soft cakes, buttered cakes, brandered bannocks, and pannich perm. The baking being once over, the sowans pot succeeds the gridiron, full of new sowans, which are to be given to the family, agreeably to custom, this day in their beds. The sowans are boiled into the consistence of molasses, when the _Lagan-le-vrich_, or yeast bread, to distinguish it from boiled sowans, is ready. It is then poured into as many bickers as there are individuals to partake of it, and presently served to the whole, old and young. It would suit well the pen of a Burns, or the pencil of a Hogarth, to paint the scene which follows. The ambrosial food is despatched in aspiring draughts by the family, who soon give evident proofs of the enlivening effects of the _Lagan-le-vrich_. As soon as each despatches his bicker, he jumps out of bed--the elder branches to examine the ominous signs of the day,[84] and the younger to enter on its amusements. Flocking to the swing, a favourite amusement on this occasion, the youngest of the family get the first '_shoulder_,' and the next oldest in regular succession. In order to add the more to the spirit of the exercise, it is a common practice with the person in the _swing_, and the person appointed to swing him, to enter into a very warm and humorous altercation. As the swinged person approaches the swinger, he exclaims, _Ei mi tu chal_, 'I'll eat your kail.' To this the swinger replies, with a violent shove, _Cha ni u mu chal_, 'You shan't eat my kail.' These threats and repulses are sometimes carried to such a height, as to break down or capsize the threatener, which generally puts an end to the quarrel.