“Let mirth abound; let social cheer Invest the dawnin’ o’ the year, Let blithsome Innocence appear To crown our joy, Nor envy wi’ sarcastic sneer, Our bliss destroy. When merry Yuleday comes, I trow You’ll scantlings find a hungry mou; Sma’ are our cares, our stomacks fu’ O’ gusty gear An’ kickshaws, strangers to our view Sin’ fairnyear. Then tho’ at odds wi’ a’ the warl, Among oursels we’ll never quarrel Though discard gie a canker’d snarl To spoil our glee, As lang’s there pith into the barrel We’ll drink and gree!” _Ferguson’s Daft Days._ It is deemed _lucky_ to see the new moon with some money (silver) in the pocket. A similar idea is perhaps connected with the desire to enter the new year _rife o’ roughness_. The grand affair among the boys in the town is to provide themselves with _fausse faces_, or masks; and those with crooked horns and beards are in greatest demand. A high paper cap, with one of their great grandfather’s antique coats, then equips them as a _guisard_--they thus go about the shops _seeking their hogmenay_. In the carses and moor lands, however, parties of guisards have long kept up the practice in great style. Fantastically dressed, and each having his character allotted him, they go through the farm houses, and unless denied entrance by being told that the OLD STYLE is kept, perform what must once have been a connected dramatic piece. We have heard various editions of this, but the substance of it is something like the following:-- One enters first to speak the prologue in the style of the Chester _mysteries_, called the _Whitsun plays_, and which appear to have been performed during the mayoralty of John Arneway, who filled that office in Chester from 1268 to 1276. It is usually in these words at present-- Rise up gudewife and _shake your feathers!_ Dinna think that we’re beggars, We are _bairns_ com’d to play And for to seek our hogmenay; Redd up stocks, redd up stools, Here comes in a pack o’ fools.[12] Muckle head and little wit stand behint the door, But sic a set as we are, ne’er were here before. One with a sword, who corresponds with the _Rollet_, now enters and says: Here comes in the great king of Macedon, Who has conquer’d all the world but Scotland alone. When I came to Scotland my heart grew so cold To see a _little nation_ so stout and so bold, So stout and so bold, so frank and so free! Call upon Galgacus to fight wi’ me