Religion
Handsel Monday
As we approach the first Monday of a new year, it’s interesting to hear how this used to be the day of the main mid-winter celebration in Dunfermline. But after the calendar was changed in 1752, which date should be used? In “Auld Handsel Monday” Jean Barclay explains how this ancient celebration was celebrated and argued over until it was finally replaced by New Year’s Day and by Christmas Day.
Christmas Banned!
In the next in our “Tales from the Kirk Session” series, Jean Barclay describes the very slow re-emergence of Christmas after the Reformation. “The Kirk that Stole Christmas” describes these changes, from the attempted abolition of the holiday by the Kirk in the sixteenth century, right up to the establishment of the Public Holiday in 1958.
Margaret Ker and Robert Taylor
In “The A Middle Class Scandal – the Margaret Ker Story“, the second of our Tales from the Kirk Session, Jean Barclay tells the story of a two year long series of hearings in which the Kirk tried to discover the truth about Margaret Ker’s illegitimate child.