When you start seeing pumpkins showing up in unusually copious amounts everywhere, you can safely bet that Halloween is round the corner!

But what’s with all the pumpkins? And how did the whole Halloween pumpkin carving / Jack-o’-lantern tradition start?

Once upon a time it was turnips rather than pumpkins that took center stage on Halloween!

It may be a bit funny to imagine it, but when the vegetable-lantern tradition first started, the vegetable of choice was not the pumpkin but the humble turnip!

And it wasn’t just the turnip that was turned into lanterns either. Swedes (aka rutabagas), beets and even cabbage stems were also used. These vegetables were used because these were commonly found in Ireland and Scotland where the Halloween vegetable-lantern tradition first began.

When Irish immigrants migrated to America in the 1800s (many coming to escape the famous Potato Famine of 1846), they brought with them their Halloween traditions but since turnips were not as prevalent in the United States as they were in Ireland, a new vegetable was used to form the lantern: the pumpkin. Pumpkins were larger and easier to carve as well as being readily available in America. In fact, even before Halloween was brought over to the United States, pumpkins were already the traditional October-time vegetable since they were abundantly seen in farmer’s market stalls around this time of year. After years of being used as the new vegetable-of-choice for Halloween Jack-o’-lanterns, word of the pumpkin’s use for Halloween was popularized in books, poems, artwork and later on also on TV shows, etching its place in history as the official Halloween vegetable.

But why on earth would you want to turn a vegetable into a lantern in the first place?

Why are pumpkins carved and lit on Halloween?

It all has to do with why Halloween is celebrated: Halloween is based on the ancient Celtic/Irish Pagan holiday of Samhain: a holiday marking the end of summer and the beginning of winter. Since the onset of winter is accompanied with the death of greenery and reduced cheery sunshine, this time of year was closely linked to death in general by the Celts. The Celts believed that at Samhain the spirit world and the human world came closer together, increasing the risk of spirits crossing over into the human world and getting up to ghostly mischief.

To help with ghostbusting, the Jack o’lanterns were invented. The idea behind the vegetable lanterns was that the (often scary) faces carved into the vegetables would scare away naughty or evil spirits and ghosts that were believed to get up to all sorts of tricks during Samhain. The lantern’s light also helped to repel the spirits of darkness.

Along a similar theme, in the original Samhain celebrations, bonfires were often lit to ward off the spirits and people dressed up in costumes to confuse the spirits so that they wouldn’t be able to recognize them thus protecting them from being harmed for any personal reasons. Later when Ireland was Christianized (around the 8th century), Samhain became a part of the new Christian holiday called All Hallow’s Eve, or Halloween, and with the passing of time this holiday eventually lost much of its religious bearing to become a popular secular holiday.

Why are Halloween pumpkins called Jack-o’-lanterns?

We’ve established why vegetable lanterns were made and why pumpkins are today carved on Halloween, but where did their name, the “Jack-o’-lantern” come from?

The term “Jack-o’-lantern” was derived from an Irish folktale featuring a character called Jack (also known as Stingy Jack or Drunk Jack). There are several versions of this folktale but this version is my personal favorite:

There was once a poor man called Jack who loved to sit at the pub and drink more than anything else in the world… even though he didn’t really have the money to keep up this habit and had a long overdue pub tab to pay. The pub owner was threatening to cut him off from the bar altogether if his bar tab wasn’t paid soon.

Years passed and eventually, as with all humans, Jack’s time came and he died. But since he wasn’t exactly Heaven material, Jack found himself reunited with the Devil upon his death. The Devil reminded Jack that he made a promise not to take his soul and therefore could not admit him into Hell. Instead Jack was condemned to be a lost soul, forever wandering through the twilight world. Before sending him off on his journey, the Devil gave Jack a little ember from the fires of Hell to light his way through the darkness ahead. Jack stored the ember in a turnip (or a Jack-o’-lantern!) and forevermore traveled through the twilight world with this lamp lighting his way.

Superstitious Celts believed that whenever they saw a spooky-looking light in the darkness with little explanation of its origins, it’s likely to be the ghost of Jack and his Lantern.

It is based on this folktale that turnip lanterns were called Jack-o’-lanterns, and when pumpkins started being used instead of turnips, the term was transferred to pumpkins too. Part of the reason they are lit is so that their light and carved faces repel lost soul ghosts like Jack from bothering them.

Related Products

If you’re British or are familiar with British customs, you’ll know that in the UK there is a different date for Mother’s Day celebrations than in the States. What’s more, traditionally the British day of celebration is not known as Mother’s day, but rather as Mothering Sunday. With all these differences, it’s not surprising that the history of Mothering Sunday is a very different one from the American Mother’s Day. This article explores the story behind the origin of Mothering Sunday.

When is Mothering Sunday?

Whilst the American Mother’s Day which occurs in May, Mothering Sunday usually takes place in March. The exact Mothering Sunday date is always the fourth Sunday of Lent, which means that it falls on slightly different days each year. If you want to pencil it into your diary, Mothering Sunday falls on the following dates in the coming years:

• 2012 :: 18 March
• 2013 :: 10 March
• 2014 :: 30 March
• 2015 :: 15 March
• 2016 :: 6 March

Why is Mothering Sunday celebrated on this date?

Historical records seem to suggest that Mothering Sunday has been celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent since at least the 16th century, however, it is likely that it was celebrated long before then because the history of its celebration may well date far earlier than this.

To further understand its allocated date of celebration, let’s journey into the history of Mothering Sunday.

The first Mothering Sunday may have been for a Greek or Roman mother goddess

Some suggest that the modern British Mother’s day celebrations evolved from a far earlier pagan celebration of a different kind of mother: a mother goddess.

Many early civilizations had a “mother goddess” figure that was honored and celebrated at certain times of the year. In Ancient Greece the Mother of the Gods (or the Magna Mater) was called Rhea, and it may be that celebrations held for this goddess around the 6th century BC were the earliest form of “Mother’s day” celebrations.

Later, around the 3rd century BC, the Greek traditions were adopted by Ancient Romans, and similar celebrations took place in honor of Rhea’s Roman equivalent, the mother goddess, Cybele. Interestingly enough, the celebrations for Cybele occurred in March, around the same time that we celebrate Mothering Sunday today.

Romans celebrated Cybele in a festival called: Hilaria. Why did they celebrate on this particular date in March? Because it was around the time of the Vernal Equinox, (where Vernal Equinox literally means: Vernal = Spring; Equinox = equal night and day). It was a celebration of the first day which had a longer day than night, marking the end of the gloomy winter, and the onset of a more joyous, sunny spring.

From “Mother’s day” celebrations of Mother goddesses to celebrations of the Holy Mother and the Mother Church

Many festivals celebrated by the Ancient Romans were converted into Christian celebrations when Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire and of most of Europe. This adaptation of existing Roman festivals was done to help the people adapt more easily to the new Christian religion.

The Roman festival of Saturnalia became Christmas, the Roman celebrations of Juno Februa and Lupercalia eventually became Saint Valentine’s Day, and although the evidence is not unequivocal, it is possible that Cybele’s Hilaria celebrations became Mothering Sunday. In order to make the festival more Christian, the heads of the church may have deemed this “mother goddess” celebration to be an appropriate time at which to replace pagan customs with their own, honoring Mother Mary and the Mother Church. (Mother Church was the term given to the biggest church in the area, often where local Christians would have been baptised.) The date of the celebration was also Christianized to relate directly to Easter and Lent, setting the date of this new festival to fall on the fourth Sunday of Lent. The church services held on this day are likely to have been themed around a Motherly theme, talking about Mary’s maternal love, and of maternal love in general.

Mother Church congregations became an occasion for family reunions with an emphasis on the maternal member of the family

By the 16th century, it was customary to visit the Mother Church for a special service on Mothering Sunday. Visiting the Mother Church on this day was colloquially known as “going a-mothering”.

Although this was a holy day and had little to do with celebrating mothers in any way, the congregating of people at their Mother Church celebrated the joyous coming together again of families. In those days it was common for children as young as ten to be put to work as apprentices, maids and domestic servants, working and living in various country manors, sometimes a fair distance from home. Being given a day off for a reunion with their mothers (and the rest of the family) was an exciting occasion (particularly since some sources suggest that for many working children this was amongst the only days off they had).

On their way home from their work posts, some children would pick flowers to give as a gift to their mothers.

Others would bring home a cake from the manor house where they worked. The most common cakes that were thought to have been made were fruit cakes known as simnel cakes, which are to this day the traditional Mothering Sunday cake that is made.

In some churches, the happy reunion was integrated into the Mother-themed church service where the spring flowers that were picked by the children would be blessed by the church before being presented to the mothers. To this day, flower bouquets are amongst the most common gifts given to mothers on Mothering Sunday.

By the 1940s Mothering Sunday Traditions underwent a transformation to resemble the American Mother’s Day

Somewhere along the line between the 16th century and the early 20th century, Mothering Sunday celebrations began to fade and celebrations became more subdued. But around the 1940s two main things occured which led to the revival of Mothering Sunday and its rebirth as the official Mother’s day celebration we know today:

The first thing that happened was that in the United States, a lady called Anna Jarvis campaigned for an American celebration of mothers throughout the country. Her success resulted in the first national American celebration of Mother’s Day in 1908. Some of her enthusiasm made its way to Britain to a woman called Constance Penswick-Smith who, inspired by Anna Jarvis, campaigned for the closest British equivalent Mother’s day celebration, Mothering Sunday, to be revived. Constance’s Mothering Sunday Movement campaign lasted a good few years, all the way from 1914 to the early 1920s. Although this served to prick up a few ears, nothing much changed in Britain. What did make a huge impact on the resurgence of celebrating Mothering Sunday in Britain, was the second event that happened around this time: World War II.

During World War II, English, American and Canadian soldiers worked alongside one another and had a chance to socialize and talk. One thing that they all had in common was missing their mothers, wives and girlfriends back home. With this newly realized appreciation for their mothers in the darkness of war, at some point (perhaps even on American Mother’s day itself) conversation turned to the American tradition of celebrating Mother’s Day. Inspired by the American celebrations, the British soldiers brought back with them a new found eagerness and desire to celebrate their mothers using the closest thing they had to Mother’s Day: Mothering Sunday.

By the 1950s, Mothering Sunday was once again celebrated throughout Britain with great enthusiasm; an enthusiasm that may have been helped by the exuberant marketing of the festival by merchants selling Mother’s Day related gifts.

A merging occurred between new American traditions and old Mothering Sunday traditions as British mothers began being shown love and appreciation on Mothering Sunday. The merging of traditions was so strong that people even began calling Mothering Sunday, “Mother’s Day”.

Today many people believe that Mothering Sunday and Mother’s Day are one and the same thing, and although the two celebrations have distinctly different origins, they share the same principles at their core: a celebration and appreciation of mothers, be they holy, human or otherwise.

Other articles that may interest you
Check out more articles in our culture section including:
- Why do we have birthday cakes? A Short History of Cakes
- Why do we have the engagement and wedding ring custom?
- Why do people go on honeymoons? And why is it called a honeymoon?

Related Products

The Happy Birthday song is one of the most widely sung songs in the world. But when did the tradition of singing this merry tune begin?

The answer is around the late 1890s to early 1900s, but the story is not quite a simple one…

Before its lyrics were rewritten, originally, the Happy Birthday song was called “Good Morning to all”. Instead of the words “Happy birthday to you.. Happy birthday dear [name]”, the original lyrics where actually:

This song is said to have been composed by two Kentucky-born sisters, Patty and Mildred Hill, and it was first published in “Song Stories for the Kindergarten” in 1893.

It is unclear exactly how it evolved into a birthday song, but people have speculated that perhaps some of the children who had been taught the “Good morning to all” song, used the tune, creatively altering the lyrics to the familiar “Happy Birthday” ones for birthday parties. In any case, 30 years passed since the song’s tune with its original lyrics was first recorded. In 1924, the new birthday lyrics were seen for the first time in songbook form in a book written by Robert H. Coleman, and in 1933 he republished the song in his book “The American Hymnal”, under the new title “Happy Birthday”.

Via birthday parties, word of mouth, public performances and songbooks, the Happy Birthday song quickly spread far and wide, and by 1933 it had already become established as the official Birthday song in many households.

It is interesting to note that had the original song never been changed by the creative minds of others, it would have retained it’s “good morning” lyrics and it is highly questionable whether it would ever have received as wide a dissemination as it did.

One little hiccup in this happy tale of a song’s success was that unfortunately, when the Happy Birthday song become increasingly popular in the 1930s, it was circulated without any credit to the Hill sisters. This led to a big copyright case which eventually ruled in favor of the Hill sisters, making it illegal to commercially perform the Happy Birthday song without paying royalties to the sisters and their publisher. To this day, this copyright law stands, and according to American law the song will only officially pass into public domain in 2030, whilst in the EU, the copyright is set to expire after the 31st of December, 2016.

Related Products

Valentine’s Day is almost a worldwide phenomenon, celebrating romance and love every February 14th. In spite of celebrating it, many of us don’t really know the origins of Valentine’s Day nor why it’s celebrated. What is the history of Valentine’s Day and why do we celebrate it?

The first hints of Valentine’s Day celebrations began in Roman Times
Much like many Christian holiday origins, the history of Valentine’s Day began in Ancient Rome. At this time it wasn’t known as Valentine’s Day, but as the pagan festivals of Juno Februa and Lupercalia.

Juno Februa was celebrated on February 14th, after which there was the feast of Lupercalia. Juno Februa means “Juno the purifier” and it is thought that these festivals which both involved rituals of Februa (purifying) are behind the origin of the month’s name. Amongst several things, this festive period celebrated a purification from evil spirits, poor health, the barrenness of winter, and infertility. The Roman calendar was a little different from ours, so February would have been far closer to springtime than it is today. The festival’s association with increasing fertility may have contributed to the its link with love. Juno’s role as the goddess of women and marriage may have further helped link these festivals to the idea of love.

What exactly was this Lupercalia festival?
Lupercalia was an unusual festival because even the Romans seemed to be unsure which gods it was dedicated to. Some candidates are Lupercus, who protected flocks from wolves, Faunus, the god of agriculture and shepherds, or Rumina (also known as Lupa), the she-wolf who nurtured and looked after the legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus.

The festivities involved two interesting traditions:

1. The Love Lottery: In everyday life, boys and girls were kept separate, but on Lupercalia there was a “love lottery” of sorts, where the names of the available young ladies were written on pieces of paper and put in jars, urns or boxes. The young men would then draw a strip of paper, and custom demanded that they would be partners for the festival. Sometimes these pairings were the bud from which long-lasting love partnerships would blossom.
2. Flagellation for Fertility’s sake: After sacrificing a goat and a dog, and after a grand feast, young men would dash around and “beat” the bad spirits, bad luck and impurities out of things by whipping anything in the vicinity with goat skins. Women hoping for a baby would present their hands to be struck to help them beat infertility out of their system, in a type of fertility blessing, in the hope of blessing married couples with children. A whip with the goat skin was also believed to ease the pain of any imminent childbirth.

These customs, and the association of February 14th as a day celebrating things like love, fertility and marriage, mushroomed into other countries as the Roman Empire spread across the world.

How did Lupercalia evolve into Valentine’s Day?
When Christianity became powerful throughout the Roman Empire, church officials tried to stamp out Un-Christian Roman festivals and paganism. To aid in the transition, some Roman festivals were absorbed into Christianity by retaining some form of acknowledged celebration on the old festival days, but attaching new Christian symbolism and meaning to them.

Conveniently, a few saints by the name of Valentine were mentioned in martyrologies on February the 14th, so in 496AD Pope Gelsasius banned Lupercalia and proclaimed this date to be a Christain saint day: Saint Valentine’s Day.

Instead of the un-Christian love lottery, the church started a lottery of Saints where instead of pulling love partners from a jar or box, a saint’s name was pulled out, and the aim was to model your actions for the next year on the chosen Saint’s revered and admirable behaviour. This didn’t really catch on and this tradition died out after a few hundred years. But the name Saint Valentine’s Day, and the old Lupercalian traditions of associating the day with love, fertility and marriage, stuck to this day.

So did Saint Valentine have nothing to do with love?

There are legends about possible connections of Saint Valentine with love:

Legend 1:
Some say that Saint Valentine deserves his name as the patron Saint of love. This story goes that Emperor Claudius II needed men to go to war to fight for Rome, and since married men didn’t want to leave their families, they weren’t good potential soldiers. Thus Claudius allegedly banned marriages and engagements.
Valentine, a priest at the time, is said to have gone against Emperor Claudius’ wishes and married lovers in secret, and was punished for this, earning him the title of the patron saint of lovers.

Legend 2:
Others say that just before he was about to be martyred for preaching Christianity at a time when Emperor Claudius II banned Christianity, he wrote a note to a girl to reveal his love for her, signing it “From your Valentine”, which lead to him becoming the patron Saint of love. It seems this story has no historical basis however.

- – -

Some say that Saint Valentine didn’t particularly have a strong love story behind his tale of martyrdom, and that it is most likely that any connection to love links back to the Roman era prior to St Valentine’s existence.

Related Articles
See related articles on the subject of culture including:
- Why do we have the engagement and wedding ring custom?
- Why do grooms wear a pocket square at weddings?
- Why do people go on honeymoons? And why do we call it a honeymoon?
- Why do we have the New Years Kiss tradition?

Related Products

Note:
This site is working in affiliation with Amazon.com and Zazzle. If you like a product that was recommended anywhere on this website, please consider buying these products via the links on this site, to help keep this website running. Thanks

In other parts of the world, New Year traditions are a little bit different…

Spain: Why do I have to gulp down 12 grapes at midnight?

In Spain, their New Year’s Eve tradition is for each person to have 12 washed grapes at the ready. As the clock chimes midnight it is customary to eat 12 grapes, one for each chime of the clock.

Why is this tradition done? It all started in 1909 when there was a huge surplus of grapes in the country. Instead of having them rot, one clever soul had the bright idea of using the grapes as part of a fun New Year’s activity.  The idea behind it was that each grape represents a month of the year. A sweet grape means that month will be a sweet one for you, whilst a sour grape is less of a good omen. In other households the tradition is to make a wish on each grape.

The challenge is to try and swallow them all before the last chime of the clock. By the final chime, the year has likely already started in good humor as everyone gazes round at their fellow celebrators with their hamster-like bulging cheeks!

Since 1909, this fun tradition has spread to Portugal, Mexico, Venezuela, Guatamala, Cuba and Peru.

Philippines: Why do I wear polka dots on New Year’s Eve?

In the Philippines, the circle is the shape of the day on New Year’s Eve. Why? Because it’s the shape of coins so is a tradition for attracting wealth and fortune in the new year.

As a result, it is a Filipino New Year custom to:

1. Wear polka dotted clothes, or at least wear something with a circle on it
2. Tossing and throwing circular coins at the stroke of midnight
3. Eat round fruits: It is not uncommon to find a New Year’s Eve table laid out with a wide array of circular fruits as festive decoration.

Denmark: Why do I jump off a chair at midnight?

In Denmark it is a New Year’s tradition to climb up on chairs, and leap off them as the clock strikes midnight.

Why do they do it? It is aimed to banish bad spirits, bring good luck and symbolically shows you are ready to leap into the new year ahead.

There was another interesting Danish New Year tradition that is sadly obsolete these days, which involved throwing and smashing plates on friends’ and neighbours’ doors. The more friends you have who cared enough to smash a plate lovingly on your door, the higher your pile of broken crockery on your doorstep, and the better the omen. The higher the pile, the better luck you have for the year ahead.

Scotland & Iceland: Why do I have bonfires on New Year’s Eve?

A lot of countries that were once inhabited by Vikings retained the Viking tradition of making bonfires to banish bad spirits and purify everything for the year to come. Some parts of Scotland and Iceland still have these yearly bonfires on New Year’s Eve.

South America, Central America & Italy: Why do I have to wear certain coloured underwear on New Year’s Eve?

In South America, Central America and Italy, certain coloured underwear is believed to be lucky.

• Red underwear is meant to bring love
• Yellow underwear is said to bring money or happiness or just good luck, depending on who you ask

Ecuador: Why do I burn Scarecrows in my yard on New Year’s Eve?

In many places around the world people count down and at the stroke of midnight, they kiss. In Ecuador they do things a little differently. They count down, and at the stroke of midnight… they burn a scarecrow!

House after house, you can see people gathered outside, around a burning scarecrow.

Why do they do it? It is believed that the scarecrow scares away bad luck in the same was that it works to scare away birds in the field. The act of scarecrow burning is effectively a purification of bad things, paving the way for good luck in the year ahead.

Norway & Germany: Why do I eat circular pastries on New Year’s Eve?

In Germany and Norway, circular foods are customarily eaten on New Year’s Eve. In Germany doughnuts are popular, and in Norway kransekake (ring cake) may be eaten. The circular shape represents a year coming to a full circle, as you complete one year’s cycle and are ready for the next one.

Mexico: Why do I find coins in my sweet bread on New Year’s Eve?

It is a Mexican tradition to bake sweet bread with some buns having a coin or a charm hidden in them. Finding one of these gifts in your snack is an omen of good luck for the coming year.

There is another Mexican tradition which involves making lists of all the negative things you’ve experienced in the past year, and then burning these lists in a bonfire. The idea is to clean away any cobwebs from the past year and enter the new year free from these old worries.

Related Posts

- Why do we have the New Years Kiss tradition?
- Why do we sing Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s Eve?

Related Products

Why do I have the day off on Boxing Day?
If you live in the UK, the reason that Boxing Day is a day off from work is down to the 1871 Bank Holidays Act. It was only after 1871 that the 26th December (or the closest day after Christmas that wasn’t a weekend day) was announced to be a Bank Holiday. It was largely through the work of Liberal MP Sir John Lubbock that Bank Holidays like Boxing day became a thing, since it was he who campaigned for the rights of shop workers and was a driving force behind the passing of the 1871 Act.

But where does the idea of taking the day off come from?
There are several theories about this.

We take the day after Christmas off because it’s St Stephen’s day, a lesser known name for Boxing day.

Incidentally, St Stephen’s day has everything to do with the “Feast of Stephen” to which we refer to in the Christmas carol “Good King Wenceslas” that goes:

‘Good King Wenceslas looked out,
On the Feast of Stephen…’

St Stephen was the first Christian martyr. He was also the first Deacon in the Church, and because one of the main roles of a Church Deacon is to look after the poor, St. Stephen’s Day is often considered a day for giving food, money, and other items to servants, sevice workers, and the needy.

St Stephen’s message of helping the poor also reveals why we call his day Boxing Day. The boxes it refers to are almsboxes used to collect money for the poor. Christians carried out St Stephen’s message by collecting money in a number of different ways including a special collection day on Christmas Day. Sailors would drop money into a box throughout their voyage, as a donation to God to ensure their safe journey. Once safely back on land, the money would be donated to the Church.

Since early Christianity (which includes during Roman times), the day after Christmas was the day that Churches gave all the money they’d collected in almsboxes to the needy. The opening of the almsboxes is one of the strongest theories behind why we call St Stephen’s day, Boxing Day.

- – -

In a similar spirit, employers often gave servants December 26th off to spend the day with their families. The theory goes that employers would give their servants a box of bonuses, or gifts, and sometimes leftover Christmas food. In Victorian times, tradesmen too profited from Boxing day as a day when they collected their Christmas boxes and gifts from happy clients, giving thanks for their good service throughout the year.

- – -

Today, the spirit of giving is on the whole no longer really a part of Boxing Day, since most schools today don’t teach what the day was originally about, so most people never learned about St Stephen and his day of giving. But a similar Giving Spirit is often quite palpable in the air around Christmas time. So perhaps St Stephen’s noble generous spirit and giving nature still lives on in us around this festive season, regardless of whether we attribute this to St Stephen and the official Boxing Day, or whether we attribute it to a deeply ingrained, long-held tradition of maintaining the generous, giving, Christmas Spirit.

Related posts

Why do I celebrate Christmas on December 25th?

Why do we eat Turkey at Christmas?

Why do we sing Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s Eve?

Why do we have the New Years Kiss tradition?

Related Products

Auld Lang Syne is world famous for two main reasons:

1. It’s famous for being sung on New Year’s Eve in English speaking countries around the world, from the USA, to the Philippines, Zimbabwe, India and to Singapore.
2. It’s famous for being one of the most popular songs whose words people don’t know!

So let’s solve several mysteries: Why do we sing Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s Eve, what on earth *are* the lyrics and equally as important – what do they mean?

What words are we actually singing?

Lyrics in Scottish Dialect (first verse & chorus):

(restored but not created by Robert Burns, 1788)

Should old acquaintances be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld Lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

Lyrics Translation in more understandable English:

Should old acquaintances be forgotten
and never remembered?
Should old acquaintance be forgotten
From days gone by (literally: “for old long ago”)?

From days gone by, my dear
From days gone by,
We will take a cup of kindness yet
From days gone by!

Why do we sing Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s Eve?

Auld Lang Syne is a Scottish song about remembering old friends and all the good times they brought. You can see why this theme would have been appropriate to sing on New Years Eve, where we often remember all the good times we’ve had over the past year.

Before 1929, Auld Lang Syne was mostly famous within Scotland and the Scottish community.

A Canadian musician by the name of Guy Lombordo had heard the song sung amidst the Canadian Scottish community in London, Ontario.

He liked it so much that he and his band played Auld Lang Syne as one of their regular songs.

It is said that in 1929, Lombordo and his band were playing for a New Year’s Eve party in New York City, and at the stroke of midnight they played Auld Lang Syne. The band’s dispersal of the song soon spread to the radio and TV as their New Year’s Eve piece and this was the start of a new worldwide New Year tradition.

Related Posts
Why do we have the New Year’s Kiss at midnight?
Unusual New Year Traditions from Around the World

Related Products

You’re at a New Year’s Eve Party about to ring in the New Year. It’s almost midnight. You look around for who you’ll be kissing at midnight… but wait! Why do we have this tradition of kissing someone at midnight anyway?

The Origins of the New Year Kiss
The tradition of kissing at midnight is a tradition borrowed from the Roman era, from the Winter Solstice festival of Saturnalia.

Not only is Saturnalia behind this New Year’s Eve tradition, but it is also responsible for many of our Christmas traditions (written about here), including the customs of kissing under the mistletoe, and putting up Christmas wreaths and trees.

But why do we kiss at midnight? What does the kiss represent?
Some say the New Year Kiss represented an eradication and purification of evil spirits from the year that’s just gone, setting you in good stead for a fresh new year.

In more modern times further superstitions arose around the New Year kiss; the main superstition being that this kiss would set the tone of your coming year.

Related Posts
- Why do we sing Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s Eve?
- Why do we have these Unusual New Year Traditions from Around the World?

Related Products