photo credit: Sweet Creations Studio (by Senel) via photopin cc

Today is my birthday, so I decided to indulge a bit and put up a photo of one of my favorite things. No, my American friends, the title does not refer to a decked-out boat. Birthday is the same in Scots. Kyaak means cake in general. There are plenty of names for specific cakes.

Birth translates directly. Birth-grund is where you were born. The nickname for being born is “coming hame”, or home. This is neat but confusing, because term for death is “going hame”.

According to birthdaycelebrations.net, the standard birthday present is a pound note for every year that a child has been alive, plus one extra for luck. Over here that’s the standard for candles as well. I wonder if you got this from everyone or just your parents. At my age it would add up to a nice piece of change. The Scots also give birthday spankings, soft swats during which kids laugh hysterically at their parents exaggerated wind-ups.

The special “coming of age” present is a key to the house, usually given at man age 21. Such a person can come and go as they please without curfew or explanation. It tells you something about how long families stick together, or at least did in the past. Girls of course could be married before that age, but men needed to have their careers in place before supporting a family. Somehow I don’t think Scots would ever allow their daughters to stay out as long as they liked, no matter how old they got. But I could be quite wrong. The days are extremely long in summer in Scotland, and on Skye you can see well enough at midnight to go fishing or dancing. Maybe as long as you had an escort it was fine.