First-footing is one of the best known of New Year customs. In R. H. Cromek’s Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song. (1810) we learn “Much care is taken that the persons who enter be what are called sonsie folk, for on the admission of the first-foot depends the prosperity or trouble of the year”. According to The Reminiscences of the Ferguslie Elderly Forum (1993) “You always wanted someone dark to first foot you and they had to have a bit of coal and a bun, currant bun or shortbread”. An earlier quotation from Ebenezer Picken’s A Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1818) claims “The first-fit generally carries with him a hot beverage, made of ale, spirits, eggs, cream, sugar, and biscuit, with some slices of curran bun to be eaten along with it, or perhaps some bread and cheese”. Different times and areas favour their own offerings, including salt and whisky, but the lump of coal, once common, is rarer in the absence of open fires. Physical attributes are important. Robert Ford in Humorous Scotch Readings (1881) illustrates two undesirable traits: “He was a fair-hair’d, flet-fitted man, an’ therefore, an unlucky first-fit”.
    Few people now realize that a first fit could also be the first person (or sometimes animal) met on any journey, especially on the way to church by a wedding or christening party. Walter Gregor in An Echo of the Olden Time (1874) records: “The person first met [by bridal procession] received a glass, with bread and cheese, and then turned and walked a short distance. Great attention was paid to the first fit. A man on horseback, or a horse drawing a cart...was deemed most lucky”. Did the horse get its share of the bread and cheese?

Scots Word of the Week is written by Chris Robinson of Scottish Language Dictionaries.