Join Tom and Rhonda as we continue our discussion around old Orkney customs and traditions. This time you'll hear some quite surprising and amusing details of marriage and death customs in Orkney.
A few things you'll find out in this Ower wi' the Moon podcast:
- Signs and dangers around the Orkney wedding celebration: good luck, bad luck and how to evade the trowies
- The costs of speerin' night, when the prospective groom asks the bride's father for her hand; warning: don't show up empty handed!
- The exact nuances of arranging the marriage banns in Orkney and its surrounding legalities
- About the Westray "dons" of the Spanish Armada, and what allegedly happened if they married "outside" the dons
- What did the moon, the tide and the "airt" of the wind have to do with the fortunes of an Orkney marriage?
- Old-style wedding invitations ... and drams (naturally)
- All about the Orkney foot-washing ritual, and the general hilarity that ensued
- Withershins - "going against the sun"
- The dangers of bodily bits as relating to curses; and what's this got to do with the king's poop?
- A wedding story from Noltland Castle in the island of Westray
- How to make your hogboon part of the wedding celebration, and why it's important to do so!
- The wedding walk - much longer than a walk down the aisle; hijinks along the way; and the importance of wiping out your tracks
- The origins of pre-wedding blackenings in Orkney
- The mesterhousel, the hansel wife, the bride's cog and other Orkney wedding celebration rituals
- Orkney wedding games, bog cotton (Loki's oo) stockings and feminine divination mysteries
- Baking. brewing, eating, drinking and dancing!
- Different kinds of Orkney cogs
- Curses, ill omens and selkie abductions: dangers to watch out for during weddings
- The tragic story of Henry Graham and his love
- Orkney death customs, traditions and beliefs
- Omens of death: rainbows, ravens and angels' music
- Wailing vardens and ganfers in Orkney
- The story of the Bokie Hound of the Balfours
- Forebodings of death in dreams
- The leekwak, touching the corpse and of ladies losing their senses
- The danger of grieving too much
- Supernatural Orkney death customs: good luck and bad, and getting the biggest blessing
- What did you do with a drowned sailor?
- The posh end of the cemetery
- Unbaptized infant stories
- ... and many more interesting Orkney traditions.
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