leading
toasts was called _minnie_, meaning the cup of remembrance, and Dr.
Jamieson thinks that the popular cry which has come down to our times as
_Hogmany, trol-lol-lay_, was originally _Hogminne, thor loe loe_,
meaning the feast of Thor. After the Reformation, the Scotch transferred
Hogmanay to the last day of December, as a preparation day for the New
Year. The practice of children going from door to door in little bands,
singing the following rhyme, was in vogue at the beginning of this
century in country places in the West of Scotland:--

"Rise up, gudewife, and shake your feathers,
Dinna think that we are beggars,
We're girls and boys come out to-day,
For to get our Hogmanay,
Hogmanay, trol-lol-lay.

"Give us of your white bread, and not of your gray,
Or else we'll knock at your door a' day."

This rhyme has a stronger reference to Yule or Christmas than to the New
Year, and is doubtless a relic of pre-Reformation times.

At the Reformation, the Scottish Church, probably following the dictum
of Calvin, who condemned Yule as a pagan festival, forbade the people to
observe it because of its heathen origin; but probably the more potent
reason was that it was a Romish feast, for no objection was made against
keeping the New Year or _hansell Monday_, on which occasion practices
similar to those of Yule were observed, and I believe it was the
non-condemnation of these later festivals which enabled the Scottish
Church to abolish Yule. In fact, it would appear that the Yule practices
were simply transferred from a few days earlier to a few days later, and
thereby retained their original connection with the close of the year.
Prior to the Church interference there is no evidence that the first of
January was observed by the people as a general feast, but even with
this safety valve of a popular and yearly festival, the Church
encountered great difficulty in abolishing Yule. A few instances of the
opposition of the people will suffice.

The Glasgow Kirk Session, on the 26th December, 1583, had five persons
before them who were ordered to make public repentance, because they
kept the superstitious day called Yule. The _baxters_ were required to
give the names of those for whom they had baked Yule bread, so that they
might be dealt with by the Church. Ten years after this, in 1593, an Act
was again passed by the Glasgow Session against the keeping of Yule, and
therein it was ordained