Scaring Witches the Burghead Way - "Burning the Clavie"

"Burning the Clavie" takes place in Burghead every January 11th. The act of burning a barrel of tar is said to scare away witches. At the end of the evening the townsfolk take a bit of charred wood to protect themselves through the year. 

Witches are easy to scare. 

This was a fact that King James explored in his “Daemonologie”. He reported that you could “scare a wytch by affixing a carrote to your fringe, buying up alle the local merchant’s stock of catte food or playing a boysterous round of Ha’Penny Shrimp”. He sang the praises of various towns for their methods of keeping witches away; from Corfe Mullen in Dorset with their “Wreaths of Dust Motes”, to the good folk of Glamorgan and their habit of painting “Spectacles on Fruite” or even the men of Redditch who would “Burpe long and loude into bented horns”  - all of these methods were successful at keeping Satan’s harridans away. It was Burghead in Scotland that really caught his eye. As everyone knows now, nothing scares a witch away more than a burning barrelful of tar. This activity is known as "Burning the Clavie" and it takes place every January 11th. Some say it is the smell, others say it is their innate fear of fire. Needless to say since its introduction in 1093 there have been only 2157 recorded incidents of death by “wicked magicks”. If it wasn’t for  the hard work and quick thinking of the people of Burghead this death toll would be much higher*. 

So this January 11th raise a glass to the people of Burghead and thank them for keeping us all that little bit safer.

For an exciting look at this year's Clavie burning check out this video on the Twitter.

*Some estimates would put this figure as high as 2173