Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Bid to revive tradition of gifting ‘dressed herring’
A SINGER is hoping to revive a bizarre Dundee New Year tradition from a bygone era.
In the early 1900s, people in Dundee and the surrounding towns would give an elaboratelydressed herring as a first footing gift to neighbours, family and friends.
Stalls at local markets would sell the fish and they would be seen as good luck charms to their recipients, who would hang them up in their homes until the following year.
However, the tradition is thought to have died out in the middle of the last century.
Now, Lynne Campbell, 30, a folk singer from Stobswell, is planning an event next week which she hopes will help to revive it.
Lynne told the Tele: “When I initially heard about this I thought it was an awesome tradition.
“People used to traditionally give a dressed herring as a first footing gift and it is something we want to revive and spread the word about.
“I was preforming at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year and I addressed the tradition of hanging up the herring in your house for good luck to natives of Spain and Canada — they were intrigued by the tradition and were looking to dress their own herring up.
“People would buy the herring from the Mid Kirk Style i n Dundee and dress them up as brides or in kilts and would hang them in their kitchen.
“With the emergence of things like fridges becoming more common in households, I think the tradition started to die out in the late 1950s, but it was a tradition which was confined to the east coast — Dundee, Brechin and Arbroath.”
Lynne will use models of herring for her free event in Dundee’s Wellgate shopping centre on Wednesday, where people can go along and dress their own as gifts for New Year.
Her stand will be on level two, near Store 21, from 12.30pm until 4pm.
Erin Farley, a PhD student researching Dundee’s poetry and song, is helping to arrange the event.
She said: “Dundee’s future has never looked brighter and it’s great to be able to get involved with the city’s past as well.
“People will be encouraged to share their memories of Dundee at New Year and revive this old tradition that is definitely due for a comeback.”
Last year dressed herring formed part of an exhibition at the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther where visitors learned that many taking part in the tradition would keep the head and tail of the fish but get rid of the main flesh — dressing the herring in outfits made of paper or scraps of fabric.