Get up, auld wife, and shake your feathers, Dinna think that we are beggars,

We’re jist bairns come oot to play,

Get up and gie us oor hogmanay.‘

The young people were mostly looking for rum to drink, and their thirst was usually satisfied. In the rare event that a particular house had none to offer, cakes were given but these were poor substitutes and the merry-makers quickly left for the next house and the next drink. The practice, though popular, was gradually discouraged quite early in the colony’s history, and finally abandoned after shingled houses replaced log ones.’

Scots also observed such events as Handsel Monday and Halloween, but the feast of the beloved Saint Andrew on 30 November was, of all these special days, the time when the clans met in as large groups as possible to commemorate their saint, their heritage, and their homeland. For the early settlers, this was the day .when “they recounted the doughty deeds of their forefathers in many a hard fought field, or the wanderings of Prince Charlie among the hills and glens of Scotland, that they knew and remembered so well; or re-told again the story of the bloody massacre of Glenco in which so many of their relatives had so tragically perished. ’ ’ ‘

Amidst the memories and tales of Scotland, Saint Andrew’s Day was a time of great dining and drinking '— an almost necessary recess in the unremitting labours of their daily lives. As Malcolm MacQueen notes in Skye Pioneer and "The Island ”.'

Their [the Scots’] pleasures and recreations were few. The times were hard. From infancy they knew self-denial and toil. Even the bare necessities of life were obtained only after fatiguing manual labour. . . .Only under the spell of whisky did they entirely forget the sober hardships of a life of toil.7

These early dinners have not, as far as can be determined, been recorded. It has also not been determined just when Glenaladale began hosting them, but they were being held at his residence at an early point in the history of Scottish habitation on the Island. Glenaladale, as chief of the Macdonald clan, always presided over the festivities; his relative, Keppoch, chief of a clan branch, had a seat of honour. In attendance were representatives of the colony’s principal families — a somewhat elite collection that would continue to characterize the make-up of the

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