Note 132 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
Watching with the dead was an ancient custom of the Church. Pennant, in his Tour of Scotland, speaks of it as follows: “The evening after the death of any person, the relations or friends of the deceased meet at the house attended by bag-pipe or fiddle; the nearest of kin, be it wife, son, or daughter, opens a melancholy ball, dancing and greeting (i.e., crying) at the same time.”