Note 17 — Chapter X · THE FISHER-FOLK.

I have culled the following account of a fisherman’s wedding-dance from an excellent provincial journal. The solemnisation of a marriage is a great event in the village, and when one occurs it is customary to invite nearly all the adult population to attend. The ceremony is mostly always performed in the church, and it not unfrequently happens that at some of the marriages the whole lower part of the church is well packed with the marriage-train. The Collieston weddings are remarkable for the hilarity which ensues after the company return from the ceremony. After a sumptuous dinner the company adjourn to the links to a place which is smooth and level, and which lies at no very great distance from the Coast-Guard station at the end of the sands of Forvie, and there, to the inspiriting strains of the violin, dance the ancient, picturesque, and intricate “Lang Reel o’ Collieston”—a reel danced by their forefathers and each succeeding generation from time immemorial. To those who are fond of “tripping the light fantastic toe,” and who never had the fortune to see it danced, it would doubtless be interesting were we to give a description of this “The Lang Reel o’ Collieston;” but, although fond of that sort of exercise, we do not boast professional skill, and consequently are unacquainted with the technical names of the various movements in this particular department of the worship of Terpsichore. We may, however, mention that, as indicated by its name, the lang reel o’ Collieston is a lang reel in a double sense. It is of long duration and lengthy in its dimensions, for all the wedding party join in dancing the “lang reel.” It is commenced by the bride and her “best man,” and pair after pair link into its links as the dance proceeds, until all have linked themselves into it, and then pair after pair drop off, as in some country-dances, until none are left dancing but the bride and “best man” who commenced it. As may be supposed, this extended saltatory effort is rather trying for the bride; and we heard one sonsy wife of forty declare, in recapitulating the share she had on her wedding-day, that “the back of her legs didna cour (recover) the lang reel for a month afterwards.” The dance movement is very curious. The dancers “reel, set, and cross, and cleek,” and change places in such a way as to take them by degrees from the head of the dance to the foot, and back to the head again, and so on, the whole being like the links of a chain when reeling. When the couples are dancing, the lang reel o’ Collieston looks like a series of common Highland reels, and it is in the reeling that the peculiarity and intricacy of indescribableness of the dance exists. This reel is quite indispensable at marriages, and after it has been danced other reels and dances are enjoyed and kept up with very great spirit—natural and imbibed; and to see the lang reel o’ Collieston danced on the greensward under the blue canopy of heaven, on a sweet afternoon in summer, is a treat worth going many miles to enjoy. Not only would the eye enjoy a rare feast, but what with the sweet music of the violin, the merry song of the lark in mid-heaven right overhead, the ringing guffaws of the juvenile spectators, the clapping of hands, and the loud hoochs or whoops of the dancing fishermen, all commingling and commingled with the murmur of billows breaking among the rocks, the ear would have a banquet of no ordinary kind nor of everyday occurrence.—Banffshire Journal.