5 Weirdly Wonderful New Year's Traditions in the UK
Welcoming a brand-new year is cause for celebration around the world, but the ways people mark the occasion can be wildly different. While the Times Square ball drop and Southern-style black-eyed peas might be all-American, the UK has its own quirky traditions. From whacking bread against the wall to inviting a dark-haired man into your home, find out how folks in Great Britain ring in good luck for the year ahead.
First-Footing
First-Footing is a New Year’s superstition found across the UK, though it seems to matter most in Scotland. The first person to cross your threshold after midnight is believed to dictate your fortune for the year. Tradition holds that a dark-haired man brings the best luck; a fair-haired visitor points to bad. The custom dates back to the days of the Vikings, when a blond stranger at the door often meant trouble.
The first foot: A Scottish custom on New-Year's Eve, circa 1882
Black and White Rabbits
A Yorkshire tradition relies on saying the right thing at the right time. Just before midnight on New Year’s Eve, repeating “black rabbit, black rabbit, black rabbit” is meant to usher out the old, dark year and banish evil spirits. As the clock strikes twelve, switching to “white rabbit, white rabbit, white rabbit” welcomes the light and invites good fortune for the year ahead. The ritual comes from older superstitions linking rabbits to luck, with familiar variations such as saying “Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit” on the first day of the month.
Cake on a Cow
This regional custom from Hertfordshire dates back to medieval times and is as strange as it sounds. On either Christmas or New Year’s Eve, farmers do a song and dance around a bull before placing a plum cake on its horns and splashing cider in its face. The way the cake topples is an omen for the year ahead. A forward-falling cake predicts a good harvest; backward, less so—and perhaps what’s deserved for throwing cider in a bull’s face.
Cold Swimming
Cold water immersion has ancient ties to healing and spiritual cleansing but marking January 1st with a polar plunge is apparently a distinctly UK tradition. In Wales, the custom of taking a New Year’s Day dip dates back to 1823; it now attracts thousands of swimmers in fancy dress. Edinburgh’s “Loony Dook” began in the 1980s as a hangover cure, sending costumed revelers into the icy Firth of Forth. Similar events now take place across the UK, from Hyde Park to Lyme Regis, Whitley Bay to the Dorset coast.
New Year's Day swim, Saundersfoot Pembrokeshire, Wales
Throwing Bread
This old Irish practice involves taking stale bread left from Christmas and either throwing it or banging it against a wall on New Year’s Eve to scare off hunger and evil spirits and invite in abundance and good fortune. The tradition is waning today, but variations like Abingdon’s bun-throwing festival still exist. If you've got an old loaf to spare, it might be worth a whack.
