BURNING THE

CLAVIE  , an ancient Scottish custom still observed at Burghead, a fishing village on the Moray Firth, near Forres . The " clavie " is a bonfire of casks split in two, lighted on the r2th of January, corresponding to the New Year of the old calendar . One of these casks is joined together again by a huge nail (Lat. clavus; hence the term) . It is then filled with tar, lighted and carried flaming round the village and finally up to a headland upon which stands the ruins of a Roman altar, locally called " the Douro." It here forms the nucleus of the bonfire, which is built up of split casks . When the burning tar-barrel falls in pieces, the people scramble to get a lighted 1 Mersenne, Harmonie universelle (Paris, 1636), p . 113, calls the clavicytherium " une nouvelle forme d'epinette dont on use en Italie," and states that the action of the jacks and levers is parallel from back to front . 2 Musica getutscht and auszgezogen (Basel, 1511) . ' See " Une Piece unique du Musee Kraus de Florence " in Annales de l'alliance scientifique universelle (Paris, 1907) . 'See illustration by William Gibb in A . J . Hipkins's Musical Instruments, Historic, Rare and Unique (1888) . 6 History of the Pianoforte, Novello's Music Primers, No .

52 (1896), P . 75 . 6 L'Antica Musica ridotta moderna prattica (

Rome; 1555).piece with which to kindle the New Year's fire on their cottage hearth . The charcoal of the clavie is collected and is put in pieces up the cottage chimneys, to keep spirits and witches from coming down .