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              Return to Table of Contents It was seductive as a fieldworker simply to relate the two traditions, awarding me a feeling of ethnographic accomplishment, of having understood some aspect of the culture that I was studying...As I learned more about the tradition and the cultural contexts in which it takes place, new interpretations emerged. The relationship between the pop and Halloween customs was merely the first layer of interpretation to be penetrated. Works Cited
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PUBLICATIONS | VOICES | BACK ISSUES | FOLKLORE IN ARCHIVES | FOLK ARTISTS SELF-MGT | ORDER PUBLICATIONS | SEARCH  This article examines the burning of the pop, a traditional activity in Orkney. Orkney is a set of Scottish islands, separated from the mainland by history and identity as much as by water. The burning of the pop resembles Halloween guising and begging traditions in the United States and other parts of the world, but I argue that such an interpretation is superficial. Only by exploring cultural contexts can the differences among traditions be understood. Forms of Halloween begging occur all across North America. In the United States, trick or treat is a fairly standardized activity with easily identified trappings: costumes; the stock phrase, Trick or treat? that requests a token of candy or money; the jack-o-lantern; and often mischief. There are regional and local variations on the tradition, which speak of many cultural influences. Jack Santino talks of the “many intersections and forks and sideroads and curves” in the development of the American Halloween (1983, 5). Connections between Halloween and European traditions have been explored by others (Beck 1985; Tuleja 1994), who note similar begging activities, guising, and mischief across the continents. In the Scottish town of Stromness, children take part in a traditional activity that seems to fit this mold. They wander the streets on November 5 with a carved turnip, known as a “pop,” asking people for money. The verbal request is formalized as, A penny for me pop? or A penny for the guy? In response, adults give the children a small sum of money.
It is easy to view this as a Scottish variant on the American Halloween trick or treat. However, as is always the case in traditional activities, there are layers of meaning that are not readily apparent from a superficial examination. This article explores the tradition of the pop and the particular expression of this tradition in the town of Stromness. Peeling away layer after layer of meanings, I will demonstrate the many interrelated levels of cultural competence that are needed to understand fully what is going on. My hope is that this article will serve as a cautionary tale for young fieldworkers—as my findings did for me—who may be too quick to settle on an interpretation for what they observe. The material for this article was recorded during a year of ethnographic fieldwork in Stromness. The quotations in this article (cited by my tape catalog numbers, e.g. R1- 19.09.2003) are taken from interviews with informants in Orkney, all of whom requested anonymity. Orcadians requested anonymity not from the world outside Orkney, but from other Orcadians. I have chosen not to assign pseudonyms, and identifying information (age, gender, place of birth) has been kept to a bare minimum because of the small community in which Orcadians live, where the least amount of information can easily identify an individual. Limiting demographic information does hide individual identities, but I hope it does not objectify or essentialize the individuals. Setting the Scene: Stromness, Orkney Orkney is a county of Scotland, a set of approximately seventy islands that lay just off the northern coast. The islands have a rich and varied history, having been an important earldom under the Norwegian crown from the tenth century to the fifteenth. In 1468, the islands were given to Scotland as part of a dowry, and they have been politically a part of Scotland ever since. The last millennium has been roughly equally divided, with five hundred or so years of Scandinavian control followed by five hundred or so of Scottish rule. Both of these periods left indelible marks on the cultural landscape of Orkney, to the point that it feels different from other part of Scotland. The islanders emphasize and reinforce this difference, consciously constructing and promoting a separate Orcadian identity distinct from Scotland (Lange 2006). In some ways, Orkney nonetheless resembles rural areas of the east coast of Scotland, with small towns spread evenly between fertile farms. The lifestyle is similar as well, with a relaxed pace and a relaxed populace. Stromness has been an important Orcadian harbor town for three centuries. Stromness is the second-largest town in Orkney with a population of approximately two thousand, following the county seat, Kirkwall, with over three times that number. When I arrived for my fieldwork in the summer of 2003, Stromness felt like an old place, stretched along one stone-paved main street parallel to the harbor, with narrow, winding paths shooting away from the water up a hill backing the town. The paths are often little more than alleys between the buildings, and few of them are straight for any distance. Houses jut into the streets, forcing twists and turns into any journey along the slate pavements. Stromness is an evocative place, which is often romanticized as the ancient Viking port of Hamnavoe. The poet George Mackay Brown called his hometown “a ballad in stone” (1997, 13). In short, Stromness is the sort of town where so many people (folklorists included) want old traditions to exist and have deep meanings. The burning of the pop fits this bill quite nicely. The tradition has many parts with many different influences, but the complex basically consists of construction of the pop, begging for tokens, and throwing all of the pops into a bonfire at the end of the night. The construction of the pop—and some are quite elaborate—is often done by adults. They are carved from turnips, generally taking the form of a human or animal head. One informant gave me a lengthy description of the pops: They cut out effigies—it could be anything, can be anything, it can be an alien, whatever…. You just carve out a face or whatever. It can be anything at all; it can be an old man, and can be as I say an alien, it can be a pop star, or it can be an animal, or anything you know? . . . Maybe something that’s kind of topical, you ken…. Quite a lot of them were really good topical ones, you know, because it wasn’t the kids that were doing it, I suppose, it was the parents, you know. You ken, the parents are helping the kids, suppose it’s the idea, you know, and you get a few good topical ones. (B2-06.11.2003)Grotesque forms—trolls, gargoyles, and exaggerated human forms—have been and remain common, but recently other shapes, such as aliens, caricatures of political figures, and pop stars have taken their place among the effigies. The turnip effigies are hollowed out, and a burning cinder or candle is inserted. Children carry the pops from house to house in the evening, asking adults they meet if they can have “a penny for me pop” or “ penny for the guy.” After the children have canvassed the town collecting money, they assemble around a bonfire and throw the pops into the flames. The tradition occurs in this form only in Stromness, one local assured me: “It’s the only place in Orkney that’ll do it—that the kids go round with the pops, as they call it” (B2-06.11.2003). Being localized in one town, the continuation of this tradition is tenuous, and many Orcadians believe it is becoming less common: And it’s dying out, as well, which is a shame. It’s been a marked difference in the last five year, actually. Yeah, because again there’s no, there’s no, the—well, there’s a lot of incoming people coming in to the town and that. They don’t know about this, you know, and there’s not the bulk, the volume of the youngsters coming through from native Stromness people to keep it going, you know. There’s no the volume either, and quite a few are just, same old thing like a lot of other things, they just cannot really be bothered, you know, to help their kids do it. Maybe there’s other things happening as well, you know, too many things happening. It’s a shame, really shame…. And then of course the kids are going around, but I think even at our door last night, although I wasn’t in the whole night, I think there was only maybe two kids, three. And normally, the door’s going the whole night from four o’clock till eight, you know—continually. That’s the way it used to be. (B2-06.11.2003)The consensus among Stromnessians was that the tradition was quite strong very recently, but that it had lessened this year. My interviewee explained the decreased participation as the influence of incoming families—people who have moved to Orkney from outside, primarily Scotland and England, and who are therefore not familiar with the local customs and way of life. The modern influence of more opportunities also takes some blame; children and parents are more involved with other things, so an old traditional activity like carving a pop is edged out. One woman expressed her concern that children today were not taking part in the activities that children of previous generations did: They don’t go to church, they don’t go to join things either. They just don’t want to—television’s the cause of it all. They watch the television. Anymore, they got television, they got the computers…. I got three grandsons that come down from Stromness, and they come down here, and they go to the computer through in the room, and you never see them. They’re at that the whole time, a lovely day like this, and I’m so wild if they’re sitting through there…at the computer. (B8-09.03.2004)Modernity, whether in the form of outsiders or outside influence, is a threat to Orcadian culture by weakening participation in traditional Orcadian activities, such as the making of pops. The latter part of the tradition, casting the pops into a bonfire, is also becoming more rare, again due to influences of modernity: But, you see, there’s not the bonfires now either…. No, this is it, you see. They used to have a communal bonfire here in Stromness, and it was the community council that did it, and I think they got a bit of a scare one year because it was a bit windy, and one or two fireworks went a wee bit haywire. They had it all roped off and that, but one or two fireworks went a wee bit astray, and they said no, they wouldn’t be doing it anymore, because they had much difficulty in getting insurance for it, to cover it, to cover the event. (B2-06.11.2003)In earlier times, concerns such as liability insurance were not a factor. Today, the community council is responsible for public safety in a direct legal and financial way. Locals view authority at any level, from the community council all the way to the European Union, as a threat to traditional life in Orkney: “The biggest mistake this country made was joining the EU” (R8-27.02.2004). The modern development of bureaucracies has created layers of control that affect Orcadian life. Modernity has not completely done away with the bonfires, however, even if participation has changed: Other areas still have it, you know, like Kirkwall—they had one last Saturday…. I think like the Kirkwall one, I think, was maybe run by the Rotary Club or Round Table or something, like it was an organization doing it rather than people themselves. I can remember here, it was a great thing because you would have so many different bonfires, and each group of kids would be collecting cardboard and paper and everything like, you know, for weeks and weeks beforehand, and wood and whatever, and they would store it somewhere, you know…. It used to be a great thing—there were kids would come through the street at the shops, you know, and ask them for cardboard and anything else they could get for the bonfire, you ken, collect wood and stuff like that, as well, but sadly, that’s kind of gone, as well. And now I think it’s just maybe one or two private bonfires, and that’s it. (B2- 06.11.2003)The tradition of bonfires is widespread beyond Stromness, but is becoming less common all over. When I first encountered the pop tradition, it was difficult to understand the relationships among its various parts. There were elements that looked very familiar to me as an American, but other aspects that baffled. The pop was presented to me as a strictly Stromnessian tradition, but bonfires were held in all parts of Orkney and throughout Britain. Only in Stromness, however, was the bonfire connected to the carving of the pop. Interpreting the Pop The parallels between the pop and Halloween traditions are obvious. The carving of a hardy vegetable into an effigy lantern, the begging for some small token, the stock phrase used during the transaction, and the building of a bonfire all closely resemble traditional Halloween activities, a fact recognized by people in Orkney, as well: “It’s kind of like a trick-and-treat sort of thing, you ken, kind of idea, but it’s ‘a penny for me pop’ idea, ‘a penny for the guy’ sort of thing, you know. It’s very much the same as that, you know” (B2-06.11.2003). The proximity of the dates, November 5 and October 31, less than one week apart, strengthens an interpretation that seeks to explain the pop in terms of Halloween. It was seductive as a fieldworker simply to relate the two traditions, awarding me a feeling of ethnographic accomplishment, of having understood some aspect of the culture that I was studying. However, Occam’s razor does not always obtain in folklore: the simplest explanation is quite often too simple. As I learned more about the tradition and the cultural contexts in which it takes place, new interpretations emerged. The relationship between the pop and Halloween customs was merely the first layer of interpretation to be penetrated. The next layer of the pop unfolds with the historical context of the date. Guy Fawkes’ Night is celebrated over the whole of Britain on November 5 to commemorate the capture of Guy Fawkes in 1605 (Cannadine 2005). Fawkes plotted to destroy the British Parliament with explosives, killing its members along with the king. The plot was foiled when Fawkes was discovered in the basements of Parliament. He was tried with his co-conspirators and, although he was hanged, he is burned in effigy on November 5 to celebrate Parliament’s escape from destruction. All over Britain, children make effigies and go begging for money before Guy Fawkes’ Night, traditionally to buy fireworks. The stock phrase used is, A penny for the guy? since the effigies are referred to as guys. The activity is known as “going guying” (Beck 1984, 194). After begging and acquiring fireworks, the effigies are burned, often in a bonfire, and the fireworks are shot off in celebration. “It’s pretty much a British thing, I think, yeah—this bonfire’s being Guy Fawkes’ thing, you know, was really to celebrate Guy Fawkes being burned” (B2-06.11.2003). Tuleja confirms a seasonal connection between the American Halloween traditions and Guy Fawkes’ Night (1994, 84). The pop seems to draw on both Halloween and Guy Fawkes’. The Stromness tradition becomes much more clear given this information. The burning of the pop is a local expression of Guy Fawkes’ Night and Halloween traditions, with the pop being cast into the bonfire rather than the guy. The effigy has grown from being simply a representation of Guy Fawkes to any effigy figure. Problem solved, right? The begging, the construction of effigies, the bonfire, even the stock phrases are similar. Many aspects of Stromness’s tradition parallel the general British tradition. If we simply substitute the pop for the guy, then the two traditions are nearly identical. This interpretation is made more attractive by the fact that Stromness children will use the phrase “a penny for the guy” when referring to their pop. There are nevertheless important differences in the two effigies, which demand explanation. Lawrence Whistler described the construction of a typical guy in 1940s England: [It] must be nearly life-size. His body should be made of old clothes stuffed with straw into the shape of limbs, and he should have a pole for a spine. On top of the pole, his head will be placed. …A face should be painted, or better still, a terrible mask made out of papier-mâché and wired to the head so that it cannot fall away in burning…. On his head there should be a tall pointed hat, of paper if necessary, and if possible a wig. His hands will be merely stuffed-out gloves. (1947, 209–11)This description evidences a more complex effigy than the Stromness pop. The typical British guy is a fully represented, and in some cases articulated, human figure, much more reminiscent of Guy Fawkes. The pop, on the other hand, represents only the head, and it is not necessarily meant to be the historical Guy Fawkes—indeed, in many cases, it is explicitly someone or something else. The begging takes a slightly different form as well. In the guying tradition, children beg in the days running up to November 5 in order to get money for fireworks. In Stromness, children go house to house seeking money, seemingly for the sake of money. There is no explicit connection to fireworks, and the begging takes place on November 5 itself, removing the possibility of buying fireworks for use at the bonfire that same night. Clearly, there are many similarities between the Stromness tradition and the wider celebration of Guy Fawkes’ Night, which may speak to some syncretism, but it would be just as premature to explain the pop only in terms of Guy Fawkes’ as it would be to call it simply a Halloween custom. My informant reminded me, “I think [the pop]’s only Stromness, actually” (B2-06.11.2003), identifying the pop as something separate from the general tradition of burning the guy. Historical context has provided some elucidation, but more is necessary. The next layer of understanding comes from an examination of linguistic context. The term for the effigy in Orkney is spelled “pop,” leading an American English speaker to assume it is pronounced to rhyme with “top.” In the mouths of some Orcadians, this is true. However, others pronounce the word with a middle vowel sound approaching that of “caught” or “flaw.” I noticed this pronunciation at first without deeming it important to the meaning of either the word or the tradition. As I spent more time in Orkney, I learned more about local pronunciations, and this led me to think there may be some importance in that vowel sound. There is a small seaside town in Orkney called Saint Margaret’s Hope, which locals refer to simply as “the Hope.” Many people pronounce the name of this town as something between “hop” and “hawp,” although the spelling remains “hope.” Knowing that this pronunciation could be a phonetic representation of the orthographic “hope” at least suggests that “pop” as pronounced could be a phonetic representation of “pope.” This suggestion makes sense, considering that “pop” is the name of the effigy, like “guy” for the constructed effigy of Guy Fawkes. If this holds true, then the pop is—or was—meant to be an effigy of the pope, and the tradition dealt with a real person in the same way that the burning of the guy was based on the historical Guy Fawkes. Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary gives the spelling “pop” as a seventeenth-century Scots variant in its entry for “pope.” Beale (1984, 910) and Shane (1997, 209) provide further examples of the long “o” in “pope” opening up in dialect to “pap” or “pop,” while retaining a distinctly papal meaning. Shane’s example of “pop-eye” as explicitly a derogatory term for the pope emphasizes the antipapal sentiment that can easily be seen in burning the pope in effigy. This linguistic interpretation of the Orkney term “pop” was confirmed by ethnographic investigation, with several people telling me that the pop was, in fact, a representation of the pope. Another informant confirmed in an e-mail on May 3, 2006, that “this is a ‘burn the pope’ scenario, although I don’t think folk are aware of this anymore.” How has the pope entered into a tradition complex that purports to be about the capture and execution of Guy Fawkes? The next layer of the pop reveals itself with an understanding of the religious context. The Gunpowder Plot of which Guy Fawkes was a member was a reaction to the persecution of Catholics under King James I (Fraser 1996, 19). Catholics had long suffered under James I’s predecessor, Elizabeth I, and they hoped for some relief from James, whose mother was the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots. However, life for Catholics under James was not much better than under Elizabeth. Fawkes and his co-conspirators were Catholics, and they had wanted to make a statement for their rights in largely Protestant England. The burning of the guy celebrates not just the capture of a political conspirator and the foiling of a political plot, but a triumph of Protestantism over a Catholic conspiracy. If the burning of the guy is a celebration of justice meted out to the Catholic conspirator Guy Fawkes, then it is not too difficult to view the burning of the pop/pope as an antipapal, anti-Catholic response. Separating Pop and Guy Guy Fawkes’ Night is more commonly referred to as Bonfire Night in Scotland, downplaying the Englishness of the holiday. Parliament is symbolic of London’s political control of Britain, a situation many Scots would like to see change. As such, it is understandable that the salvation of Parliament and the monarchy from destruction is a less potent motive for celebration in Scotland than it is in England. While the capture of Guy Fawkes does not evoke nationalistic celebration for Scots, the anti- Catholic sentiments of the night are also less important in Scotland, as opposition to Catholicism is perceived as more an English than a Scottish idea. (See Champion 2005 for a dramatic discussion of the anti-Catholic aspects of the burning of the guy in England and Northern Ireland.) To be sure, there is anti-Catholic sentiment to be found in Scotland—one only need attend a Rangers–Celtic football match for ample evidence—but Scots view England as unified in its anti-Catholicism. The Church of England is straightforwardly connected to the culture of England, and it is perceived as representative of all of England. Scottish people consider themselves more religiously diverse, with strong Protestant sentiments alongside Catholic influence from Ireland. Neither the political nor the religious aspects of Guy Fawkes’ Night are as powerful in Scotland, leading to a more generalized celebration of Bonfire Night, less attached to historical narratives. Why, then, does the pope get burned in Orkney? The final layer of the pop is made clear by understanding the cultural context of Orkney within Scotland. Orkney is a county of Scotland, but its identity is based largely around it being not Scottish. As one informant put it, Orcadians speak of “going to Scotland from Orkney. . . . We are offshore, but our culture is totally different” (R1- 19.09.2003). Orkney was a part of Scandinavia for five hundred years until 1468, and this time has left a mark on Orcadian identity. While Scotland was defining its identity in the eighteenth century around the Gaelic language, the bagpipe, and the kilt (Trevor- Roper 1983), Orkney was being pushed to the margins. None of these trappings of identity have ever been important markers in Orkney. Their indigenous language was Norn, a descendant of the Scandinavian language Old Norse; kilts and bagpipes were identified with the Highlands of Scotland, but were never used in Orkney. There is a strong sentiment on Orkney’s part to identify with its Scandinavian past, rather than the hegemonic version of Scottish identity (Lange 2006). As such, Orkney sometimes works as a microcosm of non-Scottish— even anti-Scottish—identity within Scotland. As Scotland rejects antipapistry to identify itself as non-English, Orkney is able to perpetuate antipapist traditions, freed from the cultural desire to define itself as non-English and perhaps driven by the cultural desire to define itself as non-Scottish. This idea of a separate identity from Scotland explains the view that incomers from Scotland and England and the outside influences of modernity are weakening the tradition of the pop in Stromness. English and Scottish are equivalent in Orkney—both are outside cultures. Locals view civil authority as handed down from London and Edinburgh, and the modern concerns with fire insurance and public safety are viewed as influences from outside, as well. While the burning of the guy may be spread over the whole of Britain, the pop is uniquely Stromnessian, and therefore something Orkney can claim as its own. The incorporation of the pop into the guying tradition gives the whole complex of traditional activities a vernacular flair—a unique expression in Stromness. The Meanings of the Pop We have reached the center of the pop. What on the surface seemed to me to be a simple expression of Halloween customs became more complex as I learned more— or rather, the complexity of the tradition became more evident to me as I learned more, and it is probable that there are complexities I still do not understand. Folklore deals with contextualized information all the time. Historical, linguistic, religious, cultural, personal, social, local, and temporal contexts all affect the material folklorists gather and the meanings that material can have. The pop is a local tradition that is informed by many contexts, including the transnational context of Halloween. Is the pop a Halloween tradition, as I first thought? Yes, at least in part. But it is many other things as well: an expression of religious affiliation, a celebration of patriotism, but—most importantly— a marker of local identity. Only by peeling away the layers of contexts from the kernel of the tradition can we discover the many meanings of the pop. “Peeling the Pop: Exploring a Tradition in Orkney by Michael A. Lange was published in Voices Vol. 33, Spring-Summer 2007. Voices is the membership magazine of the New York Folklore Society. To become a subscriber, join the New York Folklore Society now. HOME | ABOUT NYFS | PROGRAMS & SERVICES | MUSIC | PUBLICATIONS | RESOURCES | CALENDAR | WHAT’S FOLKLORE? | MEMBERSHIP | GALLERY | SHOP |
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