Galoshins was a seasonal folk drama learned orally and performed, mostly by boys, in people’s houses. It took place on Old Year’s Night or on Hallowe’en in the south of Scotland at the very end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth.

The drama took the form of a fight, sometimes with ‘swords’ and then a ‘doctor’ performed a comic turn in bringing the injured party back to life.

These oral reminiscences were collected for the School of Scottish Studies Sound Archives from people in Melrose, Morebattle, Hawick, Westruther, Biggar, Morekirk, Kirkcowan, Newton Stewart, Armadale, Falkirk, Camelon, Dennyloanhead and Kippen.

‘Here comes in Wee Johnny funny

The best wee man to draw the money

Lang lang pouches down to his knees

A penny a tuppence or three bawbees.’

Emily Lyle is an Honorary Fellow at the School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh.

The General Editor of the Flashbacks series is Professor Alexander Fenton.

Published by: NMS Enterprises Limited – Publishing with the European Ethnological Research Centre (EERC) as part of the Flashbacks series of oral histories.