Tuesday 29 November 2011

Striking Handmade Necklaces Coming From The Orkney Islands

By Adrian Jones


Handmade Necklaces Make Use Of Traditions

Handmade necklaces are spectacular varieties of our Orkney heritage collections which connect to cherished traditions. After you buy jewelry online from an Orkney jewellery website you tap into a great history.

Our ways of life in Orkney are envied by people countrywide. This week it was announced that the extensive Hogmanay festivities in Edinburgh, that are attended by 80,000 revellers, will play New Year Games, based on a giant street game, referred to as the Kirkwall Ba' (slang for "football").

These mass football games were once played all around the UK but these days only survive during gatherings in Kirkwall in Orkney and Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders. They are believed to date back to at the least Viking times.

In Kirkwall the Ba' is played out on Christmas Day and New Year's Day, of course this year it'll be a day later so they won't be played on a Sunday. You can find men's and boy's versions of the games. 100s of people play a part and the town's house windows and doorways are barricaded in order to avoid the crush. This includes all jewelry shops showcasing their handmade necklaces, bangles, brooches and so on.

The aim; like all football games, is to score a goal and win the match. Players are called Uppies and Doonies or "Up the Gates" and "Doon the Gates". This is considered to be a corruption of the Old Norse gata, which means road. Which side you play on is decided using the individual's place of birth. Those born to the north of the cathedral are a Doonie, with Uppies being those born in the south. In the present day players keep to the side of their ancestors and forefathers as opposed to where they have been born, specially as a great many are born in the hospital here or in Aberdeen.

The action begins on Kirkwall's Broad Street near St Magnus Cathedral. The Uppie goal is to make contact with the ba' against a wall in the south end of the town, while the Doonies get the icy task of getting the ba' into the waters of Kirkwall Bay, to the north.

Handmade Necklaces Make Great Gifts

Edinburgh revellers will get the option of contending as Uppies or Doonies at the New Year Games that are being staged in four venues in the city. Nonetheless they will not be chasing a ba' (a leather ball stuffed with cork). They're going to be relishing mass games of battleships and hopscotch instead.

So whilst you're appreciating your Orkney handmade necklaces should you have already been lucky, or your close friend has just been logging on to buy jewelry online, spare a thought for all those fearless boys chasing the ba' within the chilly streets of Kirkwall.




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