A brief overview of Scotland with regard to rural customs, farming, marriage, and crofting will be given. Farming remains a source of income for roughly 30,000 members of the population (owing to mechanization, a third of what it once was in the early 1950s). Marriage (intermarriage has helped to blur a dividing line between the bloods of different populations, and has effectively made the Scots one people), and crofting (the system of working a small, enclosed field, usually by a tenant) will also be discussed. In addition, rural customs will also provide a focus for this survey.
A brief geographical orientation will help with an understanding of customs and arbitrary divisions among the Scottish people as a whole. Scotland is traditionally divided into three geographical areas--the Highlands, the Lowlands, and the Southern Uplands. The coastal plain, stretching from the eastern Grampian region around the Moray Firth to the flat expanse of the northeastern Highland region, is distinctive enough to constitute a separate Northeast area. The Highlands are bisected by the fault line of the Great Glen (Glen More nan Albin), which is occupied by a series of lochs (lakes), the largest of which is Loch Ness.
Scots have traditionally been divided into two categories--one was either a Highlander or a Lowlander, and such categories still have marginal significance, although they are an oversimplification. In addition, the Shetlanders, with their Norse blood and traditions and the mixed gaelic-Norse population of the Hebrides never fit into either category. Intermarriage has helped to blur the distinction between ethnic categories, and today the Scots are one people. The modern population moves freely among the three main geographical regions and the Orkney and Shetland islands.
Farming, the traditional manner of earning a living in Scotland, is waning as people are moving from the rural areas into urban areas. In fact, since...