When it came to hospitality, to the ancient Greeks it was the first commandment of life. Anyone under your roof, beggar or fool, became as a member of your family to be treated with generosity and respect.

Perhaps the greatest example of how highly hospitality was regarded in ancient times, can be seen by the actions of Hercules – that man of inordinate strength whose labours are legendary.

One day, several friends dropped in unexpectedly on Hercules. Greeting them immediately with a smile, Hercules plied them with wine, and exhorted them to check out the larder for anything that might take their fancy. Several hours later, the guests mellow with drink, noticed the absence of Hercules’ wife. When asked to explain the reason why she hadn’t come to greet them, Hercules continued to smile, offer them more food, and did his best to divert them from the subject of his wife.

Like all people who have discovered our Achilles’ heel, the guests fastened on to the subject of Hercules’ wife like bloodhounds. They refused to let go. Abashed at their insistence, at length Hercules led them to the room where his wife lay in state. Literally. She had died that day, and rather than force grief on his friends, Hercules had chosen to hide his own. He really was a softie!

The Scots, despite their reputation for valuing the dollar more than a little, are the most hospitable people in the world. Planning a wedding holds no terror for them. When the matter of what drinks to serve comes up, they don’t throw up their hands in horror at the thought of an open bar. Not for them the house red or the house white. To offer anything but quality alcohol is beyond their ken.

Often at weddings you see tentative forays into old customs. One of these is the bride and groom toasting each other by drinking from the same cup, while the guests look on.

Not so at a wedding planned by a Scotsman.

At such a wedding, as the bride and groom toast each other from their shallow cup, another, deeper cup, filled not with some watered down Semillon or briny Moselle, but containing the finest Scotch whisky, is simultaneously passed from the hands of one guest to another to symbolically share in the happiness and good fortune of the bride and groom in finding each other.

It really is no wonder that the high jinx of New Year’s celebration is associated with Scotland’s old favourite, ’Auld Lang Syne’ They know how to celebrate.

  By: Vlady Peters