The first-foot is supposed to set the luck for the rest of the year.

Traditionally, tall, dark men are preferred as the first-foot.

Something like that, something that might make them move on to first-foot at another house.

If an unlucky first-foot entered, all was not lost: evil could be expelled by throwing out the cat.

The aim is to be the first-foot of festivals, both geographically as well as the first in the calendar.

A first-foot who arrives empty-handed is a terrible omen - of poverty and loss in the year ahead.

If the first-foot is a woman, And that woman she be fair, In the days that follow You will have a care.

In a number of cultures, actions and events on the first day of the year can determine the year, leading to such beliefs as First-Foot.

It is said to be desirable for the first-foot to be a tall, dark-haired male; a female or fair-haired male are in some places regarded as unlucky.

Customs vary throughout Scotland, and usually include gift-giving and visiting the homes of friends and neighbours, with special attention given to the first-foot, the first guest of the new year.

The first-foot usually brings several gifts, including perhaps a coin (silver is considered good luck), bread, salt, coal, or a drink (usually whisky), which represent financial prosperity, food, flavour, warmth, and good cheer respectively .

After the first-foot, also called "podariko" (from the root pod-, or foot), the lady of the house serves the guests with Christmas treats or gives them an amount of money to ensure that good luck will come in the New Year.

It was decided to evoke the Scottish custom of 'first-footing', and one of the many highlights of the Millennium Ceilidh in Maxton Village Hall was a trans-atlantic 'first-foot' by telephone from our friends in Maxton, North Carolina.

In Scottish and Northern English folklore, the first-foot, also known in Manx Gaelic as quaaltagh or qualtagh, is the first person to enter the home of a household on New Year's Day and a bringer of good fortune for the coming year.

Although it is acceptable in many places for the first-footer to be a resident of the house, they must not be in the house at the stroke of midnight in order to first-foot (thus going out of the house after midnight and then coming back in to the same house is not considered to be first-footing).

The first-footer goes on to the next house, and the next, and the next as long as the whisky lasts.

But the first-footer does not depart with his whisky bottle to pinch pints, as Mr. Shenker suggests.

It is nonetheless perfectly acceptable for the first-footer to carry his bottle off when he leaves, reinforcing the heretical notion that Scots are parsimonious pint-pinchers.

But in modern times, Scottish revelers enjoy eating and drinking late into the night, whether or not there is a first-footer, or a less-than-perfect one, to be found.

These days it does no harm if the first-footer brings a bottle of whisky, from which he pours a drink for his host who then pours from his own stock for other guests.

After the clock strikes midnight and everyone sings "Auld Lang Syne" using the correct words (just mumbling "Should auld acquaintance be forgot" over and over again is not good enough), the "first-footer" - the first person to step across the threshold - takes his place as the night's most important figure.

Ideally a tall, dark and handsome man with no obvious physical imperfections, the first-footer is supposed to bring an array of gifts: a piece of coal for the fire, signifying life, warmth and comfort; a cake to signify prosperity; a herring if he is from a fishing community, and a bottle of alcohol, preferably whisky, to drink.

Although it is acceptable in many places for the first-footer to be a resident of the house, they must not be in the house at the stroke of midnight in order to first-foot (thus going out of the house after midnight and then coming back in to the same house is not considered to be first-footing).