Boney
November 7th 2026
As the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) remind us, a boney is, “a bonfire”. These fires took place twice a year in Scotland – 5th November for Guy Fawkes Night and 24th May for Victoria Day, which commemorated Queen Victoria’s birthday.
Irvine Welsh fondly recalled the celebrations in Marabou Stork Nightmares (1996): “Boney nights were the best nights of the year in the scheme, Guy Fawkes because you got fireworks, but Victoria Day n aw. We’d go doon the beach tae get wood or find other boneys in the scheme and raid them. Sometimes, though, we got raided ourselves. You would get cudgels and stanes and try to defend your bonfire against raiders”.
This competitiveness features in many other accounts. The following appeared in the Scots Magazine in February 1989: “One compelling sound in the Edinburgh of youth was the war-cry, ‘We’re collectin fur the boney!’ This indicated that Bonfire Day was imminent … Events prior to this date were exciting, and generally created a series of furtive and energetic raids on stocks of bonfire materials in other streets; perhaps an old mattress or a broken chair, anything that would burn, to make oor boney the biggest anywhere”.
Did these raids really turn violent? The Edinburgh Evening News (April 2015) suggests that it wasn’t likely: “If we happened to find another street’s bonfire collection, we might plan a ‘boney-raid’. Armed with cudgels (more for show than anything else) we would attempt to relieve them of their booty in order to fuel our own”.
Dictionaries of the Scots Language would like to thank Bob Dewar for illustrating our Scots Word of the Week feature.
