Bidding stick

Lore & Background

In Scotland, a small burning cross or charred piece of wood would be carried from town to town. A widely known use was in the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite risings. In 1745, over 800 fighting men of the Scottish Clan Grant were gathered by the passing of the Fiery Cross to come to the aid of their Clan Chief and his sister in the town of Elgin. The name Crann Tara was used for a Scottish Gaelic current affairs programme on Grampian Television (ITV) and a political magazine edited by Norman Easton between 1977 and 1982.

In Scandinavia, bidding sticks sometimes had a string attached to one end and were charred on the other; Olaus Magnus (1555) relates that those who did not bring the club to the next village would be hanged and their homesteads burnt down. When people were assembled to a thing, the object was in the shape of an axe, or if the meeting concerned blasphemy, it was a cross. The objects were signed with runes or other marks to indicate the reason for the assembly and who had sent them. During the Middle Ages, using buþkaflar was the official method of assembling people, and they were only allowed to be carved by certain officials, e.g. governors and sheriffs. They were especially efficient when used to levy people against royal oppression and high taxes. After the Dalecarlian rebellion of 1743, strong checks were placed on their use.

In Sweden, the bidding stick was standardized during village reorganizations in 1742, and it was at the village level that they were frequently used. During the 19th and 20th centuries, more specific messages were attached to the clubs or inserted into a hollow space. Still in the early 20th century, there was a paragraph in Swedish law stating that the bidding stick would be sent between villages if there was a forest fire. Similar paragraphs were also present in Finnish legislation concerning the correct use of arpakapula, or budkavle in Finland's Swedish, till the 20th century.

Reader's Guide

The bidding stick served as a crucial tool for communication and mobilization in Northern European societies, particularly in Scotland and Scandinavia. Its significance lies in its dual role: as a practical method for summoning people to legal assemblies (things) and as a call to arms for defence or rebellion. The object's form varied—club, arrow, cross, or axe—depending on the purpose of the gathering, and it was often marked with runes or other symbols to convey the reason and authority behind the summons. The practice was so embedded in law that medieval Scandinavian regulations specified who could carve the sticks, and later Swedish and Finnish legislation retained provisions for their use in emergencies like forest fires into the 20th century. The bidding stick also left a cultural legacy, inspiring newspaper names such as Budstikka, Budstikken, and Tingakrossur, and appearing in Scottish literature through Sir Walter Scott's works. Its efficiency in rallying people against oppression, as seen in the Dalecarlian rebellion, led to legal restrictions, highlighting its power as a tool of both state and popular mobilization.

Did You Know?

• In Scotland, the bidding stick was called crann-tara, meaning 'fiery cross' or 'cross of shame', and was used to rally clan members to arms.
• Olaus Magnus (1555) wrote that those who failed to bring the bidding stick to the next village could be hanged and their homesteads burnt down.
• The name 'Tingakrossur' for a Faroese newspaper comes from the Faroese common noun tingakrossur meaning 'bidding stick'.
• In Sweden, a paragraph in law still in the early 20th century stated that the bidding stick would be sent between villages if there was a forest fire.