A Blackening

We heard it first.  It sounded a bit like a steam train approaching but there are no steam trains here so it couldn't be.  We were inside a shop in Kirkwall so I looked outside and there it was; an open builder's truck filled with about twenty men all black and filthy, bashing the sides of the truck with sticks and tools to make as much noise as they could.  We were told it was a 'Blackening', an Orcadian tradition where a groom is kidnapped before his wedding, blackened with treacle, flour and sometimes feathers, and then tied to a stone in the churchyard.  This lad seemed to get off lightly; they only left him tied there for about fifteen minutes before coming back to get him, but according to the link I've attached he may well have ended up in the sea and very drunk.  The girl in the shop told us that one wedding had to be postponed after the groom was left tied up overnight and got hypothermia!  Quite a tradition.