This is a fiction story based on REAL events in Scotland. I suggest you start from part one.

Blackening the Bride Part 3 Police

Toby was a young police constable and had trained in Edinburgh. He'd recently moved to rural Aberdeenshire. He was out in a patrol car with Constable Julie Smithy, as part of his ongoing training."
She was driving and explaining about the patrol area.
Suddenly, as they drove through a small village, Toby shouted, "Julie, I think we'd better stop. A group of people are assaulting that woman over there."
Julie had already seen what had attract Toby's attention. Rather than stop, she just pipped her horn and carried on past a messy girl who was tied to a post and wire fence. Toby, on next seat to her said she's ties up. Surely that equals kidnapping and messy substances that people seem to be throwing at her must be assault."
Julie explained. "I had it done to me. It's called blackening the bride. My friends made me wear a 'parody' policewoman's uniform. Not like my normal outfit. It consisted of a very short mini skirt, and holdup stockings. That sort of thing is normal around here. You will see it many times each year. Ask our Sergeant, Mary Jones when we get back to the station if you don't believe me."
When they got back to the police station, Julie asked her sergeant to explain more about the blackening tradition to Toby.
Mary said, "It's a fascinating tradition. Been going on, in one form or another, for over 200 years. It started out as a ritual called 'Feet Washing', to purify the bride for her forthcoming marriage and to ward off evil spirits."
Julie chipped in and laughing said, "Not washing to cleanse the Bride nowadays though, is it?"
"Aye, well it changed over the years. Firstly, to wash her feet, they needed to be dirty. Then the dirty aspect came to include all of her body and clothes. Initially the things used were cheap, such as soot from the chimneys and mud. After about 1950, things gradually got a bit more affluent and they started to use foodstuffs, custard, treacle, jam and flour. By the 1980's it was getting even messier. But from about the year 2000 it could not get much messier, so people started concentrating on ensuring the bride was made smelly and stinky as well."
Julie said, "What do they say now? To get the bride sticky and smelly but mainly designed to make her feel uncomfortable and as humiliated as possible."
Mary said, "Aye, it certainly does that. Now anything her friends can think of to make her filthy is included. Then they drive her around to show her off to the other villagers, before leaving her somewhere in her messy state for a couple of hours."
Toby was fascinated by this strange ritual. "Does this happen to just the bride, or to the groom as well?"
"It only happens to the girls in this part of the country. North of Inverness it happens to both the bride and the groom. Up in Orkney and the Scottish islands, it's just the groom that is covered in muck. It only occurs in rural places. It's not even well known in Aberdeen town, never mind Glasgow or Edinburgh and probably never heard of anywhere down in England. I suppose they have their own messy traditions. I've heard of something called the Maldon Mud Run where people run across a muddy river estuary."
Toby said, "So I can expect to see this several times. And we do not regard it as kidnapping and assault."
"No, it's just good fun. It must be happening somewhere every week. You also need to know that sometimes the poor girl might be stripped to her underwear, or even topless. I don't ever recall a woman being naked, but up north sometimes the guys are."
Toby asked, "How often am I likely to see blackenings? Surely there cannot be that messy occurring."
Sergeant Jones put her pen down and appeared to be thinking.
She said, "Let me explain it this way. Let's think about the numbers. In our town here we have a population of about 8,000 people. We can assume that most people will only get married once in their lives, although some will never marry and others may marry, divorce and re-marry."
"That sounds reasonable."
"Average life expectancy around here is about 80 years of age. So, if they marry once, they will marry in one of the 80 years of their life. Thus, each year we would only see one eightieth of the people blackened. So, 8,000 divided by 80 is 100."
"But that's both men and women. You said that only the women get blackened."
"That's right. North of Inverness both the Bride and Groom are blackened, either together or separately. It also happens in parts of Northern Ireland, where they call it a doin'. But south of inverness and as far down as Dundee and Perth, only the Bride ends filthy."
"That sounds sexist, just the woman being blackened."
"It's always been like that as long as anyone can remember. Well before these feminist ideas came along. In any event it is usually the women that want the tradition to continue."
"That must mean that much less than the one hundred you mentioned end up getting messy."
"Correct. So, divide the 100 into 50 men and 50 women. That would mean that on average 50 women get blackened each year in our town alone."
"That still seems a heck of a lot."
"The true total is probably less than that. Some women may want to avoid being blackened and prefer to continue to live with their partners. The other thing is the weather. Most weddings and therefore most blackenings take place in the summer months. Say six months of the year or 26 weeks. In the winter a few blackenings take place, but indoors. Let's take the 26 weeks and add, say, 4 for the winter. That adds up to 30. I think that is a realistic number of blackenings here in town. One a week throughout summer and a few indoors in the winter. And that is just our small town, so yes I do think that you will see several blackenings when you are out on patrol."
Toby was gobsmacked. He could not have imagined that there would have been that many women being covered in muck. How many would that equate to across the whole of Aberdeenshire. He had heard that blackenings did not happen in the city of Aberdeen, it was purely rural. Even so using Mary's calculation, it meant that there would be several hundred blackenings each year across the county.
The sergeant said, "Don't forget that's only Aberdeenshire we have been talking about. The women in Moray and Angus counties are also blackened. Then North of Inverness BOTH the men and women are blackened. In total that must add up to another200,000 women. So, we could be looking at a total for the whole of Scotland of maybe a thousand women a year. "
"A thousand a year."
"At least, because I've heard that it has been spreading to the West coast. It had been happening in villages around Glasgow and up near Fort William."