Balder the Beautiful Part 17

The celebration of a midsummer festival by Mohammedan peoples is particularly remarkable, because the Mohammedan calendar, being purely lunar and uncorrected by intercalation, necessarily takes no note of festivals which occupy fixed points in the solar year; all strictly Mohammedan feasts, being pinned to the moon, slide gradually with that luminary through the whole period of the earth's revolution about the sun. This fact of itself seems to prove that among the Mohammedan peoples of Northern Africa, as among the Christian peoples of Europe, the midsummer festival is quite independent of the religion which the people publicly profess, and is a relic of a far older paganism. There are, indeed, independent grounds for thinking that the Arabs enjoyed the advantage of a comparatively well-regulated solar year before the prophet of G.o.d saddled them with the absurdity and inconvenience of a purely lunar calendar.[557] Be that as it may, it is notable that some Mohammedan people of North Africa kindle fires and bathe in water at the movable New Year of their lunar calendar instead of at the fixed Midsummer of the solar year; while others again practise these observances at both seasons. New Year's Day, on which the rites are celebrated, is called _Ashur_; it is the tenth day of Moharram, the first month of the Mohammedan calendar. On that day bonfires are kindled in Tunis and also at Merrakech and among some tribes of the neighbourhood.[558] At Demnat, in the Great Atlas mountains, people kindle a large bonfire on New Year's Eve and leap to and fro over the flames, uttering words which imply that by these leaps they think to purify themselves from all kinds of evil. At Aglu, in the province of Sus, the fire is lighted at three different points by an unmarried girl, and when it has died down the young men leap over the glowing embers, saying, "We shook on you, O Lady Ashur, fleas, and lice, and the illnesses of the heart, as also those of the bones; we shall pa.s.s through you again next year and the following years with safety and health." Both at Aglu and Glawi, in the Great Atlas, smaller fires are also kindled, over which the animals are driven. At Demnat girls who wish to marry wash themselves in water which has been boiled over the New Year fire; and in Dukkala people use the ashes of that fire to rub sore eyes with. New Year fires appear to be commonly kindled among the Berbers who inhabit the western portion of the Great Atlas, and also among the Arabic-speaking tribes of the plains; but Dr. Westermarck found no traces of such fires among the Arabic-speaking mountaineers of Northern Morocco and the Berbers of the Rif province. Further, it should be observed that water ceremonies like those which are practised at Midsummer are very commonly observed in Morocco at the New Year, that is, on the tenth day of the first month. On the morning of that day (_Ashur_) all water or, according to some people, only spring water is endowed with a magical virtue (_baraka_), especially before sunrise.

Hence at that time the people bathe and pour water over each other; in some places they also sprinkle their animals, tents, or rooms. In Dukkala some of the New Year water is preserved at home till New Year's Day (_Ashur_) of next year; some of it is kept to be used as medicine, some of it is poured on the place where the corn is threshed, and some is used to water the money which is to be buried in the ground; for the people think that the earth-spirits will not be able to steal the buried treasures which have thus been sanctified with the holy water.[559]

[The Midsummer festival in Morocco seems to be of Berber origin.]

Thus the rites of fire and water which are observed in Morocco at Midsummer and New Year appear to be identical in character and intention, and it seems certain that the duplication of the rites is due to a conflict between two calendars, namely the old Julian calendar of the Romans, which was based on the sun, and the newer Mohammedan calendar of the Arabs, which is based on the moon. For not only was the Julian calendar in use throughout the whole of Northern Africa under the Roman Empire; to this day it is everywhere employed among Mohammedans for the regulation of agriculture and all the affairs of daily life; its practical convenience has made it indispensable, and the lunar calendar of orthodox Mohammedanism is scarcely used except for purposes of chronology. Even the old Latin names of the months are known and employed, in slightly disguised forms, throughout the whole Moslem world; and little calendars of the Julian year circulate in ma.n.u.script among Mohammedans, permitting them to combine the practical advantages of pagan science with a nominal adherence to orthodox absurdity.[560]

Thus the heathen origin of the midsummer festival is too palpable to escape the attention of good Mohammedans, who accordingly frown upon the midsummer bonfires as pagan superst.i.tions, precisely as similar observances in Europe have often been denounced by orthodox Christianity. Indeed, many religious people in Morocco entirely disapprove of the whole of the midsummer ceremonies, maintaining that they are all bad; and a conscientious schoolmaster will even refuse his pupils a holiday at midsummer, though the boys sometimes offer him a bribe if he will sacrifice his scruples to his avarice.[561] As the midsummer customs appear to flourish among all the Berbers of Morocco but to be unknown among the pure Arabs who have not been affected by Berber influence, it seems reasonable to infer with Dr. Westermarck that the midsummer festival has belonged from time immemorial to the Berber race, and that so far as it is now observed by the Arabs of Morocco, it has been learned by them from the Berbers, the old indigenous inhabitants of the country. Dr. Westermarck may also be right in holding that, in spite of the close similarity which obtains between the midsummer festival of Europe and the midsummer festival of North Africa, the latter is not a copy of the former, but that both have been handed down independently from a time beyond the purview of history, when such ceremonies were common to the Mediterranean race.[562]

-- 5. _The Autumn Fires_

[Festivals of fire in August; Russian feast of Florus and Laurus on August 18th; "Living fire" made by the friction of wood.]

In the months which elapse between midsummer and the setting in of winter the European festivals of fire appear to be few and unimportant.

On the evening of the first day of August, which is the Festival of the Cross, bonfires are commonly lit in Macedonia and boys jump over them, shouting, "Dig up! bury!" but whom or what they wish to dig up or bury they do not know.[563] The Russians hold the feast of two martyrs, Florus and Laurus, on the eighteenth day of August, Old Style. "On this day the Russians lead their horses round the church of their village, beside which on the foregoing evening they dig a hole with two mouths.

Each horse has a bridle made of the bark of the linden-tree. The horses go through this hole one after the other, opposite to one of the mouths of which the priest stands with a sprinkler in his hand, with which he sprinkles them. As soon as the horses have pa.s.sed by their bridles are taken off, and they are made to go between two fires that they kindle, called by the Russians _Givoy Agon_, that is to say, living fires, of which I shall give an account. I shall before remark, that the Russian peasantry throw the bridles of their horses into one of these fires to be consumed. This is the manner of their lighting these _givoy agon_, or living fires. Some men hold the ends of a stick made of the plane-tree, very dry, and about a fathom long. This stick they hold firmly over one of birch, perfectly dry, and rub with violence and quickly against the former; the birch, which is somewhat softer than the plane, in a short time inflames, and serves them to light both the fires I have described."[564]

[Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin on the eighth of September at Capri and Naples.]

The Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin on the eighth day of September is celebrated at Naples and Capri with fireworks, bonfires, and a.s.sa.s.sinations. On this subject my friend Professor A. E. Housman, who witnessed the celebration in different years at both places, has kindly furnished me with the following particulars: "In 1906 I was in the island of Capri on September the eighth, the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin. The anniversary was duly solemnised by fire-works at nine or ten in the evening, which I suppose were munic.i.p.al; but just after sundown the boys outside the villages were making small fires of brushwood on waste bits of ground by the wayside. Very pretty it looked, with the flames blowing about in the twilight; but what took my attention was the listlessness of the boys and their lack of interest in the proceeding. A single lad, the youngest, would be raking the fire together and keeping it alight, but the rest stood lounging about and looking in every other direction, with the air of discharging mechanically a traditional office from which all zest had evaporated."

"The pious orgy at Naples on September the eighth went through the following phases when I witnessed it in 1897. It began at eight in the evening with an illumination of the facade of Santa Maria Piedigrotta and with the whole population walking about blowing penny trumpets.

After four hours of this I went to bed at midnight, and was lulled to sleep by barrel-organs, which supersede the trumpets about that hour. At four in the morning I was waked by detonations as if the British fleet were bombarding the city, caused, I was afterwards told, by dynamite rockets. The only step possible beyond this is a.s.sa.s.sination, which accordingly takes place about peep of day: I forget now the number of the slain, but I think the average is eight or ten, and I know that in honour of my presence they murdered a few more than usual."

[The Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin may have replaced a pagan festival; the coincidence of the Midsummer festival with the summer solstice implies that the founders of the festival regulated their calendar by observation of the sun.]

It is no doubt possible that these illuminations and fireworks, like the a.s.sa.s.sinations, are merely the natural and spontaneous expressions of that overflowing joy with which the thought of the birth of the Virgin must fill every pious heart; but when we remember how often the Church has skilfully decanted the new wine of Christianity into the old bottles of heathendom, we may be allowed to conjecture that the ecclesiastical authorities adroitly timed the Nativity of the Virgin so as to coincide with an old pagan festival of that day, in which fire, noise, and uproar, if not broken heads and bloodshed, were conspicuous features.

The penny trumpets blown on this occasion recall the like melodious instruments which figure so largely in the celebration of Befana (the Eve of Epiphany) at Rome.[565]

-- 6. _The Hallowe'en Fires_

[On the other hand the Celts divided their year, not by the solstices, but by the beginning of summer (the first of May) and the beginning of winter (the first of November).]

From the foregoing survey we may infer that among the heathen forefathers of the European peoples the most popular and widespread fire-festival of the year was the great celebration of Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day. The coincidence of the festival with the summer solstice can hardly be accidental. Rather we must suppose that our pagan ancestors purposely timed the ceremony of fire on earth to coincide with the arrival of the sun at the highest point of his course in the sky. If that was so, it follows that the old founders of the midsummer rites had observed the solstices or turning-points of the sun's apparent path in the sky, and that they accordingly regulated their festal calendar to some extent by astronomical considerations.

[The division seems to have been neither astronomical nor agricultural but pastoral, being determined by the times when cattle are driven to and from their summer pasture.]

But while this may be regarded as fairly certain for what we may call the aborigines throughout a large part of the continent, it appears not to have been true of the Celtic peoples who inhabited the Land's End of Europe, the islands and promontories that stretch out into the Atlantic ocean on the North-West. The princ.i.p.al fire-festivals of the Celts, which have survived, though in a restricted area and with diminished pomp, to modern times and even to our own day, were seemingly timed without any reference to the position of the sun in the heaven. They were two in number, and fell at an interval of six months, one being celebrated on the eve of May Day and the other on Allhallow Even or Hallowe'en, as it is now commonly called, that is, on the thirty-first of October, the day preceding All Saints' or Allhallows' Day. These dates coincide with none of the four great hinges on which the solar year revolves, to wit, the solstices and the equinoxes. Nor do they agree with the princ.i.p.al seasons of the agricultural year, the sowing in spring and the reaping in autumn. For when May Day comes, the seed has long been committed to the earth; and when November opens, the harvest has long been reaped and garnered, the fields lie bare, the fruit-trees are stripped, and even the yellow leaves are fast fluttering to the ground. Yet the first of May and the first of November mark turning-points of the year in Europe; the one ushers in the genial heat and the rich vegetation of summer, the other heralds, if it does not share, the cold and barrenness of winter. Now these particular points of the year, as has been well pointed out by a learned and ingenious writer,[566] while they are of comparatively little moment to the European husbandman, do deeply concern the European herdsman; for it is on the approach of summer that he drives his cattle out into the open to crop the fresh gra.s.s, and it is on the approach of winter that he leads them back to the safety and shelter of the stall. Accordingly it seems not improbable that the Celtic bisection of the year into two halves at the beginning of May and the beginning of November dates from a time when the Celts were mainly a pastoral people, dependent for their subsistence on their herds, and when accordingly the great epochs of the year for them were the days on which the cattle went forth from the homestead in early summer and returned to it again in early winter.[567]

Even in Central Europe, remote from the region now occupied by the Celts, a similar bisection of the year may be clearly traced in the great popularity, on the one hand, of May Day and its Eve (Walpurgis Night), and, on the other hand, of the Feast of All Souls at the beginning of November, which under a thin Christian cloak conceals an ancient pagan festival of the dead.[568] Hence we may conjecture that everywhere throughout Europe the celestial division of the year according to the solstices was preceded by what we may call a terrestrial division of the year according to the beginning of summer and the beginning of winter.

[The two great Celtic festivals, Beltane and Hallowe'en.]

Be that as it may, the two great Celtic festivals of May Day and the first of November or, to be more accurate, the Eves of these two days, closely resemble each other in the manner of their celebration and in the superst.i.tions a.s.sociated with them, and alike, by the antique character impressed upon both, betray a remote and purely pagan origin.

The festival of May Day or Beltane, as the Celts called it, which ushered in summer, has already been described;[569] it remains to give some account of the corresponding festival of Hallowe'en, which announced the arrival of winter.

[Hallowe'en (the evening of October 31st) seems to have marked the beginning of the Celtic year; the many forms of divination resorted to at Hallowe'en are appropriate to the beginning of a New Year; Hallowe'en also a festival of the dead.]

Of the two feasts Hallowe'en was perhaps of old the more important, since the Celts would seem to have dated the beginning of the year from it rather than from Beltane. In the Isle of Man, one of the fortresses in which the Celtic language and lore longest held out against the siege of the Saxon invaders, the first of November, Old Style, has been regarded as New Year's day down to recent times. Thus Manx mummers used to go round on Hallowe'en (Old Style), singing, in the Manx language, a sort of Hogmanay song which began "To-night is New Year's Night, _Hog-unnaa_!"[570] One of Sir John Rhys's Manx informants, an old man of sixty-seven, "had been a farm servant from the age of sixteen till he was twenty-six to the same man, near Regaby, in the parish of Andreas, and he remembers his master and a near neighbour of his discussing the term New Year's Day as applied to the first of November, and explaining to the younger men that it had always been so in old times. In fact, it seemed to him natural enough, as all tenure of land ends at that time, and as all servant men begin their service then."[571] In ancient Ireland, as we saw, a new fire used to be kindled every year on Hallowe'en or the Eve of Samhain, and from this sacred flame all the fires in Ireland were rekindled.[572] Such a custom points strongly to Samhain or All Saints' Day (the first of November) as New Year's Day; since the annual kindling of a new fire takes place most naturally at the beginning of the year, in order that the blessed influence of the fresh fire may last throughout the whole period of twelve months.

Another confirmation of the view that the Celts dated their year from the first of November is furnished by the manifold modes of divination which, as we shall see presently, were commonly resorted to by Celtic peoples on Hallowe'en for the purpose of ascertaining their destiny, especially their fortune in the coming year; for when could these devices for prying into the future be more reasonably put in practice than at the beginning of the year? As a season of omens and auguries Hallowe'en seems to have far surpa.s.sed Beltane in the imagination of the Celts; from which we may with some probability infer that they reckoned their year from Hallowe'en rather than Beltane. Another circ.u.mstance of great moment which points to the same conclusion is the a.s.sociation of the dead with Hallowe'en. Not only among the Celts but throughout Europe, Hallowe'en, the night which marks the transition from autumn to winter, seems to have been of old the time of year when the souls of the departed were supposed to revisit their old homes in order to warm themselves by the fire and to comfort themselves with the good cheer provided for them in the kitchen or the parlour by their affectionate kinsfolk.[573] It was, perhaps, a natural thought that the approach of winter should drive the poor shivering hungry ghosts from the bare fields and the leafless woodlands to the shelter of the cottage with its familiar fireside.[574] Did not the lowing kine then troop back from the summer pastures in the forests and on the hills to be fed and cared for in the stalls, while the bleak winds whistled among the swaying boughs and the snow drifts deepened in the hollows? and could the good-man and the good-wife deny to the spirits of their dead the welcome which they gave to the cows?

[Fairies and Hobgoblins let loose at Hallowe'en.]

But it is not only the souls of the departed who are supposed to be hovering unseen on the day "when autumn to winter resigns the pale year." Witches then speed on their errands of mischief, some sweeping through the air on besoms, others galloping along the roads on tabby-cats, which for that evening are turned into coal-black steeds.[575] The fairies, too, are all let loose, and hobgoblins of every sort roam freely about In South Uist and Eriskay there is a saying:--

"_Hallowe'en will come, will come, Witchcraft [or divination] will be set agoing, Fairies will be at full speed, Running in every pa.s.s.

Avoid the road, children, children_."[576]

[Dancing with the fairies at Hallowe'en.]

In Cardiganshire on November Eve a bogie sits on every stile.[577] On that night in Ireland all the fairy hills are thrown wide open and the fairies swarm forth; any man who is bold enough may then peep into the open green hills and see the treasures hidden in them. Worse than that, the cave of Cruachan in Connaught, known as "the h.e.l.l-gate of Ireland,"

is unbarred on Samhain Eve or Hallowe'en, and a host of horrible fiends and goblins used to rush forth, particularly a flock of copper-red birds, which blighted crops and killed animals by their poisonous breath.[578] The Scotch Highlanders have a special name _Samhanach_ (derived from _Samhain_, "All-hallows") for the dreadful bogies that go about that night stealing babies and committing other atrocities.[579]

And though the fairies are a kindlier folk, it is dangerous to see even them at their revels on Hallowe'en. A melancholy case of this sort is reported from the Ferintosh district of the Highlands, though others say that it happened at the Slope of Big Stones in Harris. Two young men were coming home after nightfall on Hallowe'en, each with a jar of whisky on his back, when they saw, as they thought, a house all lit up by the roadside, from which proceeded the sounds of music and dancing.

In reality it was not a house at all but a fairy knoll, and it was the fairies who were jigging it about there so merrily. But one of the young men was deceived and stepping into the house joined in the dance, without even stopping to put down the jar of whisky. His companion was wiser; he had a shrewd suspicion that the place was not what it seemed, and on entering he took the precaution of sticking a needle in the door.

That disarmed the power of the fairies, and he got away safely. Well, that day twelve months he came back to the spot and what should he see but his poor friend still dancing away with the jar of whisky on his back? A weary man was he, as you may well believe, but he begged to be allowed to finish the reel which he was in the act of executing, and when they took him out into the open air, there was nothing of him left but skin and bones.[580] Again, the wicked fairies are apt to carry off men's wives with them to fairyland; but the lost spouses can be recovered within a year and a day when the procession of the fairies is defiling past on Hallowe'en, always provided that the mortals did not partake of elfin food while they were in elfinland.[581]

[Guleesh and the revels of the fairies at Hallowe'en.]

Sometimes valuable information may be obtained from the fairies on Hallowe'en. There was a young man named Guleesh in the County of Mayo.

Near his house was a _rath_ or old fort with a fine gra.s.s bank running round it. One Hallowe'en, when the darkness was falling, Guleesh went to the rath and stood on a gray old flag. The night was calm and still; there was not a breath of wind stirring, nor a sound to be heard except the hum of the insects flitting past, or the whistle of the plovers, or the hoa.r.s.e scream of the wild geese as they winged their way far overhead. Above the white fog the moon rose like a k.n.o.b of fire in the east, and a thousand thousand stars were twinkling in the sky. There was a little frost in the air, the gra.s.s was white and crisp and crackled under foot. Guleesh expected to see the fairies, but they did not come.

Hour after hour wore away, and he was just bethinking him of going home to bed, when his ear caught a sound far off coming towards him, and he knew what it was in a moment. The sound grew louder and louder; at first it was like the beating of waves on a stony sh.o.r.e, then it was like the roar of a waterfall, at last it was like a mighty rushing wind in the tops of the trees, then the storm burst upon the rath, and sure enough the fairies were in it. The rout went by so suddenly that Guleesh lost his breath; but he came to himself and listened. The fairies were now gathered within the gra.s.sy bank of the rath, and a fine uproar they made. But Guleesh listened with all his ears, and he heard one fairy saying to another that a magic herb grew by Guleesh's own door, and that Guleesh had nothing to do but pluck it and boil it and give it to his sweetheart, the daughter of the King of France, and she would be well, for just then she was lying very ill. Guleesh took the hint, and everything went as the fairy had said. And he married the daughter of the King of France; and they had never a cark nor a care, a sickness nor a sorrow, a mishap nor a misfortune to the day of their death.[582]

[Divination resorted to in Celtic countries at Hallowe'en.]

In all Celtic countries Hallowe'en seems to have been the great season of the year for prying into the future; all kinds of divination were put in practice that night. We read that Dathi, a king of Ireland in the fifth century, happening to be at the Druids' Hill (_Cnoc-nan-druad_) in the county of Sligo one Hallowe'en, ordered his druid to forecast for him the future from that day till the next Hallowe'en should come round.

The druid pa.s.sed the night on the top of the hill, and next morning made a prediction to the king which came true.[583] In Wales Hallowe'en was the weirdest of all the _Teir Nos Ysbrydion_, or Three Spirit Nights, when the wind, "blowing over the feet of the corpses," bore sighs to the houses of those who were to die within the year. People thought that if on that night they went out to a cross-road and listened to the wind, they would learn all the most important things that would befall them during the next twelve months.[584] In Wales, too, not so long ago women used to congregate in the parish churches on the night of Hallowe'en and read their fate from the flame of the candle which each of them held in her hand; also they heard the names or saw the coffins of the parishioners who would die within the year, and many were the sad scenes to which these gloomy visions gave rise.[585] And in the Highlands of Scotland anybody who pleased could hear proclaimed aloud the names of parishioners doomed to perish within the next twelve months, if he would only take a three-legged stool and go and sit on it at three cross-roads, while the church clock was striking twelve at midnight on Hallowe'en. It was even in his power to save the destined victims from their doom by taking with him articles of wearing apparel and throwing them away, one by one, as each name was called out by the mysterious voice.[586]

[Hallowe'en bonfires in the Highlands of Scotland; John Ramsay's account of the Hallowe'en bonfires; divination from stones at the fire; Hallowe'en fires in the parishes of Callander and Logierait.]

But while a glamour of mystery and awe has always clung to Hallowe'en in the minds of the Celtic peasantry, the popular celebration of the festival has been, at least in modern times, by no means of a prevailingly gloomy cast; on the contrary it has been attended by picturesque features and merry pastimes, which rendered it the gayest night of all the year. Amongst the things which in the Highlands of Scotland contributed to invest the festival with a romantic beauty were the bonfires which used to blaze at frequent intervals on the heights.

"On the last day of autumn children gathered ferns, tar-barrels, the long thin stalks called _gainisg_, and everything suitable for a bonfire. These were placed in a heap on some eminence near the house, and in the evening set fire to. The fires were called _Samhnagan_. There was one for each house, and it was an object of ambition who should have the biggest. Whole districts were brilliant with bonfires, and their glare across a Highland loch, and from many eminences, formed an exceedingly picturesque scene."[587] Like the Beltane fires on the first of May, the Hallowe'en bonfires seem to have been kindled most commonly in the Perthshire Highlands. Travelling in the parish of Moulin, near Pitlochrie, in the year 1772, the Englishman Thomas Pennant writes that "Hallow Eve is also kept sacred: as soon as it is dark, a person sets fire to a bush of broom fastened round a pole, and, attended with a crowd, runs about the village. He then flings it down, heaps great quant.i.ty of combustible matters on it, and makes a great bonfire. A whole tract is thus illuminated at the same time, and makes a fine appearance."[588] The custom has been described more fully by a Scotchman of the eighteenth century, John Ramsay of Ochtertyre. On the evening of Hallowe'en "the young people of every hamlet a.s.sembled upon some eminence near the houses. There they made a bonfire of ferns or other fuel, cut the same day, which from the feast was called _Samh-nag_ or _Savnag_, a fire of rest and pleasure. Around it was placed a circle of stones, one for each person of the families to whom they belonged.

And when it grew dark the bonfire was kindled, at which a loud shout was set up. Then each person taking a torch of ferns or sticks in his hand, ran round the fire exulting; and sometimes they went into the adjacent fields, where, if there was another company, they visited the bonfire, taunting the others if inferior in any respect to themselves. After the fire was burned out they returned home, where a feast was prepared, and the remainder of the evening was spent in mirth and diversions of various kinds. Next morning they repaired betimes to the bonfire, where the situation of the stones was examined with much attention. If any of them were misplaced, or if the print of a foot could be discerned near any particular stone, it was imagined that the person for whom it was set would not live out the year. Of late years this is less attended to, but about the beginning of the present century it was regarded as a sure prediction. The Hallowe'en fire is still kept up in some parts of the Low country; but on the western coast and in the Isles it is never kindled, though the night is spent in merriment and entertainments."[589] In the Perthshire parish of Callander, which includes the now famous pa.s.s of the Trossachs opening out on the winding and wooded sh.o.r.es of the lovely Loch Katrine, the Hallowe'en bonfires were still kindled down to near the end of the eighteenth century. When the fire had died down, the ashes were carefully collected in the form of a circle, and a stone was put in, near the circ.u.mference, for every person of the several families interested in the bonfire. Next morning, if any of these stones was found to be displaced or injured, the people made sure that the person represented by it was _fey_ or devoted, and that he could not live twelve months from that day.[590] In the parish of Logierait, which covers the beautiful valley of the Tummel, one of the fairest regions of all Scotland, the Hallowe'en fire was somewhat different. f.a.ggots of heath, broom, and the dressings of flax were kindled and carried on poles by men, who ran with them round the villages, attended by a crowd. As soon as one f.a.ggot was burnt out, a fresh one was lighted and fastened to the pole. Numbers of these blazing f.a.ggots were often carried about together, and when the night happened to be dark, they formed a splendid illumination.[591]

[Hallowe'en fires on Loch Tay; Hallowe'en fires at Balquhidder.]

Nor did the Hallowe'en fires die out in Perthshire with the end of the eighteenth century. Journeying from Dunkeld to Aberfeldy on Hallowe'en in the first half of the nineteenth century, Sheriff Barclay counted thirty fires blazing on the hill tops, and saw the figures of the people dancing like phantoms round the flames.[592] Again, "in 1860, I was residing near the head of Loch Tay during the season of the Hallowe'en feast. For several days before Hallowe'en, boys and youths collected wood and conveyed it to the most prominent places on the hill sides in their neighbourhood. Some of the heaps were as large as a corn-stack or hayrick. After dark on Hallowe'en, these heaps were kindled, and for several hours both sides of Loch Tay were illuminated as far as the eye could see. I was told by old men that at the beginning of this century men as well as boys took part in getting up the bonfires, and that, when the fire was ablaze, all joined hands and danced round the fire, and made a great noise; but that, as these gatherings generally ended in drunkenness and rough and dangerous fun, the ministers set their faces against the observance, and were seconded in their efforts by the more intelligent and well-behaved in the community; and so the practice was discontinued by adults and relegated to school boys."[593] At Balquhidder down to the latter part of the nineteenth century each household kindled its bonfire at Hallowe'en, but the custom was chiefly observed by children. The fires were lighted on any high knoll near the house; there was no dancing round them.[594]

[Hallowe'en fires in Buchan to burn the witches; processions with torches at Hallowe'en in the Braemar Highlands.]

Hallowe'en fires were also lighted in some districts of the north-east of Scotland, such as Buchan. Villagers and farmers alike must have their fire. In the villages the boys went from house to house and begged a peat from each householder, usually with the words, "Ge's a peat t' burn the witches." In some villages the lads collected the peats in a cart, some of them drawing it along and the others receiving the peats and loading them on the cart. Along with the peats they acc.u.mulated straw, furze, potato haulm, everything that would burn quickly, and when they had got enough they piled it all in a heap and set it on fire. Then each of the youths, one after another, laid himself down on the ground as near to the fire as he could without being scorched, and thus lying allowed the smoke to roll over him. The others ran through the smoke and jumped over their prostrate comrade. When the heap was burned down, they scattered the ashes. Each one took a share in this part of the ceremony, giving a kick first with the right foot and then with the left; and each vied with the other who should scatter the most. After that some of them still continued to run through the scattered ashes and to pelt each other with the half-burned peats. At each farm a spot as high as possible, not too near the steading, was chosen for the fire, and the proceedings were much the same as at the village bonfire. The lads of one farm, when their own fire was burned down and the ashes scattered, sometimes went to a neighbouring fire and helped to kick the ashes about.[595] Referring to this part of Scotland, a writer at the end of the eighteenth century observes that "the Hallow-even fire, another relict of druidism, was kindled in Buchan. Various magic ceremonies were then celebrated to counteract the influence of witches and demons, and to prognosticate to the young their success or disappointment in the matrimonial lottery. These being devoutly finished, the hallow fire was kindled, and guarded by the male part of the family. Societies were formed, either by pique or humour, to scatter certain fires, and the attack and defence were often conducted with art and with fury."[596]

Down to about the middle of the nineteenth century "the Braemar Highlanders made the circuit of their fields with lighted torches at Hallowe'en to ensure their fertility in the coming year. At that date the custom was as follows: Every member of the family (in those days households were larger than they are now) was provided with a bundle of fir 'can'les' with which to go the round. The father and mother stood at the hearth and lit the splints in the peat fire, which they pa.s.sed to the children and servants, who trooped out one after the other, and proceeded to tread the bounds of their little property, going slowly round at equal distances apart, and invariably with the sun. To go 'withershins' seems to have been reserved for cursing and excommunication. When the fields had thus been circ.u.mambulated the remaining spills were thrown together in a heap and allowed to burn out."[597]

[Divination at Hallow-e'en in the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland; the stolen kail; sowing hemp seed; the winnowing basket; the wet shirt; the thrown shoe.]

In the Highlands of Scotland, as the evening of Hallowe'en wore on, young people gathered in one of the houses and resorted to an almost endless variety of games, or rather forms of divination, for the purpose of ascertaining the future fate of each member of the company. Were they to marry or remain single, was the marriage to take place that year or never, who was to be married first, what sort of husband or wife she or he was to get, the name, the trade, the colour of the hair, the amount of property of the future spouse--these were questions that were eagerly canva.s.sed and the answers to them furnished never-failing entertainment.[598] Nor were these modes of divination at Hallowe'en confined to the Highlands, where the bonfires were kindled; they were practised with equal faith and in practically the same forms in the Lowlands, as we learn, for example, from Burns's poem _Hallowe'en_, which describes the auguries drawn from a variety of omens by the Ayrshire peasantry. These Lowlanders of Saxon descent may well have inherited the rites from the Celts who preceded them in the possession of the south country. A common practice at Hallowe'en was to go out stealthily to a neighbour's kailyard and there, with shut eyes, to pull up the first kail stock that came to hand. It was necessary that the plants should be stolen without the knowledge or consent of their owner; otherwise they were quite useless for the purpose of divination.

Strictly speaking, too, the neighbour upon whose garden the raid was made should be unmarried, whether a bachelor or a spinster. The stolen kail was taken home and examined, and according to its height, shape, and features would be the height, shape, and features of the future husband or wife. The taste of the _custock_, that is, the heart of the stem, was an infallible indication of his or her temper; and a clod of earth adhering to the root signified, in proportion to its size, the amount of property which he or she would bring to the common stock. Then the kail-stock or _runt_, as it was called in Ayrshire, was placed over the lintel of the door; and the baptismal name of the young man or woman who first entered the door after the kail was in position would be the baptismal name of the husband or wife.[599] Again, young women sowed hemp seed over nine ridges of ploughed land, saying, "I sow hemp seed, and he who is to be my husband, let him come and harrow it." On looking back over her left shoulder the girl would see the figure of her future mate behind her in the darkness. In the north-east of Scotland lint seed was used instead of hemp seed and answered the purpose quite as well.[600] Again, a mode of ascertaining your future husband or wife was this. Take a clue of blue yarn and go to a lime-kiln. Throw the clue into the kiln, but keep one end of the thread in your hand and wind it on to another clue. As you come near the end somebody or something will hold the other end tight in the kiln. Then you call out, "Who holds?"

giving the thread at the same time a gentle pull. Some one or something will thereupon pull the other end of the thread, and a voice will mention the name of your future husband or wife.[601] Another way is this. Go to the barn alone and secretly. Be sure to open both doors and if possible take them off their hinges; for if the being who is about to appear should catch you in the barn and clap the doors to on you, he or she might do you a mischief. Having done this, take the sieve or winnowing-basket, which in Lowland Scotch is called a _wecht_ or _waicht_, and go through the action of winnowing corn. Repeat it thrice, and at the third time the apparition of your future husband or wife will pa.s.s through the barn, entering at the windy door and pa.s.sing out at the other.[602] Or this. Go to a southward running stream, where the lands of three lairds meet, or to a ford where the dead and living have crossed. Dip the left sleeve of your shirt in the water. Then go home, take off the shirt, hang it up before a fire to dry, and go to bed, taking care that the bed stands so that you can see your shirt hanging before the fire. Keep awake, and at midnight you will see the form of your future spouse come into the room and turn the other side of the sleeve to the fire to dry it.[603] A Highland form of divination at Hallowe'en is to take a shoe by the tip and throw it over the house, then observe the direction in which the toe points as it lies on the ground on the other side; for in that direction you are destined to go before long. If the shoe should fall sole uppermost, it is very unlucky for you.[604]