is connected with Lithuanian baltas, "white." The connection of Beltane with these two words is confirmed by the Gaelic saying of "la buidhe Bealltuinn," "yellow May-day," which may be a reminiscence of the primary meaning of Beltane.

We have numerous accounts of the Beltane rites, all pointing to fire and sun worship-phases of purification, sacrifice, and divination. One of the best accounts is given in the Old Statistical Account of the parish of Callander. "Upon the first of May," it says, "which is called Beltan or Bàl-tein, all the boys in a township or hamlet meet on the moors. They cut a table in the green sod, of a round figure, by casting a trench in the ground of such circumference as to hold the whole company. They kindle a fire and dress a repast of eggs and milk in the consistence of a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal which is toasted at the embers against a stone. After the custard is eaten up, they divide the cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in size and shape, as there are persons in the company. They daub one of these portions all over with charcoal until it be perfectly black. They put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet. Every one, blindfold, draws out a portion. He who holds the bonnet is entitled to the last bit. Whoever draws the black bit, is the devoted person who is to be sacrificed to Baal, whose favour they implore in rendering the year productive of the sustenance of man and beast. There is little doubt of these inhuman sacrifices having been once offered in this country, as well as in the East, although they now pass from the act of sacrificing, and only compel the devoted person to leap three times through the flames; with which the ceremonies of the festival are closed." To this sensible account and its inferences, all but the reference to Baal, we agree fully. Most authorities hold, with Cormac, that there were two fires, between which and through which they passed their cattle and even their children. Criminals were made to stand between the two fires, and hence the proverb, in regard to a person in extreme danger, as the Rev. D Macqueen gives it, "He is betwixt two Beltein fires." Pennant adds some interesting facts: the rites began with spilling some caudle on the ground by way of libation; whereupon "everyone takes a cake of oatmeal upon which are raised nine square knobs, each one dedicated to some particular being, the supposed preserver of their

flocks and herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of them. Each person then turns his face to the fire, breaks off a knob, and flinging it over his shoulders, says, 'This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses; this to thee, preserve thou my sheep,' and so on.

After that, they use the same ceremony to the noxious animals: This I give to thee, O fox! spare thou my lambs: this to thee, O hooded crow! this to thee, O eagle."" Shaw, the historian of Moray, tells us that the fires were kindled with a flint; the "Druidic incantations" of Cormac and the "tinegin" were not used within the last century at least for lighting the Beltane fire; their use seems latterly to have been restricted to raising the need-fire during cattle plagues.

The midsummer festival, christianised into St John's Eve and Day, for the celebration of the summer solstice, is not a specially Celtic, as it is a Teutonic, feast. The wheels of wood, wrapped round with straw, set on fire, and sent rolling from a hillock summit, to end their course in some river or water, which thus typified the descending course of the sun onward till next solstice, is represented on Celtic ground by the occasional use of a wheel for producing the tinegin, but more especially by the custom in some districts of rolling the Beltane bannocks from the hill summit down its side. Shaw remarks-"They made the Deas-sail [at Midsummer] about their fields of corn with burning torches of wood in their hands, to obtain a blessing on their corn. This I have often seen, more, indeed, in the Lowlands than in the Highlands. On Midsummer Eve, they kindle fires near their cornfields, and walk round them with burning torches." In Cornwall last century they used to perambulate the villages carrying lighted torches, and in Ireland the Eve of Midsummer was honoured with bonfires round which they carried torches.

The specially Celtic feast or Feill" was held some five weeks later, on the 1st August, Lammas Day. It is called in Scottish Gaelic “Lunasduinn,” in Irish “Lunasd,” old Irish “Lugnasad," the fair of Lug. The legend says that Luga of the Long Arms, the Tuatha De Danann king, instituted this fair in honour of his foster-mother Tailtiu, queen of the Firbolgs. Hence the place where it was held was called Tailtiu after her, and is the modern Teltown. The fair was held, however, in all the capitals of ancient Ireland on that day. Games and manly sports char

acterised the assemblies. Luga, it may be noted, is the sun-god, who thus institutes the festival, and it is remarkable that at ancient Lyons, in France, called of old Lug-dunum, a festival was held on this very day, which was famous over all Gaul.

Equal to Beltane in importance was the solemnity of Hallowe'en, known in Gaelic as Samhuinn or "summerend." Like Beltan it was sacred to the gods of light and of earth; Ceres, Apollo, and Dis also, must have been the deities whose worship was honoured. The earth goddess was celebrated for the ingathering of the fruits; Apollo or Belinus Proserpine were bewailed for their disappearing from earth, and Dis, who was god of death and winter's cold, and who was especially worshipped by the Celts, as Cæsar says, was implored for mercy, and his subjects, the manes of the dead, had special worship directed to them. It was, indeed, a great festival-the festival of fire, fruits, and death. The features that still remain in popular customs in regard to Hallowe'en clearly show its connection with the gods of fire and fate; bonfires and divination are its characteristics. The Statistical Account, already quoted, says of Hallowe'en :-"On All-Saint's Even they set up bonfires in every village. When the bonfire is consumed, the ashes are carefully collected in the form of a circle. There is a stone put in, near the circumference, for every person of the several families interested in the bonfire, and whatever stone is moved out of its place or injured before next morning, the person represented by that stone is devoted or fey, and is supposed not to live twelve months from that day." A somewhat similar custom is recorded by Pennant as existing in North Wales, where every family made a great bonfire in the most conspicuous place near the house, and when the fire was extinguished, every one threw a white stone into the ashes, having first marked it. If next morning any of these stones is found wanting, they have a notion that the person who threw it in will die before next Hallowe'en. We can only refer to the various laughable and serious methods of divination resorted to on Hallowe'en night to read into the future; our national poet Burns has left us a graphic picture of the night and its ceremonies in "Halloween." It may be remarked that the mystic apple plays an important part in these ceremonies, as it also does in so many Celtic fairy tales. The custom in various parts of keeping a heap

of cakes, called soul-cakes, to give away to all-comers, and more especially to the poor, clearly commemorates the ancient offering to the dead of food on this night. What was dedicated in Pagan times to the manes of the dead, is in modern times converted into doles of bread to the poor, as Mr Tylor points out.

Martin records a religious rite of the Lews people that must not be passed over here. "The inhabitants of this island had an ancient custom to sacrifice to a sea-god called Shony, at Hallo-tide, in the following manner :-The inhabitants round the island came to the Church of St Malvey, having each man his provision along with him; every family furnished a peck of malt, and this was brewed into ale; one of their number was picked out to wade into the sea up to the middle, and carrying a cup of ale in his hand, standing still in that posture, cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Shony, I give you this cup of ale, hoping that you'll be so kind as to send us plenty of sca-ware for enriching our ground for the ensuing year'; and so threw the cup of ale into the sea. This was performed in the night-time. At his return to land they all went to church, where there was a candle burning upon the altar; and then standing silent for some time, one of them gave a signal, at which the candle was put out, and immediately all of them went to the fields, where they fell a-drinking their ale and spent the remainder of the night in dancing, singing, etc." This they believed to be a powerful means to procure a plentiful crop. This superstition is but lately dead, though the sacrifice had been repressed, for they proceeded in spring to the end of a long reef and invoked "Briannuil" to send a strong north wind to drive plenty sea-ware ashore. There are other instances of sacrifice within the last two hundred years in the Highlands. An annual sacrifice on the 25th August to St Mourie in Applecross and Gairloch troubled the Dingwall Presbytery in the 17th century. These rites consisted in immolating bulls, pouring of milk on hills as oblations, visiting ruined chapels and "circulating" them, divining by putting the head into a hole in a stone, and the worshipping of wells and stones. The bulls were sacrificed "in ane heathenish manner" for the recovery of man and beast from disease. A Morayshire farmer some thirty years ago, in the case of a murrain, lighted the need-fire with all due ceremony, then dug a pit and sacrificed an ox to the "unknown" spirit. Sacrifice

of cocks for epilepsy have not been infrequent in modern times; this is done by burying them alive.

Other festival days retain a spice of heathen Celticism about them yet. The last night of the year the fire must not be allowed to go out, and there is a particular dislike at this time to give a neighbour a "kindling" or even light for a pipe, a feeling which in some degree exists at Beltane and Hallowe'en. Candlemas day is known as La Fheill-Brighde, St Brigit's day, who is really the canonised fire-goddess, the Vesta of the heathen Gaels. Some customs in regard to her worship were mentioned already, and Martin relates an interesting custom in the Western Isles on Candlemas, showing St Brigit clearly on the aspect of Vesta, the hearth and home goddess. The mistress and servants of each family take a sheaf of oats and dress it up in women's apparel, put it in a large basket and lay a wooden club by it, and this they call Briid's-bed, and then they cry thrice, "Briid is come, Briid is welcome." Next morning they look in the ashes to see the impression of Briid's club there, and if they do they reckon it a true presage of a good crop and prosperous year, and the contrary they regard an ill omen. Shrove Tuesday was a great day in the Highlands for cock-fighting: then each scholar brought cocks to fight and decide who should be king and queen of the school for the ensuing year. It was also a noted day for ball-playing. Its popularity for nut-burning and marriage-divination by putting symbolic articles into brose or cakes is yet great.

(To be continued.)

THE QUEEN'S NEW BOOK IN GAELIC.-The volume recently issued by the Queen has been entrusted to Mrs Mary Mackellar, the well known Gaelic poetess, for translation into Gaelic - a fact upon which we warmly congratulate Mrs Mackellar and all Gaelic-speaking Highlanders, of whom her Majesty has always written and spoken so kindly. We are quite sure that the poetess will do the work the most complete justice. We are not, however, surprised to find, after the mess made of the work by the translator of the previous volume, that special precautions should have been taken in this case to secure a competent Gaelic scholar for the task. For this purpose, we understand that, some time ago, Sir Theodore Martin requested Mrs Mackellar to translate about twenty pages of the book. The specimen duly finished was returned, after which it was submitted to the ripe and scholarly judgment of J. F. Campbell of Islay, who gave his opinion of the translation in the most favourable terms, with the result that the poetess has been entrusted with the delicate and difficult task. As to the final result we have no doubt whatever, and we hope some day to see a correct translation, as well, of the first volume issued by her Majesty.