 Preface. This book is intended to give the reader an account of the origin and history of Halloween, how it absorbs some customs belonging to other days in the year, such as May Day, Midsummer, and Christmas. The context is illustrated by selections from ancient and modern poetry and prose related to Halloween ideas. Those who wish suggestions for reading, recitations, plays, and parties will find the list in the appendix useful, in addition to the books on entertainments and games to be found in any public library. Special acknowledgement is made to Messer's E. P. Dutton and Company for permission to use the poem entitled Halloween from the Spires of Oxford and Other Poems by W. M. Letts, to Messer's Longmans, Green and Company for the poem Pomona by William Morris, and to the Editors of the Independent for the Use of Five Poems. Ruth Edna Kelly, Lynn, 1919. CHAPTER I. SUNWERSHIP THE SOURCES OF HALLOWEEN. If we could ask one of the Old World Pagans whom he revered as his greatest gods, he would be sure to name among them the sun god, calling him Apollo if he were a Greek, if an Egyptian, Horus or Osiris, if of Norway, Sol, if of Peru, Bochica. As the sun is the center of the physical universe, so all primitive peoples made it the hub about which their religion revolved, nearly always believing it a living person to whom they could say prayers and offer sacrifices, who directed their lives and destinies, and could even snatch men from earthly existence to dwell for a time with him, as it draws the water from lakes and seas. In believing this they followed an instinct of all early peoples, a desire to make persons of the great powers of nature, such as the world of growing things, mountains and water, the sun, moon and stars, and a wish for these gods they had made to take an interest in and be a part of their daily life. The next step was making stories about them to account for what was seen. So arose myths and legends. The sun has always marked out work, time and rest, divided the year into winter idleness, seed time, growth and harvest. It has always been responsible for all the beauty and goodness of the earth. It is itself splendid to look upon. It goes away and stays longer and longer, leaving the land in cold and gloom. It returns bringing the long, fair days and resurrection of spring. A Japanese legend tells how the hidden sun was lured out by an image made of a copper plate, with saplings radiating from it like sunbeams, and a fire kindled, dancing and prayers, and round the sun in North America the Cherokees believed they brought the sun back upon its northward path by the same means of arousing its curiosity, so that it would come out to see its counterpart and find out what was going on. All the more important church festivals are survivals of old rites to the sun. How many times the church has decanted the new wine of Christianity into the old bottles of heathendom. Euletide, the pagan Christmas, celebrated the sun's turning north, and the old midsummer holiday is still kept in Ireland and on the continent as St. John's Day by the lighting of bonfires and a dance about them from east to west as the sun appears to move. The pagan Halloween at the end of summer was a time of grief for the decline of the sun's glory, as well as a harvest festival of thanksgiving to him for having ripened the grain and fruit, as we formerly had husking bees when the ears had been gathered, and now keep our own thanksgiving by eating of our winter store in praise of God who gives us our increase. Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit, lends us the harvest elements of Halloween. The Celtic day of summer's end was a time when spirits, mostly evil, were abroad. The gods whom Christ d'throne joined the ill-oment throng, the church festivals of all saints and all souls coming at the same time of year, the first of November, contributed the idea of the return of the dead, and the Teutonic May Eve assemblage of witches brought its hags and their attendant beasts to help celebrate the night of October 31. CHAPTER II The first reference to Great Britain in European annals of which we know was the statement in the fifth century B.C. of the Greek historian Herodotus, that Phoenician sailors went to the British Isles for tin. He called them the tin islands, the people with whom these sailors traded must have been Celts, for they were the first inhabitants of Britain who worked in metal instead of stone. Their druids were priests of the Celts centuries before Christ came. There is a tradition in Ireland that they first arrived there in 270 B.C., seven hundred years before St. Patrick. The account of them written by Julius Caesar half a century before Christ speaks mainly of the Celts of Gaul, dividing them into two ruling classes who kept the people almost in a state of slavery. The knights, who waged war, and the druids, who had charge of worship and sacrifices, and were in addition physicians, historians, teachers, scientists, and judges. Caesar says that this cult originated in Britain and was transferred to Gaul. Gaul and Britain had one religion and one language, and might even have one king, so that what Caesar wrote of Gaulic druids must have been true of the British. The Celts worshipped spirits of forest and stream, and feared the powers of evil, as did the Greeks and all other early races. Very much of their primitive belief has been kept, so that Tisgotch, Irish, and Wells peasantry, brooks, hills, dales, and rocks abound in tiny supernatural beings, who may work them good or evil, lead them astray by flickering lights, or charm them into seven years' servitude unless they are bribed to show favour. The name druid is derived from the Celtic word druet, meaning sage, connected with the Greek word for oak, drus. The rapid oak tree, before him heaven and earthquake, stout doorkeeper against the foe, in every land his name is mine. Taliesin, Battle of the Trees. For the oak was held sacred by them as a symbol of the omnipotent God, upon whom they depended for life like the mistletoe growing upon it. Their ceremonies were held in oak groves. Later, from their name a word meaning magician was formed, showing that these priests had gained the reputation of being dealers in magic. The druid followed him and suddenly, as we are told, struck him with a druidic wand, or according to one version, flung at him a tuft of grass over which he had pronounced a druidical incantation. Ocurie, ancient Irish. They dealt in symbols, common objects to which was given by the interposition of spirits, meaning to signify certain facts, and power to produce certain effects. Since they were tree worshippers, trees and plants were thought to have peculiar powers. Caesar provided them with a galaxy of Roman divinities, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Minerva, who of course were worshipped under their native names. Their chief god was Baal, of whom they believed the sun, the visible emblem. They represented him by lowlier tokens, such as circles and wheels. The trefoil, changed into a figure composed of three winged feet, radiating from a center, represented the swiftness of the sun's journey. The cross, too, was a symbol of the sun, being the appearance of its light shining upon dew or stream, making to the half-closed eye little bright crosses. One form of the cross was the swastika. To Baal they made sacrifices of criminals or prisoners of war, often burning them alive in wicker images. These bonfires lighted on the hills were meant to urge the god to protect and bless the crops and herds. From the appearance of the victims sacrificed in them, omens were taken that foretold the future. The gods and other supernatural powers, in answer to prayer, were thought to signify their will by omens, and also by the following methods. The ordeal, in which the innocence or guilt of a person was shown by the way the god permitted him to endure fire or other torture, exorcism, the driving out of demons by saying mysterious words or names over them, becoming skilled in interpreting the will of the gods, the druids came to be known as prophets. O dear Dre, terrible child, for thee, red star of our ruin, great weeping shall be in Aaron, woe, woe, and a breach in Ulla. Thy feet shall trample the mighty, yet stumble on heads thou lovest. God-hunter, Druid's Song of Kothva They kept their lore for the most part a secret, forbidding it to be written, passing it down by word of mouth. They taught the immortality of the soul, that it passed from one body to another at death. If, as these druids taught, which kept the British rites, and dwelt in darksome groves, their counseling was bright, when these our souls by death our bodies do forsake, they instantly again do other bodies take. Drayton, Polyolbion They believed that on the last night of the old year, October 31st, the Lord of Death gathered together the souls of all those who had died in the passing year, and had been condemned to live in the bodies of animals, to decree what forms they should inhabit for the next twelve months. He could be coaxed to give lighter sentences by gifts and prayers. The badge of the initiated druid was a glass ball reported to be made in summer of the spittle of snakes, and caught by the priests as the snakes tossed it into the air. And the potent Adderstone, gendered for the autumnal moon, when in undulating twine the foaming snakes prolific join. Mason, correct, Tachas It was real glass, blown by the druids themselves. It was supposed to aid the were in winning lawsuits and securing the favour of kings. An animal sacred to the druids was the cat. A slender black cat reclining on a chain of old silver guarded treasure in the old days. For a long time cats were dreaded by the people because they thought human beings had been changed to that form by evil means. The chief festivals of the druids fell on four days, celebrating phases of the sun's career. Fires of sacrifice were lighted especially at spring and mid-summer holidays, by exception on November 1st. May day and November day were the more important, the beginning and end of summer, yet neither equinoxes nor solstices. The time was divided then not according to sowing and reaping, but by the older method of reckoning from when the herds were turned out to pasture in the spring and brought into the fold again at the approach of winter, by a pastoral rather than an agricultural people. On the night before Beltane, ball-fire, the first of May, fires were burned to ball to celebrate the return of the sun bringing summer. Before sunrise the houses were decked with garlands to gliden the sun when he appeared. A rite which has survived in going May. The May day fires were used for purification. Cattle were singed by being led near the flames, and sometimes bled, that their blood might be offered as a sacrifice for a prosperous season. When low a flame, a wavy flame of ruddy light, leaped up the farmyard fence above, and while his children's shout rang high, his cowards the farmers slowly drove across the blaze, he knew not why. Kick'em, sent John's Eve. A cake was baked in the fire with one piece blacked with charcoal. Whoever got the black piece was thereby marked for sacrifice to ball, so that as the ship proceeded in safety after Jonah was cast overboard, the affairs of the group about the May Eve fire might prosper when it was purged of the one whom ball designated by Lot. Later only the symbol of offering was used, the victim being forced to leap thrice over the flames. In history it was the day of the coming of good. Parthalan, the discoverer and promoter of Ireland, came thither from the other world to stay three hundred years. The gods themselves, the deliverers of Ireland, first arrived there through the air on May day. June twenty-first, the day of the summer solstice, the height of the sun's power, was marked by midnight fires of joy and by dances. These were believed to strengthen the sun's heat. A blazing wheel to represent the sun was rolled downhill. A happy thought, give me this cartwheel. I'll have it tied with ropes and smeared with pitch, and when it's lighted I will roll it down the steepest hillside. Hoppedman, sunken bell, Lewison translation. Spirits were believed to be abroad, and torches were carried about the fields to protect them from invasion. Charms were tried on that night with seeds of fern and hemp, and dreams were believed to be prophetic. The hour may hither drift, when at the last amid the overweared she, weary of long delight and deathless joys, one you shall love may fade before your eyes, before your eyes may fade and be as mist, caught in the sunny hollow of Lou's hand, Lord of the day. Sharp, immortal hour. Lou, in old Highland's speech, the summer sun, had for father one of the gods, and for mother the daughter of a chief of the enemy. Hence he possessed some good and some evil tendencies. He may be the Celtic Mercury, for they were alike, skilled in magic and alchemy, in deception, successful in combats with demons, the bringers of new strength, and cleansing to the nation. He said farewell to power on the first of August, and his foster mother had died on that day, so then it was he said his feast day. The occasion was called Lungnesad, the bride of Lug and the earth, once the harvest should spring. It was celebrated by the offering of the first fruits of harvest and by races and athletic sports. In Mjeth, Ireland, this continued down into the nineteenth century, with dancing and horse racing the first week of August. CHAPTER III. SAWIN. On November 1 was Sauen, summer's end. Take my tidings, stags contend, snows descend, summer's end. A chill wind raging, the low sun keeping, swift to set, o'er seas high sweeping, dull red the fern, shapes are shadows, wild geese mourn, o'er misty meadows, keen cold limes each weaker wing, icy times, such I sing, take my tidings. GRAVES. 1ST WINTER SONG. Then the flocks were driven in, and men first had leisure after harvest toil. Fires were built as thanksgiving to ball for harvest. The old fire on the altar was quenched before the night of October 31st, and the new one made, as were all sacred fires by friction. It was called Forced Fire. A wheel and a spindle were used, the wheel, the sun-symbol, was turned from east to west sun-wise. The sparks were caught in tow, blazed upon the altar, and were passed on to light the hilltop fires. The new fire was given next morning, New Year's Day, by the priests to the people to light their hearths, where all fires had been extinguished. The blessed fire was thought to protect the year through the home it warmed. In Ireland the altar was tilaktka, on the hill of ward and meeth, where sacrifices, especially black sheep, were burnt in the new fire. From the death struggles and look of the creatures omens for the future year were taken. The year was over, and the sun's life of a year was done. The Celts thought that at this time the sun fell a victim for six months to the powers of winter darkness. In Egyptian mythology one of the sun-gods, Osiris, was slain at a banquet by his brother Situ, the god of darkness. On the anniversary of the murder, the first day of winter, no Egyptian would begin any new business for fear of bad luck, since the spirit of evil was then in power. From the idea that the sun suffered from his enemies on this day grew the association of Sauen with death. The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, of wailing winds and naked woods and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead. They rustle to the eddying gust and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the renner flown and from the shrub the jay and from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. The wind-flower and the violet they perished long ago, and the wild rose and the orchids died among the summer glow. But on the hill the golden rod and the aster in the wood, and the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, till fell the frost from a cold clear heaven as falls the plague on men, and the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen. BRYANT. DEATH OF THE FLOWERS In the same state as those who are dead are those who have never lived, dwelling right in the world but invisible to most mortals at most times. Sears could see them at any time, and if very many were abroad at once others might get a chance to watch them too. There is a world in which we dwell and yet a world invisible, and do not think that not can be save only what with eyes you see. I tell you that this very hour had but your sight a spirit's power, he would be looking eye to eye at a terrific company. COX, HALLOWEEN. These supernatural spirits ruled the dead. There were two classes, Tuatha de Danon, the people of the goddess Danu, gods of light and life, and spirits of darkness and evil. The Tuatha had their chief seat on the Isle of Man in the middle of the Irish Sea, and brought under their power the islands about them. On a mid-summer day they vanquished the fur-balls and gained most of Ireland by the battle of Moitura. A long time afterwards, perhaps one thousand BC, the Fomer, sea-demons, after destroying nearly all their enemies by plagues, exacted from those remaining as tribute a third part of their corn, a third part of their milk, and a third part of their children. This tax was paid on Sauen. It was the week before Sauen that the Fomer landed upon Ireland. On the eve of Sauen the gods met them in the second battle of Moitura, and they were driven back into the ocean. As Tygrinmas, a mythical king of Ireland, was sacrificing the firstlings of every issue and the signs of every clan to Cromcroik, the king-idle, and lay prostrate before the image, he and three-fourths of his men mysteriously disappeared. Then came Tygrinmas, the prince of Tara Yonder, on Halloween with many hosts. A cause of grief to them was the deed. Dead were the men of Bamba's host without happy strength, around Tygrinmas, the destructive man of the north, from the worship of Cromcroik. Twas no luck for them, for I have learnt, except one-fourth of the king-gales, not a man alive lasting the snare, escaped without death in his mouth. Descenkis of Moxleg. Myer translation. This was direct invocation, but the fire-rides which were continued so long afterwards were really only worshipping the sun by proxy, in his nearest likeness, fire. Sauron was then a day sacred to the death of the sun, on which had been paid a sacrifice of death to evil powers. Though overcome at Moitura, evil was ascendant at Sauron. Methods of finding out the will of spirits and the future naturally worked better than. Charms and invocations had more power, for the spirits were near to help, if care was not taken to anger them, and due honors paid. CHAPTER IV. Pomona. Ops was the Latin goddess of Plenty. Single parts of her province were taken over by various other divinities, among whom was Pomona. Pomorum Patrona, she who cares for fruits. She is represented as a maiden with fruit in her arms and a pruning knife in her hand. I am the ancient apple-queen, as once I was, so I am now, for evermore a hope unseen betwixt the blossom and the bough. Ah, where is the river's hidden gold, and where is the windy grave of Troy? Yet come I, as I came of old, from out the heart of summer's joy. CHAPTER IV. Pomona. Many Roman poets told stories about her, the best known being by Ovid, who says that she was wooed by many orchard gods, but preferred to remain unmarried. Among her suitors was Vertumnus, the Charger, the God of the Turning Year, who had the charge of the exchange of trade, the turning of river-channels, and chiefly of the change in nature from flower to ripe fruit. True to his character he took many forms to gain Pomona's love. Now he was a plowman, spring, now a fisherman, summer, now a reaper, autumn. At last he took the likeness of an old woman, winter, and went to gossip with Pomona. After sounding her mind and finding her adverse to marriage, the woman pleaded for Vertumnus's success. Is he not the first to have the fruits which are thy delight? And does he not hold thy gifts in his joyous right hand? Ovid, Vertumnus and Pomona. Then the crone told her the story of Anakzarit, who was so cold to her lover Ifis that he hanged himself, and she, at the window watching his funeral-train pass by, was changed into a marble statue. Advising Pomona to avoid such a fate, Vertumnus donned his proper form, that of a handsome young man, and Pomona, moved by the story and his beauty, yielded and became his wife. Vertumnus had a statue in the Tuscan Way in Rome and a temple. His festival, the Vortum Nalia, was held on the 23rd of August, when the summer began to wane. Garlands and garden produce were offered to him. Pomona had been assigned to one of the 15 Flamina, priests whose duty it was to kindle the fire for special sacrifices. She had a grove near Ostia where a harvest festival was held about November 1st. Not much is known of the ceremonies, but from the similar August holiday much may be deduced. Then the deities of fire and winter were propitiated that their disfavor might not stop the crops. On Pomona's day doubtless thanks was rendered them for their aid to the harvest. An offering of first fruits was made in August. In November the winter store of nuts and apples was opened. The horses released from toil contended in cases. From Pomona's festival Nuts and Apples, from the duetic saun the supernatural element, combined to give later generations the charms and omens from nuts and apples which are made trials of at Halloween. The Great Power which the Druids exercised over their people interfered with the Roman rule of Britain. Converts were being made at Rome. Augustus forbade Romans to become initiated. Tiberius banished the priestly clan and their adherents from Gaul, and Claudius utterly stamped out the belief there, and put to death a Roman knight for wearing the serpentseg badge to win a lawsuit. Forbidden to practice their rights in Britain, the Druids fled to the Isle of Mona, near the coast of Wales. The Romans pursued them, and in 61 A.D. they were slaughtered and their oak groves cut down. During the next three centuries the cult was stifled to death and the Christian religion substituted. It was believed that at Christ's advent the pagan gods either died or were banished. The lonely mountains oar and the resounding shore, a weeping of voice heard and loud lament. From haunted spring and dale, edged with popular pale, the parting genius is with sighing sent. With flower interwoven tresses torn, the nymphs in twilight shade have tangled thickets mourn. Milton, on the morning of Christ's nativity. The Christian Fathers explained all oracles and omens by saying that there was something in them, but that they were the work of the evil one. The miraculous power they seemed to possess worked black magic. It was a long, hard effort to make men see that their gods had all the time been wrong, and harder still to root out the age-long growth of right and symbol. But on the old religion might be grafted new names. Midsummer was dedicated to the birth of St. John, Levenassad became Lamas. The fires belonging to these times of year were retained, their old significance forgotten or reconsecrated. The Rowan, or mountain ash, whose berries had been the food of the Tuatha, now exercised those very beings. The trefoil signified the trinity, and the cross no longer the rays of the sun on water, but the cross of cavalry. The fires which had been built to propitiate the God and consume his sacrifices, to induce him to protect them, were now lighted to protect the people from the same God, declared to be an evil mischief-maker. In time the autumnal festival of the Druids became the vigil of all Hallows or All Saints' Day. All Saints was first suggested in the fourth century, when the Christians were no longer persecuted, in memory of all the Saints, since there were too many for each to have a special day on the church calendar. A day in May was chosen by Pope Boniface IV and VI-X for consecrating the Pantheon, the old Roman temple of all the gods, to the Virgin and all the Saints and martyrs. Pope Gregory III dedicated a chapel in St. Peter's to the same, and that day was made compulsory in 835 by Pope Gregory IV as All Saints. The day was changed from May to November so that the crowds that thronged to Rome for these services might be fed from the harvest bounty. It is celebrated with a special service in the Greek and Roman churches and by Episcopalians. In the tenth century St. Odilo, Bishop of Cluny, instituted a day of prayer and special masses for the souls of the dead. He had been told that a hermit dwelling near a cave heard the voices and howlings of devils, which complained strongly because that the souls of them that were dead were taken away from their hands by alms and by prayers. Dvoragene, golden legend. This day became all souls and was set for November 2nd. It is very appropriate that the Celtic festival, when the spirits of the dead and the supernatural powers held a carnival of triumph over the God of Light, should be followed by all Saints and all souls. The Church Holy Days were celebrated by bonfires to light souls through purgatory to paradise as they had lighted the sun to his death on Samhain. On both occasions there were prayers, the pagan petitions to the Lord of Death for a pleasant dwelling place for the souls of departed friends, and the Christian for their speedy deliverance from torture. They have in common the celebrating of death, the one of the sun, the other of mortals. Of harvest the one of crops the other of sacred memories. They are kept by revelry and joy, first to cheer men and make them forget the malign influences abroad. Second, because as the Saints in heaven rejoice over one repentant sinner, we should rejoice over those who, after struggles and sufferings past, have entered into everlasting glory. Mother, my mother, mother country, yet were the fields in bud and the harvest, when shall it rise again, up through the fire and blood? Mother, my mother, mother country, was it not all to save harvest of bread, harvest of men, and the bright years wave on wave? Search not, search not, my way worn, search neither wield nor wave, one is their heavy reaping time, to the earth that is one wife grave. Marks. All souls eave. End of Section 5. Read by Professor Heather Mby. For more free audio books or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Section 6 of the Book of Halloween by Ruth Edna Kelly. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Chapter 6. Origin and Character of Halloween Omens. The custom of making tests to learn the future comes from the old system of augury from sacrifice. Who sees in the nuts thrown in the fire, turning in the heat, blazing and growing black, the writhing victim of an old-time sacrifice to an idol. Many superstitions and charms were believed to be active at any time, but all those and numerous special ones worked best on November Eve. All the tests of all the Celtic festivals have been allotted to Halloween. Cakes from the May Eve fire, hemp seed and prophetic dreams from Midsummer, games and sports from Lugnesad, have survived in varied forms. Tests are often tried blindfold so that the seeker may be guided by fate. Many are mystic to evoke apparitions from the past or future. Others are tried with harvest grains and fruits. Because skill and undivided attention is needed to carry them through successfully many have degenerated into mere contests of skill, have lost their meaning, and become rough games. Answers are sought to questions about one's future career. Chiefly to, when and whom shall I marry? What will be my profession and degree of wealth, and when shall I die? CHAPTER VII. Halloween Beliefs and Customs in Ireland. Ireland has a literature of Halloween, or Samhain, as it used to be called. Most of it was written between the seventh and the twelfth centuries, but the events were thought to have happened while paganism still ruled in Ireland. The evil powers that came out at Sauen lived the rest of the time in the cave of Kruakun in Canat, the province which was given to the wicked fomer after the battle of Moitura. This cave was called the Gate Hell of Ireland, and was unlocked on November Eve to let out spirits and copper colored birds which killed the farm animals. They also stole babies, leaving in their place changelings, goblins who were old in wickedness while still in the cradle, possessing superhuman cunning and skill in music. One way of getting rid of these demon children was to ill-treat them so that their people would come for them, bringing the right ones back, or one might boil eggshells in the sight of the changeling, who would declare his demon nature by saying that in his centuries of life he had never seen such a thing before. BRIDES II. You shall go with me, newly married bride, and gaze upon a merrier multitude, white-armed Nuala and Angus of the birds, and Fiakra of the hurtling foam, and him who is the ruler of the western host, Finvara and the Land of Hearts Desire, where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, but joy is wisdom, time and endless song. YEETS. LAND OF HEARTS DESIRE. In the first century B.C. lived Alil and his queen Medivh. As they were celebrating their Sauen feast in the palace, three days before Sauen at all times, and three days after by ancient custom, did the hosts of high aspiration continue to feast for the whole week. O'Karen. Lottgarmin. They offered a reward to the man who should tie a bundle of twigs about the feet of a criminal who had been hanged by the gate. It was dangerous to go near dead bodies on November Eve, but a bold young man named Nara dared it, and tied the twigs successfully. As he turned to go he saw the whole of the palace as if on fire before him, and the heads of the people of it lying on the ground, and then he thought he saw an army going into the hill of Kuraken, and he followed after the army. GREGORY. KULAKLAIN OF MERTHIM. The door was shut. Nara was married to a fairy woman, who betrayed her kindred by sending Nara to warn King Alil of the attended attack upon his palace the next November Eve. Nara bore summer fruits with him to prove that he had been in the fairy seed. The next November Eve, when the doors were opened, Alil entered and discovered the crown, emblem of power, took it away and plundered the treasury. Nara never returned again to the homes of men. Another story of about the same time was that of Angus, the son of a Tuatha God, to whom in a dream a beautiful maiden appeared. He wasted away with love for her, and searched the country for a girl who should look like her. At last he saw in a meadow among a hundred and fifty maidens, each with a chain of silver about her neck, one who was like the beauty of his dream. She wore a golden chain about her throat, and was the daughter of King Ethel Anbule. King Ethel's palace was stormed by Alil, and he was forced to give up his daughter. He gave as a reason for withholding his consent so long, that on Samhain Princess Kerr changed from a maiden to a swan and back again the next year. And when the time came Angus went to the lock, and he saw the three times fifty white birds there with their silver chains about their necks. And Angus stood in a man's shape at the edge of the lock, and he called to the girl, Come and speak with me, O Kerr. Who is calling me? said Kerr. Angus calls you, he said, and if you do come, I swear by my word I will not hinder you from going into the lock again. Gregory, Cuckolan of Marathimna. She came, and he changed into a swan likewise, and they flew away to King Dagda's palace, where every one who heard their sweet singing was charmed into a sleep of three days and three nights. Princess Etten, of the race of the Tuatha, and wife of Mitter, was born again as the daughter of Queen Medib, the wife of Alil. She remembers a little of the land from which she came, and is never quite happy, even when she wins the love of King Eketh. But sometimes, sometimes, tell me, have you heard, by dusk or moon-set, have you never heard, sweet voices, delicate music, never seen the passage of the lordly, beautiful ones men call the she? Sharp, immortal hour. When they have been married a year, there comes Mitter from the land of youth. By winning a game of chess from the king, he gets anything he may ask, and prays to see the queen. When he sees her, he sings a song of longing to her, and Eketh is troubled because it is sour, and he knows the great power the hosts of the air have, then over those of those who wish for happiness. Etten, speak. What is the song the harper sings? What tongue is this he speaks? For in no Gaelic lands is speech like this upon the lips of men. No word of all these honey-dripping words is known to me. Beware, beware the words, brood in the moonshine under ancient oaks, white with pale banners of the mistletoe, twined round them in their slow and stately death. It is the feast of Savine. Sowing. Sharp, immortal hour. In vain, Ekhok pleas with her to stay with him. She has already forgotten all but Mitter and the life so long ago in the land of youth. In the land of youth there are pleasant places, green meadows, woods, swift gray blue waters. There is no age there nor any sorrow. As the stars in heaven are the cattle in the valleys. Great rivers wander through flowery plains. Streams of milk, of mead, streams of strong ale. There is no hunger and no thirst in the hollow land, in the land of youth. Sharp, immortal hour. She and Mitter fly away in the form of two swans, linked by a chain of gold. Kukulan, hopelessly sick of a strange illness brought on by Fand and Lieben, fairy sisters, was visited the day before Sauen by a messenger, who promised to cure him if he would go to the other world. Kukulan could not make up his mind to go, but sent leg his charioteer. Such glorious reports did leg bring back from the other world that Kukulan went thither and championed the people there against their enemies. If all Aaron were mind, and the kingship of Yellowbreachia, I would give it no trifling deed to dwell for I in the place I reached. Kukulan's sick bed, myer translation. He stayed a month with fairy Fand. Emmer, his wife at home, was beset with jealousy, and plotted against Fand, who had followed her hero home. Fand in fear returned to her deserted husband. Emmer was given a druidic drink to drown her jealousy. And Kukulan another to forget his infatuation. And they lived happily ever afterward. Even after Christianity was made the vital religion in Ireland, it was believed that places not exercised by prayers and by the sign of the cross were still haunted by druids. As late as the fifth century the druids kept their skill in fortune-telling. King Dothi got a druid to foretell what would happen to him from one Halloween to the next, and the prophecy came true. Their religion was now declared evil, and all evil, or at any rate suspicious things, were assigned to them or to the devil as followers. Mere Bruin. Are not they likewise the children of God? Father Heart. Colleen, they are the children of the fiend, and they have power until the end of time, when God shall fight with them a great pitched battle and hack them into pieces. Yates. Land of Heart's Desire. The power of fairy music was so great that St. Patrick himself was put to sleep by a minstrel who appeared to him on the day before Samhain. The Tuatha D'danan, angered at the renegade people who no longer did them honour, sent another minstrel, who after laying the ancient religious seat Terra under a twenty-three years' charm, burned up the city with his fiery breath. These infamous spirits dwelt in grassy mounds called Forts, which were the entrances to underground palaces full of treasure, where was always music and dancing. These treasure-houses were only open on November Eve, when the throngs of spirits, fairies, and goblins trooped out for rebels about the country. For the fairy mounds of Aaron are always opened about Halloween. Expedition of Nara, Myer Translation. The old druid idea of obsession, the besieging of a person by an evil spirit, was practised by them at that time. This is the first day of winter, and today the host of the air in their greatest power, Warren, took of Thorn. If the fairies wished to seize a mortal, which power they had as the sun god could take men to himself, they caused him to give them certain tokens by which he delivered himself into their hands. They might be milk and fire. Mary Bruin. A little queer old woman cloaked in green, who came to beg a porager of milk. Bridget Bruin. The good people go asking milk and fire upon Mae Eve, woe to the house that gives, for they have power over it for a year. Yates. Land of Hearts Desire. Or one might receive a fairy thorn such as Oona brings home, which shrivels up at the touch of St. Bridget's image. O, ever since I kept the twig of thorn and hid it, I have seen strange things, and heard strange laughter and far voices calling. Warren. Twig of Thorn. Or one might be lured by music as he stopped near the fort to watch the dancing, for the rebels were held in secret, as those of the druids had been, and no one could look on them unaffected. A story is told of Patti Moore, a great stout, uncivil churl, and Patti Begg, a cheerful little hunchback. The latter, seeing lights and hearing music, paused by a mound and was invited in. Urged to tell stories, he complied. He danced as spryly as he could for his deformity. He sang and made himself so agreeable that the fairies decided to take the hump off his back and send him home a straight manly fellow. The next Halloween, who should come by the same place but Patti Moore? And he stopped likewise to spy at the merry-making. He too was called in, but would not dance politely, added no stories nor songs. The fairies clapped Patti Begg's hump on his back, and dismissed him under a double burden of discomfort. A lad called Ghoulish, listening outside a fort on Halloween, heard the spirits talking of the fatal illness of his betrothed, the daughter of the king of France. They said that if Ghoulish but knew it, he might boil an herb that grew by his door and give it to the princess and make her well. Joyfully, Ghoulish hastened home, prepared the herb, and cured their royal girl. Sometimes people did not have the luck to return, but were led away to a realm of perpetual youth and music. Father Hart, what are you reading? Mary Bruin. How a princess, a den, a daughter of a king of Ireland, heard a voice singing on a May eve like this, and followed, half awake and half asleep, until she came into the land of Ferry, where nobody gets old and godly engraved, where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue, and she is still there, busy with a dance, deep in the dewy shadow of a wood, or where the stars walk upon a mountaintop. Yates. Land of Hart's Desire. If one returned, he found that the space which seemed to him but one night had been many years, and with the touch of earthly sod the age he had postponed suddenly weighed him down. Ossian, released from Ferryland after three hundred years dalliance there, rode back to his own country on horseback. He saw men imprisoned under a block of marble and others trying to lift the stone. As he leaned over to aid them the girth broke. With the touch of earth straightway the white horse fled away on his way home, and Ossian became aged to crepit and blind. No place as much as Ireland has kept the belief in all sorts of supernatural spirits abroad among its people. From the time when the hill of ward near Terra, in pre-Christian days, the sacrifices were burned and the tuatha were thought to appear on Sauen. To as late as 1910, testimony to actual appearance of the little people is to be found. Among the usually invisible races which I have seen in Ireland I distinguish five classes. There are gnomes, who are earth spirits, and who seem to be a sorrowful race. I once saw some of them distinctly on the sign of Ben Buldin. They had rather round heads and dark, thick-set bodies, and in stature were about two and one-half feet. The leprechauns are different, being full of mischief, though they too are small. I followed a leprechaun from the town of Wicklow out to the Karegsyda, rock of the fairies, a distance of half a mile or more where he disappeared. He had a very merry face, and beckoned me with his finger. A third class are the little people, who, unlike the gnomes and leprechauns, are quite good-looking, and they are very small. The good people are tall, beautiful beings, as tall as our cells. They direct the magnetic currents of the earth. The gods are real of the Tuatha Dadanan, and they are much taller than our race. Wenz, fairy-faith in Celtic countries. The sign of apparitions on Halloween is believed to be fatal to the beholder. One night my lady's soul walked along the wall like a cat. Long Tom Bowman beheld her, and that day week fell he into the well and was drowned. Pile, priest in the Piper. One version of the Jack-Olantern story comes from Ireland. A stingy man named Jack was, for his inhospitality, barred from all hope of heaven, and because of practical jokes on the devil was locked out of hell, until the judgment day is condemned to walk the earth with the lantern to light his way. The place of the old lord of the dead, the Tuatha God Sáman, to whom vigil was kept and prayer said on November Eve for the good of departed souls, was taken in Christian times by St. Columba, or Column Kill, the founder of a monastery in Ionia, in the fifth century. In the seventeenth century the Irish peasants went about begging money and goodies for a feast, and demanding in the name of Column Kill that fatted calves and black sheep be prepared. In place of the druid fires candles were collected and lighted on Halloween, and prayers for the souls of the givers said before them. The name of Sáman is kept in the title O'rhexamna, Vigil of Sáman, by which the night of October 31st was until recently called in Ireland. There are no Halloween bonfires in Ireland now, but charms and tests are tried. Apples and nuts, the treasure of Pomona, figure largely in these. They are representative winter fruits, the commonest. They can be gathered late and kept all winter. A popular drink at the Halloween gathering in the eighteenth century was milk in which crushed roasted apples had been mixed. Apples called lamb's wool, perhaps from Lamas of Hull, the day of the apple-fruit. At the Halloween supper, called conan, mashed potatoes, parsnips and chopped onions is indispensable. A ring is buried in it, and the one who finds it in his portion will be married in a year, or if he is already married will be lucky. They had cold conan, and the funniest things were found in it. Tiny dolls, mice, a pig made of china, silver sixpences, a thimble, a ring, and lots of other things. After supper was over all went into the big playroom and dived for apples in a tub of water, fished for prizes in a basin of flour, then there were games. Trant, Halloween in Ireland. A coin betoken to the finder wealth, the thimble that he would never marry. A ring and a nut are baked in a cake. The ring, of course, means early marriage. The nut signifies that its finder will marry a widow or a widower. If the kernel is withered, no marriage at all is prophesied. In Roscommon, in Central Ireland, a coin, a slo, and a bit of wood were baked in a cake. The one getting the slo would live longest, the one getting the wood was destined to die within the year. A mold of flour turned out on the table held similar tokens. Each person cut off a slice with a knife and drew out his prize with his teeth. After supper the tests were tried. In the last century nut shells were burned. The best known nut test is made as follows. Three nuts are named for a girl and two sweethearts. If one burns steadily with the girl's nut, that lover is faithful to her. But if either hers or one of the other nuts starts away, there will be no happy friendship between them. Apples are snapped from the end of a stick hung parallel to the floor by a twisted cord, which whirls the stick rapidly when it is let go. Water has to be taken not to bite the candle burning on the other end. Sometimes this test is made easier by dropping the apples into a tub of water and diving for them, or piercing them with a fork dropped straight down. Green herbs called liblong were plucked by the children and hung up on Midsummer Eve. If a plant was found to be still green on Halloween, the one who had hung it up would prosper for the year, but if it had turned yellow or had died, the child would also die. Mead is sown across three furrows, the sower repeating, Hemp-seed I saw thee, hemp-seed I saw thee, and her that is to be my true love come after me and draw thee. On looking back over his shoulder he will see the apparition of his future wife in the act of hemp-gathering. Seven cabbage stalks were named for any seven of the company, then pulled up, and the guests asked to come out and see their souls. One, two, three, and up to seven. If all are white, I'll go to heaven. If one is black as Murthog's evil, he'll soon be screeching with the devil. Red Mike was a queer one from his birth, and no wonder, for he first saw the light between dusk and dark a Halloween eve. When the cabbage test was tried at a party where Mike was present, six stalks were to be found white, but Mike's was all black and foul with worms and slugs, and with a real bad smell a-hinted. Angered at the ridicule he received, I have the gift of the night, I have, and on this day my curse can blast whatever I choose. At that the priest showed Mike a crucifix, and he ran away howling and disappeared through a bog into the ground. Sharp, threefold chronicle. Twelve of the party may learn their future, if one gets a clot of earth from the churchyard, sets up twelve candles in it, lights and names them. The fortune of each will be like that of the candlelight named for him, steady, wavering, or soon in darkness. A ball of blue yarn was thrown out of the window by a girl who held fast to the end. She wound it over her hand from left to right, saying the creed backwards. When she had nearly finished, she expected the yarn would be held. She must ask who holds, and the wind would sigh her sweetheart's name in at the window. In some charms the devil was invoked directly. If one walked about a rick nine times with a rake, saying, I rake this rick in the devil's name, a vision would come and take away the rake. If one went out with nine grains of oats in his mouth, and walked about until he heard a girl's name called or mentioned, he would know the name of his future wife, for they would be the same. Let is melted, and pour through a key or a ring into cold water. The form each spoonful takes in cooling indicates the occupation of the future husband of the girl who poured it. Now something like a horse would cause the jubilant maiden to call out a dragoon. Now some dim resemblance to a helmet would suggest a handsome member of the mounted police, or a round object with a spike would seem a ship, and this, of course, meant a sailor, or a cow would suggest a cattle-dealer or a plow a farmer. Sharp, threefold chronicle. After the future had been searched, a piper played a jig, to which all danced merrily with a loud noise to scare away the evil spirits. Just before midnight was the time to go out alone and unperceived to a south-running brook, dip a shirt sleeve in it, bring it home, and hang it by the fire to die. One must go to bed, but watch till midnight for a side of the destined mate who would come to turn the shirt to dry the other side. Ashes were raked smooth on the hearth at bedtime on Halloween, and the next morning examined for footprints. If one was turned from the door, guests or a marriage was prophesied, if turned toward the door a death. To have prophetic dreams a girl should search for a briar grown into a hoop, creep through thrice in the name of the devil, cut it in silence, and go to bed with it under her pillow. A boy should cut ten ivy-leaves, throw away one, and put the rest under his head before he slept. If a girl leave beside her bed a glass of water with a sliver of wood in it, and say before she falls asleep, husband, mine that is to be, come this night and rescue me, she will dream of falling off a bridge into water, and of being saved at the last minute by the spirit of her future husband. To receive a drink from his hand she must eat a cake of flour, soot, and salt before she goes to bed. The Celtic spirit of yearning for the unknown, retained nowhere else as much as in Ireland, is expressed very beautifully by the poet Yeats in the introduction to his Celtic twilight. The host is riding from Nocnera, and over the grave of Cluthnebair, Celt tossing his burning hair, and neum calling, away, come away, and brood no more when the fire is bright, filling thy heart with a mortal dream, for breasts are heaving and eyes a gleam, away, come away to the dim twilight, arms are heaving and lips apart, and if any gaze on our rushing band, we come between him and the deed of his hand, we come between him and the hope of his heart. The host is rushing to its night and day, and where is the hope or deed as fair? The Celtic twilight is burning hair, and neum calling, away, come away. CHAPTER VIII. Halloween Beliefs and Customs in Scotland and the Hebrides As in Ireland, the Scotch Ball Festival of November was called Sauen. Western Scotland, lying near Estera, centre alike of pagan and Christian religion in Ireland, was colonised by both the people and the customs of Eastern Ireland. The November Eve fires which in Ireland either died out or were replaced by candles were continued in Scotland. In Buchen, where was the altar source of the Sauen fire, bonfires were lighted on hilltops in the eighteenth century, and in Moray the idea of fires of thanksgiving for harvest was kept to as late as 1866. All through the eighteenth century in the Highlands and in Perthshire, torches of heath, broom, flax or ferns were carried about in the fields and villages by each family, with the intent to cause good crops in succeeding years. The course about the fields was sun-wise, to have a good influence. Brought home at dark, the torches were thrown down in a heap, and made a fire. This blaze was called Sauenagon, of rest and pleasure. There was much competition to have the largest fire. Each person put in one stone to make a circle about it. The young people ran about with burning brands. Supper was eaten out of doors, and games played. After the fire had burned out, ashes were raked over the stones. In the morning each sought his pebble, and if he found it misplaced, harmed, or a footprint marked near it in the ashes, he believed he should die in a year. In Aberdeenshire boys went about the villages, saying, Gee is a peat to burn the witches. They were thought to be out stealing milk and harming cattle. Torches used to counteract them were carried from west to east, against the sun. This ceremony grew into a game when a fire was built by one party, attacked by another, and defended. As in the May fires of purification, the lads lay down in the smoke close by, or ran about and jumped over the flames. As the fun grew wilder they flung burning peats at each other, scattered the ashes with their feet, and hurried from one fire to another to have a part in scattering as many as possible before they died out. In 1874 at Balmoral a royal celebration of Halloween was recorded. Royalty, tenants, and servants bore torches through the grounds and round the estates. In front of the castle was a heap of stuff saved for the occasion. The torches were thrown on. When the fire was burning its liveliest a hobgoblin appeared, drawing in a car the figure of a witch, surrounded by fairies carrying lances. The people formed a circle about the fire and the witch was tossed in. Then there were dances to the music of bagpipes. It was the time of year when servants changed masters or signed up anew under the old ones. They might enjoy a holiday before resuming work. So they sang, This is halla even. The morn is halla day. Nine free next till Martin musts, as soon they'll wear away. When born on Halloween could see and converse with supernatural powers more easily than others. In Ireland evil relations caused red mikes downfall. For Scotland Mary Avanall in Scots Monastery is the classic example. Untouching the barn it's Wilken she was born on Halloween and they that are born on Halloween wiles seamar than other folk. There is no hint of dark relations but rather of a clear sightedness which lays bare truths even those concealed in men's breasts. Mary Avanall sees the spirit of her father after he has been dead for years. The white lady of Avanall is her peculiar guardian. The Scottish border where Mary lived is the seat of many superstitions and other worldly beliefs. The fairies of Scotland are more terrible than those of Ireland as the dells and streams and woods are of greater grandeur and the character of the people more serious. It is unlucky to name the fairies here as elsewhere except by such placating titles as Good Neighbours or Menapiece. Rowan, Elm and Holly are a protection against them. I have tied red thread round the barn's throats and given ill kind of them a writing wand of Rowan Tree for by sewing up a slip of witch-elm into their doublets and I wish to know of your reverence if there be anything more that a lone woman can do in the matter of ghosts and fairies. Be here that I should have named their unlucky names twice over. Scott. Monastery. The sign of the cross disarmeth all evil spirits. These spirits of the air have not human feelings or motives. They are consciousnessless. In this respect Peter Pan is an immortal fairy as well as an immortal child. While like a child he resents injustice in horrified silence, like a fairy he acts with no sense of responsibility. When he saves Wendy's brother from falling as they fly you felt it was his cleverness that interested him and not the saving of human life. Barry, Peter and Wendy. The world in which Peter lived was so near the Kensington Gardens that he could see them through the bridge as he sat on the shore of the Neverland. Yet for a long time he could not get to them. Peter is a fairy piper who steals away the souls of children. No man alive has seen me, but women hear me play, sometimes at door or window fiddling the souls away, the children's soul and the colleens out of the covering day. Hopper, fairy fiddler. On Halloween all traditional spirits are abroad. The scotch invented the idea of saunak, a goblin who comes out just at saun. It is he who in Ireland steals children. The fairies pass at crossroads, but the night is Halloween, lady. The morn is halloweday. Then win me, win me, and ye will, for I will, I want, ye may. Once at the merc in midnight hour the fairy folk will ride, and they that wad their true love win at miles cross they mumbied. Ballad of Tim Lann. And in the Highlands whoever took a three-legged stool to where three crossroads met and sat upon it at midnight would hear the names of those who were to die in a year. He might bring with him articles of dress, and as each name was pronounced there are one garment to the fairies. They would be so pleased by this gift that they would repeal the sentence of death. Some people who seemed to be like their neighbors every day could for this night fly away and join the other beings and their rebels. This is the neck to Halloween, one other witch you may be seen, some of them black, some of them green, some of them like a turkey-bean. A witch's party was conducted in this way. The wretched women who had sold their souls to the devil left a stick in bed which by evil means was made to have their likeness, and anointed with the fat of murder babies flew off up the chimney on a broomstick with cats attendant. Burns tells the story of a company of witches pulling ragwort by the roadside, each astride her ragwort with the summons up horsey and flying away. The hag is astride this night for a ride, the devils and she together, through thick and through thin, now out and now in, though ne'er so foul be the weather. A thorn or a burr she takes for a spur, with a lash of the bramble she rides now, through break and through briars, o'er ditches and mires, she follows the spirit that guides now. Herrick, the hag. The meeting-place was arranged by the devil, who sometimes rode there on a goat. At their supper no bread or salt was eaten. They drank out of horses' skulls, and danced, sometimes back-to-back, sometimes from west to east, for the dances at the ancient bowel festivals were from east to west, and it was evil and ill omen to move the other way. For this dance the devil played a bagpipe main of a hen's skull and cat's tails. There sat old Nick, in shape of beast, a talsy tyke, black, grim, and large. To guide the music was his charge, he screwed the pipes and gart them scurl, till roof and rafters I did derrel. Burns, Tamashanter. The light for the revelry came from a torch flaring between the horns of the devil's steed, the goat, and at the close the ashes were divided for the witches to use in incantations. People imagined that cats who had been up all night on Halloween were tired out the next morning. Tamashanter, who was watching such a dance, by aloe's old haunted kirk in Ayrshire, could not resist calling out the antics of a neighbor whom he recognized, and was pursued by the witches. He urged his horse to top speed. Now do thy speedy utmost, Meg, and win the key-stain of the brig. There at them thou thy tail may toss a running stream they dare not cross. Burns, Tamashanter. But poor Meg had no tail thereafter to toss at them, for though she saved her rider, she was only her tail's length beyond the middle of the bridge when the foremost witch grafted it and seared it to a stub. Such witches might be questioned about the past or future. He that dares sit on St. Swithin's chair, when the night hag wings the troubled air, questions three when he breaks the spell he may ask, then she must tell. Scott, St. Swithin's chair. Children make of themselves bogies on this evening, carrying the largest turnips they can save from harvest, hollowed out and carved into the likeness of a fearsome face, with teeth and forehead blacked, and lighted by a candle fastened inside. If the spirit of a person simply appears without being summoned, and the person is still alive, it means that he is in danger. If he comes toward the one to whom he appears the danger is over. If he seems to go away he is dying. An apparition from the future especially is sought on Halloween. It is a famous time for divination in love affairs. A typical eighteenth century party in Western Scotland is described by Robert Burns. Cabbage is are imported in Scotch superstition. Children believe that if they pile cabbage stalks around the doors and windows of the house, the fairies will bring them a new brother or sister. And often, when in his old-fashioned way he questioned me, who made the stars? And if within his hand he caught and held one, would his fingers burn? If I, the grey-haired dominey, was dug from out of Cabbage Garden such as he was found in. Buchanan, Willie Bard. Kate Pulling came first on the program in Burns's Halloween. Just the single and unengaged went out hand in hand, blindfolded to the Cabbage Garden. They pulled the first stalk they came upon, brought it back to the house, and were unbandaged. The size and shape of the stalk indicated the appearance of the future husband or wife. Maybe you would rather not pull a stalk that was tall and straight and strong. That would mean allister. Maybe you would rather find you had got hold of a withered old stump with a lot of earth at the root, a decrepit old man with plenty of money in the bank. Or maybe you were wishing for one that is slim and supple and not so tall. For one that might mean Johnny Simple. Black. Halloween Wraith. A close whitehead meant an old husband, an open green head a young one. His disposition would be like the taste of the stem. To determine his name the stalks were hung over the door, and the number of one stalk in the row noted. If Jesse put hers up third from the beginning, and the third man who passed through the doorway under it was named Allen, her husband's first name would be Allen. This is practiced only a little now among farmers. It has a special virtue if the Cabbage has been stolen from the garden of an unmarried person. Sometimes the pith of a cabbage stalk was pushed out, the hole filled with tow, which was set afire, and blown through the keyholes on Halloween. Their runs cleaned through and through were bored, and stuffed with ravelins-foo, and like a chimney went on fire each could wreak the outspiew. Jock through the keyhole sent a cloud that reached across the house, while in below the door wreak rushed like water through a sluice. Dick, explorers of a Halloween. Cabbage broth was a regular dish at the Halloween feast. Mashed with potatoes as in Ireland, or a dish of meal and milk holds symbolic objects, a ring, a thimble, and a coin. In the cake-darbeca ring and a key. The ring signifies to the possessor marriage, and the key a journey. Apple-ducking is still a universal custom in Scotland. A expense is sometimes dropped into the tub or stuck into an apple to make the reward greater. The contestants must keep their hands behind their backs. Nuts are put before the fire in pairs, instead of by threes as in Ireland, and named for a lover in his last. If they burn to ashes together, long, happy married life is destined for the lovers. If they crackle or start away from each other, dissension and separation are ahead. Jean slips intoie with tenti-t. What it was, she wouldn't tell. But this is jock, and this is me. She says into her cell. He bleeds dore, and she or him, as they would never mar part, till fluff he started up the lump, and Jean had Ian a sore heart to see that night. BURNS Halloween Three luggies, bowls with handles like the druid lamps were filled. One with clean, one with dirty water, and one left empty. The person wishing to know his fate in marriage was blindfolded turned about thrice and put down his left hand. If he dipped it into the clean water he would marry a maiden, if into the dirty a widow, if into the empty dish not at all. He tried until he got the same result twice. The dishes were changed about each time. This spell still remains, as does that of the hemp seed sowing. One goes out alone with a handful of hemp seed, sows it across ridges of plowed land, and harrows it with anything convenient, perhaps with a broom. Hemp seed I saw thee, and her that is to be my last, come after me and draw thee. BURNS Halloween Having said this, he looks behind him to see his sweetheart gathering hemp. This should be tried just at midnight with the moon behind. At Iona Hallamas, no sleep I sought, but to the field a bag of hemp seed brought. I scattered round the seed on every side, and three times three in trembling accents cried, this hemp seed with my virgin hand I sew, who shall my true love be, the crop shall mow. GAY PASTORALS A spell that has been discontinued is throwing the clue of blue yarn into the kiln-pot, instead about the window as in Ireland. As it is wound backwards something holds it. The winder must ask, Hwa Hoogs, to hear the name of her future sweetheart. When I she went, and I she swat, I watched she made najankan, till something held within the pot, good Lord, but she was quaken. But whether it was the devil himself, or whether it was a Balkan, or whether it was Andrew Bell, she did not wait on talking, to spear that night. BURNS Halloween Another spell not commonly tried now is winnowing three measures of imaginary corn, as one stands in the barn alone with both doors open to let the spirits that come in go out again freely. As one finishes the motions, the apparition of the future husband will come in at one door and pass out at the other. I had not winnowed the last wait clean out, and the moon was shining bright upon the floor, when in stalked the presence of my dear Simon Glendening, that is now happy. I never saw him planer in my life than I did that moment. He held up an arrow as he passed me, and I swaffed away with fright. But mark of the end of it, tib, we were married, and the grey goose wing was the death of him after it. Scott, the Monastery. At other times prophetic appearances were seen. Just as she was at the work, what does she see in the moon-licked but her own coffin, moving between the doors instead of the lightness of a goodman, and as sure as death she was in her coffin before the same time next year? Anonymous, Tale of Halloween. Formerly a stack of beans, oats, or barley was measured round with the arms against the sun. At the end of the third time the arms would enclose the vision of the future husband or wife. Cale-pulling, apple-snapping, and lead-melting, see Ireland, are social rites, but many were to be tried alone and in secret. A Highland divination was tried with a shoe, held by the tip, and thrown over the house. The person will journey in the direction the toe points out. If it falls sole up it means bad luck. Pills would pull a straw each out of a thatch in broad sea, and would take it to an old woman in Fraserborough. The CRS would break the straw and find within it a hair the colour of the lovers to be. Blindfolded they plucked the heads of oats, and counted the number of grains to find out how many children they would have. If the tip was perfect, not broken or gone, they would be married honourably. Another way of determining the number of children was to drop the white of an egg into a glass of water. The number of divisions was the number sought. White of egg is held with water in the mouth, like the grains of oats in Ireland, while one takes a walk to hear mentioned the name of his future wife. Names are written on papers and laid upon the chimney-piece. Fate guides the hand of a blindfolded man to the slip which bears his sweetheart's name. A Halloween mirror is made by the rays of the moon shining into a looking-glass. If a girl goes secretly into a room at midnight between October and November, sits down at the mirror and cuts an apple into nine slices, holding each on the point of a knife before she eats it, she may see in the moonlit glass the image of her lover looking over her left shoulder and asking for the last piece of apple. The wedding of the sark-sleeve in the south-running burn where the three lards' lands met, and carrying it home to dry before the fire, was really a scotch custom, but has already been described in Ireland. The last Halloween I was a walk-in, my druket sark-sleeve as you can, his likeness came up to the house of Stalkin, and the very gay breeks of Tam Glen—Burns, Tam Glen. Just before breaking up, the crowd of young people partook of sowens, oatmeal-porridge cakes with butter, and strunt, a liquor as they hoped for good luck throughout the year. The Hebrides, Scottish islands off the west coast, have Halloween traditions of their own, as well as many borrowed from Ireland and Scotland. Barra, isolated near the end of the island chain, still celebrates the Celtic days, Beltane and November Eve. In the Hebrides is the Irish custom of eating on Halloween a cake of meal and salt, or salt-herring, bones and all, to dream of someone bringing a drink of water. Not a word must be spoken, nor a drop of water drunk till the dream comes. In St. Kilda a large triangular cake is baked, which must be all eaten up before morning. A curious custom that prevailed in the island of Lewis in the eighteenth century was the worship of Shoney, a sea-god with a Norse name. His ceremonies were similar to those paid to summon in Ireland, but more picturesque. Ale was brewed at a church from malt brought collectively by the people. One took a cupful in his hand and waded out into the sea up to his waist, saying as he ported out, Shoney, I give you this cup of ale, hoping that you'll be so kind as to send us plenty of sea-wear for enriching our ground the ensuing year. The party returned to the church, waited for a given signal when a candle burning on the altar was blown out. Then they went out into the fields and drank ale with dance and song. The dumb cake originated in Lewis. Girls were each apportioned a small piece of dough mixed with any but spring water. They needed it with their left hands in silence. Before midnight they pricked initials on them with a new pin and put them by the fire to bake. The girls withdrew to the farther end of the room, still in silence. At midnight each lover was expected to enter and lay his hand on the cake marked with his initials. In south Oost and Ereskay on Halloween fairies are out, a source of terror to those they meet. Halloween will come, will come, witchcraft will be set a-going, fairies will be at full speed running in every pass, avoid the road, children, children. But for the most part this belief has died out on Scottish land, except near the border, and Halloween is celebrated only by stories and jokes and games, songs and dances. CHAPTER IX Halloween Beliefs and Customs in England and Man especially has a treasury of fairy tradition, Celtic and Norse combined. Manx fairies too dwell in the middle world, since they are fit for neither heaven nor hell. Even now Manx people think they see circles of light in the late October midnight and little folk dancing within. Longest of all in man was Sauen considered New Year's Day. According to the old style of reckoning time it came on November 12. Tonight is New Year's nights, ha-gonna, mid-summer song. As in Scotland the servants' year ends with October. New Year tests for finding out the future were tried on Sauen. To hear her sweetheart's name a girl took a mouthful of water and two handfuls of salt and sat down at a door. The first name she heard mentioned was the wished-for one. The three dishes proclaimed the fate of the blindfold seeker as in Scotland. Each was blindfolded and touched one of several significant objects, meal for prosperity, earth for death, a net for tangled fortunes. Before retiring each filled a thimble with salt and emptied it out in a little mound on a plate, remembering his own. If any heap were found fallen over by morning the person it represented was destined to die in the year. The Manx looked for prints in the smooth strewn ashes on the hearth, as the Scotch did, and gave the same interpretation. There had been Christian churches in Britain as early as 300 A.D. and Christian missionaries, St. Ninnian, Pelagius, and St. Patrick, were active in the next century, and in the course of time St. Augustine. Still the old superstitions persisted, as they always do when they have grown up with the people. King Arthur, who was believed to have reigned in the fifth century, may be a personification of the sun god. He comes from the other world, his magic sword Excalibur is brought thence to him, he fights twelve battles in number like the months, and is wounded to death by the evil Mordred, once his own night. He passes in a boat, attended by his fairy sister and two other queens. To the island valley of Avalon, where falls not hail or rain or any snow, nor ever wind blows loudly, but it lies deep meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns, and bowery collows crowned with summer sea. Tennison, passing of Arthur. The hope of being healed there is like that giving to Cochalane to persuade him to visit the fairy kingdom. Arthur was expected to come again sometime, as the sun renews his course. As he disappeared from the side of Bedivere, the last of his nights, the new sun rose, bringing the new year. Avalon means Apple Island. It was like the Hesperides of Greek mythology, the western islands where grew the golden apples of immortality. In Cornwall, after the sixth century, the sun god became St. Michael, and the eastern point where he appeared St. Michael's seat. Look where the great vision of the guarded mount looks toward Namankos and Bayona's hold. Milton, Lycidas. As fruits to Pomona, so berries were devoted to fairies. They would not let anyone cut a black thorn shoot on Halloween. In Cornwall, slows and black berries were considered unfit to eat after the fairies had passed by, because all the goodness was extracted. So they were eaten to heart's content on October 31st, and avoided thereafter. Hazels, because they were thought to contain wisdom and knowledge, were also sacred. Besides leaving berries for the little people, food was set out for them on Halloween and on other occasions. They rewarded this hospitality by doing an extraordinary amount of work. How the drudging goblin sweat to earn his cream-bowl duly set, when in one night air glimpse of mourn, his shadowy flail hath threshed the corn, that ten-day labours could not end. Then lies him down, the lube or fiend, and stretched out all the chimney's length, basks at the fire his hairy strength. Milton, la legro. Such spirits did not scruple to pull away the chair, as one is about to sit down, to pinch or even to steal children and leave changelings in their places. The first hint of dawn drove them back to their haunts. When larks ginsing, away we fling, and babes new-born steal as we go, and elf in bed we leave instead, and when does laughing, ho, ho, ho! Johnson, Robin Goodfellow. Solace and without gratitude or memory, spirits of the air may be, like Ariel in the Tempest. He, like the fairy harpers of Ireland, puts men to sleep with his music. What are thou waking? Antonio. Do you not hear me speak? Sebastian, I do, and surely it is a sleep in language, and thou speaks out of thy sleep. What is it thou did say? This is a strange repose to be asleep with eyes wide open, standing, speaking, moving, and yet so fast to sleep. Shakespeare, the Tempest. The people of England, in common with those who lived in the other countries of Great Britain and in Europe, dreaded the coming of winter not only on account of the cold and loneliness, but because they believed that at this time the powers of evil were abroad and ascendant. This belief harked back to the old idea that the sun had been vanquished by his enemies in late autumn. It was to forget the fearful influences about them that the English kept festival so much in the winter time. The lords of misrule, leaders of the revelry, beginning their rule on all halloweeve, continued the same till the morrow after the feast of the purification, commonly called candle-mistay, in all of which space there were fine and subtle disguisings, masks, and memories. This was written of King Henry IV's court at Eltham in 1401 and is true of centuries before and after. They gathered about the fire and made merry while the October Tempest whirled the leaves outside, and shrieked round the house like ghosts and demons on a mad carousel. The autumn wind—oh, hear it howl!—without October's Tempest scowl as he troops away on the raving wind, and leaveeth dry leaves in his path behind. Tis the night, the night, of the grave's delight, and the warlock are at their play. You think that without the wild wind shout, but no, it is they, it is they. COX, Halloween. Witchcraft, the origin of which will be traced farther on, had a strong following in England. The three witches in Macbeth are really fates who foretell the future, but they have a kettle in which they boil, filet of a fennie snake, eye of nude and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog, adder's fork and blind worm's sting, lizard's leg and outlet's wing, for a charm of powerful trouble—Shakespeare, Macbeth. They connect themselves thereby with those evil creatures who pursued Tamashanter and were servants of the devil. In 1892 in Lincolnshire, people believed that if they looked in through the church door on Halloween they would see the devil preaching as doctrines from the pulpit, and inscribing the names of new witches in his book. The Specter Huntsman, known in Windsor Forest as Hearn the Hunter, and Denton Morden as Gabriel Ratchets, was the spirit of an ungodly hunter, who for his crimes was condemned to lead the chase till the judgment day. In a storm on Halloween has heard the baying of his hounds. Still, still shall the last dreadful chase, till time itself shall have an end. By day they scour earth's caverned space, at midnight switching hour ascend. This is the horn, the hound and horse, that oft the laided peasant hears, appalled he signs the frequent cross when the wild din invades his ears. Scott, Wild Huntsman. In the north of England Halloween was called Nutcrack and Snap Apple-Night. It was celebrated by young people and sweethearts. A variation of the nut test is, naming two for two lovers before they are put before the fire to roast. The unfaithful lover's nut cracks and jumps away. The loyal burns with a steady ardent flame to ashes. Two hazelnuts I threw into the flame, and to each nut I gave a sweetheart's name. This with the loudest bounce me so amazed, as blazed the nut so may thy passion grow, for twas thy nut that did so brightly glow. Gay, the spell. If they jump toward each other they will be rivals. If one of the nuts has been named for the girl and burns quietly with a lover's nut, they will live happily together. If they are restless there is trouble ahead. These glowing nuts are emblems true of what in human life we view the ill-matched couple fret and perfume, and thus in strife themselves consume, or from each other wildly start and with a noise for ever part. But see the happy, happy pair of genuine love and truth sincere, with mutual fondness while they burn, still to each other kindly turn, and as the vital sparks decay, together gently sink away, till life's fierce ordeal being passed, their mingled ashes rest at last. Graydon, on nuts burning, all hallows eave. Sometimes peas on a hot shovel are used instead. Down the centuries from the druid tree worship comes the spell of the walnut tree. It is circled thrice with the invocation, let her that is to be my true love bring me some walnuts, and directly a spirit will be seen in the tree gathering nuts. Last hollow eave I sought a walnut tree, in hope my true love's face that I might see, three times I called, three times I walked a pace, then in the tree I saw my true love's face. Gay, pastoral's. The seeds of apples were used in many trials. Two stuck on cheeks or eyelids, indicated by the time they clung the faithfulness of the friends named for them. See from the core two kernels brown I take. This on my cheek for Lubberkin is worn, and booby-clawed on Totherside is born, but booby-clawed soon drops upon the ground, a certain token that his love's unsound. While Lubberkin sticks firmly to the last, oh, were his lips to mine but joined so fast. In a tub float stemless apples, to be seized by the teeth of him desirous of having his love returned. If he is successful in bringing up the apple, his love affair will end happily. The rosy apples bobbing upon the mimic sea, tis tricksy and elusive, and glides away from me, one moment it is streaming beneath the candle's glare, then overwave and eddy it glances here and there. And when at last I capture the prize with joy aglow, I sigh, may I, this sunshine of golden rapture know, when I essay to gather, in all her witchery, love's sweetest rosy apple on love's uncertain sea. Munkittrick, Halloween Wish. An apple is peeled all in one piece, and the pairing swung three times round the head and dropped behind the left shoulder. If it does not break and is looked at over the shoulder, it forms the initial of the true sweetheart's name. I pair this pippin round and round again, my sweetheart's name to flourish on the plain, I fling the unbroken pairing over my head, a perfect L upon the ground is read. Gay pastorals. In the north of England was a unique custom, the scatting of peas. A peapod was slit, a bean pushed inside, and the opening closed again. The full pods were boiled, and a portion to be shelled, and the peas eaten with butter and salt. The one finding the bean on his plate would be married first. Gay records another test with peas which is like the final trial made with kale stalks. As peas-cods once I plucked I chance to see, one that was closely filled with three times three, which when I cropped I safely home conveyed, and over the door the spell in secret laid, the latch moved up when who should first come in, but in his proper person, lubricant. Gay pastorals. Candles, relics of the sacred fire, play an important part everywhere on Halloween. In England, too, the lighted candle and the apple were fastened to the stick, and as it whirled, each person in turn sprang up and tried to bite the apple. Or catch the elusive apple with a bound, as with the taper it flew whizzing round. This was a rough game, more suited to Boy's frolic than the ghostly divinations that preceded it. Those with energy to spare found material to exercise it on. In an old book there is a picture of a youth sitting on a stick placed across two stools. On one end of the stick is a lighted candle from which he is trying to light another in his hand. Beneath is a tub of water to receive him if he overbalances sideways. These games grew later into practical jokes. The use of a goblet may perhaps come from the story of the luck of Edenthal, a glass stolen from the fairies and holding ruin for the house by whom it was stolen, if it should ever be broken. With ring and goblet this charm was tried. The ring, symbol of marriage, was suspended by a hair within a glass, and a name spelled out by beginning the alphabet over each time the ring struck the glass. When tired of activity and noise the party gathered about a storyteller or passed a bundle of faggots from hand to hand, each selecting one and reciting an installment of the tale till his stick burned to ashes. I tell you the story this chill Halloween for it sootheth the spirit Eve. Cox, Halloween. To induce prophetic dreams the wood and water test was tried in England also. Last hallow Eve I looked my love to see and tried a spell to call her up to me, with wood and water standing by my side I dreamed a dream and saw my own sweet bride. Gay, pastoral's. Though Halloween is decidedly a country festival, in the seventeenth century young gentlemen in London chose a master of the rebels and held masks and dances with their friends on this night. In central and southern England the ecclesiastical side of Halotide is stressed. Bread or cake has, till recently, in 1898, been as much a part of Halloween preparations as plum-putting at Christmas. Probably this originated from an autumn baking of bread from the new grain. In Yorkshire each person gets a triangular seed-cake and the evening is called cake-night. Wife, sometime this week, if the weather hold clear and end of wheat sowing we make for this year, remember you therefore, though I do it not, the seed-cakes, the pasties, and the ferment-type hot. Tusser, five hundred points of good husbandry, fifteen eighty. Cakes appear also at the vigil of all souls the next day. At a gathering they lie in a heap for the guest to take. In return they are supposed to say prayers for the dead. A soul-cake, a soul-cake, have mercy on all Christian souls for a soul-cake. Old saying. The poor in Staffordshire and Shropshire went about singing for soul-cakes or money, promising to pray and to spend the alms and masses for the dead. The cakes were called soul-mass or somus-cakes. Soul, soul for a soul-cake, pray goodmistress for a soul-cake, one for Peter, two for Paul, three for them who made us all. Note some queries. In Dorshireshire Halloween was celebrated by the ringing of bells in memory of the dead. King Henry VIII and later Queen Elizabeth issued commands against this practice. In Lancashire the early nineteenth-century people used to go about begging for candles to drive away the gatherings of witches. If the lights were kept burning till midnight no evil influence could remain near. In Derbyshire, Central England, torches of straw were carried about the stacks on all souls eve, not to drive away evil spirits as in Scotland, but to light souls through purgatory. Like the Bretons the English have the superstition that the dead return on Halloween. Why do you wait at your door, woman, alone in the night? I am waiting for one who will come, stranger, to show him a light. He will see me afar on the road and be glad at the sight. Have you no fear in your heart, woman, to stand there alone? There is comfort for you and kindly content beside the hard stone. But she answered, No rest can I have till I welcome my own. Is it far he must travel to night, this man of your heart? Strange lands that I know not, and pitiless seas have kept us apart. And he travels this night to his home, without guide, without chart. And has he companions to cheer him? I many, she said. The candles are lighted, the hearth stones are swept, the fires grow red, we shall welcome them out of the night, our homecoming dead. CHAPTER X. Halloween Beliefs and Customs in Wales. In Wales the custom of fires persisted from the time of the druid festival days longer than in any other place. First sacrifices were burned in them, then instead of being burned to death the creatures merely passed through the fire, and with the rise of Christianity fire was thought to be a protection against the evil power of the same gods. Pontiprid, in south Wales, was the druid religious center of Wales. It is still marked by a stone circle and an altar on a hill. In after years it was believed that the stones were people changed to that form by the power of a witch. In north Wales the November Eve fire, which each family built in the most prominent place near the house, was called Cole Cough. Into the dying fire each member of the family threw a white stone marked so that he could recognize it again. Circling about the fire hand in hand they said their prayers and went to bed. In the morning each searched for his stone, and if he could not find it he believed that he would die within the next twelve months. This is still credited. There is now the custom also of watching the fires till the last spark dies, and instantly rushing down hill. The devil or the Cuddy-Black sow take the hindmost. A cardigan sheer proverb says, a Cuddy-Black sow on every style, spinning and carding every all-halo's eve. November Eve was called Nos-Gell and Goff, the night of the winter callants, that is, the night before the first day of winter. To the Welsh it was New Year's Eve. Welsh fairy traditions resemble that in the nearby countries. There is an old story of a man who lay down to sleep inside a fairy-ring, a circle of greener grass where the fairies danced by night. The fairies carried him away and kept him seven years, and after he had been rescued from them he would neither eat nor speak. In the sea was the other world, a green fairy island reposing in sunlight and beauty on the ocean's calm breast, Perry Welsh melodies. This was the abode of the druids, and hence of all supernatural beings, who were something betwixt heaven and hell, something that neither stood nor fell. Scott the Monastery. As in other countries the fairies or pixies are to be met at crossroads, where happenings, such as funerals, may be witnessed weeks before they really occur. At the hallow eve supper parsnips and cakes are eaten, and nuts and apples roasted. A puzzling pig holds the ale. In the rim are three holes that seem merely ornamental. They are connected with the bottom of the jug by pipes through the handle, and the unwitting toper is well drenched unless he is clever enough to see that he must stop up two of the holes and drink through the third. Spells are tried in whales too with apples and nuts. There is ducking and snapping for apples. Nuts are thrown into the fire, denoting prosperity if they blaze brightly, misfortune if they pop, or smolder and turn black. Old pally through on a nut, it flickered and then blazed up. Maggie tossed one into the fire, it smoldered and gave no light. Marks. All hallows, honeymoon. Fate is revealed by the three luggies and the ball of yarn thrown out of the window, Scotch and Irish charms. The leak takes the place of the cabbage in Scotland. Since King Cadwalo decorated his soldiers with leaks for their valour in a battle by a leak garden, they have been held in high esteem in Wales. A girl sticks a knife among leaks at Halloween and walks backward out of the garden. She returns later to find that her future husband has picked up the knife and thrown it into the centre of the leak bed. Taking two long stemmed roses, a girl goes to her room in silence. She twines the stems together, naming one for her sweetheart and the other for herself and thinking this rhyme. Twine, twine and intertwine, let his love be holy mine. If his heart be kind and true, deeper grows his rose's hue. She can see, by watching closely, her lover's rose grow darker. The sacred ash figures in one charm. The party of young people seek an even-leaved sprig of ash. The first who finds one calls out Sinevar. If a boy calls out first, the first girl who finds another perfect chute bears the name of the boy's future wife. Dancing and singing to the music of the harp close the evening. Instead of leaving stones in the fire to determine who are to die, people now go to church to see by the light of a candle held in the hand the spirits of those marked for death, or to hear the names called. The wind blowing over the feet of the corpses howls about the doors of those who will not be alive next Halloween. On the eve of All Saints Day, twenty-four hours after Halloween, children in eastern Wales go from house to house singing for an apple or a pear, a plum or a cherry, or any good thing to make us marry. It is a time when charity is freely given to the poor. On this night and the next day fires are burned, as in England, to light souls through purgatory, and prayers are made for a good wheat harvest next year by the Welsh, who keep the forms of religion very devoutly. CHAPTER XI. Halloween Beliefs and Customs in Brittany and France. The Celts had been taught by their priests that the soul is immortal. When the body died, the spirit passed instantly into another existence in a country close at hand. We remember that the other world of the British Isles, peopled by the banished Tuatha and all superhuman beings, was either in caves in the earth as in Ireland, or in an island like the English Avalon. By giving a mortal one of their magic apples to eat, fairies could entice him whether they would, and at last away into their country. In the Irish story of Nira, the corpse of the criminal is the cause of Nira's being lured into the cave. So the dead have the same power as fairies, and live in the same place. On May Eve and November Eve the dead and the fairies hold their revels together and make excursions together. If a young person died, he was said to be called away by the fairies. The Tuatha may not have been a race of gods, but merely the early Celts, who grew to godlike proportions as the years raised amount of lore and legends for their pedestal. So they might really be only the dead and not of superhuman nature. In the fourth century A.D. the men of England were hard-pressed by the Picts and Scots from the northern border, and were held in their need by the Tuathans. When this tribe saw the fair country of the Britons they decided to hold it for themselves. After they had driven out the northern tribes in the fifth century, when King Arthur was raining in Cornwall, they drove out those whose cause they had fought. So the Britons were scattered to the mountains of Wales, to Cornwall, and across the Channel to Amorica, a part of France, which they named Brittany after their homeland. In lower Brittany, out of the zone of French influence, a language something like Welsh or Old British is still spoken, and many of the Celtic beliefs were retained more untouched than in Britain, not clear of paganism till the seventeenth century. Here especially did Christianity have to adapt the old belief to her own ends. Gaul, as we have seen from Caesar's account, had been one of the chief seats of druidical belief. The religious center was Carnutes, now Chartresne. The rites of sacrifice survived in the same forms as in the British Isles. In the field of Ducsev, fires were built of stubble, ferns, leaves, and thorns, and the people danced about them and burned nuts in them. On St John's Day animals were burned in the fires to secure the castle from disease. This was continued down into the seventeenth century. The pagan belief that lasted the longest in Brittany, and is by no means dead yet, was the Cult of the Dead. Caesar said that the Celts of Gaul traced their ancestry from the God of Death, whom he called this Potter. Now figures of Lanqu, a skeleton armed with a spear, can be seen in most villages of Brittany. This mindfulness of death was strengthened by the side of the prehistoric Carnes of Stones on Hilltops. The ancient altars of the druids, and dolmens, formed of one flat rock resting like a roof on two others, set up on end with a space between them, ancient tombs, and by the Bretons being cut off from the rest of France by the nature of the country, and shut in among the uplands, black and misty in November, and blown over by chill Atlantic winds. Under a seeming dull indifference and melancholy the Bretons conceal a lively imagination, and noplace has a greater wealth of legendary literature. What fairies, dwarves, pixies, and the like are to the Celts of other places, the spirits of the dead are to the Celts of Brittany. They possess the earth on Christmas, St. John's Day, and all saints. In Finest's Stair, that western point of France, there is a saying that on the eve of all souls there are more dead in every house than sands on the shore. The dead have the power to charm mortals and take them away, and to foretell the future. They must not be spoken of directly, any more than the fairies of the Scottish border, or met with, for fear of evil results. By the Bretons of the sixth century the nearby island of Britain, which they could just see on clear days, was called the Other World. An historian, Procopius, tells how the people nearest Britain were exempted from paying tribute to the Franks, because they were subject to nightly summons to ferry the souls of the dead across in their boats, and deliver them into the hands of the keeper of souls. Farther inland a black bog seemed to be the entrance to an Other World underground. One location which combines the ideas of an island in a cave was a city buried in the sea. The people imagined they could hear the bells of cur-iss ringing, and joyous music sounding. For though this was a city of the dead, it resembled the fairy places of Ireland, and was ruled by King Grailand and his fair daughter Dahut, who could lure mortals away by her beauty and enchantments. The approach of winter is believed to drive, like the flocks, the souls of the dead from their cold, cheerless graves to the food and warmth of home. This is why November Eve, the night before the first day of winter, was made sacred to them. When comes the harvest of the year before the sith the wheat will fall. Botryl, songs of Brittany. The harvest time reminded the Bretons of the garnering by that reaper, Death. On November Eve milk is poured on graves, feasts and candles set out on the tables, and fires lighted on the hearths to welcome the spirits of departed kinsfolk and friends. In France from the twelfth to the fourteenth century stone buildings like lighthouses were erected in cemeteries. They were twenty or thirty feet high with lanterns on top. On Halloween they were kept burning to safeguard the people from the fear of night-wandering spirits and the dead, so they were called Lantern des Maux. The cemetery is the social center of the Breton village. It is at once meeting place, playground, park, and church. The tombs that outline the hills make the place seem one vast cemetery. On all souls' eve in the mid-nineteenth century the procession of tombs was held. All formed a line and walked about the cemetery, calling the names of those who were dead, as they approached their resting place. The record was carefully remembered, so that not one should seem to be forgotten. We live with our dead, say the Bretons. First, on the eve of all souls comes the religious service, Black Vespers. The blessedness of death is praised, the sorrows and shortness of life dwelt upon. After a common prayer all go out to the cemetery to pray separately, each by the graves of his skin, or to the place of bones where the remains of those long dead are thrown all together in one tomb. They can be seen behind gratings, by the people as they pass, and rows of skulls at the sides of the entrance can be touched. In these tombs are Latin inscriptions meaning, Remember thou must die, to-day me, and to-morrow to thee, and others reminding the reader of his coming death. From the cemetery the people go to a house or an inn which is the gathering place for the night, singing or talking loudly on the road to warn the dead who are hastening home, lest they may meet. Reunions of families take place on this night, in the spirit of the Roman feast of the dead, the Farelia, of which Ovid wrote, After the visit to the tombs and to the ancestors who are no longer with us, it is pleasant to turn towards the living. After the loss of so many, it is pleasant to behold those who remain of our blood, and to reckon up the generations of our descendants. A toast is drunk to the memory of the departed. The men sit about the fireplace smoking or weaving baskets, the women apart, knitting or spinning by the light of the fire and one candle. The children play with their gifts of apples and nuts. As the hour grows later and mysterious noises begin to be heard about the house, and a curtain sways in a draught, the thoughts of the company already centered upon the dead find expression in words, and each has a tale to tell of an adventure with some friend or enemy who has died. The dead are thought to take up existence where they left it off, working at the same trades, remembering their old debts, likes and dislikes, even wearing the same clothes they wore in life. Most of them stay not in some distant, definite other world but frequent the scenes of their former life. They never trespass upon daylight, and it is dangerous to meet them at night, because they are very ready to punish any slight to their memory, such as selling their possessions or forgetting the hospitality do them. Lanqu will come to get a supply of shavings if the coffins are not lined with them to make a softer resting place for the dead bodies. The lively Celtic imagination turns the merest coincidence into an encounter with the spirit, and the poetic temperament of the narrators clothes the stories with vividness and mystery. They tell how the presence of a ghost made the midsummer air so cold that even wood did not burn, and of groans and footsteps underground as long as the ghost is displeased with what his relatives are doing. Just before midnight a bellman goes about the streets to give warning of the hour when the spirits will arrive. They will sit where we sat, and will talk of us as we talked of them. In the gray of the morning only will they go away. Libras, night of the dead. The supper for the souls is then set out. The poor who live in the mountains have only black corn, milk, and smoked bacon to offer, but it is given freely. Those who can afford it spread on a white cloth, dishes of clotted milk, hot pancakes, and mugs of cider. After all have retired to lie with both eyes shut tight lest they see one of the ghosts, death-singers make their rounds, chanting under the windows. You are comfortably lying in your bed, but with the poor dead it is otherwise. You are stretched softly in your bed while the poor souls are wandering abroad. A white sheet and five planks, a bundle of straw beneath the head, five feet of earth above, are all the worldly goods we own. Libras, night of the dead. The tears of their departed friends disturb the comfort of the dead, and sometimes they appear to tell those in sorrow that their shrouds are always wet from the tears shed on their graves. Wakened by the dirge of the death-singers, the people rise and pray for the souls of the departed. Divination has little part in the annals of the evening, but one in Fenestor is recorded. Twenty-five new needles are laid in a dish and named, and water is poured upon them. Those who cross our enemies. In France is held a typical continental celebration of all saints and all souls. On October 31st the children go asking for flowers to decorate the graves and to adorn the church. At night bells ring to usher in all saints. On the day itself the churches are decorated gaily with flowers, candles, and banners, and a special service is held. On the second day of November the light and color give way to black draping, funeral songs, and prayers.