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The accounts given by the Irish newspapers of the extent to which the old superstition of fire-lighting on Midsummer eve still prevails show how slowly the relics of Paganism disappear among country people, and how natural it was that the old idolatries should come at last to be known as the creed of the 'Pagana,' the dwellers in villages. These Midsummer fires, lighted annually on the hills, are simply relics of the worship of Bel. Beltane-day, or Belteine, is still a May-day as well as a Midsummer festival in the more ignorant districts of Scotland as well as of Ireland, and similar superstitious practices are connected with the lighting of the fires; and, what is still more remarkable, the word is still used in some Scotch almanacs as a term well-known to everybody. In a number of the _Scotsman_ a few years ago appeared the announcement that 'On Beltane-day Mr. Robertson was elected convener of the Trades of Cannongate in Edinburgh.' The next year the following is to be found:--'On Beltane-day the weavers, dyers, etc., of the Cannongate re-elected their office bearers.'
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Mr. Henderson, in his
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Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, mentions an instance,
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of
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when,
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Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of Old Cornwall, published in 1865, says that he has been informed
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He afterwards adds:--
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While correcting these sheets I am informed of two recent instances of this superstition. One of them was the sacrifice of a calf by a farmer near Pontreath, for the purpose of removing a disease which had long followed his horses and cows. The other was the burning of a living lamb, to save, as the farmer said, 'his flocks from spells which had been cast on 'em.'
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The Pagan rites of this festival (Midsummer Eve) at the summer solstice may be considered as a counterpart of those used at the winter solstice at Yule-tide. The wheel, the type of the sun, was common to both festivities. Darand describes the practice, at the feast of St. John, of rolling about a wheel,