Note 952 — Chapter XIV · DOWN UNDER.

That the solar horse was sacred among the Ganganoi of Hibernia is probable, for: “On that great festival of the peasantry, St. John’s Eve, it is the custom, at sunset on that evening, to kindle immense fires throughout the country, built like our bonfires, to a great height, the pile being composed of turf, bogwood, and such other combustibles as they can gather. The turf yields a steady, substantial body of fire, the bogwood a most brilliant flame: and the effect of these great beacons blazing on every hill, sending up volumes of smoke from every part of the horizon, is very remarkable. Early in the evening the peasants began to assemble, all habited in their best array, glowing with health, every countenance full of that sparkling animation and excess of enjoyment that characterise the enthusiastic people of the land. I had never seen anything resembling it: and was exceedingly delighted with their handsome, intelligent, merry faces; the bold bearing of the men, and the playful, but really modest deportment of the maidens; the vivacity of the aged people, and the wild glee of the children. The fire being kindled, a splendid blaze shot up; and for a while they stood contemplating it, with faces strangely disfigured by the peculiar light first emitted when the bogwood is thrown on. After a short pause, the ground was cleared in front of an old blind piper, the very beau-ideal of energy, drollery, and shrewdness, who, seated on a low chair, with a well-plenished jug within his reach, screwed his pipes to the liveliest tunes and the endless jig began.

“But something was to follow that puzzled me not a little. When the fire burned for some hours, and got low, an indispensable part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the peasantry passed through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers; while a wooden frame of some 8 feet long, with a horse’s head fixed to one end, and a large white sheet thrown over it, concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried, made its appearance. This was greeted with loud shouts as the ‘white horse’; and having been safely carried by the skill of its bearer several times through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the people, who ran screaming and laughing in every direction. I asked what the horse was meant for, and was told it represented all cattle.

“Here was the old pagan worship of Baal, if not of Moloch too, carried on openly and universally in the heart of a nominally Christian country, and by millions professing the Christian name! I was confounded; for I did not then know that Popery is only a crafty adaptation of pagan idolatries to its own scheme; and while I looked upon the now wildly excited people, with their children and, in a figure, all their cattle passing again and again through the fire, I almost questioned in my own mind the lawfulness of the spectacle, considered in the light that the Bible must, even to the natural heart, exhibit it in to those who confess the true God.”—Elizabeth, Charlotte, Personal Recollections, quoted from “S. M.” Sketches of Irish History, 1845.