Chapter V · MODERN CHIPS OF THE OLD BLOCKS. (continued 2)

The Church of Rome pretends to no miracle, when on Easter morning she rekindles the lights on the altar (which had been extinguished on Good Friday) with holy fire brought from the Sistine Chapel, where (according to the rubric) it has been kindled by sparks struck from a stone, in remembrance of Christ 220the Living Corner Stone. Nevertheless it is interesting to notice how very many pagan nations have observed the same custom of once a year extinguishing their holy fire, and then rekindling a new flame. We have already spoken of the practice in Britain and in Persia. We find it also amongst the ancient Peruvians, and the old Romans. The latter, we are told, always renewed the sacred fire of Vesta on the 1st of March.

Very similar is the practice of the modern Sun-worshippers in Chaldea, as described by Layard in his “Nineveh.” He found at Semil a vast concourse of people assembled at a temple known as the temple of Sheikh Shems, that is, the sun, round which pastured a drove of white oxen sacred to the sun, and never slain except at great festivals, when their flesh was given to the poor. As night drew on the priests lighted innumerable lamps, which were suspended from rocks and trees through all the valley, and which glittered from every recess of the dark forest and the mountain side. As they moved to and fro, carrying this sacred fire, the people pressed forward and passed their right hands through the flame, and touched their right eyebrows with the hands thus purified, which they then kissed devoutly. Those who carried children did likewise by them. Thousands of torches were then lighted, gleaming on stream and foliage as the people moved to and fro in the depths of the forest, while from every side rose a pathetic chant, with a melodious flute accompaniment, the effect of which was strangely melancholy and harmonious. This shortly changed into a wild, shrill chorus, accompanied by an insane dance, which was kept up till the worshippers fell exhausted to the ground.

It is from this great Spring Festival that we still retain our poetical name for the eve of May Day, Beltane or Beil-teine, which means Baal’s fire, a name familiar to every Highlander. So late as the beginning of the present century it was customary in some remote corners of the Highlands, especially in Stirlingshire and Perthshire, for the young folk to meet on the moors on the 1st of May, and after cutting a “round table” in the green sod by digging such a trench round it as to allow of their sitting in a great circle, to kindle a fire in the middle, and cook a mess of eggs and milk, which all shared. Then they baked oat cakes, a bit for each person present, and one bit was burnt black. These cakes were shuffled 221in a man’s bonnet, and each person, blindfold, drew one. Whoever got the black bit had to leap three times through the flames. The original meaning of which was that he became a sacrifice to Baal, and, doubtless, in old days was actually offered up; the object being to secure the favour of the Sun-god, and consequently a good harvest. I have been told by several persons that they have found traces of these Beltane circles in quite recent years, so probably the practice is not yet extinct.

The circular trench was of course only another form of the same symbolism as the Druidic stone circles, within which the fires of Baal were continually kept burning. A curious proof of this is the fact, recorded by the late Lady Baird, of Ferntower, in Perthshire, that every year at Beltane a number of men and women assembled at an ancient circle of stones on her property near Crieff, and, having lighted a fire in the centre, as their forefathers had been accustomed to do from time immemorial, proceeded to draw lots for the burnt oat-cake, as described above, he who drew it having straightway to leap through the flames. A strangely unmeaning ceremony if, as some learned men would have us believe, these circles are merely sepulchral, but very suggestive indeed, if we are content to accept the traditions of our fathers of their having been the temples on whose altars unhallowed fire was wont to burn.

In some districts the shepherds varied the Beltane festival. They cut the circular trench and kindled a fire like their neighbours, and after marching thrice deas-sol round the fire, they sat in a great circle and shared the mess of eggs, milk and oatmeal, pouring out part thereof as a libation to the spirits. This done they each took pieces of oat-cake, specially prepared for the occasion, each cake having upon it nine raised knobs of mystic meaning. This they cast into the fire, dedicating it to the eagle, the gled, the weasel, the fox, the brock, and all other baneful creatures, who were thus bribed to spare the flocks. This custom was commonly observed up to the middle of last century, even in civilized Morayshire. When all the eggs were roasted and all the cakes baked, the surplus was carried home, and every man gathered certain herbs, which he tied to his staff, and fastened bunches of the same above his cow-byre to preserve his cattle from all disease until the following May Day. Every cow-herd was bound to wear a sprig of rowan, to keep off the warlocks from 222his charge, and the cattle were considered safe from witches provided there were sprays of rowan (mountain-ash) and honeysuckle in their byre.

I am told that in some parts of Perthshire it is still the custom for the cow-herd of the village to go his rounds on May morning collecting fresh eggs and meal, and then to lead the way to some hill top, where a hole is dug and a fire lighted therein; then lots are cast, and he on whom the lot falls must leap seven times over the fire, while the young folk dance round in a circle. Then they cook their eggs and cakes, and all “sit down to eat and drink and rise up to play.”

On the first Sunday in May, in olden days, the municipal corporations in every town elected an Abbot of Unreason to lead the sports of the people. Prior to the Reformation they acted miracle plays, but afterwards only such lawless and unseemly plays as turned Romanism into ridicule. So these were, after a while, put down. Nevertheless the municipal recognition of the day continued, and in Edinburgh, so late as fifty years ago, the magistrates used to walk down the Canongate in procession on the first Sunday after Beltane, decorated with flowers, and carrying large nosegays. Imagine the feelings of these grave men, if it had occurred to them that they were rejoicing over Bel’s new birth! This old custom has passed away with the mirth of the Maypoles, and now the day is only observed by young folk, who try to be astir, and to climb to some high ground in time to hail the first appearance of the May sun, and bathe their faces in May dew.

Many such walks you and I can remember in the balmy spring mornings, when we used all to be up and gathering the glistening dew-drops by the bonnie burn-side, or from the gossamers on the heathery hill, startling the roe from their sanctuary in the deep fir woods. Then home again in the sunlight, before idler folk were well awake to know what pleasure they had missed. In the middle ages this was the day for the Wapping-shaw, or weapon show, when all the king’s lieges were obliged to repair to the weapon-shawing with their hagbuts, culverins, and other ornaments!

Of the Swiss “Wapping-shaw” we still find a trace at Bürglen, the birthplace of Tell, where a certain meadow has for ages been set apart as the field of council of the men of 223Uri. Here, on the first Sunday in May, they assemble, marching thither in procession, bearing a huge bull’s head. They are accompanied by flags and music, and by ancient Switzers dressed in black and yellow, carrying buffalo horns on poles to represent the arms of the city.

In England, as might be expected from the multitude of their Druidical remains, Cornwall and Devon are the districts where Beltane and its kindred feasts have been most fully retained. And indeed their weird rites would seem strangely in keeping with such scenes of bleak desolation as you may find on Dartmoor, where an irregular ridge of grey granite forms a rocky backbone to the barren moor, studded here and there with enormous blocks, piled together in broken masses, or running up into sharp grey peaks, towering gaunt and grim above the mists and cloud-drift, which float around in ragged shreds.

These peaks are known as Tors. One of them bears the name of Belevor, in perpetual memory of the awful sacrifices once offered to Bel upon its rocky crest. A little further lies Great Mis Tor, especially sacred to Misor, a name under which Astarte, the moon-goddess, was worshipped in Britain. On the summit of this crag there is a singular circular pan excavated in the rock, probably for some sacrificial purpose. It is about three yards in circumference, and eight inches deep. In every direction you stumble on traces of the strange forgotten faith of our forefathers.

The most curious old custom still retained in this neighbourhood occurs in the village of Holne, on Dartmoor; at least, it was kept up so late as 1853, and probably continues to be observed. Before daybreak on May morning all the young men of the village assemble in a field sloping to face the east, where stands a mystic granite pillar (or menhir). Thence they all proceed together to the moor, where they run down a fine young ram, and bringing it in triumph to the pillar, there cut its throat, and roast it whole—skin, wool, and all. At midday they return thither with all the village lassies to celebrate the ram feast, and a grand struggle takes place for a slice of the ram, a taste of which is supposed to bring luck for the year to lad or lass. Then wrestling and other games commence, with abundant cider, and dancing is kept up till midnight. Here again is an obvious trace of oriental practice, a similar festival having been 224observed by the ancient Persians at this season; that is, when the sun entered the sign of Aries. The people sacrificed rams to Genshid, the reformer of their solar year, and in his honour stamped the ram’s head on their coins. Lord Herbert of Cherbury identifies the ram-god with the sun, but adds that his worshippers would not eat mutton!

Perhaps the most graceful May morning custom still lingering in England, is one observed at Oxford, where before daybreak all the choristers and many students ascend Old Magdalen tower, and alternately facing north, south, east and west, greet the rising sun, and all awakening nature, with joyous chants.

Of the old English Maypole and all its accompaniments of mirth and feasting, we surely do not need reminding. Probably it was more nearly akin to the feasts of Flora, as observed by the old Romans on the Kalends of May, than to the fiery sun-festival But it does seem strange to us, who know Cornhill only as a centre of London’s busiest business life to hear of days when the streets were crowded with merry-makers, and gaily dressed maidens and smart ’prentices danced and frolicked, while the gigantic Maypole, adorned with flags and streamers, was dragged by forty oxen, all decked with flowers, through Cornhill to the Church of St. Andrew, Undershaft: so named because of the huge Maypole or shaft, far overtopping the church, which from time immemorial had been there erected. Near this Maypole were erected summer-halls, bowers, and arbours; and feasting and dancing went on all day, till evening drew on, when great bonfires were lighted. Another celebrated London Maypole stood in the Strand, at the entrance of a street formerly known as Little Drury Lane, but which after the days of Cromwell was renamed Maypole Alley. It was a stately mast of cedar-wood, 134 feet long, prepared in the London docks, and carried to the Strand by a detachment of sailors, with bands playing and colours flying, amid the rejoicings of the people. When grave citizens ceased to care for such frivolities, Sir Isaac Newton purchased the spar, and conveyed it to Wanstead in Essex to support a great telescope; and thus the poor old Maypole was forced to lend its aid to solemn science after all, a new phase of homage done to the host of heaven!

In the Isle of Man, the month of May is still called Boabdyn or Baal’s fire, and the custom of bonfires on the Eve of May Day 225is kept up to such an extent “as to give the appearance of a general conflagration, whilst the inhabitants blow horns and hold a kind of jubilee.” Until very recently the Manx used to light two fires near together, and cause their cattle to pass between them, as a protection against murrain. The origin of these fires was of course in honour of Baal.

The same custom prevailed in Ireland up to the tenth century, where May Day is still called La Bealtine, or Latha, which in Celtic means day; and is to be traced in many parts of Germany and Holland, where the Beltane fire festivals are still fully observed. In Scandinavia this night is called Baldersbal or Balder’s-pyre, Balder meaning literally bright-day, and every hill is crested with fire. How Balder is connected with sun-worship I do not know, as he was the god of poetry, son of Odin. He was killed by an arrow made of mistletoe, the only plant which Friga, his mother, had neglected to enlist in her service when she bound all other plants to abstain from harming her son. This insignificant parasite made her pay dear for her contempt, and Scandinavian maids and mothers still gather the mistletoe in sadness of heart.

I am told that the Greeks at Athens still keep May Day according to the old style, on the 13th day of the month, whether with bonfires, I cannot learn. In the centre of the public rooms they hang a circular loaf of bread, with a hollow centre, which is filled with dyed eggs. There (as in all other lands, north, south, east, and west) the children are supplied with the coloured eggs, now generally known as Easter eggs; the ancient emblem of nature’s new life having thus become a Christian symbol of the Resurrection.

This in itself is a very remarkable link between customs old and new. How little our lads and lassies on Highland braes or English downs, dream, as they go out on Easter Monday with their basket of gaily-coloured eggs, dyed with yellow whinblossoms, log-wood, cochineal, or coloured rags, that their playthings are, in fact, the most ancient symbol of a renewed life; and that from the earliest ages the Persians have celebrated the festival of the sun’s new birth, the New Year, by exchanging brilliantly dyed eggs; blue, red, and yellow. The ancient Egyptians also had an egg-feast in honour of the god whom they adored as the Judge of the Dead; and heathen Romans and 226Greeks likewise reverenced this mystic symbol, which their Christian descendants now pass from hand to hand on Easter morning with the greeting “Christ is risen!”

In Germany we find a quaint variety of this custom. The eggs are laid in a nest of moss, and a hare is set on it. The nest being hidden, the children are sent forth to seek the hare’s nest and eggs. Whatever association of ideas there may be between hares and eggs, we find it again recurring in England, for at Coleshill, in Warwickshire, it is supposed that any young man who can catch a hare and bring it to the parson before ten o’clock on Easter Monday may claim in return a gift of a hundred eggs, and a calf’s head for breakfast, besides a silver groat.

We gain a hint of the egg-giving custom in olden days from an entry in the household expenses of Edward I. to the effect that eighteen-pence had been paid for four hundred Easter eggs! They were even introduced by the Jews in some mystic sense, in celebrating the feast of the Passover. From them the custom was adopted by the Greek Church, and in the museum at Lambeth (collected by Tradescant, who was the Dutch gardener of Charles I.) there were exhibited specimens of “The Easter eggs of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem!”

At the present day the Greek Patriarch at Moscow gives gilt or red eggs to all who are presented to kiss his hand on Easter Day. He gives one, two, or three eggs, according to the rank of the recipient. All over Russia the custom prevails; all classes carry eggs, generally coloured red; and the ordinary greeting when two friends meet, is to kiss and exchange eggs, with the salutation ‘Christ is risen;’ the same inscription being written on many of the eggs. These ceremonies are kept up for a term varying from four to fifteen days. At Smyrna too, travellers tell us how at Easter-time they are persecuted by crowds of boys offering coloured eggs for sale.

Thus in France, Italy, Germany, and Russia, the same custom is kept up, with more definite meaning than in this land, where I doubt whether many of our children could explain the name of Pask Eggs (Paschal), which rises so readily to their lips. Certainly our Presbyterian Highlanders have no respect for Easter, yet I have seen children on Speyside dyeing their eggs as eagerly as the little ones on the moors of Northumberland, or in the lowlands of Fife and Stirling, where many a 227kindly cottage wife will offer you a Pask Egg from her bowl of carefully dyed treasures.

It certainly is curious to find this true name for the solemn Paschal feast in such common use, amongst people who have forgotten all reverence for such times and seasons; while we Episcopalians, who so deeply honour this Easter festival, and who would fain associate it only with the traditions of Judea, know it only by a name which, according to the Venerable Bede, is derived from that of Eastre, a Saxon goddess whose feast was celebrated at this season. How the popular name came to be so widely known in this northern land is a question of some interest—a trace perhaps of an earlier Christian teaching, which had not deemed it expedient to borrow names from Saxon mythology. That this goddess claimed the service of fire we may infer from an ancient entry in the disbursements of an old London church, St. Mary-at-Hill, where sixpence is charged for a quarter of coles for the hallowed fire on Easter Eve. In later years great Paschal tapers weighing 300 lb. were adopted in lieu of the bonfires.

The next great Fire festival was on what we now call the Eve of St. John, or Midsummer’s-eve, when the sun had run half his course. At the present time this is especially observed on the shores of the Baltic—in Prussia, Lithuania, and the lands adjacent. Indeed the name of the Baltic, and of many Scandinavian places, still point to the old worship. Lamartine alludes to the ceremonies of this night as now practised in the French Alps. He tells how the peasants have processions, and carry lighted torches of pine-wood and straw. Should they wish especial luck to any young couple, they march round them in a circle, just as the islanders of the West used to do.

Doubtless similar traces of old customs might still be found in the highlands of Auvergne, once the stronghold of Druidism, and the province of all others where Paganism longest reigned in France. Here we are told that idolatrous worship lingered till very recent times; and though the council of Clermont fulminated anathemas against those who worshipped stones—who carried the Eucharist to the graves, or who ate meats offered to devils—still the old rites went on. So that a May-day or a Midsummer’s-eve in Auvergne might still afford us some specimens of Christianised heathendom.

228But with equal right may we seek traces of the old Paganism on the shores of Armorica—inasmuch as both in Brittany, and more especially in Finisterre, the people clung to their ancient worship with such tenacity, that beyond the mere fact of baptism, they could hardly, two hundred years ago, be called Christians at all; but continued to worship, as their fathers had done before them, amid the huge ghostly temples which still abound in all that district. Thus we hear of zealous priests going forth in the seventeenth century as Missionaries to preach Christianity to the people of Finisterre as almost a new faith. Even then Church Councils vainly strove to stop the pilgrimages to these Druidic circles.

At the present day they blend, with picturesque effect, in various scenes of peasant life. Thus, on Midsummer’s-eve, all the lads and lassies in Brittany assemble at divers groups of old weather-beaten stones. The lads wear green corn, the girls a bunch of flax, with blue blossoms. They lay their corn and flax on the great grey stones, and dance round them till sunset. Then, according as they find their flowers fresh or withered, they read the fate of their love; and return home, each lad leading his lass by one finger. As the darkness closes in, bonfires are lighted on every hill-top, lighting up all the land with their red glow, and the young people dance wildly round them, hurrying from one bonfire to the next; for all manner of luck in love and life attends those who have danced round nine fires before midnight.

In Sardinia, on this night, the people light great bonfires in their villages and at every cross-road. Men make compacts one with another by passing their hands three times through the flames while grasping a stick. Moreover, they cause their children to leap through the flames, just as their Phœnician ancestors doubtless did in bygone ages. They then go in procession to a church, near which they sit in a circle, and feast on eggs fried with divers herbs. In Southern Germany this night is known as Johannisfeuer; but further north, the principal observance is of Osterfeuer, now celebrated as Easter, though originally held on May-day; our Beltane being there known as Walpurgis-nacht—the night of the witches’ revel—when the depths of the Black Forest and the wild caverns of the Harz Mountains re-echoed the shouts of their orgies.

229Beltane, Candlemas, and Hallow-e’en were the three great days in all witch-lore. For, although every Saturday was a witches’ sabbath, when they held orgies with the devil, their master, near some ruined church, yet these were their chief days of gathering, when all witches from all countries were bound to be present. Those who dwelt in distant lands came across the sea in egg-shells, while those whose homes were within driving distance merely ordered their brooms; and this is the reason why all right-minded people break their egg-shell when they have emptied it, lest the witches should enter therein, and, raising terrible storms, should wreck poor mariners—a danger much dreaded by the wise old Romans. These, then, were the seasons when there was mischief in the wind, and the sons of men needed to guard themselves and their goods against all crafty attacks from the powers of the air. St. John’s-eve seems to have been celebrated in much the same way all over Europe. It seems to have been customary in all towns, Paris and Metz especially, to kindle fires in the market-place. These were sometimes blessed by the parish priest, who offered a prayer in the name of St. John—thus adapting the old heathen festival to Christian use. The young people then leaped over the flames, and threw flowers and garlands into them, singing, shouting, and dancing merrily. Even the great folk sometimes joined in the old games.

In Paris a barbarous custom was long observed on this night, and it was said to be still practised in various French towns in the year 1830, when the mayor put a number of live cats—a dozen or more—into a large wicker-basket, which was thrown into one of the bonfires. This, and the great figures of wickerwork and canvas, which are, or were, annually made at Douay and Dunkirk, and moved about by men concealed within them, are obviously traceable to that colossal figure of which Cæsar, Strabo, and Pliny have left descriptions—a huge image of straw and wicker, containing fuel, live sheep, other animals, and sometimes human victims, which was cast by the Druids into a great sacrificial fire amid the shouts of the people and the noise of unmusical instruments.

In Florence, and other Italian cities, the Midsummer-eve bonfires are, I believe, still kept up as cheerily as of yore. Some 230quaint old lines by Googe describe how this festival was celebrated in Britain:—

“Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne,

When bonfires great, with loftie flame, in every town doe borne;

And young men round about, with maids, do dance in every street,

With garlands wrought of motherwort, or else with vervain sweete,” &c.

The gathering of the vervaine, or wild verbena, seems to have been as solemn a mystery as that of the mistletoe itself. He who found it, must draw a circle round it, and approach it cautiously and secretly. Then, suddenly plucking it up by the roots, must throw it up in the air, and straightway make an oblation of money to the earth in atonement for the theft of an herb so precious. Its leaves sprinkled on the floor before a feast were supposed to be conducive to mirth; and as a medicine, it healed both bodily and mental diseases, even reconciling the most bitter foes. We are told that the old Roman heralds always carried a bunch of this peace-making herb when sent on any embassy, and that the Greeks and various Eastern nations employed it in the service of their gods.

In Scotland the Midsummer’s-eve Festival was observed till very recent times. It was customary to kindle great bonfires near the corn-fields, and then make the Deus Sol round the fields, with burning torches, to secure a blessing on the crops. Shaw mentions having frequently seen this done both in Moray and in the Lowlands in the middle of the last century. In Cornwall also the feast was till quite lately celebrated in various villages, and in all probability is still kept up. Great bonfires blazed, and torchlight processions marched sunwise round the fires and round the village.

In Ireland too this night was long considered an occasion for rejoicing; and so late as 1795 a gentleman writes from Dublin to one of the magazines, describing “the lighting of the fires at midnight in honour of the sun; the clamours, and other ceremonies, such as strewing the streets with divers herbs.” Charlotte Elizabeth, describing the huge bonfires in Ireland, and the scenes she herself witnessed, tells how the people all danced everlasting jigs to the music of the pipes. This lasted some hours. Then, when the fire burnt low, every one present passed through the fire, and children were thrown across the glowing embers. Lord John Scott, speaking of the same 231festival, says he has seen parents force unwilling children to pass through these purifying Baal fires! Strange, is it not? to find still lingering in Britain so exact a counterpart of the great annual festival held in the Deccan, when (as described by Sir Bartle Frere) huge fires were lighted, through which devotees ran or jumped. I believe that this practice is now prohibited, together with divers forms of self-torture; but, of course, it is still practised in secret, and I myself saw an instance of it in one of the temples at Benares.

Presumptuous as it may seem to hazard ever so vague a guess at the origin of any Masonic customs, it is hardly possible to hear of the celebrations of St. John’s-eve at some of the Scotch lodges without a vision of Deisul and Fire Worship rising to the mind. Take such an account as that given by Wade of the customs at Melrose, where, after electing office-bearers for the coming year, “the brethren walk in procession three times round the market-cross. After dinner they again turn out, walking two abreast, each bearing a lighted torch. Preceded by their banners, the procession again walks three times round the cross, and then proceeds to the abbey, round which it slowly marches thrice, making a complete circuit of the building.” The effect of the mystic torch-lit procession, threading its way through the dark masses of shadow cast by clustering pillars and dreamy aisles, must be eerie enough to satisfy the ghosts of the old Druids; but when at last the procession draws up in a semi-circle round the high altar, where lies the heart of the Bruce, suddenly the grey ruins stand clearly revealed in the cold glare of blue lights, and of such flashing fire-works as would have seemed to our forefathers to betoken some awesome dealings with the meteors and planet-worlds!

Perhaps the most interesting trace that still remains to us of this Midsummer homage to the sun is a custom which, for ages unknown, has been observed at Stonehenge, and which acquires double importance in these days, when this, and all kindred buildings, are set down as being either merely sepulchral, or else memorials of old battles. Mr. Wm. Beck writes, that every year, on 21st June, a number of people assemble on Salisbury Plain at 3 A.M., in the chill of early dawn, and make for the circles of Stonehenge, from the centre of which, looking north-east, a block of stone, set at some distance from the ruin, is so seen that its 232top coincides with the line of the horizon, and if no mist prevail, the sun as it rises on this, the longest day of the year, will be seen coming up exactly over the centre of the stone, known from this circumstance as the Pointer. Mr. Beck has himself repeatedly witnessed this interesting proof of the solar arrangement of the circles of Stonehenge; has watched the sun thus come up over the Pointer and strike its first ray through the central entrance to the so-called altar-stone of the ruin. He points out how this same huge stone is set at such an angle that at noon it marks the shadow like the gnomon of a sun-dial.

In Yorkshire also some of the old customs still linger. I believe that at Brimham Crags, near Harrogate, the Midsummer-eve bonfires still blaze as they have done from time immemorial. It is a rocky hillside, covered with Druidical remains, and was one of the great strongholds of the old faith. Its name is said to be a contraction of Beth-Rimmon, under which name the ancient Irish worshipped the sun, moon, and stars collectively. If this be so, there may be some foundation for the identification of this worship with that of Rimmon the god of Damascus, in whose temple Naaman the Syrian craved permission to attend the king, his master.

That the Bel of the Druids was identical both with Baal and the Molech of the Ammonites—

“For whom the race of Israel oft forsook

Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left His righteous altar”—

is evident, from every allusion in Holy Scripture to the idolatries of the Jews; of whom we are told again and again how they made groves, and set up images under every green tree and on every high hill, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal, or reared up altars for Baal. Also how they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination, and enchantments, and witchcraft, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards; and how, even in the Temple of the Most High, men knelt between the porch and the altar, with their back toward the Temple of the Lord, the Sun of Righteousness, and their faces towards the east, and worshipped, the sun toward the east.^[39]

On the other hand, the reverence with which the holy fire 233was guarded in this and many other lands seems almost like a tradition of the worship of Israel, of that altar of the Most High, whereon the fire was, by divine command, to be kept “for ever burning,” never to be put out, or suffered to go out. It was carelessness concerning this sacred flame which cost the sons of Aaron so dear, when they ventured to offer incense before the Lord with strange fire, which He commanded them not, so that there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them.^[40]

In like manner the precious oil, with which it is recorded that the Celts, like Hindoos of the present day, anointed their sacred stones, suggests a parallel not only to the old custom which prompted Jacob to pour oil upon the stones at Bethel, but also to that holy oil which, by the Levitical law, it was death for any Israelite to compound for his own use, as “a perfume, to smell thereto,”^[41] but which was to be kept exclusively as a holy anointing oil, wherewith to anoint the Tabernacle and all sacred vessels.

In truth, nothing is more strange in the traces of these divers faiths than to note how closely the false and those which we deem true seem sometimes to assimilate their ceremonies and their symbols, blending and intertwining till the mind becomes well-nigh bewildered in the attempt to separate them. For it is not as though the old idolatries, having once diverged from the clear stream of truth into a polluted channel of their own, were thenceforth a thing apart. On the contrary, the very same outward and visible signs which to the people were one day types of an abhorrent creed, had but to be invested with some new meaning to become at once emblematic of all that was most pure and holy. Thus when Elijah desired to prove to the worshippers of Baal the supreme Divinity of his Master, the test he chose was that which most directly appealed to their reverence. “The God that answereth by fire, let Him be God,” and the shouts of the people proclaimed that henceforth the very element that they had held in deepest awe as the representative of Baal was once more acknowledged as the type of One stronger than he. Again, the Israelites had scarce forsaken the land of Egypt, among whose many abominations the worship of living serpents ranked foremost, when, in the hands of Moses, and by Divine appointment, the Brazen Serpent became a 234type of life to be held in such reverence as, ere long, led to a relapse into the old idolatry. And in later ages it was when idolatrous systems of dove-worship and fire-worship prevailed in diverse lands, that the mystic dove, and the cloven tongues came down from heaven, thenceforth becoming to all Christian people the very types of all they deem most sacred.

The next great Fire Festival in Britain seems to have occurred on the 1st November, when all fires, save those of the Druids, were extinguished, and from whose altars only the holy fire must be purchased by all householders for a certain price. Terrible penalties were in store for any rash person who dared to kindle a flame from any other source. This sacred fire was fed with the peeled wood of a certain tree, and must never be blown with the breath lest it should be polluted. Precisely similar is the custom which prevails among the Guebres and Parsees of the present day. All fires being allowed to die out, each family must procure sacred fire from the temples, wherewith to rekindle the domestic hearth. In the Talmud it is stated that the Israelites who were captives in Persia adopted this practice.

The festival is still known in Ireland as Samhein or La Samon, i.e., the Feast of the Sun; and on the eve of the 1st of November all manner of old games and customs are still observed just as fully as in Scotland, where, however, though All Saints’ Day is a thing forgotten, the heathen festival has assumed the name of Hallow-e’en.

Of the countless varieties of Hallow-e’en games, it would be superfluous to write, as they are so well known. Only it is curious to notice that they all retain some trace of old practices of divination. First, the mystic apple comes into play—the apple that so often appears in Celtic fairy lore. These swim in water, and each person in turn must catch one in his mouth. The apple when caught must be carefully peeled, and the long strip of peel passed thrice, sunwise, round the head, and thrown over the shoulder, when it will fall in the form of the true love’s initial-letter. Then advancing to a mirror, without looking back, a face will presently be therein reflected, looking over the shoulder, and it needs good nerve to resist looking round. This too is a relic of that form of divination with mirrors which was condemned as sorcery by the popes of old. 235Hence we find hand-mirrors among the emblems sculptured on the stones of Pagan Scotland. Next, each alone must go to the kail-yard to pull up a cabbage-stalk, which symbolises the form and character of the favoured lover. Thence passing on to the peat-stack, still alone, and never looking back, each must walk round it thrice sunwise, and at the end of the third turn some one will appear as in a vision. Another means to the same desirable end is to go alone to a stream of running water, and therein plunge the arm thrice, so deep as to wet the sark-sleeve. Mystic words must be repeated while so doing, but no other sound may be uttered, either in going or returning.

In Strathspey, a favourite game is the expedition to the kiln for drying corn, which is attached to every farm of any consequence. Each lass must steal away by turn from the kitchen fire, and going alone to the kiln, must throw a ball of worsted into the empty furnace, and slowly wind it up, saying certain words. It is supposed that some one will take hold of the end of the worsted, and appear to her in the form of her future lover. She must not speak, either going or coming.

Formerly, every farm over the length and breadth of the land had its Hallow-e’en bonfire, which was often surrounded by a circular trench, symbolical of the sun.

These fires are in many districts nearly burnt out, but it is not many years since Sheriff Barclay says he could count thirty fires blazing on the hill-tops between Dunkeld and Aberfeldy, and could discern the weird figures of the people dancing round them, while the faint echoes of their choruses gave a still more unearthly feeling to the midnight. In the neighbourhood of Crieff, also in Perthshire, the balefires, as the people call them, still blaze as brightly as ever, as we have had full opportunity of observing in the course of long twilight drives, when it seemed as if every cottage we passed had its little bonfire for the children; while later in the evening larger fires were lighted by their elders, and kept up till midnight. We saw groups of dark figures dancing round the fires; the principal refreshment consisting of milk, thickened with oatmeal. Here, as in the northern counties, especially in Banff and Aberdeenshire, all rejoicings are deferred till the 11th November; that is Hallow-e’en old style. Sometimes, when the bonfire begins to burn low, a circle of stones is placed round 236it; one to represent each person present. Should any stone be moved before morning, it is a token of evil to that person. He is said to be fey, and his death within the year is considered probable.

The night of the 1st of November, Christianised as the Eve of All Souls, was especially sacred to Samhan, who merely represented the sun in another character. It was a night for special intercession by the living for the souls of those who had died in the preceding year. For the office of Samhan was to judge these souls, and either award them their place of reward or of punishment. He was also called Bal Sab, or the Lord of Death. In this character he seems to have been a kindlier master than when at Beltane he claimed sacrifices of blood. At this harvest festival he only needed offerings of the fruits of the earth; and his name, Samhein or Samtheine, denotes peace-fire. It is probable that Saint Samthena, whose day is still marked in the Romish calendar, was in some way connected with this festival.

On the 25th December, when the shortest day was past, the great winter festival called Yule was celebrated, to mark the turn of the year—the sun’s new birth. It was a day of solemn worship and a night of feasting. Fires blazed on every hill, which were rekindled on the twelfth night subsequent to Yule. All manner of sacred plants were cut—more especially the ivy and mistletoe. It has been suggested that in olden days a kiss of peace was probably part of the ceremonial, and the origin of the well-known kiss under the mistletoe, which in later years has led to its prohibition in church decorations; though it is certain that till the middle of last century it retained its place of honour as the chief decoration on the altar of York Minster.

From the day answering to this 25th December, the ancient Hindus also reckoned the beginning of their new year, distinguishing the day as “the morning of the gods.” How the seasons of their year were made to balance, is a standing mystery; for we know that, like the Druids of the West, they reckoned by lunar years of 360 days.

On this night the Persians from time immemorial celebrated the birth of their god, Mithra, the sun, whom they also worshipped under the name Tseur, or Saviour, because of his saving them from the empire of Ahriman, the power of darkness. 237(Hence, it is said, the name of the ancient Druidic city of Tseur in Yorkshire, now called Aldborough.) The Persian festival of the New Year is known as the Naurutz; the Shah and all the court wait in solemn silence till the astrologers announce that the sun has reached the equator, whereupon there follows a burst of music, and the city is given up to rejoicing and mirth. Amongst other games peculiar to this day, both among Persians and Arabs, is one known as the game of the Beardless Rider, when men, hideously disguised and painted, ride through the city on asses, playing all manner of whimsical pranks, and going from door to door, followed by an admiring multitude, to solicit small gifts. The custom answers precisely to that of “guizarding,” still practised in various parts of Scotland, and known in England as mumming and morris dancing.

Not alone in Persia was this day held in honour. In ancient Babylon it was sacred to Rhea and Nin, the latter being the child of the sun, born of a human mother. That mother was Semiramis the Great Queen, who, doubtless well aware of the tradition that of the seed of a woman should be born the promised Messiah, chose to assume the title of Spouse of the Sun and Queen of Heaven; and taught the people to reverence her son accordingly. Hence that worship of a mother and child which spread from Chaldea to so many other lands, and which so amazed the Jesuit missionaries, who first penetrated to India and China, and there, in heathen temples, found images apparently representing the Madonna of their own faith.

It is said that in Etruria, Gaul, and even Britain, a similar form of worship was observed on this birthnight, and that the goddess of the year was represented as nursing the infant god of day.

When the earlier teachers of Christianity found themselves unable to abolish times and ceremonies so widely observed, and with so great a hold on the faith of the people, it seems to have been judged expedient to engraft the great Christian festival on that already established without too rigid an attempt to alter external customs. There is no doubt that this day first began to be observed as that of our Lord’s nativity, about the middle of the fourth century, under the Roman Bishop Liberius, and was not adopted by the Eastern Church till somewhat later. St. Chrysostom, in preaching at Antioch A.D. 386, speaks of it as having been 238first observed in that city about ten years previously. Had the feast been of certain date, it would be very strange that the city in which the disciples first received the name of Christians, should have been so tardy in making it a day of annual rejoicing. St. Augustine also admits that the observance of this feast, now so dear to every Christian heart, was neither sanctioned by any great council nor derived from apostolic usage. In fact it was never mentioned by any of the ante-Nicene Fathers, even while enumerating the other festivals of the Church.

It does seem strange, indeed, that the early Christians should have retained no definite tradition of the exact date of the Nativity. Indeed there is the greatest possible doubt when any feast commemorating it was instituted. Some believe it to be traceable to the first century, but the first certain information we have respecting it was its being sanctioned as a Church Festival by Pope Telesphorus about A.D. 137. We next hear of it in the persecutions under Diocletian, who burnt a church full of Christians while they were celebrating this feast. But though the observance of a birthday festival gradually spread, every branch of the Christian Church selected whatever day seemed best in its own eyes, and such was the diversity of opinion on this subject that we are told that no less than 136 different days in the year have been fixed on for Christmas-day by various Christian sects and learned men. They have been summed up as follows: “The Egyptian Christians said the right season was in January. Wagenseil thought February or August, but inclined to the latter. Bochart was for March. Some, mentioned by Clemens Alexandrinus, placed it in April, and others in May. Epiphanius mentions two sects, one fixing it in June, the other in July. Lightfoot says September 15th. Scaliger, Casaubon and Calvisius are for October. Several others put it in November. The Latin Church decided on December 25th, which is the day now universally recognised by Christendom. This was decreed by Pope Julius I. A.D. 337, and he fixed it on the same day that the ancient Romans celebrated the feast of their goddess Bruma, a festival much observed by the heathen in the winter solstice.” It would, however, appear as if December could lay even less claim to this honour than most of the other months suggested, inasmuch as the rainy season in Judea being then at its height, the shepherds 239would probably betake them to their homes rather than watch all night in the open fields. Nevertheless, in the absence of a certain date, the selection of one particular day was a mere matter of expediency. Neander and others, writing on this subject, observe that precisely at this season of the year, a series of heathen festivals occurred so closely interwoven with the whole civil and social life, that it was impossible to wean the people from them. First came the Saturnalia, the maddest, merriest day of the year. Then the custom of making presents (the Strenæ), followed by the festival of infants, when the little ones received gifts of images. Next the birthday of the New Sun. Therefore it was advisable to draw the Christians away from sharing in the revelries of their Pagan neighbours, by substituting some legitimate cause of rejoicing, and what more natural than the birth of Christ, the Spiritual Sun appearing to dispel the powers of darkness and to be Himself the Light of the world?

A feast so reasonable found ready acceptance, though it was long ere the churches agreed on which day it should be celebrated; those of the east still preferring to observe it on the 6th January, which had there already been adopted as the Feast of the Epiphany. It was not till the sixth century that anything like unanimity prevailed on the subject, between the Eastern and Western Churches, and that all acknowledged the wisdom of substituting a series of Christian feast-days, for those heathen merry-makings which the converts were called on to abjure. Nevertheless the universal feasting was still liable to abuse, and too often degenerated into mere revelry and drunkenness; puppet shows and miracle plays were devised to replace the idol worship of the temples, and pagan superstition and excess still continued to reign under a new and more sacred name. Yule having thus been deposed in favour of Christmas, it followed as a matter of course that the Midsummer Festival, just six months earlier, must represent the nativity of St. John the Baptist. Thus two of the principal Pagan festivals were at once utilized, and the bonfires, the exchange of gifts, the cutting of evergreens, and the feasting were endowed with new meaning, and so continue to this day; though the wild rejoicings of Yule have resolved themselves into more sober Christmas mirth.

240Do you remember Scott’s lines on this subject?

“Heap on more wood, the wind is chill,

But let it whistle as it will.

We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.

Each age has deemed the new-born year

The fittest time for festal cheer.

E’en heathen yet, the savage Dane,

At Jol more deep the mead did drain;

High on the beach his galleys drew,

And feasted all his pirate crew.

Then in his low and pine-built hall,

Where shields and axes deck the wall,

They gorged upon the half-dressed cheer,

Caroused in seas of sable beer,

While round in brutal jest were thrown,

The half-gnawed rib, the marrow-bone.”

Our brewers can tell how well our Christmas ales keep up their demand, though Thor no longer claims his libations. As to the crescent-shaped cakes, which on this night were baked in honour of Astarte, queen of heaven, they have long since been rounded at the ends, to give them somewhat the form of a cradle.

The mistletoe of the Druids, and the Yule-log which once blazed in honour of Odin and Thor, still hold their honoured place, and until very recent times, the charred remains of the log of one year, were preserved carefully until the following Yule, when they served to light the new log; their presence in the house, being a safeguard against fire. A monstrous candle called the Yule candle was also lighted, and was expected to burn for twelve nights. Hence the Twelfth Night, so dear to the little ones; a day of Pagan rejoicing, exactly corresponding with the Feast of the Epiphany,—the manifestation of Christ as “the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Whether this heathen festival was in the first instance purposely utilized by the Christian Church, does not appear, nor indeed whether it existed in those eastern lands where the Epiphany was first observed. One of its customs, however, as described by St. Chrysostom is curiously akin to one practised among the worshippers of the sun. He says that in memory of our Saviour’s baptism in water, the people did on this day carry home water at midnight from the church, and lay it up, where it would remain for several years as fresh and uncorrupt, as though it 241had just been drawn from some clear fountain. One of the most ancient practices of the priests of the sun in Ceylon, and still continued by their successors, was on the morning of the New Year to draw water from the river, just as the sun’s first ray lighted thereon, and in like manner to store it up as a thing most precious, and incapable of pollution.

Of the Pagan observance of Twelfth Night in this country, the latest trace lingered in Gloucestershire, where it was the common custom in the last century, for all the servants of each farm to assemble in one of the fields sown with wheat, and to make twelve small bonfires in a row, the twelfth being larger than the rest in honour of the Twelfth Night. Round this they gathered in a circle, and drank cider, returning home to feast on cakes and ale. This method of preserving the crops from all manner of evil, seems to have lingered in the parish of Pountley till very recent days, and certainly affords a clear proof of the origin of the festival.

There seems also no doubt that the Christmas-tree of Germany, now so common among ourselves, was also a relic of old idolatry; of that tree-worship common all over the world, which has ever reverenced special trees as the chosen abode of some Divinity. It is said that the custom of always using a fir-tree for this purpose, is traceable to very remote days, when the Chaldeans worshipped their new-born god, under this symbol, as Baal-bereth or berith, i.e. lord of the fir-tree, or lord of the covenant, a sort of priestly pun to conceal the higher meaning from the populace.

On Yule morning, offerings of oatmeal and of various grains were made to Hulda, the Divine Mother, to induce her to send abundant crops; and the people feasted together. Hence the bowls of furmety or sowans, alias sour gruel, which in our childhood we always shared in the early Christmas morning. Hence too the custom of all the lads and lassies going from farm to farm, each carrying their own bowl and spoon, to share the brew of each gude-wife. Probably it was also in her honour that those curious “Yule doughs” originated, still common in the north of England, where many a time we have assisted at the manufacture and baking of wonderful dolls, adorned with currants. Dolls masculine and dolls feminine, to be duly distributed as sweethearts to every lad and lass in the house—and 242many such have we received as offerings from the cottage wives. Curiously enough, the same custom exists in New Granada, where on New Year’s morning the native inhabitants assemble in their temples, and the priests distribute to each worshipper a figure made of flour of maize, which is to be eaten as a charm. The first month of their year is called “The month of the ears of maize.”

Thus in our Christmas rejoicings we trace a strange combination of Druidical rules, with German and Scandinavian customs, together with those of the grim old Saxons. Nor has the Saturnalia of the Romans failed to leave its mark. It is to such blending of divers creeds that Dr. John Henry Newman refers when he tells us that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred to it the outward vestments to which they had been accustomed in their own ceremonies. “The use of temples, and those dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps and candles; holy water; asylums; holy days and seasons; the use of calenders, processions, blessing on the fields; sacerdotal vestments; the tonsure; the ring in marriage; turning to the east; images; ... are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church.”

The name of Yule is said to be derived from the Arabic “Yul,” the day of (the Sun’s) revolution. The Norse Yol and the Icelandic Hoil bear much the same meaning, and here we have the very name, Heul, under which the Celts worshipped Helios the Sun-god; the Heli of the ancient Sanscrit. The word Heul is still retained in Cornwall, while on the opposite shores of Brittany it becomes Heol. In Frisian Yule means a wheel, as does also the Gothic Giul, and the word would naturally mark the turning point of the year. Hence our English word while; Gothic hucila, to express the wheeling, or revolution of time. It is said that on the old Clog Almanacks, Yule tide is simply marked by a rude wheel. This being the case, it is curious that the French word Noel should be so generally referred to a Latin derivation (from natalis). Is it not more probable that like the Irish Nolagh, the Gaelic Nollig, the Cornish Nadelig, it may rather be traced to the old Chaldee Sun-worship; to such a word as Noulad, to be born; or Naugol, to be rolled along; and may, in some remote age, have 243been brought to our shores by those same Phœnicians whose sun temples remain to this day? Not only is this view corroborated by the common use of the word Noel, Noel! as a shout of greeting from the populace, when processions, or great men, passed by, but it is also noteworthy that the term Noel and its symbolic wheel, were not in olden time applied exclusively to the winter festival, but were used with reference to divers other periods in the revolution of the great Wheel of Light, or as it is called in the Edda, the fair and shining Wheel.

Hence, so late as the year 1823 we find rolling a fire wheel (an obvious relic of sun-worship), mentioned among the common sports of Midsummer’s Eve, among the villagers of Konz on the Moselle, and at Trier; where it was customary to take a great wheel wrapped in straw to the top of a hill, where it was set on fire, and made to roll down, flaming all the way; and if it reached the Moselle before the flames were extinct, it betokened a good harvest, and filled the people with gladness.

Even among ourselves, a trace of this Wheel-emblem exists in one of the common sports of Beltane, when smooth circular cakes, or bannocks, of divers sizes, are carried up a grassy hill and thence rolled down. They must be made very smooth and flat at the edge, like the tire of a wheel, so as to run readily. The Badnock-Brae at Grantown is a gathering point well known to all the young folk of Strathspey, who from their infancy have assembled there on May morning to roll their bannocks, and their hard-boiled eggs.

Among the New Year’s-eve customs in Hamburg and other parts of Germany is one which savours of the old divination by fire. Like the Hindu maidens at the Ganges, each person anxious to know his fate, or that of his friend, places a tiny light in a walnut shell, which is set floating in a flat dish full of water. Should the light go out within a certain time, sore trouble will come within the year, probably death.

In Sweden, fire and light constitute the Jul decoration of the churches, which are all illuminated; the pillars are wreathed with candles, the galleries are adorned with double rows of them, the pulpit and the altar alike glow with light, and in short the whole church is decked with lighted candles just as ours are with evergreens. In the country districts where old fashions most prevail, every window of every house, however 244poor, displays a lighted candle in early dawn of Jul morning, while long before daybreak the people pour into the churches for the Jul-Otta or morning song, many of them sledging twenty miles and back in the chilly night to be present at the service, and invariably bringing their children, to secure various phases of good luck supposed to be then bestowed on them. The farmers especially are careful to be present at a festival, which secures a blessing on their harvest. Then all the sledging parties dash home again, blowing horns as they go. Then follows the mirth of the Jul-bord, the consumption of the Jul-cakes, the distribution of Jul-gifts. Nor are the inferior creatures forgotten in the rejoicings. All the farm animals receive a double portion of food, and a sheaf of unthreshed corn is hung upon a high pole as a Jul feast for the famishing birds. This yule sheaf is always laid up unthreshed at harvest time, and any hard farmer who might grudge the birds their offering would assuredly pay dear for his churlishness in the failure of the next crop.

In Scotland and the northern counties of England the Midwinter festivities are divided been Yule and New Year’s-eve, or Hogmanay as the people call it; a name whose origin, like that of some of its customs, seem lost in the mist of ages. Chambers suggests two derivations as equally plausible, one the Scandinavian term Hogenat, the eve of Yule, when various animals were slaughtered for sacrifice and for feast (hogg meaning, to kill), or failing this, it might be traced to “Au qui menez” (lead on to the mistletoe), of course referring to Druidical custom. Be this as it may, the word is in the mouth of every child who comes to the door, demanding the customary gift of oat-cake; as also of the mummers or guisers who go from house to house dressed up and singing. In many cases they still take the old turn round the house to bring it luck.

There is a further division of the winter festivals, by the partial adoption of New Style in reckoning. Thus just as one half of the people keep Halloween on the last night of October, and the others observe the 11th of November, so with the New Year. This is especially remarkable on the Inverness and Ross-shire coasts, which face one another, on either side of the Beauly Firth. Long before sunrise on the first of January, the Inverness hills are crowned with bonfires, and when they burn low, the 245lads and lassies dance round them, and trample out the dying embers. The opposite coast shows no such fires till the morning of the New Year, Old Style, when it likewise awakens before daybreak to greet the rising sun. One curious old custom is still observed in our good town of Burghead (on the Moray Firth). It is called the burning of the Clavic. Its meaning and its origin are alike unknown—but from time immemorial the fisher folk and seamen, have, on this Yule night, reckoned according to Old Style, assembled at the west side of the town, carrying an old tar barrel and other combustible materials. This barrel being sawn in two, the lower half is nailed into a long spoke of firewood, which acts as a handle. This nail must not be struck by a hammer, but is driven in with a stone. The half-barrel is next filled with dry wood, saturated with tar, and built up like a pyramid, leaving only a hollow to receive a burning peat, for no modern lucifer match may be applied, and a final libation of tar completes the Clavic, which is shouldered by one of the lads, quite regardless of the streams of boiling tar which of course trickle all down his back; should he stumble or fall, the omen would be held unlucky indeed, both to the town and to himself. When weary of his burden, a second is ready to fill the honoured post, and then a third and a fourth, till the Clavic has made the circuit of the town, when it is carried to a hillock, called the Doorie, where a hollowed stone receives the fir spoke. Fresh fuel is added, and in olden days, the blaze continued all night, and at last was allowed to burn itself out untouched. Now, after a short interval, the Clavic is thrown down the western side of the hill, and a desperate scramble ensues for the burning brands, the possession of which is accounted to bring good luck, and the embers are carried home, and carefully preserved till the following year, as a safeguard against all manner of evil. In bygone times it was thought necessary that one man should carry it right round the town, so the strongest was selected to bear this weighty honour. Moreover it was customary to carry the Clavic round every ship in the harbour, a part of the ceremony which has latterly been discontinued. Last year, however, the Clavic was duly carried to one vessel, just ready for sea. Handsful of grain were thrown upon her deck, and amid a shower of fire-water, she received the suggestive name of the “Doorie.” The modern part of the town is not included 246in the circuit, only the old town is thus encompassed, if we may in all reverence borrow the expression from the grand old Hebrew Prophets, by a protecting wall of fire. Round this town of Burghead, are certain green hillocks known as the Bailies. Doubtless they also bear witness to the balefires which once crowned them.

The only other place where I can hear of any custom akin to this burning of the Clavic, is at Logierait, in Perthshire, where certainly till late years (probably even to this day) the young men assembled on Hallow-e’en, and made great torches of faggots, by binding broom, flax, and heather on a pole. This being kindled, is, or was, carried on the shoulders of a strong lad, who runs round the village, followed by all the crowd; and as fast as one faggot burns out, a second is kindled. Sometimes several are lighted simultaneously. Pennant describes the same ceremony as one of the regular institutions of Hallow-e’en a hundred years ago, and says that when the faggot had been thus carried round the village, its embers were used to kindle a great bonfire. This custom, says Borlase, was forbidden by the Gallic Councils, and all concerned were held to be as guilty as though they had actually sacrificed to devils.

How strangely all these traces of old days bring to our very doors that stubborn idolatry at which we so often marvel in reading the history of the Israelites. Here, in our own land, we find our forefathers constantly practising the same rites which were so solemnly prohibited upwards of three thousand years ago; so that as we read the sacred records of those old days, we almost seem to have stumbled on a history of our heathen ancestors. There is just the same gradual departure from a pure monotheism to the worship of many gods; so that the people who once had worshipped one only Lord, began to burn incense in high places, and on the hills, to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the planets, and to all the host of heaven, which they loved. They worshipped Ashtaroth, and set up graven images in her honour under every green tree. They planted groves; they assembled beneath the oaks to burn incense to her as the queen of heaven. The children gathered wood, the fathers kindled a fire, and the women kneaded their dough to make cakes in her honour; probably just such crescent-shaped cakes as the women of Britain were wont to bake for her. Then they worshipped 247and poured out to her drink-offerings, such as those libations of milk which in this land were poured out on the Gruapach stone of the villages.

The custom of passing children and cattle through the fire was one of the rites which was longest in force in these isles. Even in the early part of this century, it was, as we have already noticed, the constant practice at these festivals, both in the Highlands and in Ireland, for fathers to take their children in their arms and leap thrice through the flames. The cattle were driven between two fires kindled near together. It was also the custom to make criminals stand between two fires, to expiate their sins, or else walk barefoot thrice over the burning ashes of a carn-fire. Hence the Gaelic description of a man in dire extremity, that he was “Edir da theine Bheil,” that is, between two fires of Baal.

The Highlanders still call the year Bheil-aine, the circle of Bel or the Sun. It does not appear that they ever called their children after him, as did some nations, where we find such names as Hannibal, the gift of Baal (Dieu-donné), and Hasdrubal, one helped by Baal; or Belteshazzar, Bel’s treasurer, the “new name” conferred on Daniel by his Babylonian master. But the salutation of “Bal dhia dhuit,” or “Baal be with you,” was retained, till the present century. And it seems probable that in the English word marvel and the French merveille we still make use of the Celtic description of a miracle, as being Miov-Bheil or Meur-Bhe’il, the finger of Bel.

Even the old Scotch saying, that a man will go to the Clachan, or “stones,” meaning Church, is evidently derived from the days when the temples of the land were simply circles of great stones; circles by the way which are supposed to have been typical of eternity. Sometimes the church was more clearly defined as Clachan Muire or Clachan Michael, the stones of Mary or of Michael. It is also said that the old Saxon word Kirk or Circ simply denotes such a circle. In fact the words Clachan and Church seem to have been used promiscuously to describe either the old pagan temple, or the Christian Church; for while the latter is constantly called the Clachan, and the village is indiscriminately known as the Clachan, or the Kirktown, we find various Druidic circles bearing the more Christian title. One in Glamorganshire is called the Old Church. One 248in Aberdeen is the Auld Kirk of Alford. Another is the Kirk Hill of Logie Newton; while a fourth is the Auld Kirk of Tough.

One great Druidical cairn in the Isle of Bernera is called Clach-na-greine or the Stone of the Sun. The very frequent recurrence of this word Grean, in some form or other, is in itself a curious proof of the wide-spread worship of the Sun in these isles. Colonel Robertson has recently told us that in seven different counties of Scotland he finds a stream called Greenburn, the stream of the Sun (answering to the idea of the Suaj Khoond or Mirror of the Sun which we find so often in India). He has also shown Greenock to mean Grian-chnoc, or the Knoll of the Sun, i.e. the place where he was worshipped. In six counties he finds Bal-green or Baile-greine, which was the town of the sun, and at Ba-green in Perthshire a large artificial mound, with flat top, marks the site of the holy ground. He also notes various mountains and lands, in whose name the same word occurs; the latter sometimes further marked by circles of Druidical stones as at Grenach or Grian-achaidh, the field of the sun, in Perthshire.

Another familiar name is that of Grianan in the Isle of Arran; grand serrated crags, whose bare crests catch the first gleam of the rising sun, long before the dark shadows have rolled from off gloomy Loch Ranza. On the opposite coast of Ayrshire we find Grianan Castle. One great spur of Bein-na-Cailliach in Skye is called Bein-na-Grianan, and Jura also, has its mountain of the sun, another Bein-na-Grianan, where many a time we have watched the last rays linger, ere the great Day Star seemed to sink beneath the waves. Perthshire also, has its Ben Grianan above Glen Lyon; at its base there still remain the ruins of one of the twelve great round towers, built by Fingal in this “winding valley of the grey-headed stones.”

It is worthy of notice that, when the Romans invaded Britain, they bestowed on Apollo, their Sun-god, this surname of Grianach, under which they found him worshipped in these Isles: so he was known as Apollo Grannus. That the worshippers of Apollo observed precisely the same ceremonies as the Druids of the British Isles, has been recorded by many old writers; more especially in describing the rites practised on the 249Mount Soracte in Italy, where as soon as the flames of the great fires ceased, one of the chief men present took in his hands the entrails of some animal that had been sacrificed, and, walking thrice barefoot over the still half-kindled embers, delivered them to the officiating priest. This was the identical custom of the British Druids.

The fact is that there is scarcely a corner of the earth where the worship of sun and fire do not seem to have found a place. Whatever lesser gods were adored by any nation, the first place seems always to have been accorded to the great Day Star.

We know how many cities were specially dedicated to the sun; as, for instance, Rhodes, whose far-famed Colossus was supposed to be his image; and it is now generally admitted that the Hercules of the Phœnicians was simply an impersonation of Orchol, or Aurkl, the Sun. Perhaps his history may have been originally borrowed from those ancient Hindu legends that tell of the Heri-cules, the lords of the Solar race, who claim descent from Heri, the Sun. Again he appears as the Phœbus, Cephalus, and Endymion of the Greeks, and under divers other names of Pagan gods, whose worshippers, when going forth to battle, caused their priests to march at the head of their armies, bearing fire as his emblem on little altars of silver—a symbol which to them was doubtless akin to that guiding pillar of fire wherein the Israelites recognised the presence of the Almighty going forth with their hosts.

Nor was this worship confined to what we are wont to term the old world. In the sun temples of Mexico and Peru the ruthless Spaniards found their richest spoils. On the site of one of these was erected the present great Roman Catholic Cathedral in the town of Mexico, within which is still preserved the Kellenda, a circular stone covered with hieroglyphics, by which the Aztecs used to represent the months of the year. In Peru, the Incas, as the monarchs were called, claimed to be children of the Sun; and in their capital city stood a magnificent temple dedicated to him. It was open at the east end, so that the rays of the rising sun were reflected with dazzling light as they fell on a great golden image at the western end representing his disk and rays. Here a great annual festival was held at the summer solstice, when multitudes gathered together from all parts of the empire, and, headed by the Inca himself, awaited the moment 250when the first ray should touch the golden image. Then all fell prostrate in devout adoration. Sacrifices were offered akin to those of the Jews, after which the worshippers shared a solemn feast of bread and wine.

Thus, truly, the tabernacle of the sun was set in all the ends of the world; so that there was neither speech nor language where the host of heaven failed to declare, not the glory of God, but their own majesty. Even in the Christian Church there arose in the third century a schism whereby the true Sun of Righteousness was confounded with the visible sun, wherein He was said to have put off His incarnate body.^[42] This doctrine found the more ready acceptance from the fact that Pagan Rome was at that time deeply stirred by a wide-spread revival of the old faith; and the Christian converts lent a willing ear to the teaching which seemed so well to blend the old and new creeds.

Fifteen hundred years have passed away since then, and still the fiery god claims his place among the divinities of the earth. If we turn to the wide plains of Hindustan, we there find that though many of the old reverential customs of sun-worship are still retained in the complex creed of the modern Brahmins, they are for the most part so blended with the fables of an intricate mythology, that they are to educated minds as purely symbolical as they are to the Parsees—a race who utterly repudiate the name of fire worshippers, declaring that in their reverence for sun and fire, they merely recognize the same symbol as does the Christian in the lights which burn on the Christian altar.

But in some corners of the land the descendants of the aboriginal races still retain the worship of their ancestors unchanged. There are small colonies to the south-west of Calcutta^[43] which bear the name of Sauras, in honour of the sun, to whom, night and morning, they offer a burnt sacrifice of clarified butter, and otherwise adhere to the ancient ritual described in the Vedic hymns. They tend the undying fire in some deep grove, where, beneath the waving palms, they may worship undisturbed. Here they assemble also at every full moon and hold solemn service. In India, as in England, the first day of 251the week bears the name of Sunday.^[44] There, however, it is treated rather as a fast than a feast, for the strict worshippers of Vishnu abstain on this day from all animal food. On this morning, throughout the time of harvest, each household makes special offerings to the sun. They prepare trays of earth, in which they sow rice seeds, and thereon pour out a libation of water while invoking the sun. Some tribes exist, both in Orissa and in the Himalayas, who will not break their morning fast till they have obtained a clear view of their god, and who in cloudy weather sometimes go all day without tasting food, rather than sin in this matter. In the Garrow Hills in Bengal, there is another race of primitive Highlanders, who profess the simplest nature worship; they adore the Sun, Moon, and Elements; their temple is a dark mountain pass, where beneath the blue canopy of Heaven, they assemble to offer solemn sacrifices with just such ceremonies as we believe to have been formerly observed in these Isles of Britain. But for traces of Sun-worship in its perfection, we must look to such marvels of beauty as the ruined Sun temples in Orissa—such as those at Kanarak, Jájpur, and Shergarh, where amid an endless profusion of rich and intricate sculpture, the Sun-god still drives his celestial car, drawn by the seven symbolic horses, carved in imperishable granite. Other sculptures show the Sun, Moon and Planets. These splendid temples have long since been forsaken save by a little colony of faithful worshippers who still keep up the sacred fire in a grove near Jájpur. But the mass of the people now follow the teaching of the sagacious Brahmins, who have stretched their own faith, so as to incorporate those of all their neighbours, and they now worship the Sun under the form of Vishnu or Juggernaut. Yet within the great courts of Juggernaut, one small temple is specially dedicated to the Sun, and thither the people have transported their sacred black stone, from the old temple at Kanarak. Not a shapeless unhewn stone, such as those whereon the simple islanders of the Hebrides, used to pour out their libations to the Sun, on Sunday morning—but a monolith 150 feet high, carved into a stately and graceful pillar. Such pillars, we are told, were common in Southern India even half a century ago, but they have for the most part been destroyed by the ruthless ravages of Mohammedans and others.

252To return to the Scottish Sun-god, Grian. It seems that the Highlanders consider the beneficent Brownies to be in some way his representatives, though all their kindly work was done at night. The name by which they were commonly called was Gruagach, the fair-headed. For, just as in the Rig Veda, the Hindu Sun-god is described as the golden-haired, the bright-haired, so the old Celts always spoke of the sun’s rays as his yellow hair, and the Brownies were therefore supposed to have long yellow hair. Hence this was a lucky colour, and the same Gaelic word expresses both yellow and fortunate. Whether the same notion may account for the sacred saffron robes of the Hindu Fakeers and of the Buddhist priests of Siam and Ceylon; I will not venture to guess.

Each village in the Highlands had its rough unhewn stone, called the Gruagach-stone, where, till very recent times, the villagers poured out libations of milk on every day consecrated to Graine or Grian, just as we now see the Hindus pour their daily offerings of milk, flowers, and water, on a similar rough unhewn stone, wherein their god is supposed to be present, and which invariably occupies a place of honour in every village. I do not know whether any of these stones still remain in Skye, but we are told, that not many years ago, there was scarcely a village in the island where the Gruagach-stone was not still held in some sort of reverence. Even in the last century libations of milk were poured on these stones at dawn every Sunday as a preliminary to Christian worship! Often, and I confess somewhat grudgingly, have I watched the poor Tamils of Trincomalee thus offering their oblations of precious milk, which they pour on the mighty headland of rock, where twice a week they assemble at sunset, to make offerings of fire, which their priest, standing on the utmost verge of the crag overhanging the sea, lifts heavenward, while all the people throw their arms upward—a weird and striking scene.

It would appear that the Romans likewise honoured their Sun-god with milky offerings, one of the titles of Apollo being Galaxius, the milky one, in whose honour was held a festival called Galaxia, when his votaries feasted on pulse boiled in milk.

Pennant mentions divers places in Wales and Ireland which he describes as Greinham, the house of the sun, where, he says, 253the Celts of old were wont to worship. We also find an island on the Druidic coast of Brittany which still bears the name of L’Ile de Groach. In Ireland there is to this day a great number of ancient stone altars,^[45] which are called Graine’s beds. Of these there are said to be three hundred and sixty, one for each day of the old Celtic year, and the people have a quaint old legend, like one of Ossian’s songs, telling how Graine, the fair-haired and beautiful wife of Fin-Mac-Cool, fled from her lord, with young Dermot, and so incessantly did they fly from their pursuers that they never rested twice on the same spot; a strangely poetic version of a scientific fact, showing how early these old Celtic bards had noticed and idealized the sun’s daily, restless course. Among the ancient Breton legends we find divers versions of the loves of Graine and Diarmid, as also in the songs of Ossian, where Diarmid is slain by a poisonous bristle of the mysterious boar, which has pierced his heel. In the county of Donegal, at Grianan of Ailach, there still remain various traces of Cyclopean masonry, where, doubtless the temple of the Sun formerly stood.

Those places in which the name of Graine occurs are by no means the sole topographical traces of the early faith.

Many others thus betray their origin, as Dochann-le-bas in Perthshire, which means “the agony pertaining to the flames,” having evident reference to the old trials by fire. There are also a multitude of names in which teine, or fire, occurs as Tulliebelton, from Tulach-Beil-teine, “the knoll of the fire of Bel;” Ardentinny, from Ard-an-teine, “the height of the fire;” and Craigentinny, from Creag-an-teine, “the rock of the fire:” all doubtless having originally been the places where the great Baal fires burned. As to the prefix Bel, or Bal, which occurs in upwards of two thousand places in Scotland, and which at first sight would suggest a similar connection, Colonel Robertson declares it to be in every case derived from Baile, a village, or dwelling; not even excepting such names as Balnacraig or Belcraig, or even Balfron in Stirling, which is still marked by a Druidical circle, at which, tradition says, all the people had assembled for worship, leaving their little ones at their homes, where, alas! the wolves found and devoured them. Hence the Clachan received the name Bail-fron, “the town of mourning” 254(or the mourning by reason of Baal, as the case may be). Belan, in Montgomeryshire, and the Baal hills in Yorkshire, are, however, said undoubtedly to owe their names to the old faith.

Speaking of derivations, the name of the Hebrides is suggestive of one of those curious amalgamations of Paganism and Christianity, which we have so often had occasion to note. The name is literally Ey-Brides, the Islands of Bridgit, to whom six parishes in Scotland are also dedicated. Killbride, the cell of Bridgit, occurs eighteen times in Scotland alone, and we also find Panbride, and our own Lhanbride in Morayshire. The latter name tells its own story of the dubious saint; Lhan being the sacred grove of the Druids. Hence Lhanbride means simply the grove of Bridgit, the Celtic goddess. Panbride is said to mean the light of Bridgit, implying a place where light was vouchsafed.^[46] Hence, it is said, the church lands round Elgin Cathedral and the gate leading thereto, derived their names The Pans, and Pans Port.

It seems, then, clear that the Hebrides (the Ebudæ of the ancients) were under the special protection of that goddess Brighit, wife of Tath, whose temple was attended by virgins of noble birth, called the daughters of fire, or sometimes merely Breochuidh, the fire-keepers. Like the ancient Persians, they fed this fire only with one kind of peeled wood, and might never breathe upon the sacred flame. The ancient Irish are said to have so greatly reverenced all fire that they would not even put out a candle without uttering a prayer that the Lord would renew to them light from heaven.

When Christianity began to make its difficult way in these isles, it was so impossible to wean these vestal virgins from their post, that it was found simpler to institute a Christian Order of Nuns of St. Bridgit. To one of St. Patrick’s converts was assigned this delicate work of adapting things old to new meanings. St. Bridgit accordingly took up her abode in the grove of sacred oaks, where the people were accustomed to worship the goddess, and here she instructed them in the new faith. The vestal virgins were thus transformed into the first Christian community of religious women, and the temple of Bridgit at Kildare, became a great convent. To these Christian 255nuns was entrusted the care of the sacred fire, which from time immemorial had been kept burning in honour of the Celtic goddess. When, on the Eve of Good Friday, all other churches and convents extinguished their fire, not relighting it till Easter Eve, the nuns of St. Bridgit always kept theirs steadily burning, a practice which Giraldus Cambrensis says he knows not whether to attribute to a desire to have warmth and food always ready to bestow on all pilgrims and poor people, or whether it was done in obedience to the Levitical command that the fire should be ever burning on the altar, and never go out.

Thus the fire of Bridgit was kept perpetually burning till the year 1220, when it was extinguished by order of the Archbishop of Dublin to avoid superstition and scandal. So great, however, was the veneration in which it was held by the people that it was speedily rekindled, and was kept burning steadily on, till the monastery was suppressed in the time of Henry VIII. The ruins of the Fire House are still to be seen.

A somewhat similar incorporation of things old and new, was the Romanist procession of lighted candles on the 2nd February, “in memorie of Christe ye spirituall Lyghte.” It seems that on this day the ancient Romans burnt candles to the goddess Februe; and Pope Sergius, seeing it was useless to prohibit the practice, ordained offerings of candles to the Holy Virgin. Hence the feast of Candlemas.

Thus you see, Christianity was made easy by a very simple process of assimilation. Sometimes, indeed, it was found necessary to make a decided stand, as when the Christianized Goths craved permission to retain many wives, and to eat horse-flesh. The former point was conceded; but on the latter question the Church remained firm. Certainly it was a better decision than that which sanctioned St. Vladimir, the first Christian prince of Russia, in putting away all his wives, preparatory to his Baptism and marriage with the sister of the Emperor of Constantinople, inasmuch as putting them away meant simply depositing them in the Volga together with Perune, his deposed idol. So the process of assimilation certainly had some advantages!

This rigid prohibition of horse-flesh must have had reference to the sacrificing of horses to the Sun; a custom common to all the Aryan nations. The Scythians did so we know, so did the 256Armenians and Persians, whose costly horse sacrifices, and milk-white chariot of the Sun, have been described by Xenophon. Those of the Hindus are recorded in the Rig Veda, wherein we are told how at the great festival of the Aswamedha, a horse with rich trappings was led thrice (sunwise of course) round the sacrificial fire—then, while the king confessed his sins, and offered gifts to the Sun, the horse was sacrificed by the priests, and its flesh was made into little balls, and eaten by the worshippers. On some of the ancient Hindu Temples, such as the marble ruins on Mount Aboo, we find sculptures representing the car of the Sun drawn by seven horses, a custom probably still retained in Rajpootana and other native States. The Sun, however, is now honoured with an extra steed, as recent residents in Jeypore describe how on the festival of his birth, his chariot is brought from his temple and drawn through the city by eight horses. Other steeds are solemnly dedicated to him by the people, who pray that in return for such sacrifice, their cattle, and their children may multiply.

Precisely similar was the custom of the Welsh, who long continued to offer horses at the Holy Well at Ceqidoc, in order to bring a blessing on their herds; and there seems no doubt that the horse-flesh eaten by our ancestors had been previously sacrificed to the Celtic Sun-god Heul, under which name they worshipped that Helios, to whom the Greeks offered white horses. The horse occurs on the old coins both of Gaul and Britain; in connection with other emblems of the Sun and sometimes even with the head of Apollo.

Thus, too, the Egyptians of old were wont to represent Ra, their Sun-god, in a car drawn by seven horses, bearing with him seven prisoners, to represent the seven days of the week. Doubtless it was this Egyptian practice that suggested to the Kings of Judah the offering of chariots and horses to the Sun.

Several curious relics of heathen days, connected with the baptism of children, were kept up in the Highlands certainly till the beginning of this century. The fire-place of a Highland cottage being in those days almost invariably just a hollow in the middle of the floor, such as you may see in some parts of Argyle and the Isles, the child was handed across the fire, immediately after its baptism, being thus as it were, made to pass through the flames. This was done thrice. Then each person 257present took three spoonfuls of meal and water, or something stronger. Sometimes the child was placed in a basket covered with a white cloth, and bread and cheese being laid beside it, the basket was suspended from the crook in the fire-place, which was moved round thrice sunwise. Moreover every person entering the house was required to take up a burning firebrand from the hearth, and therewith cross himself, before he ventured to approach the new-born child or its mother.

These customs seem to have formed part of the ceremony to which Pope Gregory alluded, when speaking of pagan baptism, a ceremony in which both fire and water were employed by the Druids, in honour of Neith, their goddess of waters, whose name is said to signify purifying with water. Perhaps when these men first beheld the symbolic use of these sacred elements in Christian baptism, they may the more readily for old sake’s sake have submitted to that mystic rite. As regards the presence of fire in the Christian Sacrament, we must bear in mind that although the majority of Protestants disallow it, it is still retained by very large sections of the Church, as representing the fire of Divine love. Thus the Romish Church, in blessing the water to be used in baptism, dips a lighted taper in the font, in token that the baptism from on high is not with water only “but with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” and the Greek Church symbolizes the same mystery by the great lighted tapers, which are ranged round her font.

Whatever may have been the original idea in worshipping Neith, as a goddess of purifying water, it seems to have quickly degenerated into the commonest invention of mythology. This River-goddess had the power of assuming the form of a horse or of a bull, and invariably proved treacherous and malicious. Hence she was dreaded as a destroyer, who lured men to their doom. She appears in endless stories of Water Bulls and Water Kelpies, and is supposed still to haunt Loch Lomond, Loch Rannoch, Loch Awe, Lochan Dorb in Morayshire, and many of the distant isles. Sometimes she takes human form, and sucks the blood of man or maid. Sometimes she appears as a stray horse, quietly grazing by the water; then should any rash rider mount her, or any canny farmer harness her, with others, to the plough, she will dash into the water and there at her leisure, devour her victims. Sometimes an irreverent 258hand has tried to kill the suspected stray horse, but at touch of cold steel, she is transformed into a quiet pool of water.

Various places both on the mainland and in the Hebrides still bear her name of Neith or Nait; Annat burn, and Annat glen in Perthshire; the Tempul-na-Anait in Skye, and the Tabir-na-Annait, or Well of Neith, in the little island of Calligray belonging to Harris, where the worshippers purified themselves before proceeding to the Teampull-na-Annait, close by—the ruins of the old Christian Chapel, retaining the name of the heathen goddess. Colonel Forbes-Leslie has pointed out the singular identity of this name with that of the Persian goddess Anaitis, whose temple was reared on an artificial mound. Strabo describes having himself witnessed the ceremonial of the Magi in her honour; and, as we know that they offered horses to the rivers, the origin of the water kelpies seems plain enough. Wilford writing in the last century describes certain springs of naphtha near the Tigris, which were sacred to the goddess Anaïas, and he mentions that many holy Hindus made pilgrimages to her temple. Pennant also speaks of Anait as a goddess of Armenia, and mentions that Diana was sometimes called the Anait. He says that in the Isle of Skye he found traces of four temples of Anait; one of these was near Dunvegan. In each case they were built at the spot where two rivers met, a stone wall extending from stream to stream, so as to form with the two waters a triangle, in the centre of which stood the ruins of the temple.