Note 15 — Chapter V · THE BLACK ART.
Reading edition
In the same way the Irish witches flit on November Eve, and “on that night mortal people should keep at home, or they will suffer for it; for souls of the dead have power over all things on that night of the year, and they hold a festival with the fairies, and drink red wine from the fairy cups and dance to fairy music till the moon goes down.”15 Of the Allhallows demon Professor Rhys writes: “This night was the Saturnalia of all that was hideous and uncanny in the world of spirits. It had been fixed as the time of all others when the Sun god, whose power had been gradually falling off since the great feast associated with him on the first of August, succumbed to his enemies, the powers of darkness and of winter. It was their first hour of triumph after an interval of subjection, and the popular imagination pictured them stalking abroad with more than ordinary insolence and aggressiveness.”16