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Page 53
In all the four festivals we have been considering, there survive relics
of fire-worship, and through all there runs a similarity of observance
and belief; but the special practices are not everywhere joined to the
same festival in all localities. In this part of the country, the
special observances connected with Hallowe'en were, in other parts of
the country, observed in connection with the summer festival. Now,
however, we are glad to say, these superstitious ceremonies and beliefs
in their old gross forms are fast passing away, or have become so
modified that we can scarcely recognise their relations to the old
fire-worship.
In 1860, I was residing near the head of Loch Tay during the season of
the Hallowe'en feast. For several days before Hallowe'en, boys and
youths collected wood and conveyed it to the most prominent places on
the hill sides in their neighbourhood. Some of the heaps were as large
as a corn-stack or hay-rick. After dark on Hallowe'en, these heaps were
kindled, and for several hours both sides of Loch Tay were illuminated
as far as the eye could see. I was told by old men that at the beginning
of this century men as well as boys took part in getting up the
bonfires, and that, when the fire was ablaze, all joined hands and
danced round the fire, and made a great noise; but that, as these
gatherings generally ended in drunkenness and rough and dangerous fun,
the ministers set their faces against the observance, and were seconded
in their efforts by the more intelligent and well-behaved in the
community; and so the practice was discontinued by adults and relegated
to school boys. In the statistical account of the parish of Callander,
the same practice is referred to. It is stated that "When the bonfire
was consumed, the ashes of the fire were carefully collected in the form
of a circle, and a stone put in near the circumference for every person
in the several families concerned in getting up the fire; and whatever
stone is moved out its place or injured before next morning, the person
represented by the stone is devoted or fey, and is supposed not to live
twelve months from that day." In all probability this devoted person was
in olden times offered as a sacrifice to the fire god on the great day
of sacrifice, which was the festival day. The belief that the spirits of
the dead were free to roam about on that night is still held by many in
this country. Indeed, where the forms of the feast have all but
disappeared, the superstitious auguries connected with it survive. Burns
particularises very fully the formul� of Hallowe'en, as practised in
Ayrshire in his day, and as this poem is well known, it would be
superfluous to follow it in detail here; but I cannot refrain from
drawing attention to the suggestions which one of the practices which he
mentions affords in favour of the supposition that it is a relic of an
ancient form of appeal to the fire god--I refer to the practice of
burning nuts. It seems likely that in ancient times the priests, who
claimed prophetic power through the reading of auguries, used this
method of deciding the future at this particular season of the year, and
chiefly during the holding of the feast.
Although I have confined my remarks to the four feasts, Yule, Beltane,
Midsummer, and Hallowe'en, because they are the oldest and most properly
national, there were a number of other heathen feasts, emanating
principally from Roman practice, which the Church converted into
Christian feasts, notably what is now called Candlemass. On the second
day of February, the Romans perambulated their city with torches and
candles burning in honour of _Februa_; and the Greeks at this same
period held their feast of lights in honour of Ceres. Pope Innocent
explains the origin of this feast of Candlemass. He states that "The
heathens dedicated this month to the infernal gods. At its beginning
Pluto stole away Proserpine, and her mother Ceres sought for her in the
night with lighted torches. In the beginning of this month the idolaters
walked about the city with lighted candles, and as some of the holy
fathers could not extirpate such a custom, they ordained that Christians
should carry about candles in honour of the Virgin Mary." This method of
keeping the feast of Candlemass does not now prevail in this country; so
far as the laity are concerned, the festival may be said to have died
out, but according to Dr. Brewer, the festival is kept by the Roman
Catholic Church as the time for consecrating the candles used in the
Church service.
Formerly there were other public festivals, as Lammas, Michaelmass, &c.,
which the Church had substituted for heathen feasts which have ceased to
be public festivals, and I trust we may indulge the hope that the time
is not far distant when, instead of all such festive relics of
heathenism, the Church and people will substitute one daily festival of
obedience to the honour of the founder of Christianity, viz., the
festival of a righteous life.
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