Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions

the Isle of Lewis, they had the custom of Dessil (right hand), or Dess, from carrying fire in the right hand about houses and the stock. When a murrain occurred among the cattle there, all fires were formerly put out, and a fresh flame obtained by the rubbing of two planks together.

The Gaelic Councils tried in vain to arrest this fire devotion. James I. of Scotland has left a poem on the custom--

"At Beltane, quhen ilk bodie bownis
To Peblis to the play--"

that is, at Beltane all went to the play or games at Peebles.

In Cornwall, another part under Irish influence, Midsummer Eve was kept up with fire rejoicings. At Penzance, until a few years ago, on that eve men carried two barrels on poles. Others had torches and rockets, and girls held flowers. All at once all joined hands, and ran through the streets, crying out, "An eye! an eye!"--when an eye was opened by a pair, and all passed through. The old country dance was one in the same style.

No one needs reminding how far Wales, long under Irish rule, had similar fire customs. At Newton Nottage, till very recently, people leaped through the Midsummer fires. Of this custom, Theodoret, in condemnation of it, admitted that it was held as an expiation of sin. Great fires were kept up formerly on the noonside rock of Brimham, a Yorkshire Druidical locality.

France, especially in Brittany, has survivals of fire-worship. Such fires were useful to bless the apple-trees, and forward the harvest. A Breton priest was once called Belec, which means a servant of Baal. Outside Paris, Baal fires were lighted on St. John's Eve. Flammarion, in 1867, wrote--"In the evening the bonfires in honour of

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