WHITE CATTLE : AX INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 261 



Nvhile it was a province of the Roman Empire. We know that 

 the Romans imported British bulls (of which our black Welsh 

 are descendants) for the spectacles of the amphitheatre, and the 

 colour to this day of the bulls which appear at bull-fights is black. 

 After the evacuation of the countrv bv the Romans there 

 followed a period of unrest. The country was subject to waves 

 of invasion, all the invaders bringing their own breed or class 

 of cattle with them. As they came they pushed back their 

 predecessors till the Celts, the first comers, with their cattle — 

 native. Roman, and cross — came to what is now known as the 

 Celtic fringe. Yet through all this turmoil the superstitious or 

 traditional regard inherited from the Romans, and even from the 

 Druids, for white cattle must never have been lost. The cult of 

 the sacrificial bull seems to have impressed itself deeply on the 

 inhabitants of these islands. As far north as the Morav Firth 

 thirty figures of bulls, of stone and Roman handiwork, have been 

 dusr UD on its shores. We read of bulls beinij killed '-as an alms 

 and oblation to St. Cuthbert '" in the twelfth century at Kirkcud- 

 bright. In Mitchell's " Past in the Present '' an extract is criven 

 from the records of the Presbytery of Dingwall. That body met on 

 5th September, 1656, to inquire into the backsliding of a oarish 

 within its bounds, and they find '• amongst uther abhominable 

 and heathenische practices that the people in that place were 

 accustomed to sacrifice bulls at a certaine tyme uppon the 25 of 

 Ausfust." I think it will be allowed that our forefathers, from the 

 dawn of history, have had a reputation as cattle breeders, conse- 

 quently they would be more apt to retain customs and superstitions 

 — Druidical. Roman, or Saxon — which applied to cattle, than to 

 any other thing. If it can be shown that some of these super- 

 stitious customs have come down to comparatively recent times, it 

 will, I hope, be admitted that the reverence for white sacrificial 

 cattle would also be as strong among the people. One of these 

 customs in connection with cattle is recorded in the Gentleman's 

 Magazine for February, 1791, as being a common practice in Here- 

 fordshire and Gloucestershire. It is termed "the antient ceremony 

 of wassailing.'"' The correspondent in the Gentleman's JIagazine 

 writes that -'on the eve of Twelfth Day, at ihe approach of evening, 

 the farmers, their friends, servants, ifcc, all assemble, and near six 

 o'clock all walk together to a field where wheat is growing;" here 



