Mooney.] 4U-i [jlay 3^ 



with sufficient green stuf to prevent its burning too rapidly. Tlie fire is 

 generally lighted after dark, but in some parts of the north it is kindled 

 in the afternoon. The people gather about the fires with pipers and fid- 

 dlers, and the evening is given up to dancing and merry-making. In 

 Meath the young folks wer allowd on this night to milk the sheep in the 

 pastures, and came provided with buckets for the purpose, together with 

 oaten bread to dip in the milk, which was boild over the fires in regular 

 picnic style. The next morning was considerd the proper time to hunt 

 mushrooms. It was also customary to walk three times round the fires, 

 reciting certain prayers to ward oflf sickness during the coming year. In 

 Down the festivities began in the afternoon, when the people went in pro- 

 cession, carrying an effigy called a "Paddy," and danced round the fire to 

 the music of a fiddler. In the Orange districts it was sometimes necessary, 

 thirty j^ears ago, to put out an armed picket to prevent interruption. On 

 asking an old man where the guards got their guns, he said, " We hadn't 

 many, but we had more than the law allowd." As the fires burn low, 

 the young men leap over the blaze, and later on the girls and women 

 walk across the hot embers. Long after midnight, when the pile has 

 burnd down to the ground, the people disperse to their homes, some one 

 of each family carrying a shovelful of live coals to scatter over the fields 

 in order to insure a good crop, with a lighted sod of turf to put into the 

 hearth-fire, to bring down prosperity upon the household. It is also an 

 omen of a good crop to be able to reach the field with a burning brand 

 before the embers hav time to go out.* In the city of Dublin, where 

 bonfires could not wel be kindled, it was customary in the last century 

 to set up a bush in the middle of the street and adorn it with lighted 

 candles. f 



Connected with this celebration ar several local customs which wer 

 probably more general in former days. At Armoy, near Ballycastle, 

 County Antrim, the people join hands about a blessed wel in a game 

 known as "Round Ring," and much resembling "Hunt the Handker- 

 chief." One standing on the outside touches some person in the circle, 

 who then lets go his partner's hands and runs round the ring in pursuit 

 of the first, who endeavors to get into the vacated place before he can be 

 caught. If successful, the other takes his place outside the circle until 

 releasd in a similar manner. 



In Kerry, and other parts of the west, as the fires burn down, the people 

 pull out blazing brands from the pile and singe the cows with them, in 

 order to bring increase to the herds. The cattle ar sometimes chased 

 through the fields, at other times collected into pens for the purpose. In 

 former times they wer driven round or through the fire, as on May- 

 day, a custom which stil existed in the north within the present century. | 



* Charles DeKay, Fairies and Druids of Ireland, in Century Magazine, xxxvii, No. 4, 

 597, New York, Feb., 1889. 

 t E. W. (1791), Pop. Sup., 55. 

 I Parochial Survey of Ireland, quoted in the Folk-lore Journal, ii, 140, London, 1884. 



