Moonej'.] 4iJ [May 3, 



celebration in far-off Donegal. Allho somewhat lengthy, it comes all in 

 good place and mentions several features not previously referd to : 



" Of all brief periods of Irish pleasure, Hallowe'en yields the sweetest, 

 because the most harmless and innocent, delights. It is the night of un- 

 bounded mirth, witching charm and sinless dream. It is then that the 

 tenderest of all superstition's eerie broods, the kindly Irish fairies, mingle 

 with human moods and wish, and weave their friendly spells through all 

 the warp and woof of thought, emotion, dream and desire. And his is an 

 insensate heart that will not grow younger and tenderer under the influ- 

 ence of those mirthful revels. Where will one begin and end in telling 

 them as he sees and feels them ? Over every door to house, room or barn, 

 an apple-paring was hanging, and some maiden's eager eye was watching 

 lor him who first passed beneath, for that one the fairies had charmed as 

 her beloved. Groups of lads on all-fours ducked their heads in buckets 

 of water and brought out small coin with their teeth. Lasses were busy 

 cutting out alphabets with which the fairies were to spell, in water basins, 

 secretly- cherished names. Stolen herrings — which must be salt, must be 

 broiled without turning, eaten with hot tongs, and dreamed on, ' without 

 drink' — now made their appearance. Then the 'bannock baking' and its 

 wild merriment. Whoever turned the bannock on the huge griddle that 

 hung from the crane was to wed her whose nimble fingers kneaded its 

 oaten meal, salt, soda and water together. 'Nut-burning' and 'snap-apple' 

 were going on merrily at the hob. The hazelnut abhes in dainty packets 

 beneath the pillows yield charmed dreams ; the burning 'snap-apples' tell 

 whether loving pairs will sputter or mellowly age during wedded life. 

 Then there was the ' dumb-cake' making for fairy-aided dreams ; the 

 'charm-pies' with their buttons for old bachelors, thimbles for old maids, 

 and rings for the lucky ones who should wed ; the 'candle-and-sweets,' 

 suspended and whirling between grinning faces where teeth snapped lor 

 bites, and luckless frowsy hair was singed ; and an hundred other inno- 

 cent delights, leading to the more serious affairs of 'postman's-knock' 

 and 'forfeits,' where genuine old-fashioned kissing was there for the 

 fighting; and the struggle for your 'rights' with a bouncing Irish lass 

 Irom the mountains insured her hatred if you did not overcome her, and 

 a sore body and broken bones if you did ! — and then, amid deafening 

 clatter and chatter, the supper in the great-room, piled upon tables like 

 fat stalls in a plethoric market, various, smoking, awful ; but with the 

 jolliest, hungriest crew you ever broke bread with in your life. And oh, 

 for room in which to tell the tales here told, to give the songs here sung, 

 to reproduce with all the delicious floriture the quips and jokes here per- 

 petrated ; while oceans of tea flowed gurglingly, and the poteen, clear as 

 rock-water and as guileless of excise, went on its 'winding' way. * * * 

 "A hullabuloo without now arrested our attention. 'The byes' had 

 planned a great surprise. Sallying forth when the tales and songs were 

 at their height, they had descended upon another Hallowe'en party a tew 

 miles distant, and by main force had captured and brought a fiddler bodily 



