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so ever since it was a field. An old intelligent farmer with a 

 good memory may now and then get so far as to inform you that 

 it was in the field called " Purgatory " that the fires were made 

 on Teanla night, but why that field of his is called " Purgatory " 

 is as much a puzzle to him as " The Eookery " was to Betsy 

 Copperfield. But the antiquary will give you, as Mr. Weld, of 

 Leagram Hall, does in the current number of the " Stonyhurst 

 Magazine,'' a vivid picture of the observance of All Hallowtide 

 in the good old times. He will tell you how the night of All 

 Hallows closed in but not with shadows ; that Pendle and Parlick 

 and Beacon Fell, and highland and moorland all the county 

 through were bright with flame ; how in every village the simple 

 rustics might have been seen, in anticipation of the night, bear- 

 ing to the high places armfuls and lapfuls of withered leaves, 

 straw, whins, bushes, and boughs of trees, driftwood, and along 

 the coast even dried seaweed ; how these were thrown together 

 in a huge pile, the top of which was crowned with a garland of 

 such flowers as still survived ; how stools and benches were 

 placed around for the spirits of the dead of their village. Teanla 

 night was the most awful, the most fortunate, the most import- 

 ant in all the year. The fires on the hills that night burned to 

 miraculous effect : the souls of dear ones, whether their bodies 

 mouldered under the sod, or clung to the corals at the bottom of 

 the sea were released from Purgatory, and were purged and made 

 happy by these earthly fires kindled by loving hands. Cattle 

 were made fruitful, fields fertile by these flames, the very embers 

 of which were spells against thunder and infection. 



It was a very pertinent question to ask whether these fancies 

 were any part of Christian teaching imparted by the earliest 

 missionaries or whether the missionaries did not find them in 

 full play when they came. In reviewing the whole subject Mr. 

 Mc Kay in his concluding observations said, that though we may 

 laugh at the nonsense of boggarts till we are stiff and weary, we 

 cannot give any serious heed to this particular phase of old East 

 Lancashire belief without putting ourselves in touch with myths 

 that were familiar to the earliest races of men that ever trod the 

 earth ; and, therefore, with some of the oldest and grandest of 

 earth's cherished delusions. For our part, we have far less 

 patience with the vulgarity of the man who laughs at the aged 

 East Lancashire believer in boggarts, than we have with the so- 

 called vulgarity of the man who has not yet wholly lost all power 

 ot belief in the supernatural. 



