40 KORKBEAN FOLKLORE. 
of ** pandemonium let loose.” What are known as * billet guns,” 
2.e., pop-guns made from the wood of the ‘“ boor tree” or alder, 
were freely used, and dancing of the most boisterous nature 
indulged in. What the dancing meant may be realised when it is 
said that most of the children wore clogs, and the noise was so 
deafening that the ‘** maister” had frequently to hold his hands over 
his ears and to run out of the school. Various competitions were 
also engaged in, for which the reward was an orange. ‘These were 
hardly so educative as a “spelling bee,” as may be understood 
when it is said that there was a * shiling” competition and a 
“scraighing” combat. In the former the competitors stood in 
a row facing the ‘“‘dominie” and one of the elder scholars, 
who officiated as judges, and the orange was awarded to the 
one who “shiled” best, “e., the one who made the ugliest 
face. One of my informants, who once acted as one of the 
umpires, still speaks with zest of the performance of one boy, 
who so excelled the others in the delightful accomplishment of 
‘‘shilin’” that he was always the winner of the luscious fruit, 
then far more prized than now. The “scraighing” contest (I 
prefer to use my informant’s expressive Scotch for the emasculated 
English one of screaming), while it appealed less to the ocular 
organs, must. have been something of a trial to the organs of 
hearing, as it consisted in ‘“ scraighing” as loudly as_ possible. 
The boy who made the most discordant sound received the orange. 
The only example of the use of a bonfire, or indeed of the use of 
fire of any kind, in the observance of the Candlemas * bleeze” 
that has come within my hearing, was at Southwick school, in an 
adjoining parish, but as children belonging to Kirkbean took part 
in the operations I may introduce it as appropriate to this paper. 
For some days before Candlemas day the children busied themselves 
during the dinner hour in collecting a pile of whins and other 
brushwood. On the day itself they made an effigy with a stake 
dressed in an old coat and hat, and placing it in the centre of the 
pile set fire to the heap, and consumed the effigy. This is what 
they knew as the Candlemas ‘“ bleeze,” but very singularly, the 
effigy they burned was that of Thomas Paine, the author of the 
«Age of Reason,’ but who was only known to them as * Tom 
Paine, the infidel.” This must have been a comparatively modern 
introduction. as Thomas Paine did not die until 1809, and his 
effigy was being burned as the Candlemas “ bleeze ” about 1830. 
