ALL fools’ day. 249 
purpose ; but bn the next Sunday they reassemble, arid finish thb 
relics of the first entertainment. 
Dr, James Robertson, minister of Callander, gives a very different 
and seemingly more credible, account of this festival, in Sir John Sin- 
clair’s Stat. Acc. vol. ii.620. Upon the first day of May,” says the Dr. 
“which is called Beltan, or Baltein day, all the boys in a township or 
hamlet meet in the moors. They cut a table in the green sod, of a 
round figure, by casting a trench in the ground, of such circumference 
as to hold the whole company.” After dressing the caudle, as above 
mentioned, they knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted at the 
embers, against a stone. After the custard is eaten up, they divide 
the cake into so many portions, similar as possible to one another 
in size and shape, as there are person's in the company. They daub 
one of these portions ail over with charcoal, until it is perfectly black. 
They put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet. Every one, blindfold, 
draws out a portion: he who holds the bonnet, is entitled to the 
last bit. Whoever draws the black bit, is the devoted person who is 
to be sacrificed to Baal, whose favour they mean to implore, in ren- 
dering the year productive of the sustenance of man and beast. There 
is little doubt of those inhuman sacrifices having been once offered in 
this country, as well as in the east, although they now' pass from the 
act of sacrificing, and only compel the devoted person to leap three 
times through the flames ; with which the ceremonies of this festival 
are closed. The Dr. in a note traces the origin of this and other 
superstitions from our ancient Druidism. Balstein, signifies the fire 
of Baal : Baal, or Ball, is the only word in Gaelic for a globe. This 
festival was probably in honour of the sun, whose return, in his 
apparent annual course, "they celebrated, on account of his having 
such a visible influence, by his genial warmth, on the productions of 
the earth. That the Caledonians paid a superstitious respect to the 
sun, as was the practice among many other nations, is evident not 
only by the sacrifice of Baltein, but upon many other occasions. 
When a Highlander goes to bathe, or to drink waters out of a conse- 
crated fountain, he must always approach by going round the place 
from east to west on the south side, in imitation of the apparent 
diurnal motion of the sun. When the dead are laid in the earth, the 
grave is approached by going round in the same manner. The bride 
•is conducted to her future spouse in the presence of the minister, 
and the glass goes round a company, in the course of the sun. This 
is called in Gaelic, going round the right, or the lucky, way. The 
opposite course is the wrong, or the unlucky, way. 
All Fools’ Day — (First of April.) ^ 
Maurice, in his “ Indian Antiquities,” vol. vi. p. 71, speaking of 
“ the First of April, or the ancient feast of the vernal equinox, equally 
observed in India and Britain,” tells us : “ The first of April was 
anciently observed in Britain as a high and general festival, in which 
an unbounded hilarity reigned through every order of its inhabitants ; 
for the sun, at that period of the year, entering into the sign Aries, 
the lietv year, and with it the season of rural spotts and verftai 
2 I 
