I know several persons who refuse to have their likeness taken lest it prove unlucky; and give as instances the cases of several of their friends who never had a day's health after being photographed.
In addition to the many forms of superstition which we have been recalling, there were, and still are a great many superstitions connected with the phenomenon of dreaming, but as the notions in this series were very varied, differing very much in different localities, and everywhere subject less or more to the fancy of the interpreter, and as I believe that the notions and practices now in vogue in this connection are of comparatively recent origin, I will not enter upon the subject.
[APPENDIX.]
[YULE, BELTANE, & HALLOWEEN FESTIVALS:]
Survivals of Ancient Sun and Fire Worship.
istory and prehistoric investigations have shown quite clearly that prehistoric man worshipped the Sun, the giver and vivifier of all life, as the supreme God. To the sun they offered sacrifices, and at stated periods celebrated festivals in his honour; and at these festivals bread and wine and meat were partaken of, with observances very similar in many respects to the practices of the Jews during their religious feasts. But although the sun was the supreme deity, other objects were also worshipped as subordinate deities. These objects, however, were generally in some manner representative of sun attributes; for example, the Moon was worshipped as the spouse of the Sun, Venus as his page. The pleiades and other constellations, and single stars were also deified; the rainbow and the lightning were sun servants, the elements, the sun's offspring. Many animals and trees were reverenced as representatives of sun attributes. Above all, fire was worshipped as the truest symbol of the sun upon earth, and all offerings and sacrifices in honour of the sun were presented through fire; thus sun and fire worship became identified.
In Britain sun-worship appears to have been purer in prehistoric than it afterwards was in historic times, purer also than the sun-cult of historic Egypt, Greece, or Rome; that is, there appears to have been in British sun-worship less of polytheism than prevailed in Egypt, Greece, or Rome. But during the historic period, the numerous invasions and the colonizations of different portions of this country by the Romans and other nations, who brought with them their special religious beliefs and formulæ of worship, caused the increase of polytheism by the commingling of the foreign and native elements of belief, and later on, these were mixed with Christianity, and in these mixings all the elements became modified, so that now it is very difficult to separate with certainty the aboriginal, invasional, and Christian elements.