[672]. Germ. xlv.
[673]. Beów. l. 4299 seq.
[674]. Beów. l. 604 seq.
[675]. Ibid. l. 2895.
[676]. Mythol. p. 195.
[677]. Edited in 1839 by the Rev. J. Stevenson for the members of the Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs.
[678]. See Jamieson’s Scottish Dictionary, voc. Beltane, and Boucher’s Glossary by Stevenson.
[679]. In the Mirror of June 24th, 1826, there is the account of this having been done in Perthshire, on occasion of a cattle epidemic. “A wealthy old farmer, having lost several of his cattle by some disease very prevalent at present, and being able to account for it in no way so rationally as by witchcraft, had recourse to the following remedy, recommended to him by a weird sister in his neighbourhood, as an effectual protection from the attacks of the foul fiend. A few stones were piled together in the barnyard, and woodcoals having been laid thereon, the fuel was ignited by will-fire, that is fire obtained by friction; the neighbours having been called in to witness the solemnity, the cattle were made to pass through the flames, in the order of their dignity and age, commencing with the horses and ending with the swine. The ceremony having been duly and decorously gone through, a neighbouring farmer observed to the enlightened owner of the herd, that he, along with his family, ought to have followed the example of the cattle, and the sacrifice to Baal would have been complete.” The will-fire has been used in Devonshire for the same purpose, within the memory of man.
[680]. Cod. Dipl. No. 1221.
[681]. Cod. Dipl. No. 1059, 92.