“Exactly at midnight, the fires began to appear, and taking the advantage of going up to the leads of the house, which had a widely extended view, I saw on a radius of thirty miles, all around, the fires burning on every eminence which the country afforded. I had a farther satisfaction in learning, from undoubted authority, that the people danced round the fires, and at the close went through these fires, and made their sons and daughters, together with their cattle, pass through the fire; and the whole was conducted with religious solemnity.”
It will have been observed with reference to these fire festivals that although there were undoubtedly four, in May, August, November and February, those in May and November were more important than the others. This no doubt arose from the fact that at different times the May and November celebrations were New Year festivals. With regard to the New Year in November in Celtic and later times. Rhys writes as follows (Hibbert Lectures, p. 514):—
“The Celts were in the habit formerly of counting winters, and of giving precedence in their reckoning to night and winter over day and summer (p. 360); I should argue that the last day of the year in the Irish story of Diarmait’s death meant the eve of November or All-halloween, the night before the Irish Samhain, and known in Welsh as Nos Galan-gaeaf, or the Night of the Winter Calends. But there is no occasion to rest on this alone, as we have the evidence of Cormac’s Glossary that the month before the beginning of winter was the last month; so that the first day of the first month of winter was also the first day of the year.”
That the November bonfire was recognised as heralding the dominion of the gods and spirits of darkness,[37] that the old ideas surrounding Horus and Set in Egypt were not forgotten, is evidenced by the fact that when it was extinct the whole company round it would suddenly take to their heels, shouting at the top of their voices:—
Yr hwch đu gwta
A gipio ’r ola’!
The cropped black sow
Seize the hindmost!
A piecing together of the folklore and traditions of different districts suggests that sacrifices were made in connection with the fire festivals, in fact that the fire at one of the critical times of the May year at least was a sacrificial one.
I will quote two cases given by Gomme[38] for May Day and All Souls’ Day respectively:—
“At the village of Holne, situated on one of the spurs of Dartmoor, is a field of about two acres, the property of the parish, and called the Ploy Field. In the centre of this field stands a granite pillar (Menhir) six or seven feet high. On May-morning, before daybreak, the young men of the village used to assemble there, and then proceed to the moor, where they selected a ram lamb, and after running it down, brought it in triumph to the Ploy Field, fastened it to the pillar, cut its throat and then roasted it whole, skin, wool, &c. At midday a struggle took place, at the risk of cut hands, for a slice, it being supposed to confer luck for the ensuing year on the fortunate devourer. As an act of gallantry the young men sometimes fought their way through the crowd to get a slice for the chosen amongst the young women, all of whom, in their best dresses, attended the Ram Feast, as it was called. Dancing, wrestling, and other games, assisted by copious libations of cider during the afternoon, prolonged the festivity till midnight.”
In the parish of King’s Teignton, Devonshire, “a lamb is drawn about the parish on Whitsun Monday in a cart covered with garlands of lilac, laburnum and other flowers, when persons are requested to give something towards the animal and attendant expenses; on Tuesday it is then killed and roasted whole in the middle of the village. The lamb is then sold in slices to the poor at a cheap rate.”