Chorographical description of West, or H-Ier-Connaught
, of R. O'Flaherty—was caused by the peculiar angle of the light from the setting sun, the reflection of the water of the Solway, and the refraction of the vapour and clouds above the Solway. These aerial and visionary horsemen were being exercised somewhere above the Kirkcudbright shore. It was not the first time the phenomenon had been seen within historic times, on the same fell-side, and at the same time of year. Canon Rawnsley writes to me,
"I have an idea that the fact that it took place at midsummer eve (June 27), the eve of the Feast of St. John, upon which occasion the shepherds hereabout used to light bonfires on the hills (no doubt a relic of the custom of the Beltane fires of old Norse days, perhaps of earlier sun-worship festivals of British times), may have had something to do with the naming of the mountain Blencathara of which Southen-fell (or Shepherd's-fell, as the name implies) is part. Blencathara, we are told, may mean the Hill of Demons, or the haunted hill. My suggestion is that the old sun-worshippers, who met in midsummer eve on Castrigg at the Druid circle or Donn-ring, saw just the same phenomenon as Strichet and Lancaster saw upon Southen-fell, and hence the name. Nay, perhaps the Druid circle was built where it is, because it was well in view of the Demon Hill."
Ed.
This is a fact of which I have been an eye-witness.—W. W. 1793.
The quotation is from Collins'