The traditions connected with the Beltane fires are very interesting, but the subject has received so much attention in published volumes that it need not here be dwelt upon. The lad who in the United States capers around a bonfire on the night of Independence Day has not a suspicion that he is imitating the rites of an antiquity the most remote; that in burning a heap of barrels and boxes in a public square the celebrators of the American Fourth of July imitate the priests who thus worshipped the sun-god Beal. The origins of our most familiar customs are constantly being discovered in such directions as this. On the face of the thing, nothing could be more absurd as a mode of jollification, in a little American town, with its wooden architecture, on a hot night in the midst of summer, than building a roaring fire to make the air still hotter and endanger the surrounding houses. The reason for the existence of such a custom must be sought in another land and another time; had reflection governed the matter, instead of tradition, the American anniversary would have found some more fitting means of celebration than Druidic fires and Chinese charms. (For it may be mentioned further, in this connection, that the fire-crackers of our urchins are quite as superstitious in their original purpose as the bonfire is. In China, even to this day, fire-crackers are charms pure and simple, their office to drive away evil spirits, their use as a means of jollification quite unknown to their inventors.) A far more sensible Midsummer rite, especially in a hot country, would have been to adopt the custom of St. Ulric’s day, and eat fish. This saint’s day falls on the fourth of July, and Barnabe Googe’s translation of Naogeorgius has this couplet concerning it:
Wheresoeuer Huldryche hath his place, the people there brings in
Both carpes and pykes, and mullets fat, his fauour here to win.
III.
The Welsh saint called Cynog was one of the numberless children of that famous old patriarch Brychan Brycheiniog, and had his memory honoured, until a comparatively recent period, in the parish of Defynog. Here, on this saint’s feast Monday, which fell in October, there was a custom called ‘carrying Cynog.’ Cynog was represented by a man who was paid for his services with money, or with a suit of clothes—sometimes a ‘stranger’ from an adjoining parish, but on the last recorded occasion a drunken farmer of the neighbourhood. He was clad in dilapidated garments, and borne through the village; after which he was tumbled headlong into the river amid the jeers of the crowd, to scramble out as best he might. It was not a very respectful way of commemorating a saint who had been buried a thousand years or thereabouts; but such as it was it died out early in the present century. The ducking which ended the performance has been supposed to be a puritan improvement on what was before a religious ceremony, or mystery. It is more than possibly a relic of the Druidic sacrificial rites; in cases where a river ran near, at the time of the Beltane fires, a sacrifice by water was substituted for that of flame.
The feast of St. Cynog continued for a week. On the Tuesday there was a singular marketing in the churchyard; from all about the farmers brought their tithe of cheese, and taking it to the churchyard, laid it on the tombstones, where it was sold for the parson’s behoof.
IV.
All Hallows eve is by the Welsh called ‘Nos Calan Gauaf,’ meaning ‘the first night of winter;’ sometimes, ‘Nos Cyn Gauaf,’ the ‘night before winter.’ It is one of the ‘Teir Nos Ysprydnos,’ or ‘three nights for spirits,’ upon which ghosts walk, fairies are abroad, mysterious influences are in the air, strange sights are seen, and in short goblins of every sort are to be with special freedom encountered. They may be conjured to appear, by certain enchantments, and to give their visitors glimpses of the future, especially as regards the subject of marrying. On this night it is customary for the young people, gathered in many a merry circle, to seek by tricks and charms of various sort to become acquainted with their future lovers and sweethearts. Not that it is always necessary to employ such aids, for on the Teir Nos Ysprydnos the phantoms of future companions have been known to appear unsummoned. There are many such stories as that of Thomas Williams, the preacher, who slept in the hills on a Nos Ysprydnos, and although he used no charms nor tricks of any sort, he saw his future wife. As he was just about putting out his light, having jumped into bed, the door opened and the goblin mother of the young woman he subsequently married walked into the room, leading her daughter. ‘Here, Thomas,’ said she, ‘I am going, but I leave you Mary.’ And when he came down home out of the mountains he found that the old mother had died in her bed at the very moment he saw her goblin. To have done less than marry the girl, after that, would have been to insult the good old lady’s ghost, and cast reflections on the reputation of All Hallows eve.
The two other spirit-nights, it may here be mentioned, are May-day eve and Midsummer eve; which with All Hallows were three great festivals of the ancient Druids, when they commemorated the powers of Nature and love in the manner which has been alluded to. I have two accounts of this matter, however, and I know not which is the older in tradition, as I have both from the mouths of the people; but one account calls Christmas-night the third spirit-night.
The festivities of All Hallows in Wales are in the main like those of other Christian lands, in so far as they consist of feasting and making merry. Bonfires were kindled in many places until recently, and perhaps are still, in some parts, again in pursuance of the Druidic rites, which the Christian Church adopted and continued while changing their significance. In Owen’s account of the Bards occurs a curious description of the autumnal fires kindled in North Wales on the eve of the first of November, and the attendant ceremonies. There was running through the fire and smoke, and casting of stones into the fire, ‘all running off at the conclusion to escape from the black short-tailed sow.’[129] This custom of running through the fire is said to survive in Ireland. It is no doubt related to the ancient sacrificial rites. As testimonies to the kinship of our race, all these customs possess a deep interest, which is increased in this direction as they lose in the charm of the unique.
On the Welsh Border there prevails a Hallow-e’en custom among the children of going about to the houses singing the rhymes which follow: