onnected with Hallowe'en were, in other parts of
the country, observed in connection with the summer festival. Now,
however, we are glad to say, these superstitious ceremonies and beliefs
in their old gross forms are fast passing away, or have become so
modified that we can scarcely recognise their relations to the old
fire-worship.

In 1860, I was residing near the head of Loch Tay during the season of
the Hallowe'en feast. For several days before Hallowe'en, boys and
youths collected wood and conveyed it to the most prominent places on
the hill sides in their neighbourhood. Some of the heaps were as large
as a corn-stack or hay-rick. After dark on Hallowe'en, these heaps were
kindled, and for several hours both sides of Loch Tay were illuminated
as far as the eye could see. I was told by old men that at the beginning
of this century men as well as boys took part in getting up the
bonfires, and that, when the fire was ablaze, all joined hands and
danced round the fire, and made a great noise; but that, as these
gatherings generally ended in drunkenness and rough and dangerous fun,
the ministers set their faces against the observance, and were seconded
in their efforts by the more intelligent and well-behaved in the
community; and so the practice was discontinued by adults and relegated
to school boys. In the statistical account of the parish of Callander,
the same practice is referred to. It is stated that "When the bonfire
was consumed, the ashes of the fire were carefully collected in the form
of a circle, and a stone put in near the circumference for every person
in the several families concerned in getting up the fire; and whatever
stone is moved out its place or injured before next morning, the person
represented by the stone is devoted or fey, and is supposed not to live
twelve months from that day." In all probability this devoted person was
in olden times offered as a sacrifice to the fire god on the great day
of sacrifice, which was the festival day. The belief that the spirits of
the dead were free to roam about on that night is still held by many in
this country. Indeed, where the forms of the feast have all but
disappeared, the superstitious auguries connected with it survive. Burns
particularises very fully the formulae of Hallowe'en, as practised in
Ayrshire in his day, and as this poem is well known, it would be
superfluous to follow it in detail here; but I cannot refrain from
drawing attention to the s