the ghost of the child was supposed to
supply the other spirits with water from these cups.[542] In Ireland,
after a death, food is placed out for the spirits, or, at a burial, nuts
are placed in the coffin.[543] In some parts of France, milk is poured
out on the grave, and both in Brittany and in Scotland the dead are
supposed to partake of the funeral feast.[544] These are survivals from
pagan times and correspond to the rites in use among those who still
worship ancestors. In Celtic districts a cairn or a cross is placed over
the spot where a violent or accidental death has occurred, the purpose
being to appease the ghost, and a stone is often added to the cairn by
all passers-by.[545]

Festivals were held in Ireland on the anniversaries of the death of
kings or chiefs, and these were also utilised for purposes of trade,
pleasure, or politics. They sometimes occurred on the great festivals,
e.g. Lugnasad and Samhain, and were occasionally held at the great
burial-places.[546] Thus the gathering at Taillti on Lugnasad was said
to have been founded by Lug in memory of his foster-mother, Tailtiu, and
the Leinstermen met at Carman on the same day to commemorate King
Garman, or in a variant account, a woman called Carman. She and her sons
had tried to blight the corn of the Tuatha De Danann, but the sons were
driven off and she died of grief, begging that a fair should always be
held in her name, and promising abundance of milk, fruit, and fish for
its observance.[547] These may be aetiological myths explaining the
origin of these festivals on the analogy of funeral festivals, but more
likely, since Lugnasad was a harvest festival, they are connected with
the custom of slaying a representative of the corn-spirit. The festival
would become a commemoration of all such victims, but when the custom
itself had ceased it would be associated with one particular personage,
the corn-goddess regarded as a mortal.

This would be the case where the victim was a woman, but where a male
was slain, the analogy of the slaying of the divine king or his
_succedaneum_ would lead to the festivals being regarded as
commemorative of a king, e.g. Garman. This agrees with the statement
that observance of the festival produced plenty; non-observance, dearth.
The victims were slain to obtain plenty, and the festival would also
commemorate those who had died for this good cause, while it would also
appease their ghosts should these be angry at th