dead at
the beginning of winter, which was the beginning of a new year, while a
similar festival of the dead at New Year is held in many other lands.

Both in Ireland and in Brittany, on November eve food is laid out for
the dead who come to visit the houses and to warm themselves at the fire
in the stillness of the night, and in Brittany a huge log burns on the
hearth. We have here returned to the cult of the dead at the
hearth.[554] Possibly the Yule log was once a log burned on the
hearth--the place of the family ghosts--at Samhain, when new fire was
kindled in each house. On it libations were poured, which would then
have been meant for the dead. The Yule log and the log of the Breton
peasants would thus be the domestic aspect of the fire ritual, which had
its public aspect in the Samhain bonfires.

All this has been in part affected by the Christian feast of All Souls.
Dr. Frazer thinks that the feast of All Saints (November 1st) was
intended to take the place of the pagan cult of the dead. As it failed
to do this, All Souls, a festival of all the dead, was added on November
2nd.[555] To some extent, but not entirely, it has neutralised the pagan
rites, for the old ideas connected with Samhain still survive here and
there. It is also to be noted that in some cases the friendly aspect of
the dead has been lost sight of, and, like the _sid_-folk, they are
popularly connected with evil powers which are in the ascendant on
Samhain eve.

FOOTNOTES:

[532] Silius Italicus, v. 652; Lucan, i. 447. Cf. p. 241, _infra_.

[533] Ammian. Marcell. xv. 10. 7; Joyce, _SH_ i. 45.

[534] Bulliot, _Fouilles du Mont Beuvray_, Autun, 1899, i. 76, 396.

[535] Le Braz, ii. 67; Sauve, _Folk-lore des Hautes Vosges_, 295;
Berenger-Feraud, _Superstitions et Survivances_, i. 11.

[536] Hearn, _Aryan Household_, 43 f.; Berenger-Feraud, i. 33; _Rev. des
Trad._ i. 142; Carmichael, ii. 329; Cosquin, _Trad. Pop. de la
Lorraine_, i. 82.

[537] Kennedy, 126. The mischievous brownie who overturns furniture and
smashes crockery is an exact reproduction of the Poltergeist.

[538] Dechelette, _Rev. Arch._ xxxiii, (1898), 63, 245, 252.

[539] Cicero, _De Leg._ ii. 22.

[540] Dechelette, 256; Reinach, _BF_ 189.

[541] Dechelette, 257-258. In another instance the ram is marked with
crosses like those engraved on images of the underworld god with the
hammer.

[542] Kennedy, 187.

[543] Lady Wilde, 118; Curtin, _Tales_, 54.

[544] Le Bra