cases the effigy of a saint is
hung up and carried round the different houses, part of the dress being
left at each. The saint has probably succeeded to the traditional ritual
of the divine victim.[911] The primitive period in which the corn-spirit
was regarded as female, with a woman as her human representative, is
also recalled in folk-custom. The last sheaf is called the Maiden or the
Mother, while, as in Northamptonshire, girls choose a queen on S.
Catharine's day, November 26th, and in some Christmas pageants "Yule's
wife," as well as Yule, is present, corresponding to the May queen of
the summer festival.[912] Men also masqueraded as women at the Calends.
The dates of these survivals may be explained by that dislocation of the
Samhain festival already pointed out. This view of the Samhain human
sacrifices is supported by the Irish offerings to the Fomorians--gods of
growth, later regarded as gods of blight, and to Cromm Cruaich, in both
cases at Samhain.[913] With the evolution of religious thought, the
slain victim came to be regarded as an offering to evil powers.

This aspect of Samhain, as a festival to promote and assist festivity,
is further seen in the belief in the increased activity of fairies at
that time. In Ireland, fairies are connected with the Tuatha De Danann,
the divinities of growth, and in many folk-tales they are associated
with agricultural processes. The use of evergreens at Christmas is
perhaps also connected with the carrying of them round the fields in
older times, as an evidence that the life of nature was not
extinct.[914]

Samhain may thus be regarded as, in origin, an old pastoral and
agricultural festival, which in time came to be looked upon as affording
assistance to the powers of growth in their conflict with the powers of
blight. Perhaps some myth describing this combat may lurk behind the
story of the battle of Mag-tured fought on Samhain between the Tuatha De
Danann and the Fomorians. While the powers of blight are triumphant in
winter, the Tuatha Dea are represented as the victors, though they
suffer loss and death. Perhaps this enshrines the belief in the
continual triumph of life and growth over blight and decay, or it may
arise from the fact that Samhain was both a time of rejoicing for the
ingathered harvest, and of wailing for the coming supremacy of winter
and the reign of the powers of blight.

BELTANE.

In Cormac's _Glossary_ and other texts, "Beltane" is deriv