o
extinguish all fires in the neighbourhood before proceeding to kindle
the sacred flame.[388] The Irish historian Geoffrey Keating, who wrote
in the first part of the seventeenth century, tells us that the men of
Ireland held a great fair every year in the month of May at Uisnech
(_Ushnagh_) in the county of Meath, "and at it they were wont to
exchange their goods and their wares and their jewels. At it, they were,
also, wont to make a sacrifice to the Arch-God that they adored, whose
name was Bel (_bayl_). It was, likewise, their usage to light two fires
to Bel, in every district of Ireland, at this season, and to drive a
pair of each kind of cattle that the district contained, between those
two fires, as a preservative to guard them against all the diseases of
that year. It is from that fire, thus made in honour of Bel, that the
day [the first of May] on which the noble feast of the apostles, Philip
and James, is held, has been called Beltaini, or Bealtaine
(_Bayltinnie_); for Beltaini is the same as Beil-teine, i.e. Teine Bheil
(_Tinnie Vayl_) or Bel's Fire."[389] The custom of driving cattle
through or between fires on May Day or the eve of May Day persisted in
Ireland down to a time within living memory. Thus Sir John Rhys was
informed by a Manxman that an Irish cattle-dealer of his acquaintance
used to drive his cattle through fire on May Day so as to singe them a
little, since he believed that it would preserve them from harm. When
the Manxman was asked where the dealer came from, he answered, "From the
mountains over there," pointing to the Mourne Mountains then looming
faintly in the mists on the western horizon.[390]

[Fires on the Eve of May Day in Sweden; fires on the Eve of May Day in
Austria and Saxony for the purpose of burning the witches.]

The first of May is a great popular festival in the more midland and
southern parts of Sweden. On the eve of the festival, huge bonfires,
which should be lighted by striking two flints together, blaze on all
the hills and knolls. Every large hamlet has its own fire, round which
the young people dance in a ring. The old folk notice whether the flames
incline to the north or to the south. In the former case, the spring
will be cold and backward; in the latter, it will be mild and
genial.[391] Similarly, in Bohemia, on the eve of May Day, young people
kindle fires on hills and eminences, at crossways, and in pastures, and
dance round them. They leap over the glowing e