unaware, before the gods of
our pagan ancestors. Thus May-Day rites, which have come to us through
Roman and Druidical channels, are remains of a very early worship.

The Druids, on May 1, lighted great fires in honor of Bel or Belen--the
Apollo, or Orus, of other nations. In Celtic centers of Great Britain the
day is still called _la Bealtine_, _Bealtine_, or _Beltine_, which means
"day of Belen's fire," since, in the Celtic language of Cornwall, _tan_
means "fire," and the verb _tine_ means to "light a fire."

In the Highlands of Scotland, as late as 1790, the Beltein, or rural
sacrifice on May 1, was fully observed. The herdsmen of every village
lighted a fire within a square outlined by cutting a trench in the turf.
Over the fire was dressed a caudle of eggs, milk, oatmeal, and butter.
Part was poured on the ground as a libation.

Then every one took a cake of oatmeal, upon which were nine knobs, each
dedicated to some divinity. Facing the fire, they broke off the knobs, one
at a time, throwing them over their shoulders and saying: "This I give to
thee. Preserve thou my horses." "This to thee; preserve thou my sheep,"
and so on. The caudle was then eaten.

Traces of fire sacrifice are found in Ireland, particularly in the custom
of lighting fires at short intervals and driving cattle between them, and
the custom of fathers jumping over or running through fires with their
children in their arms. Undoubtedly these singular forms of sport are
modifications of what was once real sacrifice.

Our commonest May-Day games, however, probably come from the Floralia, or
rather from the Maiuma, of the Romans, who, it is said, were but repeating
the festal customs of ancient Egypt and India. The Maiuma were established
under the Emperor Claudius, to take the place of the Floralia, from which
they seem to have differed little, except, perhaps, that they were not
made an occasion for so great license.

The May-festival, in its deepest meaning, is a recognition of the renewed
fertility of the earth with the returning spring. It is one of the oldest
of all festivals. The children who now go a Maying, or dance around the
Maypole, or choose a May Queen, are unconsciously imitating the joyous
ceremonies with which the ancients welcomed the new birth of Nature.
Fertility was among the earliest of religious ideas.

"Going a Maying" is a very ancient custom in England. Bourne, in his
"Antiquitates Vulgares," said:

On the cal