SOME SCOTTISH SUPERSTITIONS.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 6, Issue 337, 7 March 1884, Page 3

SOME SCOTTISH SUPERSTITIONS.

5.' : %^'oA^'^^^^^^^^^s r ■ V - ioSi i bl^gnorance^but in tlie case, ofcpie ;fe i Scdifch, IBsh^and .of the Norse . natoansj; ■"'■■■ mixeli it. -THeir^old religion was ■ identified 'with tlieir national existence,. andLthe fact of Christianity' being a rf *nßßKHgn re^gtdii was in ore against it than 1. • V iahy rmerejdoctrinal novelty; Now, Celtic superstitions mostly descend from the suppressed religion, of the. Druids as understood by the people. They have >j -clung to old customs. because they were national, and to old beliefs because these generally tended to the glorification of their own clan. The Druids among the old Gaels were magicians, and took their name from the Greek word Drus, signifying an oak, or from the Gaelic Duir, or Pair, an oak tree. Hence their religion trap called Druidism, because their tern' pies were always built in oak groves. These Druids were priests, prophets, philosophers, teachers, physicians," and judges — in a word, the only learned class. Their religion was originally monotheistic — or belief in one God — but it is supposed that they gradually fell into idolatry, adoring as gods what had been at first but symbolical representations of the 'only; God. Their chief divinity became the sun, equivalent to Balder in Danish and Scandinavian mythology, and to the Baal of Eastern |and the Apollo of Western heathendom,as Heccateus, one of the most ancient Greek historians, seems to imply. Like the prophets of Baal, these ancient Druids worshipped in thick groves. Their festivals were distinguished by the use of fires, and (but some dispute this) human sacrifices. Those who deny that the Druids offered human sacrifices maintain that as the Druids were judges, these supposed victims were „ simply, criminals regularly condemned to death by fire, as was the case even in . . some Christian countries. The four festivals of the Celts were ' the eve of the Ist of May, Midsummer . eve (since St. John, the Baptist's), the . eve of the first of November (since Hallowe'en), and the eve of the 10th of March. The Hallowfires and S. John's have been kept up in Scotland until a very late period, and in many remote places of the Western and Northern Highlands are so at the present time. On the eve of the first of November it was the custom to extinguish all the fires in the Kingdom, and every father of a family was religiously bound to take a portion of the consecrated fire from the = ; earn or altar with which to kindle the fire on his own hearth anew for the ensuing year. If he neglected or failed in this hone of hi§ neighbors durst let him have $he penejlt of theirs, under pain of exPommunicaiion'. Something of this was adopted W" the Christian Church, or at least the two customs Eastern and Wests eim -were fused into one, and commemoTated in those grand and imposing symbolicaLceremonies. of Holy Saturday or Easter Eve in the Catholic Church, when ' new fire is struck from a flint, and from , it the candles in the church are lighted. Inmost parts of Aberdeenshire, Banff, Inverness-, and Argylesbire— and $ may ias in I'very1 'very mm? ?\&m » W north of freland—ii is still customary for a tenant Removing from one house to another to barry." kindling" along with him— that '-"" is, : life coals with which to light the fire m his new 'dwelling. Thig custom i§ ly&e&J We l «$» do^Tfrom DrW: cal time's, and is identically 'the same ■ H\h ' which' prevails among the ■jeaßants in Russia, who believe m a j\ house-spirit," whose especial seat is the «. -The oldest woman in the family *" : s generally chosen as the carrier of the : '.',TX>ti6¥ embers from the old house to the " 'new and. the earthenware pot is required ') to be a new one, and is broken on the hearth of the new house as soon as the embers have been emptied out of it. The legends and superstitions connected witi •'■SHow^eiV'ife' fairies or sprites, are as

numberless as they are childish, and yet with what incredible, surprising tenacity they still survive in Scotland and Ireland is too well known to the people of these countries. The Christian Church put its seal on the day of the first of November by calling it the festival of All-Hallows, and on |Midsummer eve by turning it into the festival of St. John the Baptist. The May festival, originally a commemoration of the change of season, became Rood Day, and was shifted to the third of the month to correspond with the Latin festival of the Holy Cross. Pagan and Christian customs were so mingled that it was difficult to tell one f w ora the other. In remote parts of Scotland, though the observance of festivals was discontinued after the Reformation, their traditional influences are still more or less/ felt. For instance, on Rood Day it wm customary to make small crosses of twigs of the rowan tree, and to place them oy^er j every door, window, and opening leading : into the house, as a protection against i evil spirits and malevolent influences. " Rowan-tree and red thiead Keep the witches frae their speed." In many houses both in Scotland and Ireland has the writer been present at the making of these crosses, and often times asked himself in which did these simple-minded people — but strong in faith and religion ; — believe most, in the virtue of the wood of the rowan tree or the shape of the cross. The pagan custom of lighting fires on the Ist of May — in the Gaelic tongue 'la Baeltinne,' that is, day of Baal fire — was kept up in Scotland through the Middle Ages, as it is still in Ireland, and the fires or beac ms are termed the "Beltan tree." . The May-day festivities, the May Queen, the Maypole, and the attendant mummeries were all undoubtedly relics of the >Druidical festival, corresponding with the cutting of the mistletoe bough, but the mediaeval church called the month. of May the month of Mary ; and though I can discover no such direct overlaying of a heathen feast by a Christian one in the case of the 10th of March, yet everyone knows that the 25th of March,. or Lady Day, became an important day in business transactions, being the spring quarter day, determining leases and judicial sessions. Christmas was prginally a Danish festival — Yule ; but the missionaries knew how to turn it to milder purposes and make it a day of "peace to men of goodwill." The. Scotch, however, never gave up their fairies, elves, etc., but they added. Christian saints to them and took up the prevailing notion that the gods they had worshipped were demons. This was not the r way to lessen belief in supernatural occurrences, for with an ignorant people fear is more powerful than love. Then began to be traditions concerning Christian mysteries and legends relating to Christian saints ; the old facility which fairies had possessed to control nature was transferred to hermits and holyjmen ; and miracles were too readily believed. Above all, the people loved — was it .with some sense of sly Immor and jocularity of which they were perhaps unconscious? — to pit saints against devils and assist in spirit at ".'skirmishes between their old gods and new teachers. Some of the vmedifflval tales which have come down to I- our own 'days of. demons assaulting, her•imitSf.tt^rn on the most ludicrous and 3*s^es,crae situations. Then.- followed the |B^|ief^!?hp.t: saints were "magicians, and secrets, from the 'demons, as was 'tE|,;cal.§^PitfK.. St. Dimstan, who was jWpi^4^^J^^6dlman, the wise councpfells£ of sseV&raE -Sa^ott J£ings,aiid a*great ''pibMStePW'^e^^ gre-* former Pof ■a]b ! ftS|6p.v''^§-^ l fiere are not many wholly Christian|custoins to repoxdy I will place the few that remain; liefpfe! 1 the others. Gf-pod Friday,^ij}E<)ilgli^|t^^ Christmas "day,.£ sicken f -fdtf# r < bf&sip Scotch calendar^ claimed a p'bpulafmark of respect till our own day. There was a general prejudice against it being made a day of ordinary labor, and the blacksmith .especially was a bold man who ventured to. lift a hammer, arid his wife a bolder woman who dared to wear her apron on that day, since according to tradition it was a smith' 6 wife that was employed to carry in her apron the nails which her husband had made for the sacrifice on Mount Calvary. How old this tradition is I cannot say, but I have heard it gone over a thousand and one times in the JNTorth of Ireland, and frequently in Scotland. It does not exactly tally with the dress of the Oriental woi men, but the general spirit is beautiful and reverent to the Christian mind. Along the eastern coast of Scotland, the .equinoctial storm which very often ocr curs some time before Easter, is known among the fishermen as the Passion ' Storm. There are legends also connecting the aspen-tree, the robin redbreast and the crossbill with the Crucifixion. It is said that the leaves of the aspen can never cease shaking because the Cross was made of the aspenwood, and that the two little birds compassionating the Saviour's agony tried to pick the nails out from his hands and feet and that in their endeavors the one got his breast crimsoned over with the blood of Christ and the other bore ever after the mark of the Cross on his crooked bill. ( To be continued.)