upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost. In Catholic | tem. It was a popular belief that rain on this day countries, on this day, while the people are assembled indicated rain for thirty days thereafter. in church, pigeons are suspended above, and wafers, cakes, oak leaves, and other things are made to shower down upon the altar-all this as a dramatic representation of the miracle. 11. Whit-Monday.-A festival of the Church of England, as is also 12. Whit-Tuesday.—These three days together are called Whitsuntide. It forms a term, for which the 15th of May is fixed. The Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of this week are Ember Days, and the week is consequently an Ember Week. (See 8th February.) This also was a period of festivity among our ancestors. They now had what they called the Whitsun Ale, which consisted in a meeting of householders with their families at the church, after service, to partake of a feast provided by the churchwardens, at which the young danced and played at games, while the seniors looked on. In the days before the poor were supported by rates, a collection was made on this occasion, usually found sufficient to provide for them. The Whitsun Ale is now degenerated, where it exists at all, into a merry-making at a barn. Whitsunday and Martinmas terms (May 15 and November 11) are those alone regarded for the leasing of all kinds of property, paying of rents, and engaging of servants, in Scotland. 17. Trinity Sunday, a festival of the Church of England, which always takes place eight weeks after Easter. 21. Corpus Christi, a festival of the Romish Church, always held on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. It celebrates the doctrine of transubstantiation. In all Roman Catholic countries it is observed with music, lights, flowers strewed in the street, rich tapestries hung upon the walls, and processions and plays representing Scripture subjects. 24. St John's Day, the Nativity of St John the Baptist, a holiday of the Church of England. The Eve of St John, variously called Midsummer Eve, was formerly a time of high observance amongst the English, as it still is in Catholic countries. Bonfires were everywhere lighted, round which the people danced with joyful demonstrations, occasionally leaping through the flame. A certain number of citizens formed a watch, which perambulated the streets all night. It was also believed that on this eve, by fasting, waking, pulling certain herbs, and going through certain ceremonies, it was possible to obtain an insight into futurity on some important points. Fasting St John's Fast was a great feat of young women a century or two ago. There was also a custom of holding vigil in the churchporch, precisely the same as described under St Mark's Day (April 25). 29. St Peter's Day, a high festival of the Romish Church, and a holiday of the Church of England. It is celebrated at Rome with illuminations and magnificent ceremonials. In England, till a recent period, the bonfires and watchings of St John's Eve were also customary on the eve of this festival. Natural History. In the central parts of our island, this is in general a dry coldish summer month. The days, however, are at the longest; and though June ranks only third highest as to temperature, drought or evaporation reaches the extreme point. June here resembles the May of more southern climes. The foliage being now quite fresh and fully expanded, and the verdure of the pastures and corn-fields being also at the best, the face of nature appears to the greatest. advantage. Towards the end of the month we meet with a near coincidence of four stages of vegetationthe earing of wheat, the flowering of the rose, the ripening of strawberries, and the commencement of hay harvest. The general average of the thermometer is 57 degrees. In the course of the month we have the flowering of a great number of fine perennials and shrubs, so that the gardens are usually in great glory. It is also the time when weeds give the gardener and husbandınan the greatest trouble. JULY. This, being at first the fifth month of the Roman year, was called Quintilis. It became the seventh in consequence of the reform of the calendar by Julius Cæsar, in whose honour, as he was born in it, Augustus gave it the present name. 29. Restoration Day, a holiday of the Church of England to celebrate the restoration of monarchy in the person of Charles II., May 29, 1660, after its suppression for the preceding twelve years. The populace at one time wore oak leaves in their hats on this day, with reference to the concealment of Charles in the Royal Oak, while skulking after the battle of Worcester 1651. Natural History.-May is a month of the best reputation-indeed a general favourite in imagination; but it often balks the hopes of its worshippers. In favourable seasons, it presents many beautiful appearances, as herbage and foliage of the brightest green, a profusion of natural flowers, soft and genial skies, fishes leaping, swallows twittering, bees humming, the cuckoo repeating her note, and the corn coming into blade. But these appearances are often prevented or much clouded by cold east winds, most destructive to the 3. The day fixed in the calendars as the first of the fruit blossom. The greater prevalence of this wind dur-Dog-Days, the last being the 11th of August. The doging May than in any other month, seems to be chiefly days precede and follow the heliacal rising of the star the cause of the well-known injunction, Change not Sirius (in the constellation of the Greater Dog) in the a clout till May be out.' The general average tempe- morning, which in Pliny's time was on the 18th of rature is about 51 degrees. We are now arrived at the July. The extreme heat of this season of the year, latest period of seed-time. In the most backward parts although to us palpably the effect of the continued high of the country, barley is still sown; turnip sowing is position of the sun, was connected by the ancients with general; and the seeds of some of the tenderer garden the appearance of this star in the morning. They conplants are committed to the earth. The ash, the last-sidered the dog-star as raging, and gave the time the budding of our native trees, comes into leaf in the latter part of the month. JUNE. appellation of the Dog-Days. The liability of dogs to rabies in consequence of the heat of the season was connected with the same star, though there was nothing but accident in the collusion; and they butchered these The probable origin of the name of this has been animals without mercy. At Argos, there was a festival explained at the same time with that of May. 11. St Barnabas the Apostle, a holiday of the Church of England. In the old style, the 11th of June was the longest day; hence an ancient rhyme Barnaby Bright, The longest day and the shortest night. 15. St Vitus's Day.-St Vitus was a Sicilian martyr. From him, though for what reason is unknown, is named a well-known nervous affection of the limbs, proceeding from a disordered state of the visceral sys expressly instituted for the killing of dogs during this season. By the precession of the equinoxes, the heliacal rising of Sirius in the morning has been changed to the latter end of August, and in a few thousand years more it will take place in the depth of winter. St Ulric's Day.-On this day, in ancient Catholic | times, the people brought fish to the altar to obtain the favour of St Ulric, and one sat there selling the same back to the public for the benefit of the Church. 7. The Translation of St Thomas à Becket, noticed as a festival in the Church of England calendar. 15. St Swithin's Day-remarkable on account of a well-known popular notion, that if it rain on this day, there will be more or less rain for forty days to come. St Swithin lived just a thousand years ago. He was an eminently pious and learned bishop of Winchester, and priest to King Egbert. He was the deviser and originator of tithes in England. The story runs that, being buried by his own request in the churchyard of the cathedral, the priests a hundred years after felt desirous of giving him greater honour, and commenced the work of translating his remains into the interior. This was on the 15th of July. They were stopped in their work by a heavy fall of rain; neither could they resume their duty next day, for the heavy rain still continued. In short, this rain lasted forty days, by which time the priests became convinced that it was designed to stop them in a work which, though well meant on their part, was ill taken on that of the saint; and they gave up the point. Ever since then, it has been held as a maxim that if there be rain on St Swithin's Day (the 15th of July), there will be rain for the forty ensuing days. In a scientific work on the climate of London, it is acknowledged that in a majority of our summers, a showery period, which with some latitude as to time and local circumstances, may be admitted to constitute daily rain for forty days, does come on about the time indicated by this tradition-not that any long space before is often so dry as to mark distinctly its commencement.' 20. St Margaret's Day. - This day figures in the Church of England calendar. St Margaret was a holy Italian virgin, martyred in 278. She seems to have been the Christian Lucina: formerly, at Paris, there was a flocking to church on this day of all women who were pregnant, or thought they might be so in the course of the year. 25. St James the Apostle, a holiday of the Church of England. In Catholic times, it was customary for the priests on this day to bless the apples. On St James's Day, but according to old style (7th August, new style), oysters appeared in London, and there is a popular notion that he who eats oysters on that day will never want money for the rest of the year. Natural History.-July is the warmest month of the year, the general average temperature being 61 degrees. With us it may be accounted the most important, as its temperature in a good measure regulates the ripening of the crop-that is to say, determines whether it shall be early or late; and in our climate this for the most part may be reckoned a criterion of its value. Flora is in her glory this month. The greatest display of flowers in the whole year takes place in the course of July in our climate. The list includes all the hardy annuals and a great many others. At the same time all our small fruit are in abundance, cherries and strawberries in the beginning being followed by currants, gooseberries, and raspberries, in all their varieties. In the early part of the month barley and oats come into ear, and sometimes in very forward seasons a little barley is cut before the end of July; but very rarely any other kind of grain is ready for the sickle before the middle of August. A great part of the produce of the garden comes to perfection, such as early cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, peas, beans, lettuce, &c. Early potatoes also make their appearance, but are not mature till next month. AUGUST. In early Roman times this month was called Sextilis, as being the sixth of the year. The Julian arrangement made it the eighth. It acquired the name Augustus in honour of the second of the Caesars, to whom it had been a fortunate period, he having in it assumed his first consulship, celebrated three triumphs, subdued Egypt, received the oath of allegiance of the legions that occupied the Janiculum, and terminated the civil wars of Rome. As already mentioned, being dissatisfied with its being a month of thirty days, Augustus took a day from February to make it one of the longer class, like that (July) of his uncle Julius. At the same time, September and November were each deprived of a day, which was added in the one case to October, and in the other to December. 1. Lammas Day, called also the Gule of August. It is now only remarkable as a day of term for some purposes. It was probably one of the great festival days of our heathen ancestors; and it is worthy of observation that it occurs exactly three months after another of these-Beltane. Cormac, bishop of Cashel in the tenth century, records that in his time four great fires were lighted up on the four great festivals of the Druids-namely, in February, May, August, and November: probably Beltane and Lammas were two of these. Lammas seems to have been held as a day of thanksgiving for the new fruits of the earth. It was observed with bread of new wheat; and there was a custom in some places at no distant period for tenants to be bound to bring in wheat of the new crop to their lord on or before this day. The most rational explanation of the word is that which derives it from the Saxon Hlaf-masse (loaf-mass, or the loaf-festival), the f being in time softened away on account of the difficulty of pronouncing it before m. Till the middle of the last century, the shepherds in various parts of Scotland were accustomed to hold festive meetings on Lammas Day on the tops of conspicuous hills, turf towers and benches having been previously constructed for the purpose. The Gule of August is probably from the Celtic Cul or Gul (a festive anniversary). The early Christian priesthood, finding this word in vogue, Latinised it into Gula, which means throat. This, taken in connection with its being the day of the festival of St Peter ad Vincula (instituted in honour of a relic of St Peter's chains), seems to have suggested to them to make up a story of a daughter of the tribune Quirinus having been cured of a disorder in the throat by kissing the said relic on the day of its festival. And the Celtic gul (an anniversary) has thus been the remote cause of a Christian festival being instituted to Gula (the throat), and held on the day of St Peter's Chains. 15. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, a grand festival of the Romish Church, and a day noted in the calendar of the Church of England. It was instituted in 813, to celebrate the ascension of the Virgin into heaven. In Catholic countries, this day is marked by splendid ceremonies and processions. 24. St Bartholomew's Day, a holiday of the Church of England. Bartholomew was an apostle, but there is no Scriptural account of his labours or death. The legend of the Romish Church represents him as preaching in the Indies, and concluding his life by being flayed alive by order of a brother of the king of Armenia. In memory of his death, it was customary at our monastic institutions, in the middle ages, to distribute small knives amongst the people. The day has a horrible celebrity in connection with the massacre of the Protestants at Paris in 1572. Natural History.-The mean average heat of this month (60 degrees) approaches so near that of July, that a warm dry August often compensates for a low temperature in the preceding month. In the beginning of August we have often the heaviest rain of the whole year, termed in Scotland the Lammas Flood. July and August, always our warmest, are often our wettest months. Southerly and westerly winds have now the ascendancy, but in the case of very heavy rain the wind usually falls. Harvest, in the average, commences about the middle of this month, but in late seasons not till the very end. The order of ripening of our cereal grains is-barley, wheat, oats. The earliest of our larger fruit begin to ripen this month-apples and pears, but hardly plums. The later and more tender goose when she received intelligence of the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Very curious and recondite origins have been assigned to this custom, but it seems to have arisen simply from the goose being in finest condition for the table immediately after it has had the range of the reaped harvest fields. exotic annuals now come into flower, such as the ama- | Elizabeth is said to have been eating her Michaelmas ranths, xeranthemum, zinnia, jacobea, China asters, &c.; also the gigantic biennial shepherd's club, which sows itself, and the also gigantic annual sunflower. St John's wort, monkshood, flox, and others, also flower about this time. This month is likewise the busiest season of the herring fishery, an important branch of industry, which affords lucrative employment to vast numbers of the working population. SEPTEMBER. This was the seventh (septem) month in the Roman year before the Julian reform of the calendar. The two first syllables of the name are thus readily accounted for; the last, which also figures at the end of the names of the three following months, is an ancient particle of doubtful signification. 1. St Giles's Day.-This saint's day figures in the Church of England calendar. A native of Greece, he travelled into France in 715, and became abbot of Nismes. He literally obeyed the Scriptural injunction by selling his patrimony for the benefit of the poor, and on one occasion gave his coat to a sick mendicant, who was cured miraculously by putting it on. St Giles has thus become the patron saint of beggars and cripples. St Giles's Church, Cripplegate, London, and the High Church in Edinburgh, are dedicated to him; and he is the patron saint of the Scottish capital, as far as it can be said to have one. 8. The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, a grand festival of the Romish Church, and still retained in the Church of England calendar. This festival has been held in honour of the Virgin, with matins, masses, homilies, collects, processions, and other ceremonies, for upwards of a thousand years. According to the Catholic writers, a religious contemplative, every year upon the 8th of September, heard most sweet music in heaven, with great rejoicings of angels. Once he asked one of them the cause, and was told that upon that day was celebrated in heaven the nativity of the mother of God. The birthday of the Virgin being thus miraculously communicated to mankind, Pope Servius instituted a festival to hold it in honour. 14. Holy Rood Day, or the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a festival of the Romish Church, still retained in the Church of England calendar. It celebrates the miraculous appearance of a cross in the heavens to the emperor Constantine. The Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after Holyrood Day, are Ember Days, and the week in which they occur is consequently termed Ember Week. 21. St Matthew the Apostle, a festival of the Church of England. 29. The Festival of St Michael and all the Holy Angels; shortly, Michaelmas Day, a grand festival of the Romish and English Churches. St Michael is singled out for particular mention as being the chief of angels, or archangel. The theological character of Michael is obscure. Suffice it here to quote the remark of Wheatley, in his exposition of the book of Common Prayer, that the feast of St Michael and all Angels is observed, that the people may know what benefits are derived from the ministry of angels.' Michaelmas, besides being one of the quarter-days in England for the payment of rents and wages, has been distinguished from an early period in that and other countries as the time for the annual election of corporation officers, magistrates, and other civil guardians of the peace. It has been suggested that the selection of the day for this purpose might arise from the old opinion of tutelar spirits, who have, or are thought to have, the particular charge of certain bodies of men, or districts of country, as also that every man has his guardian angel, who attends him from the cradle to the grave, from the moment of his coming in to the moment of his going out of life.' It is an ancient and extensively-prevalent custom to have a goose for dinner on Michaelmas Day. Queen Natural History.-This is often the finest month of the year; yet, as with other portions of our seasons, it is not to be depended on. In temperature (the general average is 55 degrees) it ranks between May and June, yet the first three weeks are often as warm as any part of the summer; but there is usually a sensible falling off in the latter part. In Scotland, the bulk of the harvest work of the season is usually effected during this month. It is likewise the time when large fruit comes to perfection. The flower borders have still a gay appearance, the latest exotic annuals only beginning to flower at this time. The dahlia, a magnificent flower of recent introduction, appears in all its grandeur during September. It has been remarked that at no other period of the year is the house-fly so numerous. OCTOBER. As already explained, October has its name from having been the eighth month of the Roman year before the Julian reform of the calendar. In the time of the emperor Domitian it was called Domitianus, in his honour; but after his death that name was abandoned by general consent, from a wish to sink the memory of so execrable a tyrant. The Saxons called October Wynat-monat (wine month), from its being the time when wines were annually brought into Germany (none being then made in that country). 2. The festival of the Holy Angel Guardians in the Romish Church. 9. The day of St Dennis, the patron saint of France. St Dennis was put to death, with some companions, in the year 272, upon an eminence near Paris, since called from that circumstance Montmartre (Mons Martyrum). According to the legend, his head had no sooner been cut off, than the body rose, and taking up the head, walked with it two miles. Portraits of the martyred saint, carrying his head in his hand, abound in old prayer-books. 18. The day of St Luke the Evangelist, a festival of the Church of England. This day was appointed to be St Luke's festival in the twelfth century. St Luke was usually represented in the act of writing, with an ox by his side, having wings and large horns. The natural habit of this animal in ruminating upon its food, caused it to be selected as an emblem of meditation appropriate to this evangelist. At Charlton, a village near Blackheath, about eight miles from London, a fair is held on St Luke's Day, and at this fair there was kept up till a very recent period a curious custom, originating evidently in the emblem of St Luke. People came to this fair masked; the men generally wore women's clothes; and many bore horns upon their heads. It was a scene of wild riot and confusion. The booths had horns of various animals, gilt and otherwise, for sale, and even the gingerbread was marked with that figure. Horns! horns!' was the universal cry. The gentry used to come in multitudes to see the sports of this occasion. Some fragments of a stained-glass representation of St Luke and his horned companion still exist, we believe, in a window of the parish church. 25. The festival of St Crispin and St Crispinian.The name of St Crispin is in the Church of England calendar. Crispin and Crispinian are said to have been two Roman youths of good birth, brothers, who, in the third century, went as Christian missionaries to France, and preached for some time at Soissons. In imitation of St Paul, they supported themselves by working at the trade of the shoemaker during the night, while they preached during the day. They were suc cessful in converting the people to Christianity, until arrested in their course by Rictius Varus, governor under the emperor Maximian Herculeus. Butler, in his Lives of the Saints,' says, They were victorious over this most inhuman judge by the patience and constancy with which they bore the most cruel torments, and finished their course by the sword about the year 287. The two young martyrs were of course canonised, and a splendid church was built to their honour at Soissons, in the sixth century. The shoemaker craft throughout the whole Christian world have from an early period regarded Crispin and Crispinian as their patron saints, but particularly the first. They often celebrate the day set apart for these saints in the calendar with processions, in which Crispin, Crispinian, an Indian prince, and some other personages whom tradition has associated with their history, are represented in splendid antique dresses. Sometimes a coronation of Crispin is part of this ceremony, for there is a notion that he was a royal personage; and hence we find the shoemakers, in Scotland at least, assuming for their arms a leather knife surmounted by a crown, and styling themselves the royal craft. Whether they celebrate the day by processions or not, they are sure to distinguish it by giving themselves up for the time to jollity. It is to be hoped, however, for the honour of the royal craft,' that there is no foundation for the scandalous censure conveyed against them in the following doggrel couplet : On the twenty-fifth of October, There was never a souter sober!' 28. The day of St Simon and St Jude, a festival of the English Church. Simon, usually surnamed the Canaanite, remained with the other apostles till after Pentecost: it has been surmised that he visited Britain, and there suffered martyrdom. Jude, otherwise called Thaddeus, and thought to have been a son of Joseph by a former wife, is said to have suffered martyrdom in Persia. NOVEMBER. November obtained its name from being the ninth (novem) month of the Roman year, before the reform effected by Cæsar. Our Saxon ancestors called it wintmonat (wind month). 1. All Saints' Day, a festival of the Romish and English Churches-otherwise called All Hallow Day. The evening of the 31st October is called All Hallow Even, or Hallow E'en, as being the vigil or eve of All Hallow Day. Hallow-tide is a comprehensive name for both days. The Romish Church designed this day to be held in honour of all those saints who had not particular days appointed for them. It does not appear that All Saints' day, or its Eve, was ever marked by very particular observance in the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, there is scarcely any time more distinguished by the common people throughout the British islands than All Hallow Eve or Hallowe'en. This is probably owing to the fact of November 1st having been one of the four great festivals of our Pagan ancestors. The 1st of February, the 1st of May, and the 1st of August, were the other three; the ancient names of the two latter are still in vogue-Beltane and Lammas. These four days were celebrated by the kindling of fires in conspicuous places, and performing certain ceremonies. The fires of Beltane and Lammas have already been spoken of; it is probable that those of the February festival are kept up in the Candlemas blaze, with a slight change of day. Fires were kindled in Wales, Ireland, the Scottish Highlands, and even in England, on the 1st of November, till a very recent period; and the custom may still be kept up in some remote places. Pennant states as follows:- In North Wales there is a custom upon All Saints' Eve of making a great fire called Coel Coeth. Every family, about an hour in the night, makes a great bonfire in the most conspicuous place near the house, and when it is almost exOn this day, formerly, it was considered proper to tinguished, every one throws a white stone into the indue winter vestments. It was always expected to be ashes, having first marked it; then having said their rainy. A character in an old play called the Roaring prayers turning round the fire, they go to bed. In the Girl, says, As well as I know 'twill rain upon Simon morning, as soon as they are up, they come to search and Jude's day.' In another production of the Eliza- out the stones, and if any of them are found wanting, bethan stage, some one exclaims, Now a continual they have a notion that the person who threw it in will Simon and Jude's rain beat all your feathers as flat die before he sees another All Hallow Eve.' The Welsh down as pancakes.' Perhaps there is some connection also practise many of those rites for divining the future between this notion and the emblem assigned to the day which are so prevalent on Hallowe'en in other parts of in old calendars-namely, a ship, which seems to have the United Kingdom. It is mentioned by another been adopted in consideration of Simon and Jude hav-writer that they dance round and jump through the ing been fishermen. bonfires, and at the conclusion always run away, 'to escape the black short-tailed sow.' Vallancey states that the Irish have now generally substituted a candle illumination for the fire of the 1st of November. 6 Natural History.-During this month, the average temperature of which is 494 degrees, there are usually decided symptoms of the approach of winter; yet the weather of the month is often of a steady and agreeable character. Bare harvest fields, some of which are in the course of being ploughed for winter wheat, form a conspicuous feature of external nature. The foliage of the trees becomes changed from green into a variety of tints, which gives the woods a beautiful appearance, and is generally admired, although felt to betoken that they are soon to be stripped of their summer honours. The migratory birds assemble, and commence their annual flight to more genial climes-the swallow to the coasts of Africa, the nightingale to the southern shores of the Mediterranean, and the puffin and some others either to Africa or to Spain. Towards the end of the month, if high winds prevail, the trees are a good deal bared. In the gardens less decline is to be remarked. The flower-borders still have a gay appearance; the hollyhock, dahlia, and some other flowers, being yet in good condition. This is the time of the laying up of potatoes. In England, it was the favourite time for brewing, on account of the equable temperature; and October is a secondary name for the yeoman's brown beverage. In this month the gossamer has a striking appearance, floating like an aerial veil over the fields, and meshing the passing traveller. The Rev. Mr Shaw, in his History of Moray,' written in the latter part of the last century, speaks of the Hallow Eve fire being still kindled in Buchan. In the 'Statistical Account of Scotland,' published at the close of the century, the same fire is spoken of as kept up in various parts of the Highlands. In the parish of Callendar, for instance, On All Saints' Eve, they set up bonfires in every village. When the bonfire is consumed, the ashes are carefully collected in the form of a circle. There is a stone put in, near the circumference, for every person of the several families interested in the bonfire; and whatever stone is moved out of its place, or injured, before the next morning, the person represented by that stone is devoted, or fey, and is supposed not to live twelve months from that day. How strange thus to find a superstitious custom of this nature existing in a form so nearly identical in Wales and Perthshire. Several writers in the Gentleman's Magazine, in the latter part of the last century, speak of Hallow Eve fires being still kindled in various parts of England, chiefly by persons of the Catholic persuasion. The practice seems to have been to carry about a quantity of burning stuff, under the name of tinley or tindle. These ceremonies appear to be amongst the earliest | connected with the 1st of November. They are, or have recently been, everywhere prevalent throughout these islands. As they are obviously of a Pagan character, we conclude that the notability of this season is of older date than the introduction of Christianity, and that its character as All Saints' Day has comparatively little affected the popular mind. We have notices from both Perthshire and Ireland of the 1st of November being partly regarded as the proper time for returning thanks for the realised fruits of the earth. The Irish, in this regard, called it La Mas Ubhal-that is, the day of the apple fruit-and celebrated it with a drink or mess composed of bruised roasted apples amongst ale or milk. This drink in time acquired the strange appellation of lamb's wool, a stupid corruption apparently of the name of the day in the Celtic language. Ringing of bells was one of the modes of celebrating Hallowmas in England in the days of our ancestors. It was a Roman Catholic practice, being designed in some way to favour the souls of departed Christians. For this reason Queen Elizabeth prohibited it. · Nuts, besides being thus used for divination, are cracked and eaten; and hence, in the north of England, All Hallow Eve is often called Nut-crack Night. Apples are also extensively eaten, this consumpt of fruit having probably some reference to the heathen character of the day, as that of thanksgiving for the produce of the season. The fortune-telling customs described by Burns, besides the above, are-for the girls to pull stalks from a corn-stack, and ascertain, from the presence or absence of the top pickle, an interesting point in their moral history-for a solitary female to go to a kiln, and throwing a blue clue into the pot to wind it, expecting that ere finished it will be held back, when, by inquiring who holds, a response will be obtained disclosing the name of the future husband--to eat an apple at a looking-glass, expecting to see a vision of the future husband peeping over the shoulder-to sow hemp-seed in the yard, saying, Hemp-seed, I saw thee, hemp-seed, I saw thee, and her that is to be my true love come after me and draw thee,' expecting that, on looking over the shoulder, a vision will be obtained of the future spouse in the act of pulling grown hempto win three wechts o' naething in the barn, expecting to see a like vision-to fathom a barley-stack thrice, expecting at the last to embrace your mistress-to dip a shirt sleeve in a rivulet at the meeting point of the lands of three proprietors, and then hang it by the fire to dry, trusting to see such a visionary person come in and turn the other side-to pull stalks of deceased cabbages blindfolded, without choice, and augur, from their straightness or crookedness, the figure of the future spouse, from the earth which clings to the root the fortune she will bring, and from the taste of the heart her temper-finally, to set three dishes on the floor, one empty, one with clean, and one with foul water, and cause the company to approach them blindfolded and dip in a hand; when he who dips in the empty one is expected to remain unmarried, he who dips in the foul one to marry to a widow, and he who dips in the clean one to marry a female not hitherto married. The whole of these rites are as familiar to Essentially connected with all these customs are those the Welsh, Irish, and Northumbrian, as to the Ayrbetter known ones which Burns has so well and so faith-shire peasantry. Many of them are also practised in fully described in his poem of Hallowe'en. All over the England on St John's Eve, the 23d of June. British islands, the festive and fortune-telling practices of this evening are very nearly the same. As some proof of this, passages from an English, Irish, and Scottish poet may be presented side by side: It was also a custom of our Catholic forefathers to have a cake baken on this eve for every member of the family, as a soul mass cake or soul cake. It was composed of oatmeal, and seeded; and pasties and furmety were incidental to the same evening. In families of good condition, a quantity were baken and set up on a board, like the shew-bread in old pictures in the Bible, to be given to visitors, or distributed amongst the poor. There was a rhyme for the occasion- A soul cake! a soul cake! Have mercy on all Christian souls for a soul cake!' People went from parish to parish a-souling, as they called it-that is, begging in a kind of chant for soul-cakes, or anything to make them merry on this eve. It is very curious to find that a century and a half ago the inhabitants of St Kilda, so far removed from all other parts of Britain, had a custom of baking a large triangular cake, furrowed on the edges, on All Saints' Night. Two hazel-nuts I threw into the flame, And to cach nut I gave a sweetheart's name: And with a noise for ever part. With mutual fondness, while they burn, Till life's fierce ordeal being past, But this is Jock and this is me, He bleezed owre her, and she owre him, Till fuff! he started up the lum, -Hallowe'en, by Burns. Hallowe'en is still observed, but the more daring rites are generally given up. Meetings of young persons take place, and a plentiful store of nuts and apples being provided, a few simple amusements are practised. The experiment of the burning nuts, to test the durability of love or friendship, is still a favourite. Ducking for apples is another. A tub being provided, nearly full of water, and the fruit thrown in, the young people endeavour to seize an apple with their teeth-a task of much more difficulty than might be supposed, and which generally puts the dress and tresses of fair experimentalists into considerable disorder. The baffled efforts of the various parties raise of course shouts of laughter. Or a cross stick is suspended by a string from the ceiling, with a short burning candle on one end and an apple on the other. While it swings rapidly round, lads and lasses, with their hands tied, endeavour to catch the apple with their teeth, but generally suffer a good deal from the candle before they succeed in their object. Here, also, failure is a source of infinite amusement. It is rather remarkable that Burns has not introduced into his poem any notice of these sports, which, like the others, are prevalent over the whole of her Majesty's home dominions. It may not be out of place here to remark, that the jest of the apple and candle is nearly the same as that of the quintain, a favourite sport of our ancestors, commonly practised in summer. The quintain was a heroic figure of wood, on a vertical pivot, used as a butt for the practice of tilting. In this case it had a cross board, one end of which was broad, while the other was furnished with a heavy bag of sand. The trick was, to come tilt against the broad end, and escape receiving a knock-down blow from the sand-bag. 2. All Souls' Day, or the Commemoration of the Faith |