[370] Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century, from the MSS. of John Ramsay, Esq., of Ochtertyre, edited by Alexander Allardyce (Edinburgh and London, 1888), ii. 439-445.  As to the tein-eigin or need-fire, see below, pp. 269 sqq.  The etymology of the word Beltane is uncertain; the popular derivation of the first part from the Phoenician Baal is absurd.  See, for example, John Graham Dalyell, The Darker Superstitions of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1834), pp. 176 sq.:  “The recognition of the pagan divinity Baal, or Bel, the Sun, is discovered through innumerable etymological sources.  In the records of Scottish history, down to the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, multiplied prohibitions were issued from the fountains of ecclesiastical ordinances, against kindling Bailfires, of which the origin cannot be mistaken.  The festival of this divinity was commemorated in Scotland until the latest date.”  Modern scholars are not agreed as to the derivation of the name Beltane.  See Rev. John Gregorson Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 268 sq.; J.A.  MacCulloch, The Religion of the Ancient Celts (Edinburgh, 1911), p. 264.

[371] “Bal-tein signifies the fire of Baal.  Baal or Ball is the only word in Gaelic for a globe.  This festival was probably in honour of the sun, whose return, in his apparent annual course, they celebrated, on account of his having such a visible influence, by his genial warmth, on the productions of the earth.  That the Caledonians paid a superstitious respect to the sun, as was the practice among many other nations, is evident, not only by the sacrifice at Baltein, but upon many other occasions.  When a Highlander goes to bathe, or to drink waters out of a consecrated fountain, he must always approach by going round the place, from east to west on the south side, in imitation of the apparent diurnal motion of the sun.  When the dead are laid in the earth, the grave is approached by going round in the same manner.  The bride is conducted to her future spouse, in the presence of the minister, and the glass goes round a company, in the course of the sun.  This is called, in Gaelic, going round the right, or the lucky way.  The opposite course is the wrong, or the unlucky way.  And if a person’s meat or drink were to affect the wind-pipe, or come against his breath, they instantly cry out deisheal! which is an ejaculation praying that it may go by the right way” (Rev. J. Robertson, in Sir John Sinclair’s Statistical Account of Scotland, xi. 621 note).  Compare J.G.  Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Glasgow, 1900), pp. 229 sq.:  “The Right-hand Turn (Deiseal).—­ This was the most important of all the observances.  The rule is ‘Deiseal (i.e. the right-hand turn) for everything,’ and consists in doing all things