Remains of these superstitions might be traced till past the middle of the last century, though fast becoming obsolete, or passing into mere popular customs of the country, which the peasantry observe without thinking of their origin.  About 1769, when Mr. Pennant made his tour, the ceremony of the Baaltein, Beltane, or First of May, though varying in different districts of the Highlands, was yet in strict observance, and the cake, which was then baken with scrupulous attention to certain rites and forms, was divided into fragments, which were formally dedicated to birds or beasts of prey that they, or rather the being whose agents they were, might spare the flocks and herds.[9]

[Footnote 9:  See Tennant’s “Scottish Tour,” vol. i. p.  III.  The traveller mentions that some festival of the same kind was in his time observed in Gloucestershire.]

Another custom of similar origin lingered late among us.  In many parishes of Scotland there was suffered to exist a certain portion of land, called the gudeman’s croft, which was never ploughed or cultivated, but suffered to remain waste, like the TEMENOS of a pagan temple, Though it was not expressly avowed, no one doubted that “the goodman’s croft” was set apart for some evil being; in fact, that it was the portion of the arch-fiend himself, whom our ancestors distinguished by a name which, while it was generally understood, could not, it was supposed, be offensive to the stern inhabitant of the regions of despair.  This was so general a custom that the Church published an ordinance against it as an impious and blasphemous usage.

This singular custom sunk before the efforts of the clergy in the seventeenth century; but there must still be many alive who, in childhood, have been taught to look with wonder on knolls and patches of ground left uncultivated, because, whenever a ploughshare entered the soil, the elementary spirits were supposed to testify their displeasure by storm and thunder.  Within our own memory, many such places, sanctified to barrenness by some favourite popular superstition, existed, both in Wales and Ireland, as well as in Scotland; but the high price of agricultural produce during the late war renders it doubtful if a veneration for greybearded superstition has suffered any one of them to remain undesecrated.  For the same reason the mounts called Sith Bhruaith were respected, and it was deemed unlawful and dangerous to cut wood, dig earth and stones, or otherwise disturb them.[10]

[Footnote 10:  See “Essay on the Subterranean Commonwealth,” by Mr. Robert Kirke, minister of Aberfoyle.]