[927] New Stat.  Account, Wigtownshire, 208; Hazlitt, 38, 323, 340.

[928] See Miss Owen, Folk-lore of the Musquakie Indians, 50; Frazer, Golden Bough{2}, ii. 205.

[929] For notices of Beltane survivals see Keating, 300; Campbell, Journey from Edinburgh, i. 143; Ramsay, Scotland and Scotsmen, ii. 439 f.; Old Stat.  Account, v. 84, xi. 620, xv. 517; Gregor, Folk-lore of N.E. of Scotland, 167.  The paganism of the survivals is seen in the fact that Beltane fires were frequently prohibited by Scottish ecclesiastical councils.

[930] Meyrac, Traditions ... des Ardennes, 68.

[931] Bertrand, 119.

[932] Ibid. 407; Gaidoz, 21; Mannhardt, Baumkultus, 514, 523; Brand, i. 8, 323.

[933] Mannhardt, op. cit. 525 f.; Frazer, Golden Bough{2}, iii. 319.

[934] P. 234, supra.

[935] Frazer, op. cit. i. 74; Brand, i. 222, 237, 246, 318; Hone, Everyday Book, ii. 595; Mannhardt, op. cit. 177; Grimm, Teut.  Myth. 621, 777 f.

[936] See my Childhood of Fiction, ch. v.

[937] Frazer, i. 82, ii. 247 f., 275; Mannhardt, 315 f.

[938] Martin, 117.  The custom of walking deiseil round an object still survives, and, as an imitation of the sun’s course, it is supposed to bring good luck or ward off evil.  For the same reason the right hand turn was of good augury.  Medb’s charioteer, as she departed for the war, made her chariot turn to the right to repel evil omens (LU 55).  Curiously enough, Pliny (xxviii. 2) says that the Gauls preferred the left-hand turn in their religious rites, though Athenaeus refers to the right-hand turn among them. Deiseil is from dekso-s, “right,” and svel, “to turn.”

[939] Hone, i. 846; Hazlitt, ii. 346.

[940] This account of the Midsummer ritual is based on notices found in Hone, Everyday Book; Hazlitt, ii. 347 f.; Gaidoz, Le Dieu Soleil; Bertrand; Deloche, RC ix. 435; Folk-Lore, xii. 315; Frazer, Golden Bough{2}, iii. 266 f.; Grimm, Teut.  Myth. ii. 617 f.; Monnier, 186 f.

[941] RC xvi. 51; Guiraud, Les Assemblees provinciales dans l’Empire Romain.

[942] D’Arbois, i. 215, Les Celtes, 44; Loth, Annales de Bretagne, xiii.  No. 2.

[943] RC xvi. 51.

[944] Strabo, iv. 4. 6.

[945] Dion.  Per. v. 570.

[946] Pliny, xxii. 1.

[947] Greg, de Glor.  Conf. 477; Sulp.  Sev. Vita S. Martini, 9; Pass.  S. Symphor.  Migne, Pat.  Graec. v. 1463, 1466.  The cult of Cybele had been introduced into Gaul, and the ritual here described resembles it, but we are evidently dealing here with the cult of a native goddess.  See, however, Frazer, Adonis, 176.

[948] Anwyl, Celtic Religion, 41.