Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

Fire- Worship. 205
harvest.
Keating, who notes the sacred fire hghted by the
Archdruid on Usnagh Hill, Kildare, tells of the fires on the
hill of Ward, Meath County, on the last day of October.
Some old writers identify this period, rather than Easter,
as that of the meeting of St. Patrick and the King. The
SauiJiain feast received a Christian baptism as the feast
of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary.
The festival known as the Lucaid-hnnh-fada, or festival
of Love, had no connection with the fires. It was held
from the first to the sixteenth of August, in honour of the
sun and moon, when games, more or less accompanied by
o-reetings of the two sexes, were duly celebrated.
Baal or Bel is associated with the fires. Beltane was the
Lucky Fire through which cattle were passed for purification.
Spenser declared that in his day the
L'ish never put out a
fire without a prayer. The Gabha-BJicil, or trial by Beil,
subjected the person with bare feet to pass three times
through a fire. A festival is mentioned, when birds and
other creatures, previously caught, were set free with lights
attached to them. There was an old Irish prayer, Bealaine,
corrupted to Bliadhain. Then we have Bealtinne, or Baal's
fire ;
the cromlech, near Cork, of Bealach viagdadJiair
aiclie Bcltiiine, the night of Baal's fire ;
Baaltiiiglas ; Beilaine,
circle of Baal, &c.
]\Irs. Anna Wilkes, in Ireland, tJie Ur of the Chaldees,
sees in the Irish and Hebrew word tir, the sacred fire. A
fire-priest was Ur-bad, or Hyr-bad. The perpetual fire in
the monastery of Seighir, says the Tripartite Life, was at
the place where St. Patrick first met St. Kicran. The
Riuccadh-fada was a sacred dance of the Irish at Bcil-tinne,
like dances recorded of Phoenicia and Assyria. At
Uisneach, the Navel of Ireland, where the Druids lighted