Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

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Irish Superstitions. 87
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evidently used in the Druidical ceremonies." Yule cakes
were Nur cakes. Hogmanay was observed, as in Scotland.
Hog was a Chaldaean festival. Irish pagan feasts were
announced by the blowing of long horns, two or three
yards in length, some of which are to be seen in Dublin
Museum. The Christmas Candle of south-west Ireland was
burnt till midnight on Christmas Eve, and the remnant
kept as a preservative against evil spirits till the next year's
candle was set up. Magic ointment revealed the invisible.
All Saints' Day perpetuated the pagan Saju/iain of
November Eve. Holy cakes, known sometimes as triangular
bannocks, were then eaten as Soul-Mass cakes.
" November Eve," says Mrs. Bryant's Ccttic Ireland, " is
sacred to the Spirits of the Dead. In the western islands
the old superstition is dying very hard, and tradition is still
well alive. It is dangerous to be out on November Eve,
because it is the one night in the year when the dead come
out of their graves to dance with the fairies on the hills, and
as it is their night, they do not like to be disturbed."
" Euneral games are held in their houses." In olden times
it was thought their dead heroes could help in distress.
" Twice during the Treena of Tailten,
Each day at sunrise I
To remove from me the pestilence."
invoked Mac Eve
The Keeits, or lamentations for the dead, are connected
with ancient and heathenish practices.
Professional howlers
had charge of the corpse. Rich, who wrote in 1610 of a
Keen, remarked, "A stranger at the first encounter would
beleeve that a quantity of hags or hellish fiendes were
carrying a dead body to some infernell mansion." Hut
some of the Death Songs have great beauty of compositicMi.
Shelah Lea s Lament is a fine example. It is thus translated
from the Erse
:
"Sing the wild Keen of my countr\', ye who>e heads