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"Now the sun’s gone out o’ sight,
Beet the ingle, snuff the light;
In glens the fairies skip and dance,
And witches wallop o’er to France."
RAMSAY.
Belton is derived from two Gaelic
words conjoined:
"Paletein," signifying
Pale’s fire, and not Baall's fire,
as some suppose. The strange relic of Pagan idolatry which gave rise
to this feast was no doubt introduced into these countries, like many
others of our more prominent superstitions, by
the Druids. Pales (of whom we read in
the Heathenish mythologies) was the Goddess of Shepherds, and protectress
of flocks. Her feast was always celebrated in the month of April, on which
occasion, no victim was. killed, and nothing was offered but the fruits of
the earth. The shepherds purified their flocks with the smoke of sulphur,
juniper, boxwood, rosemary, &c. They then made a large fire, round which
they danced, and offered to the goddess milk, cheese, eggs, &c. holding
their faces towards the east, and uttering ejaculations peculiar to the
occasion. Those interesting relics of the religious opinions of our
ancestors, until of late, remained pretty entire in some parts of the
Highlands. But they have now, however, declined into those childish
ceremonies above described.
BELT0N EVE
is a night of considerable importance and of
much anxiety to the Highland farmer, as being the grand anniversary review
night, on which all the tribes of. witches, warlocks, wizards, and
fairies, in the kingdom, are to be
reviewed, by Satan and his chief generals in person, and new candidates
admitted into infernal orders. When such a troop, under such a commander,
are let loose upon the community, it is natural to suppose that much
misery and devastation will follow their train; and when rewards are only
conferred on those most consurnate
in wickedness, and those most adept in cutting
diabolical cantrips, it is natural for every honest man to feel anxious
that they may not obtain promotion at his expence. In order, therefore, to
be perfectly secure from the machinations of so dangerous a society, every
prudent man will resort to those safeguards that will keep them at the
staff’s end. Messengers are therefore dispatched to the woods for cargoes
of the blessed rowan tree, the virtues of which are well known. Being
formed into the shape of a cross, by means of a red thread, the virtues of
which too are very eminent, those crosses are, with all due solemnity,
inserted in the different door lintels in the town, and protect those
premises from the cantrips of the most diabolical witch in the universe.
Care should also be taken to insert one of them in the midden, which has
at all times been a favourite site of rendezvous with the black
sisterhood. This cheaply purchased precaution once observed, the people of
those countries will now go to bed as unconcernedly, and sleep as soundly,
as on any other night.
While those necessary precautions
are in preparation, the matron or housekeeper is employed in a not less
interesting avocation to the juvenile generation, i. e. baking the
Belton bannocks. Next morning the children are presented each with a
bannock, with as much joy as an heir to an estate his title-deeds; and
having their pockets well lined with cheese and eggs, to render the
entertainment still more sumptuous, they hasten to the place of
assignation, to meet the little band assembled on the brow of some sloping
hill, to reel their bannocks, and learn their future fate. With hearty
greetings they meet, and with their knives make the signs of life and
death on their bannocks. These signs are a cross, or the sign of life, on
the one side; and a cypher, or the sign of death, on the other. This being
done, the bannocks are all arranged in a line, and on their edges let down
the hill. This process is repeated three times, and if the cross most
frequently present itself, the owner will live to celebrate another Belton
day; but if the cypher is oftenest uppermost, he is doomed to die of
course. This sure prophecy of short life, however, seldom spoils the
appetites of the unfortunate short-livers, who will handle their knives
with as little signs of death as their more fortunate companions.
Assembling around a rousing fire of collected heath and brushwood, the
ill-fated bannocks are soon demolished, amidst the cheering and jollity of
the youthful association. |
