Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/52

40 times, is that of the Annunciation, as to which there is a saying:

The direction of the wind on New Year's Day presages the prosperity or failure of fish and crops for the whole year, as that will be the prevalent wind for the year.

There is a month in mid-winter known as the "dead" month, probably from the arrest of all growth. It is believed that no indigo dye should be used at this time, as the cloth would not take the colour properly.

The last fortnight of January and the first of February compose the month known as Gobag, the beaked or venomous one. Two proverbs apply to this: "Gobag, the beaked one, mother of the cold (Faoilleach), that will kill the sheep and the lambs." "Better the foray came to the land than a smooth morning in the cold Faoilleach (that is a frost)."

On Easter Sunday, the sun dances with joy three times to testify to the glory of the Resurrection, and hundreds go up every year to the hill-tops before sunrise to witness the phenomenon. An intelligent tacksman declared solemnly that he had seen this when sailing in his schooner near the Isle of Man.

Pace eggs are used in Uist on Palm Sunday, not at Easter.

May-day is spoken of as the Yellow (or golden) Beltane, and is hailed with joy. It is said that on this day "The cuckoo comes from her winter home," later, it will be observed, than the "April," when "come he will," of more genial climates. However, the cuckoo is a bird of very short and of merely occasional passage in the treeless Hebrides, and indeed in some islands is practically unknown. On St. Peter's Day (June 2gth), the cuckoo will go to her winter home, is another saying which shows that only a short visit is, at best, expected.

Agricultural operations done about Beltane (bhealltuinn)