Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/124

 io6 Correspondence.

The young men are in the habit of pushing each other through the smoke and flames. This may arise from a belief that the person so " passed " would be charmed against disease during the coming year. Some would see in the action an indication of early human sacrifice. I have been at many "herds' fires" (about ten, I think), and have invariably seen it done. It is possible, however, that in this instance it is nothing but a display of animal spirits. But in any case I think there is enough evidence to show that the rite is a relic of pagan times, and that Mr. Hogg, in connecting it with his own name, did but follow, \\dth a difference, the precedent of the early missionaries when they dedicated the Midsummer fires to St. John the Baptist.

A. Macdoxald.

Durris School, by Aberdeen.

Fifth of November Customs. (Vol. xiv., p. 185, and anfe p. i.)

There were I think more Guy Fawkes effigies than usual in London this year ; a sign, I fear, of want of work among the casual labourers. One procession, which I saw from my window in Kensington about the middle of the day, deserves notice. The " Guy," an unusually large one, was mounted in a small cart drawn by a pony. It was preceded, first, by a man ringing a bell, and then by two dancers, wearing costumes resembling that of a clown and masks of the common painted kind sold in the shops at this season, who danced up the street in front of the effigy in the real old style, lifting the arms in the air alternately, in time to the motion of the feet. For musicians they had a man playing a shrill long tin whistle or pipe, and another following the cart beating a drum. A man in woman's clothes walked beside the cart, occasionally cutting a clumsy caper, as well as his chnging skirts would allow. The rear of the procession was brought up by the clown, capering and curveting and shaking his money-box.

It was a poor vulgar show, no doubt, but it retained in its debased state several of the principal features of the old morris-