Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/281

 Rh he drives his cattle out into the open to crop the fresh grass, and it is on the approach of winter that he leads them back to the safety and shelter of the stall. Accordingly it seems not improbable that the Celtic bisection of the year into two halves at the beginning of May and the beginning of November dates from a time when the Celts were mainly a pastoral people dependent for their subsistence on their herds, and when accordingly the great epochs of the year for them were the days on which the cattle went forth from the homestead in early summer, and returned to it again in early winter."

The witch ceremonies have to do chiefly with cattle. The Devil often appeared at the meetings, both Sabbath and esbat, either in the form of a herd animal—goat, sheep, or bull, —or else in a rough shaggy garment, apparently intended to represent the animal, as the tail is often a marked feature. In these forms he received the homage of his worshippers as the incarnate God. Much of the witch lore related to cattle; there were spells for laying on and taking off cattle diseases, as well as magical means for obtaining milk, and one of the few writings of the Devil, of which we have any real knowledge, was the Red Book of Appin, a book which was stolen from the witches and was so magical that the owner had to wear a hoop of iron on his head when he ventured to open its pages; the contents of the book were entirely cattle charms. The feast at the Sabbath always consisted of roast meat, either ox or sheep flesh.