Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/283

Rh to join them. As soon as the party is formed, they proceed to different farmhouses, where they partake of junket, tea, and heavy country cake; next rum and milk, and then a dance. After thus regaling, they gather the May. While some are breaking down the boughs, others sit and make the 'May music' This is done by cutting a circle through the bark at a certain distance from the bottom of the May branches; then, by gently and regularly tapping the bark all round, from the cut circle to the end, the bark becomes loosened, and slips away whole from the wood; and a hole being cut in the pipe, it is easily found to emit a sound when blown through, and becomes a whistle. The gathering and the 'May music' being finished, they then 'bring home the May,' by five or six o'clock in the morning, with the band playing, and their whistles blowing. After dancing throughout the town, they go to their respective employments." This description seems to me to have a definite resemblance to the accounts of the North Berwick witches who "danced endlong the Kirkyard," to the witches who danced up the Pentland Hills behind the piping devil, as well as to the Aberdeen and Craiglauch witches already quoted. Again the description of the leader of the May day dance in Wales tallies very closely as I have suggested above with the descriptions often given of the Devil. "In Wales the dancers are under the command of the Cadi, who is chief marshal, orator, buffoon and money collector. . . . His countenance is particularly distinguished by a hideous mask, or is blackened all over; and then the lips, cheeks, and orbits of the eyes are sometimes painted red."