Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/534

518. It lasted several days, and was partly devoted to civic business, such as the adopting of new members into the tribes, and more especially to the registering, subject to close scrutiny, of the names of all the legitimate children born during the year then ending. When the sacrificing and feasting on the last day were over, the children's fathers and other representatives of the tribes went forth in a procession, after lighting their torches at the state hearth. Then the Chalceia began with a torchlight race engaged in by the younger men; and altogether the part played by the torch in the doings in honour of Hephæstus on those festive days is very noticeable. The nearest Celtic parallel is to be found in the racing away from the bonfires in Wales and the distribution of fresh fire in Ireland; but it is to be added that the Samhain feast in the latter country was, like the Greek Apaturia, partly devoted to business, namely, to a public scrutiny of the trophies which the Irish braves claimed to have won during the year then ending; otherwise the feast, which occupied, not only Samain or the first of November, but also the three days before and the three days after it, was given up to the usual games and the fair, to pleasure and amusement, to eating and banqueting. Having digressed so far, I can hardly