Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/279

Rh of the fires" (aingeal is genitive plural). The tradition is that the Druids kindled their fires on this knoll.

It is unlucky if a hare crosses your path. In setting out on a journey they used to regard the first person they met as ominous of good or bad luck on the journey. Some people were lucky to meet, some unlucky.

When a child was carried out of the house to be baptised, bread and cheese were given by the person who carried the child to the first person met.

In the old ruined church of Balquhidder is an ancient gravestone, said by tradition to be the grave of a Culdee saint. The Rev. Mr. Cameron informed me that formerly at marriages and baptisms the people used to stand barefoot on the gravestone as on holy ground. Some suppose it to be the tombstone of St. Angus.

The Rev. Mr. Kirk, author of The Secret Commonwealth (a work on fairies), and minister of Balquhidder parish about the beginning of the last century, died suddenly; it was thought by the people that he had been carried off by the fairies for revealing their secrets. Once after his death he appeared to a man and said that he (Kirk) would appear at a certain wedding, and that he might be released from fairyland if his friend would throw a knife over his shoulder. He did appear at the wedding as he had foretold, but his friend forgot to throw the knife over his shoulder; so Mr. Kirk is still a prisoner in fairyland. This story was told me by the Rev. Mr. Cameron.

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

The Burial Customs of the Ainos.—The Rev. J. BachelorBatchelor [sic] writes, in a recent issue of the Japan Weekly Mail, on the burial customs of the Ainos of Yezo. He says that as soon as a person dies, a blazing fire is made the corpse is dressed in its best garments, which are