Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/65

Rh It is probably a joyous mode of ushering in the following day, the first of May, which is known to the Irish of the present day by the epithet Labaalteine, pronounced Lavalteena, that is the day of Baal's fire.—(p. 74.)

On the eve of St. Martin, on the 11th of November, every family of a village kills an animal of some kind or other: those who are rich kill a cow or a sheep, others a goose or a turkey; while those who are poor and cannot procure an animal of greater value kill a hen or a cock, and sprinkle the threshold with the blood, and do the same in the four corners of the house, and this ceremonious performance is done to exclude every kind of evil spirit from the dwelling when the sacrifice is made till the return of the same day the following year.—(pp. 75-76.)

Another custom or religious adoration is that of praying to the new moon the first time that luminary is seen after its change. Selden, de Diis Syriis, speaks of this, quoting a French author, and saying of the inhabitants of Ireland, "Se mettent a genoux en voyant la lune nouvelle, et disent en parlant a la lune; laisse nous ausi sains que tu nous as trouvé."—(p. 76.)

The barbarous custom, the Irish cry at wakes, is still kept up here in all its savage howl of discordant sounds.—(p. 77.)

[On Sunday] as soon as their public prayers are over they, as a matter of course, dedicate the remainder of it to ball-playing, hurling, and dancing. These dances are called cakes, on account of a large cake of 18 or 20 inches in diameter, which is laid on a circular board of nearly similar breadth elevated on a pole 6 or 8 feet high, or not unfrequently on a churn dish. In the spring and summer this cake is ornamented with garlands of the flowers of the season, and in the autumn crowned with apples fancifully ranged. When the dance was at an end this cake had in early days been usually given to the best female dancer, to be divided by her as she thought fit among the company; and the judgment was generally given, not in favour of the most graceful dancer, but of her who held out longest. But this mode of deciding who is to gain the cake has been changed for one less conducive to emulation in the exercise of such dances as the peasants indulge in ; for the young fellow who has procured