An Account Of Druidism.

exhibited . Baal-Sambaim , a Phenician appellation of the God of Baal , in Irish signifies the planet of the fun . Mentis an appellation of

sent from house to housp and lighted up on the Samon ( the next day ) . Every house abounds in the best viands the master can afford ; apples and nuts are eaten in great plenty , the nutshells are burnt , and from the ashes many strange things are foretold . Hemp-seed is sown by the maidens , who believe that , if they look back , they shall see the apparition of , their intended husbands . The girls make various efforts to read their destiny ; they hang a smock before the fire at the close of the feast , and sit up all night concealed in a corner of the room , expecting the apparition of the lover to come down the chimney and turn the smock : they throw a ball of yarn out of the window

and wind it on the reel within , convinced that if they repeat the paternoster backwards , and look at the ball of yarn without , they shall then also see his apparition . Those who celebrate this feast have numerous other rites derived from the Pagans . They dip for " apples in a tub of water , and endeavour to bring one up in their mouths ; they catch at an apple when stuck on at one end of a kind of hanging beam , at the other extremity of which is fixed a lighted candle , and that with their mouths only , whilst it is in a circular motion , having their hands tied behind their backs . A learned correspondent thus writes from Ireland : " There is no sort of doubt but that

Baal and fire was a principal object of the ceremonies and adoration of the Druids . The principal seasons of these , and of" their feasts in honour of Baal , were New-Year's day , when the sun began visibly to return towards us ; this custom is not yet at an end , the country people still burning out the old year and welcoming the new by fires ¦ li ghted on the tops of hills , and other high places . The next season was the month of May , when the fruits of the earth begun , in the Eastern countries , to be gathered , and the first fruits of them consecrated to , Baal , or to the sun , whose benign influence had ripened them ; and I am almost persuaded that the dance round the may-pole in

that month is a faint image of the rites observed on such occasions . The next great festival was on the twenty-first of June , when the sun , being in Cancer , first appears to go backwards and leave us . On this occasion the Baalim used to call the people together , and to light fires on high places , and to cause their sons , and their daughters ,

and their cattle , to pass through the fire , calling upon Baal to bless them , and not to forsake them . This is still the general practice in Ireland ; nor , indeed , in any country , ' are there niore Cromlechs , or proofs of the worship of Baal or the sun , than in that ' kingdom ; ' concerning which I can give you a tolerable account , having been myself an eye-witness to this great festival in June . But I must first bring to your recollection the various places in Ireland which still derive their names from Baal , such as Baly-slianr . pn , Bal-ting-las , Balcarras , Belfast , and many more . Next I must premise that there are in Ireland a great number of towerswhich are called

fire-, toiWers , of the most remote antiquity , concerning which there is no certain history , their construction being of a date prior to any account of the Country i Being at a gentleman ? s house about thirty miles west of Dublin " , to" pass a day or two , lie told us , on the 21 st of June we should see an odd sight at midnight ' ; accordingly at that hour he conducted us out upon the top of his house , where , in a few minutes , to our great astonishment , we saw fires lighted on all the high places round , some nearer and Some more distant . ' We had a pretty extensive view , and , I should suppose , might

see . near fifteen miles each way : There were many hei ghts in this extent , and on every height was a fire ; I counted not less than forty . We amused ourselves with watching them , and with betting which hill would be li ghted first . ' Not long after , on a more attentive view , I discovered shadows of people near the fire , and round it , and every now and then they quite darkened it . I enquired the reason of this , and what they were about , and was immediately told they were riot only dancing round , but pasting through the fire ; for that it was the custom of the country , on that day , to make their familiestheir sons and their daughtersand their cattlefuss through the fire

, , , , without which they could expect no success in their dairies , nor in the " crops " that year . I bowed , and recognised the god Baal . This custom is chiefly preserved among the Roman Catholics , whose bigotry , credulity , and ignorance , have made them adopt it from the ancient Irish , as a tenet of the Christian reli gion . The Protestants do not observe it , but it v / as the universal custom in Ireland before Christianity . " ' " _ ¦ '