“This festival was longest observed in the interior Highlands, for towards the west coast the traces of it are faintest.  In Glenorchy and Lorne, a large cake is made on that day, which they consume in the house; and in Mull it has a large hole in the middle, through which each of the cows in the fold is milked.  In Tiree it is of a triangular form.  The more elderly people remember when this festival was celebrated without-doors with some solemnity in both these islands.  There are at present no vestiges of it in Skye or the Long Island, the inhabitants of which have substituted the connach Micheil or St. Michael’s cake.  It is made at Michaelmas with milk and oatmeal, and some eggs are sprinkled on its surface.  Part of it is sent to the neighbours.

“It is probable that at the original Beltane festival there were two fires kindled near one another.  When any person is in a critical dilemma, pressed on each side by unsurmountable difficulties, the Highlanders have a proverb, The e’ eada anda theine bealtuin—­i.e., he is between the two Beltane fires.  There are in several parts small round hills, which, it is like, owe their present names to such solemn uses.  One of the highest and most central in Icolmkil is called Cnoch-nan-ainneal—­i.e., the hill of the fires.  There is another of the same name near the kirk of Balquhidder; and at Killin there is a round green eminence which seems to have been raised by art.  It is called Tom-nan-ainneal—­i.e., the eminence of the fires.  Around it there are the remains of a circular wall about two feet high.  On the top a stone stands upon end.  According to the tradition of the inhabitants, it was a place of Druidical worship; and it was afterwards pitched on as the most venerable spot for holding courts of justice for the country of Breadalbane.  The earth of this eminence is still thought to be possessed of some healing virtue, for when cattle are observed to be diseased some of it is sent for, which is rubbed on the part affected."[370]

[Local differences in the Beltane cakes; evidence of two fires at Beltane; Beltane pies and cakes in the parish of Callander.]

In the parish of Callander, a beautiful district of western Perthshire, the Beltane custom was still in vogue towards the end of the eighteenth century.  It has been described as follows by the parish minister of the time:  “Upon the first day of May, which is called Beltan, or Bal-tein day, all the boys in a township or hamlet, meet in the moors.  They cut a table in the green sod, of a round figure, by casting a trench in the ground, of such circumference as to hold the whole company.  They kindle a fire, and dress a repast of eggs and milk in the consistence of a custard.  They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted at the embers against a stone.  After the custard is eaten up, they divide the cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in size and shape, as there