produced by stone instead of wood friction.  Charred logs and faggots used in the May Beltane were carefully preserved, and from them the next fire was lighted.  May fires were always started with old faggots of the previous year, and midsummer from those of the last summer.  It was unlucky to build a midsummer fire from May faggots.  People carried the ashes left after these fires to their homes, and a charred brand was not only effectual against pestilence, but magical in its use.  A few of the ashes placed in a person’s shoes protected the wearer from any great sorrow or woe."[380]

[Welsh belief that passage over or between the fires ensured good crops.]

From the foregoing account we learn that bonfires were kindled in Wales on Midsummer Eve and Hallowe’en (the thirty-first of October), as well as at the beginning of May, but that the Beltane fires in May were deemed the most important.  To the Midsummer Eve and Hallowe’en fires we shall return presently.  The belief of the people that by leaping thrice over the bonfires or running thrice between them they ensured a plentiful harvest is worthy of note.  The mode in which this result was supposed to be brought about is indicated by another writer on Welsh folk-lore, according to whom it used to be held that “the bonfires lighted in May or Midsummer protected the lands from sorcery, so that good crops would follow.  The ashes were also considered valuable as charms."[381] Hence it appears that the heat of the fires was thought to fertilize the fields, not directly by quickening the seeds in the ground, but indirectly by counteracting the baleful influence of witchcraft or perhaps by burning up the persons of the witches.

[Beltane fires in the Isle of Man to burn the witches; Beltane fires in Nottinghamshire.]

“The Druidical anniversary of Beil or Baal is still celebrated in the Isle of Man.  On the first of May, 1837, the Baal fires were, as usual on that day, so numerous as to give the island the appearance of a general conflagration."[382] By May Day in Manx folk-lore is meant May Day Old Style, or Shenn Laa Boaldyn, as it is called in Manx.  The day was one on which the power of elves and witches was particularly dreaded, and the people resorted to many precautions in order to protect themselves against these mischievous beings.  Hence at daybreak they set fire to the ling or gorse, for the purpose of burning out the witches, who are wont to lurk in the form of hares.[383] On the Hemlock Stone, a natural pillar of sandstone standing on Stapleford Hill in Nottinghamshire, a fire used to be solemnly kindled every year on Beltane Eve.  The custom seems to have survived down to the beginning of the nineteenth century; old people could remember and describe the ceremony long after it had fallen into desuetude.[384]

[Beltane fires in Ireland.]