duty, was to have share, till he had first made all
the reparation and submission which the Druids required of him. Whoever
did not, with the most implicit obedience, agree to this, had the
sentence of excommunication passed against him, which was more dreaded
than death; none being allowed to give him house or fire, or shew him
the least office of humanity, under the penalty of incurring the same
sentence." The ancient Romans held a great and popular festival at the
end of February, called the _Ferralia_. At this season, they visited the
graves of their departed friends, and offered sacrifices and oblations
to the spirits of the dead; they believed that the spirits of the
departed, both the good and the bad, were released on that particular
night, and that, if they were not propitiated, these spirits would haunt
throughout the coming year their undutiful living relatives. In all
probability, though the time of celebration is different, these Roman
ceremonies and the Hallowe'en ceremonies in this country had a common
origin. In the year 610, the Bishop of Rome ordained that the heathen
Pantheon should be converted into a Christian church, and dedicated to
all the martyrs; and a festival was instituted to commemorate the event.
This was held on the first of May, and continued to be held on this day
till 834, when the time of celebration was altered to the first of
November, and it was then called _All Hallow_, from a Saxon word,
_Haligan_, meaning to keep holy. This change was doubtless made in order
to supply a Christian substitute for some heathen festival--in all
probability the festival of _Sham-in_, which, as we have seen, was an
old Druidical feast. Some time after this alteration in the time of
holding the feast in honour of the martyrs, in 993, another festival was
instituted for the purpose of offering prayers for the souls of those in
purgatory, and this feast was kept on the second of November, and was
called _All Souls_. The following legend was either invented as a
plausible reason for instituting this additional feast, or the legend,
being previously well known and accepted as truth, was really the _bona
fide_ reason for the institution:--"A pilgrim, returning from the Holy
Land, was compelled by storm to land upon a rocky island, where he found
a hermit, who told him that among the cliffs of the island was an
opening into the infernal regions, through which huge flames ascended,
and where the groans of the t