ime a custom prevailed in Lancashire, called "lating the
witches." It was observed on the eve preceding the 1st November, when
witches were supposed to be busier than usual. The ceremony of lating
was gone through in this way:--The poorer neighbours called at the
houses of the more opulent, and at the door demanded lighted candles
to carry in procession. We say demanded them at the door, because it
would have been unlucky for those receiving the candles to cross a
threshold then, and it would have been equally unlucky for any one of
them to enter a house that night from which his or her candle was
received, if the light was extinguished before the lating was
concluded. Candles were given out according to the number of inmates
of a house--one for every person--but it was optional for one to carry
his own candle, or to find a substitute who would sally out for him to
frighten the witches. The custom originated in the belief that if a
lighted candle were carried about from eleven to twelve o'clock at
night without being extinguished, the person it represented would be
proof against witches during the year, but if the candle went out it
foreboded evil.

Grose, in describing the difference between a sorcerer, magician, and
witch, speaks highly of the power of charms and invocations. "A
witch," he tells us, "derives all her power from a compact with the
devil, while a sorcerer commands him and the infernal spirits by his
skill in charms and invocations, and also soothes and entices them by
fumigations; for the devils," he continues, "are observed to have
delicate nostrils, abominating and flying from some kinds of stinks.
Witness the flight of the evil spirits into the remote parts of Egypt,
driven by the smell of fishes' liver burned by Tobit. The devil and
spirits," he tells us, "are, on the other hand, peculiarly fond of
certain perfumes."

Lilly writes that one Evans, having raised a spirit, at the request of
Lord Bothwell and Sir K. Digby, and forgotten a suffumigation, the
spirit, enraged, snatched him out from his circle, and carried him
from his house in the Minories into a field near Battersea.

The shamrock is held sacred by the Irish. It became a custom among
Irish soldiers, when going to battle, to conceal about their persons
bunches of shamrock, to say certain prayers to their swords, to make
crosses upon the earth, and thrust the points of their weapons into
the ground, under the impression that by so doing t