estored."[525]

[The Midsummer fires in Scotland; fires on St. Peter's Day (the
twenty-ninth of June).]

In Scotland the traces of midsummer fires are few. We are told by a
writer of the eighteenth century that "the midsummer-even fire, a relict
of Druidism," was kindled in some parts of the county of Perth.[526]
Another writer of the same period, describing what he calls the
Druidical festivals of the Highlanders, says that "the least
considerable of them is that of midsummer. In the Highlands of
Perthshire there are some vestiges of it. The cowherd goes three times
round the fold, according to the course of the sun, with a burning torch
in his hand. They imagined this rite had a tendency to purify their
herds and flocks, and to prevent diseases. At their return the landlady
makes an entertainment for the cowherd and his associates."[527] In the
northeast of Scotland, down to the latter half of the eighteenth
century, farmers used to go round their lands with burning torches about
the middle of June.[528] On the hill of Cairnshee, in the parish of
Durris, Kincardineshire, the herdsmen of the country round about
annually kindle a bonfire at sunset on Midsummer Day (the twenty-fourth
of June); the men or lads collect the fuel and push each other through
the smoke and flames. The custom is kept up through the benefaction of a
certain Alexander Hogg, a native of the parish, who died about 1790 and
left a small sum for the maintenance of a midsummer bonfire on the spot,
because as a boy he had herded cattle on the hill. We may conjecture
that in doing so he merely provided for the continuance of an old custom
which he himself had observed in the same place in his youth.[529] At
the village of Tarbolton in Ayrshire a bonfire has been annually kindled
from time immemorial on the evening of the first Monday after the
eleventh of June. A noted cattle-market was formerly held at the fair on
the following day. The bonfire is still lit at the gloaming by the lads
and lasses of the village on a high mound or hillock just outside of the
village. Fuel for it is collected by the lads from door to door. The
youth dance round the fire and leap over the fringes of it. The many
cattle-drovers who used to assemble for the fair were wont to gather
round the blazing pile, smoke their pipes, and listen to the young folk
singing in chorus on the hillock. Afterwards they wrapped themselves in
their plaids and slept round the bonfire, which was