In the passage quoted from Caesarius of Arles there was mention of the laying of tables with abundance of food at the Kalends. The same practice is condemned by St. Jerome in the fifth century, and is by him specially connected with Egypt.{48} He, like Caesarius and others, regards it as a kind of charm to ensure abundance during the coming year, but it is very possible that its real purpose was different, that the food was an offering to supernatural beings, the guardians and representatives of the dead.{49} Burchardus of Worms in the early eleventh century says definitely that in his time tables were laid with food and drink and three knives for "those three Sisters whom the ancients in their folly called _Parcae_."{50} The _Parcae_ were apparently identified with the three "weird" Sisters known in England and in other Teutonic regions, and seem to have some connection with the fairies. As we shall see later on, it is still in some places the custom to lay out tables for supernatural beings, whether, as at All Souls' tide, explicitly for the dead, or for Frau Perchta, or for the Virgin or some other Christian figure. Possibly the name _Modranicht_ (night of mothers), which Bede gives to Christmas Eve,{51} may be connected with this practice. Not remote, probably, in origin from a belief in "ghosts" is the driving away of spirits that sometimes takes place about |182| Christmas-time. Many peoples, as Dr. Frazer has shown, have an annual expulsion of goblins, ghosts, devils, witches, and evil influences, commonly at the end of the Old or beginning of the New Year. Sometimes the beings so driven away are definitely the spirits of the departed. An appalling racket and a great flare of torches are common features of these expulsions, and we shall meet with similar customs during the Christmas season. Such purifications, according to Dr. Frazer, are often preceded or followed by periods of licence, for when the burden of evil is about to be, or has just been, removed, it is felt that a little temporary freedom from moral restraints may be allowed with impunity.{52} Hence possibly, in part, the licence which has often attended the Christmas season. III. OMENS AND CHARMS FOR THE NEW YEAR.