"On All Hallowe'en or New Year's Eve," says Mr. W. Henderson, "a Border maiden may wash her sark, and hang it over a chair to dry, taking care to tell no one what she is about. If she lie awake long enough, she will see the form of her future spouse enter the room and turn the sark. We are told of one young girl who, after fulfilling this rite, looked out of bed and saw a coffin behind the sark; it remained visible for some time and then disappeared. The girl rose up in agony and told her family what had occurred, and the next morning she heard of her lover's death."{35} In Scotland{36} and Ireland{37} other methods of foreseeing the future are practised on Hallowe'en; we need not consider them here, for we shall have quite enough of such auguries later on. (Some Scottish customs are introduced by Burns into his poem "Hallowe'en.") I may, however, allude to the custom formerly prevalent in Wales for women to congregate in the church on this "Night of the Winter Kalends," in order to discover who of the parishioners would die during the year.{38} East of the Welsh border, at Dorstone in Herefordshire, there was a belief that on All Hallows' Eve at midnight those who were bold enough to look through the windows would see the church lighted with an unearthly glow, and Satan in monk's habit fulminating anathemas from the pulpit and calling out the names of those who were to render up their souls.{39} |198| Again, there are numerous Hallowe'en fire customs, probably sun-charms for the New Year, a kind of homoeopathic magic intended to assist the sun in his struggle with the powers of darkness. To this day great bonfires are kindled in the Highlands, and formerly brands were carried about and the new fire was lit in each house.{40} It would seem that the Yule log customs (see Chapter X.) are connected with this new lighting of the house-fire, transferred to Christmas. In Ireland fire was lighted at this time at a place called Tlachtga, from which all the hearths in Ireland are said to have been annually supplied.{41} In Wales the habit of lighting bonfires on the hills is perhaps not yet extinct.{42} Within living memory when the flames were out somebody would raise the cry, "May the tailless black sow seize the hindmost," and everyone present would run for his life.{43} This may point to a former human sacrifice, possibly of a victim laden with the accumulated evils of the past year.{44} In North Wales, according to another account, each family used to make a great bonfire in a conspicuous place near the house. Every person threw into the ashes a white stone, marked; the stones were searched for in the morning, and if any one were missing the person who had thrown it in would die, it was believed, during the year.{45} The same belief and practice were found at Callander in Perthshire.{46}