Martin's Western Islands bears similar testimony, thus:--"Another god of the Britons was Belus or Belinus, which seems to have been the Assyrian god Bel, or Belus; and probably from this Pagan deity comes the Scots' term of Beltin--having its first rise from the custom practised by the Druids in the isles, of extinguishing all the fires in the parish until the tythes were paid; and upon payment of them, the fires were kindled in each family, and never till then. In those days malefactors were burnt between two fires; hence when they would express a man in a great strait, they say, He is between two fires of Bel, which in their language they express thus, Edir da hin Veaul or Bel." It has been remarked that the Pagan rites of the festival of Midsummer Eve, the Summer Solstice may be considered as a counterpart of those used at the Winter Solstice of Yule-tide. "There is one thing," says Brand, "that seems to prove this beyond the possibility of a doubt. In the old Runic Fasti, a wheel was used to denote the festival of Christmas. Thus Durandus, when speaking of the Rites of the Feast of St. John Baptist, informs us of this curious circumstance, that in some places they roll a wheel about to signify that the Sun, then occupying the highest place in the Zodiac, is beginning to descend; and in the amplified account given by Naogeorgus, we read that this wheel was taken up to the top of a mountain and rolled down from thence; and that, as it had been previously covered with straw, twisted about it and set on fire, it appeared at a distance as if the sun had been falling from the sky. And he further observes, that the people imagine that all their ill-luck rolls away from them together with this wheel." "Leaping over the fires is mentioned among the superstitious rites used at the Palilia in Ovid's Fasti. The Palilia were feasts instituted in honour of Pales, the goddess of shepherds (though Varro makes Pales masculine), on the calends of May. In order to drive away wolves from the folds, and distempers from the cattle, the shepherds on this day kindled several heaps of straw in their fields, which they leaped over." "Bourne tells us that it was the custom in his time, in the North of England, chiefly in country villages, for old and young people to meet together and be merry over a large fire, which was made for that purpose in the open street. This, of whatever materials it consisted, was called a Bone-fire. Over and about this fire they frequently leap, and play at various games such as running, wrestling, dancing, &c.; this, however, is generally confined to the younger sort; for the old ones, for the most part, sit by as spectators only, and enjoy themselves over their bottle, which they do not quit till midnight, and sometimes till cock-crow the next morning."