_Tillie-bet-teine_--The knoll of the fire; and so through a great many other names of places we find traces of the Baal and fire worship. So widespread and numerous are the names which recall this ritual, that we can see quite clearly that the spirit of their religion thoroughly dominated the people. In Ireland, at Beltane, the Pagan Kings are said to have convoked the people for State purposes. The last of these heathen kings convoked a grand assembly of the nation to meet with him on _Tara_, at the feast of Beltane, which the old chroniclers say was the principal feast of the year. Respecting this feast, Dr. Jamieson says, introducing a quotation from O'Brien, "_Ignis Bei Dei Aseatica ea lineheil_, or May-day, so called from large fires which the Druids were used to light on the summits of the highest hills, into which they drove four-footed beasts, using certain ceremonies to expiate for the sins of the people. The Pagan ceremony of lighting these fires in honour of the Asiatic god Belus gave its name to the entire month of May, which to this day is called _Me-na-bealtine_, in the Irish, _Dor Keating_." He says again, speaking of these fires of _Baal_, that the cattle were driven through them and not sacrificed, the chief design being to avert contagious disorders from them for the year. And quoting from an ancient glossary, O'Brien says, "The Druids lighted two solemn fires every year, and drove all four-footed beasts through them, in order to preserve them from contagious distempers during the current year." I am inclined to think that these notices describe a sort of modified or Christianized Beltane, that driving the cattle through the fire was a substitute for the older form of sacrificing cattle to the sun. Until very lately in different parts of Ireland, it was the common practice to kindle fires in milking yards on the first day of May, and then men, women, and children leaped through them, and the cattle were driven through in order to avert evil influences. They were also in the habit of quenching their fires on the last day of April, and rekindling them on the first day of May. In certain localities in Perthshire, so lately as 1810, (I have referred to this before), the inhabitants collected and kindled a fire by friction, and through the fire thus kindled they drove their cattle in order to protect them against disease, and at the same time they held a feast of rejoicing.