the tents or booths where goods were sold are still visible: and very probably there was a kind of mountain dew partaken of stronger than the water that now flows from Fergan Well." We shall have something more to say about fairs in the next chapter. Though modern enlightenment has not entirely abolished the practice of resorting to consecrated springs, it has, as a rule, produced a desire for secrecy on the part of the pilgrims. When superstitious motives are absent, and springs are visited merely from curiosity or love of frolic, there is no sense of shame, and hence no need for concealment. But when the pilgrims regard the practice as a magical rite, they usually prefer to keep the rest of the world in the dark as to their doings. Sir Arthur Mitchell truly remarks in his "Past in the Present"--"It is well enough understood that the business is not a Christian one, and that the engaging in it is not a thing which it would be easy to justify. There is a consciousness that it has not been gone about as an empty, meaningless ceremony, but that it has involved an acknowledgment of a supernatural power controlling human affairs and influenced by certain rites and offerings--a power different from that which is acknowledged by Christians. Hence it happens that there is a difficulty in getting people to confess to these visits, and, of course, a greater difficulty still in getting them to speak, freely and frankly, about the feelings and beliefs which led to them." CHAPTER XVII. SUN-WORSHIP AND WELL-WORSHIP. Fairs--Their Connection with Holy Days--Nature-festivals--Modes of Marking Time--Ecclesiastical Year and Natural Year--Christmas --Fire-festivals--Hallow E'en and Mid-summer Fires--Beltane--Its Connection with Sun-worship--Sun-charms--Carrying Fire--Clavie at Burghead--Fiery-circle--Traces of Sun-worship in Folk-customs-- In Architecture--Turning Sunways--Widdershins--When Wells were Visited--May--Influence of Pagan Rites--Folklore of May Day-- Sundays in May--Sunday Wells--Sunday, why Chosen--Lammas--Festival of St. Peter ad Vincula--Gule of August--Sun and Well-worship-- Time of Day for Using Wells--Fonts of the Cross--Walking Sunways round Wells--Doing the Reverse--Witch's Well--South-running Water.