An expectant occupier, or claimant, will secure to himself possession of land by burning upon it a little straw. This straw was called ‘a possession wisp’ (_Sop seilbhe_). If, for instance, there were two claimants to land and one of them burnt a ‘possession wisp’ on it, he might go about his business with his mind easy as to the result of the lawsuit. Or, if a tenant ran in debt and had to leave his farm, another, who had a promise of the holding, came and burnt a ‘possession wisp,’ no evil or debt of those formerly attaching to it would then follow the holding. _Baking._—In baking oatmeal cakes there is a little meal left on the table after the last cake is sprinkled previous to being fired. This remnant should not be thrown away or returned to the meal chest, but be kneaded between the palms into a little cake, to be given to one of the children. This little bannock was the _Bonnach Fallaid_, called also _Siantachan a chlàir_ (the charmer of the board), to which in olden times housewives attached so much importance. Unless it was made the meal lost its substance, and the bread of that baking would not be lasting (_baan_). On putting a hole through it with the forefinger, as already explained, it was given to children, and placed beside women in childbed, to keep the Fairies away. It mightily pleased little children, and was given to them as a reward for making themselves useful. “A little cake to Finlay, For going to the well.” Its origin is said to have been as follows: A man fell in with a skull in a graveyard and took it to a tailor’s house, where bread was being baked. The tailor gave it a kick, saying, “There was one period of the world when your gabful of dough was not small, and if I had you on a New-Year’s day, I would give you your fill.” When the New Year came round, a stranger came to the tailor’s house asking for a mouthful of dough. The tailor set his wife to bake, and whatever she baked the stranger ate, and then asked for more. The tailor’s stock of meal, and that of his neighbours, was devoured, and still the stranger asked for more. An old man of the neighbourhood was consulted, and he advised that the remnants, or dry meal used for sprinkling the cakes, should also be baked for the voracious guest. On this _Fallaid_ cake being given the stranger declared himself satisfied and went away. If bread, when being baked, breaks frequently a hungry stranger will come to eat it. Many cakes breaking are a sign of misfortune, by which the housewife is warned that “something is making for her.”