The primitive Christians, attached to their pagan ceremonies, placed the feast of All-Souls on the la Samon, or the second of November. Even now the peasants in Ireland assemble on the vigil of la Samon with sticks and clubs, going from house to house, collecting money, bread-cake, butter, cheese, eggs, etc., for the feast; repeating verses in honour of the solemnity, and calling for the black sheep. Candles are sent from house to house and lighted up on the Samon. (The next day.) Every house abounds in the best viands the master can afford; apples and nuts are eaten in great plenty; the nutshells are burnt, and from the ashes many things are foretold. Hempseed is sown by the maidens, who believe that, if they look back, they shall see the apparition of their intended husbands. The girls make various efforts to read their destiny; they hang a smock before the fire at the close of the feast, and sit up all night concealed in one corner of the room, expecting the apparition of the lover to come down the chimney and turn the _shimee_: they throw a ball of yarn out of the window, and wind it on the reel within, convinced that if they repeat the Paternoster backwards, and look at the ball of yarn without, they shall then also see his apparition. Those who celebrate this feast have numerous other rites derived from the Pagans. They dip for apples in a tub of water, and endeavour to bring up one with their mouths; they catch at an apple when stuck on at one of the end of a kind of hanging beam, at the other extremity of which is fixed a lighted candle, and that with their mouths only, whilst it is in a circular motion, having their hands tied behind their backs.[27] THE BRITISH MAGI. The Druids, who were the magi of the Britons, had an infinite number of rites in common with the Persians. One of the chief functions of the Eastern magi, was divination; and Pomponius Mela tells us, that our Druids possessed the same art. There was a solemn rite of divination among the Druids from the fall of the victim and convulsions of his limbs, or the nature and position of his entrails. But the British priests had various kinds of divination. By the number of criminal causes, and by the increase or diminution of their own order, they predicted fertility or scarcity. From the neighing or prancing of white horses, harnessed to a consecrated chariot--from the turnings and windings of a hare let loose from the bosom of the diviner (with a variety of other ominous appearances or exhibitions) they pretended to determine the events of futurity.[28]