[27] There is no sort of doubt that _Baal_ and _Fire_ were principal objects of the ceremonies and adoration of the Druids. The principal season of these, and of their feasts in honour of Baal, was new year's day, when the sun began visibly to return towards us; the custom is not yet at an end, the country people still burning out the old year and welcoming in the new by fires lighted on the top of hills, and other high places. The next season was the month of May, when the fruits of the earth began, in the Eastern countries, to be gathered, and the first fruits of them consecrated to Baal, or to the _Sun_, whose benign influence had ripened them; and one is almost persuaded that the dance round the May pole, in that month, is a faint image of the rites observed on such occasions. The next great festival was on the 21st of June, when the sun, being in Cancer, first appears to go backwards and leave us. On this occasion the Baalim used to call the people together, and to light fires on high places, and to cause their sons, and their daughters, and their cattle to pass through the fire, calling upon Baal to bless them, and not forsake them. [28] In Devonshire and Cornwall it is still considered ominous if a hare crosses a person on the road. [29] See _Carew's Survey of Cornwall_, p. 22. Mr. Carew had a stone-ring of this kind in his possession, and the person who gave it to him avowed, that "he himself saw a part of the stick sticking in it,"--but "_Penes authorem sit fides_," says Mr. Carew. [30] The same superstition still exists in Devonshire. [31] See account of Druidism in Polewhele's Historical Views of Devonshire, vol. 1. CHAPTER VI. AESCULAPIAN MYSTERIES, &C.