Ashes were raked smooth on the hearth at bedtime on Hallowe'en, and the next morning examined for footprints. If one was turned from the door, guests or a marriage was prophesied; if toward the door, a death. To have prophetic dreams a girl should search for a briar grown into a hoop, creep through thrice in the name of the devil, cut it in silence, and go to bed with it under her pillow. A boy should cut ten ivy leaves, throw away one and put the rest under his head before he slept. If a girl leave beside her bed a glass of water with a sliver of wood in it, and say before she falls asleep: "Husband mine that is to be, Come this night and rescue me," she will dream of falling off a bridge into the water, and of being saved at the last minute by the spirit of her future husband. To receive a drink from his hand she must eat a cake of flour, soot, and salt before she goes to bed. The Celtic spirit of yearning for the unknown, retained nowhere else as much as in Ireland, is expressed very beautifully by the poet Yeats in the introduction to his _Celtic Twilight_. "The host is riding from Knocknarea And over the grave of Clooth-na-bare; Caolte tossing his burning hair, And Niam calling: 'Away, come away; "'And brood no more where the fire is bright, Filling thy heart with a mortal dream; For breasts are heaving and eyes a-gleam: Away, come away to the dim twilight "'Arms are heaving and lips apart; And if any gaze on our rushing band, We come between him and the deed of his hand, We come between him and the hope of his heart.' "The host is rushing twixt night and day, And where is there hope or deed as fair? Caolte tossing his burning hair, And Niam calling: 'Away, come away.'" CHAPTER VIII IN SCOTLAND AND THE HEBRIDES As in Ireland the Scotch Baal festival of November was called Samhain. Western Scotland, lying nearest Tara, center alike of pagan and Christian religion in Ireland, was colonized by both the people and the customs of eastern Ireland.