ashes, which they preserve as a remedy for the ailments of bees. It is also believed that as far as the blaze of the bonfire is visible, the corn will grow well throughout the year, and no conflagration will break out.(674) In some parts of Bavaria, bonfires were kindled at Easter upon steep mountains, and burning arrows or discs of wood were shot high into the air, as in the Swabian custom already described. Sometimes, instead of the discs, an old waggon wheel was wrapt in straw, set on fire, and sent rolling down the mountain. The lads who hurled the discs received painted Easter eggs from the girls.(675) In some parts of Swabia the Easter fires might not be kindled with iron or flint or steel; but only by the friction of wood.(676) At Braunröde in the Harz Mountains it was the custom to burn squirrels in the Easter bonfire.(677) In the Altmark, bones were burned in it.(678) In the central Highlands of Scotland bonfires, known as the Beltane fires, were formerly kindled with great ceremony on the 1st of May, and the traces of human sacrifices at them were particularly clear and unequivocal. In the neighbourhood of Callander, in Perthshire, the custom lasted down to the close of last century. The fires were lit by the people of each hamlet on a hill or knoll round which their cattle were pasturing. Hence various eminences in the Highlands are known as “the hill of the fires,” just as in Germany some mountains take their name from the Easter fires which are kindled upon them. On the morning of May Day the people repaired to a hill or knoll and cut a round trench in the green sod, leaving in the centre a platform of turf large enough to contain the whole company. On this turf they seated themselves, and in the middle was placed a pile of wood or other fuel, which of old they kindled with _tein-eigin_—that is, forced fire or need-fire. The way of making the need-fire was this: “The night before, all the fires in the country were carefully extinguished, and next morning the materials for exciting this sacred fire were prepared. The most primitive method seems to be that which was used in the islands of Skye, Mull, and Tiree. A well-seasoned plank of oak was procured, in the midst of which a hole was bored. A wimble of the same timber was then applied, the end of which they fitted to the hole. But in some parts of the mainland the machinery was different. They used a frame of green wood, of a square form, in the centre of which was an axle-tree. In some places three times three persons, in others three times nine, were required for turning round, by turns, the axle-tree or wimble. If any of them had been guilty of murder, adultery, theft, or other atrocious crime, it was imagined either that the fire would not kindle, or that it would be devoid of its usual virtue. So soon as any sparks were emitted by means of the violent friction, they applied a species of agaric which grows on old birch-trees, and is very combustible.