It was, perhaps, a natural thought that the
approach of winter should drive the poor shivering hungry ghosts
from the bare fields and the leafless woodlands to the shelter of
the cottage with its familiar fireside. Did not the lowing kine then
troop back from the summer pastures in the forests and on the hills
to be fed and cared for in the stalls, while the bleak winds
whistled among the swaying boughs and the snow-drifts deepened in
the hollows? and could the good-man and the good-wife deny to the
spirits of their dead the welcome which they gave to the cows?
But it is not only the souls of the departed who are supposed to be
hovering unseen on the day "when autumn to winter resigns the pale
year." Witches then speed on their errands of mischief, some
sweeping through the air on besoms, others galloping along the roads
on tabby-cats, which for that evening are turned into coal-black
steeds. The fairies, too, are all let loose, and hobgoblins of every
sort roam freely about.
Yet while a glamour of mystery and awe has always clung to
Hallowe'en in the minds of the Celtic peasantry, the popular
celebration of the festival has been, at least in modern times, by
no means of a prevailing gloomy cast; on the contrary it has been
attended by picturesque features and merry pastimes, which rendered
it the gayest night of all the year.
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