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BEALLTAIN, Beltane, is the first day of May. On May Day all the fires of the district were extinguished and 'fein cigin,' need-fire, produced on the knoll. This fire was divided in two, and people and cattle rushed through for purification and safeguarding against 'ealtraigh agus dosgaidh.' mischance and murrain, during the year. The people obtained fires for their homes from this need-fire. The practice of producing the need-fire came down in the Highlands and Islands to the first quarter of this century. The writer found traces of it in such distant places as Arran, Uist, and Sutherland. In 1895 a woman in Arran said that in the time of her father the people made the need-fire on the knoll, and then rushed home and brought out their 'creatairean,' creatures, and put them round the fire to safeguard them, 'bho 'n bhana bhuitsich mhoir Nic-creafain,' from the arch-witch Crawford.
The ordeal of passing through the fires gave rise to a proverb which I heard used by an old man in Lewis in 1873 :- 'A Mhoire ! mhicean, bu dora dhomhsa sin a dheanamh dhuit na dhol eadar dha theine mhoir Bheaill,' Ah Mary ! sonnie, it were worse for me to do that for thee, than to pass between the two great fires of Beall.
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