[The two great Celtic festivals, Beltane and Hallowe'en.] Be that as it may, the two great Celtic festivals of May Day and the first of November or, to be more accurate, the Eves of these two days, closely resemble each other in the manner of their celebration and in the superstitions associated with them, and alike, by the antique character impressed upon both, betray a remote and purely pagan origin.

The festival of Trimalcion is an episode in the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, the poem in which are described all the excesses of Roman luxury and debauchery.

But the great and glorious festival of Chantebled at that period was the birth of Mathieu and Marianne's first great-grandchilda girl, called Angeline, daughter of their granddaughter, Berthe.

The national festival was as much an assembly of the people as were the centuries convoked for voting; and the circumstance that the former had no resolutions to pass made the official announcement of a distinction between the ruling order and the body of subjectswhich the separation impliedall the more significant.

From the foregoing survey we may infer that among the heathen forefathers of the European peoples the most popular and widespread fire-festival of the year was the great celebration of Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day.

The little festival was charmingbut for the way and place.

The pompously celebrated religious festivals were the only events that sometimes chequered the wearisome monotony.

D.L.R. says the same, whereas the Beara festival is a Moslem feast that takes place once a year in the monsoons, when thousands of females offer their vows to the patron of rivers.

All festivals and solemnities were in her eyes eternal graces which returned at fixed epochs in every ecclesiastical year, in the same manner as the fruits and harvests of the earth come in their seasons in the natural year.

The festival therefore becomes a saturnale, during which servants forget their duties to their masters, children their reverence for parents, even their respect for women, and women all notions of modesty, delicacy, and gentleness; they become raging bacchantes....

So far as Europe is concerned, the evidence tends strongly to shew that the grand evil which the festivals aimed at combating was witchcraft, and that they were conceived to attain their end by actually burning the witches, whether visible or invisible, in the flames.

The three festivals during which the Yule log is expected to burn are probably Christmas Day (December 25th), St. Stephen's Day (December 26th), and St. John the Evangelist's Day (December 27th).

The Solar Theory of the Fire-festivals [Theory that the fire-festivals are charms to ensure a supply of sunshine.]

CHAPTER XI THE FLOWER FESTIVAL The Idea of having a town flower-costume party was the Ethels', too.

War and the harvest, the festivals of the gods and the destinies of the tribe, are the subjects of song.

But there is nothing they can say and when the festival is over, Krishna and the Yadavas return to Dwarka, while Nanda with the cowherds and cowgirls go back to Brindaban.