When this ceremony is ended,
they consider the cure complete; after which they drink whiskey, and
dance to the bagpipe or fiddle round the celestial fire till the last
spark is extinguished."
Here, within our own day, is evidently an act of fire-worship: a direct
worship of Baal by a Christian community in the nineteenth century.
There were other means of preventing disease spreading among cattle
practised within this century. When murrain broke out in a herd, it was
believed that, if the first one taken ill were buried alive, it would
stop the spread of the disease, and that the other animals affected
would then soon recover. Were a cow to cast her calf: if the calf were
to be buried at the byre door, and a short prayer or a verse of
Scripture said over it, it would prevent the same misfortune from
happening with the rest of the herd. If a sheep dropped a dead lamb, the
proper precaution to take was to place the lamb upon a rowan tree, and
this would prevent the whole flock from a repetition of the mishap.
It was an old superstition that the body of a murdered person would
bleed on the presence or touch of the murderer.
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