John's-eve by watch-fires
is a relic of the ancient sun-worship of Atlantis. The practice of
driving cattle through the fire continued for a longtime, and Kelly
mentions in his "Folk-lore" that in Northamptonshire, in England, a calf
was sacrificed in one of these fires to "stop the murrain" during the
present century. Fires are still lighted in England and Scotland as well
as Ireland for superstitious purposes; so that the people of Great
Britain, it may be said, are still in some sense in the midst of the
ancient sun-worship of Atlantis.
We find among the Irish of to-day many Oriental customs. The game of
"jacks," or throwing up five pebbles and catching them on the back of
the hand, was known in Rome. "The Irish keen (caoine), or the lament
over the dead, may still be heard in Algeria and Upper Egypt, even as
Herodotus heard it chanted by the Libyan women." The same practice
existed among the Egyptians, Etruscans, and Romans. The Irish wakes are
identical with the funeral feasts of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans.
(Cusack's "History of Ireland," p. 141.) The Irish custom of saying "God
bless you!" when one sneezes, is a very ancient practice; it was known
to the Romans, and referred, it is said, to a plague in the remote past,
whose first symptom was sneezing.
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