"[374] In this last account no mention is made of
bonfires, but they were probably lighted, for a contemporary writer
informs us that in the parish of Kirkmichael, which adjoins the parish
of Logierait on the east, the custom of lighting a fire in the fields
and baking a consecrated cake on the first of May was not quite obsolete
in his time.[375] We may conjecture that the cake with knobs was
formerly used for the purpose of determining who should be the "Beltane
carline" or victim doomed to the flames. A trace of this custom
survived, perhaps, in the custom of baking oatmeal cakes of a special
kind and rolling them down hill about noon on the first of May; for it
was thought that the person whose cake broke as it rolled would die or
be unfortunate within the year. These cakes, or bannocks as we call them
in Scotland, were baked in the usual way, but they were washed over with
a thin batter composed of whipped egg, milk or cream, and a little
oatmeal. This custom appears to have prevailed at or near Kingussie in
Inverness-shire. At Achterneed, near Strathpeffer in Ross-shire, the
Beltane bannocks were called _tcharnican_ or hand-cakes, because they
were kneaded entirely in the hand, and not on a board or table like
common cakes; and after being baked they might not be placed anywhere
but in the hands of the children who were to eat them.[376]
[Beltane fires in the north-east of Scotland to burn the witches; the
Beltane cake.
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