They warned him of the danger that it betokened for the
ancient faith of Erin.[387] In spite of the difference of date between
Easter and Beltane, we may suspect that the new fire annually kindled
with solemn ceremony about Easter in the king of Ireland's palace at
Tara was no other than the Beltane fire. We have seen that in the
Highlands of Scotland down to modern times it was customary to
extinguish all fires in the neighbourhood before proceeding to kindle
the sacred flame.[388] The Irish historian Geoffrey Keating, who wrote
in the first part of the seventeenth century, tells us that the men of
Ireland held a great fair every year in the month of May at Uisnech
(_Ushnagh_) in the county of Meath, "and at it they were wont to
exchange their goods and their wares and their jewels. At it, they were,
also, wont to make a sacrifice to the Arch-God that they adored, whose
name was Bel (_bayl_). It was, likewise, their usage to light two fires
to Bel, in every district of Ireland, at this season, and to drive a
pair of each kind of cattle that the district contained, between those
two fires, as a preservative to guard them against all the diseases of
that year. It is from that fire, thus made in honour of Bel, that the
day [the first of May] on which the noble feast of the apostles, Philip
and James, is held, has been called Beltaini, or Bealtaine
(_Bayltinnie_); for Beltaini is the same as Beil-teine, i.
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