These were placed in a heap on some eminence near the house,
and in the evening set fire to. The fires were called _Samhnagan_. There
was one for each house, and it was an object of ambition who should have
the biggest. Whole districts were brilliant with bonfires, and their
glare across a Highland loch, and from many eminences, formed an
exceedingly picturesque scene."[587] Like the Beltane fires on the first
of May, the Hallowe'en bonfires seem to have been kindled most commonly
in the Perthshire Highlands. Travelling in the parish of Moulin, near
Pitlochrie, in the year 1772, the Englishman Thomas Pennant writes that
"Hallow Eve is also kept sacred: as soon as it is dark, a person sets
fire to a bush of broom fastened round a pole, and, attended with a
crowd, runs about the village. He then flings it down, heaps great
quantity of combustible matters on it, and makes a great bonfire. A
whole tract is thus illuminated at the same time, and makes a fine
appearance."[588] The custom has been described more fully by a
Scotchman of the eighteenth century, John Ramsay of Ochtertyre. On the
evening of Hallowe'en "the young people of every hamlet assembled upon
some eminence near the houses. There they made a bonfire of ferns or
other fuel, cut the same day, which from the feast was called _Samh-nag_
or _Savnag_, a fire of rest and pleasure. Around it was placed a circle
of stones, one for each person of the families to whom they belonged.
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