Attention to Carmichael’s field notebooks suggests that while Gaelic culture was already under pressure in the nineteenth century, this may have meant that belief and practice in charms and other folk magic even have increased during the period. The main dish in Connaught for midsummer was called ‘goody’ which is hot milk with sugar and spices and bread all heated in a cauldron on the bonfire or a smaller fire nearby. Consumption of sweets and home-made whiskey called poitín (poCHEEN) and kegs of beer were appropriate for the season and were shared among the participants (Danaher, 1972, 143).

Gundarsson, Kveldulf. Teutonic Religion: Folk Beliefs & Practices of the Northern Tradition . St. Paul (Minnesota): Llewellyn, 1993. Print. Allen, William E. D. The Poet and the Spae-wife: An Attempt to Reconstruct Al-Ghazali’s Embassy to the Vikings . Dublin: Figgis, 1960. Print. One of the distinct beauties of this prayer is that it is unassuming. There is no assumption that one will simply awaken in the morning. The prayer seems to cede control to God. The person praying is stating that God alone will decide the fate of the person going to sleep. All the prayer asks for is that if it be the death sleep, that God would allow this person to hang onto his arm. The prayer states that either way, waking to life or death, that they will awaken into peace. A significant and important collection of prayers, hymns, and incantations from Celtic spirituality in Scotland. Everything is in here: milking songs, fairy songs, and lullabies; charms, blessings, and prayers for protection.The similarities Bealtaine and Midsummer have is reminiscent of the similarities Michaelmas and Lughnasadh have, and the smoking gun is St. Michael’s cognate relationship to Lugh. It’s as if the Celtis did indeed have an 8 spoked wheel, but the solstices and equinoxes are just lesser repetitions of the Fire festival before it, making only four major themes in the year with skewed duplicates. Midwinter is a skewed Samhain, while Auld Wives Day is a continuation of a skewed Imbolc. So far, this is what the evidence tells us. By the 1800s and early 1900s, these practices would have mostly died out and were told about as tales around home turf fires. But when they were carried out, they would be carried out by young people where most of the elders had lost interest in them (Danaher, 1972, 135). There are many legends and customs connected with Bride. Some of these seem inconsistent with one another, and with the character of the Saint of Kildare. These seeming inconsistencies arise from the fact that there were several Brides, Christian and pre-Christian, whose personalities have become confused in the course of centuries--the attributes of all being now popularly ascribed to one. Bride is said to preside over fire, over art, over all beauty, 'fo cheabhar agus fo chuan,' beneath the sky and beneath the sea. And man being the highest type of ideal beauty, Bride presides at his birth and dedicates him to the Trinity. She is the Mary and the Juno of the Gael. She is much spoken of in connection with Mary,--generally in relation to the birth of Christ. She was the aid-woman of the Mother of Nazareth in the lowly stable, and she is the aid-woman of the mothers of Uist in their humble homes.

A similar practice prevails in Ireland. There the churn staff, not the corn sheaf, is fashioned into the form of a woman, and called 'Brideog,' little Bride. The girls come clad in their best, and the girl who has the prettiest dress gives it to Brideog. An ornament something like a Maltese cross is affixed to the breast of the figure. The ornament is composed of straw, beautifully and artistically interlaced by the deft fingers of the maidens of Bride. It is called 'rionnag Brideog,' the star of little Bride. Pins, needles, bits of stone, bits of straw, and other things are given to Bride as gifts, and food by the mothers.

The Kupalo effigy is made of straw and dressed in women’s clothing, complete with jewelry and ribbons(Dixon-Kennedy, 1999). At Uppsala they’d plunge a man into the river and if he disappeared they’d draw a fortuitous omen(Allen, 1960, 230). Carmina gadelica: Hymns and incantations with illustrative notes on words, rites, and customs, dying and obsolete". 1900. The distinctive nature of Catholic folk religion in the Scottish Highlands. Research into Carmina Gadelica suggests that Carmichael’s vision for his multi-volume compendium reflects contemporary Celtic nationalist perspectives on the Protestant Reformation as being a culturally disruptive outside imposition threatening older, more indigenous Catholic oral traditions, customs, and beliefs. Alexander Carmichael (full name Alexander Archibald Carmichael or Alasdair Gilleasbaig MacGilleMhìcheil in his native Scottish Gaelic; 1 December 1832, Taylochan, Isle of Lismore– 6 June 1912, Barnton, Edinburgh) was a Scottish exciseman, folklorist, antiquarian, and author. Between 1860 and his death Carmichael collected a vast amount of folklore, local traditions, natural history observations, antiquarian data, and material objects from people throughout the Scottish Highlands, particularly in the southern Outer Hebrides where he lived, worked, and brought up his family between 1864 and 1882. Alexander Carmichael is best known today for Carmina Gadelica, an influential but controversial compendium of edited Highland lore and literature published in six volumes between 1900 and 1971.

Monaghan, Patricia. The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore . New York: Infobase Pub., 2008. Print. Folks jump over the midsummer fire with the effigy and on the next day, it is stripped and thrown into a stream. If we squint and combine this with the plot of Midsommar, we can begin to get a sense of the original practice here of using a real person to preemptively mitigate the water spirits’ wrath. Horses were sacrificed at midsummer in both Germanic and Celtic paganism (Monaghan, 2004, 249)(Gundarsson, 1993, 99). It’s been suggested that Midsummer’s debauchery was originally orgiastic. Gundarsson suggests that Turgeis’ grave orgy took place at Midsummer. Swedish St. John’s Eve customs involve courtship. When Irish people took their cows up to the mountains for their summer/winter alternation at Bealtaine, the elders returned to their winter homes and the young people that remained would court each other for the summer. In ancient times, the practice would still be alive but might involve orgies. Hutsuls played fast and loose with infidelity and their midsummer was originally orgiastic. of God; 'Bana-ghoistidh Iosda Criosda nam bane agus nam beannachd,' god-mother of Jesus Christ of the bindings and blessings. Christ again is called 'Dalta Bride,' the foster-son of Bride; 'Dalta Bride bith nam beannachd,' the foster-son of Bride of the blessings; 'Daltan Bride,' little fosterling of Bride, a term of endearment.Reconstructionists and folklorists who say that Dagda isn’t the All-Father because he not the father of all the gods miss that Zeupater(sky-father), Jupiter(sky-father), Varuna Ptr(covering/surrounding father), and the All-Father Odin are also not direct fathers of the gods. They quintessentialize godhood itself. That’s why God is a title of Odin which was given to the germanic priest as Godar/Godi and Dyeus/Dyaus is actually sourced for many of the names of the other gods including his daughter Usas by way of *Aeusos and is the source for the word deity. The making of a charm collector: Alexander Carmichael in the Outer Hebrides, 1864 to 1882’, in J. Kapolo and W. Ryan (eds), The Power of Words: Studies on Charms and Charming in Europe (University of Pecs, 2013), 25–66. Kay Muhr of the Ulster Place-Name Society says Toland associated druidic fires with Bealtaine and Midsummer and emphasizes the blessing returned to the people by these religious interactions. She quotes this in her paper Titled “Bealtaine in Irish and Scottish Place-names”: