eighty acres. It was one of the moors upon which the owners of toft-steads in the village of Crookes turned their cattle in summer. 'Burnt Stones' and 'Burnt Stanes' are marked on the ordnance survey map as two distinct places adjoining each other. It is strange that the two names should be found together, and the explanation may be that two large fires were kindled, the cattle being driven, according to the ancient rite, between them.
It is, in my opinion, certain that here was the place where bale-fires were formerly made. I do not in any way attempt, as some writers have done, to connect those fires with the worship of Baal, although 'undoubtedly,' says Jacob Grimm, 'Beal must be taken for a divine being, whose worship is likely to have extended beyond the Celtic nations.' (Teut. Myth., i. 614.)
There can be no doubt that the inhabitants of Hallam and Crookes were accustomed to make these mysterious bale-fires in this very place. One of the forms of bale, used in the year 1420, is belle.[1] Moreover, it is easy to understand how in a word of two syllables the old form bæl would be shortened into bell.
I have no doubt that hagg here represents the old Norse hagi, pasturage or common.[2] About a mile to the west is Fox hagg.[3] The village feast of Crookes is still held on the first of May—the day of the triumphal entry of the Summer, and the day on which the festival of Beltein was kept. Let us hear how the Scotch, a little more than a hundred years ago, observed this fest:—
On the first of May, the herdsmen of every village hold their Beltein, a rural sacrifice. They cut a square trench in the ground, leaving the turf in the middle; on that they make a fire of wood, on which they dress a large caudle of eggs, butter, oatmeal, and milk, and bring besides the ingredients of the caudle, plenty
- ↑ Anturs of Arth.. 'I brenne as a belle.' Cited in New Eng. Dict., s. v. bale, p. 635, col. i. At or near Bell hag is a field called Lilloe field, (q. v.) which may be compared wuth lilly-lo, a word used by nurses in speaking to children, and meaning 'fire.'
- ↑ 'This said he led me over holts and hags,
Through thorns and bushes scant my legs I drew.'
Fairf. Tasso, viii. 41. Nares. - ↑ Fox grass is shear grass, cladium mariscus. See the word in the glossary. 'The people of the Fenne countreys use it for fother, and do heate ovens with it.'—Turner's Herbal, i. 112, cited by Britten and Holland. In the fens it was 'once largely used for lighting fires at Cambridge, and is now to some extent.'—The Fenland, Past and Present, p. 306, cited bu Britten and Holland in English Plant Names.
