The Book of Hallowe'en: The Book of Hallowe'en index. The Book of Hallowe'en: Chapter XIII: Walpurgis Night. Sacred Texts Paganism Index Previous Next WALPURGA was a British nun who went to Germany in the eighth century to found holy houses. After a pious life she was buried at Eichstatt, where it is said a healing oil trickled from her rock-tomb. This miracle reminded men of the fruitful dew which fell from the manes of the Valkyries' horses, and when one of the days sacred to her came on May first, the wedding-day of Frau Holda and the sun-god, the people thought of her as a Valkyrie, and identified her with Holda. As, like a Valkyrie, she rode armed on her steed, she scattered, like Holda, spring flowers and fruitful dew upon the fields and vales.
So this night was called Walpurgis Night, when evil beings were abroad, and with them human worshippers who still guarded the old faith in secret. This is very like the occasion of November Eve, which shared with May first Celtic manifestations of evil. On Walpurgis Night precaution must be taken against witches who may harm cattle. Priests of South Uist. There were two great questions at the beginning of the 1880s which pre-occupied the priests of Uist and also pre-occupied the Bishop. The role that the priests in the Isles played in resolving these questions was very important – the first was land reform and fighting to legally establish rights for the crofters and the second was the establishment of the right to Catholic education.
All the priests in Uist gave testimony to the Napier Commission in 1883. The older ones, Donald MacColl, Donald MacKintosh, and Alastair Campbell, remembered people telling them of how things were at the time of the evictions, and even prior to that, while the youngest of them, Sandy MacKintosh of Daliburgh, only twenty nine at the time, was the articulate voice calling for radical change. When questioned whether or not nineteen year leases would satisfy the crofters, he stated that ‘he believed that more radical change was required before they would be satisfied’. The Catholic Highlands of Scotland. Fasti ecclesi scotican.