on earlier medieval sources, some of which are unknown. He claims that the feis of Tara was held for a week every third Samhain, when the nobles and ollams of Ireland met to lay down and renew the laws, and to feast. He also claims that the druids lit a sacred bonfire at Tlachtga and made sacrifices to the gods, sometimes by burning their sacrifices. He adds that all other fires were doused and then re-lit from this bonfire. Ritual bonfires Similar to Bealtaine, bonfires were lit on hilltops at Samhain and there were rituals involving them. By the early modern era, they were most common in parts of the Scottish Highlands, on the Isle of Man, in north and mid Wales, and in parts of Ulster. F. Marian McNeill says that a force-fire (or need-fire) was the traditional way of lighting them, but notes that this method gradually died out. Likewise, only certain kinds of wood were traditionally used, but later records show that many kinds of flammable material were burnt. It is suggested that the fires were a kind of imitative or sympathetic magic—they mimicked the Sun, helping the "powers of growth" and holding back the decay and darkness of winter. They may also have served to symbolically "burn up and destroy all harmful influences". Accounts from the 18th and 19th centuries suggest that the fires (as well as their smoke and ashes) were deemed to have protective and cleansing powers. In 19th-century Moray, boys asked for bonfire fuel from each house in the village. When the fire was lit, "one after another of the youths laid himself down on the ground as near to the fire as possible so as not to be burned, and in such a position as to let the smoke roll over him. The others ran through the smoke and jumped over him". When the bonfire burnt down, they scattered the ashes, vying with each other who should scatter them most. In some areas, two bonfires would be built side by side, and the people—sometimes with their livestock—would walk between them as a cleansing ritual. The bones of slaughtered cattle were said to have been cast upon bonfires. In the Gaelic world, cattle were the main form of wealth and were the center of agricultural and pastoral life. People also took flames from the bonfire back to their homes. During the 19th century