About "The Silver Bough of the sacred Aplle-tree, laden with crystal blossoms or golden fruit, is the quivalent in Celtic mythology of the Golden Bough of classical mythology - the symbolic bon between the world we know and the Otherworld. The analogy of the title with that of Sir James Frazer's stupendous work may welll make it seem a pretnetious choice - the more so as I have made not attempt to cove the whole corpus of Celtic folk-lore, but only so much as...

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"In the first volume of this work I deal with the background of our Scottish festivals - Druidism, Magic, the Fairy Faith, the Witch Cult and kindred matters. I this volume I follow the cycle of the seasons from Candlemas to the Festivals of the Corn, preceding them with an account of the medieval plays in our ancient burghs."--Foreword, F.M. McN., Edinburgh, August, 1959

About "In this third volume, I complete the cycke [from volume 2] from Hallowe'en - the Samhuinn of our Celtic forebears, which marked the entry of Winter and of the Celitc year - to Yule, when our Scandinavian forebears celebrated the winter solstice. Both these nature-festivals were in due course Christianised by the Church, Samhuinn, which was in origin a Festival of the Dead, being identified with the Feast of All Saints and All Souls, and Yule, "the Birthhday of the Uncoonquered Sun," being...

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"This is the fourth and final volume of Marian McNeill's Silver Bough series, completing a unique storehouse of Scottish customs already half forgotten and in danger of passing from memory. Vol. IV is devoted to the local festivals of Scotland, from Up-Helly-Aa in Lerwick to the Border Ridings"--Dust jacket