new fire was obtained direct from the sun by concentrating his beams on a highly polished concave plate and reflecting them on a little cotton wool. With this holy fire the sheep and lambs offered to the sun were consumed, and the flesh of such as were to be eaten at the festival was roasted. Portions of the new fire were also conveyed to the temple of the sun and to the convent of the sacred virgins, where they were kept burning all the year, and it was an ill omen if the holy flame went out.[328] At a festival held in the last month of the old Mexican year all the fires both in the temples and in the houses were extinguished, and the priest kindled a new fire by rubbing two sticks against each other before the image of the fire-god.[329] The Zuni Indians of New Mexico kindle a new fire by the friction of wood both at the winter and the summer solstice. At the winter solstice the chosen fire-maker collects a faggot of cedar-wood from every house in the village, and each person, as he hands the wood to the fire-maker, prays that the crops may be good in the coming year. For several days before the new fire is kindled, no ashes or sweepings may be removed from the houses and no artificial light may appear outside of them, not even a burning cigarette or the flash of firearms. The Indians believe that no rain will fall on the fields of the man outside whose house a light has been seen at this season. The signal for kindling the new fire is given by the rising of the Morning Star. The flame is produced by twirling an upright stick between the hands on a horizontal stick laid on the floor of a sacred chamber, the sparks being caught by a tinder of cedar-dust. It is forbidden to blow up the smouldering tinder with the breath, for that would offend the gods. After the fire has thus been ceremonially kindled, the women and girls of all the families in the village clean out their houses. They carry the sweepings and ashes in baskets or bowls to the fields and leave them there. To the sweepings the woman says: “I now deposit you as sweepings, but in one year you will return to me as corn.” And to the ashes she says: “I now deposit you as ashes, but in one year you will return to me as meal.” At the summer solstice the sacred fire which has been procured by the friction of wood is used to kindle the grass and trees, that there may be a great cloud of smoke, while bull-roarers are swung and prayers offered that the Rain-makers up aloft will water the earth.[330] From this account we see how intimately the kindling of a new fire at the two turning-points of the sun’s course is associated in the minds of these Indians with the fertility of the land, particularly with the growth of the corn. The rolling smoke is apparently an imitation of rain-clouds designed, on the principle of homoeopathic magic, to draw showers from the blue sky. Once a year the Iroquois priesthood supplied the people with a new fire. As a preparation for the annual rite the fires in all the huts were extinguished and the ashes scattered about. Then the priest, wearing the insignia of his office, went from hut to hut relighting the fires by means of a flint.[331] Among the Esquimaux with whom C.F. Hall resided, it was the custom that at a certain time, which answered to our New Year’s Day, two men went about from house to house blowing out every light in the village. One of the men was dressed to represent a woman. Afterwards the lights were rekindled from a fresh fire. An Esquimau woman being asked what all this meant, replied, “New sun–new light.”[332] Among the Esquimaux of Iglulik, when the sun first rises above the horizon after the long night of the Arctic winter, the children who have watched for his reappearance run into the houses and blow out the lamps. Then they receive from their mothers presents of pieces of wick.[333]
[The new fire in Wadai, among the Swahili, and in other parts of Africa.]
In the Sudanese kingdom of Wadai all the fires in the villages are put out and the ashes removed from the houses on the day which precedes the New Year festival. At the beginning of the new year a new fire is lit by the friction of wood in the great straw hut where the village elders lounge away the sultry hours together; and every man takes thence a burning brand with which he rekindles the fire on his domestic hearth.[334] In the Bahr-el-Ghazal province of the Egyptian Sudan the people extinguish their old fires at the Arab New Year and bring in new fire. On the same occasion they beat the walls of their huts, the grass thatches, and the walls of their enclosures in order to drive away the devil or evil spirits. The beating of the walls and roofs is accompanied by the firing of guns, the shouting of men, and the shriller cries of the women.[335] Thus these people combine an annual expulsion of demons with an annual lighting of a new fire. Among the Swahili of East Africa the greatest festival is that of the New Year, which falls in the second half of August. At a given moment all the fires are extinguished with water and afterwards relit by the friction of two dry pieces of wood. The ashes of the old fires are carried out and deposited at cross-roads. All the people get up very early in the morning and bathe in the sea or some other water, praying to be kept in good health and to live that they may bathe again next year. Sham-fights form part of the amusements of the day; sometimes they pass into grim reality. Indeed the day was formerly one of general license; every man did that which was good in his own eyes. No awkward questions were asked about any crimes committed on this occasion, so some people improved the shining hour by knocking a few poor devils on the head. Shooting still goes on during the whole day, and at night the proceedings generally wind up with a great dance.[336] The King of Benametapa, as the early Portuguese traders called him, in East Africa used to send commissioners annually to every town in his dominions; on the arrival of one of these officers the inhabitants of each town had to put out all their fires and to receive a new fire from him. Failure to comply with this custom was treated as rebellion.[337] Some tribes of British Central Africa carefully extinguish the fires on the hearths at the beginning of the hoeing season and at harvest; the fires are afterwards rekindled by friction, and the people indulge in dances of various kinds.[338]
[The new fire among the Todas of Southern India and among the Nagas of North-Eastern India.]
The Todas of the Neilgheny Hills, in Southern India, annually kindle a sacred new fire by the friction of wood in the month which begins with the October moon. The ceremony is performed by two holy dairymen at the foot of a high hill. When they have lighted the fire by rubbing two dry sticks together, and it begins to burn well, they stand a little way off and pray, saying, “May the young grass flower! May honey flourish! May fruit ripen!” The purpose of the ceremony is to make the grass and honey plentiful. In ancient times the Todas lived largely on wild fruits, and then the rite of the new fire was very important. Now that they subsist chiefly on the milk of their buffaloes, the ceremony has lost much of its old significance.[339] When the Nagas of North-Eastern India have felled the timber and cut down the scrub in those patches of jungle which they propose to cultivate, they put out all the fires in the village and light a new fire by rubbing two dry pieces of wood together. Then having kindled torches at it they proceed with them to the jungle and ignite the felled timber and brushwood. The flesh of a cow or buffalo is also roasted on the new fire and furnishes a sacrificial meal.[340] Near the small town of Kahma in Burma, between Prome and Thayetmyo, certain gases escape from a hollow in the ground and burn with a steady flame during the dry season of the year. The people regard the flame as the forge of a spectral smith who here carried on his business after death had removed him from his old smithy in the village. Once a year all the household fires in Kahma are extinguished and then lighted afresh from the ghostly flame.[341]
[The new fire in China and Japan.]
In China every year, about the beginning of April, certain officials, called _Sz’hueen_, used of old to go about the country armed with wooden clappers. Their business was to summon the people and command them to put out every fire. This was the beginning of a season called _Han-shih-tsieh_, or “eating cold food.” For three days all household fires remained extinct as a preparation for the solemn renewal of the fire, which took place on the fifth or sixth day of April, being the hundred and fifth day after the winter solstice. The ceremony was performed with great pomp by the same officials, who procured the new fire from heaven by reflecting the sun’s rays either from a metal mirror or from a crystal on dry moss. Fire thus obtained is called by the Chinese heavenly fire, and its use is enjoined in sacrifices; whereas fire elicited by the friction of wood is termed by them earthly fire, and its use is prescribed for cooking and other domestic purposes. When once the new fire had thus been drawn from the sun, all the people were free to rekindle their domestic hearths; and, as a Chinese distich has it–
“_At the festival of the cold food there are a thousand white stalks among the flowers;
On the day Tsing-ming, at sunrise, you may see the smoke of ten thousand houses_.”
According to a Chinese philosopher, the reason for thus renewing fire periodically is that the vital principle grows weaker and weaker in old fire, whereas in new fire it is young and vigorous. This annual renewal of fire was a ceremony of very great antiquity in China, since it is known to have been observed in the time of the first dynasty, about two thousand years before Christ. Under the Tcheou dynasty a change in the calendar led to shifting the fire-festival from spring to the summer solstice, but afterwards it was brought back to its original date. Although the custom appears to have long fallen into disuse, the barbarous inhabitants of Hainan, an island to the south of China, still call a year “a fire,” as if in memory of the time when the years were reckoned by the annually recurring ceremony of rekindling the sacred fire.[342] “A Japanese book written two centuries ago informs us that sticks resembling the wands used for offerings at the purification ceremony were part shaven and set up in bundles at the four corners of the Gion shrine on the last day of the year. The priests, after prayers were recited, broke up the bundles and set fire to the sticks, which the people then carried home to light their household fires with for the New Year. The object of this ceremony was to avert pestilence.”[343]
[The new fire in ancient Greece and Rome.]
In classical antiquity the Greek island of Lemnos was devoted to the worship of the smith-god Hephaestus, who was said to have fallen on it when Zeus hurled him from heaven.[344] Once a year every fire in the island was extinguished and remained extinct for nine days, during which sacrifices were offered to the dead and to the infernal powers. New fire was brought in a ship from the sacred isle of Delos, and with it the fires in the houses and the workshops were relit. The people said that with the new fire they made a new beginning of life. If the ship that bore the sacred flame arrived too soon, it might not put in to shore, but had to cruise in the offing till the nine days were expired.[345] At Rome the sacred fire in the temple of Vesta was kindled anew every year on the first of March, which used to be the beginning of the Roman year;[346] the task of lighting it was entrusted to the Vestal Virgins, and they performed it by drilling a hole in a board of lucky wood till the flame was elicited by friction. The new fire thus produced was carried into the temple of Vesta by one of the virgins in a bronze sieve.[347]
[The new fire at Hallow E’en among the old Celts of Ireland; the new fire on September 1st among the Russian peasants.]
Among the Celts of Ireland a new fire was annually kindled on Hallowe’en or the Eve of Samhain, as they called it, the last day of October, from which the Irish new year began; and all the hearths throughout the country are said to have been relighted from the fresh fire. The place where this holy flame was lit bore the name of Tlachtga or Tlactga; it has been identified with a rath or native fort on the Hill of Ward near Athboy in the county of Meath. “It was there,” says the old Irish historian, Geoffrey Keating, “that the Festival of the Fire of Tlactga was ordered to be held, and it was thither that the Druids of Ireland were wont to repair and to assemble, in solemn meeting, on the eve of Samhain, for the purpose of making a sacrifice to all the gods. It was in that fire at Tlactga, that their sacrifice was burnt; and it was made obligatory, under pain of punishment, to extinguish all the fires of Ireland, on that eve; and the men of Ireland were allowed to kindle no other fire but that one; and for each of the other fires, which were all to be lighted from it, the king of Munster was to receive a tax of a _sgreball_, that is, of three pence, because the land, upon which Tlactga was built, belongs to the portion of Meath which had been taken from Munster.”[348] In the villages near Moscow at the present time the peasants put out all their fires on the eve of the first of September, and next morning at sunrise a wise man or a wise woman rekindles them with the help of muttered incantations and spells.[349]
[Thus the ceremony of the new fire in the Eastern and Western Church is probably a relic of an old heathen rite.]
Instances of such practices might doubtless be multiplied, but the foregoing examples may suffice to render it probable that the ecclesiastical ceremony of lighting a sacred new fire on Easter Saturday had originally nothing to do with Christianity, but is merely one case of a world-wide custom which the Church has seen fit to incorporate in its ritual. It might be supposed that in the Western Church the custom was merely a survival of the old Roman usage of renewing the fire on the first of March, were it not that the observance by the Eastern Church of the custom on the same day seems to point back to a still older period when the ceremony of lighting a new fire in spring, perhaps at the vernal equinox, was common to many peoples of the Mediterranean area. We may conjecture that wherever such a ceremony has been observed, it originally marked the beginning of a new year, as it did in ancient Rome and Ireland, and as it still does in the Sudanese kingdom of Wadai and among the Swahili of Eastern Africa.
[The pagan character of the Easter fire appears from the superstitions associated with it, such as the belief that the fire fertilizes the fields and protects houses from conflagration and sickness.]
The essentially pagan character of the Easter fire festival appears plainly both from the mode in which it is celebrated by the peasants and from the superstitious beliefs which they associate with it. All over northern and central Germany, from Altmark and Anhalt on the east, through Brunswick, Hanover, Oldenburg, the Harz district, and Hesse to Westphalia the Easter bonfires still blaze simultaneously on the hill-tops. As many as forty may sometimes be counted within sight at once. Long before Easter the young people have been busy collecting firewood; every farmer contributes, and tar-barrels, petroleum cases, and so forth go to swell the pile. Neighbouring villages vie with each other as to which shall send up the greatest blaze. The fires are always kindled, year after year, on the same hill, which accordingly often takes the name of Easter Mountain. It is a fine spectacle to watch from some eminence the bonfires flaring up one after another on the neighbouring heights. As far as their light reaches, so far, in the belief of the peasants, the fields will be fruitful, and the houses on which they shine will be safe from conflagration or sickness. At Volkmarsen and other places in Hesse the people used to observe which way the wind blew the flames, and then they sowed flax seed in that direction, confident that it would grow well. Brands taken from the bonfires preserve houses from being struck by lightning; and the ashes increase the fertility of the fields, protect them from mice, and mixed with the drinking-water of cattle make the animals thrive and ensure them against plague. As the flames die down, young and old leap over them, and cattle are sometimes driven through the smouldering embers. In some places tar-barrels or wheels wrapt in straw used to be set on fire, and then sent rolling down the hillside. In others the boys light torches and wisps of straw at the bonfires and rush about brandishing them in their hands. Where the people are divided between Protestantism and Catholicism, as in Hildesheim, it has been observed that among Protestants the Easter bonfires are generally left to the boys, while in Catholic districts they are cared for by grown-up persons, and here the whole population will gather round the blazing pile and join in singing choral hymns, which echo far and wide in the stillness of night.[350]
[The Easter fires in Muensterland, Oldenburg, the Harz Mountains and the Altmark.]
In Muensterland these Easter fires are always kindled upon certain definite hills, which are hence known as Easter or Paschal Mountains. The whole community assembles about the fire. Fathers of families form an inner circle round it. An outer circle is composed of the young men and maidens, who, singing Easter hymns, march round and round the fire in the direction of the sun, till the blaze dies down. Then the girls jump over the fire in a line, one after the other, each supported by two young men who hold her hands and run beside her. When the fire has burned out, the whole assembly marches in solemn procession to the church, singing hymns. They go thrice round the church, and then break up. In the twilight boys with blazing bundles of straw run over the fields to make them fruitful.[351] At Delmenhorst, in Oldenburg, it used to be the custom to cut down two trees, plant them in the ground side by side, and pile twelve tar-barrels, one above the other, against each of the trees. Brushwood was then heaped about the trees, and on the evening of Easter Saturday the boys, after rushing about with blazing beanpoles in their hands, set fire to the whole. At the end of the ceremony the urchins tried to blacken each other and the clothes of grown-up people.[352] In Schaumburg the Easter bonfires may be seen blazing on all the mountains around for miles. They are made with a tar-barrel fastened to a pine-tree, which is wrapt in straw. The people dance singing round them.[353] In the Harz Mountains the fire is commonly made by piling brushwood about a tree and setting it on fire. At Osterode every one tries to snatch a brand from the bonfire and runs about with it; the better it burns, the more lucky it is. In Grund there are torch-races.[354] In the Altmark the Easter bonfires are composed of tar-barrels, bee-hives, and so forth, piled round a pole. The young folk dance round the fire; and when it has died out, the old folk come and collect the ashes, which they preserve as a remedy for the ailments of bees. It is also believed that as far as the blaze of the bonfire is visible, the corn will grow well throughout the year, and no conflagration will break out.[355] At Braunroede, in the Harz Mountains, it was the custom to burn squirrels in the Easter bonfire.[356] In the Altmark, bones were burned in it.[357]
[The Easter fires in Bavaria; the burning of Judas; burning the Easter Man.]
Further south the Easter fires are, or used to be, lit in many districts of Bavaria. Thus on Easter Monday in some parts of Middle Franken the schoolboys collect all the old worn-out besoms they can lay hands on, and march with them in a long procession to a neighbouring height. When the first chime of the evening bell comes up from the dale they set fire to the brooms, and run along the ridges waving them, so that seen from below the hills appear to be crested with a twinkling and moving chain of fire.[358] In some parts of Upper Bavaria at Easter burning arrows or discs of wood were shot from hill-tops high into the air, as in the Swabian and Swiss customs already described.[359] At Oberau, instead of the discs, an old cart-wheel was sometimes wrapt in straw, ignited, and sent rolling and blazing down the mountain. The lads who hurled the discs received painted Easter eggs from the girls.[360] Near Forchheim, in Upper Franken, a straw-man called the Judas used to be burned in the churchyards on Easter Saturday. The whole village contributed wood to the pyre on which he perished, and the charred sticks were afterwards kept and planted in the fields on Walpurgis Day (the first of May) to preserve the wheat from blight and mildew.[361] About a hundred years ago or more the custom at Althenneberg, in Upper Bavaria, used to be as follows. On the afternoon of Easter Saturday the lads collected wood, which they piled in a cornfield, while in the middle of the pile they set up a tall wooden cross all swathed in straw. After the evening service they lighted their lanterns at the consecrated candle in the church, and ran with them at full speed to the pyre, each striving to get there first. The first to arrive set fire to the heap. No woman or girl might come near the bonfire, but they were allowed to watch it from a distance. As the flames rose the men and lads rejoiced and made merry, shouting, “We are burning the Judas!” Two of them had to watch the glowing embers the whole night long, lest people should come and steal them. Next morning at sunrise they carefully collected the ashes, and threw them into the running water of the Roeten brook. The man who had been the first to reach the pyre and to kindle it was rewarded on Easter Sunday by the women, who gave him coloured eggs at the church door. Well-to-do women gave him two; poorer women gave him only one. The object of the whole ceremony was to keep off the hail. About a century ago the Judas fire, as it was called, was put down by the police.[362] At Giggenhausen and Aufkirchen, two other villages of Upper Bavaria, a similar custom prevailed, yet with some interesting differences. Here the ceremony, which took place between nine and ten at night on Easter Saturday, was called “burning the Easter Man.” On a height about a mile from the village the young fellows set up a tall cross enveloped in straw, so that it looked like a man with his arms stretched out. This was the Easter Man. No lad under eighteen years of age might take part in the ceremony. One of the young men stationed himself beside the Easter Man, holding in his hand a consecrated taper which he had brought from the church and lighted. The rest stood at equal intervals in a great circle round the cross. At a given signal they raced thrice round the circle, and then at a second signal ran straight at the cross and at the lad with the lighted taper beside it; the one who reached the goal first had the right of setting fire to the Easter Man. Great was the jubilation while he was burning. When he had been consumed in the flames, three lads were chosen from among the rest, and each of the three drew a circle on the ground with a stick thrice round the ashes. Then they all left the spot. On Easter Monday the villagers gathered the ashes and strewed them on their fields; also they planted in the fields palm-branches which had been consecrated on Palm Sunday, and sticks which had been charred and hallowed on Good Friday, all for the purpose of protecting their fields against showers of hail. The custom of burning an Easter Man made of straw on Easter Saturday was observed also at Abensberg, in Lower Bavaria.[363] In some parts of Swabia the Easter fires might not be kindled with iron or steel or flint, but only by the friction of wood.[364]
[The Easter fires in Baden; “Thunder poles.”]
In Baden bonfires are still kindled in the churchyards on Easter Saturday, and ecclesiastical refuse of various sorts, such as candle-ends, old surplices, and the wool used by the priest in the application of extreme unction, is consumed in the flames. At Zoznegg down to about 1850 the fire was lighted by the priest by means of a flint which had never been used before. People bring sticks, especially oaken sticks, char them in the fire, and then carry them home and keep them in the house as a preservative against lightning. At Zoznegg these oaken sticks were sword-shaped, each about an ell and a half long, and they went by the name of “weather or thunder poles” (_Wetterpfaehle_). When a thunderstorm threatened to break out, one of the sticks was put into a small fire, in order that the hallowed smoke, ascending to the clouds, might ward off the lightning from the house and the hail from the fields and gardens. At Schoellbronn the oaken sticks, which are thus charred in the Easter bonfire and kept in the house as a protective against thunder and lightning, are three in number, perhaps with an allusion to the Trinity; they are brought every Easter to be consecrated afresh in the bonfire, till they are quite burnt away. In the lake district of Baden it is also customary to burn one of these holy sticks in the fire when a heavy thunderstorm is raging.[365] Hence it seems that the ancient association of the oak with the thunder[366] persists in the minds of German peasants to the present day.
[Easter fires in Holland and Sweden; the burning of Judas in Bohemia.]
Thus the custom of the Easter fires appears to have prevailed all over central and western Germany from north to south. We find it also in Holland, where the fires were kindled on the highest eminences, and the people danced round them and leaped through the flames or over the glowing embers. Here too, as so often in Germany, the materials for the bonfire were collected by the young folk from door to door.[367] In many parts of Sweden firearms are, as at Athens, discharged in all directions on Easter eve, and huge bonfires are lighted on hills and eminences. Some people think that the intention is to keep off the Troll and other evil spirits who are especially active at this season.[368] When the afternoon service on Good Friday is over, German children in Bohemia drive Judas out of the church by running about the sacred edifice and even the streets shaking rattles and clappers. Next day, on Easter Saturday, the remains of the holy oil are burnt before the church door in a fire which must be kindled with flint and steel. This fire is called “the burning of Judas,” but in spite of its evil name a beneficent virtue is ascribed to it, for the people scuffle for the cinders, which they put in the roofs of their houses as a safeguard against fire and lightning.[369]
Sec. 3. _The Beltane Fires_
[The Beltane fires on the first of May in the Highlands of Scotland; description of the Beltane fires by John Ramsay of Ochtertyre in the eighteenth century.]
In the central Highlands of Scotland bonfires, known as the Beltane fires, were formerly kindled with great ceremony on the first of May, and the traces of human sacrifices at them were particularly clear and unequivocal. The custom of lighting the bonfires lasted in various places far into the eighteenth century, and the descriptions of the ceremony by writers of that period present such a curious and interesting picture of ancient heathendom surviving in our own country that I will reproduce them in the words of their authors. The fullest of the descriptions, so far as I know, is the one bequeathed to us by John Ramsay, laird of Ochtertyre, near Crieff, the patron of Burns and the friend of Sir Walter Scott. From his voluminous manuscripts, written in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, a selection was published in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The following account of Beltane is extracted from a chapter dealing with Highland superstitions. Ramsay says: “But the most considerable of the Druidical festivals is that of Beltane, or May-day, which was lately observed in some parts of the Highlands with extraordinary ceremonies. Of later years it is chiefly attended to by young people, persons advanced in years considering it as inconsistent with their gravity to give it any countenance. Yet a number of circumstances relative to it may be collected from tradition, or the conversation of very old people, who witnessed this feast in their youth, when the ancient rites were better observed.
[Need-fire.]
“This festival is called in Gaelic _Beal-tene_–i.e., the fire of Bel…. Like the other public worship of the Druids, the Beltane feast seems to have been performed on hills or eminences. They thought it degrading to him whose temple is the universe, to suppose that he would dwell in any house made with hands. Their sacrifices were therefore offered in the open air, frequently upon the tops of hills, where they were presented with the grandest views of nature, and were nearest the seat of warmth and order. And, according to tradition, such was the manner of celebrating this festival in the Highlands within the last hundred years. But since the decline of superstition, it has been celebrated by the people of each hamlet on some hill or rising ground around which their cattle were pasturing. Thither the young folks repaired in the morning, and cut a trench, on the summit of which a seat of turf was formed for the company. And in the middle a pile of wood or other fuel was placed, which of old they kindled with _tein-eigin_– i.e., forced-fire or _need-fire_. Although, for many years past, they have been contented with common fire, yet we shall now describe the process, because it will hereafter appear that recourse is still had to the _tein-eigin_ upon extraordinary emergencies.
[Need-fire kindled by the friction of oak wood.]
“The night before, all the fires in the country were carefully extinguished, and next morning the materials for exciting this sacred fire were prepared. The most primitive method seems to be that which was used in the islands of Skye, Mull, and Tiree. A well-seasoned plank of oak was procured, in the midst of which a hole was bored. A wimble of the same timber was then applied, the end of which they fitted to the hole. But in some parts of the mainland the machinery was different. They used a frame of green wood, of a square form, in the centre of which was an axle-tree. In some places three times three persons, in others three times nine, were required for turning round by turns the axle-tree or wimble. If any of them had been guilty of murder, adultery, theft, or other atrocious crime, it was imagined either that the fire would not kindle, or that it would be devoid of its usual virtue. So soon as any sparks were emitted by means of the violent friction, they applied a species of agaric which grows on old birch-trees, and is very combustible. This fire had the appearance of being immediately derived from heaven, and manifold were the virtues ascribed to it. They esteemed it a preservative against witchcraft, and a sovereign remedy against malignant diseases, both in the human species and in cattle; and by it the strongest poisons were supposed to have their nature changed.
[The Beltane cake and the Beltane carline (_cailleach_).]
“After kindling the bonfire with the _tein-eigin_ the company prepared their victuals. And as soon as they had finished their meal, they amused themselves a while in singing and dancing round the fire. Towards the close of the entertainment, the person who officiated as master of the feast produced a large cake baked with eggs and scalloped round the edge, called _am bonnach beal-tine–i.e._ the Beltane cake. It was divided into a number of pieces, and distributed in great form to the company. There was one particular piece which whoever got was called _cailleach beal-tine–i.e._, the Beltane _carline_, a term of great reproach. Upon his being known, part of the company laid hold of him and made a show of putting him into the fire; but the majority interposing, he was rescued. And in some places they laid him flat on the ground, making as if they would quarter him. Afterwards, he was pelted with egg-shells, and retained the odious appellation during the whole year. And while the feast was fresh in people’s memory, they affected to speak of the _cailleach beal-tine_ as dead.
“This festival was longest observed in the interior Highlands, for towards the west coast the traces of it are faintest. In Glenorchy and Lorne, a large cake is made on that day, which they consume in the house; and in Mull it has a large hole in the middle, through which each of the cows in the fold is milked. In Tiree it is of a triangular form. The more elderly people remember when this festival was celebrated without-doors with some solemnity in both these islands. There are at present no vestiges of it in Skye or the Long Island, the inhabitants of which have substituted the _connach Micheil_ or St. Michael’s cake. It is made at Michaelmas with milk and oatmeal, and some eggs are sprinkled on its surface. Part of it is sent to the neighbours.
“It is probable that at the original Beltane festival there were two fires kindled near one another. When any person is in a critical dilemma, pressed on each side by unsurmountable difficulties, the Highlanders have a proverb, _The e’ eada anda theine bealtuin_–i.e., he is between the two Beltane fires. There are in several parts small round hills, which, it is like, owe their present names to such solemn uses. One of the highest and most central in Icolmkil is called _Cnoch-nan-ainneal_–i.e., the hill of the fires. There is another of the same name near the kirk of Balquhidder; and at Killin there is a round green eminence which seems to have been raised by art. It is called _Tom-nan-ainneal_–i.e., the eminence of the fires. Around it there are the remains of a circular wall about two feet high. On the top a stone stands upon end. According to the tradition of the inhabitants, it was a place of Druidical worship; and it was afterwards pitched on as the most venerable spot for holding courts of justice for the country of Breadalbane. The earth of this eminence is still thought to be possessed of some healing virtue, for when cattle are observed to be diseased some of it is sent for, which is rubbed on the part affected.”[370]
[Local differences in the Beltane cakes; evidence of two fires at Beltane; Beltane pies and cakes in the parish of Callander.]
In the parish of Callander, a beautiful district of western Perthshire, the Beltane custom was still in vogue towards the end of the eighteenth century. It has been described as follows by the parish minister of the time: “Upon the first day of May, which is called _Beltan_, or _Bal-tein_ day, all the boys in a township or hamlet, meet in the moors. They cut a table in the green sod, of a round figure, by casting a trench in the ground, of such circumference as to hold the whole company. They kindle a fire, and dress a repast of eggs and milk in the consistence of a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted at the embers against a stone. After the custard is eaten up, they divide the cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in size and shape, as there are persons in the company. They daub one of these portions all over with charcoal, until it be perfectly black. They put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet. Every one, blindfold, draws out a portion. He who holds the bonnet, is entitled to the last bit. Whoever draws the black bit, is the _devoted_ person who is to be sacrificed to _Baal_[371] whose favour they mean to implore, in rendering the year productive of the sustenance of man and beast. There is little doubt of these inhuman sacrifices having been once offered in this country, as well as in the east, although they now pass from the act of sacrificing, and only compel the _devoted_ person to leap three times through the flames; with which the ceremonies of this festival are closed.”[372]
[Pennant’s description of the Beltane fires and cakes in Perthshire.]
Thomas Pennant, who travelled in Perthshire in the year 1769, tells us that “on the first of May, the herdsmen of every village hold their Bel-tien, a rural sacrifice. They cut a square trench on 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 of beer and whisky; for each of the company must contribute something. The rites begin with spilling some of the caudle on the ground, by way of libation: on that every one takes a cake of oatmeal, upon which are raised nine square knobs, each dedicated to some particular being, the supposed preserver of their flocks and herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of them: each person then turns his face to the fire, breaks off a knob, and flinging it over his shoulders, says, ‘This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses; this to thee, preserve thou my sheep; and so on,’ After that, they use the-same ceremony to the noxious animals: ‘This I give to thee, O fox! spare thou my lambs; this to thee, O hooded crow! this to thee, O eagle!’ When the ceremony is over, they dine on the caudle; and after the feast is finished, what is left is hid by two persons deputed for that purpose; but on the next Sunday they re-assemble, and finish the reliques of the first entertainment”[373]
[Beltane cakes and fires in the parishes of Logierait and Kirkmichael; omens drawn from the cakes.]
Another writer of the eighteenth century has described the Beltane festival as it was held in the parish of Logierait in Perthshire. He says: “On the first of May, O.S., a festival called _Beltan_ is annually held here. It is chiefly celebrated by the cow-herds, who assemble by scores in the fields, to dress a dinner for themselves, of boiled milk and eggs. These dishes they eat with a sort of cakes baked for the occasion, and having small lumps in the form of _nipples_, raised all over the surface.”[374] In this last account no mention is made of bonfires, but they were probably lighted, for a contemporary writer informs us that in the parish of Kirkmichael, which adjoins the parish of Logierait on the east, the custom of lighting a fire in the fields and baking a consecrated cake on the first of May was not quite obsolete in his time.[375] We may conjecture that the cake with knobs was formerly used for the purpose of determining who should be the “Beltane carline” or victim doomed to the flames. A trace of this custom survived, perhaps, in the custom of baking oatmeal cakes of a special kind and rolling them down hill about noon on the first of May; for it was thought that the person whose cake broke as it rolled would die or be unfortunate within the year. These cakes, or bannocks as we call them in Scotland, were baked in the usual way, but they were washed over with a thin batter composed of whipped egg, milk or cream, and a little oatmeal. This custom appears to have prevailed at or near Kingussie in Inverness-shire. At Achterneed, near Strathpeffer in Ross-shire, the Beltane bannocks were called _tcharnican_ or hand-cakes, because they were kneaded entirely in the hand, and not on a board or table like common cakes; and after being baked they might not be placed anywhere but in the hands of the children who were to eat them.[376]
[Beltane fires in the north-east of Scotland to burn the witches; the Beltane cake.]
In the north-east of Scotland the Beltane fires were still kindled in the latter half of the eighteenth century; the herdsmen of several farms used to gather dry wood, kindle it, and dance three times “southways” about the burning pile.[377] But in this region, according to a later authority, the Beltane fires were lit not on the first but on the second of May, Old Style. They were called bone-fires. The people believed that on that evening and night the witches were abroad and busy casting spells on cattle and stealing cows’ milk. To counteract their machinations, pieces of rowan-tree and woodbine, but especially of rowan-tree, were placed over the doors of the cow-houses, and fires were kindled by every farmer and cottar. Old thatch, straw, furze, or broom was piled in a heap and set on fire a little after sunset. While some of the bystanders kept tossing the blazing mass, others hoisted portions of it on pitchforks or poles and ran hither and thither, holding them as high as they could. Meantime the young people danced round the fire or ran through the smoke shouting, “Fire! blaze and burn the witches; fire! fire! burn the witches.” In some districts a large round cake of oat or barley meal was rolled through the ashes. When all the fuel was consumed, the people scattered the ashes far and wide, and till the night grew quite dark they continued to run through them, crying, “Fire! burn the witches.”[378]
[Beltane cakes and fires in the Hebrides.]
In the Hebrides “the Beltane bannock is smaller than that made at St. Michael’s, but is made in the same way; it is no longer made in Uist, but Father Allan remembers seeing his grandmother make one about twenty-five years ago. There was also a cheese made, generally on the first of May, which was kept to the next Beltane as a sort of charm against the bewitching of milk-produce. The Beltane customs seem to have been the same as elsewhere. Every fire was put out and a large one lit on the top of the hill, and the cattle driven round it sunwards (_dessil_), to keep off murrain all the year. Each man would take home fire wherewith to kindle his own.”[379]
[Beltane fires and cakes in Wales.]
In Wales also the custom of lighting Beltane fires at the beginning of May used to be observed, but the day on which they were kindled varied from the Eve of May Day to the third of May. The flame was sometimes elicited by the friction of two pieces of oak, as appears from the following description. “The fire was done in this way. Nine men would turn their pockets inside out, and see that every piece of money and all metals were off their persons. Then the men went into the nearest woods, and collected sticks of nine different kinds of trees. These were carried to the spot where the fire had to be built. There a circle was cut in the sod, and the sticks were set crosswise. All around the circle the people stood and watched the proceedings. One of the men would then take two bits of oak, and rub them together until a flame was kindled. This was applied to the sticks, and soon a large fire was made. Sometimes two fires were set up side by side. These fires, whether one or two, were called _coelcerth_ or bonfire. Round cakes of oatmeal and brown meal were split in four, and placed in a small flour-bag, and everybody present had to pick out a portion. The last bit in the bag fell to the lot of the bag-holder. Each person who chanced to pick up a piece of brown-meal cake was compelled to leap three times over the flames, or to run thrice between the two fires, by which means the people thought they were sure of a plentiful harvest. Shouts and screams of those who had to face the ordeal could be heard ever so far, and those who chanced to pick the oatmeal portions sang and danced and clapped their hands in approval, as the holders of the brown bits leaped three times over the flames, or ran three times between the two fires. As a rule, no danger attended these curious celebrations, but occasionally somebody’s clothes caught fire, which was quickly put out. The greatest fire of the year was the eve of May, or May first, second, or third. The Midsummer Eve fire was more for the harvest. Very often a fire was built on the eve of November. The high ground near the Castle Ditches at Llantwit Major, in the Vale of Glamorgan, was a familiar spot for the Beltane on May third and on Midsummer Eve…. Sometimes the Beltane fire was lighted by the flames produced by stone instead of wood friction. Charred logs and faggots used in the May Beltane were carefully preserved, and from them the next fire was lighted. May fires were always started with old faggots of the previous year, and midsummer from those of the last summer. It was unlucky to build a midsummer fire from May faggots. People carried the ashes left after these fires to their homes, and a charred brand was not only effectual against pestilence, but magical in its use. A few of the ashes placed in a person’s shoes protected the wearer from any great sorrow or woe.”[380]
[Welsh belief that passage over or between the fires ensured good crops.]
From the foregoing account we learn that bonfires were kindled in Wales on Midsummer Eve and Hallowe’en (the thirty-first of October), as well as at the beginning of May, but that the Beltane fires in May were deemed the most important. To the Midsummer Eve and Hallowe’en fires we shall return presently. The belief of the people that by leaping thrice over the bonfires or running thrice between them they ensured a plentiful harvest is worthy of note. The mode in which this result was supposed to be brought about is indicated by another writer on Welsh folk-lore, according to whom it used to be held that “the bonfires lighted in May or Midsummer protected the lands from sorcery, so that good crops would follow. The ashes were also considered valuable as charms.”[381] Hence it appears that the heat of the fires was thought to fertilize the fields, not directly by quickening the seeds in the ground, but indirectly by counteracting the baleful influence of witchcraft or perhaps by burning up the persons of the witches.
[Beltane fires in the Isle of Man to burn the witches; Beltane fires in Nottinghamshire.]
“The Druidical anniversary of Beil or Baal is still celebrated in the Isle of Man. On the first of May, 1837, the Baal fires were, as usual on that day, so numerous as to give the island the appearance of a general conflagration.”[382] By May Day in Manx folk-lore is meant May Day Old Style, or _Shenn Laa Boaldyn_, as it is called in Manx. The day was one on which the power of elves and witches was particularly dreaded, and the people resorted to many precautions in order to protect themselves against these mischievous beings. Hence at daybreak they set fire to the ling or gorse, for the purpose of burning out the witches, who are wont to lurk in the form of hares.[383] On the Hemlock Stone, a natural pillar of sandstone standing on Stapleford Hill in Nottinghamshire, a fire used to be solemnly kindled every year on Beltane Eve. The custom seems to have survived down to the beginning of the nineteenth century; old people could remember and describe the ceremony long after it had fallen into desuetude.[384]
[Beltane fires in Ireland.]
The Beltane fires appear to have been kindled also in Ireland, for Cormac, “or somebody in his name, says that _belltaine_, May-day, was so called from the ‘lucky fire,’ or the ‘two fires,’ which the druids of Erin used to make on that day with great incantations; and cattle, he adds, used to be brought to those fires, or to be driven between them, as a safeguard against the diseases of the year.”[385] Again, a very ancient Irish poem, enumerating the May Day celebrations, mentions among them a bonfire on a hill (_tendal ar cnuc_); and another old authority says that these fires were kindled in the name of the idol-god Bel.[386] From an old life of St. Patrick we learn that on a day in spring the heathen of Ireland were wont to extinguish all their fires until a new fire was kindled with solemn ceremony in the king’s house at Tara. In the year in which St. Patrick landed in Ireland it chanced that the night of the extinguished fires coincided with the Eve of Easter; and the saint, ignorant of this pagan superstition, resolved to celebrate his first Easter in Ireland after the true Christian fashion by lighting the holy Paschal fire on the hill of Slane, which rises high above the left bank of the Boyne, about twelve miles from the mouth of the river. So that night, looking from his palace at Tara across the darkened landscape, the king of Tara saw the solitary fire flaring on the top of the hill of Slane, and in consternation he asked his wise men what that light meant. They warned him of the danger that it betokened for the ancient faith of Erin.[387] In spite of the difference of date between Easter and Beltane, we may suspect that the new fire annually kindled with solemn ceremony about Easter in the king of Ireland’s palace at Tara was no other than the Beltane fire. We have seen that in the Highlands of Scotland down to modern times it was customary to extinguish all fires in the neighbourhood before proceeding to kindle the sacred flame.[388] The Irish historian Geoffrey Keating, who wrote in the first part of the seventeenth century, tells us that the men of Ireland held a great fair every year in the month of May at Uisnech (_Ushnagh_) in the county of Meath, “and at it they were wont to exchange their goods and their wares and their jewels. At it, they were, also, wont to make a sacrifice to the Arch-God that they adored, whose name was Bel (_bayl_). It was, likewise, their usage to light two fires to Bel, in every district of Ireland, at this season, and to drive a pair of each kind of cattle that the district contained, between those two fires, as a preservative to guard them against all the diseases of that year. It is from that fire, thus made in honour of Bel, that the day [the first of May] on which the noble feast of the apostles, Philip and James, is held, has been called Beltaini, or Bealtaine (_Bayltinnie_); for Beltaini is the same as Beil-teine, i.e. Teine Bheil (_Tinnie Vayl_) or Bel’s Fire.”[389] The custom of driving cattle through or between fires on May Day or the eve of May Day persisted in Ireland down to a time within living memory. Thus Sir John Rhys was informed by a Manxman that an Irish cattle-dealer of his acquaintance used to drive his cattle through fire on May Day so as to singe them a little, since he believed that it would preserve them from harm. When the Manxman was asked where the dealer came from, he answered, “From the mountains over there,” pointing to the Mourne Mountains then looming faintly in the mists on the western horizon.[390]
[Fires on the Eve of May Day in Sweden; fires on the Eve of May Day in Austria and Saxony for the purpose of burning the witches.]
The first of May is a great popular festival in the more midland and southern parts of Sweden. On the eve of the festival, huge bonfires, which should be lighted by striking two flints together, blaze on all the hills and knolls. Every large hamlet has its own fire, round which the young people dance in a ring. The old folk notice whether the flames incline to the north or to the south. In the former case, the spring will be cold and backward; in the latter, it will be mild and genial.[391] Similarly, in Bohemia, on the eve of May Day, young people kindle fires on hills and eminences, at crossways, and in pastures, and dance round them. They leap over the glowing embers or even through the flames. The ceremony is called “burning the witches.” In some places an effigy representing a witch used to be burnt in the bonfire.[392] We have to remember that the eve of May Day is the notorious Walpurgis Night, when the witches are everywhere speeding unseen through the air on their hellish errands. On this witching night children in Voigtland also light bonfires on the heights and leap over them. Moreover, they wave burning brooms or toss them into the air. So far as the light of the bonfire reaches, so far will a blessing rest on the fields. The kindling of the fires on Walpurgis Night is called “driving away the witches.”[393] The custom of kindling fires on the eve of May Day (Walpurgis Night) for the purpose of burning the witches is, or used to be, widespread in the Tyrol, Moravia, Saxony and Silesia.[394]
Sec. 4. _The Midsummer Fires_
[The great season for fire-festivals in Europe is the summer solstice, Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day, which the church has dedicated to St. John the Baptist; the bonfires, the torches, and the burning wheels of the festival.]
But the season at which these fire-festivals have been mostly generally held all over Europe is the summer solstice, that is Midsummer Eve (the twenty-third of June) or Midsummer Day (the twenty-fourth of June). A faint tinge of Christianity has been given to them by naming Midsummer Day after St. John the Baptist, but we cannot doubt that the celebration dates from a time long before the beginning of our era. The summer solstice, or Midsummer Day, is the great turning-point in the sun’s career, when, after climbing higher and higher day by day in the sky, the luminary stops and thenceforth retraces his steps down the heavenly road. Such a moment could not but be regarded with anxiety by primitive man so soon as he began to observe and ponder the courses of the great lights across the celestial vault; and having still to learn his own powerlessness in face of the vast cyclic changes of nature, he may have fancied that he could help the sun in his seeming decline–could prop his failing steps and rekindle the sinking flame of the red lamp in his feeble hand. In some such thoughts as these the midsummer festivals of our European peasantry may perhaps have taken their rise. Whatever their origin, they have prevailed all over this quarter of the globe, from Ireland on the west to Russia on the east, and from Norway and Sweden on the north to Spain and Greece on the south.[395] According to a mediaeval writer, the three great features of the midsummer celebration were the bonfires, the procession with torches round the fields, and the custom of rolling a wheel. He tells us that boys burned bones and filth of various kinds to make a foul smoke, and that the smoke drove away certain noxious dragons which at this time, excited by the summer heat, copulated in the air and poisoned the wells and rivers by dropping their seed into them; and he explains the custom of trundling a wheel to mean that the sun, having now reached the highest point in the ecliptic, begins thenceforward to descend.[396]
[T. Kirchmeyer’s description of the Midsummer Festival.]
A good general account of the midsummer customs, together with some of the reasons popularly alleged for observing them, is given by Thomas Kirchmeyer, a writer of the sixteenth century, in his poem _The Popish Kingdome_:–
“_Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne, When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne; And yong men round about with maides, doe daunce in every streete, With garlands wrought of Motherwort, or else with Vervain sweete, And many other flowres faire, with Violets in their handes, Whereas they all do fondly thinke, that whosoever standes, And thorow the flowres beholds the flame, his eyes shall feele no paine. When thus till night they daunced have, they through the fire amaine With striving mindes doe runne, and all their hearbes they cast therin, And then with wordes devout and prayers, they solemnely begin, Desiring God that all their illes may there consumed bee, Whereby they thinke through all that yeare from Agues to be free. Some others get a rotten wheele, all worne and cast aside, Which covered round about with strawe, and tow, they closely hide: And caryed to some mountaines top, being all with fire light, They hurle it downe with violence, when darke appeares the night: Resembling much the Sunne, that from the heavens downe should fal, A straunge and monstrous sight it seemes, and fearfull to them all; But they suppose their mischiefes all are likewise throwne to hell, And that from harmes and daungers now, in safetie here they dwell_.”[397]
From these general descriptions, which to some extent still hold good, or did so till lately, we see that the main features of the midsummer fire-festival resemble those which we have found to characterize the vernal festivals of fire. The similarity of the two sets of ceremonies will plainly appear from the following examples.
[The Midsummer fires in Germany; the celebration at Konz on the Moselle: the rolling of a burning wheel down hill.]
A writer of the first half of the sixteenth century informs us that in almost every village and town of Germany public bonfires were kindled on the Eve of St. John, and young and old, of both sexes, gathered about them and passed the time in dancing and singing. People on this occasion wore chaplets of mugwort and vervain, and they looked at the fire through bunches of larkspur which they held in their hands, believing that this would preserve their eyes in a healthy state throughout the year. As each departed, he threw the mugwort and vervain into the fire, saying, “May all my ill-luck depart and be burnt up with these.”[398] At Lower Konz, a village prettily situated on a hillside overlooking the Moselle, in the midst of a wood of walnut-trees and fruit-trees, the midsummer festival used to be celebrated as follows. A quantity of straw was collected on the top of the steep Stromberg Hill. Every inhabitant, or at least every householder, had to contribute his share of straw to the pile; a recusant was looked at askance, and if in the course of the year he happened to break a leg or lose a child, there was not a gossip in the village but knew the reason why. At nightfall the whole male population, men and boys, mustered on the top of the hill; the women and girls were not allowed to join them, but had to take up their position at a certain spring half-way down the slope. On the summit stood a huge wheel completely encased in some of the straw which had been jointly contributed by the villagers; the rest of the straw was made into torches. From each side of the wheel the axle-tree projected about three feet, thus furnishing handles to the lads who were to guide it in its descent. The mayor of the neighbouring town of Sierck, who always received a basket of cherries for his services, gave the signal; a lighted torch was applied to the wheel, and as it burst into flame, two young fellows, strong-limbed and swift of foot, seized the handles and began running with it down the slope. A great shout went up. Every man and boy waved a blazing torch in the air, and took care to keep it alight so long as the wheel was trundling down the hill. Some of them followed the fiery wheel, and watched with amusement the shifts to which its guides were put in steering it round the hollows and over the broken ground on the mountainside. The great object of the young men who guided the wheel was to plunge it blazing into the water of the Moselle; but they rarely succeeded in their efforts, for the vineyards which cover the greater part of the declivity impeded their progress, and the wheel was often burned out before it reached the river. As it rolled past the women and girls at the spring, they raised cries of joy which were answered by the men on the top of the mountain; and the shouts were echoed by the inhabitants of neighbouring villages who watched the spectacle from their hills on the opposite bank of the Moselle. If the fiery wheel was successfully conveyed to the bank of the river and extinguished in the water, the people looked for an abundant vintage that year, and the inhabitants of Konz had the right to exact a waggon-load of white wine from the surrounding vineyards. On the other hand, they believed that, if they neglected to perform the ceremony, the cattle would be attacked by giddiness and convulsions and would dance in their stalls.[399]
[The Midsummer fires in Bavaria; Cattle driven through the fire; the new fire; omens of the harvest drawn from the fires; burning discs thrown into the air.]
Down at least to the middle of the nineteenth century the midsummer fires used to blaze all over Upper Bavaria. They were kindled especially on the mountains, but also far and wide in the lowlands, and we are told that in the darkness and stillness of night the moving groups, lit up by the flickering glow of the flames, presented an impressive spectacle. In some places the people shewed their sense of the sanctity of the fires by using for fuel the trees past which the gay procession had defiled, with fluttering banners, on Corpus Christi Day. In others the children collected the firewood from door to door on the eve of the festival, singing their request for fuel at every house in doggerel verse. Cattle were driven through the fire to cure the sick animals and to guard such as were sound against plague and harm of every kind throughout the year. Many a householder on that day put out the fire on the domestic hearth and rekindled it by means of a brand taken from the midsummer bonfire. The people judged of the height to which the flax would grow in the year by the height to which the flames of the bonfire rose; and whoever leaped over the burning pile was sure not to suffer from backache in reaping the corn at harvest. But it was especially the practice for lovers to spring over the fire hand in hand, and the way in which each couple made the leap was the subject of many a jest and many a superstition. In one district the custom of kindling the bonfires was combined with that of lighting wooden discs and hurling them in the air after the manner which prevails at some of the spring festivals.[400] In many parts of Bavaria it was believed that the flax would grow as high as the young people leaped over the fire.[401] In others the old folk used to plant three charred sticks from the bonfire in the fields, believing that this would make the flax grow tall.[402] Elsewhere an extinguished brand was put in the roof of the house to protect it against fire. In the towns about Wuerzburg the bonfires used to be kindled in the market-places, and the young people who jumped over them wore garlands of flowers, especially of mugwort and vervain, and carried sprigs of larkspur in their hands. They thought that such as looked at the fire holding a bit of larkspur before their face would be troubled by no malady of the eyes throughout the year.[403] Further, it was customary at Wuerzburg, in the sixteenth century, for the bishop’s followers to throw burning discs of wood into the air from a mountain which overhangs the town. The discs were discharged by means of flexible rods, and in their flight through the darkness presented the appearance of fiery dragons.[404]
[The Midsummer fires in Swabia; omens drawn from the leaps over the fires; burning wheels rolled down hill; burning the Angel-Man at Rottenburg.]
In the valley of the Lech, which divides Upper Bavaria from Swabia, the midsummer customs and beliefs are, or used to be, very similar. Bonfires are kindled on the mountains on Midsummer Day; and besides the bonfire a tall beam, thickly wrapt in straw and surmounted by a cross-piece, is burned in many places. Round this cross as it burns the lads dance with loud shouts; and when the flames have subsided, the young people leap over the fire in pairs, a young man and a young woman together. If they escape unsmirched, the man will not suffer from fever, and the girl will not become a mother within the year. Further, it is believed that the flax will grow that year as high as they leap over the fire; and that if a charred billet be taken from the fire and stuck in a flax-field it will promote the growth of the flax.[405] Similarly in Swabia, lads and lasses, hand in hand, leap over the midsummer bonfire, praying that the hemp may grow three ells high, and they set fire to wheels of straw and send them rolling down the hill. Among the places where burning wheels were thus bowled down hill at Midsummer were the Hohenstaufen mountains in Wurtemberg and the Frauenberg near Gerhausen.[406] At Deffingen, in Swabia, as the people sprang over the midsummer bonfire they cried out, “Flax, flax! may the flax this year grow seven ells high!”[407] At Rottenburg in Swabia, down to the year 1807 or 1808, the festival was marked by some special features. About mid-day troops of boys went about the town begging for firewood at the houses. In each troop there were three leaders, one of whom carried a dagger, a second a paper banner, and a third a white plate covered with a white cloth. These three entered each house and recited verses, in which they expressed an intention of roasting Martin Luther and sending him to the devil; and for this meritorious service they expected to be paid, the contributions being received in the cloth-covered plate. In the evening they counted up their money and proceeded to “behead the Angel-man.” For this ceremony an open space was chosen, sometimes in the middle of the town. Here a stake was thrust into the ground and straw wrapt about it, so as to make a rude effigy of human form with arms, head, and face. Every boy brought a handful of nosegays and fastened them to the straw-man, who was thus enveloped in flowers. Fuel was heaped about the stake and set on fire. When the Angel-man, as the straw-effigy was called, blazed up, all the boys of the neighbourhood, who had gathered expectantly around, fell upon him with their wooden swords and hewed him to pieces. As soon as he had vanished in smoke and flame, the lads leaped backward and forward over the glowing embers, and later in the evening they feasted on the proceeds of their collection.[408] Here the Angel-man burnt in the fire appears to be identified with Martin Luther, to whom, as we have seen, allusion was made during the house-to-house visitation. The identification was probably modern, for we may assume that the custom of burning an effigy in the Midsummer bonfire is far older than the time of Luther.
[The Midsummer fires in Baden; omens drawn from leaps over the fires; burning discs thrown into the air; Midsummer fires in Alsace, Lorraine, the Eifel, the Harz districts and Thuringia; burning barrel swung round a pole.]
In Baden the children used to collect fuel from house to house for the Midsummer bonfire on St. John’s Day; and lads and lasses leaped over the fire in couples. Here, as elsewhere, a close connexion was traced between these bonfires and the harvest. In some places it was thought that those who leaped over the fires would not suffer from backache at reaping. Sometimes, as the young folk sprang over the flames, they cried, “Grow, that the hemp may be three ells high!” This notion that the hemp or the corn would grow as high as the flames blazed or as the people jumped over them, seems to have been widespread in Baden. It was held that the parents of the young people who bounded highest over the fire would have the most abundant harvest; and on the other hand, if a man contributed nothing to the bonfire, it was imagined that there would be no blessing on his crops, and that his hemp in particular would never grow.[409] In the neighbourhood of Buehl and Achern the St. John’s fires were kindled on the tops of hills; only the unmarried lads of the village brought the fuel, and only the unmarried young men and women sprang through the flames. But most of the villagers, old and young, gathered round the bonfires, leaving a clear space for the leapers to take their run. One of the bystanders would call out the names of a pair of sweethearts; on which the two would step out from the throng, take each other by the hand, and leap high and lightly through the swirling smoke and flames, while the spectators watched them critically and drew omens of their married life from the height to which each of them bounded. Such an invitation to jump together over the bonfire was regarded as tantamount to a public betrothal.[410] Near Offenburg, in the Black Forest, on Midsummer Day the village boys used to collect faggots and straw on some steep and conspicuous height, and they spent some time in making circular wooden discs by slicing the trunk of a pine-tree across. When darkness had fallen, they kindled the bonfire, and then, as it blazed up, they lighted the discs at it, and, after swinging them to and fro at the end of a stout and supple hazel-wand, they hurled them one after the other, whizzing and flaming, into the air, where they described great arcs of fire, to fall at length, like shooting-stars, at the foot of the mountain.[411] In many parts of Alsace and Lorraine the midsummer fires still blaze annually or did so not very many years ago.[412] At Speicher in the Eifel, a district which lies on the middle Rhine, to the west of Coblentz, a bonfire used to be kindled in front of the village on St. John’s Day, and all the young people had to jump over it. Those who failed to do so were not allowed to join the rest in begging for eggs from house to house. Where no eggs were given, they drove a wedge into the keyhole of the door. On this day children in the Eifel used also to gather flowers in the fields, weave them into garlands, and throw the garlands on the roofs or hang them on the doors of the houses. So long as the flowers remained there, they were supposed to guard the house from fire and lightning.[413] In the southern Harz district and in Thuringia the Midsummer or St. John’s fires used to be commonly lighted down to about the middle of the nineteenth century, and the custom has probably not died out. At Edersleben, near Sangerhausen, a high pole was planted in the ground and a tar-barrel was hung from it by a chain which reached to the ground. The barrel was then set on fire and swung round the pole amid shouts of joy.[414]
[Midsummer fires kindled by the friction of wood in Germany and Switzerland; driving away demons and witches.]
According to one account, German tradition required that the midsummer fire should be lighted, not from a common hearth, but by the friction of two sorts of wood, namely oak and fir.[415] In some old farm-houses of the Surenthal and Winenthal, in Switzerland, a couple of holes or a whole row of them may be seen facing each other in the door-posts of the barn or stable. Sometimes the holes are smooth and round; sometimes they are deeply burnt and blackened. The explanation of them is this. About midsummer, but especially on Midsummer Day, two such holes are bored opposite each other, into which the extremities of a strong pole are fixed. The holes are then stuffed with tow steeped in resin and oil; a rope is looped round the pole, and two young men, who must be brothers or must have the same baptismal name, and must be of the same age, pull the ends of the rope backwards and forwards so as to make the pole revolve rapidly, till smoke and sparks issue from the two holes in the door-posts. The sparks are caught and blown up with tinder, and this is the new and pure fire, the appearance of which is greeted with cries of joy. Heaps of combustible materials are now ignited with the new fire, and blazing bundles are placed on boards and sent floating down the brook. The boys light torches at the new fire and run to fumigate the pastures. This is believed to drive away all the demons and witches that molest the cattle. Finally the torches are thrown in a heap on the meadow and allowed to burn out. On their way back the boys strew the ashes over the fields, which is supposed to make them fertile. If a farmer has taken possession of a new house, or if servants have changed masters, the boys fumigate the new abode and are rewarded by the farmer with a supper.[416]
[Midsummer fires in Silesia; scaring away the witches.]
In Silesia, from the south-eastern part of the Sudeten range and north-westward as far as Lausitz, the mountains are ablaze with bonfires on Midsummer Eve; and from the valleys and the plains round about Leobschuetz, Neustadt, Zuelz, Oels, and other places answering fires twinkle through the deepening gloom. While they are smouldering and sending forth volumes of smoke across the fields, young men kindle broom-stumps, soaked in pitch, at the bonfires and then, brandishing the stumps, which emit showers of sparks, they chase one another or dance with the girls round the burning pile. Shots, too, are fired, and shouts raised. The fire, the smoke, the shots, and the shouts are all intended to scare away the witches, who are let loose on this witching day, and who would certainly work harm to the crops and the cattle, if they were not deterred by these salutary measures. Mere contact with the fire brings all sorts of blessings. Hence when the bonfire is burning low, the lads leap over it, and the higher they bound, the better is the luck in store for them. He who surpasses his fellows is the hero of the day and is much admired by the village girls. It is also thought to be very good for the eyes to stare steadily at the bonfire without blinking; moreover he who does so will not drowse and fall asleep betimes in the long winter evenings. On Midsummer Eve the windows and doors of houses in Silesia are crowned with flowers, especially with the blue cornflowers and the bright corn-cockles; in some villages long strings of garlands and nosegays are stretched across the streets. The people believe that on that night St. John comes down from heaven to bless the flowers and to keep all evil things from house and home.[417]
[The Midsummer fires in Denmark and Norway; keeping off the witches; the Midsummer fires in Sweden.]
In Denmark and Norway also Midsummer fires were kindled on St. John’s Eve on roads, open spaces, and hills. People in Norway thought that the fires banished sickness from among the cattle.[418] Even yet the fires are said to be lighted all over Norway on the night of June the twenty-third, Midsummer Eve, Old Style. As many as fifty or sixty bonfires may often be counted burning on the hills round Bergen. Sometimes fuel is piled on rafts, ignited, and allowed to drift blazing across the fiords in the darkness of night. The fires are thought to be kindled in order to keep off the witches, who are said to be flying from all parts that night to the Blocksberg, where the big witch lives.[419] In Sweden the Eve of St. John (St. Hans) is the most joyous night of the whole year. Throughout some parts of the country, especially in the provinces of Bohus and Scania and in districts bordering on Norway, it is celebrated by the frequent discharge of firearms and by huge bonfires, formerly called Balder’s Balefires (_Balder’s Balar_), which are kindled at dusk on hills and eminences and throw a glare of light over the surrounding landscape. The people dance round the fires and leap over or through them. In parts of Norrland on St. John’s Eve the bonfires are lit at the cross-roads. The fuel consists of nine different sorts of wood, and the spectators cast into the flames a kind of toad-stool (_Baeran_) in order to counteract the power of the Trolls and other evil spirits, who are believed to be abroad that night; for at that mystic season the mountains open and from their cavernous depths the uncanny crew pours forth to dance and disport themselves for a time. The peasants believe that should any of the Trolls be in the vicinity they will shew themselves; and if an animal, for example a he or she goat, happens to be seen near the blazing, crackling pile, the peasants are firmly persuaded that it is no other than the Evil One in person.[420] Further, it deserves to be remarked that in Sweden St. John’s Eve is a festival of water as well as of fire; for certain holy springs are then supposed to be endowed with wonderful medicinal virtues, and many sick people resort to them for the healing of their infirmities.[421]
[The Midsummer fires in Switzerland and Austria; effigies burnt in the fires; burning wheels rolled down hill.]
In Switzerland on Midsummer Eve fires are, or used to be, kindled on high places in the cantons of Bern, Neuchatel, Valais, and Geneva.[422] In Austria the midsummer customs and superstitions resemble those of Germany. Thus in some parts of the Tyrol bonfires are kindled and burning discs hurled into the air.[423] In the lower valley of the Inn a taterdemalian effigy is carted about the village on Midsummer Day and then burned. He is called the _Lotter_, which has been corrupted into Luther. At Ambras, one of the villages where Martin Luther is thus burned in effigy, they say that if you go through the village between eleven and twelve on St. John’s Night and wash yourself in three wells, you will see all who are to die in the following year.[424] At Gratz on St. John’s Eve (the twenty-third of June) the common people used to make a puppet called the _Tatermann_, which they dragged to the bleaching ground, and pelted with burning besoms till it took fire.[425] At Reutte, in the Tyrol, people believed that the flax would grow as high as they leaped over the midsummer bonfire, and they took pieces of charred wood from the fire and stuck them in their flax-fields the same night, leaving them there till the flax harvest had been got in.[426] In Lower Austria fires are lit in the fields, commonly in front of a cross, and the people dance and sing round them and throw flowers into the flames. Before each handful of flowers is tossed into the fire, a set speech is made; then the dance is resumed and the dancers sing in chorus the last words of the speech. At evening bonfires are kindled on the heights, and the boys caper round them, brandishing lighted torches drenched in pitch. Whoever jumps thrice across the fire will not suffer from fever within the year. Cart-wheels are often smeared with pitch, ignited, and sent rolling and blazing down the hillsides.[427]
[Midsummer fires in Bohemia; wreaths thrown across the fire; uses made of the singed wreaths; burning wheels rolled down hill; embers of the fire stuck in fields, gardens, and houses as a talisman against lightning and conflagration; use of mugwort; cattle protected against witchcraft.]
All over Bohemia bonfires still burn on Midsummer Eve. In the afternoon boys go about with handcarts from house to house collecting fuel, such as sticks, brushwood, old besoms, and so forth. They make their request at each house in rhyming verses, threatening with evil consequences the curmudgeons who refuse them a dole. Sometimes the young men fell a tall straight fir in the woods and set it up on a height, where the girls deck it with nosegays, wreaths of leaves, and red ribbons. Then brushwood is piled about it, and at nightfall the whole is set on fire. While the flames break out, the young men climb the tree and fetch down the wreaths which the girls had placed on it. After that, lads and lasses stand on opposite sides of the fire and look at one another through the wreaths to see whether they will be true to each other and marry within the year. Also the girls throw the wreaths across the flames to the men, and woe to the awkward swain who fails to catch the wreath thrown him by his sweetheart. When the blaze has died down, each couple takes hands, and leaps thrice across the fire. He or she who does so will be free from ague throughout the year, and the flax will grow as high as the young folks leap. A girl who sees nine bonfires on Midsummer Eve will marry before the year is out. The singed wreaths are carried home and carefully preserved throughout the year. During thunderstorms a bit of the wreath is burned on the hearth with a prayer; some of it is given to kine that are sick or calving, and some of it serves to fumigate house and cattle-stall, that man and beast may keep hale and well. Sometimes an old cartwheel is smeared with resin, ignited, and sent rolling down the hill. Often the boys collect all the worn-out besoms they can get hold of, dip them in pitch, and having set them on fire wave them about or throw them high into the air. Or they rush down the hillside in troops, brandishing the flaming brooms and shouting, only however to return to the bonfire on the summit when the brooms have burnt out. The stumps of the brooms and embers from the fire are preserved and stuck in cabbage gardens to protect the cabbages from caterpillars and gnats. Some people insert charred sticks and ashes from the bonfire in their sown fields and meadows, in their gardens and the roofs of their houses, as a talisman against lightning and foul weather; or they fancy that the ashes placed in the roof will prevent any fire from breaking out in the house. In some districts they crown or gird themselves with mugwort while the midsummer fire is burning, for this is supposed to be a protection against ghosts, witches, and sickness; in particular, a wreath of mugwort is a sure preventive of sore eyes. Sometimes the girls look at the bonfires through garlands of wild flowers, praying the fire to strengthen their eyes and eyelids. She who does this thrice will have no sore eyes all that year. In some parts of Bohemia they used to drive the cows through the midsummer fire to guard them against witchcraft.[428]
[The Midsummer fires in Moravia, Austrian Silesia, and the district of Cracow; fire kindled by the friction of wood.]
The Germans of Moravia in like manner still light bonfires on open grounds and high places on Midsummer Eve; and they kindle besoms in the flames and then stick the charred stumps in the cabbage-fields as a powerful protection against caterpillars. On the same mystic evening Moravian girls gather flowers of nine sorts and lay them under their pillow when they go to sleep; then they dream every one of him who is to be her partner for life. For in Moravia maidens in their beds as well as poets by haunted streams have their Midsummer Night’s dreams.[429] In Austrian Silesia the custom also prevails of lighting great bonfires on hilltops on Midsummer Eve, and here too the boys swing blazing besoms or hurl them high in the air, while they shout and leap and dance wildly. Next morning every door is decked with flowers and birchen saplings.[430] In the district of Cracow, especially towards the Carpathian Mountains, great fires are kindled by the peasants in the fields or on the heights at nightfall on Midsummer Eve, which among them goes by the name of Kupalo’s Night. The fire must be kindled by the friction of two sticks. The young people dance round or leap over it; and a band of sturdy fellows run a race with lighted torches, the winner being rewarded with a peacock’s feather, which he keeps throughout the year as a distinction. Cattle also are driven round the fire in the belief that this is a charm against pestilence and disease of every sort.[431]
[The Midsummer fires among the Slavs of Russia; cattle protected against witchcraft; the fires lighted by the friction of wood.]
The name of Kupalo’s Night, applied in this part of Galicia to Midsummer Eve, reminds us that we have now passed from German to Slavonic ground; even in Bohemia the midsummer celebration is common to Slavs and Germans. We have already seen that in Russia the summer solstice or Eve of St. John is celebrated by young men and maidens, who jump over a bonfire in couples carrying a straw effigy of Kupalo in their arms.[432] In some parts of Russia an image of Kupalo is burnt or thrown into a stream on St. John’s Night.[433] Again, in some districts of Russia the young folk wear garlands of flowers and girdles of holy herbs when they spring through the smoke or flames; and sometimes they drive the cattle also through the fire in order to protect the animals against wizards and witches, who are then ravenous after milk.[434] In Little Russia a stake is driven into the ground on St. John’s Night, wrapt in straw, and set on fire. As the flames rise the peasant women throw birchen boughs into them, saying, “May my flax be as tall as this bough!”[435] In Ruthenia the bonfires are lighted by a flame procured by the friction of wood. While the elders of the party are engaged in thus “churning” the fire, the rest maintain a respectful silence; but when the flame bursts from the wood, they break forth into joyous songs. As soon as the bonfires are kindled, the young people take hands and leap in pairs through the smoke, if not through the flames; and after that the cattle in their turn are driven through the fire.[436]
[The Midsummer fires in Prussia and Lithuania thought to protect against witchcraft, thunder, hail, and cattle disease; the fire kindled by the friction of wood.]
In many parts of Prussia and Lithuania great fires are kindled on Midsummer Eve. All the heights are ablaze with them, as far as the eye can see. The fires are supposed to be a protection against witchcraft, thunder, hail, and cattle disease, especially if next morning the cattle are driven over the places where the fires burned. Above all, the bonfires ensure the farmer against the arts of witches, who try to steal the milk from his cows by charms and spells. That is why next morning you may see the young fellows who lit the bonfire going from house to house and receiving jugfuls of milk. And for the same reason they stick burs and mugwort on the gate or the hedge through which the cows go to pasture, because that is supposed to be a preservative against witchcraft.[437] In Masuren, a district of Eastern Prussia inhabited by a branch of the Polish family, it is the custom on the evening of Midsummer Day to put out all the fires in the village. Then an oaken stake is driven into the ground and a wheel is fixed on it as on an axle. This wheel the villagers, working by relays, cause to revolve with great rapidity till fire is produced by friction. Every one takes home a lighted brand from the new fire and with it rekindles the fire on the domestic hearth.[438] In the sixteenth century Martin of Urzedow, a Polish priest, denounced the heathen practices of the women who on St. John’s Eve (Midsummer Eve) kindled fires by the friction of wood, danced, and sang songs in honour of the devil.[439]
[The Midsummer fires among the Letts of Russia; Midsummer Day in ancient Rome.]
Among the Letts who inhabit the Baltic provinces of Russia the most joyful festival of the year is held on Midsummer Day. The people drink and dance and sing and adorn themselves and their houses with flowers and branches. Chopped boughs of fir are strewn about the rooms, and leaves are stuck in the roofs. In every farm-yard a birch tree is set up, and every person of the name of John who enters the farm that day must break off a twig from the tree and hang up on its branches in return a small present for the family. When the serene twilight of the summer night has veiled the landscape, bonfires gleam on all the hills, and wild shouts of “Ligho! Ligho!” echo from the woods and fields. In Riga the day is a festival of flowers. From all the neighbourhood the peasants stream into the city laden with flowers and garlands. A market of flowers is held in an open square and on the chief bridge over the river; here wreaths of immortelles, which grow wild in the meadows and woods, are sold in great profusion and deck the houses of Riga for long afterwards. Roses, too, are now at the prime of their beauty, and masses of them adorn the flower-stalls. Till far into the night gay crowds parade the streets to music or float on the river in gondolas decked with flowers.[440] So long ago in ancient Rome barges crowned with flowers and crowded with revellers used to float down the Tiber on Midsummer Day, the twenty-fourth of June,[441] and no doubt the strains of music were wafted as sweetly across the water to listeners on the banks as they still are to the throngs of merrymakers at Riga.
[The Midsummer fires among the South Slavs.]
Bonfires are commonly kindled by the South Slavonian peasantry on Midsummer Eve, and lads and lasses dance and shout round them in the usual way. The very names of St. John’s Day (_Ivanje_) and the St. John’s fires (_kries_) are said to act like electric sparks on the hearts and minds of these swains, kindling a thousand wild, merry, and happy fancies and ideas in their rustic breasts. At Kamenagora in Croatia the herdsmen throw nine three-year old vines into the bonfire, and when these burst into flames the young men who are candidates for matrimony jump through the blaze. He who succeeds in leaping over the fire without singeing himself will be married within the year. At Vidovec in Croatia parties of two girls and one lad unite to kindle a Midsummer bonfire and to leap through the flames; he or she who leaps furthest will soonest wed. Afterwards lads and lasses dance in separate rings, but the ring of lads bumps up against the ring of girls and breaks it, and the girl who has to let go her neighbour’s hand will forsake her true love hereafter.[442] In Servia on Midsummer Eve herdsmen light torches of birch bark and march round the sheepfolds and cattle-stalls; then they climb the hills and there allow the torches to burn out.[443]
[The Midsummer fires among the Magyars of Hungary.]
Among the Magyars in Hungary the midsummer fire-festival is marked by the same features that meet us in so many parts of Europe. On Midsummer Eve in many places it is customary to kindle bonfires on heights and to leap over them, and from the manner in which the young people leap the bystanders predict whether they will marry soon. At Nograd-Ludany the young men and women, each carrying a truss of straw, repair to a meadow, where they pile the straw in seven or twelve heaps and set it on fire. Then they go round the fire singing, and hold a bunch of iron-wort in the smoke, while they say, “No boil on my body, no sprain in my foot!” This holding of the flowers over the flames is regarded, we are told, as equally important with the practice of walking through the fire barefoot and stamping it out. On this day also many Hungarian swineherds make fire by rotating a wheel round a wooden axle wrapt in hemp, and through the fire thus made they drive their pigs to preserve them from sickness.[444] In villages on the Danube, where the population is a cross between Magyar and German, the young men and maidens go to the high banks of the river on Midsummer Eve; and while the girls post themselves low down the slope, the lads on the height above set fire to little wooden wheels and, after swinging them to and fro at the end of a wand, send them whirling through the air to fall into the Danube. As he does so, each lad sings out the name of his sweetheart, and she listens well pleased down below.[445]
[The Midsummer fires among the Esthonians; the Midsummer fires in Oesel.]
The Esthonians of Russia, who, like the Magyars, belong to the great Turanian family of mankind, also celebrate the summer solstice in the usual way. On the Eve of St. John all the people of a farm, a village, or an estate, walk solemnly in procession, the girls decked with flowers, the men with leaves and carrying bundles of straw under their arms. The lads carry lighted torches or flaming hoops steeped in tar at the top of long poles. Thus they go singing to the cattle-sheds, the granaries, and so forth, and afterwards march thrice round the dwelling-house. Finally, preceded by the shrill music of the bagpipes and shawms, they repair to a neighbouring hill, where the materials of a bonfire have been collected. Tar-barrels filled with combustibles are hung on poles, or the trunk of a felled tree has been set up with a great mass of juniper piled about it in the form of a pyramid. When a light has been set to the pile, old and young gather about it and pass the time merrily with song and music till break of day. Every one who comes brings fresh fuel for the fire, and they say, “Now we all gather together, where St. John’s fire burns. He who comes not to St. John’s fire will have his barley full of thistles, and his oats full of weeds.” Three logs are thrown into the fire with special ceremony; in throwing the first they say, “Gold of pleasure (a plant with yellow flowers) into the fire!” in throwing the second they say, “Weeds to the unploughed land!” but in throwing the third they cry, “Flax on my field!” The fire is said to keep the witches from the cattle.[446] According to others, it ensures that for the whole year the milk shall be “as pure as silver and as the stars in the sky, and the butter as yellow as the sun and the fire and the gold.”[447] In the Esthonian island of Oesel, while they throw fuel into the midsummer fire, they call out, “Weeds to the fire, flax to the field,” or they fling three billets into the flames, saying, “Flax grow long!” And they take charred sticks from the bonfire home with them and keep them to make the cattle thrive. In some parts of the island the bonfire is formed by piling brushwood and other combustibles round a tree, at the top of which a flag flies. Whoever succeeds in knocking down the flag with a pole before it begins to burn will have good luck. Formerly the festivities lasted till daybreak, and ended in scenes of debauchery which looked doubly hideous by the growing light of a summer morning.[448]
[The Midsummer fires among the Finns and Cheremiss of Russia.]
Still farther north, among a people of the same Turanian stock, we learn from an eye-witness that Midsummer Night used to witness a sort of witches’ sabbath on the top of every hill in Finland. The bonfire was made by setting up four tall birches in a square and piling the intermediate space with fuel. Round the roaring flames the people sang and drank and gambolled in the usual way.[449] Farther east, in the valley of the Volga, the Cheremiss celebrate about midsummer a festival which Haxthausen regarded as identical with the midsummer ceremonies of the rest of Europe. A sacred tree in the forest, generally a tall and solitary oak, marks the scene of the solemnity. All the males assemble there, but no woman may be present. A heathen priest lights seven fires in a row from north-west to south-east; cattle are sacrificed and their blood poured in the fires, each of which is dedicated to a separate deity. Afterwards the holy tree is illumined by lighted candles placed on its branches; the people fall on their knees and with faces bowed to the earth pray that God would be pleased to bless them, their children, their cattle, and their bees, grant them success in trade, in travel, and in the chase, enable them to pay the Czar’s taxes, and so forth.[450]
[The Midsummer fires in France; Bossuet on the Midsummer festival.]
When we pass from the east to the west of Europe we still find the summer solstice celebrated with rites of the same general character. Down to about the middle of the nineteenth century the custom of lighting bonfires at midsummer prevailed so commonly in France that there was hardly a town or a village, we are told, where they were not kindled.[451] Though the pagan origin of the custom may be regarded as certain, the Catholic Church threw a Christian cloak over it by boldly declaring that the bonfires were lit in token of the general rejoicing at the birth of the Baptist, who opportunely came into the world at the solstice of summer, just as his greater successor did at the solstice of winter; so that the whole year might be said to revolve on the golden hinges of these two great birthdays.[452] Writing in the seventeenth century Bishop Bossuet expressly affirms this edifying theory of the Midsummer bonfires, and he tells his catechumens that the Church herself participated in the illumination, since in several dioceses, including his own diocese of Meaux, a number of parishes kindled what were called ecclesiastical fires for the purpose of banishing the superstitions practised at the purely mundane bonfires. These superstitions, he goes on to say, consisted in dancing round the fire, playing, feasting, singing ribald songs, throwing herbs across the fire, gathering herbs at noon or while fasting, carrying them on the person, preserving them throughout the year, keeping brands or cinders of the fire, and other similar practices.[453] However excellent the intentions of the ecclesiastical authorities may have been, they failed of effecting their purpose; for the superstitions as well as the bonfires survived in France far into the nineteenth century, if indeed they are extinct even now at the beginning of the twentieth. Writing in the latter part of the nineteenth century Mr. Ch. Cuissard tells us that he himself witnessed in Touraine and Poitou the superstitious practices which he describes as follows: “The most credulous examine the ways in which the flame burns and draw good or bad omens accordingly. Others, after leaping through the flames crosswise, pass their little children through them thrice, fully persuaded that the little ones will then be able to walk at once. In some places the shepherds make their sheep tread the embers of the extinct fire in order to preserve them from the foot-rot. Here you may see about midnight an old woman grubbing among the cinders of the pyre to find the hair of the Holy Virgin or Saint John, which she deems an infallible specific against fever. There, another woman is busy plucking the roots of the herbs which have been burned on the surface of the ground; she intends to eat them, imagining that they are an infallible preservative against cancer. Elsewhere a girl wears on her neck a flower which the touch of St. John’s fire has turned for her into a talisman, and she is sure to marry within the year. Shots are fired at the tree planted in the midst of the fire to drive away the demons who might purpose to send sicknesses about the country. Seats are set round about the bonfire, in order that the souls of dead relations may come and enjoy themselves for a little with the living.”[454]
[The Midsummer fires in Brittany; uses made of the charred sticks and flowers.]
In Brittany, apparently, the custom of the Midsummer bonfires is kept up to this day. Thus in Lower Brittany every town and every village still lights its _tantad_ or bonfire on St. John’s Night. When the flames have died down, the whole assembly kneels round about the bonfire and an old man prays aloud. Then they all rise and march thrice round the fire; at the third turn they stop and every one picks up a pebble and throws it on the burning pile. After that they disperse.[455] In Finistere the bonfires of St. John’s Day are kindled by preference in an open space near a chapel of St. John; but if there is no such chapel, they are lighted in the square facing the parish church and in some districts at cross-roads. Everybody brings fuel for the fire, it may be a faggot, a log, a branch, or an armful of gorse. When the vespers are over, the parish priest sets a light to the pile. All heads are bared, prayers recited, and hymns sung. Then the dancing begins. The young folk skip round the blazing pile and leap over it, when the flames have died down. If anybody makes a false step and falls or rolls in the hot embers, he or she is greeted with hoots and retires abashed from the circle of dancers. Brands are carried home from the bonfire to protect the houses against lightning, conflagrations, and certain maladies and spells. The precious talisman is carefully kept in a cupboard till St. John’s Day of the following year.[456] At Quimper, and in the district of Leon, chairs used to be placed round the midsummer bonfire, that the souls of the dead might sit on them and warm themselves at the blaze.[457] At Brest on this day thousands of people used to assemble on the ramparts towards evening and brandish lighted torches, which they swung in circles or flung by hundreds into the air. The closing of the town gates put an end to the spectacle, and the lights might be seen dispersing in all directions like wandering will-o’-the-wisps.[458] In Upper Brittany the materials for the midsummer bonfires, which generally consist of bundles of furze and heath, are furnished by voluntary contributions, and piled on the tops of hills round poles, each of which is surmounted by a nosegay or a crown. This nosegay or crown is generally provided by a man named John or a woman named Jean, and it is always a John or a Jean who puts a light to the bonfire. While the fire is blazing the people dance and sing round it, and when the flames have subsided they leap over the glowing embers. Charred sticks from the bonfire are thrown into wells to improve the water, and they are also taken home as a protection against thunder.[459] To make them thoroughly effective, however, against thunder and lightning you should keep them near your bed, between a bit of a Twelfth Night cake and a sprig of boxwood which has been blessed on Palm Sunday.[460] Flowers from the nosegay or crown which overhung the fire are accounted charms against disease and pain, both bodily and spiritual; hence girls hang them at their breast by a thread of scarlet wool. In many parishes of Brittany the priest used to go in procession with the crucifix and kindle the bonfire with his own hands; and farmers were wont to drive their flocks and herds through the fire in order to preserve them from sickness till midsummer of the following year. Also it was believed that every girl who danced round nine of the bonfires would marry within the year.[461]
[The Midsummer fires in Normandy; the fires as a protection against witchcraft; the Brotherhood of the Green Wolf at Jumieges; pretence of throwing the Green Wolf into the fire.]
In Normandy the midsummer fires have now almost disappeared, at least in the district known as the Bocage, but they used to shine on every hill. They were commonly made by piling brushwood, broom, and ferns about a tall tree, which was decorated with a crown of moss and sometimes with flowers. While they burned, people danced and sang round them, and young folk leaped over the flames or the glowing ashes. In the valley of the Orne the custom was to kindle the bonfire just at the moment when the sun was about to dip below the horizon; and the peasants drove their cattle through the fires to protect them against witchcraft, especially against the spells of witches and wizards who attempted to steal the milk and butter.[462] At Jumieges in Normandy, down to the first half of the nineteenth century, the midsummer festival was marked by certain singular features which bore the stamp of a very high antiquity. Every year, on the twenty-third of June, the Eve of St. John, the Brotherhood of the Green Wolf chose a new chief or master, who had always to be taken from the hamlet of Conihout. On being elected, the new head of the brotherhood assumed the title of the Green Wolf, and donned a peculiar costume consisting of a long green mantle and a very tall green hat of a conical shape and without a brim. Thus arrayed he stalked solemnly at the head of the brothers, chanting the hymn of St. John, the crucifix and holy banner leading the way, to a place called Chouquet. Here the procession was met by the priest, precentors, and choir, who conducted the brotherhood to the parish church. After hearing mass the company adjourned to the house of the Green Wolf, where a simple repast, such as is required by the church on fast-days, was served up to them. Then they danced before the door till it was time to light the bonfire. Night being come, the fire was kindled to the sound of hand-bells by a young man and a young woman, both decked with flowers. As the flames rose, the _Te Deum_ was sung, and a villager thundered out a parody in the Norman dialect of the hymn _ut queant laxis_. Meantime the Green Wolf and his brothers, with their hoods down on their shoulders and holding each other by the hand, ran round the fire after the man who had been chosen to be the Green Wolf of the following year. Though only the first and the last man of the chain had a hand free, their business was to surround and seize thrice the future Green Wolf, who in his efforts to escape belaboured the brothers with a long wand which he carried. When at last they succeeded in catching him they carried him to the burning pile and made as if they would throw him on it. This ceremony over, they returned to the house of the Green Wolf, where a supper, still of the most meagre fare, was set before them. Up till midnight a sort of religious solemnity prevailed. No unbecoming word might fall from the lips of any of the company, and a censor, armed with a hand-bell, was appointed to mark and punish instantly any infraction of the rule. But at the stroke of twelve all this was changed. Constraint gave way to license; pious hymns were replaced by Bacchanalian ditties, and the shrill quavering notes of the village fiddle hardly rose above the roar of voices that went up from the merry brotherhood of the Green Wolf. Next day, the twenty-fourth of June or Midsummer Day, was celebrated by the same personages with the same noisy gaiety. One of the ceremonies consisted in parading, to the sound of musketry, an enormous loaf of consecrated bread, which, rising in tiers, was surmounted by a pyramid of verdure adorned with ribbons. After that the holy handbells, deposited on the step of the altar, were entrusted as insignia of office to the man who was to be the Green Wolf next year.[463]
[The Midsummer fires in Picardy.]
In the canton of Breteuil in Picardy (department of Oise) the priest used to kindle the midsummer bonfire, and the people marched thrice round it in procession. Some of them took ashes of the fire home with them to protect the houses against lightning.[464] The custom is, or was down to recent years, similar at Vorges, near Laon. An enormous pyre, some fifty or sixty feet high, supported in the middle by a tall pole, is constructed every year on the twenty-third of June, the Eve of St. John. It stands at one end of the village, and all the inhabitants contribute fuel to it: a cart goes round the village in the morning, by order of the mayor, collecting combustibles from house to house: no one would dream of refusing to comply with the customary obligation. In the evening, after a service in honour of St. John has been performed in the church, the clergy, the mayor, the municipal authorities, the rural police, and the fire-brigade march in procession to the bonfire, accompanied by the inhabitants and a crowd of idlers drawn by curiosity from the neighbouring villages. After addressing the throng in a sermon, to which they pay little heed, the parish priest sprinkles the pyre with holy water, and taking a lighted torch from the hand of an assistant sets fire to the pile. The enormous blaze, flaring up against the dark sky of the summer night, is seen for many miles around, particularly from the hill of Laon. When it has died down into a huge heap of glowing embers and grey ashes, every one carries home a charred stick or some cinders; and the fire-brigade, playing their hose on what remains, extinguishes the smouldering fire. The people preserve the charred sticks and cinders throughout the year, believing that these relics of St John’s bonfire have power to guard them from lightning and from contagious diseases.[465] At Chateau-Thierry, a town of the department of Aisne, between Paris and Reims, the custom of lighting bonfires and dancing round them at the midsummer festival of St. John lasted down to about 1850; the fires were kindled especially when June had been rainy, and the people thought that the lighting of the bonfires would cause the rain to cease.[466]
[The Midsummer fires in Beauce and Perche; the fires as a protection against witchcraft.]
In Beauce and Perche, two neighbouring districts of France to the south-west of Paris, the midsummer bonfires have nearly or wholly disappeared, but formerly they were commonly kindled and went by the name of the “fires of St. John.” The site of the bonfire was either the village square or beside the cross in the cemetery. Here a great pile of faggots, brushwood, and grass was accumulated about a huge branch, which bore at the top a crown of fresh flowers. The priest blessed the bonfire and the people danced round it. When it blazed and crackled, the bystanders thrust their heads into the puffs of smoke, in the belief that it would preserve them from a multitude of ills; and when the fire was burnt out, they rushed upon the charred embers and ashes and carried them home, imagining that they had a secret virtue to guard their houses from being struck by lightning or consumed by fire. Some of the Perche farmers in the old days, not content with the public bonfire, used to light little private bonfires in their farmyards and make all their cattle pass through the smoke and flames for the purpose of protecting them against witchcraft or disease.[467]
[The Midsummer fires in the Ardennes, the Vosges, and the Jura; the Midsummer fires in Franche-Comte; the Midsummer fires in Berry and other parts of Central France.]
In the department of the Ardennes every one was wont to contribute his faggot to the midsummer bonfire, and the clergy marched at the head of the procession to kindle it. Failure to light the fires would, in the popular belief, have exposed the fields to the greatest danger. At Revin the young folk, besides dancing round the fire to the strains of the village fiddler, threw garlands of flowers across the flames to each other.[468] In the Vosges it is still customary to kindle bonfires upon the hill-tops on Midsummer Eve; the people believe that the fires help to preserve the fruits of the earth and ensure good crops.[469] In the Jura Mountains the midsummer bonfires went by the name of _ba_ or _beau_. They were lit on the most conspicuous points of the landscape.[470] Near St. Jean, in the Jura, it appears that at this season young people still repair to the cross-roads and heights, and there wave burning torches so as to present the appearance of fiery wheels in the darkness.[471] In Franche-Comte, the province of France which lies immediately to the west of the Jura mountains, the fires of St. John still shone on the saint’s day in several villages down to recent years. They were generally lit on high ground and the young folks of both sexes sang and danced round them, and sprang over the dying flames.[472] In Bresse bonfires used to be kindled on Midsummer Eve (the twenty-third of June) and the people danced about them in a circle. Devout persons, particularly old women, circumambulated the fires fourteen times, telling their beads and mumbling seven _Paters_ and seven _Aves_ in the hope that thereby they would feel no pains in their backs when they stooped over the sickle in the harvest field.[473] In Berry, a district of Central France, the midsummer fire was lit on the Eve of St. John and went by the name of the _jonee, joannee_, or _jouannee_. Every family according to its means contributed faggots, which were piled round a pole on the highest ground in the neighbourhood. In the hamlets the office of kindling the fire devolved on the oldest man, but in the towns it was the priest or the mayor who discharged the duty. Here, as in Brittany, people supposed that a girl who had danced round nine of the midsummer bonfires would marry within the year. To leap several times over the fire was regarded as a sort of purification which kept off sickness and brought good luck to the leaper. Hence the nimble youth bounded through the smoke and flames, and when the fire had somewhat abated parents jumped across it with their children in their arms in order that the little ones might also partake of its beneficent influence. Embers from the extinct bonfire were taken home, and after being dipped in holy water were kept as a talisman against all kinds of misfortune, but especially against lightning.[474] The same virtue was ascribed to the ashes and charred sticks of the midsummer bonfire in Perigord, where everybody contributed his share of fuel to the pile and the whole was crowned with flowers, especially with roses and lilies.[475] On the borders of the departments of Creuse and Correze, in Central France, the fires of St. John used to be lit on the Eve of the saint’s day (the twenty-third of June); the custom seems to have survived till towards the end of the nineteenth century. Men, women, and children assembled round the fires, and the young people jumped over them. Children were brought by their parents or elder brothers into contact with the flames in the belief that this would save them from fever. Older people girded themselves with stalks of rye taken from a neighbouring field, because they fancied that by so doing they would not grow weary in reaping the corn at harvest.[476]
[The Midsummer fires in Poitou.]
Bonfires were lit in almost all the hamlets of Poitou on the Eve of St. John. People marched round them thrice, carrying a branch of walnut in their hand. Shepherdesses and children passed sprigs of mullein (_verbascum_) and nuts across the flames; the nuts were supposed to cure toothache, and the mullein to protect the cattle from sickness and sorcery. When the fire died down people took some of the ashes home with them, either to keep them in the house as a preservative against thunder or to scatter them on the fields for the purpose of destroying corn-cockles and darnel. Stones were also placed round the fire, and it was believed that the first to lift one of these stones next morning would find under it the hair of St. John.[477] In Poitou also it used to be customary on the Eve of St. John to trundle a blazing wheel wrapt in straw over the fields to fertilize them.[478] This last custom is said to be now extinct,[479] but it is still usual, or was so down to recent years, in Poitou to kindle fires on this day at cross-roads or on the heights. The oldest or youngest person present sets a light to the pile, which consists of broom, gorse, and heath. A bright and crackling blaze shoots up, but soon dies down, and over it the young folk leap. They also throw stones into it, picking the stone according to the size of the turnips that they wish to have that year. It is said that “the good Virgin” comes and sits on the prettiest of the stones, and next morning they see there her beautiful golden tresses. At Lussac, in Poitou, the lighting of the midsummer bonfire is still an affair of some ceremony. A pyramid of faggots is piled round a tree or tall pole on the ground where the fair is held; the priest goes in procession to the spot and kindles the pile. When prayers have been said and the clergy have withdrawn, the people continue to march round the fire, telling their beads, but it is not till the flames have begun to die down that the youth jump over them. A brand from the midsummer bonfire is supposed to be a preservative against thunder.[480]
[The Midsummer fires in the departments of Vienne and Deux-Sevres and in the provinces of Saintonge and Aunis.]
In the department of Vienne the bonfire was kindled by the oldest man, and before the dance round the flames began it was the custom to pass across them a great bunch of mullein (_bouillon blanc_) and a branch of walnut, which next morning before sunrise were fastened over the door of the chief cattle-shed.[481] A similar custom prevailed in the neighbouring department of Deux-Sevres; but here it was the priest who kindled the bonfire, and old men used to put embers of the fire in their wooden shoes as a preservative against many evils.[482] In some towns and villages of Saintonge and Aunis, provinces of Western France now mostly comprised in the department of Charente Inferieure, the fires of St. John are still kindled on Midsummer Eve, but the custom is neither so common nor carried out with so much pomp and ceremony as formerly. Great quantities of wood used to be piled on an open space round about a huge post or a tree stripped of its leaves and branches. Every one took care to contribute a faggot to the pile, and the whole population marched to the spot in procession with the crucifix at their head and the priest bringing up the rear. The squire, or other person of high degree, put the torch to the pyre, and the priest blessed it. In the southern and eastern parts of Saintonge children and cattle were passed through the smoke of the bonfires to preserve them from contagious diseases, and when the fire had gone out the people scuffled for the charred fragments of the great post, which they regarded as talismans against thunder. Next morning, on Midsummer Day, every shepherdess in the neighbourhood was up very early, for the first to drive her sheep over the blackened cinders and ashes of the great bonfire was sure to have the best flock all that year. Where the shepherds shrunk from driving their flocks through the smoke and flames of the bonfire they contented themselves with marking the hinder-quarters of the animals with a broom which had been blackened in the ashes.[483]
[The Midsummer fires in Southern France; Midsummer festival of fire and water in Provence; bathing in the sea at Midsummer; temporary Midsummer kings at Aix and Marseilles.]
In the mountainous part of Comminges, a province of Southern France, now comprised in the department of Haute Garonne, the midsummer fire is made by splitting open the trunk of a tall tree, stuffing the crevice with shavings, and igniting the whole. A garland of flowers is fastened to the top of the tree, and at the moment when the fire is lighted the man who was last married has to climb up a ladder and bring the flowers down. In the flat parts of the same district the materials of the midsummer bonfires consist of fuel piled in the usual way; but they must be put together by men who have been married since the last midsummer festival, and each of these benedicts is obliged to lay a wreath of flowers on the top of the pile.[484] At the entrance of the valley of Aran young people set up on the banks of the Garonne a tree covered with ribbons and garlands; at the end of a year the withered tree and faded flowers furnish excellent fuel. So on the Eve of St. John the villagers assemble, and an old man or a child kindles the fire which is to consume tree and garlands together. While the blaze lasts the people sing and dance; and the burnt tree is then replaced by another which will suffer the same fate after the lapse of a year.[485] In some districts of the French Pyrenees it is deemed necessary to leap nine times over the midsummer fire if you would be assured of prosperity.[486] A traveller in Southern France at the beginning of the nineteenth century tells us that “the Eve of St. John is also a day of joy for the Provencals. They light great fires and the young folk leap over them. At Aix they shower squibs and crackers on the passers-by, which has often had disagreeable consequences. At Marseilles they drench each other with scented water, which is poured from the windows or squirted from little syringes; the roughest jest is to souse passers-by with clean water, which gives rise to loud bursts of laughter.”[487] At Draguignan, in the department of Var, fires used to be lit in every street on the Eve of St. John, and the people roasted pods of garlic at them; the pods were afterwards distributed to every family. Another diversion of the evening was to pour cans of water from the houses on the heads of people in the streets.[488] In Provence the midsummer fires are still popular. Children go from door to door begging for fuel, and they are seldom sent empty away. Formerly the priest, the mayor, and the aldermen used to walk in procession to the bonfire, and even deigned to light it; after which the assembly marched thrice round the burning pile, while the church bells pealed and rockets fizzed and sputtered in the air. Dancing began later, and the bystanders threw water on each other. At Ciotat, while the fire was blazing, the young people plunged into the sea and splashed each other vigorously. At Vitrolles they bathed in a pond in order that they might not suffer from fever during the year, and at Saintes-Maries they watered the horses to protect them from the itch.[489] At Aix a nominal king, chosen from among the youth for his skill in shooting at a popinjay, presided over the festival. He selected his own officers, and escorted by a brilliant train marched to the bonfire, kindled it, and was the first to dance round it. Next day he distributed largesse to his followers. His reign lasted a year, during which he enjoyed certain privileges. He was allowed to attend the mass celebrated by the commander of the Knights of St. John on St. John’s Day: the right of hunting was accorded to him; and soldiers might not be quartered in his house. At Marseilles also on this day one of the guilds chose a king of the _badache_ or double axe; but it does not appear that he kindled the bonfire, which is said to have been lighted with great ceremony by the prefet and other authorities.[490]
[The Midsummer fires in Belgium; bonfires on St. Peter’s Day in Brabant; the King and Queen of the Roses; effigies burnt in the Midsummer fires.]
In Belgium the custom of kindling the midsummer bonfires has long disappeared from the great cities, but it is still kept up in rural districts and small towns of Brabant, Flanders, and Limburg. People leap across the fires to protect themselves against fever, and in eastern Flanders women perform similar leaps for the purpose of ensuring an easy delivery. At Termonde young people go from door to door collecting fuel for the fires and reciting verses, in which they beg the inmates to give them “wood of St. John” and to keep some wood for St. Peter’s Day (the twenty-ninth of June); for in Belgium the Eve of St. Peter’s Day is celebrated by bonfires and dances exactly like those which commemorate St. John’s Eve. The ashes of the St. John’s fires are deemed by Belgian peasants an excellent remedy for consumption, if you take a spoonful or two of them, moistened with water, day by day. People also burn vervain in the fires, and they say that in the ashes of the plant you may find, if you look for it, the “Fool’s Stone.”[491] In many parts of Brabant St. Peter’s bonfire used to be much larger than that of his rival St. John. When it had burned out, both sexes engaged in a game of ball, and the winner became the King of Summer or of the Ball and had the right to choose his Queen. Sometimes the winner was a woman, and it was then her privilege to select her royal mate. This pastime was well known at Louvain and it continued to be practised at Grammont and Mespelaer down to the second half of the nineteenth century. At Mespelaer, which is a village near Termonde, a huge pile of eglantine, reeds, and straw was collected in a marshy meadow for the bonfire; and next evening after vespers the young folk who had lit it assembled at the “Good Life” tavern to play the game. The winner was crowned with a wreath of roses, and the rest danced and sang in a ring about him. At Grammont, while the bonfire was lit and the dances round it took place on St. Peter’s Eve, the festival of the “Crown of Roses” was deferred till the following Sunday. The young folk arranged among themselves beforehand who should be King and Queen of the Roses: the rosy wreaths were hung on cords across the street: the dancers danced below them, and at a given moment the wreaths fell on the heads of the chosen King and Queen, who had to entertain their fellows at a feast. According to some people the fires of St. Peter, like those of St. John, were lighted in order to drive away dragons.[492] In French Flanders down to 1789 a straw figure representing a man was always burned in the midsummer bonfire, and the figure of a woman was burned on St. Peter’s Day.[493] In Belgium people jump over the midsummer bonfires as a preventive of colic, and they keep the ashes at home to hinder fire from breaking out.[494]
[The Midsummer fires in England; Stow’s description of the Midsummer fires in London; the Midsummer fires at Eton.]
The custom of lighting bonfires at midsummer has been observed in many parts of our own country. “On the Vigil of Saint John the Baptist, commonly called Midsummer Eve, it was usual in most country places, and also in towns and cities, for the inhabitants, both old and young, and of both sexes, to meet together, and make merry by the side of a large fire made in the middle of the street, or in some open and convenient place, over which the young men frequently leaped by way of frolic, and also exercised themselves with various sports and pastimes, more especially with running, wrestling, and dancing. These diversions they continued till midnight, and sometimes till cock-crowing.”[495] In the streets of London the midsummer fires were lighted in the time of Queen Elizabeth down to the end of the sixteenth century, as we learn from Stow’s description, which runs thus: “In the months of June and July, on the vigils of festival days, and on the same festival days in the evenings after the sun setting, there were usually made bonfires in the streets, every man bestowing wood or labour towards them; the wealthier sort also, before their doors near to the said bonfires, would set out tables on the vigils furnished with sweet bread and good drink, and on the festival days with meats and drinks plentifully, whereunto they would invite their neighbours and passengers also to sit and be merry with them in great familiarity, praising God for His benefits bestowed on them. These were called bonfires as well of good amity amongst neighbours that being before at controversy, were there, by the labour of others, reconciled, and made of bitter enemies loving friends; and also for the virtue that a great fire hath to purge the infection of the air. On the vigil of St. John the Baptist, and on St. Peter and Paul the Apostles, every man’s door being shadowed with green birch, long fennel, St John’s wort, orpin, white lilies, and such like, garnished upon with garlands of beautiful flowers, had also lamps of glass, with oil burning in them all the night; some hung out branches of iron curiously wrought, containing hundreds of lamps alight at once, which made a goodly show, namely, in New Fish Street, Thames Street, etc.”[496] In the sixteenth century the Eton boys used to kindle a bonfire on the east side of the church both on St John’s Day and on St. Peter’s Day.[497] Writing in the second half of the seventeenth century, the antiquary John Aubrey tells us that bonfires were still kindled in many places on St. John’s Night, but that the civil wars had thrown many of these old customs out of fashion. Wars, he adds, extinguish superstition as well as religion and laws, and there is nothing like gunpowder for putting phantoms to flight.[498]
[The Midsummer fires in the north of England; the Midsummer fires in Northumberland.]
In the north of England these fires used to be lit in the open streets. Young and old gathered round them, and while the young leaped over the fires and engaged in games, their elders looked on and probably