Chapter IV: The Fire-Festivals of Europe (3)

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 Bèl (_bayl_). It was, likewise, their usage to light two fires to Bèl, 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 Bèl, that the day [the first of May] on which the noble feast of the apostles, Philip and James, is held, has been called Bèltaini, or Bèaltaine (_Bayltinnie_); for Beltaini is the same as Bèil-teinè, i.e. Teiné Bhèil (_Tinnie Vayl_) or Bèl'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]

§ 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 mediæval 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 Würzburg 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 Würzburg, 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 Bühl 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 Leobschütz, Neustadt, Zülz, 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 (_Bäran_) 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.]