(M36) A feature of the great midsummer festival remains to be considered,
which may perhaps help to clear up the doubt as to the meaning of the
fire-ceremonies and their relation to Druidism. For in France and England,
the countries where the sway of the Druids is known to have been most
firmly established, Midsummer Eve is still the time for culling certain
magic plants, whose evanescent virtue can be secured at this mystic season
alone. Indeed all over Europe antique fancies of the same sort have
lingered about Midsummer Eve, imparting to it a fragrance of the past,
like withered rose leaves that, found by chance in the pages of an old
volume, still smell of departed summers. Thus in Saintonge and Aunis, two
of the ancient provinces of Western France, we read that “of all the
festivals for which the merry bells ring out there is not one which has
given rise to a greater number of superstitious practices than the
festival of St. John the Baptist. The Eve of St. John was the day of all
days for gathering the wonderful herbs by means of which you could combat
fever, cure a host of diseases, and guard yourself against sorcerers and
their spells. But in order to attain these results two conditions had to
be observed; first, you must be fasting when you gathered the herbs, and
second, you must cull them before the sun rose. If these conditions were
not fulfilled, the plants had no special virtue.”(117) In the neighbouring
province of Perigord the person who gathered the magic herbs before
sunrise at this season had to walk backwards, to mutter some mystic words,
and to perform certain ceremonies. The plants thus collected were
carefully kept as an infallible cure for fever; placed above beds and the
doors of houses and of cattle-sheds they protected man and beast from
disease, witchcraft, and accident.(118) In Normandy a belief in the
marvellous properties of herbs and plants, of flowers and seeds and leaves
gathered, with certain traditional rites, on the Eve or the Day of St.
John has remained part of the peasant’s creed to this day. Thus he fancies
that seeds of vegetables and plants, which have been collected on St.
John’s Eve, will keep better than others, and that flowers plucked that
day will never fade.(119) Indeed so widespread in France used to be the
faith in the magic virtue of herbs culled on that day that there is a
French proverb “to employ all the herbs of St. John in an affair,” meaning
“to leave no stone unturned.”(120) In the early years of the nineteenth
century a traveller reported that at Marseilles, “on the Eve of St. John,
the Place de Noailles and the course are cleaned. From three o’clock in
the morning the country-people flock thither, and by six o’clock the whole
place is covered with a considerable quantity of flowers and herbs,
aromatic or otherwise. The folk attribute superstitious virtues to these
plants; they are persuaded that if they have been gathered the same day
before sunrise they are fitted to heal many ailments. People buy them
emulously to give away in presents and to fill the house with.”(121) On
the Eve of St. John (Midsummer Eve), before sunset, the peasants of Perche
still gather the herb called St. John’s herb. It is a creeping plant, very
aromatic, with small flowers of a violet blue. Other scented flowers are
added, and out of the posies they make floral crosses and crowns, which
they hang up over the doors of houses and stables. Such floral decorations
are sold like the box-wood on Palm Sunday, and the withered wreaths are
kept from year to year. If an animal dies, it may be a cow, they carefully
clean the byre or the stable, make a pile of these faded garlands, and set
them on fire, having previously closed up all the openings and
interstices, so that the whole place is thoroughly fumigated. This is
thought to eradicate the germs of disease from the byre or stable.(122) At
Nellingen, near Saaralben, in Lorraine the hedge doctors collect their
store of simples between eleven o’clock and noon on Midsummer Day; and on
that day nut-water is brewed from nuts that have been picked on the stroke
of noon. Such water is a panacea for all ailments.(123) In the Vosges
Mountains they say that wizards have but one day in the year, and but one
hour in that day, to find and cull the baleful herbs which they use in
their black art. That day is the Eve of St. John, and that hour is the
time when the church bells are ringing the noonday Angelus. Hence in many
villages they say that the bells ought not to ring at noon on that
day.(124)
(M37) In the Tyrol also they think that the witching hour is when the _Ave
Maria_ bell is ringing on Midsummer Eve, for then the witches go forth to
gather the noxious plants whereby they raise thunderstorms. Therefore in
many districts the bells ring for a shorter time than usual that
evening;(125) at Folgareit the sexton used to steal quietly into the
church, and when the clock struck three he contented himself with giving a
few pulls to the smallest of the bells.(126) At Rengen, in the Eifel
Mountains, the sexton rings the church bell for an hour on the afternoon
of Midsummer Day. As soon as the bell begins to ring, the children run out
into the meadows, gather flowers, and weave them into garlands which they
throw on the roofs of the houses and buildings. There the garlands remain
till the wind blows them away. It is believed that they protect the houses
against fire and thunderstorms.(127) At Niederehe, in the Eifel Mountains,
on Midsummer Day little children used to make wreaths and posies out of
“St. John’s flowers and Maiden-flax” and throw them on the roofs. Some
time afterwards, when the wild gooseberries were ripe, all the children
would gather round an old woman on a Sunday afternoon, and taking the now
withered wreaths and posies with them march out of the village, praying
while they walked. Wreaths and posies were then thrown in a heap and
kindled, whereupon the children snatched them up, still burning, and ran
and fumigated the wild gooseberry bushes with the smoke. Then they
returned with the old woman to the village, knelt down before her, and
received her blessing. From that time the children were free to pick and
eat the wild gooseberries.(128) In the Mark of Brandenburg the peasants
gather all sorts of simples on Midsummer Day, because they are of opinion
that the drugs produce their medicinal effect only if they have been
culled at that time. Many of these plants, especially roots, must be dug
up at midnight and in silence.(129) In Mecklenburg not merely is a special
healing virtue ascribed to simples collected on Midsummer Day; the very
smoke of such plants, if they are burned in the fire, is believed to
protect a house against thunder and lightning, and to still the raging of
the storm.(130) The Wends of the Spreewald twine wreaths of herbs and
flowers at midsummer, and hang them up in their rooms; and when any one
gets a fright he will lay some of the leaves and blossoms on hot coals and
fumigate himself with the smoke.(131) In Eastern Prussia, some two hundred
years ago, it used to be customary on Midsummer Day to make up a bunch of
herbs of various sorts and fasten it to a pole, which was then put up over
the gate or door through which the corn would be brought in at harvest.
Such a pole was called Kaupole, and it remained in its place till the
crops had been reaped and garnered. Then the bunch of herbs was taken
down; part of it was put with the corn in the barn to keep rats and mice
from the grain, and part was kept as a remedy for diseases of all
sorts.(132)
(M38) The Germans of West Bohemia collect simples on St. John’s Night,
because they believe the healing virtue of the plants to be especially
powerful at that time.(133) The theory and practice of the Huzuls in the
Carpathian Mountains are similar; they imagine that the plants gathered on
that night are not only medicinal but possess the power of restraining the
witches; some say that the herbs should be plucked in twelve gardens or
meadows.(134) Among the simples which the Czechs and Moravians of Silesia
cull at this season are dandelions, ribwort, and the bloom of the
lime-tree.(135) The Esthonians of the island of Oesel gather St. John’s
herbs (_Jani rohhud_) on St. John’s Day, tie them up in bunches, and hang
them up about the houses to prevent evil spirits from entering. A
subsidiary use of the plants is to cure diseases; gathered at that time
they have a greater medical value than if they were collected at any other
season. Everybody does not choose exactly the same sorts of plants; some
gather more and some less, but in the collection St. John’s wort (_Jani
rohhi_, _Hypericum perforatum_) should never be wanting.(136) A writer of
the early part of the seventeenth century informs us that the Livonians,
among whom he lived, were impressed with a belief in the great and
marvellous properties possessed by simples which had been culled on
Midsummer Day. Such simples, they thought, were sure remedies for fever
and for sickness and pestilence in man and beast; but if gathered one day
too late they lost all their virtue.(137) Among the Letts of the Baltic
provinces of Russia girls and women go about on Midsummer Day crowned with
wreaths of aromatic plants, which are afterwards hung up for good luck in
the houses. The plants are also dried and given to cows to eat, because
they are supposed to help the animals to calve.(138)
(M39) In Bulgaria St. John’s Day is the special season for culling
simples. On this day, too, Bulgarian girls gather nosegays of a certain
white flower, throw them into a vessel of water, and place the vessel
under a rose-tree in bloom. Here it remains all night. Next morning they
set it in the courtyard and dance singing round it. An old woman then
takes the flowers out of the vessel, and the girls wash themselves with
the water, praying that God would grant them health throughout the year.
After that the old woman restores her nosegay to each girl and promises
her a rich husband.(139) Among the South Slavs generally on St. John’s Eve
it is the custom for girls to gather white flowers in the meadows and to
place them in a sieve or behind the rafters. A flower is assigned to each
member of the household: next morning the flowers are inspected; and he or
she whose flower is fresh will be well the whole year, but he or she whose
flower is faded will be sickly or die. Garlands are then woven out of the
flowers and laid on roofs, folds, and beehives.(140) In some parts of
Macedonia on St. John’s Eve the peasants are wont to festoon their
cottages and gird their own waists with wreaths of what they call St.
John’s flower; it is the blossom of a creeping plant which resembles
honeysuckle.(141) Similar notions as to the magical virtue which plants
acquire at midsummer have been transported by Europeans to the New World.
At La Paz in Bolivia people believe that flowers of mint (_Yerba buena_)
gathered before sunrise on St. John’s Day foretell an endless felicity to
such as are so lucky as to find them.(142)
(M40) Nor is the superstition confined to Europe and to people of European
descent. In Morocco also the Mohammedans are of opinion that certain
plants, such as penny-royal, marjoram, and the oleander, acquire a special
magic virtue (_baraka_) when they are gathered shortly before midsummer.
Hence the people collect these plants at this season and preserve them for
magical or medical purposes. For example, branches of oleander are brought
into the houses before midsummer and kept under the roof as a charm
against the evil eye; but while the branches are being brought in they may
not touch the ground, else they would lose their marvellous properties.
Cases of sickness caused by the evil eye are cured by fumigating the
patients with the smoke of these boughs. The greatest efficacy is ascribed
to “the sultan of the oleander,” which is a stalk with four pairs of
leaves clustered round it. Such a stalk is always endowed with magical
virtue, but that virtue is greatest when the stalk has been cut just
before midsummer. Arab women in the Hiaina district of Morocco gather
_Daphne gnidium_ on Midsummer Day, dry it in the sun, and make it into a
powder which, mixed with water, they daub on the heads of their little
children to protect them from sunstroke and vermin and to make their hair
grow well. Indeed such marvellous powers do these Arabs attribute to
plants at this mystic season that a barren woman will walk naked about a
vegetable garden on Midsummer Night in the hope of conceiving a child
through the fertilizing influence of the vegetables.(143)
(M41) Sometimes in order to produce the desired effect it is deemed
necessary that seven or nine different sorts of plants should be gathered
at this mystic season. Norman peasants, who wish to fortify themselves for
the toil of harvest, will sometimes go out at dawn on St. John’s Day and
pull seven kinds of plants, which they afterwards eat in their soup as a
means of imparting strength and suppleness to their limbs in the harvest
field.(144) In Mecklenburg maidens are wont to gather seven sorts of
flowers at noon on Midsummer Eve. These they weave into garlands, and
sleep with them under their pillows. Then they are sure to dream of the
men who will marry them.(145) But the flowers on which youthful lovers
dream at Midsummer Eve are oftener nine in number. Thus in Voigtland nine
different kinds of flowers are twined into a garland at the hour of noon,
but they may not enter the dwelling by the door in the usual way; they
must be passed through the window, or, if they come in at the door, they
must be thrown, not carried, into the house. Sleeping on them that night
you will dream of your future wife or future husband.(146) The Bohemian
maid, who gathers nine kinds of flowers on which to dream of love at
Midsummer Eve, takes care to wrap her hand in a white cloth, and
afterwards to wash it in dew; and when she brings her garland home she
must speak no word to any soul she meets by the way, for then all the
magic virtue of the flowers would be gone.(147) Other Bohemian girls look
into the book of fate at this season after a different fashion. They twine
their hair with wreaths made of nine sorts of leaves, and go, when the
stars of the summer night are twinkling in the sky, to a brook that flows
beside a tree. There, gazing on the stream, the girl beholds, beside the
broken reflections of the tree and the stars, the watery image of her
future lord.(148) So in Masuren maidens gather nosegays of wild flowers in
silence on Midsummer Eve. At the midnight hour each girl takes the nosegay
and a glass of water, and when she has spoken certain words she sees her
lover mirrored in the water.(149)
(M42) Sometimes Bohemian damsels make a different use of their midsummer
garlands twined of nine sorts of flowers. They lie down with the garland
laid as a pillow under their right ear, and a hollow voice, swooning from
underground, proclaims their destiny.(150) Yet another mode of consulting
the oracle by means of these same garlands is to throw them backwards and
in silence upon a tree at the hour of noon, just when the flowers have
been gathered. For every time that the wreath is thrown without sticking
to the branches of the tree the girl will have a year to wait before she
weds. This mode of divination is practised in Voigtland,(151) East
Prussia,(152) Silesia,(153) Belgium,(154) and Wales,(155) and the same
thing is done in Masuren, although we are not told that there the wreaths
must be composed of nine sorts of flowers.(156) However, in Masuren
chaplets of nine kinds of herbs are gathered on St. John’s Eve and put to
a more prosaic use than that of presaging the course of true love. They
are carefully preserved, and the people brew a sort of tea from them,
which they administer as a remedy for many ailments; or they keep the
chaplets under their pillows till they are dry, and thereupon dose their
sick cattle with them.(157) In Esthonia the virtues popularly ascribed to
wreaths of this sort are many and various. These wreaths, composed of nine
kinds of herbs culled on the Eve or the Day of St. John, are sometimes
inserted in the roof or hung up on the walls of the house, and each of
them receives the name of one of the inmates. If the plants which have
been thus dedicated to a girl happen to take root and grow in the chinks
and crannies, she will soon wed; if they have been dedicated to an older
person and wither away, that person will die. The people also give them as
medicine to cattle at the time when the animals are driven forth to
pasture; or they fumigate the beasts with the smoke of the herbs, which
are burnt along with shavings from the wooden threshold. Bunches of the
plants are also hung about the house to keep off evil spirits, and maidens
lay them under their pillows to dream on.(158) In Sweden the “Midsummer
Brooms,” made up of nine sorts of flowers gathered on Midsummer Eve, are
put to nearly the same uses. Fathers of families hang up such “brooms” to
the rafters, one for each inmate of the house; and he or she whose broom
(_quast_) is the first to wither will be the first to die. Girls also
dream of their future husbands with these bunches of flowers under their
pillows. A decoction made from the flowers is, moreover, a panacea for all
disorders, and if a bunch of them be hung up in the cattle shed, the Troll
cannot enter to bewitch the beasts.(159) The Germans of Moravia think that
nine kinds of herbs gathered on St. John’s Night (Midsummer Eve) are a
remedy for fever;(160) and some of the Wends attribute a curative virtue
in general to such plants.(161)
(M43) Of the flowers which it has been customary to gather for purposes of
magic or divination at midsummer none perhaps is so widely popular as St.
John’s wort (_Hypericum perforatum_). The reason for associating this
particular plant with the great summer festival is perhaps not far to
seek, for the flower blooms about Midsummer Day, and with its bright
yellow petals and masses of golden stamens it might well pass for a tiny
copy on earth of the great sun which reaches its culminating point in
heaven at this season. Gathered on Midsummer Eve, or on Midsummer Day
before sunrise, the blossoms are hung on doorways and windows to preserve
the house against thunder, witches, and evil spirits; and various healing
properties are attributed to the different species of the plant. In the
Tyrol they say that if you put St. John’s wort in your shoe before sunrise
on Midsummer Day you may walk as far as you please without growing weary.
In Scotland people carried it about their persons as an amulet against
witchcraft. On the lower Rhine children twine chaplets of St. John’s wort
on the morning of Midsummer Day, and throw them on the roofs of the
houses. Here, too, the people who danced round the midsummer bonfires used
to wear wreaths of these yellow flowers in their hair, and to deck the
images of the saints at wayside shrines with the blossoms. Sometimes they
flung the flowers into the bonfires. In Sicily they dip St. John’s wort in
oil, and so apply it as a balm for every wound. During the Middle Ages the
power which the plant notoriously possesses of banning devils won for it
the name of _fuga daemonum_; and before witches and wizards were stretched
on the rack or otherwise tortured, the flower used to be administered to
them as a means of wringing the truth from their lips.(162) In North Wales
people used to fix sprigs of St. John’s wort over their doors, and
sometimes over their windows, “in order to purify their houses, and by
that means drive away all fiends and evil spirits.”(163) In Saintonge and
Aunis the flowers served to detect the presence of sorcerers, for if one
of these pestilent fellows entered a house, the bunches of St. John’s
wort, which had been gathered on Midsummer Eve and hung on the walls,
immediately dropped their yellow heads as if they had suddenly faded.(164)
However, the Germans of Western Bohemia think that witches, far from
dreading St. John’s wort, actually seek the plant on St. John’s Eve.(165)
Further, the edges of the calyx and petals of St. John’s wort, as well as
their external surface, are marked with dark purple spots and lines,
which, if squeezed, yield a red essential oil soluble in spirits.(166)
German peasants believe that this red oil is the blood of St. John,(167)
and this may be why the plant is supposed to heal all sorts of
wounds.(168) In Mecklenburg they say that if you pull up St. John’s wort
at noon on Midsummer Day you will find at the root a bead of red juice
called St. John’s blood; smear this blood on your shirt just over your
heart, and no mad dog will bite you.(169) In the Mark of Brandenburg the
same blood, procured in the same manner and rubbed on the barrel of a gun,
will make every shot from that gun to hit the mark.(170) According to
others, St. John’s blood is found at noon on St. John’s Day, and only
then, adhering in the form of beads to the root of a weed called knawel,
which grows in sandy soil. But some people say that these beads of red
juice are not really the blood of the martyred saint, but only insects
resembling the cochineal or kermes-berry.(171) “About Hanover I have often
observed devout Roman Catholics going on the morning of St. John’s day to
neighbouring sandhills, gathering on the roots of herbs a certain insect
(_Coccus Polonica_) looking like drops of blood, and thought by them to be
created on purpose to keep alive the remembrance of the foul murder of St.
John the Baptist, and only to be met with on the morning of the day set
apart for him by the Church. I believe the life of this insect is very
ephemeral, but by no means restricted to the twenty-fourth of June.”(172)
(M44) Yet another plant whose root has been thought to yield the blood of
St. John is the mouse-ear hawkweed (_Hieracium pilosella_), which grows
very commonly in dry exposed places, such as gravelly banks, sunny lawns,
and the tops of park walls. “It blossoms from May to the end of July,
presenting its elegant sulphur-coloured flowers to the noontide sun, while
the surrounding herbage, and even its own foliage, is withered and burnt
up”;(173) and these round yellow flowers may be likened not inaptly to the
disc of the great luminary whose light they love. At Hildesheim, in
Germany, people used to dig up hawkweed, especially on the Gallows’ Hill,
when the clocks were striking noon on Midsummer Day; and the blood of St.
John, which they found at the roots, was carefully preserved in quills for
good luck. A little of it smeared secretly on the clothes was sure to make
the wearer fortunate in the market that day.(174) According to some the
plant ought to be dug up with a gold coin.(175) Near Gablonz, in Bohemia,
it used to be customary to make a bed of St. John’s flowers, as they were
called, on St. John’s Eve, and in the night the saint himself came and
laid his head on the bed; next morning you could see the print of his head
on the flowers, which derived a healing virtue from his blessed touch, and
were mixed with the fodder of sick cattle to make them whole.(176) But
whether these St. John’s flowers were the mouse-ear hawkweed or not is
doubtful.(177)
(M45) More commonly in Germany the name of St. John’s flowers
(_Johannisblumen_) appears to be given to the mountain arnica. In
Voigtland the mountain arnica if plucked on St. John’s Eve and stuck in
the fields, laid under the roof, or hung on the wall, is believed to
protect house and fields from lightning and hail.(178) So in some parts of
Bavaria they think that no thunderstorm can harm a house which has a
blossom of mountain arnica in the window or the roof, and in the Tyrol the
same flower fastened to the door will render the dwelling fire-proof. But
it is needless to remark that the flower, which takes its popular name
from St. John, will be no protection against either fire or thunder unless
it has been culled on the saint’s own day.(179)
(M46) Another plant which possesses wondrous virtues, if only it be
gathered on the Eve or the Day of St. John, is mugwort (_Artemisia
vulgaris_). Hence in France it goes by the name of the herb of St.
John.(180) Near Péronne, in the French department of Somme, people used to
go out fasting before sunrise on St. John’s Day to cull the plant; put
among the wheat in the barn it protected the corn against mice. In Artois
people carried bunches of mugwort, or wore it round their body;(181) in
Poitou they still wear girdles of mugwort or hemp when they warm their
backs at the midsummer fire as a preservative against backache at
harvest;(182) and the custom of wearing girdles of mugwort on the Eve or
Day of St. John has caused the plant to be popularly known in Germany and
Bohemia as St. John’s girdle. In Bohemia such girdles are believed to
protect the wearer for the whole year against ghosts, magic, misfortune,
and sickness. People also weave garlands of the plant and look through
them at the midsummer bonfire or put them on their heads; and by doing so
they ensure that their heads will not ache nor their eyes smart all that
year. Another Bohemian practice is to make a decoction of mugwort which
has been gathered on St. John’s Day; then, when your cow is bewitched and
will yield no milk, you have only to wash the animal thrice with the
decoction and the spell will be broken.(183) In Germany, people used to
crown their heads or gird their bodies with mugwort, which they afterwards
threw into the midsummer bonfire, pronouncing certain rhymes and believing
that they thus rid themselves of all their ill-luck.(184) Sometimes
wreaths or girdles of mugwort were kept in houses, cattle-sheds, and
sheep-folds throughout the year.(185) In Normandy such wreaths are a
protection against thunder and thieves;(186) and stalks of mugwort hinder
witches from laying their spells on the butter.(187) In the Isle of Man on
Midsummer Eve people gathered _barran fealoin_ or mugwort “as a preventive
against the influence of witchcraft”;(188) in Belgium bunches of mugwort
gathered on St. John’s Day or Eve and hung on the doors of stables and
houses are believed to bring good luck and to furnish a protection against
sorcery.(189) It is curious to find that in China a similar use is, or was
formerly, made of mugwort at the same season of the year. In an old
Chinese calendar we read that “on the fifth day of the fifth month the
four classes of the people gambol in the herbage, and have competitive
games with plants of all kinds. They pluck mugwort and make dolls of it,
which they suspend over their gates and doors, in order to expel poisonous
airs or influences.”(190) On this custom Professor J. J. M. de Groot
observes: “Notice that the plant owed its efficacy to the time when it was
plucked: a day denoting the midsummer festival, when light and fire of the
universe are in their apogee.”(191) On account of this valuable property
mugwort is used by Chinese surgeons in cautery.(192) The Ainos of Japan
employ bunches of mugwort in exorcisms, “because it is thought that demons
of disease dislike the smell and flavour of this herb.”(193) It is an old
German belief that he who carries mugwort in his shoes will not grow
weary.(194) In Mecklenburg, they say that if you will dig up a plant of
mugwort at noon on Midsummer Day, you will find under the root a burning
coal, which vanishes away as soon as the church bells have ceased to ring.
If you find the coal and carry it off in silence, it will prove a remedy
for all sorts of maladies.(195) According to another German superstition,
such a coal will turn to gold.(196) English writers record the popular
belief that a rare coal is to be found under the root of mugwort at a
single hour of a single day in the year, namely, at noon or midnight on
Midsummer Eve, and that this coal will protect him who carries it on his
person from plague, carbuncle, lightning, fever, and ague.(197) In Eastern
Prussia, on St. John’s Eve, people can foretell a marriage by means of
mugwort; they bend two stalks of the growing plant outward, and then
observe whether the stalks, after straightening themselves again, incline
towards each other or not.(198)
(M47) A similar mode of divination has been practised both in England and
in Germany with the orpine (_Sedum telephium_), a plant which grows on a
gravelly or chalky soil about hedges, the borders of fields, and on bushy
hills. It flowers in August, and the blossoms consist of dense clustered
tufts of crimson or purple petals; sometimes, but rarely, the flowers are
white.(199) In England the plant is popularly known as Midsummer Men,
because people used to plant slips of them in pairs on Midsummer Eve, one
slip standing for a young man and the other for a young woman. If the
plants, as they grew up, bent towards each other, the couple would marry;
if either of them withered, he or she whom it represented would die.(200)
In Masuren, Westphalia, and Switzerland the method of forecasting the
future by means of the orpine is precisely the same.(201)
(M48) Another plant which popular superstition has often associated with
the summer solstice is vervain.(202) In some parts of Spain people gather
vervain after sunset on Midsummer Eve, and wash their faces next morning
in the water in which the plants have been allowed to steep
overnight.(203) In Belgium vervain is gathered on St. John’s Day and worn
as a safeguard against rupture.(204) In Normandy the peasants cull vervain
on the Day or the Eve of St. John, believing that, besides its medical
properties, it possesses at this season the power of protecting the house
from thunder and lightning, from sorcerers, demons, and thieves.(205)
Bohemian poachers wash their guns with a decoction of vervain and
southernwood, which they have gathered naked before sunrise on Midsummer
Day; guns which have been thus treated never miss the mark.(206) In our
own country vervain used to be sought for its magical virtues on Midsummer
Eve.(207) In the Tyrol they think that he who finds a four-leaved clover
while the vesper-bell is ringing on Midsummer Eve can work magic from that
time forth.(208) People in Berry say that the four-leaved clover is
endowed with all its marvellous virtues only when it has been plucked by a
virgin on the night of Midsummer Eve.(209) In Saintonge and Aunis the
four-leaved clover, if it be found on the Eve of St. John, brings good
luck at play;(210) in Belgium it brings a girl a husband.(211)
(M49) At Kirchvers, in Hesse, people run out to the fields at noon on
Midsummer Day to gather camomile; for the flowers, plucked at the moment
when the sun is at the highest point of his course, are supposed to
possess the medicinal qualities of the plant in the highest degree. In
heathen times the camomile flower, with its healing qualities, its yellow
calix and white stamens, is said to have been sacred to the kindly and
shining Balder and to have borne his name, being called _Balders-brâ_,
that is, Balder’s eyelashes.(212) In Westphalia, also, the belief prevails
that camomile is most potent as a drug when it has been gathered on
Midsummer Day;(213) in Masuren the plant must always be one of the nine
different kinds of plants that are culled on Midsummer Eve to form
wreaths, and tea brewed from the flower is a remedy for many sorts of
maladies.(214)
(M50) Thuringian peasants hold that if the root of the yellow mullein
(_Verbascum_) has been dug up in silence with a ducat at midnight on
Midsummer Eve, and is worn in a piece of linen next to the skin, it will
preserve the wearer from epilepsy.(215) In Prussia girls go out into the
fields on Midsummer Day, gather mullein, and hang it up over their beds.
The girl whose flower is the first to wither will be the first to
die.(216) Perhaps the bright yellow flowers of mullein, clustering round
the stem like lighted candles, may partly account for the association of
the plant with the summer solstice. In Germany great mullein (_Verbascum
thapsus_) is called the King’s Candle; in England it is popularly known as
High Taper. The yellow, hoary mullein (_Verbascum pulverulentum_) “forms a
golden pyramid a yard high, of many hundreds of flowers, and is one of the
most magnificent of British herbaceous plants.”(217) We may trace a
relation between mullein and the sun in the Prussian custom of bending the
flower, after sunset, towards the point where the sun will rise, and
praying at the same time that a sick person or a sick beast may be
restored to health.(218)
(M51) In Bohemia poachers fancy that they can render themselves
invulnerable by swallowing the seed from a fir-cone which they have found
growing upwards before sunrise on the morning of St. John’s Day.(219)
Again, wild thyme gathered on Midsummer Day is used in Bohemia to fumigate
the trees on Christmas Eve in order that they may grow well;(220) in
Voigtland a tea brewed from wild thyme which has been pulled at noon on
Midsummer Day is given to women in childbed.(221) The Germans of Western
Bohemia brew a tea or wine from elder-flowers, but they say that the brew
has no medicinal virtue unless the flowers have been gathered on Midsummer
Eve. They do say, too, that whenever you see an elder-tree, you should
take off your hat.(222) In the Tyrol dwarf-elder serves to detect
witchcraft in cattle, provided of course that the shrub has been pulled up
or the branches broken on Midsummer Day.(223) Russian peasants regard the
plant known as purple loosestrife (_Lythrum salicaria_) with respect and
even fear. Wizards make much use of it. They dig the root up on St. John’s
morning, at break of day, without the use of iron tools; and they believe
that by means of the root, as well as of the blossom, they can subdue evil
spirits and make them serviceable, and also drive away witches and the
demons that guard treasures.(224)
(M52) More famous, however, than these are the marvellous properties which
popular superstition in many parts of Europe has attributed to the fern at
this season. At midnight on Midsummer Eve the plant is supposed to bloom
and soon afterwards to seed; and whoever catches the bloom or the seed is
thereby endowed with supernatural knowledge and miraculous powers; above
all, he knows where treasures lie hidden in the ground, and he can render
himself invisible at will by putting the seed in his shoe. But great
precautions must be observed in procuring the wondrous bloom or seed,
which else quickly vanishes like dew on sand or mist in the air. The
seeker must neither touch it with his hand nor let it touch the ground; he
spreads a white cloth under the plant, and the blossom or the seed falls
into it. Beliefs of this sort concerning fern-seed have prevailed, with
trifling variations of detail, in England, France, Germany, Austria,
Italy, and Russia.(225) In Bohemia the magic bloom is said to be golden,
and to glow or sparkle like fire.(226) In Russia, they say that at dead of
night on Midsummer Eve the plant puts forth buds like glowing coals, which
on the stroke of twelve burst open with a clap like thunder and light up
everything near and far.(227) In the Azores they say that the fern only
blooms at midnight on St. John’s Eve, and that no one ever sees the flower
because the fairies instantly carry it off. But if any one, watching till
it opens, throws a cloth over it, and then, when the magic hour has
passed, burns the blossoms carefully, the ashes will serve as a mirror in
which you can read the fate of absent friends; if your friends are well
and happy, the ashes will resume the shape of a lovely flower; but if they
are unhappy or dead, the ashes will remain cold and lifeless.(228) In
Thuringia people think that he who has on his person or in his house the
male fern (_Aspidium filix mas_) cannot be bewitched. They call it St.
John’s root (_Johanniswurzel_), and say that it blooms thrice in the year,
on Christmas Eve, Easter Eve, and the day of St. John the Baptist; it
should be dug up when the sun enters the sign of the lion. Armed with this
powerful implement you can detect a sorcerer at any gathering, it may be a
wedding feast or what not. All you have to do is to put the root under the
tablecloth unseen by the rest of the company, and, if there should be a
sorcerer among them, he will turn as pale as death and get up and go away.
Fear and horror come over him when the fern-root is under the tablecloth.
And when oxen, horses, or other domestic cattle are bewitched by wicked
people, you need only take the root at full moon, soak it in water, and
sprinkle the cattle with the water, or rub them down with a cloth that has
been steeped in it, and witchcraft will have no more power over the
animals.(229)
(M53) Once more, people have fancied that if they cut a branch of hazel on
Midsummer Eve it would serve them as a divining rod to discover treasures
and water. This belief has existed in Moravia, Mecklenburg, and apparently
in Scotland.(230) In the Mark of Brandenburg, they say that if you would
procure the mystic wand you must go to the hazel by night on Midsummer
Eve, walking backwards, and when you have come to the bush you must
silently put your hands between your legs and cut a fork-shaped stick;
that stick will be the divining-rod, and, as such, will detect treasures
buried in the ground. If you have any doubt as to the quality of the wand,
you have only to hold it in water; for in that case your true divining-rod
will squeak like a pig, but your spurious one will not.(231) In Bavaria
they say that the divining-rod should be cut from a hazel bush between
eleven and twelve on St. John’s Night, and that by means of it you can
discover not only veins of metal and underground springs, but also thieves
and murderers and unknown ways. In cutting it you should say, “God greet
thee, thou noble twig! With God the Father I seek thee, with God the Son I
find thee, with the might of God the Holy Ghost I break thee. I adjure
thee, rod and sprig, by the power of the Highest that thou shew me what I
order, and that as sure and clear as Mary the Mother of God was a pure
virgin when she bare our Lord Jesus, in the name of God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, Amen!”(232) In Berlin and the
neighbourhood they say that every seventh year there grows a wonderful
branch on a hazel bush, and that branch is the divining-rod. Only an
innocent child, born on a Sunday and nursed in the true faith, can find it
on St. John’s Night; to him then all the treasures of the earth lie
open.(233) In the Tyrol the divining-rod ought to be cut at new moon, but
may be cut either on St. John’s Day or on Twelfth Night. Having got it you
baptize it in the name of one of the Three Holy Kings according to the
purpose for which you intend to use it: if the rod is to discover gold,
you name it Caspar; if it is to reveal silver, you call it Balthasar; and
if it is to point out hidden springs of water, you dub it Melchior.(234)
In Lechrain the divining-rod is a yearling shoot of hazel with two
branches; a good time for cutting it is new moon, and if the sun is
rising, so much the better. As for the day of the year, you may take your
choice between St. John’s Day, Twelfth Night, and Shrove Tuesday. If cut
with the proper form of words, the rod will as usual discover underground
springs and hidden treasures.(235)
(M54) Midsummer Eve is also the favourite time for procuring the
divining-rod in Sweden. Some say that it should then be cut from a
mistletoe bough.(236) However, other people in Sweden are of opinion that
the divining-rod (_Slag ruta_) which is obtained on Midsummer Eve ought to
be compounded out of four different kinds of wood, to wit, mistletoe,
mountain-ash, the aspen, and another; and they say that the mountain-ash
which is employed for this purpose should, like the mistletoe, be a
parasite growing from the hollow root of a fallen tree, whither the seed
was carried by a bird or wafted by the wind. Armed with this fourfold
implement of power the treasure-seeker proceeds at sundown to the spot
where he expects to find hidden wealth; there he lays the rod on the
ground in perfect silence, and when it lies directly over treasure, it
will begin to hop about as if it were alive.(237)
(M55) A mystical plant which to some extent serves the same purpose as the
divining-rod is the springwort, which is sometimes supposed to be
caper-spurge (_Euphorbia lathyris_). In the Harz Mountains they say that
many years ago there was a wondrous flower called springwort or Johnswort,
which was as rare as it was marvellous. It bloomed only on St. John’s
Night (some say under a fern) between the hours of eleven and twelve; but
when the last stroke of twelve was struck, the flower vanished away. Only
in mountainous regions, where many noble metals reposed in the bosom of
the earth, was the flower seen now and then in lonely meadows among the
hills. The spirits of the hills wished by means of it to shew to men where
their treasures were to be found. The flower itself was yellow and shone
like a lamp in the darkness of night. It never stood still, but kept
hopping constantly to and fro. It was also afraid of men and fled before
them, and no man ever yet plucked it unless he had been set apart by
Providence for the task. To him who was lucky enough to cull it the flower
revealed all the treasures of the earth, and it made him rich, oh so rich
and so happy!(238)
(M56) However, the usual account given of the springwort is somewhat
different. They say that the way to procure it is this. You mark a hollow
in a tree where a green or black woodpecker has built its nest and hatched
its young; you plug up the hole with a wooden wedge; then you hide behind
the tree and wait. The woodpecker meantime has flown away but very soon
returns with the springwort in its bill. It flutters up to the tree-trunk
holding the springwort to the wedge, which at once, as if struck by a
hammer, jumps out with a bang. Now is your chance. You rush from your
concealment, you raise a loud cry, and in its fright the bird opens its
bill and drops the springwort. Quick as thought you reach out a red or
white cloth, with which you have taken care to provide yourself, and catch
the magic flower as it falls. The treasure is now yours. Before its
marvellous power all doors and locks fly open; it can make the bearer of
it invisible; and neither steel nor lead can wound the man who carries it
in the right-hand pocket of his coat. That is why people in Swabia say of
a thief who cannot be caught, “He must surely have a springwort.”(239) The
superstition which associates the springwort with the woodpecker is very
ancient, for it is recorded by Pliny. It was a vulgar belief, he tells us,
that if a shepherd plugged up a woodpecker’s nest in the hollow of a tree
with a wedge, the bird would bring a herb which caused the wedge to slip
out of the hole; Trebius indeed affirmed that the wedge leaped out with a
bang, however hard and fast you might have driven it into the tree.(240)
Another flower which possesses the same remarkable power of bursting open
all doors and locks is chicory, provided always that you cut the flower
with a piece of gold at noon or midnight on St. James’s Day, the
twenty-fifth of July. But in cutting it you must be perfectly silent; if
you utter a sound, it is all up with you. There was a man who was just
about to cut the flower of the chicory, when he looked up and saw a
millstone hovering over his head. He fled for his life and fortunately
escaped; but had he so much as opened his lips, the millstone would have
dropped on him and crushed him as flat as a pancake. However, it is only a
rare white variety of the chicory flower which can act as a picklock; the
common bright blue flower is perfectly useless for the purpose.(241)
(M57) Many more examples might perhaps be cited of the marvellous virtues
which certain plants have been supposed to acquire at the summer solstice,
but the foregoing instances may suffice to prove that the superstition is
widely spread, deeply rooted, and therefore probably very ancient in
Europe. Why should plants be thought to be endowed with these wonderful
properties on the longest day more than on any other day of the year? It
seems difficult or impossible to explain such a belief except on the
supposition that in some mystic way the plants catch from the sun, then at
the full height of his power and glory, some fleeting effluence of radiant
light and heat, which invests them for a time with powers above the
ordinary for the healing of diseases and the unmasking and baffling of all
the evil things that threaten the life of man. That the supposition is not
purely hypothetical will appear from a folk-tale, to be noticed later on,
in which the magic bloom of the fern is directly derived from the sun at
noon on Midsummer Day. And if the magic flowers of Midsummer Eve thus
stand in direct relation to the sun, which many of them resemble in shape
and colour, blooming in the meadows like little yellow suns fallen from
the blue sky, does it not become probable that the bonfires kindled at the
same time are the artificial, as the flowers are the natural, imitations
of the great celestial fire then blazing in all its strength? At least
analogy seems to favour the inference and so far to support Mannhardt’s
theory, that the bonfires kindled at the popular festivals of Europe,
especially at the summer solstice, are intended to reinforce the waning or
waxing fires of the sun. Thus if in our enquiry into these fire-festivals
the scales of judgment are loaded with the adverse theories of Mannhardt
and Westermarck, we may say that the weight, light as it is, of the magic
flowers of Midsummer Eve seems to incline the trembling balance back to
the side of Mannhardt.
(M58) Nor is it, perhaps, an argument against Mannhardt’s view that the
midsummer flowers and plants are so often employed as talismans to break
the spells of witchcraft.(242) For granted that employment, which is
undeniable, we have still to explain it, and that we can hardly do except
by reference to the midsummer sun. And what is here said of the midsummer
flowers applies equally to the midsummer bonfires. They too are used to
destroy the charms of witches and warlocks; but if they can do so, may it
not be in part because fires at midsummer are thought to burn with fiercer
fury than at other times by sympathy with the fiercer fervour of the sun?
This consideration would bring us back to an intermediate position between
the opposing theories, namely, to the view that while the purely
destructive aspect of fire is generally the most prominent and apparently
the most important at these festivals, we must not overlook the additional
force which by virtue of homoeopathic or imitative magic the bonfires may
be supposed both to derive from and to impart to the sun, especially at
the moment of the summer solstice when his strength is greatest and begins
to decline, and when accordingly he can at once give and receive help to
the greatest advantage.
(M59) To conclude this part of our subject it may not be amiss to
illustrate by a few more miscellaneous examples the belief that Midsummer
Eve is one of the great days of the year in which witches and warlocks
pursue their nefarious calling; indeed in this respect Midsummer Eve
perhaps stands second only to the famous Walpurgis Night (the Eve of May
Day). For instance, in the neighbourhood of Lierre, in Belgium, the people
think that on the night of Midsummer Eve all witches and warlocks must
repair to a certain field which is indicated to them beforehand. There
they hold their infernal Sabbath and are passed in review by a hellish
magician, who bestows on them fresh powers. That is why old women are most
careful, before going to bed on that night, to stop up doors and windows
and every other opening in order to bar out the witches and warlocks, who
but for this sage precaution might steal into the house and make the first
trial of their new powers on the unfortunate inmates.(243) At Rottenburg,
in Swabia, people thought that the devil and the witches could do much
harm on Midsummer Eve; so they made fast their shutters and bunged up even
the chinks and crannies, for wherever air can penetrate, there the devil
and witches can worm their way in. All night long, too, from nine in the
evening till break of day, the church bells rang to disturb the dreadful
beings at their evil work, since there is perhaps no better means of
putting the whole devilish crew to flight than the sound of church
bells.(244) Down to the second half of the nineteenth century the belief
in witches was still widespread in Voigtland, a bleak mountainous region
of Central Germany. It was especially on the Eve of May Day (Walpurgis),
St. Thomas’s Day, St. John’s Day, and Christmas Eve, as well as on
Mondays, that they were dreaded. Then they would come into a neighbour’s
house to beg, borrow, or steal something, no matter what; but woe to the
poor wretch who suffered them to carry away so much as a chip or splinter
of wood; for they would certainly use it to his undoing. On these witching
nights the witches rode to their Sabbath on baking-forks and the dashers
of churns; but if when they were hurtling through the darkness any one
standing below addressed one of the witches by name, she would die within
the year. To counteract and undo the spells which witches cast on man and
beast, people resorted to all kinds of measures. Thus on the
before-mentioned days folk made three crosses on the doors of the byres or
guarded them by hanging up St. John’s wort, marjoram, or other equally
powerful talismans. Very often, too, the village youth would carry the war
into the enemy’s quarters by marching out in a body, cracking whips,
firing guns, waving burning besoms, shouting and making an uproar, all for
the purpose of frightening and driving away the witches.(245) In Prussia
witches and warlocks used regularly to assemble twice a year on Walpurgis
Night and the Eve of St. John. The places where they held their infernal
Sabbath were various; for example, one was Pogdanzig, in the district of
Schlochau. They generally rode on a baking-fork, but often on a black
three-legged horse, and they took their departure up the chimney with the
words, “Up and away and nowhere to stop!” When they were all gathered on
the Blocksberg or Mount of the Witches, they held high revelry, feasting
first and then dancing on a tight rope lefthanded-wise to the inspiring
strains which an old warlock drew from a drum and a pig’s head.(246) The
South Slavs believe that on the night of Midsummer Eve a witch will slink
up to the fence of the farmyard and say, “The cheese to me, the lard to
me, the butter to me, the milk to me, but the cowhide to thee!” After that
the cow will perish miserably and you will be obliged to bury the flesh
and sell the hide. To prevent this disaster the thing to do is to go out
into the meadows very early on Midsummer morning while the dew is on the
grass, collect a quantity of dew in a waterproof mantle, carry it home,
and having tethered your cow wash her down with the dew. After that you
have only to place a milkpail under her udders and to milk away as hard as
you can; the amount of milk that you will extract from that cow’s dugs is
quite surprising. Again, the Slovenians about Görz and the Croats of
Istria believe that on the same night the witches wage pitched battles
with baptized folk, attacking them fiercely with broken stakes of palings
and stumps of trees. It is therefore a wise precaution to grub up all the
stumps in autumn and carry them home, so that the witches may be
weaponless on St. John’s Night. If the stumps are too heavy to be grubbed
up, it is well to ram them down tighter into the earth, for then the
witches will not be able to pull them up.(247)