CHAPTER IV. THE FIRE-FESTIVALS OF EUROPE.

§ 1. The Lenten Fires.

(M88) All over Europe the peasants have been accustomed from time

immemorial to kindle bonfires on certain days of the year, and to dance

round or leap over them. Customs of this kind can be traced back on

historical evidence to the Middle Ages,(262) and their analogy to similar

customs observed in antiquity goes with strong internal evidence to prove

that their origin must be sought in a period long prior to the spread of

Christianity. Indeed the earliest proof of their observance in Northern

Europe is furnished by the attempts made by Christian synods in the eighth

century to put them down as heathenish rites.(263) Not uncommonly effigies

are burned in these fires, or a pretence is made of burning a living

person in them; and there are grounds for believing that anciently human

beings were actually burned on these occasions. A general survey of the

customs in question will bring out the traces of human sacrifice, and will

serve at the same time to throw light on their meaning.(264)

(M89) The seasons of the year when these bonfires are most commonly lit

are spring and midsummer; but in some places they are kindled also at the

end of autumn or during the course of the winter, particularly on Hallow

E’en (the thirty-first of October), Christmas Day, and the Eve of Twelfth

Day. We shall consider them in the order in which they occur in the

calendar year. The earliest of them is the winter festival of the Eve of

Twelfth Day (the fifth of January); but as it has been already described

in an earlier part of this work(265) we shall pass it over here and begin

with the fire-festivals of spring, which usually fall on the first Sunday

of Lent (_Quadragesima_ or _Invocavit_),(266) Easter Eve, and May Day.

(M90) The custom of kindling bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent has

prevailed in Belgium, the north of France, and many parts of Germany. Thus

in the Belgian Ardennes for a week or a fortnight before the “day of the

great fire,” as it is called, children go about from farm to farm

collecting fuel. At Grand Halleux any one who refuses their request is

pursued next day by the children, who try to blacken his face with the

ashes of the extinct fire. When the day has come, they cut down bushes,

especially juniper and broom, and in the evening great bonfires blaze on

all the heights. It is a common saying that seven bonfires should be seen

if the village is to be safe from conflagrations. If the Meuse happens to

be frozen hard at the time, bonfires are lit also on the ice. At Grand

Halleux they set up a pole called _makral_, or “the witch,” in the midst

of the pile, and the fire is kindled by the man who was last married in

the village. In the neighbourhood of Morlanwelz a straw man is burnt in

the fire. Young people and children dance and sing round the bonfires, and

leap over the embers to secure good crops or a happy marriage within the

year, or as a means of guarding themselves against colic. In Brabant on

the same Sunday, down to the beginning of the nineteenth century, women

and men disguised in female attire used to go with burning torches to the

fields, where they danced and sang comic songs for the purpose, as they

alleged, of driving away “the wicked sower,” who is mentioned in the

Gospel for the day. At Maeseyck and in many villages of Limburg, on the

evening of the day children run through the streets carrying lighted

torches; then they kindle little fires of straw in the fields and dance

round them. At Ensival old folks tell young folks that they will have as

many Easter eggs as they see bonfires on this day.(267) At Pâturages, in

the province of Hainaut, down to about 1840 the custom was observed under

the name of _Escouvion_ or _Scouvion_. Every year on the first Sunday of

Lent, which was called the Day of the Little Scouvion, young folks and

children used to run with lighted torches through the gardens and

orchards. As they ran they cried at the pitch of their voices,

“_Bear apples, bear pears_

_And cherries all black_

_To Scouvion!_”

At these words the torch-bearer whirled his blazing brand and hurled it

among the branches of the apple-trees, the pear-trees, and the

cherry-trees. The next Sunday was called the Day of the Great Scouvion,

and the same race with lighted torches among the trees of the orchards was

repeated in the afternoon till darkness fell. The same custom was observed

on the same two days at Wasmes.(268) In the neighbourhood of Liège, where

the Lenten fires were put down by the police about the middle of the

nineteenth century, girls thought that by leaping over the fires without

being smirched they made sure of a happy marriage. Elsewhere in order to

get a good husband it was necessary to see seven of the bonfires from one

spot. In Famenne, a district of Namur, men and cattle who traversed the

Lenten fires were thought to be safe from sickness and witchcraft. Anybody

who saw seven such fires at once had nothing to fear from sorcerers. An

old saying ran, that if you do not light “the great fire,” God will light

it for you; which seems to imply that the kindling of the bonfires was

deemed a protection against conflagrations throughout the year.(269)

(M91) In the French department of the Ardennes the whole village used to

dance and sing round the bonfires which were lighted on the first Sunday

in Lent. Here, too, it was the person last married, sometimes a man and

sometimes a woman, who put the match to the fire. The custom is still kept

up very commonly in the district. Cats used to be burnt in the fire or

roasted to death by being held over it; and while they were burning the

shepherds drove their flocks through the smoke and flames as a sure means

of guarding them against sickness and witchcraft. In some communes it was

believed that the livelier the dance round the fire, the better would be

the crops that year.(270) In the Vosges Mountains it is still customary to

light great fires on the heights and around the villages on the first

Sunday in Lent; and at Rupt and elsewhere the right of kindling them

belongs to the person who was last married. Round the fires the people

dance and sing merrily till the flames have died out. Then the master of

the fire, as they call the man who kindled it, invites all who contributed

to the erection of the pile to follow him to the nearest tavern, where

they partake of good cheer. At Dommartin they say that, if you would have

the hemp tall, it is absolutely necessary that the women should be tipsy

on the evening of this day.(271) At Épinal in the Vosges, on the first

Sunday in Lent, bonfires used to be kindled at various places both in the

town and on the banks of the Moselle. They consisted of pyramids of sticks

and faggots, which had been collected some days earlier by young folks

going from door to door. When the flames blazed up, the names of various

couples, whether young or old, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, were called

out, and the persons thus linked in mock marriage were forced, whether

they liked it or not, to march arm in arm round the fire amid the laughter

and jests of the crowd. The festivity lasted till the fire died out, and

then the spectators dispersed through the streets, stopping under the

windows of the houses and proclaiming the names of the _féchenots_ and

_féchenottes_ or Valentines whom the popular voice had assigned to each

other. These couples had to exchange presents; the mock bridegroom gave

his mock bride something for her toilet, while she in turn presented him

with a cockade of coloured ribbon. Next Sunday, if the weather allowed it,

all the couples, arrayed in their best attire and attended by their

relations, repaired to the wood of Saint Antony, where they mounted a

famous stone called the _danserosse_ or _danseresse_. Here they found

cakes and refreshments of all sorts, and danced to the music of a couple

of fiddlers. The evening bell, ringing the Angelus, gave the signal to

depart. As soon as its solemn chime was heard, every one quitted the

forest and returned home. The exchange of presents between the Valentines

went by the name of ransom or redemption (_rachat_), because it was

supposed to redeem the couple from the flames of the bonfire. Any pair who

failed thus to ransom themselves were not suffered to share the

merrymaking at the great stone in the forest; and a pretence was made of

burning them in small fires kindled before their own doors.(272)

(M92) In the French province of Franche-Comté, to the west of the Jura

Mountains, the first Sunday of Lent is known as the Sunday of the

Firebrands (_Brandons_), on account of the fires which it is customary to

kindle on that day. On the Saturday or the Sunday the village lads harness

themselves to a cart and drag it about the streets, stopping at the doors

of the houses where there are girls and begging for a faggot. When they

have got enough, they cart the fuel to a spot at some little distance from

the village, pile it up, and set it on fire. All the people of the parish

come out to see the bonfire. In some villages, when the bells have rung

the Angelus, the signal for the observance is given by cries of, “To the

fire! to the fire!” Lads, lasses, and children dance round the blaze, and

when the flames have died down they vie with each other in leaping over

the red embers. He or she who does so without singeing his or her garments

will be married within the year. Young folk also carry lighted torches

about the streets or the fields, and when they pass an orchard they cry

out, “More fruit than leaves!” Down to recent years at Laviron, in the

department of Doubs, it was the young married couples of the year who had

charge of the bonfires. In the midst of the bonfire a pole was planted

with a wooden figure of a cock fastened to the top. Then there were races,

and the winner received the cock as a prize.(273)

(M93) In Auvergne fires are everywhere kindled on the evening of the first

Sunday in Lent. Every village, every hamlet, even every ward, every

isolated farm has its bonfire or _figo_, as it is called, which blazes up

as the shades of night are falling. The fires may be seen flaring on the

heights and in the plains; the people dance and sing round about them and

leap through the flames. Then they proceed to the ceremony of the

_Grannas-mias_. A _granno-mio_(274) is a torch of straw fastened to the

top of a pole. When the pyre is half consumed, the bystanders kindle the

torches at the expiring flames and carry them into the neighbouring

orchards, fields, and gardens, wherever there are fruit-trees. As they

march they sing at the top of their voices,

“_Granno, mo mio,_

_Granno, mon pouère,_

_Granno, mo mouère!_”

that is, “Grannus my friend, Grannus my father, Grannus my mother.” Then

they pass the burning torches under the branches of every tree, singing,

“_Brando, brandounci_

_Tsaque brantso, in plan panei!_”

that is, “Firebrand burn; every branch a basketful!” In some villages the

people also run across the sown fields and shake the ashes of the torches

on the ground; also they put some of the ashes in the fowls’ nests, in

order that the hens may lay plenty of eggs throughout the year. When all

these ceremonies have been performed, everybody goes home and feasts; the

special dishes of the evening are fritters and pancakes.(275) Here the

application of the fire to the fruit-trees, to the sown fields, and to the

nests of the poultry is clearly a charm intended to ensure fertility; and

the Granno to whom the invocations are addressed, and who gives his name

to the torches, may possibly be, as Dr. Pommerol suggests,(276) no other

than the ancient Celtic god Grannus, whom the Romans identified with

Apollo, and whose worship is attested by inscriptions found not only in

France but in Scotland and on the Danube.(277) If the name Grannus is

derived, as the learned tell us, from a root meaning “to glow, burn,

shine,”(278) the deity who bore the name and was identified with Apollo

may well have been a sun-god; and in that case the prayers addressed to

him by the peasants of the Auvergne, while they wave the blazing,

crackling torches about the fruit-trees, would be eminently appropriate.

For who could ripen the fruit so well as the sun-god? and what better

process could be devised to draw the blossoms from the bare boughs than

the application to them of that genial warmth which is ultimately derived

from the solar beams? Thus the fire-festival of the first Sunday in Lent,

as it is observed in Auvergne, may be interpreted very naturally and

simply as a religious or rather perhaps magical ceremony designed to

procure a due supply of the sun’s heat for plants and animals. At the same

time we should remember that the employment of fire in this and kindred

ceremonies may have been designed originally, not so much to stimulate

growth and reproduction, as to burn and destroy all agencies, whether in

the shape of vermin, witches, or what not, which threatened or were

supposed to threaten the growth of the crops and the multiplication of

animals. It is often difficult to decide between these two different

interpretations of the use of fire in agricultural rites. In any case the

fire-festival of Auvergne on the first Sunday in Lent may date from

Druidical times.

(M94) The custom of carrying lighted torches of straw (_brandons_) about

the orchards and fields to fertilize them on the first Sunday of Lent

seems to have been common in France, whether it was accompanied with the

practice of kindling bonfires or not. Thus in the province of Picardy “on

the first Sunday of Lent people carried torches through the fields,

exorcising the field-mice, the darnel, and the smut. They imagined that

they did much good to the gardens and caused the onions to grow large.

Children ran about the fields, torch in hand, to make the land more

fertile. All that was done habitually in Picardy, and the ceremony of the

torches is not entirely forgotten, especially in the villages on both

sides the Somme as far as Saint-Valery.”(279) “A very agreeable spectacle,

said the curate of l’Étoile, is to survey from the portal of the church,

situated almost on the top of the mountain, the vast plains of Vimeux all

illuminated by these wandering fires. The same pastime is observed at

Poix, at Conty, and in all the villages round about.”(280) Again, in the

district of Beauce a festival of torches (_brandons_ or _brandelons_) used

to be held both on the first and on the second Sunday in Lent; the first

was called “the Great Torches” and the second “the Little Torches.” The

torches were, as usual, bundles of straw wrapt round poles. In the evening

the village lads carried the burning brands through the country, running

about in disorder and singing,

“_Torches burn_

_At these vines, at this wheat;_

_Torches burn_

_For the maidens that shall wed!_”

From time to time the bearers would stand still and smite the earth all

together with the blazing straw of the torches, while they cried, “A sheaf

of a peck and a half!” (_Gearbe à boissiaux_). If two torchbearers

happened to meet each other on their rounds, they performed the same

ceremony and uttered the same words. When the straw was burnt out, the

poles were collected and a great bonfire made of them. Lads and lasses

danced round the flames, and the lads leaped over them. Afterwards it was

customary to eat a special sort of hasty-pudding made of wheaten flour.

These usages were still in vogue at the beginning of the nineteenth

century, but they have now almost disappeared. The peasants believed that

by carrying lighted torches through the fields they protected the crops

from field-mice, darnel, and smut.(281) “At Dijon, in Burgundy, it is the

custom upon the first Sunday in Lent to make large fires in the streets,

whence it is called Firebrand Sunday. This practice originated in the

processions formerly made on that day by the peasants with lighted torches

of straw, to drive away, as they called it, the bad air from the

earth.”(282) In some parts of France, while the people scoured the country

with burning brands on the first Sunday in Lent, they warned the

fruit-trees that if they did not take heed and bear fruit they would

surely be cut down and cast into the fire.(283) On the same day peasants

in the department of Loiret used to run about the sowed fields with

burning torches in their hands, while they adjured the field-mice to quit

the wheat on pain of having their whiskers burned.(284) In the department

of Ain the great fires of straw and faggots which are kindled in the

fields at this time are or were supposed to destroy the nests of the

caterpillars.(285) At Verges, a lonely village surrounded by forests

between the Jura and the Combe d’Ain, the torches used at this season were

kindled in a peculiar manner. The young people climbed to the top of a

mountain, where they placed three nests of straw in three trees. These

nests being then set on fire, torches made of dry lime-wood were lighted

at them, and the merry troop descended the mountain to their flickering

light, and went to every house in the village, demanding roasted peas and

obliging all couples who had been married within the year to dance.(286)

In Berry, a district of central France, it appears that bonfires are not

lighted on this day, but when the sun has set the whole population of the

villages, armed with blazing torches of straw, disperse over the country

and scour the fields, the vineyards, and the orchards. Seen from afar, the

multitude of moving lights, twinkling in the darkness, appear like

will-o’-the-wisps chasing each other across the plains, along the

hillsides, and down the valleys. While the men wave their flambeaus about

the branches of the fruit-trees, the women and children tie bands of

wheaten-straw round the tree-trunks. The effect of the ceremony is

supposed to be to avert the various plagues from which the fruits of the

earth are apt to suffer; and the bands of straw fastened round the stems

of the trees are believed to render them fruitful.(287) In the peninsula

of La Manche the Norman peasants used to spend almost the whole night of

the first Sunday in Lent rushing about the country with lighted torches

for the purpose, as they supposed, of driving away the moles and

field-mice; fires were also kindled on some of the dolmens.(288)

(M95) In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland at the same season similar

customs have prevailed. Thus in the Eifel Mountains, Rhenish Prussia, on

the first Sunday in Lent young people used to collect straw and brushwood

from house to house. These they carried to an eminence and piled up round

a tall, slim beech-tree, to which a piece of wood was fastened at right

angles to form a cross. The structure was known as the “hut” or “castle.”

Fire was set to it and the young people marched round the blazing “castle”

bareheaded, each carrying a lighted torch and praying aloud. Sometimes a

straw-man was burned in the “hut.” People observed the direction in which

the smoke blew from the fire. If it blew towards the corn-fields, it was a

sign that the harvest would be abundant. On the same day, in some parts of

the Eifel, a great wheel was made of straw and dragged by three horses to

the top of a hill. Thither the village boys marched at nightfall, set fire

to the wheel, and sent it rolling down the slope. Two lads followed it

with levers to set it in motion again, in case it should anywhere meet

with a check. At Oberstattfeld the wheel had to be provided by the young

man who was last married.(289) About Echternach in Luxemburg the same

ceremony is called “burning the witch”; while it is going on, the older

men ascend the heights and observe what wind is blowing, for that is the

wind which will prevail the whole year.(290) At Voralberg in the Tyrol, on

the first Sunday in Lent, a slender young fir-tree is surrounded with a

pile of straw and firewood. To the top of the tree is fastened a human

figure called the “witch,” made of old clothes and stuffed with gunpowder.

At night the whole is set on fire and boys and girls dance round it,

swinging torches and singing rhymes in which the words “corn in the

winnowing-basket, the plough in the earth” may be distinguished.(291) In

Swabia on the first Sunday in Lent a figure called the “witch” or the “old

wife” or “winter’s grandmother” is made up of clothes and fastened to a

pole. This is stuck in the middle of a pile of wood, to which fire is

applied. While the “witch” is burning, the young people throw blazing

discs into the air. The discs are thin round pieces of wood, a few inches

in diameter, with notched edges to imitate the rays of the sun or stars.

They have a hole in the middle, by which they are attached to the end of a

wand. Before the disc is thrown it is set on fire, the wand is swung to

and fro, and the impetus thus communicated to the disc is augmented by

dashing the rod sharply against a sloping board. The burning disc is thus

thrown off, and mounting high into the air, describes a long fiery curve

before it reaches the ground. A single lad may fling up forty or fifty of

these discs, one after the other. The object is to throw them as high as

possible. The wand by which they are hurled must, at least in some parts

of Swabia, be of hazel. Sometimes the lads also leap over the fire

brandishing lighted torches of pine-wood. The charred embers of the burned

“witch” and discs are taken home and planted in the flax-fields the same

night, in the belief that they will keep vermin from the fields.(292) At

Wangen, near Molsheim in Baden, a like custom is observed on the first

Sunday in Lent. The young people kindle a bonfire on the crest of the

mountain above the village; and the burning discs which they hurl into the

air are said to present in the darkness the aspect of a continual shower

of falling stars. When the supply of discs is exhausted and the bonfire

begins to burn low, the boys light torches and run with them at full speed

down one or other of the three steep and winding paths that descend the

mountain-side to the village. Bumps, bruises, and scratches are often the

result of their efforts to outstrip each other in the headlong race.(293)

In the Rhön Mountains, situated on the borders of Hesse and Bavaria, the

people used to march to the top of a hill or eminence on the first Sunday

in Lent. Children and lads carried torches, brooms daubed with tar, and

poles swathed in straw. A wheel, wrapt in combustibles, was kindled and

rolled down the hill; and the young people rushed about the fields with

their burning torches and brooms, till at last they flung them in a heap,

and standing round them, struck up a hymn or a popular song. The object of

running about the fields with the blazing torches was to “drive away the

wicked sower.” Or it was done in honour of the Virgin, that she might

preserve the fruits of the earth throughout the year and bless them.(294)

In neighbouring villages of Hesse, between the Rhön and the Vogel

Mountains, it is thought that wherever the burning wheels roll, the fields

will be safe from hail and storm.(295) At Konz on the Moselle, on the

Thursday before the first Sunday in Lent, the two guilds of the butchers

and the weavers used to repair to the Marxberg and there set up an

oak-tree with a wheel fastened to it. On the following Sunday the people

ascended the hill, cut down the oak, set fire to the wheel, and sent both

oak and wheel rolling down the hillside, while a guard of butchers,

mounted on horses, fired at the flaming wheel in its descent. If the wheel

rolled down into the Moselle, the butchers were rewarded with a

waggon-load of wine by the archbishop of Treves.(296)

(M96) In Switzerland, also, it is or used to be customary to kindle

bonfires on high places on the evening of the first Sunday in Lent, and

the day is therefore popularly known as Spark Sunday. The custom

prevailed, for example, throughout the canton of Lucerne. Boys went about

from house to house begging for wood and straw, then piled the fuel on a

conspicuous mountain or hill round about a pole, which bore a straw effigy

called “the witch.” At nightfall the pile was set on fire, and the young

folks danced wildly round it, some of them cracking whips or ringing

bells; and when the fire burned low enough, they leaped over it. This was

called “burning the witch.” In some parts of the canton also they used to

wrap old wheels in straw and thorns, put a light to them, and send them

rolling and blazing down hill. The same custom of rolling lighted wheels

down hill is attested by old authorities for the cantons of Aargau and

Bâle. The more bonfires could be seen sparkling and flaring in the

darkness, the more fruitful was the year expected to be; and the higher

the dancers leaped beside or over the fire, the higher, it was thought,

would grow the flax. In the district of Freiburg and at Birseck in the

district of Bâle it was the last married man or woman who must kindle the

bonfire. While the bonfires blazed up, it was customary in some parts of

Switzerland to propel burning discs of wood through the air by means of

the same simple machinery which is used for the purpose in Swabia. Each

lad tried to send his disc fizzing and flaring through the darkness as far

as possible, and in discharging it he mentioned the name of the person to

whose honour it was dedicated. But in Prättigau the words uttered in

launching the fiery discs referred to the abundance which was apparently

expected to follow the performance of the ceremony. Among them were,

“Grease in the pan, corn in the fan, and the plough in the earth!”(297)

(M97) It seems hardly possible to separate from these bonfires, kindled on

the first Sunday in Lent, the fires in which, about the same season, the

effigy called Death is burned as part of the ceremony of “carrying out

Death.” We have seen that at Spachendorf, in Austrian Silesia, on the

morning of Rupert’s Day (Shrove Tuesday?), a straw-man, dressed in a fur

coat and a fur cap, is laid in a hole outside the village and there

burned, and that while it is blazing every one seeks to snatch a fragment

of it, which he fastens to a branch of the highest tree in his garden or

buries in his field, believing that this will make the crops to grow

better. The ceremony is known as the “burying of Death.”(298) Even when

the straw-man is not designated as Death, the meaning of the observance is

probably the same; for the name Death, as I have tried to shew, does not

express the original intention of the ceremony. At Cobern in the Eifel

Mountains the lads make up a straw-man on Shrove Tuesday. The effigy is

formally tried and accused of having perpetrated all the thefts that have

been committed in the neighbourhood throughout the year. Being condemned

to death, the straw-man is led through the village, shot, and burned upon

a pyre. They dance round the blazing pile, and the last bride must leap

over it.(299) In Oldenburg on the evening of Shrove Tuesday people used to

make long bundles of straw, which they set on fire, and then ran about the

fields waving them, shrieking, and singing wild songs. Finally they burned

a straw-man on the field.(300) In the district of Düsseldorf the straw-man

burned on Shrove Tuesday was made of an unthreshed sheaf of corn.(301) On

the first Monday after the spring equinox the urchins of Zurich drag a

straw-man on a little cart through the streets, while at the same time the

girls carry about a May-tree. When vespers ring, the straw-man is

burned.(302) In the district of Aachen on Ash Wednesday a man used to be

encased in peas-straw and taken to an appointed place. Here he slipped

quietly out of his straw casing, which was then burned, the children

thinking that it was the man who was being burned.(303) In the Val di

Ledro (Tyrol) on the last day of the Carnival a figure is made up of straw

and brushwood and then burned. The figure is called the Old Woman, and the

ceremony “burning the Old Woman.”(304)

§ 2. The Easter Fires.

(M98) Another occasion on which these fire-festivals are held is Easter

Eve, the Saturday before Easter Sunday. On that day it has been customary

in Catholic countries to extinguish all the lights in the churches, and

then to make a new fire, sometimes with flint and steel, sometimes with a

burning-glass. At this fire is lit the great Paschal or Easter candle,

which is then used to rekindle all the extinguished lights in the church.

In many parts of Germany a bonfire is also kindled, by means of the new

fire, on some open space near the church. It is consecrated, and the

people bring sticks of oak, walnut, and beech, which they char in the

fire, and then take home with them. Some of these charred sticks are

thereupon burned at home in a newly-kindled fire, with a prayer that God

will preserve the homestead from fire, lightning, and hail. Thus every

house receives “new fire.” Some of the sticks are kept throughout the year

and laid on the hearth-fire during heavy thunder-storms to prevent the

house from being struck by lightning, or they are inserted in the roof

with the like intention. Others are placed in the fields, gardens, and

meadows, with a prayer that God will keep them from blight and hail. Such

fields and gardens are thought to thrive more than others; the corn and

the plants that grow in them are not beaten down by hail, nor devoured by

mice, vermin, and beetles; no witch harms them, and the ears of corn stand

close and full. The charred sticks are also applied to the plough. The

ashes of the Easter bonfire, together with the ashes of the consecrated

palm-branches, are mixed with the seed at sowing. A wooden figure called

Judas is sometimes burned in the consecrated bonfire, and even where this

custom has been abolished the bonfire itself in some places goes by the

name of “the burning of Judas.”(305)

(M99) In the Hollertau, Bavaria, the young men used to light their

lanterns at the newly-kindled Easter candle in the church and then race to

the bonfire; he who reached it first set fire to the pile, and next day,

Easter Sunday, was rewarded at the church-door by the housewives, who

presented him with red eggs. Great was the jubilation while the effigy of

the traitor was being consumed in the flames. The ashes were carefully

collected and thrown away at sunrise in running water.(306) In many parts

of the Abruzzi, also, pious people kindle their fires on Easter Saturday

with a brand brought from the sacred new fire in the church. When the

brand has thus served to bless the fire on the domestic hearth, it is

extinguished, and the remainder is preserved, partly in a cranny of the

outer wall of the house, partly on a tree to which it is tied. This is

done for the purpose of guarding the homestead against injury by storms.

At Campo di Giove the people say that if you can get a piece of one of the

three holy candles which the priest lights from the new fire, you should

allow a few drops of the wax to fall into the crown of your hat; for after

that, if it should thunder and lighten, you have nothing to do but to clap

the hat on your head, and no flash of lightning can possibly strike

you.(307)

(M100) Further, it deserves to be noted that in the Abruzzi water as well

as fire is, as it were, renewed and consecrated on Easter Saturday. Most

people fetch holy water on that day from the churches, and every member of

the family drinks a little of it, believing that it has power to protect

him or her against witchcraft, fever, and stomach-aches of all sorts. And

when the church bells ring again after their enforced silence, the water

is sprinkled about the house, and especially under the beds, with the help

of a palm-branch. Some of this blessed water is also kept in the house for

use in great emergencies, when there is no time to fetch a priest; thus it

may be employed to baptize a new-born infant gasping for life or to

sprinkle a sick man in the last agony; such a sprinkling is reckoned equal

to priestly absolution.(308) In Calabria the customs with regard to the

new water, as it is called, on Easter Saturday are similar; it is poured

into a new vessel, adorned with ribbons and flowers, is blessed by the

priest, and is tasted by every one of the household, beginning with the

parents. And when the air vibrates with the glad music of the church bells

announcing the resurrection, the people sprinkle the holy water about the

houses, bidding in a loud voice all evil things to go forth and all good

things to come in. At the same time, to emphasize the exorcism, they knock

on doors, window-shutters, chests, and other domestic articles of

furniture. At Cetraro people who suffer from diseases of the skin bathe in

the sea at this propitious moment; at Pietro in Guarano they plunge into

the river on the night of Easter Saturday before Easter Sunday dawns, and

while they bathe they utter never a word. Moreover, the Calabrians keep

the “new water” as a sacred thing. They believe that it serves as a

protection against witchcraft if it is sprinkled on a fire or a lamp, when

the wood crackles or the wick sputters; for they regard it as a bad omen

when the fire talks, as they say.(309) Among the Germans of Western

Bohemia, also, water as well as fire is consecrated by the priest in front

of the church on Easter Saturday. People bring jugs full of water to the

church and set them beside the holy fire; afterwards they use the water to

sprinkle on the palm-branches which are stuck in the fields. Charred

sticks of the Judas fire, as it is popularly called, are supposed to

possess a magical and healing virtue; hence the people take them home with

them, and even scuffle with each other for the still glowing embers in

order to carry them, still glimmering, to their houses and so obtain “the

light” or “the holy light.”(310) At Hildesheim, also, and the neighbouring

villages of central Germany rites both of fire and water are or were till

lately observed at Easter. Thus on Easter night many people fetch water

from the Innerste river and keep it carefully, believing it to be a remedy

for many sorts of ailments both of man and beast. In the villages on the

Leine river servant men and maids used to go silently on Easter night

between the hours of eleven and twelve and silently draw water in buckets

from the river; they mixed the water with the fodder and the drink of the

cattle to make the animals thrive, and they imagined that to wash in it

was good for human beings. Many were also of opinion that at the same

mystic hour the water turned to wine as far as the crowing of a cock could

be heard, and in this belief they laid themselves flat on their stomachs

and kept their tongues in the water till the miraculous change occurred,

when they took a great gulp of the transformed water. At Hildesheim, too,

and the neighbouring villages fires used to blaze on all the heights on

Easter Eve; and embers taken from the bonfires were dipped in the cattle

troughs to benefit the beasts and were kept in the houses to avert

lightning.(311)

(M101) In the Lesachthal, Carinthia, all the fires in the houses used to

be extinguished on Easter Saturday, and rekindled with a fresh fire

brought from the churchyard, where the priest had lit it by the friction

of flint and steel and had bestowed his blessing on it.(312) Such customs

were probably widespread. In a Latin poem of the sixteenth century,

written by a certain Thomas Kirchmeyer and translated into English by

Barnabe Googe, we read:—

“_On Easter Eve the fire all is quencht in every place,_

_And fresh againe from out the flint is fetcht with solemne

grace:_

_The priest doth halow this against great daungers many one,_

_A brande whereof doth every man with greedie mind take home,_

_That when the fearefull storme appeares, or tempest black arise,_

_By lighting this he safe may be from stroke of hurtful skies:_

_A taper great, the Paschall namde, with musicke then they

blesse,_

_And franckensence herein they pricke, for greater holynesse:_

_This burneth night and day as signe of Christ that conquerde

hell,_

_As if so be this foolish toye suffiseth this to tell._

_Then doth the Bishop or the Priest, the water halow straight,_

_That for their baptisme is reservde: for now no more of waight_

_Is that they usde the yeare before, nor can they any more,_

_Yong children christen with the same, as they have done before._

_With wondrous pompe and furniture, amid the Church they go,_

_With candles, crosses, banners, Chrisme, and oyle appoynted tho:_

_Nine times about the font they marche, and on the saintes doe

call,_

_Then still at length they stande, and straight the Priest begins

withall,_

_And thrise the water doth he touche, and crosses thereon make,_

_Here bigge and barbrous wordes he speakes, to make the devill

quake:_

_And holsome waters conjureth, and foolishly doth dresse,_

_Supposing holyar that to make, which God before did blesse:_

_And after this his candle than, he thrusteth in the floode,_

_And thrise he breathes thereon with breath, that stinkes of

former foode:_

_And making here an ende, his Chrisme he poureth thereupon,_

_The people staring hereat stande, amazed every one:_

_Beleeving that great powre is given to this water here,_

_By gaping of these learned men, and such like trifling gere._

_Therefore in vessels brought they draw, and home they carie

some,_

_Against the grieves that to themselves, or to their beastes may

come._

_Then Clappers ceasse, and belles are set againe at libertée,_

_And herewith all the hungrie times of fasting ended bée._” (313)

It is said that formerly all the fires in Rome were lighted afresh from

the holy fire kindled in St. Peter’s on Easter Saturday. (314)

(M102) In Florence the ceremony of kindling the new fire on Easter Eve is

peculiar. The holy flame is elicited from certain flints which are said to

have been brought by a member of the Pazzi family from the Holy Land. They

are kept in the church of the Holy Apostles on the Piazza del Limbo, and

on the morning of Easter Saturday the prior strikes fire from them and

lights a candle from the new flame. The burning candle is then carried in

solemn procession by the clergy and members of the municipality to the

high altar in the cathedral. A vast crowd has meanwhile assembled in the

cathedral and the neighbouring square to witness the ceremony; amongst the

spectators are many peasants drawn from the surrounding country, for it is

commonly believed that on the success or failure of the ceremony depends

the fate of the crops for the year. Outside the door of the cathedral

stands a festal car drawn by two fine white oxen with gilded horns. The

body of the car is loaded with a pyramid of squibs and crackers and is

connected by a wire with a pillar set up in front of the high altar. The

wire extends down the middle of the nave at a height of about six feet

from the ground. Beneath it a clear passage is left, the spectators being

ranged on either side and crowding the vast interior from wall to wall.

When all is ready, High Mass is celebrated, and precisely at noon, when

the first words of the _Gloria_ are being chanted, the sacred fire is

applied to the pillar, which like the car is wreathed with fireworks. A

moment more and a fiery dove comes flying down the nave, with a hissing

sound and a sputter of sparks, between the two hedges of eager spectators.

If all goes well, the bird pursues its course along the wire and out at

the door, and in another moment a prolonged series of fizzes, pops and

bangs announces to the excited crowd in the cathedral that the fireworks

on the car are going off. Great is the joy accordingly, especially among

the bumpkins, who are now sure of an abundant harvest. But if, as

sometimes happens, the dove stops short in its career and fizzles out,

revealing itself as a stuffed bird with a packet of squibs tied to its

tail, great is the consternation, and deep the curses that issue from

between the set teeth of the clodhoppers, who now give up the harvest for

lost. Formerly the unskilful mechanician who was responsible for the

failure would have been clapped into gaol; but nowadays he is thought

sufficiently punished by the storm of public indignation and the loss of

his pay. The disaster is announced by placards posted about the streets in

the evening; and next morning the newspapers are full of gloomy

prognostications.(315)

(M103) Some of these customs have been transported by the Catholic Church

to the New World. Thus in Mexico the new fire is struck from a flint early

in the morning of Easter Saturday, and a candle which has been lighted at

the sacred flame is carried through the church by a deacon shouting

“_Lumen Christi_.” Meantime the whole city, we are informed, has been

converted into a vast place of execution. Ropes stretch across the streets

from house to house, and from every house dangles an effigy of Judas, made

of paper pulp. Scores or hundreds of them may adorn a single street. They

are of all shapes and sizes, grotesque in form and garbed in strange

attire, stuffed with gunpowder, squibs and crackers, sometimes, too, with

meat, bread, soap, candy, and clothing, for which the crowd will scramble

and scuffle while the effigies are burning. There they hang grim, black,

and sullen in the strong sunshine, greeted with a roar of execration by

the pious mob. A peal of bells from the cathedral tower on the stroke of

noon gives the signal for the execution. At the sound a frenzy seizes the

crowd. They throw themselves furiously on the figures of the detested

traitor, cut them down, hurl them with curses into the fire, and fight and

struggle with each other in their efforts to tear the effigies to tatters

and appropriate their contents. Smoke, stink, sputter of crackers, oaths,

curses, yells are now the order of the day. But the traitor does not

perish unavenged. For the anatomy of his frame has been cunningly

contrived so as in burning to discharge volleys of squibs into his

assailants; and the wounds and burns with which their piety is rewarded

form a feature of the morning’s entertainment. The English Jockey Club in

Mexico used to improve on this popular pastime by suspending huge figures

of Judas, stuffed with copper coins, from ropes in front of their

clubhouse. These were ignited at the proper moment and lowered within

reach of the expectant rabble, and it was the privilege of members of the

club, seated in the balcony, to watch the grimaces and to hear the shrieks

of the victims, as they stamped and capered about with the hot coppers

sticking to their hands, divided in their minds between an acute sense of

pain and a thirst for filthy lucre.(316)

(M104) Scenes of the same sort, though on a less ambitious scale, are

witnessed among the Catholics of South America on the same day. In Brazil

the mourning for the death of Christ ceases at noon on Easter Saturday and

gives place to an extravagant burst of joy at his resurrection. Shots are

fired everywhere, and effigies of Judas are hung on trees or dragged about

the streets, to be finally burned or otherwise destroyed.(317) In the

Indian villages scattered among the wild valleys of the Peruvian Andes

figures of the traitor, made of pasteboard and stuffed with squibs and

crackers, are hanged on gibbets before the door of the church on Easter

Saturday. Fire is set to them, and while they crackle and explode, the

Indians dance and shout for joy at the destruction of their hated

enemy.(318) Similarly at Rio Hacha, in Colombia, Judas is represented

during Holy Week by life-sized effigies, and the people fire at them as if

they were discharging a sacred duty.(319)

(M105) But usages of this sort are not confined to the Latin Church; they

are common to the Greek Church also. Every year on the Saturday before

Easter Sunday a new fire is miraculously kindled at the Holy Sepulchre in

Jerusalem. It descends from heaven and ignites the candles which the

patriarch holds in his hands, while with closed eyes he wrestles in prayer

all alone in the chapel of the Angel. The worshippers meanwhile wait

anxiously in the body of the church, and great are their transports of joy

when at one of the windows of the chapel, which had been all dark a minute

before, there suddenly appears the hand of an angel, or of the patriarch,

holding a lighted taper. This is the sacred new fire; it is passed out to

the expectant believers, and the desperate struggle which ensues among

them to get a share of its blessed influence is only terminated by the

intervention of the Turkish soldiery, who restore peace and order by

hustling the whole multitude impartially out of the church. In days gone

by many lives were often lost in these holy scrimmages. For example, in

the year 1834, the famous Ibrahim Pasha witnessed the frantic scene from

one of the galleries, and, being moved with compassion at the sight,

descended with a few guards into the arena in the chimerical hope of

restoring peace and order among the contending Christians. He contrived to

force his way into the midst of the dense crowd, but there the heat and

pressure were so great that he fainted away; a body of soldiers, seeing

his danger, charged straight into the throng and carried him out of it in

their arms, trampling under foot the dying and dead in their passage.

Nearly two hundred people were killed that day in the church. The

fortunate survivors on these occasions who succeeded in obtaining a

portion of the coveted fire applied it freely to their faces, their

beards, and their garments. The theory was that the fire, being

miraculous, could only bless and not burn them; but the practical results

of the experiment were often disappointing, for while the blessings were

more or less dubious, there could be no doubt whatever about the

burns.(320) The history of the miracle has been carefully investigated by

a Jesuit father. The conclusions at which he arrives are that the miracle

was a miracle indeed so long as the Catholics had the management of it;

but that since it fell into the hands of the heretics it has been nothing

but a barefaced trick and imposture.(321) Many people will be disposed to

agree with the latter conclusion who might hesitate to accept the former.

(M106) At Athens the new fire is kindled in the cathedral at midnight on

Holy Saturday. A dense crowd with unlit candles in their hands fills the

square in front of the cathedral; the king, the archbishop, and the

highest dignitaries of the church, arrayed in their gorgeous robes, occupy

a platform; and at the exact moment of the resurrection the bells ring

out, and the whole square bursts as by magic into a blaze of light.

Theoretically all the candles are lit from the sacred new fire in the

cathedral, but practically it may be suspected that the matches which bear

the name of Lucifer have some share in the sudden illumination.(322)

Effigies of Judas used to be burned at Athens on Easter Saturday, but the

custom has been forbidden by the Government. However, firing goes on more

or less continuously all over the city both on Easter Saturday and Easter

Sunday, and the cartridges used on this occasion are not always blank. The

shots are aimed at Judas, but sometimes they miss him and hit other

people. Outside of Athens the practice of burning Judas in effigy still

survives in some places. For example, in Cos a straw image of the traitor

is made on Easter Day, and after being hung up and shot at it is

burned.(323) A similar custom appears to prevail at Thebes;(324) it used

to be observed by the Macedonian peasantry, and it is still kept up at

Therapia, a fashionable summer resort of Constantinople.(325)

(M107) In the Armenian Church the sacred new fire is kindled not at Easter

but at Candlemas, that is, on the second of February, or on the eve of

that festival. The materials of the bonfire are piled in an open space

near a church, and they are generally ignited by young couples who have

been married within the year. However, it is the bishop or his vicar who

lights the candles with which fire is set to the pile. All young married

pairs are expected to range themselves about the fire and to dance round

it. Young men leap over the flames, but girls and women content themselves

with going round them, while they pray to be preserved from the itch and

other skin-diseases. When the ceremony is over, the people eagerly pick up

charred sticks or ashes of the fire and preserve them or scatter them on

the four corners of the roof, in the cattle-stall, in the garden, and on

the pastures; for these holy sticks and ashes protect men and cattle

against disease, and fruit-trees against worms and caterpillars. Omens,

too, are drawn from the direction in which the wind blows the flames and

the smoke: if it carries them eastward, there is hope of a good harvest;

but if it inclines them westward, the people fear that the crops will

fail.(326)

(M108) In spite of the thin cloak of Christianity thrown over these

customs by representing the new fire as an emblem of Christ and the figure

burned in it as an effigy of Judas, we can hardly doubt that both

practices are of pagan origin. Neither of them has the authority of Christ

or of his disciples; but both of them have abundant analogies in popular

custom and superstition. Some instances of the practice of annually

extinguishing fires and relighting them from a new and sacred flame have

already come before us;(327) but a few examples may here be cited for the

sake of illustrating the wide diffusion of a custom which has found its

way into the ritual both of the Eastern and of the Western Church.

(M109) The Incas of Peru celebrated a festival called Raymi, a word which

their native historian Garcilasso de la Vega tells us was equivalent to

our Easter. It was held in honour of the sun at the solstice in June. For

three days before the festival the people fasted, men did not sleep with

their wives, and no fires were lighted in Cuzco, the capital. The sacred

new fire was obtained direct from the sun by concentrating his beams on a

highly polished concave plate and reflecting them on a little cotton wool.

With this holy fire the sheep and lambs offered to the sun were consumed,

and the flesh of such as were to be eaten at the festival was roasted.

Portions of the new fire were also conveyed to the temple of the sun and

to the convent of the sacred virgins, where they were kept burning all the

year, and it was an ill omen if the holy flame went out.(328) At a

festival held in the last month of the old Mexican year all the fires both

in the temples and in the houses were extinguished, and the priest kindled

a new fire by rubbing two sticks against each other before the image of

the fire-god.(329) The Zuni Indians of New Mexico kindle a new fire by the

friction of wood both at the winter and the summer solstice. At the winter

solstice the chosen fire-maker collects a faggot of cedar-wood from every

house in the village, and each person, as he hands the wood to the

fire-maker, prays that the crops may be good in the coming year. For

several days before the new fire is kindled, no ashes or sweepings may be

removed from the houses and no artificial light may appear outside of

them, not even a burning cigarette or the flash of firearms. The Indians

believe that no rain will fall on the fields of the man outside whose

house a light has been seen at this season. The signal for kindling the

new fire is given by the rising of the Morning Star. The flame is produced

by twirling an upright stick between the hands on a horizontal stick laid

on the floor of a sacred chamber, the sparks being caught by a tinder of

cedar-dust. It is forbidden to blow up the smouldering tinder with the

breath, for that would offend the gods. After the fire has thus been

ceremonially kindled, the women and girls of all the families in the

village clean out their houses. They carry the sweepings and ashes in

baskets or bowls to the fields and leave them there. To the sweepings the

woman says: “I now deposit you as sweepings, but in one year you will

return to me as corn.” And to the ashes she says: “I now deposit you as

ashes, but in one year you will return to me as meal.” At the summer

solstice the sacred fire which has been procured by the friction of wood

is used to kindle the grass and trees, that there may be a great cloud of

smoke, while bull-roarers are swung and prayers offered that the

Rain-makers up aloft will water the earth.(330) From this account we see

how intimately the kindling of a new fire at the two turning-points of the

sun’s course is associated in the minds of these Indians with the

fertility of the land, particularly with the growth of the corn. The

rolling smoke is apparently an imitation of rain-clouds designed, on the

principle of homoeopathic magic, to draw showers from the blue sky. Once a

year the Iroquois priesthood supplied the people with a new fire. As a

preparation for the annual rite the fires in all the huts were

extinguished and the ashes scattered about. Then the priest, wearing the

insignia of his office, went from hut to hut relighting the fires by means

of a flint.(331) Among the Esquimaux with whom C. F. Hall resided, it was

the custom that at a certain time, which answered to our New Year’s Day,

two men went about from house to house blowing out every light in the

village. One of the men was dressed to represent a woman. Afterwards the

lights were rekindled from a fresh fire. An Esquimau woman being asked

what all this meant, replied, “New sun—new light.”(332) Among the

Esquimaux of Iglulik, when the sun first rises above the horizon after the

long night of the Arctic winter, the children who have watched for his

reappearance run into the houses and blow out the lamps. Then they receive

from their mothers presents of pieces of wick.(333)

(M110) In the Sudanese kingdom of Wadai all the fires in the villages are

put out and the ashes removed from the houses on the day which precedes

the New Year festival. At the beginning of the new year a new fire is lit

by the friction of wood in the great straw hut where the village elders

lounge away the sultry hours together; and every man takes thence a

burning brand with which he rekindles the fire on his domestic

hearth.(334) In the Bahr-el-Ghazal province of the Egyptian Sudan the

people extinguish their old fires at the Arab New Year and bring in new

fire. On the same occasion they beat the walls of their huts, the grass

thatches, and the walls of their enclosures in order to drive away the

devil or evil spirits. The beating of the walls and roofs is accompanied

by the firing of guns, the shouting of men, and the shriller cries of the

women.(335) Thus these people combine an annual expulsion of demons with

an annual lighting of a new fire. Among the Swahili of East Africa the

greatest festival is that of the New Year, which falls in the second half

of August. At a given moment all the fires are extinguished with water and

afterwards relit by the friction of two dry pieces of wood. The ashes of

the old fires are carried out and deposited at cross-roads. All the people

get up very early in the morning and bathe in the sea or some other water,

praying to be kept in good health and to live that they may bathe again

next year. Sham-fights form part of the amusements of the day; sometimes

they pass into grim reality. Indeed the day was formerly one of general

license; every man did that which was good in his own eyes. No awkward

questions were asked about any crimes committed on this occasion, so some

people improved the shining hour by knocking a few poor devils on the

head. Shooting still goes on during the whole day, and at night the

proceedings generally wind up with a great dance.(336) The King of

Benametapa, as the early Portuguese traders called him, in East Africa

used to send commissioners annually to every town in his dominions; on the

arrival of one of these officers the inhabitants of each town had to put

out all their fires and to receive a new fire from him. Failure to comply

with this custom was treated as rebellion.(337) Some tribes of British

Central Africa carefully extinguish the fires on the hearths at the

beginning of the hoeing season and at harvest; the fires are afterwards

rekindled by friction, and the people indulge in dances of various

kinds.(338)

(M111) The Todas of the Neilgherry Hills, in Southern India, annually

kindle a sacred new fire by the friction of wood in the month which begins

with the October moon. The ceremony is performed by two holy dairymen at

the foot of a high hill. When they have lighted the fire by rubbing two

dry sticks together, and it begins to burn well, they stand a little way

off and pray, saying, “May the young grass flower! May honey flourish! May

fruit ripen!” The purpose of the ceremony is to make the grass and honey

plentiful. In ancient times the Todas lived largely on wild fruits, and

then the rite of the new fire was very important. Now that they subsist

chiefly on the milk of their buffaloes, the ceremony has lost much of its

old significance.(339) When the Nagas of North-Eastern India have felled

the timber and cut down the scrub in those patches of jungle which they

propose to cultivate, they put out all the fires in the village and light

a new fire by rubbing two dry pieces of wood together. Then having kindled

torches at it they proceed with them to the jungle and ignite the felled

timber and brushwood. The flesh of a cow or buffalo is also roasted on the

new fire and furnishes a sacrificial meal.(340) Near the small town of

Kahma in Burma, between Prome and Thayetmyo, certain gases escape from a

hollow in the ground and burn with a steady flame during the dry season of

the year. The people regard the flame as the forge of a spectral smith who

here carried on his business after death had removed him from his old

smithy in the village. Once a year all the household fires in Kahma are

extinguished and then lighted afresh from the ghostly flame.(341)

(M112) In China every year, about the beginning of April, certain

officials, called _Sz’hüen_, used of old to go about the country armed

with wooden clappers. Their business was to summon the people and command

them to put out every fire. This was the beginning of a season called

_Han-shih-tsieh_, or “eating cold food.” For three days all household

fires remained extinct as a preparation for the solemn renewal of the

fire, which took place on the fifth or sixth day of April, being the

hundred and fifth day after the winter solstice. The ceremony was

performed with great pomp by the same officials, who procured the new fire

from heaven by reflecting the sun’s rays either from a metal mirror or

from a crystal on dry moss. Fire thus obtained is called by the Chinese

heavenly fire, and its use is enjoined in sacrifices; whereas fire

elicited by the friction of wood is termed by them earthly fire, and its

use is prescribed for cooking and other domestic purposes. When once the

new fire had thus been drawn from the sun, all the people were free to

rekindle their domestic hearths; and, as a Chinese distich has it—

“_At the festival of the cold food there are a thousand white

stalks among the flowers;_

_On the day Tsing-ming, at sunrise, you may see the smoke of ten

thousand houses._”

According to a Chinese philosopher, the reason for thus renewing fire

periodically is that the vital principle grows weaker and weaker in old

fire, whereas in new fire it is young and vigorous. This annual renewal of

fire was a ceremony of very great antiquity in China, since it is known to

have been observed in the time of the first dynasty, about two thousand

years before Christ. Under the Tcheou dynasty a change in the calendar led

to shifting the fire-festival from spring to the summer solstice, but

afterwards it was brought back to its original date. Although the custom

appears to have long fallen into disuse, the barbarous inhabitants of

Hainan, an island to the south of China, still call a year “a fire,” as if

in memory of the time when the years were reckoned by the annually

recurring ceremony of rekindling the sacred fire.(342) “A Japanese book

written two centuries ago informs us that sticks resembling the wands used

for offerings at the purification ceremony were part shaven and set up in

bundles at the four corners of the Gion shrine on the last day of the

year. The priests, after prayers were recited, broke up the bundles and

set fire to the sticks, which the people then carried home to light their

household fires with for the New Year. The object of this ceremony was to

avert pestilence.”(343)

(M113) In classical antiquity the Greek island of Lemnos was devoted to

the worship of the smith-god Hephaestus, who was said to have fallen on it

when Zeus hurled him from heaven.(344) Once a year every fire in the

island was extinguished and remained extinct for nine days, during which

sacrifices were offered to the dead and to the infernal powers. New fire

was brought in a ship from the sacred isle of Delos, and with it the fires

in the houses and the workshops were relit. The people said that with the

new fire they made a new beginning of life. If the ship that bore the

sacred flame arrived too soon, it might not put in to shore, but had to

cruise in the offing till the nine days were expired.(345) At Rome the

sacred fire in the temple of Vesta was kindled anew every year on the

first of March, which used to be the beginning of the Roman year;(346) the

task of lighting it was entrusted to the Vestal Virgins, and they

performed it by drilling a hole in a board of lucky wood till the flame

was elicited by friction. The new fire thus produced was carried into the

temple of Vesta by one of the virgins in a bronze sieve.(347)

(M114) Among the Celts of Ireland a new fire was annually kindled on

Hallowe’en or the Eve of Samhain, as they called it, the last day of

October, from which the Irish new year began; and all the hearths

throughout the country are said to have been relighted from the fresh

fire. The place where this holy flame was lit bore the name of Tlachtga or

Tlactga; it has been identified with a rath or native fort on the Hill of

Ward near Athboy in the county of Meath. “It was there,” says the old

Irish historian, Geoffrey Keating, “that the Festival of the Fire of

Tlactga was ordered to be held, and it was thither that the Druids of

Ireland were wont to repair and to assemble, in solemn meeting, on the eve

of Samhain, for the purpose of making a sacrifice to all the gods. It was

in that fire at Tlactga, that their sacrifice was burnt; and it was made

obligatory, under pain of punishment, to extinguish all the fires of

Ireland, on that eve; and the men of Ireland were allowed to kindle no

other fire but that one; and for each of the other fires, which were all

to be lighted from it, the king of Munster was to receive a tax of a

_sgreball_, that is, of three pence, because the land, upon which Tlactga

was built, belongs to the portion of Meath which had been taken from

Munster.”(348) In the villages near Moscow at the present time the

peasants put out all their fires on the eve of the first of September, and

next morning at sunrise a wise man or a wise woman rekindles them with the

help of muttered incantations and spells.(349)

(M115) Instances of such practices might doubtless be multiplied, but the

foregoing examples may suffice to render it probable that the

ecclesiastical ceremony of lighting a sacred new fire on Easter Saturday

had originally nothing to do with Christianity, but is merely one case of

a world-wide custom which the Church has seen fit to incorporate in its

ritual. It might be supposed that in the Western Church the custom was

merely a survival of the old Roman usage of renewing the fire on the first

of March, were it not that the observance by the Eastern Church of the

custom on the same day seems to point back to a still older period when

the ceremony of lighting a new fire in spring, perhaps at the vernal

equinox, was common to many peoples of the Mediterranean area. We may

conjecture that wherever such a ceremony has been observed, it originally

marked the beginning of a new year, as it did in ancient Rome and Ireland,

and as it still does in the Sudanese kingdom of Wadai and among the

Swahili of Eastern Africa.

(M116) The essentially pagan character of the Easter fire festival appears

plainly both from the mode in which it is celebrated by the peasants and

from the superstitious beliefs which they associate with it. All over

northern and central Germany, from Altmark and Anhalt on the east, through

Brunswick, Hanover, Oldenburg, the Harz district, and Hesse to Westphalia

the Easter bonfires still blaze simultaneously on the hill-tops. As many

as forty may sometimes be counted within sight at once. Long before Easter

the young people have been busy collecting firewood; every farmer

contributes, and tar-barrels, petroleum cases, and so forth go to swell

the pile. Neighbouring villages vie with each other as to which shall send

up the greatest blaze. The fires are always kindled, year after year, on

the same hill, which accordingly often takes the name of Easter Mountain.

It is a fine spectacle to watch from some eminence the bonfires flaring up

one after another on the neighbouring heights. As far as their light

reaches, so far, in the belief of the peasants, the fields will be

fruitful, and the houses on which they shine will be safe from

conflagration or sickness. At Volkmarsen and other places in Hesse the

people used to observe which way the wind blew the flames, and then they

sowed flax seed in that direction, confident that it would grow well.

Brands taken from the bonfires preserve houses from being struck by

lightning; and the ashes increase the fertility of the fields, protect

them from mice, and mixed with the drinking-water of cattle make the

animals thrive and ensure them against plague. As the flames die down,

young and old leap over them, and cattle are sometimes driven through the

smouldering embers. In some places tar-barrels or wheels wrapt in straw

used to be set on fire, and then sent rolling down the hillside. In others

the boys light torches and wisps of straw at the bonfires and rush about

brandishing them in their hands. Where the people are divided between

Protestantism and Catholicism, as in Hildesheim, it has been observed that

among Protestants the Easter bonfires are generally left to the boys,

while in Catholic districts they are cared for by grown-up persons, and

here the whole population will gather round the blazing pile and join in

singing choral hymns, which echo far and wide in the stillness of

night.(350)

(M117) In Münsterland these Easter fires are always kindled upon certain

definite hills, which are hence known as Easter or Paschal Mountains. The

whole community assembles about the fire. Fathers of families form an

inner circle round it. An outer circle is composed of the young men and

maidens, who, singing Easter hymns, march round and round the fire in the

direction of the sun, till the blaze dies down. Then the girls jump over

the fire in a line, one after the other, each supported by two young men

who hold her hands and run beside her. When the fire has burned out, the

whole assembly marches in solemn procession to the church, singing hymns.

They go thrice round the church, and then break up. In the twilight boys

with blazing bundles of straw run over the fields to make them

fruitful.(351) At Delmenhorst, in Oldenburg, it used to be the custom to

cut down two trees, plant them in the ground side by side, and pile twelve

tar-barrels, one above the other, against each of the trees. Brushwood was

then heaped about the trees, and on the evening of Easter Saturday the

boys, after rushing about with blazing bean-poles in their hands, set fire

to the whole. At the end of the ceremony the urchins tried to blacken each

other and the clothes of grown-up people.(352) In Schaumburg the Easter

bonfires may be seen blazing on all the mountains around for miles. They

are made with a tar-barrel fastened to a pine-tree, which is wrapt in

straw. The people dance singing round them.(353) In the Harz Mountains the

fire is commonly made by piling brushwood about a tree and setting it on

fire. At Osterode every one tries to snatch a brand from the bonfire and

runs about with it; the better it burns, the more lucky it is. In Grund

there are torch-races.(354) In the Altmark the Easter bonfires are

composed of tar-barrels, bee-hives, and so forth, piled round a pole. The

young folk dance round the fire; and when it has died out, the old folk

come and collect the ashes, which they preserve as a remedy for the

ailments of bees. It is also believed that as far as the blaze of the

bonfire is visible, the corn will grow well throughout the year, and no

conflagration will break out.(355) At Braunröde, in the Harz Mountains, it

was the custom to burn squirrels in the Easter bonfire.(356) In the

Altmark, bones were burned in it.(357)

(M118) Further south the Easter fires are, or used to be, lit in many

districts of Bavaria. Thus on Easter Monday in some parts of Middle

Franken the schoolboys collect all the old worn-out besoms they can lay

hands on, and march with them in a long procession to a neighbouring

height. When the first chime of the evening bell comes up from the dale

they set fire to the brooms, and run along the ridges waving them, so that

seen from below the hills appear to be crested with a twinkling and moving

chain of fire.(358) In some parts of Upper Bavaria at Easter burning

arrows or discs of wood were shot from hill-tops high into the air, as in

the Swabian and Swiss customs already described.(359) At Oberau, instead

of the discs, an old cart-wheel was sometimes wrapt in straw, ignited, and

sent rolling and blazing down the mountain. The lads who hurled the discs

received painted Easter eggs from the girls.(360) Near Forchheim, in Upper

Franken, a straw-man called the Judas used to be burned in the churchyards

on Easter Saturday. The whole village contributed wood to the pyre on

which he perished, and the charred sticks were afterwards kept and planted

in the fields on Walpurgis Day (the first of May) to preserve the wheat

from blight and mildew.(361) About a hundred years ago or more the custom

at Althenneberg, in Upper Bavaria, used to be as follows. On the afternoon

of Easter Saturday the lads collected wood, which they piled in a

cornfield, while in the middle of the pile they set up a tall wooden cross

all swathed in straw. After the evening service they lighted their

lanterns at the consecrated candle in the church, and ran with them at

full speed to the pyre, each striving to get there first. The first to

arrive set fire to the heap. No woman or girl might come near the bonfire,

but they were allowed to watch it from a distance. As the flames rose the

men and lads rejoiced and made merry, shouting, “We are burning the

Judas!” Two of them had to watch the glowing embers the whole night long,

lest people should come and steal them. Next morning at sunrise they

carefully collected the ashes, and threw them into the running water of

the Röten brook. The man who had been the first to reach the pyre and to

kindle it was rewarded on Easter Sunday by the women, who gave him

coloured eggs at the church door. Well-to-do women gave him two; poorer

women gave him only one. The object of the whole ceremony was to keep off

the hail. About a century ago the Judas fire, as it was called, was put

down by the police.(362) At Giggenhausen and Aufkirchen, two other

villages of Upper Bavaria, a similar custom prevailed, yet with some

interesting differences. Here the ceremony, which took place between nine

and ten at night on Easter Saturday, was called “burning the Easter Man.”

On a height about a mile from the village the young fellows set up a tall

cross enveloped in straw, so that it looked like a man with his arms

stretched out. This was the Easter Man. No lad under eighteen years of age

might take part in the ceremony. One of the young men stationed himself

beside the Easter Man, holding in his hand a consecrated taper which he

had brought from the church and lighted. The rest stood at equal intervals

in a great circle round the cross. At a given signal they raced thrice

round the circle, and then at a second signal ran straight at the cross

and at the lad with the lighted taper beside it; the one who reached the

goal first had the right of setting fire to the Easter Man. Great was the

jubilation while he was burning. When he had been consumed in the flames,

three lads were chosen from among the rest, and each of the three drew a

circle on the ground with a stick thrice round the ashes. Then they all

left the spot. On Easter Monday the villagers gathered the ashes and

strewed them on their fields; also they planted in the fields

palm-branches which had been consecrated on Palm Sunday, and sticks which

had been charred and hallowed on Good Friday, all for the purpose of

protecting their fields against showers of hail. The custom of burning an

Easter Man made of straw on Easter Saturday was observed also at

Abensberg, in Lower Bavaria.(363) In some parts of Swabia the Easter fires

might not be kindled with iron or steel or flint, but only by the friction

of wood.(364)

(M119) In Baden bonfires are still kindled in the churchyards on Easter

Saturday, and ecclesiastical refuse of various sorts, such as candle-ends,

old surplices, and the wool used by the priest in the application of

extreme unction, is consumed in the flames. At Zoznegg down to about 1850

the fire was lighted by the priest by means of a flint which had never

been used before. People bring sticks, especially oaken sticks, char them

in the fire, and then carry them home and keep them in the house as a

preservative against lightning. At Zoznegg these oaken sticks were

sword-shaped, each about an ell and a half long, and they went by the name

of “weather or thunder poles” (_Wetterpfähle_). When a thunder-storm

threatened to break out, one of the sticks was put into a small fire, in

order that the hallowed smoke, ascending to the clouds, might ward off the

lightning from the house and the hail from the fields and gardens. At

Schöllbronn the oaken sticks, which are thus charred in the Easter bonfire

and kept in the house as a protective against thunder and lightning, are

three in number, perhaps with an allusion to the Trinity; they are brought

every Easter to be consecrated afresh in the bonfire, till they are quite

burnt away. In the lake district of Baden it is also customary to burn one

of these holy sticks in the fire when a heavy thunderstorm is raging.(365)

Hence it seems that the ancient association of the oak with the

thunder(366) persists in the minds of German peasants to the present day.

(M120) Thus the custom of the Easter fires appears to have prevailed all

over central and western Germany from north to south. We find it also in

Holland, where the fires were kindled on the highest eminences, and the

people danced round them and leaped through the flames or over the glowing

embers. Here too, as so often in Germany, the materials for the bonfire

were collected by the young folk from door to door.(367) In many parts of

Sweden firearms are, as at Athens, discharged in all directions on Easter

eve, and huge bonfires are lighted on hills and eminences. Some people

think that the intention is to keep off the Troll and other evil spirits

who are especially active at this season.(368) When the afternoon service

on Good Friday is over, German children in Bohemia drive Judas out of the

church by running about the sacred edifice and even the streets shaking

rattles and clappers. Next day, on Easter Saturday, the remains of the

holy oil are burnt before the church door in a fire which must be kindled

with flint and steel. This fire is called “the burning of Judas,” but in

spite of its evil name a beneficent virtue is ascribed to it, for the

people scuffle for the cinders, which they put in the roofs of their

houses as a safeguard against fire and lightning.(369)

§ 3. The Beltane Fires.

(M121) In the central Highlands of Scotland bonfires, known as the Beltane

fires, were formerly kindled with great ceremony on the first of May, and

the traces of human sacrifices at them were particularly clear and

unequivocal. The custom of lighting the bonfires lasted in various places

far into the eighteenth century, and the descriptions of the ceremony by

writers of that period present such a curious and interesting picture of

ancient heathendom surviving in our own country that I will reproduce them

in the words of their authors. The fullest of the descriptions, so far as

I know, is the one bequeathed to us by John Ramsay, laird of Ochtertyre,

near Crieff, the patron of Burns and the friend of Sir Walter Scott. From

his voluminous manuscripts, written in the last quarter of the eighteenth

century, a selection was published in the latter part of the nineteenth

century. The following account of Beltane is extracted from a chapter

dealing with Highland superstitions. Ramsay says: “But the most

considerable of the Druidical festivals is that of Beltane, or May-day,

which was lately observed in some parts of the Highlands with

extraordinary ceremonies. Of later years it is chiefly attended to by

young people, persons advanced in years considering it as inconsistent

with their gravity to give it any countenance. Yet a number of

circumstances relative to it may be collected from tradition, or the

conversation of very old people, who witnessed this feast in their youth,

when the ancient rites were better observed.

(M122) “This festival is called in Gaelic _Beal-tene_—_i.e._, the fire of

Bel.... Like the other public worship of the Druids, the Beltane feast

seems to have been performed on hills or eminences. They thought it

degrading to him whose temple is the universe, to suppose that he would

dwell in any house made with hands. Their sacrifices were therefore

offered in the open air, frequently upon the tops of hills, where they

were presented with the grandest views of nature, and were nearest the

seat of warmth and order. And, according to tradition, such was the manner

of celebrating this festival in the Highlands within the last hundred

years. But since the decline of superstition, it has been celebrated by

the people of each hamlet on some hill or rising ground around which their

cattle were pasturing. Thither the young folks repaired in the morning,

and cut a trench, on the summit of which a seat of turf was formed for the

company. And in the middle a pile of wood or other fuel was placed, which

of old they kindled with _tein-eigin_—_i.e._, forced-fire or _need-fire_.

Although, for many years past, they have been contented with common fire,

yet we shall now describe the process, because it will hereafter appear

that recourse is still had to the _tein-eigin_ upon extraordinary

emergencies.

(M123) “The night before, all the fires in the country were carefully

extinguished, and next morning the materials for exciting this sacred fire

were prepared. The most primitive method seems to be that which was used

in the islands of Skye, Mull, and Tiree. A well-seasoned plank of oak was

procured, in the midst of which a hole was bored. A wimble of the same

timber was then applied, the end of which they fitted to the hole. But in

some parts of the mainland the machinery was different. They used a frame

of green wood, of a square form, in the centre of which was an axle-tree.

In some places three times three persons, in others three times nine, were

required for turning round by turns the axle-tree or wimble. If any of

them had been guilty of murder, adultery, theft, or other atrocious crime,

it was imagined either that the fire would not kindle, or that it would be

devoid of its usual virtue. So soon as any sparks were emitted by means of

the violent friction, they applied a species of agaric which grows on old

birch-trees, and is very combustible. This fire had the appearance of

being immediately derived from heaven, and manifold were the virtues

ascribed to it. They esteemed it a preservative against witchcraft, and a

sovereign remedy against malignant diseases, both in the human species and

in cattle; and by it the strongest poisons were supposed to have their

nature changed.

(M124) “After kindling the bonfire with the _tein-eigin_ the company

prepared their victuals. And as soon as they had finished their meal, they

amused themselves a while in singing and dancing round the fire. Towards

the close of the entertainment, the person who officiated as master of the

feast produced a large cake baked with eggs and scalloped round the edge,

called _am bonnach beal-tine_—_i.e._, the Beltane cake. It was divided

into a number of pieces, and distributed in great form to the company.

There was one particular piece which whoever got was called _cailleach

beal-tine_—_i.e._, the Beltane _carline_, a term of great reproach. Upon

his being known, part of the company laid hold of him and made a show of

putting him into the fire; but the majority interposing, he was rescued.

And in some places they laid him flat on the ground, making as if they

would quarter him. Afterwards, he was pelted with egg-shells, and retained

the odious appellation during the whole year. And while the feast was

fresh in people’s memory, they affected to speak of the _cailleach

beal-tine_ as dead.

(M125) “This festival was longest observed in the interior Highlands, for

towards the west coast the traces of it are faintest. In Glenorchy and

Lorne, a large cake is made on that day, which they consume in the house;

and in Mull it has a large hole in the middle, through which each of the

cows in the fold is milked. In Tiree it is of a triangular form. The more

elderly people remember when this festival was celebrated without-doors

with some solemnity in both these islands. There are at present no

vestiges of it in Skye or the Long Island, the inhabitants of which have

substituted the _connach Micheil_ or St. Michael’s cake. It is made at

Michaelmas with milk and oatmeal, and some eggs are sprinkled on its

surface. Part of it is sent to the neighbours.

(M126) “It is probable that at the original Beltane festival there were

two fires kindled near one another. When any person is in a critical

dilemma, pressed on each side by unsurmountable difficulties, the

Highlanders have a proverb, _The e’ eada anda theine bealtuin_—_i.e._, he

is between the two Beltane fires. There are in several parts small round

hills, which, it is like, owe their present names to such solemn uses. One

of the highest and most central in Icolmkil is called

_Cnoch-nan-ainneal_—_i.e._, the hill of the fires. There is another of the

same name near the kirk of Balquhidder; and at Killin there is a round

green eminence which seems to have been raised by art. It is called

_Tom-nan-ainneal_—_i.e._, the eminence of the fires. Around it there are

the remains of a circular wall about two feet high. On the top a stone

stands upon end. According to the tradition of the inhabitants, it was a

place of Druidical worship; and it was afterwards pitched on as the most

venerable spot for holding courts of justice for the country of

Breadalbane. The earth of this eminence is still thought to be possessed

of some healing virtue, for when cattle are observed to be diseased some

of it is sent for, which is rubbed on the part affected.”(370)

(M127) In the parish of Callander, a beautiful district of western

Perthshire, the Beltane custom was still in vogue towards the end of the

eighteenth century. It has been described as follows by the parish

minister of the time: “Upon the first day of May, which is called

_Beltan_, or _Bal-tein_ day, all the boys in a township or hamlet, meet in

the moors. They cut a table in the green sod, of a round figure, by

casting a trench in the ground, of such circumference as to hold the whole

company. They kindle a fire, and dress a repast of eggs and milk in the

consistence of a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted

at the embers against a stone. After the custard is eaten up, they divide

the cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in

size and shape, as there are persons in the company. They daub one of

these portions all over with charcoal, until it be perfectly black. They

put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet. Every one, blindfold, draws

out a portion. He who holds the bonnet, is entitled to the last bit.

Whoever draws the black bit, is the _devoted_ person who is to be

sacrificed to _Baal_,(371) whose favour they mean to implore, in rendering

the year productive of the sustenance of man and beast. There is little

doubt of these inhuman sacrifices having been once offered in this

country, as well as in the east, although they now pass from the act of

sacrificing, and only compel the _devoted_ person to leap three times

through the flames; with which the ceremonies of this festival are

closed.”(372)

(M128) Thomas Pennant, who travelled in Perthshire in the year 1769, tells

us that “on the first of May, the herdsmen of every village hold their

Bel-tien, a rural sacrifice. They cut a square trench on the ground,

leaving the turf in the middle; on that they make a fire of wood, on which

they dress a large caudle of eggs, butter, oatmeal and milk; and bring

besides the ingredients of the caudle, plenty of beer and whisky; for each

of the company must contribute something. The rites begin with spilling

some of the caudle on the ground, by way of libation: on that every one

takes a cake of oatmeal, upon which are raised nine square knobs, each

dedicated to some particular being, the supposed preserver of their flocks

and herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of them: each

person then turns his face to the fire, breaks off a knob, and flinging it

over his shoulders, says, ‘This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses;

this to thee, preserve thou my sheep; and so on.’ After that, they use the

same ceremony to the noxious animals: ‘This I give to thee, O fox! spare

thou my lambs; this to thee, O hooded crow! this to thee, O eagle!’ When

the ceremony is over, they dine on the caudle; and after the feast is

finished, what is left is hid by two persons deputed for that purpose; but

on the next Sunday they re-assemble, and finish the reliques of the first

entertainment.”(373)

(M129) Another writer of the eighteenth century has described the Beltane

festival as it was held in the parish of Logierait in Perthshire. He says:

“On the first of May, O.S., a festival called _Beltan_ is annually held

here. It is chiefly celebrated by the cow-herds, who assemble by scores in

the fields, to dress a dinner for themselves, of boiled milk and eggs.

These dishes they eat with a sort of cakes baked for the occasion, and

having small lumps in the form of _nipples_, raised all over the

surface.”(374) In this last account no mention is made of bonfires, but

they were probably lighted, for a contemporary writer informs us that in

the parish of Kirkmichael, which adjoins the parish of Logierait on the

east, the custom of lighting a fire in the fields and baking a consecrated

cake on the first of May was not quite obsolete in his time.(375) We may

conjecture that the cake with knobs was formerly used for the purpose of

determining who should be the “Beltane carline” or victim doomed to the

flames. A trace of this custom survived, perhaps, in the custom of baking

oatmeal cakes of a special kind and rolling them down hill about noon on

the first of May; for it was thought that the person whose cake broke as

it rolled would die or be unfortunate within the year. These cakes, or

bannocks as we call them in Scotland, were baked in the usual way, but

they were washed over with a thin batter composed of whipped egg, milk or

cream, and a little oatmeal. This custom appears to have prevailed at or

near Kingussie in Inverness-shire. At Achterneed, near Strathpeffer in

Ross-shire, the Beltane bannocks were called _tcharnican_ or hand-cakes,

because they were kneaded entirely in the hand, and not on a board or

table like common cakes; and after being baked they might not be placed

anywhere but in the hands of the children who were to eat them.(376)

(M130) In the north-east of Scotland the Beltane fires were still kindled

in the latter half of the eighteenth century; the herdsmen of several

farms used to gather dry wood, kindle it, and dance three times

“southways” about the burning pile.(377) But in this region, according to

a later authority, the Beltane fires were lit not on the first but on the

second of May, Old Style. They were called bone-fires. The people believed

that on that evening and night the witches were abroad and busy casting

spells on cattle and stealing cows’ milk. To counteract their

machinations, pieces of rowan-tree and woodbine, but especially of

rowan-tree, were placed over the doors of the cow-houses, and fires were

kindled by every farmer and cottar. Old thatch, straw, furze, or broom was

piled in a heap and set on fire a little after sunset. While some of the

bystanders kept tossing the blazing mass, others hoisted portions of it on

pitchforks or poles and ran hither and thither, holding them as high as

they could. Meantime the young people danced round the fire or ran through

the smoke shouting, “Fire! blaze and burn the witches; fire! fire! burn

the witches.” In some districts a large round cake of oat or barley meal

was rolled through the ashes. When all the fuel was consumed, the people

scattered the ashes far and wide, and till the night grew quite dark they

continued to run through them, crying, “Fire! burn the witches.”(378)

(M131) In the Hebrides “the Beltane bannock is smaller than that made at

St. Michael’s, but is made in the same way; it is no longer made in Uist,

but Father Allan remembers seeing his grandmother make one about

twenty-five years ago. There was also a cheese made, generally on the

first of May, which was kept to the next Beltane as a sort of charm

against the bewitching of milk-produce. The Beltane customs seem to have

been the same as elsewhere. Every fire was put out and a large one lit on

the top of the hill, and the cattle driven round it sunwards (_dessil_),

to keep off murrain all the year. Each man would take home fire wherewith

to kindle his own.”(379)

(M132) In Wales also the custom of lighting Beltane fires at the beginning

of May used to be observed, but the day on which they were kindled varied

from the Eve of May Day to the third of May. The flame was sometimes

elicited by the friction of two pieces of oak, as appears from the

following description. “The fire was done in this way. Nine men would turn

their pockets inside out, and see that every piece of money and all metals

were off their persons. Then the men went into the nearest woods, and

collected sticks of nine different kinds of trees. These were carried to

the spot where the fire had to be built. There a circle was cut in the

sod, and the sticks were set crosswise. All around the circle the people

stood and watched the proceedings. One of the men would then take two bits

of oak, and rub them together until a flame was kindled. This was applied

to the sticks, and soon a large fire was made. Sometimes two fires were

set up side by side. These fires, whether one or two, were called

_coelcerth_ or bonfire. Round cakes of oatmeal and brown meal were split

in four, and placed in a small flour-bag, and everybody present had to

pick out a portion. The last bit in the bag fell to the lot of the

bag-holder. Each person who chanced to pick up a piece of brown-meal cake

was compelled to leap three times over the flames, or to run thrice

between the two fires, by which means the people thought they were sure of

a plentiful harvest. Shouts and screams of those who had to face the

ordeal could be heard ever so far, and those who chanced to pick the

oatmeal portions sang and danced and clapped their hands in approval, as

the holders of the brown bits leaped three times over the flames, or ran

three times between the two fires. As a rule, no danger attended these

curious celebrations, but occasionally somebody’s clothes caught fire,

which was quickly put out. The greatest fire of the year was the eve of

May, or May first, second, or third. The Midsummer Eve fire was more for

the harvest. Very often a fire was built on the eve of November. The high

ground near the Castle Ditches at Llantwit Major, in the Vale of

Glamorgan, was a familiar spot for the Beltane on May third and on

Midsummer Eve.... Sometimes the Beltane fire was lighted by the flames

produced by stone instead of wood friction. Charred logs and faggots used

in the May Beltane were carefully preserved, and from them the next fire

was lighted. May fires were always started with old faggots of the

previous year, and midsummer from those of the last summer. It was unlucky

to build a midsummer fire from May faggots. People carried the ashes left

after these fires to their homes, and a charred brand was not only

effectual against pestilence, but magical in its use. A few of the ashes

placed in a person’s shoes protected the wearer from any great sorrow or

woe.”(380)

(M133) From the foregoing account we learn that bonfires were kindled in

Wales on Midsummer Eve and Hallowe’en (the thirty-first of October), as

well as at the beginning of May, but that the Beltane fires in May were

deemed the most important. To the Midsummer Eve and Hallowe’en fires we

shall return presently. The belief of the people that by leaping thrice

over the bonfires or running thrice between them they ensured a plentiful

harvest is worthy of note. The mode in which this result was supposed to

be brought about is indicated by another writer on Welsh folk-lore,

according to whom it used to be held that “the bonfires lighted in May or

Midsummer protected the lands from sorcery, so that good crops would

follow. The ashes were also considered valuable as charms.”(381) Hence it

appears that the heat of the fires was thought to fertilize the fields,

not directly by quickening the seeds in the ground, but indirectly by

counteracting the baleful influence of witchcraft or perhaps by burning up

the persons of the witches.

(M134) “The Druidical anniversary of Beil or Baal is still celebrated in

the Isle of Man. On the first of May, 1837, the Baal fires were, as usual

on that day, so numerous as to give the island the appearance of a general

conflagration.”(382) By May Day in Manx folk-lore is meant May Day Old

Style, or _Shenn Laa Boaldyn_, as it is called in Manx. The day was one on

which the power of elves and witches was particularly dreaded, and the

people resorted to many precautions in order to protect themselves against

these mischievous beings. Hence at daybreak they set fire to the ling or

gorse, for the purpose of burning out the witches, who are wont to lurk in

the form of hares.(383) On the Hemlock Stone, a natural pillar of

sandstone standing on Stapleford Hill in Nottinghamshire, a fire used to

be solemnly kindled every year on Beltane Eve. The custom seems to have

survived down to the beginning of the nineteenth century; old people could

remember and describe the ceremony long after it had fallen into

desuetude.(384)

(M135) 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)

(M136) 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.

(M137) 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)

(M138) 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_:—