Chapter 62. The Fire-Festivals of Europe.
Section 1. The Fire-festivals in general.
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, 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. 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 brief view 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. 1
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.
Space forbids me to describe all these festivals at length; a few specimens
must serve to illustrate their general character. We shall begin with the
fire-festivals of spring, which usually fall on the first Sunday of Lent
(Quadragesima or Invocavit), Easter Eve, and May Day. 2
Section 2. The Lenten Fires.
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 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!" 1
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. 2
In the French department of the Ardennes the whole village used to
dance and sing around 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. 3
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 fora 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. 4
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 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 my friend, Granno my father, Granno 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. 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, 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. 5
The custom of carrying lighted torches of straw (brandons) about the
orchards and fields to fertilise 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." At Verges, a
village between the Jura and the Combe d'Ain, the torches at this season
were kindled on the top of a mountain, and the bearers went to every
house in the village, demanding roasted peas and obliging all couples
who had been married within the year to dance. 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. 6
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 the hill. Thither the village boys marched at nightfall,
set fire to the wheel, and sent it rolling down the slope. At Oberstattfeld the
wheel had to be provided by the young man who was last married. About
Echternach in Luxemburg the same ceremony is called "burning the
witch." 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 strom. 7
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 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 some districts it was the last married man or woman who
must kindle the bonfire. 8
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." 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 show, 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. 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. In the district of Düsseldorf the straw-man burned
on Shrove Tuesday was made of an unthreshed sheaf of corn. 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. 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. 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." 9
Section 3. The Easter Fires.
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." 1
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. 2
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. The young men and maidens, singing
Easter hymns, march round and round the fire, 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. In
the twilight boys with blazing bundles of straw run over the fields to make
them fruitful. 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 against each. Brush-wood 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. In the Altmark it is believed that as far as the blaze of
the Easter bonfire is visible, the corn will grow well throughout the year,
and no conflagration will break out. At Braunröde, in the Harz Mountains, it
was the custom to burn squirrels in the Easter bonfire. In the Altmark,
bones were burned in it. 3
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. 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!" 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. The object of the whole ceremony was
to keep off the hail. At other villages of Upper Bavaria 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
palmbranches 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. 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. 4
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 often in Germany, the materials for the bonfire were
collected by the young folk from door to door. In many parts of Sweden
firearms are 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. 5
Section 4. The Beltane Fires.
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 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. He 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. ... 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. 1
"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 witch-craft, 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. 2
"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 bea-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." 3
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 Baltein 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, 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." 4
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 reassemble, and finish the reliques of the first
entertainment." 5
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." 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. 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. 6
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. 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." 7
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." 8
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." 9
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." Hence it appears that the heat of the fires
was thought to fertilise 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. 10
The Beltane fires seem 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." 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. 11
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. 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.
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." 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. 12
Section 5. The Midsummer Fires.
BUT THE SEASON at which these firefestivals have been most 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. 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. 1
The main features of the midsummer fire-festival resemble those which
we have found to characterise the vernal festivals of fire. The similarity of
the two sets of ceremonies will plainly appear from the following
examples. 2
A writer of the first half of the sixteenth century informs us that in almost
every village and town of Germany public bonfires were kindled on the
Eve of St. John, and young and old, of both sexes, gathered about them
and passed the time in dancing and singing. People on this occasion wore
chaplets of mugwort and vervain, and they looked at the fire through
bunches of larkspur which they held in their hands, believing that this
would preserve their eyes in a healthy state throughout the year. As each
departed, he threw the mugwort and vervain into the fire, saying, "May all
my ill-luck depart and be burnt up with these." At Lower Konz, a village
situated on a hillside overlooking the Moselle, the midsummer festival used
to be celebrated as follows. A quantity of straw was collected on the top of
the steep Stromberg Hill. Every inhabitant, or at least every householder,
had to contribute his share of straw to the pile. At nightfall the whole male
population, men and boys, mustered on the top of the hill; the women and
girls were not allowed to join them, but had to take up their position at a
certain spring half-way down the slope. On the summit stood a huge
wheel completely encased in some of the straw which had been jointly
contributed by the villagers; the rest of the straw was made into torches.
From each side of the wheel the axle-tree projected about three feet, thus
furnishing handles to the lads who were to guide it in its descent. The
mayor of the neighbouring town of Sierck, who always received a basket
of cherries for his services, gave the signal; a lighted torch was applied to
the wheel, and as it burst into flame, two young fellows, strong-limbed and
swift of foot, seized the handles and began running with it down the slope.
A great shout went up. Every man and boy waved a blazing torch in the
air, and took care to keep it alight so long as the wheel was trundling
down the hill. The great object of the young men who guided the wheel
was to plunge it blazing into the water of the Moselle; but they rarely
succeeded in their efforts, for the vineyards which cover the greater part
of the declivity impeded their progress, and the wheel was often burned
out before it reached the river. As it rolled past the women and girls at the
spring, they raised cries of joy which were answered by the men on the
top of the mountain; and the shouts were echoed by the inhabitants of
neighbouring villages who watched the spectacle from their hills on the
opposite bank of the Moselle. If the fiery wheel was successfully conveyed
to the bank of the river and extinguished in the water, the people looked
for an abundant vintage that year, and the inhabitants of Konz had the
right to exact a waggon-load of white wine from the surrounding
vineyards. On the other hand, they believed that, if they neglected to
perform the ceremony, the cattle would be attacked by giddiness and
convulsions and would dance in their stalls. 3
Down at least to the middle of the nineteenth century the midsummer fires
used to blaze all over Upper Bavaria. They were kindled especially on the
mountains, but also far and wide in the lowlands, and we are told that in
the darkness and stillness of night the moving groups, lit up by the
flickering glow of the flames, presented an impressive spectacle. Cattle
were driven through the fire to cure the sick animals and to guard such as
were sound against plague and harm of every kind throughout the year.
Many a householder on that day put out the fire on the domestic hearth
and rekindled it by means of a brand taken from the midsummer bonfire.
The people judged of the height to which the flax would grow in the year
by the height to which the flames of the bonfire rose; and whoever leaped
over the burning pile was sure not to suffer from backache in reaping the
corn at harvest. In many parts of Bavaria it was believed that the flax
would grow as high as the young people leaped over the fire. In others the
old folk used to plant three charred sticks from the bonfire in the fields,
believing that this would make the flax grow tall. Elsewhere an
extinguished brand was put in the roof of the house to protect it against
fire. In the towns about Würzburg the bonfires used to be kindled in the
market-places, and the young people who jumped over them wore
garlands of flowers, especially of mugwort and vervain, and carried sprigs
of larkspur in their hands. They thought that such as looked at the fire
holding a bit of larkspur before their face would be troubled by no malady
of the eyes throughout the year. Further, it was customary at Würzburg, in
the sixteenth century, for the bishop's followers to throw burning discs of
wood into the air from a mountain which overhangs the town. The discs
were discharged by means of flexible rods, and in their flight through the
darkness presented the appearance of fiery dragons. 4
Similarly in Swabia, lads and lasses, hand in hand, leap over the
midsummer bonfire, praying that the hemp may grow three ells high, and
they set fire to wheels of straw and send them rolling down the hill.
Sometimes, as the people sprang over the midsummer bonfire they cried
out, "Flax, flax! may the flax this year grow seven ells high!" At Rottenburg
a rude effigy in human form, called the Angelman, used to be enveloped in
flowers and then burnt in the midsummer fire by boys, who afterwards
leaped over the glowing embers. 5
So in Baden the children collected fuel from house to house for the
midsummer bonfire on St. John's Day; and lads and lasses leaped over the
fire in couples. Here, as elsewhere, a close connexion was traced
between these bonfires and the harvest. In some places it was thought that
those who leaped over the fires would not suffer from backache at reaping.
Sometimes, as the young folk sprang over the flames, they cried, "Grow,
that the hemp may be three ells high!" This notion that the hemp or the
corn would grow as high as the flames blazed or as the people jumped
over them, seems to have been widespread in Baden. It was held that the
parents of the young people who bounded highest over the fire would
have the most abundant harvest; and on the other hand, if a man
contributed nothing to the bonfire, it was imagined that there would be no
blessing on his crops, and that his hemp in particular would never grow. At
Edersleben, near Sangerhausen, a high pole was planted in the ground
and a tarbarrel was hung from it by a chain which reached to the ground.
The barrel was then set on fire and swung round the pole amid shouts of
joy. 6
In Denmark and Norway also midsummer fires were kindled on St. John's
Eve on roads, open spaces, and hills. People in Norway thought that the
fires banished sickness from among the cattle. Even yet the fires are said
to be lighted all over Norway on Midsummer Eve. They are kindled in
order to keep off the witches, who are said to be flying from all parts that
night to the Blocksberg, where the big witch lives. In Sweden the Eve of
St. John (St. Hans) is the most joyous night of the whole year. Throughout
some parts of the country, especially in the provinces of Bohus and
Scania and in districts bordering on Norway, it is celebrated by the
frequent discharge of firearms and by huge bonfires, formerly called
Balder's Balefires (Balder's Bălar), which are kindled at dusk on
hills and eminences and throw a glare of light over the surrounding
landscape. The people dance round the fires and leap over or through
them. In parts of Norrland on St. John's Eve the bonfires are lit at the
cross-roads. The fuel consists of nine different sorts of wood, and the
spectators cast into the flames a kind of toad-stool (Bäran) in order to
counteract the power of the Trolls and other evil spirits, who are believed
to be abroad that night; for at that mystic season the mountains open and
from their cavernous depths the uncanny crew pours forth to dance and
disport themselves for a time. The peasants believe that should any of the
Trolls be in the vicinity they will show themselves; and if an animal, for
example a he or she goat, happens to be seen near the blazing, crackling
pile, the peasants are firmly persuaded that it is no other than the Evil One
in person. Further, it deserves to be remarked that in Sweden St. John's
Eve is a festival of water as well as of fire; for certain holy springs are then
supposed to be endowed with wonderful medicinal virtues, and many sick
people resort to them for the healing of their infirmities. 7
In Austria the midsummer customs and superstitions resemble those of
Germany. Thus in some parts of the Tyrol bonfires are kindled and burning
discs hurled into the air. In the lower valley of the Inn a tatterdemalion
effigy is carted about the village on Midsummer Day and then burned. He
is called the Lotter, which has been corrupted into Luther. At Ambras, one
of the villages where Martin Luther is thus burned in effigy, they say that if
you go through the village between eleven and twelve on St. John's Night
and wash yourself in three wells, you will see all who are to die in the
following year. At Gratz on St. John's Eve (the twenty-third of June) the
common people used to make a puppet called the Tatermann, which they
dragged to the bleaching ground, and pelted with burning besoms till it
took fire. At Reutte, in the Tyrol, people believed that the flax would grow
as high as they leaped over the midsummer bonfire, and they took pieces
of charred wood from the fire and stuck them in their flax-fields the same
night, leaving them there till the flax harvest had been got in. In Lower
Austria bonfires are kindled on the heights, and the boys caper round
them, brandishing lighted torches drenched in pitch. Whoever jumps thrice
across the fire will not suffer from fever within the year. Cart-wheels are
often smeared with pitch, ignited, and sent rolling and blazing down the
hillsides. 8
All over Bohemia bonfires still burn on Midsummer Eve. In the afternoon
boys go about with handcarts from house to house collecting fuel and
threatening with evil consequences the curmudgeons who refuse them a
dole. Sometimes the young men fell a tall straight fir in the woods and set it
up on a height, where the girls deck it with nosegays, wreaths of leaves,
and red ribbons. Then brushwood is piled about it, and at nightfall the
whole is set on fire. While the flames break out, the young men climb the
tree and fetch down the wreaths which the girls had placed on it. After that
lads and lasses stand on opposite sides of the fire and look at one another
through the wreaths to see whether they will be true to each other and
marry within the year. Also the girls throw the wreaths across the flames to
the men, and woe to the awkward swain who fails to catch the wreath
thrown him by his sweetheart. When the blaze has died down, each
couple takes hands and leaps thrice across the fire. He or she who does
so will be free from ague throughout the year, and the flax will grow as
high as the young folks leap. A girl who sees nine bonfires on Midsummer
Eve will marry before the year is out. The singed wreaths are carried home
and carefully preserved throughout the year. During thunderstorms a bit of
the wreath is burned on the hearth with a prayer; some of it is given to kine
that are sick or calving, and some of it serves to fumigate house and
cattle-stall, that man and beast may keep hale and well. Sometimes an old
cart-wheel is smeared with resin, ignited, and sent rolling down the hill.
Often the boys collect all the worn-out besoms they can get hold of, dip
them in pitch, and having set them on fire wave them about or throw them
high into the air. Or they rush down the hillside in troops, brandishing the
flaming brooms and shouting. The stumps of the brooms and embers from
the fire are preserved and stuck in cabbage gardens to protect the
cabbages from caterpillars and gnats. Some people insert charred sticks
and ashes from the midsummer bonfire in their sown fields and meadows,
in their gardens and the roofs of their houses, as a talisman against
lightning and foul weather; or they fancy that the ashes placed in the roof
will prevent any fire from breaking out in the house. In some districts they
crown or gird themselves with mugwort while the midsummer fire is burning,
for this is supposed to be a protection against ghosts, witches, and
sickness; in particular, a wreath of mugwort is a sure preventive of sore
eyes. Sometimes the girls look at the bonfires through garlands of wild
flowers, praying the fire to strengthen their eyes and eyelids. She who
does this thrice will have no sore eyes all that year. In some parts of
Bohemia they used to drive the cows through the midsummer fire to guard
them against witchcraft. 9
In Slavonic countries, also, the midsummer festival is celebrated with
similar rites. We have already seen that in Russia on the Eve of St. John
young men and maidens jump over a bonfire in couples carrying a straw
effigy of Kupalo in their arms. In some parts of Russia an image of Kupalo
is burnt or thrown into a stream on St. John's Night. Again, in some districts
of Russia the young folk wear garlands of flowers and girdles of holy herbs
when they spring through the smoke or flames; and sometimes they drive
the cattle also through the fire in order to protect the animals against
wizards and witches, who are then ravenous after milk. In Little Russia a
stake is driven into the ground on St. John's Night, wrapt in straw, and set
on fire. As the flames rise the peasant women throw birchen boughs into
them, saying, "May my flax be as tall as this bough!" In Ruthenia the
bonfires are lighted by a flame procured by the friction of wood. While the
elders of the party are engaged in thus "churning" the fire, the rest
maintain a respectful silence; but when the flame bursts from the wood,
they break forth into joyous songs. As soon as the bonfires are kindled, the
young people take hands and leap in pairs through the smoke, if not
through the flames; and after that the cattle in their turn are driven through
the fire. 10
In many parts of Prussia and Lithuania great fires are kindled on
Midsummer Eve. All the heights are ablaze with them, as far as the eye
can see. The fires are supposed to be a protection against witchcraft,
thunder, hail, and cattle disease, especially if next morning the cattle are
driven over the places where the fires burned. Above all, the bonfires
ensure the farmer against the arts of witches, who try to steal the milk from
his cows by charms and spells. That is why next morning you may see the
young fellows who lit the bonfire going from house to house and receiving
jugfuls of milk. And for the same reason they stick burs and mugwort on the
gate or the hedge through which the cows go to pasture, because that is
supposed to be a preservative against witchcraft. In Masuren, a district of
Eastern Prussia inhabited by a branch of the Polish family, it is the custom
on the evening of Midsummer Day to put out all the fires in the village.
Then an oaken stake is driven into the ground and a wheel is fixed on it as
on an axle. This wheel the villagers, working by relays, cause to revolve
with great rapidity till fire is produced by friction. Every one takes home a
lighted brand from the new fire and with it rekindles the fire on the domestic
hearth. In Serbia on Midsummer Eve herdsmen light torches of birch bark
and march round the sheepfolds and cattle-stalls; then they climb the hills
and there allow the torches to burn out. 11
Among the Magyars in Hungary the midsummer fire-festival is marked by
the same features that meet us in so many parts of Europe. On Midsummer
Eve in many places it is customary to kindle bonfires on heights and to
leap over them, and from the manner in which the young people leap the
bystanders predict whether they will marry soon. On this day also many
Hungarian swineherds make fire by rotating a wheel round a wooden axle
wrapt in hemp, and through the fire thus made they drive their pigs to
preserve them from sickness. 12
The Esthonians of Russia, who, like the Magyars, belong to the great
Turanian family of mankind, also celebrate the summer solstice in the usual
way. They think that the St. John's fire keeps witches from the cattle, and
they say that he who does not come to it will have his barley full of thistles
and his oats full of weeds. In the Esthonian island of Oesel, while they
throw fuel into the midsummer fire, they call out, "Weeds to the fire, flax to
the field," or they fling three billets into the flames, saying, "Flax grow
long!" And they take charred sticks from the bonfire home with them and
keep them to make the cattle thrive. In some parts of the island the bonfire
is formed by piling brushwood and other combustibles round a tree, at the
top of which a flag flies. Whoever succeeds in knocking down the flag with
a pole before it begins to burn will have good luck. Formerly the festivities
lasted till daybreak, and ended in scenes of debauchery which looked
doubly hideous by the growing light of a summer morning. 13
When we pass from the east to the west of Europe we still find the
summer solstice celebrated with rites of the same general character. Down
to about the middle of the nineteenth century the custom of lighting bonfires
at midsummer prevailed so commonly in France that there was hardly a
town or a village, we are told, where they were not kindled. People
danced round and leaped over them, and took charred sticks from the
bonfire home with them to protect the houses against lightning,
conflagrations, and spells. 14
In Brittany, apparently, the custom of the midsummer bonfires is kept up to
this day. When the flames have died down, the whole assembly kneels
round about the bonfire and an old man prays aloud. Then they all rise
and march thrice round the fire; at the third turn they stop and every one
picks up a pebble and throws it on the burning pile. After that they
disperse. In Brittany and Berry it is believed that a girl who dances round
nine midsummer bonfires will marry within the year. In the valley of the
Orne the custom was to kindle the bonfire just at the moment when the sun
was about to dip below the horizon; and the peasants drove their cattle
through the fires to protect them against witchcraft, especially against the
spells of witches and wizards who attempted to steal the milk and butter. At
Jumièges in Normandy, down to the first half of the nineteenth century, the
midsummer festival was marked by certain singular features which bore the
stamp of a very high antiquity. Every year, on the twenty-third of June,
the Eve of St. John, the Brotherhood of the Green Wolf chose a new chief
or master, who had always to be taken from the hamlet of Conihout. On
being elected, the new head of the brotherhood assumed the title of the
Green Wolf, and donned a peculiar costume consisting of a long green
mantle and a very tall green hat of a conical shape and without a brim.
Thus arrayed he stalked solemnly at the head of the brothers, chanting the
hymn of St. John, the crucifix and holy banner leading the way, to a place
called Chouquet. Here the procession was met by the priest, precentors,
and choir, who conducted the brotherhood to the parish church. After
hearing mass the company adjourned to the house of the Green Wolf,
where a simple repast was served up to them. At night a bonfire was
kindled to the sound of hand-bells by a young man and a young woman,
both decked with flowers. Then the Green Wolf and his brothers, with their
hoods down on their shoulders and holding each other by the hand, ran
round the fire after the man who had been chosen to be the Green Wolf of
the following year. Though only the first and the last man of the chain had
a hand free, their business was to surround and seize thrice the future
Green Wolf, who in his efforts to escape belaboured the brothers with a
long wand which he carried. When at last they succeeded in catching him
they carried him to the burning pile and made as if they would throw him
on it. This ceremony over, they returned to the house of the Green Wolf,
where a supper, still of the most meagre fare, was set before them. Up till
midnight a sort of religious solemnity prevailed. But at the stroke of twelve
all this was changed. Constraint gave way to license; pious hymns were
replaced by Bacchanalian ditties, and the shrill quavering notes of the
village fiddle hardly rose above the roar of voices that went up from the
merry brotherhood of the Green Wolf. Next day, the twenty-fourth of June
or Midsummer Day, was celebrated by the same personages with the same
noisy gaiety. One of the ceremonies consisted in parading, to the sound of
musketry, an enormous loaf of consecrated bread, which, rising in tiers,
was surmounted by a pyramid of verdure adorned with ribbons. After that
the holy hand-bells, deposited on the step of the altar, were entrusted as
insignia of office to the man who was to be the Green Wolf next year. 15
At Château-Thierry, in the department of Aisne, the custom of lighting
bonfires and dancing round them at the midsummer festival of St. John
lasted down to about 1850; the fires were kindled especially when June
had been rainy, and the people thought that the lighting of the bonfires
would cause the rain to cease. In the Vosges it is still customary to kindle
bonfires upon the hill-tops on Midsummer Eve; the people believe that the
fires help to preserve the fruits of the earth and ensure good crops. 16
Bonfires were lit in almost all the hamlets of Poitou on the Eve of St. John.
People marched round them thrice, carrying a branch of walnut in their
hand. Shepherdesses and children passed sprigs of mullein (verbascum)
and nuts across the flames; the nuts were supposed to cure toothache,
and the mullein to protect the cattle from sickness and sorcery. When the
fire died down people took some of the ashes home with them, either to
keep them in the house as a preservative against thunder or to scatter
them on the fields for the purpose of destroying corn-cockles and darnel.
In Poitou also it used to be customary on the Eve of St. John to trundle a
blazing wheel wrapt in straw over the fields to fertilise them. 17
In the mountainous part of Comminges, a province of Southern France,
the midsummer fire is made by splitting open the trunk of a tall tree, stuffing
the crevice with shavings, and igniting the whole. A garland of flowers is
fastened to the top of the tree, and at the moment when the fire is lighted
the man who was last married has to climb up a ladder and bring the
flowers down. In the flat parts of the same district the materials of the
midsummer bonfires consist of fuel piled in the usual way; but they must be
put together by men who have been married since the last midsummer
festival, and each of these benedicts is obliged to lay a wreath of flowers
on the top of the pile. 18
In Provence the midsummer fires are still popular. Children go from door
to door begging for fuel, and they are seldom sent empty away. Formerly
the priest, the mayor, and the aldermen used to walk in procession to the
bonfire, and even deigned to light it; after which the assembly marched
thrice round the burning pile. At Aix a nominal king, chosen from among
the youth for his skill in shooting at a popinjay, presided over the
midsummer festival. He selected his own officers, and escorted by a
brilliant train marched to the bonfire, kindled it, and was the first to dance
round it. Next day he distributed largesse to his followers. His reign lasted
a year, during which he enjoyed certain privileges. He was allowed to
attend the mass celebrated by the commander of the Knights of St. John on
St. John's Day; the right of hunting was accorded to him, and soldiers
might not be quartered in his house. At Marseilles also on this day one of
the guilds chose a king of the badache or double axe; but it does not
appear that he kindled the bonfire, which is said to have been lighted with
great ceremony by the préfet and other authorities. 19
In Belgium the custom of kindling the midsummer bonfires has long
disappeared from the great cities, but it is still kept up in rural districts and
small towns. In that country the Eve of St. Peter's Day (the twenty-ninth of
June) is celebrated by bonfires and dances exactly like those which
commemorate St. John's Eve. Some people say that the fires of St. Peter,
like those of St. John, are lighted in order to drive away dragons. In
French Flanders down to 1789 a straw figure representing a man was
always burned in the midsummer bonfire, and the figure of a woman was
burned on St. Peter's Day, the twenty-ninth of June. In Belgium people
jump over the midsummer bonfires as a preventive of colic, and they keep
the ashes at home to hinder fire from breaking out. 20
The custom of lighting bonfires at midsummer has been observed in many
parts of our own country, and as usual people danced round and leaped
over them. In Wales three or nine different kinds of wood and charred
faggots carefully preserved from the last midsummer were deemed
necessary to build the bonfire, which was generally done on rising ground.
In the Vale of Glamorgan a cart-wheel swathed in straw used to be ignited
and sent rolling down the hill. If it kept alight all the way down and blazed
for a long time, an abundant harvest was expected. On Midsummer Eve
people in the Isle of Man were wont to light fires to the windward of every
field, so that the smoke might pass over the corn; and they folded their
cattle and carried blazing furze or gorse round them several times. In
Ireland cattle, especially barren cattle, were driven through the midsummer
fires, and the ashes were thrown on the fields to fertilise them, or live coals
were carried into them to prevent blight. In Scotland the traces of
midsummer fires are few; but at that season in the highlands of Perthshire
cowherds used to go round their folds thrice, in the direction of the sun,
with lighted torches. This they did to purify the flocks and herds and to
keep them from falling sick. 21
The practice of lighting bonfires on Midsummer Eve and dancing or
leaping over them is, or was till recently, common all over Spain and in
some parts of Italy and Sicily. In Malta great fires are kindled in the streets
and squares of the towns and villages on the Eve of St. John (Midsummer
Eve); formerly the Grand Master of the Order of St. John used on that
evening to set fire to a heap of pitch barrels placed in front of the sacred
Hospital. In Greece, too, the custom of kindling fires on St. John's Eve and
jumping over them is said to be still universal. One reason assigned for it is
a wish to escape from the fleas. According to another account, the women
cry out, as they leap over the fire, "I leave my sins behind me." In Lesbos
the fires on St. John's Eve are usually lighted by threes, and the people
spring thrice over them, each with a stone on his head, saying, "I jump the
hare's fire, my head a stone!" In Calymnos the midsummer fire is supposed
to ensure abundance in the coming year as well as deliverance from fleas.
The people dance round the fires singing, with stones on their heads, and
then jump over the blaze or the glowing embers. When the fire is burning
low, they throw the stones into it; and when it is nearly out, they make
crosses on their legs and then go straightway and bathe in the sea. 22
The custom of kindling bonfires on Midsummer Day or on Midsummer Eve
is widely spread among the Mohammedan peoples of North Africa,
particularly in Morocco and Algeria; it is common both to the Berbers and
to many of the Arabs or Arabic-speaking tribes. In these countries
Midsummer Day (the twenty-fourth of June, Old Style) is called
l'săra. The fires are lit in the courtyards, at cross-roads, in the
fields, and sometimes on the threshing-floors. Plants which in burning give
out a thick smoke and an aromatic smell are much sought after for fuel on
these occasions; among the plants used for the purpose are giant-fennel,
thyme, rue, chervil-seed, camomile, geranium, and penny-royal. People
expose themselves, and especially their children, to the smoke, and drive
it towards the orchards and the crops. Also they leap across the fires; in
some places everybody ought to repeat the leap seven times. Moreover
they take burning brands from the fires and carry them through the houses
in order to fumigate them. They pass things through the fire, and bring the
sick into contact with it, while they utter prayers for their recovery. The
ashes of the bonfires are also reputed to possess beneficial properties;
hence in some places people rub their hair or their bodies with them. In
some places they think that by leaping over the fires they rid themselves of
all misfortune, and that childless couples thereby obtain offspring. Berbers
of the Rif province, in Northern Morocco, make great use of fires at
midsummer for the good of themselves, their cattle, and their fruit-trees.
They jump over the bonfires in the belief that this will preserve them in
good health, and they light fires under fruit-trees to keep the fruit from
falling untimely. And they imagine that by rubbing a paste of the ashes on
their hair they prevent the hair from falling off their heads. In all these
Moroccan customs, we are told, the beneficial effect is attributed wholly to
the smoke, which is supposed to be endued with a magical quality that
removes misfortune from men, animals, fruit-trees and crops. 23
The celebration of a midsummer festival by Mohammedan peoples is
particularly remarkable, because the Mohammedan calendar, being purely
lunar and uncorrected by intercalation, necessarily takes no note of
festivals which occupy fixed points in the solar year; all strictly
Mohammedan feasts, being pinned to the moon, slide gradually with that
luminary through the whole period of the earth's revolution about the sun.
This fact of itself seems to prove that among the Mohammedan peoples of
Northern Africa, as among the Christian peoples of Europe, the midsummer
festival is quite independent of the religion which the people publicly
profess, and is a relic of a far older paganism. 24
Section 6. The Hallowe'en Fires.
FROM THE FOREGOING survey we may infer that among the heathen
forefathers of the European peoples the most popular and widespread
fire-festival of the year was the great celebration of Midsummer Eve or
Midsummer Day. The coincidence of the festival with the summer solstice
can hardly be accidental. Rather we must suppose that our pagan
ancestors purposely timed the ceremony of fire on earth to coincide with
the arrival of the sun at the highest point of his course in the sky. If that
was so, it follows that the old founders of the midsummer rites had
observed the solstices or turning-points of the sun's apparent path in the
sky, and that they accordingly regulated their festal calendar to some
extent by astronomical considerations. 1
But while this may be regarded as fairly certain for what we may call the
aborigines throughout a large part of the continent, it appears not to have
been true of the Celtic peoples who inhabited the Land's End of Europe,
the islands and promontories that stretch out into the Atlantic Ocean on the
North-West. The principal fire-festivals of the Celts, which have survived,
though in a restricted area and with diminished pomp, to modern times and
even to our own day, were seemingly timed without any reference to the
position of the sun in the heaven. They were two in number, and fell at an
interval of six months, one being celebrated on the eve of May Day and
the other on Allhallow Even or Hallowe'en, as it is now commonly called,
that is, on the thirty-first of October, the day preceding All Saints' or
Allhallows' Day. These dates coincide with none of the four great hinges
on which the solar year revolves, to wit, the solstices and the equinoxes.
Nor do they agree with the principal seasons of the agricultural year, the
sowing in spring and the reaping in autumn. For when May Day comes,
the seed has long been committed to the earth; and when November
opens, the harvest has long been reaped and garnered, the fields lie bare,
the fruit-trees are stripped, and even the yellow leaves are fast fluttering to
the ground. Yet the first of May and the first of November mark
turning-points of the year in Europe; the one ushers in the genial heat and
the rich vegetation of summer, the other heralds, if it does not share, the
cold and barrenness of winter. Now these particular points of the year, as
has been well pointed out by a learned and ingenious writer, while they
are of comparatively little moment to the European husbandman, do deeply
concern the European herdsman; for it is on the approach of summer that
he drives his cattle out into the open to crop the fresh grass, and it is on
the approach of winter that he leads them back to the safety and shelter of
the stall. Accordingly it seems not improbable that the Celtic bisection of
the year into two halves at the beginning of May and the beginning of
November dates from a time when the Celts were mainly a pastoral people,
dependent for their subsistence on their herds, and when accordingly the
great epochs of the year for them were the days on which the cattle went
forth from the homestead in early summer and returned to it again in early
winter. Even in Central Europe, remote from the region now occupied by
the Celts, a similar bisection of the year may be clearly traced in the great
popularity, on the one hand, of May Day and its Eve (Walpurgis Night),
and, on the other hand, of the Feast of All Souls at the beginning of
November, which under a thin Christian cloak conceals an ancient pagan
festival of the dead. Hence we may conjecture that everywhere throughout
Europe the celestial division of the year according to the solstices was
preceded by what we may call a terrestrial division of the year according
to the beginning of summer and the beginning of winter. 2
Be that as it may, the two great Celtic festivals of May Day and the first
of November or, to be more accurate, the Eves of these two days, closely
resemble each other in the manner of their celebration and in the
superstitions associated with them, and alike, by the antique character
impressed upon both, betray a remote and purely pagan origin. The
festival of May Day or Beltane, as the Celts called it, which ushered in
summer, has already been described; it remains to give some account of
the corresponding festival of Hallowe'en, which announced the arrival of
winter. 3
Of the two feasts Hallowe'en was perhaps of old the more important,
since the Celts would seem to have dated the beginning of the year from it
rather than from Beltane. In the Isle of Man, one of the fortresses in which
the Celtic language and lore longest held out against the siege of the
Saxon invaders, the first of November, Old Style, has been regarded as
New Year's day down to recent times. Thus Manx mummers used to go
round on Hallowe'en (Old Style), singing, in the Manx language, a sort of
Hogmanay song which began "To-night is New Year's Night, Hogunnaa!"
In ancient Ireland, a new fire used to be kindled every year on Hallowe'en
or the Eve of Samhain, and from this sacred flame all the fires in Ireland
were rekindled. Such a custom points strongly to Samhain or All Saints'
Day (the first of November) as New Year's Day; since the annual kindling
of a new fire takes place most naturally at the beginning of the year, in
order that the blessed influence of the fresh fire may last throughout the
whole period of twelve months. Another confirmation of the view that the
Celts dated their year from the first of November is furnished by the
manifold modes of divination which were commonly resorted to by Celtic
peoples on Hallowe'en for the purpose of ascertaining their destiny,
especially their fortune in the coming year; for when could these devices
for prying into the future be more reasonably put in practice than at the
beginning of the year? As a season of omens and auguries Hallowe'en
seems to have far surpassed Beltane in the imagination of the Celts; from
which we may with some probability infer that they reckoned their year
from Hallowe'en rather than Beltane. Another circumstance of great
moment which points to the same conclusion is the association of the dead
with Hallowe'en. Not only among the Celts but throughout Europe,
Hallowe'en, the night which marks the transition from autumn to winter,
seems to have been of old the time of year when the souls of the departed
were supposed to revisit their old homes in order to warm themselves by
the fire and to comfort themselves with the good cheer provided for them in
the kitchen or the parlour by their affectionate kinsfolk. It was, perhaps, a
natural thought that the approach of winter should drive the poor shivering
hungry ghosts from the bare fields and the leafless woodlands to the
shelter of the cottage with its familiar fireside. Did not the lowing kine then
troop back from the summer pastures in the forests and on the hills to be
fed and cared for in the stalls, while the bleak winds whistled among the
swaying boughs and the snow-drifts deepened in the hollows? and could
the good-man and the good-wife deny to the spirits of their dead the
welcome which they gave to the cows? 4
But it is not only the souls of the departed who are supposed to be
hovering unseen on the day "when autumn to winter resigns the pale
year." Witches then speed on their errands of mischief, some sweeping
through the air on besoms, others galloping along the roads on
tabby-cats, which for that evening are turned into coal-black steeds. The
fairies, too, are all let loose, and hobgoblins of every sort roam freely
about. 5
Yet while a glamour of mystery and awe has always clung to Hallowe'en
in the minds of the Celtic peasantry, the popular celebration of the festival
has been, at least in modern times, by no means of a prevailing gloomy
cast; on the contrary it has been attended by picturesque features and
merry pastimes, which rendered it the gayest night of all the year. Amongst
the things which in the Highlands of Scotland contributed to invest the
festival with a romantic beauty were the bonfires which used to blaze at
frequent intervals on the heights. "On the last day of autumn children
gathered ferns, tar-barrels, the long thin stalks called gàinisg, and
everything suitable for a bonfire. These were placed in a heap on some
eminence near the house, and in the evening set fire to. The fires were
called Samhnagan. There was one for each house, and it was an object of
ambition who should have the biggest. Whole districts were brilliant with
bonfires, and their glare across a Highland loch, and from many
eminences, formed an exceedingly picturesque scene." Like the Beltane
fires on the first of May, the Hallowe'en bonfires seem to have been
kindled most commonly in the Perthshire Highlands. In the parish of
Callander they still blazed down to near the end of the eighteenth century.
When the fire had died down, the ashes were carefully collected in the
form of a circle, and a stone was put in, near the circumference, for every
person of the several families interested in the bonfire. Next morning, if any
of these stones was found to be displaced or injured, the people made
sure that the person represented by it was fey or devoted, and that he
could not live twelve months from that day. At Balquhidder down to the
latter part of the nineteenth century each household kindled its bonfire at
Hallowe'en, but the custom was chiefly observed by children. The fires
were lighted on any high knoll near the house; there was no dancing
round them. Hallowe'en fires were also lighted in some districts of the
north-east of Scotland, such as Buchan. Villagers and farmers alike must
have their fire. In the villages the boys went from house to house and
begged a peat from each householder, usually with the words, "Ge's a
peat t' burn the witches." When they had collected enough peats, they
piled them in a heap, together with straw, furze, and other combustible
materials, and set the whole on fire. Then each of the youths, one after
another, laid himself down on the ground as near to the fire as he could
without being scorched, and thus lying allowed the smoke to roll over him.
The others ran through the smoke and jumped over their prostrate
comrade. When the heap was burned down, they scattered the ashes,
vying with each other who should scatter them most. 6
In the northern part of Wales it used to be customary for every family to
make a great bonfire called Coel Coeth on Hallowe'en. The fire was
kindled on the most conspicuous spot near the house; and when it had
nearly gone out every one threw into the ashes a white stone, which he
had first marked. Then having said their prayers round the fire, they went
to bed. Next morning, as soon as they were up, they came to search out
the stones, and if any one of them was found to be missing, they had a
notion that the person who threw it would die before he saw another
Hallowe'en. According to Sir John Rhys, the habit of celebrating
Hallowe'en by lighting bonfires on the hills is perhaps not yet extinct in
Wales, and men still living can remember how the people who assisted at
the bonfires would wait till the last spark was out and then would suddenly
take to their heels, shouting at the top of their voices, "The cropped black
sow seize the hindmost!" The saying, as Sir John Rhys justly remarks,
implies that originally one of the company became a victim in dead
earnest. Down to the present time the saying is current in Carnarvonshire,
where allusions to the cutty black sow are still occasionally made to
frighten children. We can now understand why in Lower Brittany every
person throws a pebble into the midsummer bonfire. Doubtless there, as in
Wales and the Highlands of Scotland, omens of life and death have at one
time or other been drawn from the position and state of the pebbles on the
morning of All Saints' Day. The custom, thus found among three separate
branches of the Celtic stock, probably dates from a period before their
dispersion, or at least from a time when alien races had not yet driven
home the wedges of separation between them. 7
In the Isle of Man also, another Celtic country, Hallowe'en was
celebrated down to modern times by the kindling of fires, accompanied
with all the usual ceremonies designed to prevent the baneful influence of
fairies and witches. 8
Section 7. The Midwinter Fires.
IF THE HEATHEN of ancient Europe celebrated, as we have good reason
to believe, the season of Midsummer with a great festival of fire, of which
the traces have survived in many places down to our own time, it is
natural to suppose that they should have observed with similar rites the
corresponding season of Midwinter; for Midsummer and Midwinter, or, in
more technical language, the summer solstice and the winter solstice, are
the two great turningpoints in the sun's apparent course through the sky,
and from the standpoint of primitive man nothing might seem more
appropriate than to kindle fires on earth at the two moments when the fire
and heat of the great luminary in heaven begin to wane or to wax. 1
In modern Christendom the ancient fire-festival of the winter solstice
appears to survive, or to have survived down to recent years, in the old
custom of the Yule log, clog, or block, as it was variously called in
England. The custom was widespread in Europe, but seems to have
flourished especially in England, France, and among the South Slavs; at
least the fullest accounts of the custom come from these quarters. That the
Yule log was only the winter counterpart of the midsummer bonfire, kindled
within doors instead of in the open air on account of the cold and
inclement weather of the season, was pointed out long ago by our English
antiquary John Brand; and the view is supported by the many quaint
superstitions attaching to the Yule log, superstitions which have no
apparent connexion with Christianity but carry their heathen origin plainly
stamped upon them. But while the two solstitial celebrations were both
festivals of fire, the necessity or desirability of holding the winter
celebration within doors lent it the character of a private or domestic
festivity, which contrasts strongly with the publicity of the summer
celebration, at which the people gathered on some open space or
conspicuous height, kindled a huge bonfire in common, and danced and
made merry round it together. 2
Down to about the middle of the nineteenth century the old rite of the
Yule log was kept up in some parts of Central Germany. Thus in the
valleys of the Sieg and Lahn the Yule log, a heavy block of oak, was fitted
into the floor of the hearth, where, though it glowed under the fire, it was
hardly reduced to ashes within a year. When the new log was laid next
year, the remains of the old one were ground to powder and strewed over
the fields during the Twelve Nights, which was supposed to promote the
growth of the crops. In some villages of Westphalia, the practice was to
withdraw the Yule log (Christbrand) from the fire so soon as it was slightly
charred; it was then kept carefully to be replaced on the fire whenever a
thunderstorm broke, because the people believed that lightning would not
strike a house in which the Yule log was smouldering. In other villages of
Westphalia the old custom was to tie up the Yule log in the last sheaf cut
at harvest. 3
In several provinces of France, and particularly in Provence, the custom
of the Yule log or tréfoir, as it was called in many places, was long
observed. A French writer of the seventeenth century denounces as
superstitious "the belief that a log called the tréfoir or Christmas brand,
which you put on the fire for the first time on Christmas Eve and continue
to put on the fire for a little while every day till Twelfth Night, can, if kept
under the bed, protect the house for a whole year from fire and thunder;
that it can prevent the inmates from having chilblains on their heels in
winter; that it can cure the cattle of many maladies; that if a piece of it be
steeped in the water which cows drink it helps them to calve; and lastly
that if the ashes of the log be strewn on the fields it can save the wheat
from mildew." 4
In some parts of Flanders and France the remains of the Yule log were
regularly kept in the house under a bed as a protection against thunder
and lightning; in Berry, when thunder was heard, a member of the family
used to take a piece of the log and throw it on the fire, which was believed
to avert the lightning. Again, in Perigord, the charcoal and ashes are
carefully collected and kept for healing swollen glands; the part of the
trunk which has not been burnt in the fire is used by ploughmen to make
the wedge for their plough, because they allege that it causes the seeds to
thrive better; and the women keep pieces of it till Twelfth Night for the sake
of their chickens. Some people imagine that they will have as many
chickens as there are sparks that fly out of the brands of the log when they
shake them; and others place the extinct brands under the bed to drive
away vermin. In various parts of France the charred log is thought to guard
the house against sorcery as well as against lightning. 5
In England the customs and beliefs concerning the Yule log used to be
similar. On the night of Christmas Eve, says the antiquary John Brand,
"our ancestors were wont to light up candles of an uncommon size, called
Christmas Candles, and lay a log of wood upon the fire, called a
Yule-clog or Christmas-block, to illuminate the house, and, as it were, to
turn night into day." The old custom was to light the Yule log with a
fragment of its predecessor, which had been kept throughout the year for
the purpose; where it was so kept, the fiend could do no mischief. The
remains of the log were also supposed to guard the house against fire and
lightning. 6
To this day the ritual of bringing in the Yule log is observed with much
solemnity among the Southern Slavs, especially the Serbians. The log is
usually a block of oak, but sometimes of olive or beech. They seem to
think that they will have as many calves, lambs, pigs, and kids as they
strike sparks out of the burning log. Some people carry a piece of the log
out to the fields to protect them against hail. In Albania down to recent
years it was a common custom to burn a Yule log at Christmas, and the
ashes of the fire were scattered on the fields to make them fertile. The
Huzuls, a Slavonic people of the Carpathians, kindle fire by the friction of
wood on Christmas Eve (Old Style, the fifth of January) and keep it
burning till Twelfth Night. 7
It is remarkable how common the belief appears to have been that the
remains of the Yule log, if kept throughout the year, had power to protect
the house against fire and especially against lightning. As the Yule log
was frequently of oak, it seems possible that this belief may be a relic of
the old Aryan creed which associated the oak-tree with the god of
thunder. Whether the curative and fertilising virtues ascribed to the ashes
of the Yule log, which are supposed to heal cattle as well as men, to
enable cows to calve, and to promote the fruitfulness of the earth, may not
be derived from the same ancient source, is a question which deserves to
be considered. 8
Section 8. The Need-fire.
THE FIRE-FESTIVALS hitherto described are all celebrated periodically at
certain stated times of the year. But besides these regularly recurring
celebrations the peasants in many parts of Europe have been wont from
time immemorial to resort to a ritual of fire at irregular intervals in seasons
of distress and calamity, above all when their cattle were attacked by
epidemic disease. No account of the popular European fire-festivals would
be complete without some notice of these remarkable rites, which have all
the greater claim on our attention because they may perhaps be regarded
as the source and origin of all the other fire-festivals; certainly they must
date from a very remote antiquity. The general name by which they are
known among the Teutonic peoples is need-fire. Sometimes the need-fire
was known as "wild fire," to distinguish it no doubt from the tame fire
produced by more ordinary methods. Among Slavonic peoples it is called
"living fire." 1
The history of the custom can be traced from the early Middle Ages,
when it was denounced by the Church as a heathen superstition, down to
the first half of the nineteenth century, when it was still occasionally
practised in various parts of Germany, England, Scotland, and Ireland.
Among Slavonic peoples it appears to have lingered even longer. The
usual occasion for performing the rite was an outbreak of plague or
cattle-disease, for which the need-fire was believed to be an infallible
remedy. The animals which were subjected to it included cows, pigs,
horses, and sometimes geese. As a necessary preliminary to the kindling
of the need-fire all other fires and lights in the neighbourhood were
extinguished, so that not so much as a spark remained alight; for so long
as even a night-light burned in a house, it was imagined that the
need-fire could not kindle. Sometimes it was deemed enough to put out all
the fires in the village; but sometimes the extinction extended to
neighbouring villages or to a whole parish. In some parts of the Highlands
of Scotland the rule was that all householders who dwelt within the two
nearest running streams should put out their lights and fires on the day
appointed. Usually the need-fire was made in the open air, but in some
parts of Serbia it was kindled in a dark room; sometimes the place was a
cross-way or a hollow in a road. In the Highlands of Scotland the proper
places for performing the rite seem to have been knolls or small islands in
rivers. 2
The regular method of producing the need-fire was by the friction of two
pieces of wood; it might not be struck by flint and steel. Very exceptionally
among some South Slavs we read of a practice of kindling a need-fire by
striking a piece of iron on an anvil. Where the wood to be employed is
specified, it is generally said to be oak; but on the Lower Rhine the fire
was kindled by the friction of oak-wood or fir-wood. In Slavonic countries
we hear of poplar, pear, and cornel wood being used for the purpose.
Often the material is simply described as two pieces of dry wood.
Sometimes nine different kinds of wood were deemed necessary, but rather
perhaps to be burned in the bonfire than to be rubbed together for the
production of the need-fire. The particular mode of kindling the need-fire
varied in different districts; a very common one was this. Two poles were
driven into the ground about a foot and a half from each other. Each pole
had in the side facing the other a socket into which a smooth cross-piece
or roller was fitted. The sockets were stuffed with linen, and the two ends
of the roller were rammed tightly into the sockets. To make it more
inflammable the roller was often coated with tar. A rope was then wound
round the roller, and the free ends at both sides were gripped by two or
more persons, who by pulling the rope to and fro caused the roller to
revolve rapidly, till through the friction the linen in the sockets took fire.
The sparks were immediately caught in tow or oakum and waved about in
a circle until they burst into a bright glow, when straw was applied to it,
and the blazing straw used to kindle the fuel that had been stacked to
make the bonfire. Often a wheel, sometimes a cart-wheel or even a
spinning-wheel, formed part of the mechanism; in Aberdeenshire it was
called "the muckle wheel"; in the island of Mull the wheel was turned from
east to west over nine spindles of oak-wood. Sometimes we are merely
told that two wooden planks were rubbed together. Sometimes it was
prescribed that the cart-wheel used for fire-making and the axle on which
it turned should both be new. Similarly it was said that the rope which
turned the roller should be new; if possible it should be woven of strands
taken from a gallows rope with which people had been hanged, but this
was a counsel of perfection rather than a strict necessity. 3
Various rules were also laid down as to the kind of persons who might or
should make the need-fire. Sometimes it was said that the two persons
who pulled the rope which twirled the roller should always be brothers or
at least bear the same baptismal name; sometimes it was deemed sufficient
if they were both chaste young men. In some villages of Brunswick people
thought that if everybody who lent a hand in kindling the need-fire did not
bear the same Christian name, they would labour in vain. In Silesia the
tree employed to produce the need-fire used to be felled by a pair of twin
brothers. In the western islands of Scotland the fire was kindled by
eighty-one married men, who rubbed two great planks against each other,
working in relays of nine; in North Uist the nine times nine who made the
fire were all first-begotten sons, but we are not told whether they were
married or single. Among the Serbians the need-fire is sometimes kindled
by a boy and girl between eleven and fourteen years of age, who work
stark naked in a dark room; sometimes it is made by an old man and an old
woman also in the dark. In Bulgaria, too, the makers of need-fire strip
themselves of their clothes; in Caithness they divested themselves of all
kinds of metal. If after long rubbing of the wood no fire was elicited they
concluded that some fire must still be burning in the village; so a strict
search was made from house to house, any fire that might be found was
put out, and the negligent householder punished or upbraided; indeed a
heavy fine might be inflicted on him. 4
When the need-fire was at last kindled, the bonfire was lit from it, and as
soon as the blaze had somewhat died down, the sick animals were driven
over the glowing embers, sometimes in a regular order of precedence, first
the pigs, next the cows, and last of all the horses. Sometimes they were
driven twice or thrice through the smoke and flames, so that occasionally
some of them were scorched to death. As soon as all the beasts were
through, the young folk would rush wildly at the ashes and cinders,
sprinkling and blackening each other with them; those who were most
blackened would march in triumph behind the cattle into the village and
would not wash themselves for a long time. From the bonfire people carried
live embers home and used them to rekindle the fires in their houses.
These brands, after being extinguished in water, they sometimes put in the
managers at which the cattle fed, and kept them there for a while. Ashes
from the need-fire were also strewed on the fields to protect the crops
against vermin; sometimes they were taken home to be employed as
remedies in sickness, being sprinkled on the ailing part or mixed in water
and drunk by the patient. In the western islands of Scotland and on the
adjoining mainland, as soon as the fire on the domestic hearth had been
rekindled from the need-fire a pot full of water was set on it, and the water
thus heated was afterwards sprinkled upon the people infected with the
plague or upon the cattle that were tainted by the murrain. Special virtue
was attributed to the smoke of the bonfire; in Sweden fruit-trees and nets
were fumigated with it, in order that the trees might bear fruit and the nets
catch fish. In the Highlands of Scotland the need-fire was accounted a
sovereign remedy for witchcraft. In the island of Mull, when the fire was
kindled as a cure for the murrain, we hear of the rite being accompanied
by the sacrifice of a sick heifer, which was cut in pieces and burnt.
Slavonian and Bulgarian peasants conceive cattle-plague as a foul fiend
or vampyre which can be kept at bay by interposing a barrier of fire
between it and the herds. A similar conception may perhaps have
originally everywhere underlain the use of the need-fire as a remedy for
the murrain. It appears that in some parts of Germany the people did not
wait for an outbreak of cattleplague, but, taking time by the forelock,
kindled a need-fire annually to prevent the calamity. Similarly in Poland
the peasants are said to kindle fires in the village streets every year on St.
Rochus's day and to drive the cattle thrice through them in order to protect
the beasts against the murrain. We have seen that in the Hebrides the
cattle were in like manner driven annually round the Beltane fires for the
same purpose. In some cantons of Switzerland children still kindle a
need-fire by the friction of wood for the sake of dispelling a mist. 5