Chapter lxii - THE FIRE-FESTIVALS OF EUROPE<P> 

  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 corn-field, 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 crosi
  enveloped in straw, so that it looked like a man with his arms stretched
  out.  This was the Easter Man.  No lad under eighteen years of age might
  take part in the ceremony.  One of the young men stationed himself
  beside the Easter Man, holding in his hand a consecrated taper which
  he had brought from the church and lighted.  The rest stood at equal
  intervals in a great circle round the cross.  At a given signal they raced
  thrice round the circle, and then at a second signal ran straight at the
  cross and at the lad with the lighted taper beside it; the one who reached
  the goal first had the right of setting fire to the Easter Man.  Great was
  the jubilation while he was burning.  When he had been consumed in the
  flames, three lads were chosen from among the rest, and each of the
  three drew a circle on the ground with a stick thrice round the ashes.
  Then they all left the spot.  On Easter Monday the villagers gathered
  the ashes and strewed them on their fields; also they planted in the fields
  palm-branches which had been consecrated on Palm Sunday, and sticks
  which had been charred and hallowed on Good Friday, <B>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.</B>
  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.



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
ivriters 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 thou,,ht 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 gr@ndest 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 High-
lands within the last hundred years.  But since the decline of superstition,
it has been celebrated by the people of each hamlet on some hilt 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
    'le of wood or other fuel was placed, which of old they kindled with
a pi                                                              I
trin-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
tet'n-eigin upon extraordinary emergencies.
  "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

7i8                            Ch. ixii



THE FIRE-FESTIVALS OF EUROPI&



 smal.'L 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 thcm 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 pre-
 vailed at or near Kingussie in Inverncss-shire.
  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 werc callcd bone-fires.  The pcople 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.  Meantimc
 the young people danced round the fire or ran through the smc>l,@e 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."
  In the Hebrides "the Beltane bannock is smaller than that made at
 St. Michael's, blit is made in the same way; it is no longer made i-a
 Uist, but Father Allan remembers seeing his grandmother make onc
 about twenty-five years ago.  There was also a cheese made, generally DEL



Ch.lXii - THE BELTANE FIRES                                                7I9

                     I
the first of May, wh'ch was kept to the next Beltane as a sort of charm
                     I
  ainst the bewitching of milk-produce.  The Beltane customs seem to
  ve becn the same as elsewhere.  Every fire was put out and a large one
Nt oli 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 where-
with to kindle his own."
  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 scon 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 whc, 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 tnvo 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 ap-
proval, as the holders of the brown bits leaped three times over the
flames, or ran three times between the two fires."
  The belief of the people that by leaping thrice over the bonfires or
ruilning 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 pro-
tected the lands from sorcery, so that good crops would follow.  The ashes
were also considered valuable as charms." Hence it appears that the
heal of the fires was thought to fertilise the fields, not directly by
quickening the seeds in the ground, but indirectly by counteracting the



THE BELTANE FIRES                              719

720                      Ch.lxii - THE FIRE-FFSTIVALS OF FURopl



baleful influence of witchcraft or perhaps by burning up the person's
of the witches.
  The Beltane fires seem to have been k'ndled also          'n 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.
  The first of May is a great popular festival in the more midiand and
southern parts of Sweden.  On the eve of the festival huge bonfires, whicb
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 thcir hellish errands.  On this witch-
ing 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.



5 - THE MIDSUMMER FIRES
  But the season at which these fire-festivals have been most generally
hcld 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-poitit in



 Clj.lXii - THE MIDSUMNIER FIRES                                            721

 the sun's career, when, after climbin, higher and hl,,her day by day
 in the sky, the luminary stops and tl-ienceforth retraces his stcps Oown

 the heavcnly road.  Sucb a moment could i-iot but be regardcd witli 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
 learii his own powerlessness in face of the vast cvcllc chances of nature,
 he may have fancied that he

<A HREF="/biblio.html#SJGF">Frazer 1922:714-721</A>