The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol.

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Title: The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. - 10 of 12)
Author: Frazer, James George, 1854-1941
Language: English
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The Golden Bough

A Study in Magic and Religion

James George Frazer, D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D.

Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Liverpool

Vol. X. of XII.

Part VII: Balder the Beautiful.

The Fire-Festivals of Europe and the Doctrine of the External Soul.

Vol. 1 of 2.

New York and London

MacMillan and Co.

1919

CONTENTS

Preface.
Chapter I. Between Heaven And Earth.
§ 1. Not to touch the Earth.
§ 2. Not to see the Sun.
Chapter II. The Seclusion of Girls at Puberty.
§ 1. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in Africa.
§ 2. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in New Ireland, New Guinea, and
Indonesia.
§ 3. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in the Torres Straits Islands and
Northern Australia.
§ 4. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty among the Indians of North America.
§ 5. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty among the Indians of South America.
§ 6. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in India and Cambodia.
§ 7. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in Folk-tales.
§ 8. Reasons for the Seclusion of Girls at Puberty.
Chapter III. The Myth of Balder.
Chapter IV. The Fire-Festivals of Europe.
§ 1. The Lenten Fires.
§ 2. The Easter Fires.
§ 3. The Beltane Fires.
§ 4. The Midsummer Fires.
§ 5. The Autumn Fires.
§ 6. The Hallowe’en Fires.
§ 7. The Midwinter Fires.
§ 8. The Need-fire.
§ 9. The Sacrifice of an Animal to stay a Cattle-Plague.
Chapter V. The Interpretation of the Fire-Festivals.
§ 1. On the Fire-festivals in general.
§ 2. The Solar Theory of the Fire-festivals.
§ 3. The Purificatory Theory of the Fire-festivals.
Footnotes

[Cover Art]

PREFACE.

In this concluding part of _The Golden Bough_ I have discussed the problem
which gives its title to the whole work. If I am right, the Golden Bough
over which the King of the Wood, Diana’s priest at Aricia, kept watch and
ward was no other than a branch of mistletoe growing on an oak within the
sacred grove; and as the plucking of the bough was a necessary prelude to
the slaughter of the priest, I have been led to institute a parallel
between the King of the Wood at Nemi and the Norse god Balder, who was
worshipped in a sacred grove beside the beautiful Sogne fiord of Norway
and was said to have perished by a stroke of mistletoe, which alone of all
things on earth or in heaven could wound him. On the theory here suggested
both Balder and the King of the Wood personified in a sense the sacred oak
of our Aryan forefathers, and both had deposited their lives or souls for
safety in the parasite which sometimes, though rarely, is found growing on
an oak and by the very rarity of its appearance excites the wonder and
stimulates the devotion of ignorant men. Though I am now less than ever
disposed to lay weight on the analogy between the Italian priest and the
Norse god, I have allowed it to stand because it furnishes me with a
pretext for discussing not only the general question of the external soul
in popular superstition, but also the fire-festivals of Europe, since fire
played a part both in the myth of Balder and in the ritual of the Arician
grove. Thus Balder the Beautiful in my hands is little more than a
stalking-horse to carry two heavy pack-loads of facts. And what is true of
Balder applies equally to the priest of Nemi himself, the nominal hero of
the long tragedy of human folly and suffering which has unrolled itself
before the readers of these volumes, and on which the curtain is now about
to fall. He, too, for all the quaint garb he wears and the gravity with
which he stalks across the stage, is merely a puppet, and it is time to
unmask him before laying him up in the box.

To drop metaphor, while nominally investigating a particular problem of
ancient mythology, I have really been discussing questions of more general
interest which concern the gradual evolution of human thought from
savagery to civilization. The enquiry is beset with difficulties of many
kinds, for the record of man’s mental development is even more imperfect
than the record of his physical development, and it is harder to read, not
only by reason of the incomparably more subtle and complex nature of the
subject, but because the reader’s eyes are apt to be dimmed by thick mists
of passion and prejudice, which cloud in a far less degree the fields of
comparative anatomy and geology. My contribution to the history of the
human mind consists of little more than a rough and purely provisional
classification of facts gathered almost entirely from printed sources. If
there is one general conclusion which seems to emerge from the mass of
particulars, I venture to think that it is the essential similarity in the
working of the less developed human mind among all races, which
corresponds to the essential similarity in their bodily frame revealed by
comparative anatomy. But while this general mental similarity may, I
believe, be taken as established, we must always be on our guard against
tracing to it a multitude of particular resemblances which may be and
often are due to simple diffusion, since nothing is more certain than that
the various races of men have borrowed from each other many of their arts
and crafts, their ideas, customs, and institutions. To sift out the
elements of culture which a race has independently evolved and to
distinguish them accurately from those which it has derived from other
races is a task of extreme difficulty and delicacy, which promises to
occupy students of man for a long time to come; indeed so complex are the
facts and so imperfect in most cases is the historical record that it may
be doubted whether in regard to many of the lower races we shall ever
arrive at more than probable conjectures.

Since the last edition of _The Golden Bough_ was published some thirteen
years ago, I have seen reason to change my views on several matters
discussed in this concluding part of the work, and though I have called
attention to these changes in the text, it may be well for the sake of
clearness to recapitulate them here.

In the first place, the arguments of Dr. Edward Westermarck have satisfied
me that the solar theory of the European fire-festivals, which I accepted
from W. Mannhardt, is very slightly, if at all, supported by the evidence
and is probably erroneous. The true explanation of the festivals I now
believe to be the one advocated by Dr. Westermarck himself, namely that
they are purificatory in intention, the fire being designed not, as I
formerly held, to reinforce the sun’s light and heat by sympathetic magic,
but merely to burn or repel the noxious things, whether conceived as
material or spiritual, which threaten the life of man, of animals, and of
plants. This aspect of the fire-festivals had not wholly escaped me in
former editions; I pointed it out explicitly, but, biassed perhaps by the
great authority of Mannhardt, I treated it as secondary and subordinate
instead of primary and dominant. Out of deference to Mannhardt, for whose
work I entertain the highest respect, and because the evidence for the
purificatory theory of the fires is perhaps not quite conclusive, I have
in this edition repeated and even reinforced the arguments for the solar
theory of the festivals, so that the reader may see for himself what can
be said on both sides of the question and may draw his own conclusion; but
for my part I cannot but think that the arguments for the purificatory
theory far outweigh the arguments for the solar theory. Dr. Westermarck
based his criticisms largely on his own observations of the Mohammedan
fire-festivals of Morocco, which present a remarkable resemblance to those
of Christian Europe, though there seems no reason to assume that herein
Africa has borrowed from Europe or Europe from Africa. So far as Europe is
concerned, the evidence tends strongly to shew that the grand evil which
the festivals aimed at combating was witchcraft, and that they were
conceived to attain their end by actually burning the witches, whether
visible or invisible, in the flames. If that was so, the wide prevalence
and the immense popularity of the fire-festivals provides us with a
measure for estimating the extent of the hold which the belief in
witchcraft had on the European mind before the rise of Christianity or
rather of rationalism; for Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant,
accepted the old belief and enforced it in the old way by the faggot and
the stake. It was not until human reason at last awoke after the long
slumber of the Middle Ages that this dreadful obsession gradually passed
away like a dark cloud from the intellectual horizon of Europe.

Yet we should deceive ourselves if we imagined that the belief in
witchcraft is even now dead in the mass of the people; on the contrary
there is ample evidence to shew that it only hibernates under the chilling
influence of rationalism, and that it would start into active life if that
influence were ever seriously relaxed. The truth seems to be that to this
day the peasant remains a pagan and savage at heart; his civilization is
merely a thin veneer which the hard knocks of life soon abrade, exposing
the solid core of paganism and savagery below. The danger created by a
bottomless layer of ignorance and superstition under the crust of
civilized society is lessened, not only by the natural torpidity and
inertia of the bucolic mind, but also by the progressive decrease of the
rural as compared with the urban population in modern states; for I
believe it will be found that the artisans who congregate in towns are far
less retentive of primitive modes of thought than their rustic brethren.
In every age cities have been the centres and as it were the lighthouses
from which ideas radiate into the surrounding darkness, kindled by the
friction of mind with mind in the crowded haunts of men; and it is natural
that at these beacons of intellectual light all should partake in some
measure of the general illumination. No doubt the mental ferment and
unrest of great cities have their dark as well as their bright side; but
among the evils to be apprehended from them the chances of a pagan revival
need hardly be reckoned.

Another point on which I have changed my mind is the nature of the great
Aryan god whom the Romans called Jupiter and the Greeks Zeus. Whereas I
formerly argued that he was primarily a personification of the sacred oak
and only in the second place a personification of the thundering sky, I
now invert the order of his divine functions and believe that he was a
sky-god before he came to be associated with the oak. In fact, I revert to
the traditional view of Jupiter, recant my heresy, and am gathered like a
lost sheep into the fold of mythological orthodoxy. The good shepherd who
has brought me back is my friend Mr. W. Warde Fowler. He has removed the
stone over which I stumbled in the wilderness by explaining in a simple
and natural way how a god of the thundering sky might easily come to be
afterwards associated with the oak. The explanation turns on the great
frequency with which, as statistics prove, the oak is struck by lightning
beyond any other tree of the wood in Europe. To our rude forefathers, who
dwelt in the gloomy depths of the primaeval forest, it might well seem
that the riven and blackened oaks must indeed be favourites of the
sky-god, who so often descended on them from the murky cloud in a flash of
lightning and a crash of thunder.

This change of view as to the great Aryan god necessarily affects my
interpretation of the King of the Wood, the priest of Diana at Aricia, if
I may take that discarded puppet out of the box again for a moment. On my
theory the priest represented Jupiter in the flesh, and accordingly, if
Jupiter was primarily a sky-god, his priest cannot have been a mere
incarnation of the sacred oak, but must, like the deity whose commission
he bore, have been invested in the imagination of his worshippers with the
power of overcasting the heaven with clouds and eliciting storms of
thunder and rain from the celestial vault. The attribution of
weather-making powers to kings or priests is very common in primitive
society, and is indeed one of the principal levers by which such
personages raise themselves to a position of superiority above their
fellows. There is therefore no improbability in the supposition that as a
representative of Jupiter the priest of Diana enjoyed this reputation,
though positive evidence of it appears to be lacking.

Lastly, in the present edition I have shewn some grounds for thinking that
the Golden Bough itself, or in common parlance the mistletoe on the oak,
was supposed to have dropped from the sky upon the tree in a flash of
lightning and therefore to contain within itself the seed of celestial
fire, a sort of smouldering thunderbolt. This view of the priest and of
the bough which he guarded at the peril of his life has the advantage of
accounting for the importance which the sanctuary at Nemi acquired and the
treasure which it amassed through the offerings of the faithful; for the
shrine would seem to have been to ancient what Loreto has been to modern
Italy, a place of pilgrimage, where princes and nobles as well as
commoners poured wealth into the coffers of Diana in her green recess
among the Alban hills, just as in modern times kings and queens vied with
each other in enriching the black Virgin who from her Holy House on the
hillside at Loreto looks out on the blue Adriatic and the purple
Apennines. Such pious prodigality becomes more intelligible if the
greatest of the gods was indeed believed to dwell in human shape with his
wife among the woods of Nemi.

These are the principal points on which I have altered my opinion since
the last edition of my book was published. The mere admission of such
changes may suffice to indicate the doubt and uncertainty which attend
enquiries of this nature. The whole fabric of ancient mythology is so
foreign to our modern ways of thought, and the evidence concerning it is
for the most part so fragmentary, obscure, and conflicting that in our
attempts to piece together and interpret it we can hardly hope to reach
conclusions that will completely satisfy either ourselves or others. In
this as in other branches of study it is the fate of theories to be washed
away like children’s castles of sand by the rising tide of knowledge, and
I am not so presumptuous as to expect or desire for mine an exemption from
the common lot. I hold them all very lightly and have used them chiefly as
convenient pegs on which to hang my collections of facts. For I believe
that, while theories are transitory, a record of facts has a permanent
value, and that as a chronicle of ancient customs and beliefs my book may
retain its utility when my theories are as obsolete as the customs and
beliefs themselves deserve to be.

I cannot dismiss without some natural regret a task which has occupied and
amused me at intervals for many years. But the regret is tempered by
thankfulness and hope. I am thankful that I have been able to conclude at
least one chapter of the work I projected a long time ago. I am hopeful
that I may not now be taking a final leave of my indulgent readers, but
that, as I am sensible of little abatement in my bodily strength and of
none in my ardour for study, they will bear with me yet a while if I
should attempt to entertain them with fresh subjects of laughter and tears
drawn from the comedy and the tragedy of man’s endless quest after
happiness and truth.

J. G. FRAZER.

CAMBRIDGE, _17th October 1913_.

CHAPTER I. BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH.

§ 1. Not to touch the Earth.

(M1) We have travelled far since we turned our backs on Nemi and set forth
in quest of the secret of the Golden Bough. With the present volume we
enter on the last stage of our long journey. The reader who has had the
patience to follow the enquiry thus far may remember that at the outset
two questions were proposed for answer: Why had the priest of Aricia to
slay his predecessor? And why, before doing so, had he to pluck the Golden
Bough?(1) Of these two questions the first has now been answered. The
priest of Aricia, if I am right, was one of those sacred kings or human
divinities on whose life the welfare of the community and even the course
of nature in general are believed to be intimately dependent. It does not
appear that the subjects or worshippers of such a spiritual potentate form
to themselves any very clear notion of the exact relationship in which
they stand to him; probably their ideas on the point are vague and
fluctuating, and we should err if we attempted to define the relationship
with logical precision. All that the people know, or rather imagine, is
that somehow they themselves, their cattle, and their crops are
mysteriously bound up with their divine king, so that according as he is
well or ill the community is healthy or sickly, the flocks and herds
thrive or languish with disease, and the fields yield an abundant or a
scanty harvest. The worst evil which they can conceive of is the natural
death of their ruler, whether he succumb to sickness or old age, for in
the opinion of his followers such a death would entail the most disastrous
consequences on themselves and their possessions; fatal epidemics would
sweep away man and beast, the earth would refuse her increase, nay the
very frame of nature itself might be dissolved. To guard against these
catastrophes it is necessary to put the king to death while he is still in
the full bloom of his divine manhood, in order that his sacred life,
transmitted in unabated force to his successor, may renew its youth, and
thus by successive transmissions through a perpetual line of vigorous
incarnations may remain eternally fresh and young, a pledge and security
that men and animals shall in like manner renew their youth by a perpetual
succession of generations, and that seedtime and harvest, and summer and
winter, and rain and sunshine shall never fail. That, if my conjecture is
right, was why the priest of Aricia, the King of the Wood at Nemi, had
regularly to perish by the sword of his successor.

(M2) But we have still to ask, What was the Golden Bough? and why had each
candidate for the Arician priesthood to pluck it before he could slay the
priest? These questions I will now try to answer.

(M3) It will be well to begin by noticing two of those rules or taboos by
which, as we have seen, the life of divine kings or priests is regulated.
The first of the rules to which I desire to call the reader’s attention is
that the divine personage may not touch the ground with his foot. This
rule was observed by the supreme pontiff of the Zapotecs in Mexico; he
profaned his sanctity if he so much as touched the ground with his
foot.(2) Montezuma, emperor of Mexico, never set foot on the ground; he
was always carried on the shoulders of noblemen, and if he lighted
anywhere they laid rich tapestry for him to walk upon.(3) For the Mikado
of Japan to touch the ground with his foot was a shameful degradation;
indeed, in the sixteenth century, it was enough to deprive him of his
office. Outside his palace he was carried on men’s shoulders; within it he
walked on exquisitely wrought mats.(4) The king and queen of Tahiti might
not touch the ground anywhere but within their hereditary domains; for the
ground on which they trod became sacred. In travelling from place to place
they were carried on the shoulders of sacred men. They were always
accompanied by several pairs of these sanctified attendants; and when it
became necessary to change their bearers, the king and queen vaulted on to
the shoulders of their new bearers without letting their feet touch the
ground.(5) It was an evil omen if the king of Dosuma touched the ground,
and he had to perform an expiatory ceremony.(6) Within his palace the king
of Persia walked on carpets on which no one else might tread; outside of
it he was never seen on foot but only in a chariot or on horseback.(7) In
old days the king of Siam never set foot upon the earth, but was carried
on a throne of gold from place to place.(8) Formerly neither the kings of
Uganda, nor their mothers, nor their queens might walk on foot outside of
the spacious enclosures in which they lived. Whenever they went forth they
were carried on the shoulders of men of the Buffalo clan, several of whom
accompanied any of these royal personages on a journey and took it in turn
to bear the burden. The king sat astride the bearer’s neck with a leg over
each shoulder and his feet tucked under the bearer’s arms. When one of
these royal carriers grew tired he shot the king on to the shoulders of a
second man without allowing the royal feet to touch the ground. In this
way they went at a great pace and travelled long distances in a day, when
the king was on a journey. The bearers had a special hut in the king’s
enclosure in order to be at hand the moment they were wanted.(9) Among the
Bakuba or rather Bushongo, a nation in the southern region of the Congo,
down to a few years ago persons of the royal blood were forbidden to touch
the ground; they must sit on a hide, a chair, or the back of a slave, who
crouched on hands and feet; their feet rested on the feet of others. When
they travelled they were carried on the backs of men; but the king
journeyed in a litter supported on shafts.(10) Among the Ibo people about
Awka, in Southern Nigeria, the priest of the Earth has to observe many
taboos; for example, he may not see a corpse, and if he meets one on the
road he must hide his eyes with his wristlet. He must abstain from many
foods, such as eggs, birds of all sorts, mutton, dog, bush-buck, and so
forth. He may neither wear nor touch a mask, and no masked man may enter
his house. If a dog enters his house, it is killed and thrown out. As
priest of the Earth he may not sit on the bare ground, nor eat things that
have fallen on the ground, nor may earth be thrown at him.(11) According
to ancient Brahmanic ritual a king at his inauguration trod on a tiger’s
skin and a golden plate; he was shod with shoes of boar’s skin, and so
long as he lived thereafter he might not stand on the earth with his bare
feet.(12)

(M4) But besides persons who are permanently sacred or tabooed and are
therefore permanently forbidden to touch the ground with their feet, there
are others who enjoy the character of sanctity or taboo only on certain
occasions, and to whom accordingly the prohibition in question only
applies at the definite seasons during which they exhale the odour of
sanctity. Thus among the Kayans or Bahaus of Central Borneo, while the
priestesses are engaged in the performance of certain rites they may not
step on the ground, and boards are laid for them to tread on.(13) At a
funeral ceremony observed by night among the Michemis, a Tibetan tribe
near the northern frontier of Assam, a priest fantastically bedecked with
tiger’s teeth, many-coloured plumes, bells, and shells, executed a wild
dance for the purpose of exorcising the evil spirits; then all fires were
extinguished and a new light was struck by a man suspended by his feet
from a beam in the ceiling; “he did not touch the ground,” we are told,
“in order to indicate that the light came from heaven.”(14) Again, newly
born infants are strongly tabooed; accordingly in Loango they are not
allowed to touch the earth.(15) Among the Iluvans of Malabar the
bridegroom on his wedding-day is bathed by seven young men and then
carried or walks on planks from the bathing-place to the marriage booth;
he may not touch the ground with his feet.(16) With the Dyaks of Landak
and Tajan, two districts of Dutch Borneo, it is a custom that for a
certain time after marriage neither bride nor bridegroom may tread on the
earth.(17) Warriors, again, on the war-path are surrounded, so to say, by
an atmosphere of taboo; hence some Indians of North America might not sit
on the bare ground the whole time they were out on a warlike
expedition.(18) In Laos the hunting of elephants gives rise to many
taboos; one of them is that the chief hunter may not touch the earth with
his foot. Accordingly, when he alights from his elephant, the others
spread a carpet of leaves for him to step upon.(19) German wiseacres
recommended that when witches were led to the block or the stake, they
should not be allowed to touch the bare earth, and a reason suggested for
the rule was that if they touched the earth they might make themselves
invisible and so escape. The sagacious author of _The Striped-petticoat
Philosophy_ in the eighteenth century ridicules the idea as mere silly
talk. He admits, indeed, that the women were conveyed to the place of
execution in carts; but he denies that there is any deep significance in
the cart, and he is prepared to maintain this view by a chemical analysis
of the timber of which the cart was built. To clinch his argument he
appeals to plain matter of fact and his own personal experience. Not a
single instance, he assures us with apparent satisfaction, can be produced
of a witch who escaped the axe or the fire in this fashion. “I have
myself,” says he, “in my youth seen divers witches burned, some at
Arnstadt, some at Ilmenau, some at Schwenda, a noble village between
Arnstadt and Ilmenau, and some of them were pardoned and beheaded before
being burned. They were laid on the earth in the place of execution and
beheaded like any other poor sinner; whereas if they could have escaped by
touching the earth, not one of them would have failed to do so.”(20)

(M5) Apparently holiness, magical virtue, taboo, or whatever we may call
that mysterious quality which is supposed to pervade sacred or tabooed
persons, is conceived by the primitive philosopher as a physical substance
or fluid, with which the sacred man is charged just as a Leyden jar is
charged with electricity; and exactly as the electricity in the jar can be
discharged by contact with a good conductor, so the holiness or magical
virtue in the man can be discharged and drained away by contact with the
earth, which on this theory serves as an excellent conductor for the
magical fluid. Hence in order to preserve the charge from running to
waste, the sacred or tabooed personage must be carefully prevented from
touching the ground; in electrical language he must be insulated, if he is
not to be emptied of the precious substance or fluid with which he, as a
vial, is filled to the brim. And in many cases apparently the insulation
of the tabooed person is recommended as a precaution not merely for his
own sake but for the sake of others; for since the virtue of holiness or
taboo is, so to say, a powerful explosive which the smallest touch may
detonate, it is necessary in the interest of the general safety to keep it
within narrow bounds, lest breaking out it should blast, blight, and
destroy whatever it comes into contact with.

(M6) But things as well as persons are often charged with the mysterious
quality of holiness or taboo; hence it frequently becomes necessary for
similar reasons to guard them also from coming into contact with the
ground, lest they should in like manner be drained of their valuable
properties and be reduced to mere commonplace material objects, empty
husks from which the good grain has been eliminated. Thus, for example,
the most sacred object of the Arunta tribe in Central Australia is, or
rather used to be, a pole about twenty feet high, which is completely
smeared with human blood, crowned with an imitation of a human head, and
set up on the ground where the final initiatory ceremonies of young men
are performed. A young gum-tree is chosen to form the pole, and it must be
cut down and transported in such a way that it does not touch the earth
till it is erected in its place on the holy ground. Apparently the pole
represents some famous ancestor of the olden time.(21)

(M7) Again, at a great dancing festival celebrated by the natives of
Bartle Bay, in British New Guinea, a wild mango tree plays a prominent
part. The tree must be self-sown, that is, really wild and so young that
it has never flowered. It is chosen in the jungle some five or six weeks
before the festival, and a circle is cleared round its trunk. From that
time the master of the ceremonies and some eight to twenty other men, who
have aided him in choosing the tree and in clearing the jungle, become
strictly holy or tabooed. They sleep by themselves in a house into which
no one else may intrude: they may not wash or drink water, nor even allow
it accidentally to touch their bodies: they are forbidden to eat boiled
food and the fruit of mango trees: they may drink only the milk of a young
coco-nut which has been baked, and they may eat certain fruits and
vegetables, such as paw-paws (_Carica papaya_) and sugar-cane, but only on
condition that they have been baked. All refuse of their food is kept in
baskets in their sleeping-house and may not be removed from it till the
festival is over. At the time when the men begin to observe these rules of
abstinence, some six to ten women, members of the same clan as the master
of the ceremonies, enter on a like period of mortification, avoiding the
company of the other sex, and refraining from water, all boiled food, and
the fruit of the mango tree. These fasting men and women are the principal
dancers at the festival. The dancing takes place on a special platform in
a temporary village which has been erected for the purpose. When the
platform is about to be set up, the fasting men rub the stepping posts and
then suck their hands for the purpose of extracting the ghost of any dead
man that might chance to be in the post and might be injured by the weight
of the platform pressing down on him. Having carefully extracted these
poor souls, the men carry them away tenderly and set them free in the
forest or the long grass.

(M8) On the day before the festival one of the fasting men cuts down the
chosen mango tree in the jungle with a stone adze, which is never
afterwards put to any other use; an iron tool may not be used for the
purpose, though iron tools are now common enough in the district. In
cutting down the mango they place nets on the ground to catch any leaves
or twigs that might fall from the tree as it is being felled, and they
surround the trunk with new mats to receive the chips which fly out under
the adze of the woodman; for the chips may not drop on the earth. Once the
tree is down, it is carried to the centre of the temporary village, the
greatest care being taken to prevent it from coming into contact with the
ground. But when it is brought into the village, the houses are connected
with the top of the mango by means of long vines decorated with streamers.
In the afternoon the fasting men and women begin to dance, the men
bedizened with gay feathers, armlets, streamers, and anklets, the women
flaunting in parti-coloured petticoats and sprigs of croton leaves, which
wave from their waistbands as they dance. The dancing stops at sundown,
and when the full moon rises over the shoulder of the eastern hill (for
the date of the festival seems to be determined with reference to the time
of the moon), two chiefs mount the gables of two houses on the eastern
side of the square, and, their dusky figures standing sharply out against
the moonlight, pray to the evil spirits to go away and not to hurt the
people. Next morning pigs are killed by being speared as slowly as
possible in order that they may squeal loud and long; for the people
believe that the mango trees hear the squealing, and are pleased at the
sound, and bear plenty of fruit, whereas if they heard no squeals they
would bear no fruit. However, the trees have to content themselves with
the squeals; the flesh of the pigs is eaten by the people. This ends the
festival.

(M9) Next day the mango is taken down from the platform, wrapt in new
mats, and carried by the fasting men to their sleeping house, where it is
hung from the roof. But after an interval, it may be of many months, the
tree is brought forth again. As to the reason for its reappearance in
public opinions are divided; but some say that the tree itself orders the
master of the ceremonies to bring it forth, appearing to him in his dreams
and saying, “Let me smell the smoking fat of pigs. So will your pigs be
healthy and your crops will grow.” Be that as it may, out it comes,
conducted by the fasting men in their dancing costume; and with it come in
the solemn procession all the pots, spoons, cups and so forth used by the
fasting men during their period of holiness or taboo, also all the refuse
of their food which has been collected for months, and all the fallen
leaves and chips of the mango in their bundles of mats. These holy relics
are carried in front and the mango tree itself brings up the rear of the
procession. While these sacred objects are being handed out of the house,
the men who are present rush up, wipe off the hallowed dust which has
accumulated on them, and smear it over their own bodies, no doubt in order
to steep themselves in their blessed influence. Thus the tree is carried
as before to the centre of the temporary village, care being again taken
not to let it touch the ground. Then one of the fasting men takes from a
basket a number of young green mangoes, cuts them in pieces, and places
them with his own hands in the mouths of his fellows, the other fasting
men, who chew the pieces small and turning round spit the morsels in the
direction of the setting sun, in order that “the sun should carry the
mango bits over the whole country and everyone should know.” A portion of
the mango tree is then broken off and in the evening it is burnt along
with the bundles of leaves, chips, and refuse of food, which have been
stored up. What remains of the tree is taken to the house of the master of
the ceremonies and hung over the fire-place; it will be brought out again
at intervals and burned bit by bit, till all is consumed, whereupon a new
mango will be cut down and treated in like manner. The ashes of the holy
fire on each occasion are gathered by the people and preserved in the
house of the master of the ceremonies.(22)

(M10) The meaning of these ceremonies is not explained by the authorities
who describe them; but we may conjecture that they are intended to
fertilize the mango trees and cause them to bear a good crop of fruit. The
central feature of the whole ritual is a wild mango tree, so young that it
has never flowered: the men who cut it down, carry it into the village,
and dance at the festival, are forbidden to eat mangoes: pigs are killed
in order that their dying squeals may move the mango trees to bear fruit:
at the end of the ceremonies pieces of young green mangoes are solemnly
placed in the mouths of the fasting men and are by them spurted out
towards the setting sun in order that the luminary may carry the fragments
to every part of the country; and finally when after a longer or shorter
interval the tree is wholly consumed, its place is supplied by another.
All these circumstances are explained simply and naturally by the
supposition that the young mango tree is taken as a representative of
mangoes generally, that the dances are intended to quicken it, and that it
is preserved, like a May-pole of old in England, as a sort of general fund
of vegetable life, till the fund being exhausted by the destruction of the
tree it is renewed by the importation of a fresh young tree from the
forest. We can therefore understand why, as a storehouse of vital energy,
the tree should be carefully kept from contact with the ground, lest the
pent-up and concentrated energy should escape and dribbling away into the
earth be dissipated to no purpose.

(M11) To take other instances of what we may call the conservation of
energy in magic or religion by insulating sacred bodies from the ground,
the natives of New Britain have a secret society called the Duk-duk, the
members of which masquerade in petticoats of leaves and tall headdresses
of wickerwork shaped like candle extinguishers, which descend to the
shoulders of the wearers, completely concealing their faces. Thus
disguised they dance about to the awe and terror, real or assumed, of the
women and uninitiated, who take, or pretend to take, them for spirits.
When lads are being initiated into the secrets of this august society, the
adepts cut down some very large and heavy bamboos, one for each lad, and
the novices carry them, carefully wrapt up in leaves, to the sacred
ground, where they arrive very tired and weary, for they may not let the
bamboos touch the ground nor the sun shine on them. Outside the fence of
the enclosure every lad deposits his bamboo on a couple of forked sticks
and covers it up with nut leaves.(23) Among the Carrier Indians of
North-Western America, who burned their dead, the ashes of a chief used to
be placed in a box and set on the top of a pole beside his hut: the box
was never allowed to touch the ground.(24) In the Omaha tribe of North
American Indians the sacred clam shell of the Elk clan was wrapt up from
sight in a mat, placed on a stand, and never suffered to come in contact
with the earth.(25) The Cherokees and kindred Indian tribes of the United
States used to have certain sacred boxes or arks, which they regularly
took with them to war. Such a holy ark consisted of a square wooden box,
which contained “certain consecrated vessels made by beloved superannuated
women, and of such various antiquated forms, as would have puzzled Adam to
have given significant names to each.” The leader of a war party and his
attendant bore the ark by turns, but they never set it on the ground nor
would they themselves sit on the bare earth while they were carrying it
against the enemy. Where stones were plentiful they rested the ark on
them; but where no stones were to be found, they deposited it on short
logs. “The Indian ark is deemed so sacred and dangerous to be touched,
either by their own sanctified warriors, or the spoiling enemy, that they
durst not touch it upon any account. It is not to be meddled with by any,
except the war chieftain and his waiter, under the penalty of incurring
great evil. Nor would the most inveterate enemy touch it in the woods, for
the very same reason.” After their return home they used to hang the ark
on the leader’s red-painted war pole.(26) At Sipi, near Simla, in Northern
India, an annual fair is held, at which men purchase wives. A square box
with a domed top figures prominently at the fair. It is fixed on two poles
to be carried on men’s shoulders, and long heavily-plaited petticoats hang
from it nearly to the ground. Three sides of the box are adorned with the
head and shoulders of a female figure and the fourth side with a black
yak’s tail. Four men bear the poles, each carrying an axe in his right
hand. They dance round, with a swinging rhythmical step, to the music of
drums and a pipe. The dance goes on for hours and is thought to avert
ill-luck from the fair. It is said that the box is brought to Simla from a
place sixty miles off by relays of men, who may not stop nor set the box
on the ground the whole way.(27) In Scotland, when water was carried from
sacred wells to sick people, the water-vessel might not touch the
earth.(28) In some parts of Aberdeenshire the last bunch of standing corn,
which is commonly viewed as very sacred, being the last refuge of the
corn-spirit retreating before the reapers, is not suffered to touch the
ground; the master or “gueedman” sits down and receives each handful of
corn as it is cut on his lap.(29)

(M12) Again, sacred food may not under certain circumstances be brought
into contact with the earth. Some of the aborigines of Victoria used to
regard the fat of the emu as sacred, believing that it had once been the
fat of the black man. In taking it from the bird or giving it to another
they handled it reverently. Any one who threw away the fat or flesh of the
emu was held accursed. “The late Mr. Thomas observed on one occasion, at
Nerrenerre-Warreen, a remarkable exhibition of the effects of this
superstition. An aboriginal child—one attending the school—having eaten
some part of the flesh of an emu, threw away the skin. The skin fell to
the ground, and this being observed by his parents, they showed by their
gestures every token of horror. They looked upon their child as one
utterly lost. His desecration of the bird was regarded as a sin for which
there was no atonement.”(30) The Roumanians of Transylvania believe that
“every fresh-baked loaf of wheaten bread is sacred, and should a piece
inadvertently fall to the ground, it is hastily picked up, carefully wiped
and kissed, and if soiled, thrown into the fire—partly as an offering to
the dead, and partly because it were a heavy sin to throw away or tread
upon any particle of it.”(31) At certain festivals in south-eastern Borneo
the food which is consumed in the common house may not touch the ground;
hence, a little before the festivals take place, foot-bridges made of thin
poles are constructed from the private dwellings to the common house.(32)
When Hall was living with the Esquimaux and grew tired of eating walrus,
one of the women brought the head and neck of a reindeer for him to eat.
This venison had to be completely wrapt up before it was brought into the
house, and once in the house it could only be placed on the platform which
served as a bed. “To have placed it on the floor or on the platform behind
the fire-lamp, among the walrus, musk-ox, and polar-bear meat which occupy
a goodly portion of both of these places, would have horrified the whole
town, as, according to the actual belief of the Innuits, not another
walrus could be secured this year, and there would ever be trouble in
catching any more.”(33) But in this case the real scruple appears to have
been felt not so much at placing the venison on the ground as at bringing
it into contact with walrus meat.(34)

(M13) Sometimes magical implements and remedies are supposed to lose their
virtue by contact with the ground, the volatile essence with which they
are impregnated being no doubt drained off into the earth. Thus in the
Boulia district of Queensland the magical bone, which the native sorcerer
points at his victim as a means of killing him, is never by any chance
allowed to touch the earth.(35) The wives of rajahs in Macassar, a
district of southern Celebes, pride themselves on their luxuriant tresses
and are at great pains to oil and preserve them. Should the hair begin to
grow thin, the lady resorts to many devices to stay the ravages of time;
among other things she applies to her locks a fat extracted from
crocodiles and venomous snakes. The unguent is believed to be very
efficacious, but during its application the woman’s feet may not come into
contact with the ground, or all the benefit of the nostrum would be
lost.(36) Some people in antiquity believed that a woman in hard labour
would be delivered if a spear, which had been wrenched from a man’s body
without touching the ground, were thrown over the house where the sufferer
lay. Again, according to certain ancient writers, arrows which had been
extracted from a body without coming into contact with the earth and laid
under sleepers, acted as a love-charm.(37) Among the peasantry of the
north-east of Scotland the prehistoric weapons called celts went by the
name of “thunderbolts” and were coveted as the sure bringers of success,
always provided that they were not allowed to fall to the ground.(38)

(M14) In ancient Gaul certain glass or paste beads attained great
celebrity as amulets under the name of serpents’ eggs; it was believed
that serpents, coiling together in a wriggling, writhing mass, generated
them from their slaver and shot them into the air from their hissing jaws.
If a man was bold and dexterous enough to catch one of these eggs in his
cloak before it touched the ground, he rode off on horseback with it at
full speed, pursued by the whole pack of serpents, till he was saved by
the interposition of a river, which the snakes could not pass. The proof
of the egg being genuine was that if it were thrown into a stream it would
float up against the current, even though it were hooped in gold. The
Druids held these beads in high esteem; according to them, the precious
objects could only be obtained on a certain day of the moon, and the
peculiar virtue that resided in them was to secure success in law suits
and free access to kings. Pliny knew of a Gaulish knight who was executed
by the emperor Claudius for wearing one of these amulets.(39) Under the
name of Snake Stones (_glain neidr_) or Adder Stones the beads are still
known in those parts of our own country where the Celtic population has
lingered, with its immemorial superstitions, down to the present or recent
times; and the old story of the origin of the beads from the slaver of
serpents was believed by the modern peasantry of Cornwall, Wales, and
Scotland as by the Druids of ancient Gaul. In Cornwall the time when the
serpents united to fashion the beads was commonly said to be at or about
Midsummer Eve; in Wales it was usually thought to be spring, especially
the Eve of May Day, and even within recent years persons in the
Principality have affirmed that they witnessed the great vernal congress
of the snakes and saw the magic stone in the midst of the froth. The Welsh
peasants believe the beads to possess medicinal virtues of many sorts and
to be particularly efficacious for all maladies of the eyes. In Wales and
Ireland the beads sometimes went by the name of the Magician’s or Druid’s
Glass (_Gleini na Droedh_ and _Glaine nan Druidhe_). Specimens of them may
be seen in museums; some have been found in British barrows. They are of
glass of various colours, green, blue, pink, red, brown, and so forth,
some plain and some ribbed. Some are streaked with brilliant hues. The
beads are perforated, and in the Highlands of Scotland the hole is
explained by saying that when the bead has just been conflated by the
serpents jointly, one of the reptiles sticks his tail through the still
viscous glass. An Englishman who visited Scotland in 1699 found many of
these beads in use throughout the country. They were hung from children’s
necks to protect them from whooping cough and other ailments. Snake Stones
were, moreover, a charm to ensure prosperity in general and to repel evil
spirits. When one of these priceless treasures was not on active service,
the owner kept it in an iron box to guard it against fairies, who, as is
well known, cannot abide iron.(40)

(M15) Pliny mentions several medicinal plants, which, if they were to
retain their healing virtue, ought not to be allowed to touch the
earth.(41) The curious medical treatise of Marcellus, a native of Bordeaux
in the fourth century of our era, abounds with prescriptions of this sort;
and we can well believe the writer when he assures us that he borrowed
many of his quaint remedies from the lips of common folk and peasants
rather than from the books of the learned.(42) Thus he tells us that
certain white stones found in the stomachs of young swallows assuage the
most persistent headache, always provided that their virtue be not
impaired by contact with the ground.(43) Another of his cures for the same
malady is a wreath of fleabane placed on the head, but it must not touch
the earth.(44) On the same condition a decoction of the root of elecampane
in wine kills worms; a fern, found growing on a tree, relieves the
stomach-ache; and the pastern-bone of a hare is an infallible remedy for
colic, provided, first, it be found in the dung of a wolf, second, that it
does not touch the ground, and, third, that it is not touched by a
woman.(45) Another cure for colic is effected by certain hocus-pocus with
a scrap of wool from the forehead of a first-born lamb, if only the lamb,
instead of being allowed to fall to the ground, has been caught by hand as
it dropped from its dam.(46) In Andjra, a district of Morocco, the people
attribute many magical virtues to rain-water which has fallen on the
twenty-seventh day of April, Old Style; accordingly they collect it and
use it for a variety of purposes. Mixed with tar and sprinkled on the
door-posts it prevents snakes and scorpions from entering the house:
sprinkled on heaps of threshed corn it protects them from the evil eye:
mixed with an egg, henna, and seeds of cress it is an invaluable medicine
for sick cows: poured over a plate, on which a passage of the Koran has
been written, it strengthens the memory of schoolboys who drink it; and if
you mix it with cowdung and red earth and paint rings with the mixture
round the trunks of your fig-trees at sunset on Midsummer Day, you may
depend on it that the trees will bear an excellent crop and will not shed
their fruit untimely on the ground. But in order to preserve these
remarkable properties it is absolutely essential that the water should on
no account be allowed to touch the ground; some say too that it should not
be exposed to the sun nor breathed upon by anybody.(47) Again, the Moors
ascribe great magical efficacy to what they call “the sultan of the
oleander,” which is a stalk of oleander with a cluster of four pairs of
leaves springing from it. They think that the magical virtue is greatest
if the stalk has been cut immediately before midsummer. But when the plant
is brought into the house, the branches may not touch the ground, lest
they should lose their marvellous qualities.(48) In the olden days, before
a Lithuanian or Prussian farmer went forth to plough for the first time in
spring, he called in a wizard to perform a certain ceremony for the good
of the crops. The sage seized a mug of beer with his teeth, quaffed the
liquor, and then tossed the mug over his head. This signified that the
corn in that year should grow taller than a man. But the mug might not
fall to the ground; it had to be caught by somebody stationed at the
wizard’s back, for if it fell to the ground the consequence naturally
would be that the corn also would be laid low on the earth.(49)

§ 2. Not to see the Sun.

(M16) The second rule to be here noted is that the sun may not shine upon
the divine person. This rule was observed both by the Mikado and by the
pontiff of the Zapotecs. The latter “was looked upon as a god whom the
earth was not worthy to hold, nor the sun to shine upon.”(50) The Japanese
would not allow that the Mikado should expose his sacred person to the
open air, and the sun was not thought worthy to shine on his head.(51) The
Indians of Granada, in South America, “kept those who were to be rulers or
commanders, whether men or women, locked up for several years when they
were children, some of them seven years, and this so close that they were
not to see the sun, for if they should happen to see it they forfeited
their lordship, eating certain sorts of food appointed; and those who were
their keepers at certain times went into their retreat or prison and
scourged them severely.”(52) Thus, for example, the heir to the throne of
Bogota, who was not the son but the sister’s son of the king, had to
undergo a rigorous training from his infancy: he lived in complete
retirement in a temple, where he might not see the sun nor eat salt nor
converse with a woman: he was surrounded by guards who observed his
conduct and noted all his actions: if he broke a single one of the rules
laid down for him, he was deemed infamous and forfeited all his rights to
the throne.(53) So, too, the heir to the kingdom of Sogamoso, before
succeeding to the crown, had to fast for seven years in the temple, being
shut up in the dark and not allowed to see the sun or light.(54) The
prince who was to become Inca of Peru had to fast for a month without
seeing light.(55) On the day when a Brahman student of the Veda took a
bath, to signify that the time of his studentship was at an end, he
entered a cow-shed before sunrise, hung over the door a skin with the hair
inside, and sat there; on that day the sun should not shine upon him.(56)

(M17) Again, women after childbirth and their offspring are more or less
tabooed all the world over; hence in Corea the rays of the sun are rigidly
excluded from both mother and child for a period of twenty-one or a
hundred days, according to their rank, after the birth has taken
place.(57) Among some of the tribes on the north-west coast of New Guinea
a woman may not leave the house for months after childbirth. When she does
go out, she must cover her head with a hood or mat; for if the sun were to
shine upon her, it is thought that one of her male relations would
die.(58) Again, mourners are everywhere taboo; accordingly in mourning the
Ainos of Japan wear peculiar caps in order that the sun may not shine upon
their heads.(59) During a solemn fast of three days the Indians of Costa
Rica eat no salt, speak as little as possible, light no fires, and stay
strictly indoors, or if they go out during the day they carefully cover
themselves from the light of the sun, believing that exposure to the sun’s
rays would turn them black.(60) On Yule Night it has been customary in
parts of Sweden from time immemorial to go on pilgrimage, whereby people
learn many secret things and know what is to happen in the coming year. As
a preparation for this pilgrimage, “some secrete themselves for three days
previously in a dark cellar, so as to be shut out altogether from the
light of heaven. Others retire at an early hour of the preceding morning
to some out-of-the-way place, such as a hay-loft, where they bury
themselves in the hay, that they may neither see nor hear any living
creature; and here they remain, in silence and fasting, until after
sundown; whilst there are those who think it sufficient if they rigidly
abstain from food on the day before commencing their wanderings. During
this period of probation a man ought not to see fire, but should this have
happened, he must strike a light with flint and steel, whereby the evil
that would otherwise have ensued will be obviated.”(61) During the sixteen
days that a Pima Indian is undergoing purification for killing an Apache
he may not see a blazing fire.(62)

(M18) Acarnanian peasants tell of a handsome prince called Sunless, who
would die if he saw the sun. So he lived in an underground palace on the
site of the ancient Oeniadae, but at night he came forth and crossed the
river to visit a famous enchantress who dwelt in a castle on the further
bank. She was loth to part with him every night long before the sun was
up, and as he turned a deaf ear to all her entreaties to linger, she hit
upon the device of cutting the throats of all the cocks in the
neighbourhood. So the prince, whose ear had learned to expect the shrill
clarion of the birds as the signal of the growing light, tarried too long,
and hardly had he reached the ford when the sun rose over the Aetolian
mountains, and its fatal beams fell on him before he could regain his dark
abode.(63)

CHAPTER II. THE SECLUSION OF GIRLS AT PUBERTY.

§ 1. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in Africa.

(M19) Now it is remarkable that the foregoing two rules—not to touch the
ground and not to see the sun—are observed either separately or conjointly
by girls at puberty in many parts of the world. Thus amongst the negroes
of Loango girls at puberty are confined in separate huts, and they may not
touch the ground with any part of their bare body.(64) Among the Zulus and
kindred tribes of South Africa, when the first signs of puberty shew
themselves “while a girl is walking, gathering wood, or working in the
field, she runs to the river and hides herself among the reeds for the
day, so as not to be seen by men. She covers her head carefully with her
blanket that the sun may not shine on it and shrivel her up into a
withered skeleton, as would result from exposure to the sun’s beams. After
dark she returns to her home and is secluded” in a hut for some time.(65)
During her seclusion, which lasts for about a fortnight, neither she nor
the girls who wait upon her may drink any milk, lest the cattle should
die. And should she be overtaken by the first flow while she is in the
fields, she must, after hiding in the bush, scrupulously avoid all
pathways in returning home.(66) A reason for this avoidance is assigned by
the A-Kamba of British East Africa, whose girls under similar
circumstances observe the same rule. “A girl’s first menstruation is a
very critical period of her life according to A-Kamba beliefs. If this
condition appears when she is away from the village, say at work in the
fields, she returns at once to her village, but is careful to walk through
the grass and not on a path, for if she followed a path and a stranger
accidentally trod on a spot of blood and then cohabited with a member of
the opposite sex before the girl was better again, it is believed that she
would never bear a child.” She remains at home till the symptoms have
ceased, and during this time she may be fed by none but her mother. When
the flux is over, her father and mother are bound to cohabit with each
other, else it is believed that the girl would be barren all her life.(67)
Similarly, among the Baganda, when a girl menstruated for the first time
she was secluded and not allowed to handle food; and at the end of her
seclusion the kinsman with whom she was staying (for among the Baganda
young people did not reside with their parents) was obliged to jump over
his wife, which with the Baganda is regarded as equivalent to having
intercourse with her. Should the girl happen to be living near her parents
at the moment when she attained to puberty, she was expected on her
recovery to inform them of the fact, whereupon her father jumped over her
mother. Were this custom omitted, the Baganda, like the A-Kamba, thought
that the girl would never have children or that they would die in
infancy.(68) Thus the pretence of sexual intercourse between the parents
or other relatives of the girl was a magical ceremony to ensure her
fertility. It is significant that among the Baganda the first menstruation
was often called a marriage, and the girl was spoken of as a bride.(69)
These terms so applied point to a belief like that of the Siamese, that a
girl’s first menstruation results from her defloration by one of a host of
aerial spirits, and that the wound thus inflicted is repeated afterwards
every month by the same ghostly agency.(70) For a like reason, probably,
the Baganda imagine that a woman who does not menstruate exerts a malign
influence on gardens and makes them barren(71) if she works in them. For
not being herself fertilized by a spirit, how can she fertilize the
garden?

(M20) Among the Amambwe, Winamwanga, Alungu, and other tribes of the great
plateau to the west of Lake Tanganyika, “when a young girl knows that she
has attained puberty, she forthwith leaves her mother’s hut, and hides
herself in the long grass near the village, covering her face with a cloth
and weeping bitterly. Towards sunset one of the older women—who, as
directress of the ceremonies, is called _nachimbusa_—follows her, places a
cooking-pot by the cross-roads, and boils therein a concoction of various
herbs, with which she anoints the neophyte. At nightfall the girl is
carried on the old woman’s back to her mother’s hut. When the customary
period of a few days has elapsed, she is allowed to cook again, after
first whitewashing the floor of the hut. But, by the following month, the
preparations for her initiation are complete. The novice must remain in
her hut throughout the whole period of initiation, and is carefully
guarded by the old women, who accompany her whenever she leaves her
quarters, veiling her head with a native cloth. The ceremonies last for at
least one month.” During this period of seclusion, drumming and songs are
kept up within the mother’s hut by the village women, and no male, except,
it is said, the father of twins, is allowed to enter. The directress of
the rites and the older women instruct the young girl as to the elementary
facts of life, the duties of marriage, and the rules of conduct, decorum,
and hospitality to be observed by a married woman. Amongst other things
the damsel must submit to a series of tests such as leaping over fences,
thrusting her head into a collar made of thorns, and so on. The lessons
which she receives are illustrated by mud figures of animals and of the
common objects of domestic life. Moreover, the directress of studies
embellishes the walls of the hut with rude pictures, each with its special
significance and song, which must be understood and learned by the
girl.(72) In the foregoing account the rule that a damsel at puberty may
neither see the sun nor touch the ground seems implied by the statement
that on the first discovery of her condition she hides in long grass and
is carried home after sunset on the back of an old woman.

(M21) Among the Nyanja-speaking tribes of Central Angoniland, in British
Central Africa, when a young girl finds that she has become a woman, she
stands silent by the pathway leading to the village, her face wrapt in her
calico. An old woman, finding her there, takes her off to a stream to
bathe; after that the girl is secluded for six days in the old woman’s
hut. She eats her porridge out of an old basket and her relish, in which
no salt is put, from a potsherd. The basket is afterwards thrown away. On
the seventh day the aged matrons gather together, go with the girl to a
stream, and throw her into the water. In returning they sing songs, and
the old woman, who directs the proceedings, carries the maiden on her
back. Then they spread a mat and fetch her husband and set the two down on
the mat and shave his head. When it is dark, the old women escort the girl
to her husband’s hut. There the _ndiwo_ relish is cooking on the fire.
During the night the woman rises and puts some salt in the pot. Next
morning, before dawn, while all is dark and the villagers have not yet
opened their doors, the young married woman goes off and gives some of the
relish to her mother and to the old woman who was mistress of the
ceremony. This relish she sets down at the doors of their houses and goes
away. And in the morning, when the sun has risen and all is light in the
village, the two women open their doors, and there they find the relish
with the salt in it; and they take of it and rub it on their feet and
under their arm-pits; and if there are little children in the house, they
eat of it. And if the young wife has a kinsman who is absent from the
village, some of the relish is put on a splinter of bamboo and kept
against his return, that when he comes he, too, may rub his feet with it.
But if the woman finds that her husband is impotent, she does not rise
betimes and go out in the dark to lay the relish at the doors of her
mother and the old woman. And in the morning, when the sun is up and all
the village is light, the old women open their doors, and see no relish
there, and they know what has happened, and so they go wilily to work. For
they persuade the husband to consult the diviner that he may discover how
to cure his impotence; and while he is closeted with the wizard, they
fetch another man, who finishes the ceremony with the young wife, in order
that the relish may be given out and that people may rub their feet with
it. But if it happens that when a girl comes to maturity she is not yet
betrothed to any man, and therefore has no husband to go to, the matrons
tell her that she must go to a lover instead. And this is the custom which
they call _chigango_. So in the evening she takes her cooking pot and
relish and hies away to the quarters of the young bachelors, and they very
civilly sleep somewhere else that night. And in the morning the girl goes
back to the _kuka_ hut.(73)

(M22) From the foregoing account it appears that among these tribes no
sooner has a girl attained to womanhood than she is expected and indeed
required to give proof of her newly acquired powers by cohabiting with a
man, whether her husband or another. And the abstinence from salt during
the girl’s seclusion is all the more remarkable because as soon as the
seclusion is over she has to use salt for a particular purpose, to which
the people evidently attach very great importance, since in the event of
her husband proving impotent she is even compelled, apparently, to commit
adultery in order that the salted relish may be given out as usual. In
this connexion it deserves to be noted that among the Wagogo of German
East Africa women at their monthly periods may not sleep with their
husbands and may not put salt in food.(74) A similar rule is observed by
the Nyanja-speaking tribes of Central Angoniland, with whose puberty
customs we are here concerned. Among them, we are told, “some superstition
exists with regard to the use of salt. A woman during her monthly sickness
must on no account put salt into any food she is cooking, lest she give
her husband or children a disease called _tsempo_ (_chitsoko soko_), but
calls a child to put it in, or, as the song goes, ‘_Natira mchere ni bondo
chifukwa n’kupanda mwana_,’ and pours in the salt by placing it on her
knee, because there is no child handy. Should a party of villagers have
gone to make salt, all sexual intercourse is forbidden among the people of
the village, until the people who have gone to make the salt (from grass)
return. When they do come back, they must make their entry into the
village at night, and no one must see them. Then one of the elders of the
village sleeps with his wife. She then cooks some relish, into which she
puts some of the salt. This relish is handed round to the people who went
to make the salt, who rub it on their feet and under their armpits.”(75)
Hence it would seem that in the mind of these people abstinence from salt
is somehow associated with the idea of chastity. The same association
meets us in the customs of many peoples in various parts of the world. For
example, ancient Hindoo ritual prescribed that for three nights after a
husband had brought his bride home, the two should sleep on the ground,
remain chaste, and eat no salt.(76) Among the Baganda, when a man was
making a net, he had to refrain from eating salt and meat and from living
with his wife; these restrictions he observed until the net took its first
catch of fish. Similarly, so long as a fisherman’s nets or traps were in
the water, he must live apart from his wife, and neither he nor she nor
their children might eat salt or meat.(77) Evidence of the same sort could
be multiplied,(78) but without going into it further we may say that for
some reason which is not obvious to us primitive man connects salt with
the intercourse of the sexes and therefore forbids the use of that
condiment in a variety of circumstances in which he deems continence
necessary or desirable. As there is nothing which the savage regards as a
greater bar between the sexes than the state of menstruation, he naturally
prohibits the use of salt to women and girls at their monthly periods.

(M23) With the Awa-nkonde, a tribe at the northern end of Lake Nyassa, it
is a rule that after her first menstruation a girl must be kept apart,
with a few companions of her own sex, in a darkened house. The floor is
covered with dry banana leaves, but no fire may be lit in the house, which
is called “the house of the Awasungu,” that is, “of maidens who have no
hearts.”(79) When a girl reaches puberty, the Wafiomi of Eastern Africa
hold a festival at which they make a noise with a peculiar kind of rattle.
After that the girl remains for a year in the large common hut (_tembe_),
where she occupies a special compartment screened off from the men’s
quarters. She may not cut her hair or touch food, but is fed by other
women. At night, however, she quits the hut and dances with young men.(80)
Among the Barotse or Marotse of the upper Zambesi, “when a girl arrives at
the age of puberty she is sent into the fields, where a hut is constructed
far from the village. There, with two or three companions, she spends a
month, returning home late and starting before dawn in order not to be
seen by the men. The women of the village visit her, bringing food and
honey, and singing and dancing to amuse her. At the end of a month her
husband comes and fetches her. It is only after this ceremony that women
have the right to smear themselves with ochre.”(81) We may suspect that
the chief reason why the girl during her seclusion may visit her home only
by night is a fear, not so much lest she should be seen by men, as that
she might be seen by the sun. Among the Wafiomi, as we have just learned,
the young woman in similar circumstances is even free to dance with men,
provided always that the dance is danced at night. The ceremonies among
the Barotse or Marotse are somewhat more elaborate for a girl of the royal
family. She is shut up for three months in a place which is kept secret
from the public; only the women of her family know where it is. There she
sits alone in the darkness of the hut, waited on by female slaves, who are
strictly forbidden to speak and may communicate with her and with each
other only by signs. During all this time, though she does nothing, she
eats much, and when at last she comes forth, her appearance is quite
changed, so fat has she grown. She is then led by night to the river and
bathed in presence of all the women of the village. Next day she flaunts
before the public in her gayest attire, her head bedecked with ornaments
and her face mottled with red paint. So everybody knows what has
happened.(82)

(M24) Among the northern clans of the Thonga tribe, in South-Eastern
Africa, about Delagoa Bay, when a girl thinks that the time of her
nubility is near, she chooses an adoptive mother, perhaps in a
neighbouring village. When the symptoms appear, she flies away from her
own village and repairs to that of her adopted mother “to weep near her.”
After that she is secluded with several other girls in the same condition
for a month. They are shut up in a hut, and whenever they come outside
they must wear a dirty greasy cloth over their faces as a veil. Every
morning they are led to a pool and plunged in the water up to their necks.
Initiated girls or women accompany them, singing obscene songs and driving
away with sticks any man who meets them; for no man may see a girl during
this time of seclusion. If he saw her, it is said that he would be struck
blind. On their return from the river, the girls are again imprisoned in
the hut, where they remain wet and shivering, for they may not go near the
fire to warm themselves. During their seclusion they listen to lascivious
songs sung by grown women and are instructed in sexual matters. At the end
of the month the adoptive mother brings the girl home to her true mother
and presents her with a pot of beer.(83)

(M25) Among the Caffre tribes of South Africa the period of a girl’s
seclusion at puberty varies with the rank of her father. If he is a rich
man, it may last twelve days; if he is a chief, it may last twenty-four
days.(84) And when it is over, the girl rubs herself over with red earth,
and strews finely powdered red earth on the ground, before she leaves the
hut where she has been shut up. Finally, though she was forbidden to drink
milk all the days of her separation, she washes out her mouth with milk,
and is from that moment regarded as a full-grown woman.(85) Afterwards, in
the dusk of the evening, she carries away all the objects with which she
came into contact in the hut during her seclusion and buries them secretly
in a sequestered spot.(86) When the girl is a chief’s daughter the
ceremonies at her liberation from the hut are more elaborate than usual.
She is led forth from the hut by a son of her father’s councillor, who,
wearing the wings of a blue crane, the badge of bravery, on his head,
escorts her to the cattle kraal, where cows are slaughtered and dancing
takes place. Large skins full of milk are sent to the spot from
neighbouring villages; and after the dances are over the girl drinks milk
for the first time since the day she entered into retreat. But the first
mouthful is drunk by the girl’s aunt or other female relative who had
charge of her during her seclusion; and a little of it is poured on the
fire-place.(87) Amongst the Zulus, when the girl was a princess royal, the
end of her time of separation was celebrated by a sort of saturnalia: law
and order were for the time being in abeyance: every man, woman, and child
might appropriate any article of property: the king abstained from
interfering; and if during this reign of misrule he was robbed of anything
he valued he could only recover it by paying a fine.(88) Among the
Basutos, when girls at puberty are bathed as usual by the matrons in a
river, they are hidden separately in the turns and bends of the stream,
and told to cover their heads, as they will be visited by a large serpent.
Their limbs are then plastered with clay, little masks of straw are put on
their faces, and thus arrayed they daily follow each other in procession,
singing melancholy airs, to the fields, there to learn the labours of
husbandry in which a great part of their adult life will be passed.(89) We
may suppose, though we are not told, that the straw masks which they wear
in these processions are intended to hide their faces from the gaze of men
and the rays of the sun.

(M26) Among the tribes in the lower valley of the Congo, such as the
Bavili, when a girl arrives at puberty, she has to pass two or three
months in seclusion in a small hut built for the purpose. The hair of her
head is shaved off, and every day the whole of her body is smeared with a
red paint (_takulla_) made from a powdered wood mixed with water. Some of
her companions reside in the hut with her and prepare the paint for her
use. A woman is appointed to take charge of the hut and to keep off
intruders. At the end of her confinement she is taken to water by the
women of her family and bathed; the paint is rubbed off her body, her arms
and legs are loaded with brass rings, and she is led in solemn procession
under an umbrella to her husband’s house. If these ceremonies were not
performed, the people believe that the girl would be barren or would give
birth to monsters, that the rain would cease to fall, the earth to bear
fruit, and the fishing to be successful.(90) Such serious importance do
these savages ascribe to the performance of rites which to us seem so
childish.

§ 2. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in New Ireland, New Guinea, and
Indonesia.

(M27) In New Ireland girls are confined for four or five years in small
cages, being kept in the dark and not allowed to set foot on the ground.
The custom has been thus described by an eye-witness. “I heard from a
teacher about some strange custom connected with some of the young girls
here, so I asked the chief to take me to the house where they were. The
house was about twenty-five feet in length, and stood in a reed and bamboo
enclosure, across the entrance to which a bundle of dried grass was
suspended to show that it was strictly ‘_tabu_.’ Inside the house were
three conical structures about seven or eight feet in height, and about
ten or twelve feet in circumference at the bottom, and for about four feet
from the ground, at which point they tapered off to a point at the top.
These cages were made of the broad leaves of the pandanus-tree, sewn quite
close together so that no light and little or no air could enter. On one
side of each is an opening which is closed by a double door of plaited
cocoa-nut tree and pandanus-tree leaves. About three feet from the ground
there is a stage of bamboos which forms the floor. In each of these cages
we were told there was a young woman confined, each of whom had to remain
for at least four or five years, without ever being allowed to go outside
the house. I could scarcely credit the story when I heard it; the whole
thing seemed too horrible to be true. I spoke to the chief, and told him
that I wished to see the inside of the cages, and also to see the girls
that I might make them a present of a few beads. He told me that it was
‘_tabu_,’ forbidden for any men but their own relations to look at them;
but I suppose the promised beads acted as an inducement, and so he sent
away for some old lady who had charge, and who alone is allowed to open
the doors. While we were waiting we could hear the girls talking to the
chief in a querulous way as if objecting to something or expressing their
fears. The old woman came at length and certainly she did not seem a very
pleasant jailor or guardian; nor did she seem to favour the request of the
chief to allow us to see the girls, as she regarded us with anything but
pleasant looks. However, she had to undo the door when the chief told her
to do so, and then the girls peeped out at us, and, when told to do so,
they held out their hands for the beads. I, however, purposely sat at some
distance away and merely held out the beads to them, as I wished to draw
them quite outside, that I might inspect the inside of the cages. This
desire of mine gave rise to another difficulty, as these girls were not
allowed to put their feet to the ground all the time they were confined in
these places. However, they wished to get the beads, and so the old lady
had to go outside and collect a lot of pieces of wood and bamboo, which
she placed on the ground, and then going to one of the girls, she helped
her down and held her hand as she stepped from one piece of wood to
another until she came near enough to get the beads I held out to her. I
then went to inspect the inside of the cage out of which she had come, but
could scarcely put my head inside of it, the atmosphere was so hot and
stifling. It was clean and contained nothing but a few short lengths of
bamboo for holding water. There was only room for the girl to sit or lie
down in a crouched position on the bamboo platform, and when the doors are
shut it must be nearly or quite dark inside. The girls are never allowed
to come out except once a day to bathe in a dish or wooden bowl placed
close to each cage. They say that they perspire profusely. They are placed
in these stifling cages when quite young, and must remain there until they
are young women, when they are taken out and have each a great marriage
feast provided for them. One of them was about fourteen or fifteen years
old, and the chief told us that she had been there for five years, but
would soon be taken out now. The other two were about eight and ten years
old, and they have to stay there for several years longer.”(91) A more
recent observer has described the custom as it is observed on the western
coast of New Ireland. He says: “A _buck_ is the name of a little house,
not larger than an ordinary hen-coop, in which a little girl is shut up,
sometimes for weeks only, and at other times for months.... Briefly
stated, the custom is this. Girls, on attaining puberty or betrothal, are
enclosed in one of these little coops for a considerable time. They must
remain there night and day. We saw two of these girls in two coops; the
girls were not more than ten years old, still they were lying in a
doubled-up position, as their little houses would not admit of them lying
in any other way. These two coops were inside a large house; but the
chief, in consideration of a present of a couple of tomahawks, ordered the
ends to be torn out of the house to admit the light, so that we might
photograph the _buck_. The occupant was allowed to put her face through an
opening to be photographed, in consideration of another present.”(92) As a
consequence of their long enforced idleness in the shade the girls grow
fat and their dusky complexion bleaches to a more pallid hue. Both their
corpulence and their pallor are regarded as beauties.(93)

(M28) In Kabadi, a district of British New Guinea, “daughters of chiefs,
when they are about twelve or thirteen years of age, are kept indoors for
two or three years, never being allowed, under any pretence, to descend
from the house, and the house is so shaded that the sun cannot shine on
them.”(94) Among the Yabim and Bukaua, two neighbouring and kindred tribes
on the coast of German New Guinea, a girl at puberty is secluded for some
five or six weeks in an inner part of the house; but she may not sit on
the floor, lest her uncleanness should cleave to it, so a log of wood is
placed for her to squat on. Moreover, she may not touch the ground with
her feet; hence if she is obliged to quit the house for a short time, she
is muffled up in mats and walks on two halves of a coco-nut shell, which
are fastened like sandals to her feet by creeping plants. During her
seclusion she is in charge of her aunts or other female relatives. At the
end of the time she bathes, her person is loaded with ornaments, her face
is grotesquely painted with red stripes on a white ground, and thus
adorned she is brought forth in public to be admired by everybody. She is
now marriageable.(95) Among the Ot Danoms of Borneo girls at the age of
eight or ten years are shut up in a little room or cell of the house, and
cut off from all intercourse with the world for a long time. The cell,
like the rest of the house, is raised on piles above the ground, and is
lit by a single small window opening on a lonely place, so that the girl
is in almost total darkness. She may not leave the room on any pretext
whatever, not even for the most necessary purposes. None of her family may
see her all the time she is shut up, but a single slave woman is appointed
to wait on her. During her lonely confinement, which often lasts seven
years, the girl occupies herself in weaving mats or with other handiwork.
Her bodily growth is stunted by the long want of exercise, and when, on
attaining womanhood, she is brought out, her complexion is pale and
wax-like. She is now shewn the sun, the earth, the water, the trees, and
the flowers, as if she were newly born. Then a great feast is made, a
slave is killed, and the girl is smeared with his blood.(96) In Ceram
girls at puberty were formerly shut up by themselves in a hut which was
kept dark.(97) In Yap, one of the Caroline Islands, should a girl be
overtaken by her first menstruation on the public road, she may not sit
down on the earth, but must beg for a coco-nut shell to put under her. She
is shut up for several days in a small hut at a distance from her parents’
house, and afterwards she is bound to sleep for a hundred days in one of
the special houses which are provided for the use of menstruous women.(98)

§ 3. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in the Torres Straits Islands and
Northern Australia.

(M29) In the island of Mabuiag, Torres Straits, when the signs of puberty
appear on a girl, a circle of bushes is made in a dark corner of the
house. Here, decked with shoulder-belts, armlets, leglets just below the
knees, and anklets, wearing a chaplet on her head, and shell ornaments in
her ears, on her chest, and on her back, she squats in the midst of the
bushes, which are piled so high round about her that only her head is
visible. In this state of seclusion she must remain for three months. All
this time the sun may not shine upon her, but at night she is allowed to
slip out of the hut, and the bushes that hedge her in are then changed.
She may not feed herself or handle food, but is fed by one or two old
women, her maternal aunts, who are especially appointed to look after her.
One of these women cooks food for her at a special fire in the forest. The
girl is forbidden to eat turtle or turtle eggs during the season when the
turtles are breeding; but no vegetable food is refused her. No man, not
even her own father, may come into the house while her seclusion lasts;
for if her father saw her at this time he would certainly have bad luck in
his fishing, and would probably smash his canoe the very next time he went
out in it. At the end of the three months she is carried down to a
fresh-water creek by her attendants, hanging on to their shoulders in such
a way that her feet do not touch the ground, while the women of the tribe
form a ring round her, and thus escort her to the beach. Arrived at the
shore, she is stripped of her ornaments, and the bearers stagger with her
into the creek, where they immerse her, and all the other women join in
splashing water over both the girl and her bearers. When they come out of
the water one of the two attendants makes a heap of grass for her charge
to squat upon. The other runs to the reef, catches a small crab, tears off
its claws, and hastens back with them to the creek. Here in the meantime a
fire has been kindled, and the claws are roasted at it. The girl is then
fed by her attendants with the roasted claws. After that she is freshly
decorated, and the whole party marches back to the village in a single
rank, the girl walking in the centre between her two old aunts, who hold
her by the wrists. The husbands of her aunts now receive her and lead her
into the house of one of them, where all partake of food, and the girl is
allowed once more to feed herself in the usual manner. A dance follows, in
which the girl takes a prominent part, dancing between the husbands of the
two aunts who had charge of her in her retirement.(99)

(M30) Among the Yaraikanna tribe of Cape York Peninsula, in Northern
Queensland, a girl at puberty is said to live by herself for a month or
six weeks; no man may see her, though any woman may. She stays in a hut or
shelter specially made for her, on the floor of which she lies supine. She
may not see the sun, and towards sunset she must keep her eyes shut until
the sun has gone down, otherwise it is thought that her nose will be
diseased. During her seclusion she may eat nothing that lives in salt
water, or a snake would kill her. An old woman waits upon her and supplies
her with roots, yams, and water.(100) Some tribes are wont to bury their
girls at such seasons more or less deeply in the ground, perhaps in order
to hide them from the light of the sun. Thus the Larrakeeyah tribe in the
northern territory of South Australia used to cover a girl up with dirt
for three days at her first monthly period.(101) In similar circumstances
the Otati tribe, on the east coast of the Cape York Peninsula, make an
excavation in the ground, where the girl squats. A bower is then built
over the hole, and sand is thrown on the young woman till she is covered
up to the hips. In this condition she remains for the first day, but comes
out at night. So long as the period lasts, she stays in the bower during
the day-time, but is not again covered with sand. Afterwards her body is
painted red and white from the head to the hips, and she returns to the
camp, where she squats first on the right side, then on the left side, and
then on the lap of her future husband, who has been previously selected
for her.(102) Among the natives of the Pennefather River, in the Cape York
Peninsula, Queensland, when a girl menstruates for the first time, her
mother takes her away from the camp to some secluded spot, where she digs
a circular hole in the sandy soil under the shade of a tree. In this hole
the girl squats with crossed legs and is covered with sand from the waist
downwards. A digging-stick is planted firmly in the sand on each side of
her, and the place is surrounded by a fence of bushes except in front,
where her mother kindles a fire. Here the girl stays all day, sitting with
her arms crossed and the palms of her hands resting on the sand. She may
not move her arms except to take food from her mother or to scratch
herself; and in scratching herself she may not touch herself with her own
hands, but must use for the purpose a splinter of wood, which, when it is
not in use, is stuck in her hair. She may speak to nobody but her mother;
indeed nobody else would think of coming near her. At evening she lays
hold of the two digging-sticks and by their help frees herself from the
superincumbent weight of sand and returns to the camp. Next morning she is
again buried in the sand under the shade of the tree and remains there
again till evening. This she does daily for five days. On her return at
evening on the fifth day her mother decorates her with a waist-band, a
forehead-band, and a necklet of pearl-shell, ties green parrot feathers
round her arms and wrists and across her chest, and smears her body, back
and front, from the waist upwards with blotches of red, white, and yellow
paint. She has in like manner to be buried in the sand at her second and
third menstruations, but at the fourth she is allowed to remain in camp,
only signifying her condition by wearing a basket of empty shells on her
back.(103) Among the Kia blacks of the Prosperine River, on the east coast
of Queensland, a girl at puberty has to sit or lie down in a shallow pit
away from the camp; a rough hut of bushes is erected over her to protect
her from the inclemency of the weather. There she stays for about a week,
waited on by her mother and sister, the only persons to whom she may
speak. She is allowed to drink water, but may not touch it with her hands;
and she may scratch herself a little with a mussel-shell. This seclusion
is repeated at her second and third monthly periods, but when the third is
over she is brought to her husband bedecked with savage finery. Eagle-hawk
or cockatoo feathers are stuck in her hair: a shell hangs over her
forehead: grass bugles encircle her neck and an apron of opossum skin her
waist: strings are tied to her arms and wrists; and her whole body is
mottled with patterns drawn in red, white, and yellow pigments and
charcoal.(104)

(M31) Among the Uiyumkwi tribe in Red Island the girl lies at full length
in a shallow trench dug in the foreshore, and sand is lightly thrown over
her legs and body up to the breasts, which appear not to be covered. A
rough shelter of boughs is then built over her, and thus she remains lying
for a few hours. Then she and her attendant go into the bush and look for
food, which they cook at a fire close to the shelter. They sleep under the
boughs, the girl remaining secluded from the camp but apparently not being
again buried. At the end of the symptoms she stands over hot stones and
water is poured over her, till, trickling from her body on the stones, it
is converted into steam and envelops her in a cloud of vapour. Then she is
painted with red and white stripes and returns to the camp. If her future
husband has already been chosen, she goes to him and they eat some food
together, which the girl has previously brought from the bush.(105) In
Prince of Wales Island, Torres Strait, the treatment of the patient is
similar, but lasts for about two months. During the day she lies covered
up with sand in a shallow hole on the beach, over which a hut is built. At
night she may get out of the hole, but she may not leave the hut. Her
paternal aunt looks after her, and both of them must abstain from eating
turtle, dugong, and the heads of fish. Were they to eat the heads of fish
no more fish would be caught. During the time of the girl’s seclusion, the
aunt who waits upon her has the right to enter any house and take from it
anything she likes without payment, provided she does so before the sun
rises. When the time of her retirement has come to an end, the girl bathes
in the sea while the morning star is rising, and after performing various
other ceremonies is readmitted to society.(106) In Saibai, another island
of Torres Straits, at her first monthly sickness a girl lives secluded in
the forest for about a fortnight, during which no man may see her; even
the women who have spoken to her in the forest must wash in salt water
before they speak to a man. Two girls wait upon and feed the damsel,
putting the food into her mouth, for she is not allowed to touch it with
her own hands. Nor may she eat dugong and turtle. At the end of a
fortnight the girl and her attendants bathe in salt water while the tide
is running out. Afterwards they are clean, may again speak to men without
ceremony, and move freely about the village. In Yam and Tutu a girl at
puberty retires for a month to the forest, where no man nor even her own
mother may look upon her. She is waited on by women who stand to her in a
certain relationship (_mowai_), apparently her paternal aunts. She is
blackened all over with charcoal and wears a long petticoat reaching below
her knees. During her seclusion the married women of the village often
assemble in the forest and dance, and the girl’s aunts relieve the tedium
of the proceedings by thrashing her from time to time as a useful
preparation for matrimony. At the end of a month the whole party go into
the sea, and the charcoal is washed off the girl. After that she is
decorated, her body blackened again, her hair reddened with ochre, and in
the evening she is brought back to her father’s house, where she is
received with weeping and lamentation because she has been so long
away.(107)

§ 4. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty among the Indians of North America.

(M32) Among the Indians of California a girl at her first menstruation
“was thought to be possessed of a particular degree of supernatural power,
and this was not always regarded as entirely defiling or malevolent.
Often, however, there was a strong feeling of the power of evil inherent
in her condition. Not only was she secluded from her family and the
community, but an attempt was made to seclude the world from her. One of
the injunctions most strongly laid upon her was not to look about her. She
kept her head bowed and was forbidden to see the world and the sun. Some
tribes covered her with a blanket. Many of the customs in this connection
resembled those of the North Pacific Coast most strongly, such as the
prohibition to the girl to touch or scratch her head with her hand, a
special implement being furnished her for the purpose. Sometimes she could
eat only when fed and in other cases fasted altogether. Some form of
public ceremony, often accompanied by a dance and sometimes by a form of
ordeal for the girl, was practised nearly everywhere. Such ceremonies were
well developed in Southern California, where a number of actions
symbolical of the girl’s maturity and subsequent life were
performed.”(108) Thus among the Maidu Indians of California a girl at
puberty remained shut up in a small separate hut. For five days she might
not eat flesh or fish nor feed herself, but was fed by her mother or other
old woman. She had a basket, plate, and cup for her own use, and a stick
with which to scratch her head, for she might not scratch it with her
fingers. At the end of five days she took a warm bath and, while she still
remained in the hut and plied the scratching-stick on her head, was
privileged to feed herself with her own hands. After five days more she
bathed in the river, after which her parents gave a great feast in her
honour. At the feast the girl was dressed in her best, and anybody might
ask her parents for anything he pleased, and they had to give it, even if
it was the hand of their daughter in marriage. During the period of her
seclusion in the hut the girl was allowed to go by night to her parents’
house and listen to songs sung by her friends and relations, who assembled
for the purpose. Among the songs were some that related to the different
roots and seeds which in these tribes it is the business of women to
gather for food. While the singers sang, she sat by herself in a corner of
the house muffled up completely in mats and skins; no man or boy might
come near her.(109) Among the Hupa, another Indian tribe of California,
when a girl had reached maturity her male relatives danced all night for
nine successive nights, while the girl remained apart, eating no meat and
blindfolded. But on the tenth night she entered the house and took part in
the last dance.(110) Among the Wintun, another Californian tribe, a girl
at puberty was banished from the camp and lived alone in a distant booth,
fasting rigidly from animal food; it was death to any person to touch or
even approach her.(111)

(M33) In the interior of Washington State, about Colville, “the customs of
the Indians, in relation to the treatment of females, are singular. On the
first appearance of the menses, they are furnished with provisions, and
sent into the woods, to remain concealed for two days; for they have a
superstition, that if a man should be seen or met with during that time,
death will be the consequence. At the end of the second day, the woman is
permitted to return to the lodge, when she is placed in a hut just large
enough for her to lie in at full length, in which she is compelled to
remain for twenty days, cut off from all communication with her friends,
and is obliged to hide her face at the appearance of a man. Provisions are
supplied her daily. After this, she is required to perform repeated
ablutions, before she can resume her place in the family. At every return,
the women go into seclusion for two or more days.”(112) Among the Chinook
Indians who inhabited the coast of Washington State, from Shoalwater Bay
as far as Grey’s Harbour, when a chief’s daughter attained to puberty, she
was hidden for five days from the view of the people; she might not look
at them nor at the sky, nor might she pick berries. It was believed that
if she were to look at the sky, the weather would be bad; that if she
picked berries, it would rain; and that when she hung her towel of
cedar-bark on a spruce-tree, the tree withered up at once. She went out of
the house by a separate door and bathed in a creek far from the village.
She fasted for some days, and for many days more she might not eat fresh
food.(113)

(M34) Amongst the Aht or Nootka Indians of Vancouver Island, when girls
reach puberty they are placed in a sort of gallery in the house “and are
there surrounded completely with mats, so that neither the sun nor any
fire can be seen. In this cage they remain for several days. Water is
given them, but no food. The longer a girl remains in this retirement the
greater honour is it to the parents; but she is disgraced for life if it
is known that she has seen fire or the sun during this initiatory
ordeal.”(114) Pictures of the mythical thunder-bird are painted on the
screens behind which she hides. During her seclusion she may neither move
nor lie down, but must always sit in a squatting posture. She may not
touch her hair with her hands, but is allowed to scratch her head with a
comb or a piece of bone provided for the purpose. To scratch her body is
also forbidden, as it is believed that every scratch would leave a scar.
For eight months after reaching maturity she may not eat any fresh food,
particularly salmon; moreover, she must eat by herself, and use a cup and
dish of her own.(115)

(M35) Among the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands girls at
puberty were secluded behind screens in the house for about twenty days.
In some parts of the islands separate fires were provided for the girls,
and they went out and in by a separate door at the back of the house. If a
girl at such a time was obliged to go out by the front door, all the
weapons, gambling-sticks, medicine, and other articles had to be removed
from the house till her return, for otherwise it was thought that they
would be unlucky; and if there was a good hunter in the house, he also had
to go out at the same time on pain of losing his good luck if he remained.
During several months or even half a year the girl was bound to wear a
peculiar cloak or hood made of cedar-bark, nearly conical in shape and
reaching down below the breast, but open before the face. After the twenty
days were over the girl took a bath; none of the water might be spilled,
it had all to be taken back to the woods, else the girl would not live
long. On the west coast of the islands the damsel might eat nothing but
black cod for four years; for the people believed that other kinds of fish
would become scarce if she partook of them. At Kloo the young woman at
such times was forbidden to look at the sea, and for forty days she might
not gaze at the fire; for a whole year she might not walk on the beach
below high-water mark, because then the tide would come in, covering part
of the food supply, and there would be bad weather. For five years she
might not eat salmon, or the fish would be scarce; and when her family
went to a salmon-creek, she landed from the canoe at the mouth of the
creek and came to the smoke-house from behind; for were she to see a
salmon leap, all the salmon might leave the creek. Among the Haidas of
Masset it was believed that if the girl looked at the sky, the weather
would be bad, and that if she stepped over a salmon-creek, all the salmon
would disappear.(116)

(M36) Amongst the Tlingit (Thlinkeet) or Kolosh Indians of Alaska, when a
girl shewed signs of womanhood she used to be confined to a little hut or
cage, which was completely blocked up with the exception of a small
air-hole. In this dark and filthy abode she had to remain a year, without
fire, exercise, or associates. Only her mother and a female slave might
supply her with nourishment. Her food was put in at the little window; she
had to drink out of the wing-bone of a white-headed eagle. The time of her
seclusion was afterwards reduced in some places to six or three months or
even less. She had to wear a sort of hat with long flaps, that her gaze
might not pollute the sky; for she was thought unfit for the sun to shine
upon, and it was imagined that her look would destroy the luck of a
hunter, fisher, or gambler, turn things to stone, and do other mischief.
At the end of her confinement her old clothes were burnt, new ones were
made, and a feast was given, at which a slit was cut in her under lip
parallel to the mouth, and a piece of wood or shell was inserted to keep
the aperture open.(117)

(M37) In the Tsetsaut tribe of British Columbia a girl at puberty wears a
large hat of skin which comes down over her face and screens it from the
sun. It is believed that if she were to expose her face to the sun or to
the sky, rain would fall. The hat protects her face also against the fire,
which ought not to strike her skin; to shield her hands she wears mittens.
In her mouth she carries the tooth of an animal to prevent her own teeth
from becoming hollow. For a whole year she may not see blood unless her
face is blackened; otherwise she would grow blind. For two years she wears
the hat and lives in a hut by herself, although she is allowed to see
other people. At the end of two years a man takes the hat from her head
and throws it away.(118) In the Bilqula or Bella Coola tribe of British
Columbia, when a girl attains puberty she must stay in the shed which
serves as her bedroom, where she has a separate fireplace. She is not
allowed to descend to the main part of the house, and may not sit by the
fire of the family. For four days she is bound to remain motionless in a
sitting posture. She fasts during the day, but is allowed a little food
and drink very early in the morning. After the four days’ seclusion she
may leave her room, but only through a separate opening cut in the floor,
for the houses are raised on piles. She may not yet come into the chief
room. In leaving the house she wears a large hat which protects her face
against the rays of the sun. It is believed that if the sun were to shine
on her face her eyes would suffer. She may pick berries on the hills, but
may not come near the river or sea for a whole year. Were she to eat fresh
salmon she would lose her senses, or her mouth would be changed into a
long beak.(119)

(M38) Among the Tinneh Indians about Stuart Lake, Babine Lake, and Fraser
Lake in British Columbia “girls verging on maturity, that is when their
breasts begin to form, take swans’ feathers mixed with human hair and
plait bands, which they tie round their wrists and ankles to secure long
life. At this time they are careful that the dishes out of which they eat,
are used by no other person, and wholly devoted to their own use; during
this period they eat nothing but dog fish, and starvation _only_ will
drive them to eat either fresh fish or meat. When their first periodical
sickness comes on, they are fed by their mothers or nearest female
relation by _themselves_, and on no account will they touch their food
with their own hands. They are at this time also careful not to touch
their heads with their hands, and keep a small stick to scratch their
heads with. They remain outside the lodge, all the time they are in this
state, in a hut made for the purpose. During all this period they wear a
skull-cap made of skin to fit very tight; this is never taken off until
their first monthly sickness ceases; they also wear a strip of black paint
about one inch wide across their eyes, and wear a fringe of shells, bones,
etc., hanging down from their foreheads to below their eyes; and this is
never taken off till the second monthly period arrives and ceases, when
the nearest male relative makes a feast; after which she is considered a
fully matured woman; but she has to refrain from eating anything fresh for
one year after her first monthly sickness; she may however eat partridge,
but it must be cooked in the crop of the bird to render it harmless. I
would have thought it impossible to perform this feat had I not seen it
done. The crop is blown out, and a small bent willow put round the mouth;
it is then filled with water, and the meat being first minced up, put in
also, then put on the fire and boiled till cooked. Their reason for
hanging fringes before their eyes, is to hinder any bad medicine man from
harming them during this critical period: they are very careful not to
drink whilst facing a medicine man, and do so only when their backs are
turned to him. All these habits are left off when the girl is a recognised
woman, with the exception of their going out of the lodge and remaining in
a hut, every time their periodical sickness comes on. This is a rigidly
observed law with both single and married women.”(120)

(M39) Among the Hareskin Tinneh a girl at puberty was secluded for five
days in a hut made specially for the purpose; she might only drink out of
a tube made from a swan’s bone, and for a month she might not break a
hare’s bones, nor taste blood, nor eat the heart or fat of animals, nor
birds’ eggs.(121) Among the Tinneh Indians of the middle Yukon valley, in
Alaska, the period of the girl’s seclusion lasts exactly a lunar month;
for the day of the moon on which the symptoms first occur is noted, and
she is sequestered until the same day of the next moon. If the season is
winter, a corner of the house is curtained off for her use by a blanket or
a sheet of canvas; if it is summer, a small tent is erected for her near
the common one. Here she lives and sleeps. She wears a long robe and a
large hood, which she must pull down over her eyes whenever she leaves the
hut, and she must keep it down till she returns. She may not speak to a
man nor see his face, much less touch his clothes or anything that belongs
to him; for if she did so, though no harm would come to her, he would grow
unmanly. She has her own dishes for eating out of and may use no other; at
Kaltag she must suck the water through a swan’s bone without applying her
lips to the cup. She may eat no fresh meat or fish except the flesh of the
porcupine. She may not undress, but sleeps with all her clothes on, even
her mittens. In her socks she wears, next to the skin, the horny soles cut
from the feet of a porcupine, in order that for the rest of her life her
shoes may never wear out. Round her waist she wears a cord to which are
tied the heads of femurs of a porcupine; because of all animals known to
the Tinneh the porcupine suffers least in parturition, it simply drops its
young and continues to walk or skip about as if nothing had happened.
Hence it is easy to see that a girl who wears these portions of a
porcupine about her waist, will be delivered just as easily as the animal.
To make quite sure of this, if anybody happens to kill a porcupine big
with young while the girl is undergoing her period of separation, the
foetus is given to her, and she lets it slide down between her shirt and
her body so as to fall on the ground like an infant.(122) Here the
imitation of childbirth is a piece of homoeopathic or imitative magic
designed to facilitate the effect which it simulates.(123)

(M40) Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia, when a girl attained
puberty, she was at once separated from all the people. A conical hut of
fir branches and bark was erected at some little distance from the other
houses, and in it the girl had to squat on her heels during the day. Often
a deep circular hole was dug in the hut and the girl squatted in the hole,
with her head projecting above the surface of the ground. She might quit
the hut for various purposes in the early morning, but had always to be
back at sunrise. On the first appearance of the symptoms her face was
painted red all over, and the paint was renewed every morning during her
term of seclusion. A heavy blanket swathed her body from top to toe, and
during the first four days she wore a conical cap made of small fir
branches, which reached below the breast but left an opening for the face.
In her hair was fastened an implement made of deer-bone with which she
scratched herself. For the first four days she might neither wash nor eat,
but a little water was given her in a birch-bark cup painted red, and she
sucked up the liquid through a tube made out of the leg of a crane, a
swan, or a goose, for her lips might not touch the surface of the water.
After the four days she was allowed, during the rest of the period of
isolation, to eat, to wash, to lie down, to comb her hair, and to drink of
streams and springs. But in drinking at these sources she had still to use
her tube, otherwise the spring would dry up. While her seclusion lasted
she performed by night various ceremonies, which were supposed to exert a
beneficial influence on her future life. For example, she ran as fast as
she could, praying at the same time to the Earth or Nature that she might
be fleet of foot and tireless of limb. She dug trenches, in order that in
after life she might be able to dig well and to work hard. These and other
ceremonies she repeated for four nights or mornings in succession, four
times each morning, and each time she supplicated the Dawn of the Day.
Among the Lower Thompson Indians she carried a staff for one night; and
when the day was breaking she leaned the staff against the stump of a tree
and prayed to the Dawn that she might be blessed with a good husband, who
was symbolized by the staff. She also wandered some nights to lonely parts
of the mountains, where she would dance, imploring the spirits to pity and
protect her during her future life; then, the dance and prayer over, she
would lie down on the spot and fall asleep. Again, she carried four stones
in her bosom to a spring, where she spat upon the stones and threw them
one after the other into the water, praying that all disease might leave
her, as these stones did. Also she ran four times in the early morning
with two small stones in her bosom; and as she ran the stones slipped down
between her bare body and her clothes and fell to the ground. At the same
time she prayed to the Dawn that when she should be with child, she might
be delivered as easily as she was delivered of these stones. But whatever
exercises she performed or prayers she offered on the lonely mountains
during the hours of darkness or while the morning light was growing in the
east, she must always be back in her little hut before the sun rose. There
she often passed the tedious hours away picking the needles, one by one,
from the cones on two large branches of fir, which hung from the roof of
her hut on purpose to provide her with occupation. And as she picked she
prayed to the fir-branch that she might never be lazy, but always quick
and active at work. During her seclusion, too, she had to make miniatures
of all the articles that Indian women make, or used to make, such as
baskets, mats, ropes, and thread. This she did in order that afterwards
she might be able to make the real things properly. Four large
fir-branches also were placed in front of the hut, so that when she went
out or in, she had to step over them. The branches were renewed every
morning and the old ones thrown away into the water, while the girl
prayed, “May I never bewitch any man, nor my fellow-women! May it never
happen!” The first four times that she went out and in, she prayed to the
fir-branches, saying, “If ever I step into trouble or difficulties or step
unknowingly inside the magical spell of some person, may you help me, O
Fir-branches, with your power!” Every day she painted her face afresh, and
she wore strings of parts of deer-hoofs round her ankles and knees, and
tied to her waistband on either side, which rattled when she walked or
ran. Even the shape of the hut in which she lived was adapted to her
future rather than to her present needs and wishes. If she wished to be
tall, the hut was tall; if she wished to be short, it was low, sometimes
so low that there was not room in it for her to stand erect, and she would
lay the palm of her hand on the top of her head and pray to the Dawn that
she might grow no taller. Her seclusion lasted four months. The Indians
say that long ago it extended over a year, and that fourteen days elapsed
before the girl was permitted to wash for the first time. The dress which
she wore during her time of separation was afterwards taken to the top of
a hill and burned, and the rest of her clothes were hung up on trees.(124)

(M41) Among the Lillooet Indians of British Columbia, neighbours of the
Thompsons, the customs observed by girls at puberty were similar. The
damsels were secluded for a period of not less than one year nor more than
four years, according to their own inclination and the wishes of their
parents. Among the Upper Lillooets the hut in which the girl lodged was
made of bushy fir-trees set up like a conical tent, the inner branches
being lopped off, while the outer branches were closely interwoven and
padded to form a roof. Every month or half-month the hut was shifted to
another site or a new one erected. By day the girl sat in the hut; for the
first month she squatted in a hole dug in the middle of it; and she passed
the time making miniature baskets of birch-bark and other things, praying
that she might be able to make the real things well in after years. At the
dusk of the evening she left the hut and wandered about all night, but she
returned before the sun rose. Before she quitted the hut at nightfall to
roam abroad, she painted her face red and put on a mask of fir-branches,
and in her hand, as she walked, she carried a basket-rattle to frighten
ghosts and guard herself from evil. Among the Lower Lillooets, the girl’s
mask was often made of goat-skin, covering her head, neck, shoulders and
breast, and leaving only a narrow opening from the brow to the chin.
During the nocturnal hours she performed many ceremonies. Thus she put two
smooth stones in her bosom and ran, and as they fell down between her body
and her clothes, she prayed, saying, “May I always have easy
child-births!” Now one of these stones represented her future child and
the other represented the afterbirth. Also she dug trenches, praying that
in the years to come she might be strong and tireless in digging roots;
she picked leaves and needles from the fir-trees, praying that her fingers
might be nimble in picking berries; and she tore sheets of birch-bark into
shreds, dropping the shreds as she walked and asking that her hands might
never tire and that she might make neat and fine work of birch-bark.
Moreover, she ran and walked much that she might be light of foot. And
every evening, when the shadows were falling, and every morning, when the
day was breaking, she prayed to the Dusk of the Evening or to the Dawn of
Day, saying, “O Dawn of Day!” or “O Dusk,” as it might be, “may I be able
to dig roots fast and easily, and may I always find plenty!” All her
prayers were addressed to the Dusk of the Evening or the Dawn of Day. She
supplicated both, asking for long life, health, wealth, and
happiness.(125)

(M42) Among the Shuswap Indians of British Columbia, who are neighbours of
the Thompsons and Lillooets, “a girl on reaching maturity has to go
through a great number of ceremonies. She must leave the village and live
alone in a small hut on the mountains. She cooks her own food, and must
not eat anything that bleeds. She is forbidden to touch her head, for
which purpose she uses a comb with three points. Neither is she allowed to
scratch her body, except with a painted deer-bone. She wears the bone and
the comb suspended from her belt. She drinks out of a painted cup of
birch-bark, and neither more nor less than the quantity it holds. Every
night she walks about her hut, and plants willow twigs, which she has
painted, and to the ends of which she has attached pieces of cloth, into
the ground. It is believed that thus she will become rich in later life.
In order to become strong she should climb trees and try to break off
their points. She plays with _lehal_ sticks that her future husbands might
have good luck when gambling.”(126) During the day the girl stays in her
hut and occupies herself in making miniature bags, mats, and baskets, in
sewing and embroidery, in manufacturing thread, twine, and so forth; in
short she makes a beginning of all kinds of woman’s work, in order that
she may be a good housewife in after life. By night she roams the
mountains and practises running, climbing, carrying burdens, and digging
trenches, so that she may be expert at digging roots. If she has wandered
far and daylight overtakes her, she hides herself behind a veil of fir
branches; for no one, except her instructor or nearest relatives, should
see her face during her period of seclusion. She wore a large robe painted
red on the breast and sides, and her hair was done up in a knot at each
ear.(127)

(M43) Ceremonies of the same general type were probably observed by girls
at puberty among all the Indian tribes of North America. But the record of
them is far less full for the Central and Eastern tribes, perhaps because
the settlers who first came into contact with the Red Man in these regions
were too busy fighting him to find leisure, even if they had the desire,
to study his manners and customs. However, among the Delaware Indians, a
tribe in the extreme east of the continent, we read that “when a Delaware
girl has her first monthly period, she must withdraw into a hut at some
distance from the village. Her head is wrapped up for twelve days, so that
she can see nobody, and she must submit to frequent vomits and fasting,
and abstain from all labor. After this she is washed and new clothed, but
confined to a solitary life for two months, at the close of which she is
declared marriageable.”(128) Again, among the Cheyennes, an Indian tribe
of the Missouri valley, a girl at her first menstruation is painted red
all over her body and secluded in a special little lodge for four days.
However, she may remain in her father’s lodge provided that there are no
charms (“medicine”), no sacred bundle, and no shield in it, or that these
and all other objects invested with a sacred character have been removed.
For four days she may not eat boiled meat; the flesh of which she partakes
must be roasted over coals. Young men will not eat from the dish nor drink
from the pot, which has been used by her; because they believe that were
they to do so they would be wounded in the next fight. She may not handle
nor even touch any weapon of war or any sacred object. If the camp moves,
she may not ride a horse, but is mounted on a mare.(129)

(M44) Among the Esquimaux also, in the extreme north of the continent, who
belong to an entirely different race from the Indians, the attainment of
puberty in the female sex is, or used to be, the occasion of similar
observances. Thus among the Koniags, an Esquimau people of Alaska, a girl
at puberty was placed in a small hut in which she had to remain on her
hands and knees for six months; then the hut was enlarged a little so as
to allow her to straighten her back, but in this posture she had to remain
for six months more. All this time she was regarded as an unclean being
with whom no one might hold intercourse. At the end of the year she was
received back by her parents and a great feast held.(130) Again, among the
Malemut, and southward from the lower Yukon and adjacent districts, when a
girl reaches the age of puberty she is considered unclean for forty days
and must therefore live by herself in a corner of the house with her face
to the wall, always keeping her hood over her head and her hair hanging
dishevelled over her eyes. But if it is summer, she commonly lives in a
rough shelter outside the house. She may not go out by day, and only once
at night, when every one else is asleep. At the end of the period she
bathes and is clothed in new garments, whereupon she may be taken in
marriage. During her seclusion she is supposed to be enveloped in a
peculiar atmosphere of such a sort that were a young man to come near
enough for it to touch him, it would render him visible to every animal he
might hunt, so that his luck as a hunter would be gone.(131)

§ 5. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty among the Indians of South America.

(M45) When symptoms of puberty appeared on a girl for the first time, the
Guaranis of Southern Brazil, on the borders of Paraguay, used to sew her
up in her hammock, leaving only a small opening in it to allow her to
breathe. In this condition, wrapt up and shrouded like a corpse, she was
kept for two or three days or so long as the symptoms lasted, and during
this time she had to observe a most rigorous fast. After that she was
entrusted to a matron, who cut the girl’s hair and enjoined her to abstain
most strictly from eating flesh of any kind until her hair should be grown
long enough to hide her ears. Meanwhile the diviners drew omens of her
future character from the various birds or animals that flew past or
crossed her path. If they saw a parrot, they would say she was a
chatterbox; if an owl, she was lazy and useless for domestic labours, and
so on.(132) In similar circumstances the Chiriguanos of south-eastern
Bolivia hoisted the girl in her hammock to the roof, where she stayed for
a month: the second month the hammock was let half-way down from the roof;
and in the third month old women, armed with sticks, entered the hut and
ran about striking everything they met, saying they were hunting the snake
that had wounded the girl.(133) The Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco
under similar circumstances hang the girl in her hammock from the roof of
the house, but they leave her there only three days and nights, during
which they give her nothing to eat but a little Paraguay tea or boiled
maize. Only her mother or grandmother has access to her; nobody else
approaches or speaks to her. If she is obliged to leave the hammock for a
little, her friends take great care to prevent her from touching the
_Boyrusu_, which is an imaginary serpent that would swallow her up. She
must also be very careful not to set foot on the droppings of fowls or
animals, else she would suffer from sores on the throat and breast. On the
third day they let her down from the hammock, cut her hair, and make her
sit in a corner of the room with her face turned to the wall. She may
speak to nobody, and must abstain from flesh and fish. These rigorous
observances she must practise for nearly a year. Many girls die or are
injured for life in consequence of the hardships they endure at this time.
Their only occupations during their seclusion are spinning and
weaving.(134)

(M46) Among the Yuracares, an Indian tribe of Bolivia, at the eastern foot
of the Andes, when a girl perceives the signs of puberty, she informs her
parents. The mother weeps and the father constructs a little hut of palm
leaves near the house. In this cabin he shuts up his daughter so that she
cannot see the light, and there she remains fasting rigorously for four
days. Meantime the mother, assisted by the women of the neighbourhood, has
brewed a large quantity of the native intoxicant called _chicha_, and
poured it into wooden troughs and palm leaves. On the morning of the
fourth day, three hours before the dawn, the girl’s father, having arrayed
himself in his savage finery, summons all his neighbours with loud cries.
The damsel is seated on a stone, and every guest in turn cuts off a lock
of her hair, and running away hides it in the hollow trunk of a tree in
the depths of the forest. When they have all done so and seated themselves
again gravely in the circle, the girl offers to each of them a calabash
full of very strong _chicha_. Before the wassailing begins, the various
fathers perform a curious operation on the arms of their sons, who are
seated beside them. The operator takes a very sharp bone of an ape, rubs
it with a pungent spice, and then pinching up the skin of his son’s arm he
pierces it with the bone through and through, as a surgeon might introduce
a seton. This operation he repeats till the young man’s arm is riddled
with holes at regular intervals from the shoulder to the wrist. Almost all
who take part in the festival are covered with these wounds, which the
Indians call _culucute_. Having thus prepared themselves to spend a happy
day, they drink, play on flutes, sing and dance till evening. Rain,
thunder, and lightning, should they befall, have no effect in damping the
general enjoyment or preventing its continuance till after the sun has
set. The motive for perforating the arms of the young men is to make them
skilful hunters; at each perforation the sufferer is cheered by the
promise of another sort of game or fish which the surgical operation will
infallibly procure for him. The same operation is performed on the arms
and legs of the girls, in order that they may be brave and strong; even
the dogs are operated on with the intention of making them run down the
game better. For five or six months afterwards the damsel must cover her
head with bark and refrain from speaking to men. The Yuracares think that
if they did not submit a young girl to this severe ordeal, her children
would afterwards perish by accidents of various kinds, such as the sting
of a serpent, the bite of a jaguar, the fall of a tree, the wound of an
arrow, or what not.(135)

(M47) Among the Matacos or Mataguayos, an Indian tribe of the Gran Chaco,
a girl at puberty has to remain in seclusion for some time. She lies
covered up with branches or other things in a corner of the hut, seeing no
one and speaking to no one, and during this time she may eat neither flesh
nor fish. Meantime a man beats a drum in front of the house.(136)
Similarly among the Tobas, another Indian tribe of the same region, when a
chief’s daughter has just attained to womanhood, she is shut up for two or
three days in the house, all the men of the tribe scour the country to
bring in game and fish for a feast, and a Mataco Indian is engaged to
drum, sing, and dance in front of the house without cessation, day and
night, till the festival is over. As the merrymaking lasts for two or
three weeks, the exhaustion of the musician at the end of it may be
readily conceived. Meat and drink are supplied to him on the spot where he
pays his laborious court to the Muses. The proceedings wind up with a
saturnalia and a drunken debauch.(137) Among the Yaguas, an Indian tribe
of the Upper Amazon, a girl at puberty is shut up for three months in a
lonely hut in the forest, where her mother brings her food daily.(138)
When a girl of the Peguenches tribe perceives in herself the first signs
of womanhood, she is secluded by her mother in a corner of the hut
screened off with blankets, and is warned not to lift up her eyes on any
man. Next day, very early in the morning and again after sunset, she is
taken out by two women and made to run till she is tired; in the interval
she is again secluded in her corner. On the following day she lays three
packets of wool beside the path near the house to signify that she is now
a woman.(139) Among the Passes, Mauhes, and other tribes of Brazil the
young woman in similar circumstances is hung in her hammock from the roof
and has to fast there for a month or as long as she can hold out.(140) One
of the early settlers in Brazil, about the middle of the sixteenth
century, has described the severe ordeal which damsels at puberty had to
undergo among the Indians on the south-east coast of that country, near
what is now Rio de Janeiro. When a girl had reached this critical period
of life, her hair was burned or shaved off close to the head. Then she was
placed on a flat stone and cut with the tooth of an animal from the
shoulders all down the back, till she ran with blood. Next the ashes of a
wild gourd were rubbed into the wounds; the girl was bound hand and foot,
and hung in a hammock, being enveloped in it so closely that no one could
see her. Here she had to stay for three days without eating or drinking.
When the three days were over, she stepped out of the hammock upon the
flat stone, for her feet might not touch the ground. If she had a call of
nature, a female relation took the girl on her back and carried her out,
taking with her a live coal to prevent evil influences from entering the
girl’s body. Being replaced in her hammock, she was now allowed to get
some flour, boiled roots, and water, but might not taste salt or flesh.
Thus she continued to the end of the first monthly period, at the expiry
of which she was gashed on the breast and belly as well as all down the
back. During the second month she still stayed in her hammock, but her
rule of abstinence was less rigid, and she was allowed to spin. The third
month she was blackened with a certain pigment and began to go about as
usual.(141)

(M48) Amongst the Macusis of British Guiana, when a girl shews the first
signs of puberty, she is hung in a hammock at the highest point of the
hut. For the first few days she may not leave the hammock by day, but at
night she must come down, light a fire, and spend the night beside it,
else she would break out in sores on her neck, throat, and other parts of
her body. So long as the symptoms are at their height, she must fast
rigorously. When they have abated, she may come down and take up her abode
in a little compartment that is made for her in the darkest corner of the
hut. In the morning she may cook her food, but it must be at a separate
fire and in a vessel of her own. After about ten days the magician comes
and undoes the spell by muttering charms and breathing on her and on the
more valuable of the things with which she has come in contact. The pots
and drinking-vessels which she used are broken and the fragments buried.
After her first bath, the girl must submit to be beaten by her mother with
thin rods without uttering a cry. At the end of the second period she is
again beaten, but not afterwards. She is now “clean,” and can mix again
with people.(142) Other Indians of Guiana, after keeping the girl in her
hammock at the top of the hut for a month, expose her to certain large
ants, whose bite is very painful.(143) Sometimes, in addition to being
stung with ants, the sufferer has to fast day and night so long as she
remains slung up on high in her hammock, so that when she comes down she
is reduced to a skeleton. The intention of stinging her with ants is said
to be to make her strong to bear the burden of maternity.(144) Amongst the
Uaupes of Brazil a girl at puberty is secluded in the house for a month,
and allowed only a small quantity of bread and water. Then she is taken
out into the midst of her relations and friends, each of whom gives her
four or five blows with pieces of _sipo_ (an elastic climber), till she
falls senseless or dead. If she recovers, the operation is repeated four
times at intervals of six hours, and it is considered an offence to the
parents not to strike hard. Meantime, pots of meats and fish have been
made ready; the _sipos_ are dipped into them and then given to the girl to
lick, who is now considered a marriageable woman.(145)

(M49) The custom of stinging the girl at such times with ants or beating
her with rods is intended, we may be sure, not as a punishment or a test
of endurance, but as a purification, the object being to drive away the
malignant influences with which a girl in this condition is believed to be
beset and enveloped. Examples of purification, by beating, by incisions in
the flesh, and by stinging with ants, have already come before us.(146) In
some Indian tribes of Brazil and Guiana young men do not rank as warriors
and may not marry till they have passed through a terrible ordeal, which
consists in being stung by swarms of venomous ants whose bite is like
fire. Thus among the Mauhes on the Tapajos river, a southern tributary of
the Amazon, boys of eight to ten years are obliged to thrust their arms
into sleeves stuffed with great ferocious ants, which the Indians call
_tocandeira_ (_Cryptocerus atratus_, F.). When the young victim shrieks
with pain, an excited mob of men dances round him, shouting and
encouraging him till he falls exhausted to the ground. He is then
committed to the care of old women, who treat his fearfully swollen arms
with fresh juice of the manioc; and on his recovery he has to shew his
strength and skill in bending a bow. This cruel ordeal is commonly
repeated again and again, till the lad has reached his fourteenth year and
can bear the agony without betraying any sign of emotion. Then he is a man
and can marry. A lad’s age is reckoned by the number of times he has
passed through the ordeal.(147) An eye-witness has described how a young
Mauhe hero bore the torture with an endurance more than Spartan, dancing
and singing, with his arms cased in the terrible mittens, before every
cabin of the great common house, till pallid, staggering, and with
chattering teeth he triumphantly laid the gloves before the old chief and
received the congratulations of the men and the caresses of the women;
then breaking away from his friends and admirers he threw himself into the
river and remained in its cool soothing water till nightfall.(148)
Similarly among the Ticunas of the Upper Amazon, on the border of Peru,
the young man who would take his place among the warriors must plunge his
arm into a sort of basket full of venomous ants and keep it there for
several minutes without uttering a cry. He generally falls backwards and
sometimes succumbs to the fever which ensues; hence as soon as the ordeal
is over the women are prodigal of their attentions to him, and rub the
swollen arm with a particular kind of herb.(149) Ordeals of this sort
appear to be in vogue among the Indians of the Rio Negro as well as of the
Amazon.(150) Among the Rucuyennes, a tribe of Indians in the north of
Brazil, on the borders of Guiana, young men who are candidates for
marriage must submit to be stung all over their persons not only with ants
but with wasps, which are applied to their naked bodies in curious
instruments of trellis-work shaped like fantastic quadrupeds or birds. The
patient invariably falls down in a swoon and is carried like dead to his
hammock, where he is tightly lashed with cords. As they come to
themselves, they writhe in agony, so that their hammocks rock violently to
and fro, causing the hut to shake as if it were about to collapse. This
dreadful ordeal is called by the Indians a _maraké_.(151)

(M50) The same ordeal, under the same name, is also practised by the
Wayanas, an Indian tribe of French Guiana, but with them, we are told, it
is no longer deemed an indispensable preliminary to marriage; “it is
rather a sort of national medicine administered chiefly to the youth of
both sexes.” Applied to men, the _maraké_, as it is called, “sharpens
them, prevents them from being heavy and lazy, makes them active, brisk,
industrious, imparts strength, and helps them to shoot well with the bow;
without it the Indians would always be slack and rather sickly, would
always have a little fever, and would lie perpetually in their hammocks.
As for the women, the _maraké_ keeps them from going to sleep, renders
them active, alert, brisk, gives them strength and a liking for work,
makes them good housekeepers, good workers at the stockade, good makers of
_cachiri_. Every one undergoes the _maraké_ at least twice in his life,
sometimes thrice, and oftener if he likes. It may be had from the age of
about eight years and upward, and no one thinks it odd that a man of forty
should voluntarily submit to it.”(152) Similarly the Indians of St. Juan
Capistrano in California used to be branded on some part of their bodies,
generally on the right arm, but sometimes on the leg also, not as a proof
of manly fortitude, but because they believed that the custom “added
greater strength to the nerves, and gave a better pulse for the management
of the bow.” Afterwards “they were whipped with nettles, and covered with
ants, that they might become robust, and the infliction was always
performed in summer, during the months of July and August, when the nettle
was in its most fiery state. They gathered small bunches, which they
fastened together, and the poor deluded Indian was chastised, by
inflicting blows with them upon his naked limbs, until unable to walk; and
then he was carried to the nest of the nearest and most furious species of
ants, and laid down among them, while some of his friends, with sticks,
kept annoying the insects to make them still more violent. What torments
did they not undergo! What pain! What hellish inflictions! Yet their faith
gave them power to endure all without a murmur, and they remained as if
dead. Having undergone these dreadful ordeals, they were considered as
invulnerable, and believed that the arrows of their enemies could no
longer harm them.”(153) Among the Alur, a tribe inhabiting the
south-western region of the upper Nile, to bury a man in an ant-hill and
leave him there for a while is the regular treatment for insanity.(154)

(M51) In like manner it is probable that beating or scourging as a
religious or ceremonial rite was originally a mode of purification. It was
meant to wipe off and drive away a dangerous contagion, whether
personified as demoniacal or not, which was supposed to be adhering
physically, though invisibly, to the body of the sufferer.(155) The pain
inflicted on the person beaten was no more the object of the beating than
it is of a surgical operation with us; it was a necessary accident, that
was all. In later times such customs were interpreted otherwise, and the
pain, from being an accident, became the prime object of the ceremony,
which was now regarded either as a test of endurance imposed upon persons
at critical epochs of life, or as a mortification of the flesh well
pleasing to the god. But asceticism, under any shape or form, is never
primitive. The savage, it is true, in certain circumstances will
voluntarily subject himself to pains and privations which appear to us
wholly needless; but he never acts thus unless he believes that some solid
temporal advantage is to be gained by so doing. Pain for the sake of pain,
whether as a moral discipline in this life or as a means of winning a
glorious immortality hereafter, is not an object which he sets himself
deliberately to pursue.

(M52) If this view is correct, we can understand why so many Indian tribes
of South America compel the youth of both sexes to submit to these painful
and sometimes fatal ordeals. They imagine that in this way they rid the
young folk of certain evils inherent in youth, especially at the critical
age of puberty; and when they picture to themselves the evils in a
personal form as dangerous spirits or demons, the ceremony of their
expulsion may in the strict sense be termed an exorcism. This certainly
appears to be the interpretation which the Banivas of the Orinoco put upon
the cruel scourgings which they inflict on girls at puberty. At her first
menstruation a Baniva girl must pass several days and nights in her
hammock, almost motionless and getting nothing to eat and drink but water
and a little manioc. While she lies there, the suitors for her hand apply
to her father, and he who can afford to give most for her or can prove
himself the best man, is promised the damsel in marriage. The fast over,
some old men enter the hut, bandage the girl’s eyes, cover her head with a
bonnet of which the fringes fall on her shoulders, and then lead her forth
and tie her to a post set up in an open place. The head of the post is
carved in the shape of a grotesque face. None but the old men may witness
what follows. Were a woman caught peeping and prying, it would go ill with
her; she would be marked out for the vengeance of the demon, who would
make her expiate her crime at the very next moon by madness or death.
Every participant in the ceremony comes armed with a scourge of cords or
of fish skins; some of them reinforce the virtue of the instrument by
tying little sharp stones to the end of the thongs. Then, to the dismal
and deafening notes of shell-trumpets blown by two or three
supernumeraries, the men circle round and round the post, every one
applying his scourge as he passes to the girl’s back, till it streams with
blood. At last the musicians, winding tremendous blasts on their trumpets
against the demon, advance and touch the post in which he is supposed to
be incorporate. Then the blows cease to descend; the girl is untied, often
in a fainting state, and carried away to have her wounds washed and
simples applied to them. The youngest of the executioners, or rather of
the exorcists, hastens to inform her betrothed husband of the happy issue
of the exorcism. “The spirit,” he says, “had cast thy beloved into a sleep
as deep almost as that of death. But we have rescued her from his attacks,
and laid her down in such and such a place. Go seek her.” Then going from
house to house through the village he cries to the inmates, “Come, let us
burn the demon who would have taken possession of such and such a girl,
our friend.” The bridegroom at once carries his wounded and suffering
bride to his own house; and all the people gather round the post for the
pleasure of burning it and the demon together. A great pile of firewood
has meanwhile been heaped up about it, and the women run round the pyre
cursing in shrill voices the wicked spirit who has wrought all this evil.
The men join in with hoarser cries and animate themselves for the business
in hand by deep draughts of an intoxicant which has been provided for the
occasion by the parents-in-law. Soon the bridegroom, having committed the
bride to the care of his mother, appears on the scene brandishing a
lighted torch. He addresses the demon with bitter mockery and reproaches;
informs him that the fair creature on whom he, the demon, had nefarious
designs, is now his, the bridegroom’s, blooming spouse; and shaking his
torch at the grinning head on the post, he screams out, “This is how the
victims of thy persecution take vengeance on thee!” With these words he
puts a light to the pyre. At once the drums strike up, the trumpets blare,
and men, women, and children begin to dance. In two long rows they dance,
the men on one side, the women on the other, advancing till they almost
touch and then retiring again. After that the two rows join hands, and
forming a huge circle trip it round and round the blaze, till the post
with its grotesque face is consumed in the flames and nothing of the pyre
remains but a heap of red and glowing embers. “The evil spirit has been
destroyed. Thus delivered from her persecutor, the young wife will be free
from sickness, will not die in childbed, and will bear many children to
her husband.”(156) From this account it appears that the Banivas attribute
the symptoms of puberty in girls to the wounds inflicted on them by an
amorous devil, who, however, can be not only exorcised but burnt to ashes
at the stake.

§ 6. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in India and Cambodia.

(M53) When a Hindoo maiden reaches maturity she is kept in a dark room for
four days, and is forbidden to see the sun. She is regarded as unclean; no
one may touch her. Her diet is restricted to boiled rice, milk, sugar,
curd, and tamarind without salt. On the morning of the fifth day she goes
to a neighbouring tank, accompanied by five women whose husbands are
alive. Smeared with turmeric water, they all bathe and return home,
throwing away the mat and other things that were in the room.(157) The
Rarhi Brahmans of Bengal compel a girl at puberty to live alone, and do
not allow her to see the face of any male. For three days she remains shut
up in a dark room, and has to undergo certain penances. Fish, flesh, and
sweetmeats are forbidden her; she must live upon rice and ghee.(158) Among
the Tiyans of Malabar a girl is thought to be polluted for four days from
the beginning of her first menstruation. During this time she must keep to
the north side of the house, where she sleeps on a grass mat of a
particular kind, in a room festooned with garlands of young coco-nut
leaves. Another girl keeps her company and sleeps with her, but she may
not touch any other person, tree or plant. Further, she may not see the
sky, and woe betide her if she catches sight of a crow or a cat! Her diet
must be strictly vegetarian, without salt, tamarinds, or chillies. She is
armed against evil spirits by a knife, which is placed on the mat or
carried on her person.(159) Among the Kappiliyans of Madura and Tinnevelly
a girl at her first monthly period remains under pollution for thirteen
days, either in a corner of the house, which is screened off for her use
by her maternal uncle, or in a temporary hut, which is erected by the same
relative on the common land of the village. On the thirteenth day she
bathes in a tank, and, on entering the house, steps over a pestle and a
cake. Near the entrance some food is placed and a dog is allowed to
partake of it; but his enjoyment is marred by suffering, for while he eats
he receives a sound thrashing, and the louder he howls the better, for the
larger will be the family to which the young woman will give birth; should
there be no howls, there will be no children. The temporary hut in which
the girl passed the days of her seclusion is burnt down, and the pots
which she used are smashed to shivers.(160) Similarly among the Parivarams
of Madura, when a girl attains to puberty she is kept for sixteen days in
a hut, which is guarded at night by her relations; and when her
sequestration is over the hut is burnt down and the pots she used are
broken into very small pieces, because they think that if rain-water
gathered in any of them, the girl would be childless.(161) The Pulayars of
Travancore build a special hut in the jungle for the use of a girl at
puberty; there she remains for seven days. No one else may enter the hut,
not even her mother. Women stand a little way off and lay down food for
her. At the end of the time she is brought home, clad in a new or clean
cloth, and friends are treated to betel-nut, toddy, and arack.(162) Among
the Singhalese a girl at her first menstruation is confined to a room,
where she may neither see nor be seen by any male. After being thus
secluded for two weeks she is taken out, with her face covered, and is
bathed by women at the back of the house. Near the bathing-place are kept
branches of any milk-bearing tree, usually of the _jak_-tree. In some
cases, while the time of purification or uncleanness lasts, the maiden
stays in a separate hut, which is afterwards burnt down.(163)

(M54) In Cambodia a girl at puberty is put to bed under a mosquito
curtain, where she should stay a hundred days. Usually, however, four,
five, ten, or twenty days are thought enough; and even this, in a hot
climate and under the close meshes of the curtain, is sufficiently
trying.(164) According to another account, a Cambodian maiden at puberty
is said to “enter into the shade.” During her retirement, which, according
to the rank and position of her family, may last any time from a few days
to several years, she has to observe a number of rules, such as not to be
seen by a strange man, not to eat flesh or fish, and so on. She goes
nowhere, not even to the pagoda. But this state of seclusion is
discontinued during eclipses; at such times she goes forth and pays her
devotions to the monster who is supposed to cause eclipses by catching the
heavenly bodies between his teeth.(165) This permission to break her rule
of retirement and appear abroad during an eclipse seems to shew how
literally the injunction is interpreted which forbids maidens entering on
womanhood to look upon the sun.

§ 7. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in Folk-tales.

(M55) A superstition so widely diffused as this might be expected to leave
traces in legends and folk-tales. And it has done so. In a Danish story we
read of a princess who was fated to be carried off by a warlock if ever
the sun shone on her before she had passed her thirtieth year; so the king
her father kept her shut up in the palace, and had all the windows on the
east, south, and west sides blocked up, lest a sunbeam should fall on his
darling child, and he should thus lose her for ever. Only at evening, when
the sun was down, might she walk for a little in the beautiful garden of
the castle. In time a prince came a-wooing, followed by a train of
gorgeous knights and squires on horses all ablaze with gold and silver.
The king said the prince might have his daughter to wife on condition that
he would not carry her away to his home till she was thirty years old but
would live with her in the castle, where the windows looked out only to
the north. The prince agreed, so married they were. The bride was only
fifteen, and fifteen more long weary years must pass before she might step
out of the gloomy donjon, breathe the fresh air, and see the sun. But she
and her gallant young bridegroom loved each other and they were happy.
Often they sat hand in hand at the window looking out to the north and
talked of what they would do when they were free. Still it was a little
dull to look out always at the same window and to see nothing but the
castle woods, and the distant hills, and the clouds drifting silently over
them. Well, one day it happened that all the people in the castle had gone
away to a neighbouring castle to witness a tournament and other gaieties,
and the two young folks were left as usual all alone at the window looking
out to the north. They sat silent for a time gazing away to the hills. It
was a grey sad day, the sky was overcast, and the weather seemed to draw
to rain. At last the prince said, “There will be no sunshine to-day. What
if we were to drive over and join the rest at the tournament?” His young
wife gladly consented, for she longed to see more of the world than those
eternal green woods and those eternal blue hills, which were all she ever
saw from the window. So the horses were put into the coach, and it rattled
up to the door, and in they got and away they drove. At first all went
well. The clouds hung low over the woods, the wind sighed in the trees, a
drearier day you could hardly imagine. So they joined the rest at the
other castle and took their seats to watch the jousting in the lists. So
intent were they in watching the gay spectacle of the prancing steeds, the
fluttering pennons, and the glittering armour of the knights, that they
failed to mark the change, the fatal change, in the weather. For the wind
was rising and had begun to disperse the clouds, and suddenly the sun
broke through, and the glory of it fell like an aureole on the young wife,
and at once she vanished away. No sooner did her husband miss her from his
side than he, too, mysteriously disappeared. The tournament broke up in
confusion, the bereft father hastened home, and shut himself up in the
dark castle from which the light of life had departed. The green woods and
the blue hills could still be seen from the window that looked to the
north, but the young faces that had gazed out of it so wistfully were
gone, as it seemed, for ever.(166)

(M56) A Tyrolese story tells how it was the doom of a lovely maiden with
golden hair to be transported into the belly of a whale if ever a sunbeam
fell on her. Hearing of the fame of her beauty the king of the country
sent for her to be his bride, and her brother drove the fair damsel to the
palace in a carefully closed coach, himself sitting on the box and
handling the reins. On the way they overtook two hideous witches, who
pretended they were weary and begged for a lift in the coach. At first the
brother refused to take them in, but his tender-hearted sister entreated
him to have compassion on the two poor footsore women; for you may easily
imagine that she was not acquainted with their true character. So down he
got rather surlily from the box, opened the coach door, and in the two
witches stepped, laughing in their sleeves. But no sooner had the brother
mounted the box and whipped up the horses, than one of the two wicked
witches bored a hole in the closed coach. A sunbeam at once shot through
the hole and fell on the fair damsel. So she vanished from the coach and
was spirited away into the belly of a whale in the neighbouring sea. You
can imagine the consternation of the king, when the coach door opened and
instead of his blooming bride out bounced two hideous hags!(167)

(M57) In a modern Greek folk-tale the Fates predict that in her fifteenth
year a princess must be careful not to let the sun shine on her, for if
this were to happen she would be turned into a lizard.(168) In another
modern Greek tale the Sun bestows a daughter upon a childless woman on
condition of taking the child back to himself when she is twelve years
old. So, when the child was twelve, the mother closed the doors and
windows, and stopped up all the chinks and crannies, to prevent the Sun
from coming to fetch away her daughter. But she forgot to stop up the
key-hole, and a sunbeam streamed through it and carried off the girl.(169)
In a Sicilian story a seer foretells that a king will have a daughter who,
in her fourteenth year, will conceive a child by the Sun. So, when the
child was born, the king shut her up in a lonely tower which had no
window, lest a sunbeam should fall on her. When she was nearly fourteen
years old, it happened that her parents sent her a piece of roasted kid,
in which she found a sharp bone. With this bone she scraped a hole in the
wall, and a sunbeam shot through the hole and got her with child.(170)

(M58) The old Greek story of Danae, who was confined by her father in a
subterranean chamber or a brazen tower, but impregnated by Zeus, who
reached her in the shape of a shower of gold,(171) perhaps belongs to the
same class of tales. It has its counterpart in the legend which the
Kirghiz of Siberia tell of their ancestry. A certain Khan had a fair
daughter, whom he kept in a dark iron house, that no man might see her. An
old woman tended her; and when the girl was grown to maidenhood she asked
the old woman, “Where do you go so often?” “My child,” said the old dame,
“there is a bright world. In that bright world your father and mother
live, and all sorts of people live there. That is where I go.” The maiden
said, “Good mother, I will tell nobody, but shew me that bright world.” So
the old woman took the girl out of the iron house. But when she saw the
bright world, the girl tottered and fainted; and the eye of God fell upon
her, and she conceived. Her angry father put her in a golden chest and
sent her floating away (fairy gold can float in fairyland) over the wide
sea.(172) The shower of gold in the Greek story, and the eye of God in the
Kirghiz legend, probably stand for sunlight and the sun.

(M59) The idea that women may be impregnated by the sun is not uncommon in
legends. Thus, for example, among the Indians of Guacheta in Colombia, it
is said, a report once ran that the sun would impregnate one of their
maidens, who should bear a child and yet remain a virgin. The chief had
two daughters, and was very desirous that one of them should conceive in
this miraculous manner. So every day he made them climb a hill to the east
of his house in order to be touched by the first beams of the rising sun.
His wishes were fulfilled, for one of the damsels conceived and after nine
months gave birth to an emerald. So she wrapped it in cotton and placed it
in her bosom, and in a few days it turned into a child, who received the
name of Garanchacha and was universally recognized as a son of the
sun.(173) Again, the Samoans tell of a woman named Mangamangai, who became
pregnant by looking at the rising sun. Her son grew up and was named
“Child of the Sun.” At his marriage he applied to his mother for a dowry,
but she bade him apply to his father, the sun, and told him how to go to
him. So one morning he took a long vine and made a noose in it; then
climbing up a tree he threw the noose over the sun and caught him fast.
Thus arrested in his progress, the luminary asked him what he wanted, and
being told by the young man that he wanted a present for his bride, the
sun obligingly packed up a store of blessings in a basket, with which the
youth descended to the earth.(174)

(M60) Even in the marriage customs of various races we may perhaps detect
traces of this belief that women can be impregnated by the sun. Thus
amongst the Chaco Indians of South America a newly married couple used to
sleep the first night on a mare’s or bullock’s skin with their heads
towards the west, “for the marriage is not considered ratified till the
rising sun shines on their feet the succeeding morning.”(175) At old
Hindoo marriages the first ceremony was the “Impregnation-rite”
(_Garbhādhāna_); during the previous day the bride was made to look
towards the sun or to be in some way exposed to its rays.(176) Amongst the
Turks of Siberia it was formerly the custom on the morning after the
marriage to lead the young couple out of the hut to greet the rising sun.
The same custom is said to be still practised in Iran and Central Asia
under a belief that the beams of the rising sun are the surest means of
impregnating the new bride.(177) And as some people think that women may
be gotten with child by the sun, so others imagine that they can conceive
by the moon. According to the Greenlanders the moon is a young man, and he
“now and then comes down to give their wives a visit and caress them; for
which reason no woman dare sleep lying upon her back, without she first
spits upon her fingers and rubs her belly with it. For the same reason the
young maids are afraid to stare long at the moon, imagining they may get a
child by the bargain.”(178) Similarly Breton peasants are reported to
believe that women or girls who expose their persons to the moonlight may
be impregnated by it and give birth to monsters.(179)

§ 8. Reasons for the Seclusion of Girls at Puberty.

(M61) The motive for the restraints so commonly imposed on girls at
puberty is the deeply engrained dread which primitive man universally
entertains of menstruous blood. He fears it at all times but especially on
its first appearance; hence the restrictions under which women lie at
their first menstruation are usually more stringent than those which they
have to observe at any subsequent recurrence of the mysterious flow. Some
evidence of the fear and of the customs based on it has been cited in an
earlier part of this work;(180) but as the terror, for it is nothing less,
which the phenomenon periodically strikes into the mind of the savage has
deeply influenced his life and institutions, it may be well to illustrate
the subject with some further examples.

(M62) Thus in the Encounter Bay tribe of South Australia there is, or used
to be, a “superstition which obliges a woman to separate herself from the
camp at the time of her monthly illness, when, if a young man or boy
should approach, she calls out, and he immediately makes a circuit to
avoid her. If she is neglectful upon this point, she exposes herself to
scolding, and sometimes to severe beating by her husband or nearest
relation, because the boys are told from their infancy, that if they see
the blood they will early become grey-headed, and their strength will fail
prematurely.”(181) And of the South Australian aborigines in general we
read that there is a “custom requiring all boys and uninitiated young men
to sleep at some distance from the huts of the adults, and to remove
altogether away in the morning as soon as daylight dawns, and the natives
begin to move about. This is to prevent their seeing the women, some of
whom may be menstruating; and if looked upon by the young males, it is
supposed that dire results will follow.”(182) And amongst these tribes
women in their courses “are not allowed to eat fish of any kind, or to go
near the water at all; it being one of their superstitions, that if a
female, in that state, goes near the water, no success can be expected by
the men in fishing.”(183) Similarly, among the natives of the Murray
River, menstruous women “were not allowed to go near water for fear of
frightening the fish. They were also not allowed to eat them, for the same
reason. A woman during such periods would never cross the river in a
canoe, or even fetch water for the camp. It was sufficient for her to say
_Thama_, to ensure her husband getting the water himself.”(184) The Dieri
of Central Australia believe that if women at these times were to eat fish
or bathe in a river, the fish would all die and the water would dry up. In
this tribe a mark made with red ochre round a woman’s mouth indicates that
she has her courses; no one would offer fish to such a woman.(185) The
Arunta of Central Australia forbid menstruous women to gather the
_irriakura_ bulbs, which form a staple article of diet for both men and
women. They believe that were a woman to break this rule, the supply of
bulbs would fail.(186) Among the aborigines of Victoria the wife at her
monthly periods had to sleep on the opposite side of the fire from her
husband; she might partake of nobody’s food, and nobody would partake of
hers, for people thought that if they ate or drank anything that had been
touched by a woman in her courses, it would make them weak or ill.
Unmarried girls and widows at such times had to paint their heads and the
upper parts of their bodies red,(187) no doubt as a danger signal.

(M63) In some Australian tribes the seclusion of menstruous women was even
more rigid, and was enforced by severer penalties than a scolding or a
beating. Thus with regard to certain tribes of New South Wales and
Southern Queensland we are told that “during the monthly illness, the
woman is not allowed to touch anything that men use, or even to walk on a
path that any man frequents, on pain of death.”(188) Again, “there is a
regulation relating to camps in the Wakelbura tribe which forbids the
women coming into the encampment by the same path as the men. Any
violation of this rule would in a large camp be punished with death. The
reason for this is the dread with which they regard the menstrual period
of women. During such a time, a woman is kept entirely away from the camp,
half a mile at least. A woman in such a condition has boughs of some tree
of her totem tied round her loins, and is constantly watched and guarded,
for it is thought that should any male be so unfortunate as to see a woman
in such a condition, he would die. If such a woman were to let herself be
seen by a man, she would probably be put to death. When the woman has
recovered, she is painted red and white, her head covered with feathers,
and returns to the camp.”(189)

(M64) In Muralug, one of the Torres Straits Islands, a menstruous woman
may not eat anything that lives in the sea, else the natives believe that
the fisheries would fail. Again, in Mabuiag, another of these islands,
women who have their courses on them may not eat turtle flesh nor turtle
eggs, probably for a similar reason. And during the season when the
turtles are pairing the restrictions laid on such a woman are much
severer. She may not even enter a house in which there is turtle flesh,
nor approach a fire on which the flesh is cooking; she may not go near the
sea and she should not walk on the beach below high-water mark. Nay, the
infection extends to her husband, who may not himself harpoon or otherwise
take an active part in catching turtle; however, he is permitted to form
one of the crew on a turtling expedition, provided he takes the precaution
of rubbing his armpits with certain leaves, to which no doubt a
disinfectant virtue is ascribed.(190) Among the Kai of German New Guinea
women at their monthly sickness must live in little huts built for them in
the forest; they may not enter the cultivated fields, for if they did go
to them, and the pigs were to taste of the blood, it would inspire the
animals with an irresistible desire to go likewise into the fields, where
they would commit great depredations on the growing crops. Hence the issue
from women at these times is carefully buried to prevent the pigs from
getting at it. And conversely, if the pigs often break into the fields,
the blame is laid on the women who by the neglect of these elementary
precautions have put temptation in the way of the swine.(191) In Galela,
to the west of New Guinea, women at their monthly periods may not enter a
tobacco-field, or the plants would be attacked by disease.(192) The
Minangkabauers of Sumatra are persuaded that if a woman in her unclean
state were to go near a rice-field, the crop would be spoiled.(193)

(M65) The Bushmen of South Africa think that, by a glance of a girl’s eye
at the time when she ought to be kept in strict retirement, men become
fixed in whatever position they happen to occupy, with whatever they were
holding in their hands, and are changed into trees that talk.(194)
Cattle-rearing tribes of South Africa hold that their cattle would die if
the milk were drunk by a menstruous woman;(195) and they fear the same
disaster if a drop of her blood were to fall on the ground and the oxen
were to pass over it. To prevent such a calamity women in general, not
menstruous women only, are forbidden to enter the cattle enclosure; and
more than that, they may not use the ordinary paths in entering the
village or in passing from one hut to another. They are obliged to make
circuitous tracks at the back of the huts in order to avoid the ground in
the middle of the village where the cattle stand or lie down. These
women’s tracks may be seen at every Caffre village.(196) Similarly among
the Bahima, a cattle-breeding tribe of Ankole, in Central Africa, no
menstruous woman may drink milk, lest by so doing she should injure the
cows; and she may not lie on her husband’s bed, no doubt lest she should
injure him. Indeed she is forbidden to lie on a bed at all and must sleep
on the ground. Her diet is restricted to vegetables and beer.(197) Among
the Baganda, in like manner, no menstruous woman might drink milk or come
into contact with any milk-vessel;(198) and she might not touch anything
that belonged to her husband, nor sit on his mat, nor cook his food. If
she touched anything of his at such a time it was deemed equivalent to
wishing him dead or to actually working magic for his destruction.(199)
Were she to handle any article of his, he would surely fall ill; were she
to handle his weapons, he would certainly be killed in the next battle.
Even a woman who did not menstruate was believed by the Baganda to be a
source of danger to her husband, indeed capable of killing him. Hence,
before he went to war, he used to wound her slightly with his spear so as
to draw blood; this was thought to ensure his safe return.(200) Apparently
the notion was that if the wife did not lose blood in one way or another,
her husband would be bled in war to make up for her deficiency; so by way
of guarding against this undesirable event, he took care to relieve her of
a little superfluous blood before he repaired to the field of honour.
Further, the Baganda would not suffer a menstruous woman to visit a well;
if she did so, they feared that the water would dry up, and that she
herself would fall sick and die, unless she confessed her fault and the
medicine-man made atonement for her.(201) Among the Akikuyu of British
East Africa, if a new hut is built in a village and the wife chances to
menstruate in it on the day she lights the first fire there, the hut must
be broken down and demolished the very next day. The woman may on no
account sleep a second night in it; there is a curse (_thahu_) both on her
and on it.(202) In the Suk tribe of British East Africa warriors may not
eat anything that has been touched by menstruous women. If they did so, it
is believed that they would lose their virility; “in the rain they will
shiver and in the heat they will faint.” Suk men and women take their
meals apart, because the men fear that one or more of the women may be
menstruating.(203) The Anyanja of British Central Africa, at the southern
end of Lake Nyassa, think that a man who should sleep with a woman in her
courses would fall sick and die, unless some remedy were applied in time.
And with them it is a rule that at such times a woman should not put any
salt into the food she is cooking, otherwise the people who partook of the
food salted by her would suffer from a certain disease called _tsempo_;
hence to obviate the danger she calls a child to put the salt into the
dish.(204)

(M66) Among the Hos, a tribe of Ewe negroes of Togoland in West Africa, so
long as a wife has her monthly sickness she may not cook for her husband,
nor lie on his bed, nor sit on his stool; an infraction of these rules
would assuredly, it is believed, cause her husband to die. If her husband
is a priest, or a magician, or a chief, she may not pass the days of her
uncleanness in the house, but must go elsewhere till she is clean.(205)
Among the Ewe negroes of this region each village has its huts where women
who have their courses on them must spend their time secluded from
intercourse with other people. Sometimes these huts stand by themselves in
public places; sometimes they are mere shelters built either at the back
or front of the ordinary dwelling-houses. A woman is punishable if she
does not pass the time of her monthly sickness in one of these huts or
shelters provided for her use. Thus, if she shews herself in her own house
or even in the yard of the house, she may be fined a sheep, which is
killed, its flesh divided among the people, and its blood poured on the
image of the chief god as a sin-offering to expiate her offence. She is
also forbidden to go to the place where the villagers draw water, and if
she breaks the rule, she must give a goat to be killed; its flesh is
distributed, and its blood, diluted with water and mixed with herbs, is
sprinkled on the watering-place and on the paths leading to it. Were any
woman to disregard these salutary precautions, the chief fetish-man in the
village would fall sick and die, which would be an irreparable loss to
society.(206)

(M67) The miraculous virtue ascribed to menstruous blood is well
illustrated in a story told by the Arab chronicler Tabari. He relates how
Sapor, king of Persia, besieged the strong city of Atrae, in the desert of
Mesopotamia, for several years without being able to take it. But the king
of the city, whose name was Daizan, had a daughter, and when it was with
her after the manner of women she went forth from the city and dwelt for a
time in the suburb, for such was the custom of the place. Now it fell out
that, while she tarried there, Sapor saw her and loved her, and she loved
him; for he was a handsome man and she a lovely maid. And she said to him,
“What will you give me if I shew you how you may destroy the walls of this
city and slay my father?” And he said to her, “I will give you what you
will, and I will exalt you above my other wives, and will set you nearer
to me than them all.” Then she said to him, “Take a greenish dove with a
ring about its neck, and write something on its foot with the menstruous
blood of a blue-eyed maid; then let the bird loose, and it will perch on
the walls of the city, and they will fall down.” For that, says the Arab
historian, was the talisman of the city, which could not be destroyed in
any other way. And Sapor did as she bade him, and the city fell down in a
heap, and he stormed it and slew Daizan on the spot.(207)

(M68) According to the Talmud, if a woman at the beginning of her period
passes between two men, she thereby kills one of them; if she passes
between them towards the end of her period, she only causes them to
quarrel violently.(208) Maimonides tells us that down to his time it was a
common custom in the East to keep women at their periods in a separate
house and to burn everything on which they had trodden; a man who spoke
with such a woman or who was merely exposed to the same wind that blew
over her, became thereby unclean.(209) Peasants of the Lebanon think that
menstruous women are the cause of many misfortunes; their shadow causes
flowers to wither and trees to perish, it even arrests the movements of
serpents; if one of them mounts a horse, the animal might die or at least
be disabled for a long time.(210) In Syria to this day a woman who has her
courses on her may neither salt nor pickle, for the people think that
whatever she pickled or salted would not keep.(211) The Toaripi of New
Guinea, doubtless for a similar reason, will not allow women at such times
to cook.(212) The Bhuiyars, a Dravidian tribe of South Mirzapur, are said
to feel an intense dread of menstrual pollution. Every house has two
doors, one of which is used only by women in this condition. During her
impurity the wife is fed by her husband apart from the rest of the family,
and whenever she has to quit the house she is obliged to creep out on her
hands and knees in order not to defile the thatch by her touch.(213) The
Kharwars, another aboriginal tribe of the same district, keep their women
at such seasons in the outer verandah of the house for eight days, and
will not let them enter the kitchen or the cow-house; during this time the
unclean woman may not cook nor even touch the cooking vessels. When the
eight days are over, she bathes, washes her clothes, and returns to family
life.(214) Hindoo women seclude themselves at their monthly periods and
observe a number of rules, such as not to drink milk, not to milk cows,
not to touch fire, not to lie on a high bed, not to walk on common paths,
not to cross the track of animals, not to walk by the side of flowering
plants, and not to observe the heavenly bodies.(215) The motive for these
restrictions is not mentioned, but probably it is a dread of the baleful
influence which is supposed to emanate from women at these times. The
Parsees, who reverence fire, will not suffer menstruous women to see it or
even to look on a lighted taper;(216) during their infirmity the women
retire from their houses to little lodges in the country, whither victuals
are brought to them daily; at the end of their seclusion they bathe and
send a kid, a fowl, or a pigeon to the priest as an offering.(217) In
Annam a woman at her monthly periods is deemed a centre of impurity, and
contact with her is avoided. She is subject to all sorts of restrictions
which she must observe herself and which others must observe towards her.
She may not touch any food which is to be preserved by salting, whether it
be fish, flesh, or vegetables; for were she to touch it the food would
putrefy. She may not enter any sacred place, she may not be present at any
religious ceremony. The linen which she wears at such times must be washed
by herself at sunrise, never at night. On reaching puberty girls may not
touch flowers or the fruits of certain trees, for touched by them the
flowers would fade and the fruits fall to the ground. “It is on account of
their reputation for impurity that the women generally live isolated. In
every house they have an apartment reserved for them, and they never eat
at the same table as the men. For the same reason they are excluded from
all religious ceremonies. They may only be present at family ceremonies,
but without ever officiating in them.”(218)

(M69) The Guayquiries of the Orinoco think that when a woman has her
courses, everything upon which she steps will die, and that if a man
treads on the place where she has passed, his legs will immediately swell
up.(219) Among the Guaraunos of the same great river, women at their
periods are regarded as unclean and kept apart in special huts, where all
that they need is brought to them.(220) In like manner among the Piapocos,
an Indian tribe on the Guayabero, a tributary of the Orinoco, a menstruous
woman is secluded from her family every month for four or five days. She
passes the time in a special hut, whither her husband brings her food; and
at the end of the time she takes a bath and resumes her usual
occupations.(221) So among the Indians of the Mosquito territory in
Central America, when a woman is in her courses, she must quit the village
for seven or eight days. A small hut is built for her in the wood, and at
night some of the village girls go and sleep with her to keep her company.
Or if the nights are dark and jaguars are known to be prowling in the
neighbourhood, her husband will take his gun or bow and sleep in a hammock
near her. She may neither handle nor cook food; all is prepared and
carried to her. When the sickness is over, she bathes in the river, puts
on clean clothes, and returns to her household duties.(222) Among the
Bri-bri Indians of Costa Rica a girl at her first menstruation retires to
a hut built for the purpose in the forest, and there she must stay till
she has been purified by a medicine-man, who breathes on her and places
various objects, such as feathers, the beaks of birds, the teeth of
beasts, and so forth, upon her body. A married woman at her periods
remains in the house with her husband, but she is reckoned unclean
(_bukuru_) and must avoid all intimate relations with him. She uses for
plates only banana leaves, which, when she has done with them, she throws
away in a sequestered spot; for should a cow find and eat them, the animal
would waste away and perish. Also she drinks only out of a special vessel,
because any person who should afterwards drink out of the same vessel
would infallibly pine away and die.(223)

(M70) Among most tribes of North American Indians the custom was that
women in their courses retired from the camp or the village and lived
during the time of their uncleanness in special huts or shelters which
were appropriated to their use. There they dwelt apart, eating and
sleeping by themselves, warming themselves at their own fires, and
strictly abstaining from all communications with men, who shunned them
just as if they were stricken with the plague. No article of furniture
used in these menstrual huts might be used in any other, not even the
flint and steel with which in the old days the fires were kindled. No one
would borrow a light from a woman in her seclusion. If a white man in his
ignorance asked to light his pipe at her fire, she would refuse to grant
the request, telling him that it would make his nose bleed and his head
ache, and that he would fall sick in consequence. If an Indian’s wooden
pipe cracked, his friends would think that he had either lit it at one of
these polluted fires or had held some converse with a woman during her
retirement, which was esteemed a most disgraceful and wicked thing to do.
Decent men would not approach within a certain distance of a woman at such
times, and if they had to convey anything to her they would stand some
forty or fifty paces off and throw it to her. Everything which was touched
by her hands during this period was deemed ceremonially unclean. Indeed
her touch was thought to convey such pollution that if she chanced to lay
a finger on a chief’s lodge or his gun or anything else belonging to him,
it would be instantly destroyed. If she crossed the path of a hunter or a
warrior, his luck for that day at least would be gone. Were she not thus
secluded, it was supposed that the men would be attacked by diseases of
various kinds, which would prove mortal. In some tribes a woman who
infringed the rules of separation might have to answer with her life for
any misfortunes that might happen to individuals or to the tribe in
consequence, as it was supposed, of her criminal negligence. When she
quitted her tent or hut to go into retirement, the fire in it was
extinguished and the ashes thrown away outside of the village, and a new
fire was kindled, as if the old one had been defiled by her presence. At
the end of their seclusion the women bathed in running streams and
returned to their usual occupations.(224)

(M71) Thus, to take examples, the Creek and kindred Indians of the United
States compelled women at menstruation to live in separate huts at some
distance from the village. There the women had to stay, at the risk of
being surprised and cut off by enemies. It was thought “a most horrid and
dangerous pollution” to go near the women at such times; and the danger
extended to enemies who, if they slew the women, had to cleanse themselves
from the pollution by means of certain sacred herbs and roots.(225)
Similarly, the Choctaw women had to quit their huts during their monthly
periods, and might not return till after they had been purified. While
their uncleanness lasted they had to prepare their own food. The men
believed that if they were to approach a menstruous woman, they would fall
ill, and that some mishap would overtake them when they went to the
wars.(226) When an Omaha woman has her courses on her, she retires from
the family to a little shelter of bark or grass, supported by sticks,
where she kindles a fire and cooks her victuals alone. Her seclusion lasts
four days. During this time she may not approach or touch a horse, for the
Indians believe that such contamination would impoverish or weaken the
animal.(227) Among the Potawatomis the women at their monthly periods “are
not allowed to associate with the rest of the nation; they are completely
laid aside, and are not permitted to touch any article of furniture or
food which the men have occasion to use. If the Indians be stationary at
the time, the women are placed outside of the camp; if on a march, they
are not allowed to follow the trail, but must take a different path and
keep at a distance from the main body.”(228) Among the Cheyennes
menstruous women slept in special lodges; the men believed that if they
slept with their wives at such times, they would probably be wounded in
their next battle. A man who owned a shield had very particularly to be on
his guard against women in their courses. He might not go into a lodge
where one of them happened to be, nor even into a lodge where one of them
had been, until a ceremony of purification had been performed. Sweet grass
and juniper were burnt in the tent, and the pegs were pulled up and the
covering thrown back, as if the tent were about to be struck. After this
pretence of decamping from the polluted spot the owner of the shield might
enter the tent.(229)

(M72) The Stseelis Indians of British Columbia imagined that if a
menstruous woman were to step over a bundle of arrows, the arrows would
thereby be rendered useless and might even cause the death of their owner;
and similarly that if she passed in front of a hunter who carried a gun,
the weapon would never shoot straight again. Neither her husband nor her
father would dream of going out to hunt while she was in this state; and
even if he had wished to do so, the other hunters would not go with him.
Hence to keep them out of harm’s way, the women, both married and
unmarried, were secluded at these times for four days in shelters.(230)
Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia every woman had to isolate
herself from the rest of the people during every recurring period of
menstruation, and had to live some little way off in a small brush or bark
lodge made for the purpose. At these times she was considered unclean,
must use cooking and eating utensils of her own, and was supplied with
food by some other woman. If she smoked out of a pipe other than her own,
that pipe would ever afterwards be hot to smoke. If she crossed in front
of a gun, that gun would thenceforth be useless for the war or the chase,
unless indeed the owner promptly washed the weapon in “medecine” or struck
the woman with it once on each principal part of her body. If a man ate or
had any intercourse with a menstruous woman, nay if he merely wore clothes
or mocassins made or patched by her, he would have bad luck in hunting and
the bears would attack him fiercely. Before being admitted again among the
people, she had to change all her clothes and wash several times in clear
water. The clothes worn during her isolation were hung on a tree, to be
used next time, or to be washed. For one day after coming back among the
people she did not cook food. Were a man to eat food cooked by a woman at
such times, he would have incapacitated himself for hunting and exposed
himself to sickness or death.(231)

(M73) Among the Chippeways and other Indians of the Hudson Bay Territory,
menstruous women are excluded from the camp, and take up their abode in
huts of branches. They wear long hoods, which effectually conceal the head
and breast. They may not touch the household furniture nor any objects
used by men; for their touch “is supposed to defile them, so that their
subsequent use would be followed by certain mischief or misfortune,” such
as disease or death. They must drink out of a swan’s bone. They may not
walk on the common paths nor cross the tracks of animals. They “are never
permitted to walk on the ice of rivers or lakes, or near the part where
the men are hunting beaver, or where a fishing-net is set, for fear of
averting their success. They are also prohibited at those times from
partaking of the head of any animal, and even from walking in or crossing
the track where the head of a deer, moose, beaver, and many other animals
have lately been carried, either on a sledge or on the back. To be guilty
of a violation of this custom is considered as of the greatest importance;
because they firmly believe that it would be a means of preventing the
hunter from having an equal success in his future excursions.”(232) So the
Lapps forbid women at menstruation to walk on that part of the shore where
the fishers are in the habit of setting out their fish;(233) and the
Esquimaux of Bering Strait believe that if hunters were to come near women
in their courses they would catch no game.(234)

(M74) But the beliefs and superstitions of this sort that prevail among
the western tribes of the great Déné or Tinneh stock, to which the
Chippeways belong, have been so well described by an experienced
missionary, that I will give his description in his own words. Prominent
among the ceremonial rites of these Indians, he says, “are the observances
peculiar to the fair sex, and many of them are remarkably analogous to
those practised by the Hebrew women, so much so that, were it not
savouring of profanity, the ordinances of the Déné ritual code might be
termed a new edition ‘revised and considerably augmented’ of the Mosaic
ceremonial law. Among the Carriers,(235) as soon as a girl has experienced
the first flow of the menses which in the female constitution are a
natural discharge, her father believed himself under the obligation of
atoning for her supposedly sinful condition by a small impromptu
distribution of clothes among the natives. This periodical state of women
was considered as one of legal impurity fateful both to the man who
happened to have any intercourse, however indirect, with her, and to the
woman herself who failed in scrupulously observing all the rites
prescribed by ancient usage for persons in her condition.

(M75) “Upon entering into that stage of her life, the maiden was
immediately sequestered from company, even that of her parents, and
compelled to dwell in a small branch hut by herself away from beaten paths
and the gaze of passers-by. As she was supposed to exercise malefic
influence on any man who might inadvertently glance at her, she had to
wear a sort of head-dress combining in itself the purposes of a veil, a
bonnet, and a mantlet. It was made of tanned skin, its forepart was shaped
like a long fringe completely hiding from view the face and breasts; then
it formed on the head a close-fitting cap or bonnet, and finally fell in a
broad band almost to the heels. This head-dress was made and publicly
placed on her head by a paternal aunt, who received at once some present
from the girl’s father. When, three or four years later, the period of
sequestration ceased, only this same aunt had the right to take off her
niece’s ceremonial head-dress. Furthermore, the girl’s fingers, wrists,
and legs at the ankles and immediately below the knees, were encircled
with ornamental rings and bracelets of sinew intended as a protection
against the malign influences she was supposed to be possessed with.(236)
To a belt girding her waist were suspended two bone implements called
respectively _Tsoenkuz_ (bone tube) and _Tsiltsoet_ (head scratcher). The
former was a hollowed swan bone to drink with, any other mode of drinking
being unlawful to her. The latter was fork-like and was called into
requisition whenever she wanted to scratch her head—immediate contact of
the fingers with the head being reputed injurious to her health. While
thus secluded, she was called _asta_, that is ‘interred alive’ in Carrier,
and she had to submit to a rigorous fast and abstinence. Her only allowed
food consisted of dried fish boiled in a small bark vessel which nobody
else must touch, and she had to abstain especially from meat of any kind,
as well as fresh fish. Nor was this all she had to endure; even her
contact, however remote, with these two articles of diet was so dreaded
that she could not cross the public paths or trails, or the tracks of
animals. Whenever absolute necessity constrained her to go beyond such
spots, she had to be packed or carried over them lest she should
contaminate the game or meat which had passed that way, or had been
brought over these paths; and also for the sake of self-preservation
against tabooed, and consequently to her, deleterious food. In the same
way she was never allowed to wade in streams or lakes, for fear of causing
death to the fish.

“It was also a prescription of the ancient ritual code for females during
this primary condition to eat as little as possible, and to remain lying
down, especially in course of each monthly flow, not only as a natural
consequence of the prolonged fast and resulting weakness; but chiefly as
an exhibition of a becoming penitential spirit which was believed to be
rewarded by long life and continual good health in after years.

(M76) “These mortifications or seclusion did not last less than three or
four years. Useless to say that during all that time marriage could not be
thought of, since the girl could not so much as be seen by men. When
married, the same sequestration was practised relatively to husband and
fellow-villagers—without the particular head-dress and rings spoken of—on
the occasion of every recurring menstruation. Sometimes it was protracted
as long as ten days at a time, especially during the first years of
cohabitation. Even when she returned to her mate, she was not permitted to
sleep with him on the first nor frequently on the second night, but would
choose a distant corner of the lodge to spread her blanket, as if afraid
to defile him with her dread uncleanness.”(237) Elsewhere the same writer
tells us that most of the devices to which these Indians used to resort
for the sake of ensuring success in the chase “were based on their regard
for continence and their excessive repugnance for, and dread of,
menstruating women.”(238) But the strict observances imposed on Tinneh or
Déné women at such times were designed at the same time to protect the
women themselves from the evil consequences of their dangerous condition.
Thus it was thought that women in their courses could not partake of the
head, heart, or hind part of an animal that had been caught in a snare
without exposing themselves to a premature death through a kind of rabies.
They might not cut or carve salmon, because to do so would seriously
endanger their health, and especially would enfeeble their arms for life.
And they had to abstain from cutting up the grebes which are caught by the
Carriers in great numbers every spring, because otherwise the blood with
which these fowls abound would occasion hæmorrhage or an unnaturally
prolonged flux in the transgressor.(239) Similarly Indian women of the
Thompson tribe abstained from venison and the flesh of other large game
during menstruation, lest the animals should be displeased and the
menstrual flow increased.(240) For a similar reason, probably, Shuswap
girls during their seclusion at puberty are forbidden to eat anything that
bleeds.(241) The same principle may perhaps partly explain the rule, of
which we have had some examples, that women at such times should refrain
from fish and flesh, and restrict themselves to a vegetable diet.

(M77) The philosophic student of human nature will observe, or learn,
without surprise that ideas thus deeply ingrained in the savage mind
reappear at a more advanced stage of society in those elaborate codes
which have been drawn up for the guidance of certain peoples by lawgivers
who claim to have derived the rules they inculcate from the direct
inspiration of the deity. However we may explain it, the resemblance which
exists between the earliest official utterances of the deity and the ideas
of savages is unquestionably close and remarkable; whether it be, as some
suppose, that God communed face to face with man in those early days, or,
as others maintain, that man mistook his wild and wandering thoughts for a
revelation from heaven. Be that as it may, certain it is that the natural
uncleanness of woman at her monthly periods is a conception which has
occurred, or been revealed, with singular unanimity to several ancient
legislators. The Hindoo lawgiver Manu, who professed to have received his
institutes from the creator Brahman, informs us that the wisdom, the
energy, the strength, the sight, and the vitality of a man who approaches
a woman in her courses will utterly perish; whereas, if he avoids her, his
wisdom, energy, strength, sight, and vitality will all increase.(242) The
Persian lawgiver Zoroaster, who, if we can take his word for it, derived
his code from the mouth of the supreme being Ahura Mazda, devoted special
attention to the subject. According to him, the menstrous flow, at least
in its abnormal manifestations, is a work of Ahriman, or the devil.
Therefore, so long as it lasts, a woman “is unclean and possessed of the
demon; she must be kept confined, apart from the faithful whom her touch
would defile, and from the fire which her very look would injure; she is
not allowed to eat as much as she wishes, as the strength she might
acquire would accrue to the fiends. Her food is not given her from hand to
hand, but is passed to her from a distance, in a long leaden spoon.”(243)
The Hebrew lawgiver Moses, whose divine legation is as little open to
question as that of Manu and Zoroaster, treats the subject at still
greater length; but I must leave to the reader the task of comparing the
inspired ordinances on this head with the merely human regulations of the
Carrier Indians which they so closely resemble.

(M78) Amongst the civilized nations of Europe the superstitions which
cluster round this mysterious aspect of woman’s nature are not less
extravagant than those which prevail among savages. In the oldest existing
cyclopaedia—the _Natural History_ of Pliny—the list of dangers apprehended
from menstruation is longer than any furnished by mere barbarians.
According to Pliny, the touch of a menstruous woman turned wine to
vinegar, blighted crops, killed seedlings, blasted gardens, brought down
the fruit from trees, dimmed mirrors, blunted razors, rusted iron and
brass (especially at the waning of the moon), killed bees, or at least
drove them from their hives, caused mares to miscarry, and so forth.(244)
Similarly, in various parts of Europe, it is still believed that if a
woman in her courses enters a brewery the beer will turn sour; if she
touches beer, wine, vinegar, or milk, it will go bad; if she makes jam, it
will not keep; if she mounts a mare, it will miscarry; if she touches
buds, they will wither; if she climbs a cherry tree, it will die.(245) In
Brunswick people think that if a menstruous woman assists at the killing
of a pig, the pork will putrefy.(246) In the Greek island of Calymnos a
woman at such times may not go to the well to draw water, nor cross a
running stream, nor enter the sea. Her presence in a boat is said to raise
storms.(247)

(M79) Thus the object of secluding women at menstruation is to neutralize
the dangerous influences which are supposed to emanate from them at such
times. That the danger is believed to be especially great at the first
menstruation appears from the unusual precautions taken to isolate girls
at this crisis. Two of these precautions have been illustrated above,
namely, the rules that the girl may not touch the ground nor see the sun.
The general effect of these rules is to keep her suspended, so to say,
between heaven and earth. Whether enveloped in her hammock and slung up to
the roof, as in South America, or raised above the ground in a dark and
narrow cage, as in New Ireland, she may be considered to be out of the way
of doing mischief, since, being shut off both from the earth and from the
sun, she can poison neither of these great sources of life by her deadly
contagion. In short, she is rendered harmless by being, in electrical
language, insulated. But the precautions thus taken to isolate or insulate
the girl are dictated by a regard for her own safety as well as for the
safety of others. For it is thought that she herself would suffer if she
were to neglect the prescribed regimen. Thus Zulu girls, as we have seen,
believe that they would shrivel to skeletons if the sun were to shine on
them at puberty, and in some Brazilian tribes the young women think that a
transgression of the rules would entail sores on the neck and throat. In
short, the girl is viewed as charged with a powerful force which, if not
kept within bounds, may prove destructive both to herself and to all with
whom she comes in contact. To repress this force within the limits
necessary for the safety of all concerned is the object of the taboos in
question.

(M80) The same explanation applies to the observance of the same rules by
divine kings and priests. The uncleanness, as it is called, of girls at
puberty and the sanctity of holy men do not, to the primitive mind, differ
materially from each other. They are only different manifestations of the
same mysterious energy which, like energy in general, is in itself neither
good nor bad, but becomes beneficent or maleficent according to its
application.(248) Accordingly, if, like girls at puberty, divine
personages may neither touch the ground nor see the sun, the reason is, on
the one hand, a fear lest their divinity might, at contact with earth or
heaven, discharge itself with fatal violence on either; and, on the other
hand, an apprehension that the divine being, thus drained of his ethereal
virtue, might thereby be incapacitated for the future performance of those
magical functions, upon the proper discharge of which the safety of the
people and even of the world is believed to hang. Thus the rules in
question fall under the head of the taboos which we examined in the second
part of this work;(249) they are intended to preserve the life of the
divine person and with it the life of his subjects and worshippers.
Nowhere, it is thought, can his precious yet dangerous life be at once so
safe and so harmless as when it is neither in heaven nor in earth, but, as
far as possible, suspended between the two.(250)

(M81) In legends and folk-tales, which reflect the ideas of earlier ages,
we find this suspension between heaven and earth attributed to beings who
have been endowed with the coveted yet burdensome gift of immortality. The
wizened remains of the deathless Sibyl are said to have been preserved in
a jar or urn which hung in a temple of Apollo at Cumae; and when a group
of merry children, tired, perhaps, of playing in the sunny streets, sought
the shade of the temple and amused themselves by gathering underneath the
familiar jar and calling out, “Sibyl, what do you wish?” a hollow voice,
like an echo, used to answer from the urn, “I wish to die.”(251) A story,
taken down from the lips of a German peasant at Thomsdorf, relates that
once upon a time there was a girl in London who wished to live for ever,
so they say:

“_London, London is a fine town._
_A maiden prayed to live for ever._”

And still she lives and hangs in a basket in a church, and every St.
John’s Day, about the hour of noon, she eats a roll of bread.(252) Another
German story tells of a lady who resided at Danzig and was so rich and so
blest with all that life can give that she wished to live always. So when
she came to her latter end, she did not really die but only looked like
dead, and very soon they found her in a hollow of a pillar in the church,
half standing and half sitting, motionless. She stirred never a limb, but
they saw quite plainly that she was alive, and she sits there down to this
blessed day. Every New Year’s Day the sacristan comes and puts a morsel of
the holy bread in her mouth, and that is all she has to live on. Long,
long has she rued her fatal wish who set this transient life above the
eternal joys of heaven.(253) A third German story tells of a noble damsel
who cherished the same foolish wish for immortality. So they put her in a
basket and hung her up in a church, and there she hangs and never dies,
though many a year has come and gone since they put her there. But every
year on a certain day they give her a roll, and she eats it and cries out,
“For ever! for ever! for ever!” And when she has so cried she falls silent
again till the same time next year, and so it will go on for ever and for
ever.(254) A fourth story, taken down near Oldenburg in Holstein, tells of
a jolly dame that ate and drank and lived right merrily and had all that
heart could desire, and she wished to live always. For the first hundred
years all went well, but after that she began to shrink and shrivel up,
till at last she could neither walk nor stand nor eat nor drink. But die
she could not. At first they fed her as if she were a little child, but
when she grew smaller and smaller they put her in a glass bottle and hung
her up in the church. And there she still hangs, in the church of St.
Mary, at Lübeck. She is as small as a mouse, but once a year she
stirs.(255)

CHAPTER III. THE MYTH OF BALDER.

(M82) A deity whose life might in a sense be said to be neither in heaven
nor on earth but between the two, was the Norse Balder, the good and
beautiful god, the son of the great god Odin, and himself the wisest,
mildest, best beloved of all the immortals. The story of his death, as it
is told in the younger or prose _Edda_, runs thus. Once on a time Balder
dreamed heavy dreams which seemed to forebode his death. Thereupon the
gods held a council and resolved to make him secure against every danger.
So the goddess Frigg took an oath from fire and water, iron and all
metals, stones and earth, from trees, sicknesses and poisons, and from all
four-footed beasts, birds, and creeping things, that they would not hurt
Balder. When this was done Balder was deemed invulnerable; so the gods
amused themselves by setting him in their midst, while some shot at him,
others hewed at him, and others threw stones at him. But whatever they
did, nothing could hurt him; and at this they were all glad, Only Loki,
the mischief-maker, was displeased, and he went in the guise of an old
woman to Frigg, who told him that the weapons of the gods could not wound
Balder, since she had made them all swear not to hurt him. Then Loki
asked, “Have all things sworn to spare Balder?” She answered, “East of
Walhalla grows a plant called mistletoe; it seemed to me too young to
swear.” So Loki went and pulled the mistletoe and took it to the assembly
of the gods. There he found the blind god Hother standing at the outside
of the circle. Loki asked him, “Why do you not shoot at Balder?” Hother
answered, “Because I do not see where he stands; besides I have no
weapon.” Then said Loki, “Do like the rest and shew Balder honour, as they
all do. I will shew you where he stands, and do you shoot at him with this
twig.” Hother took the mistletoe and threw it at Balder, as Loki directed
him. The mistletoe struck Balder and pierced him through and through, and
he fell down dead. And that was the greatest misfortune that ever befell
gods and men. For a while the gods stood speechless, then they lifted up
their voices and wept bitterly. They took Balder’s body and brought it to
the sea-shore. There stood Balder’s ship; it was called Ringhorn, and was
the hugest of all ships. The gods wished to launch the ship and to burn
Balder’s body on it, but the ship would not stir. So they sent for a
giantess called Hyrrockin. She came riding on a wolf and gave the ship
such a push that fire flashed from the rollers and all the earth shook.
Then Balder’s body was taken and placed on the funeral pile upon his ship.
When his wife Nanna saw that, her heart burst for sorrow and she died. So
she was laid on the funeral pile with her husband, and fire was put to it.
Balder’s horse, too, with all its trappings, was burned on the pile.(256)

(M83) In the older or poetic _Edda_ the tragic tale of Balder is hinted at
rather than told at length. Among the visions which the Norse Sibyl sees
and describes in the weird prophecy known as the _Voluspa_ is one of the
fatal mistletoe. “I behold,” says she, “Fate looming for Balder, Woden’s
son, the bloody victim. There stands the Mistletoe slender and delicate,
blooming high above the ground. Out of this shoot, so slender to look on,
there shall grow a harmful fateful shaft. Hod shall shoot it, but Frigga
in Fen-hall shall weep over the woe of Wal-hall.”(257) Yet looking far
into the future the Sibyl sees a brighter vision of a new heaven and a new
earth, where the fields unsown shall yield their increase and all sorrows
shall be healed; then Balder will come back to dwell in Odin’s mansions of
bliss, in a hall brighter than the sun, shingled with gold, where the
righteous shall live in joy for ever more.(258)

(M84) Writing about the end of the twelfth century, the old Danish
historian Saxo Grammaticus tells the story of Balder in a form which
professes to be historical. According to him, Balder and Hother were rival
suitors for the hand of Nanna, daughter of Gewar, King of Norway. Now
Balder was a demigod and common steel could not wound his sacred body. The
two rivals encountered each other in a terrific battle, and though Odin
and Thor and the rest of the gods fought for Balder, yet was he defeated
and fled away, and Hother married the princess. Nevertheless Balder took
heart of grace and again met Hother in a stricken field. But he fared even
worse than before; for Hother dealt him a deadly wound with a magic sword,
which he had received from Miming, the Satyr of the woods; and after
lingering three days in pain Balder died of his hurt and was buried with
royal honours in a barrow.(259)

(M85) Whether he was a real or merely a mythical personage, Balder was
worshipped in Norway. On one of the bays of the beautiful Sogne Fiord,
which penetrates far into the depths of the solemn Norwegian mountains,
with their sombre pine-forests and their lofty cascades dissolving into
spray before they reach the dark water of the fiord far below, Balder had
a great sanctuary. It was called Balder’s Grove. A palisade enclosed the
hallowed ground, and within it stood a spacious temple with the images of
many gods, but none of them was worshipped with such devotion as Balder.
So great was the awe with which the heathen regarded the place that no man
might harm another there, nor steal his cattle, nor defile himself with
women. But women cared for the images of the gods in the temple; they
warmed them at the fire, anointed them with oil, and dried them with
cloths.(260)

(M86) It might be rash to affirm that the romantic figure of Balder was
nothing but a creation of the mythical fancy, a radiant phantom conjured
up as by a wizard’s wand to glitter for a time against the gloomy
background of the stern Norwegian landscape. It may be so; yet it is also
possible that the myth was founded on the tradition of a hero, popular and
beloved in his lifetime, who long survived in the memory of the people,
gathering more and more of the marvellous about him as he passed from
generation to generation of story-tellers. At all events it is worth while
to observe that a somewhat similar story is told of another national hero,
who may well have been a real man. In his great poem, _The Epic of Kings_,
which is founded on Persian traditions, the poet Firdusi tells us that in
the combat between Rustem and Isfendiyar the arrows of the former did no
harm to his adversary, “because Zerdusht had charmed his body against all
dangers, so that it was like unto brass.” But Simurgh, the bird of God,
shewed Rustem the way he should follow in order to vanquish his
redoubtable foe. He rode after her, and they halted not till they came to
the sea-shore. There she led him into a garden, where grew a tamarisk,
tall and strong, and the roots thereof were in the ground, but the
branches pierced even unto the sky. Then the bird of God bade Rustem break
from the tree a branch that was long and slender, and fashion it into an
arrow, and she said, “Only through his eyes can Isfendiyar be wounded. If,
therefore, thou wouldst slay him, direct this arrow unto his forehead, and
verily it shall not miss its aim.” Rustem did as he was bid; and when next
he fought with Isfendiyar, he shot the arrow at him, and it pierced his
eye, and he died. Great was the mourning for Isfendiyar. For the space of
one year men ceased not to lament for him, and for many years they shed
bitter tears for that arrow, and they said, “The glory of Iran hath been
laid low.”(261)

(M87) Whatever may be thought of an historical kernel underlying a
mythical husk in the legend of Balder, the details of the story suggest
that it belongs to that class of myths which have been dramatized in
ritual, or, to put it otherwise, which have been performed as magical
ceremonies for the sake of producing those natural effects which they
describe in figurative language. A myth is never so graphic and precise in
its details as when it is, so to speak, the book of the words which are
spoken and acted by the performers of the sacred rite. That the Norse
story of Balder was a myth of this sort will become probable if we can
prove that ceremonies resembling the incidents in the tale have been
performed by Norsemen and other European peoples. Now the main incidents
in the tale are two—first, the pulling of the mistletoe, and second, the
death and burning of the god; and both of them may perhaps be found to
have had their counterparts in yearly rites observed, whether separately
or conjointly, by people in various parts of Europe. These rites will be
described and discussed in the following chapters. We shall begin with the
annual festivals of fire and shall reserve the pulling of the mistletoe
for consideration later on.

CHAPTER IV. THE FIRE-FESTIVALS OF EUROPE.

§ 1. The Lenten Fires.

(M88) All over Europe the peasants have been accustomed from time
immemorial to kindle bonfires on certain days of the year, and to dance
round or leap over them. Customs of this kind can be traced back on
historical evidence to the Middle Ages,(262) and their analogy to similar
customs observed in antiquity goes with strong internal evidence to prove
that their origin must be sought in a period long prior to the spread of
Christianity. Indeed the earliest proof of their observance in Northern
Europe is furnished by the attempts made by Christian synods in the eighth
century to put them down as heathenish rites.(263) Not uncommonly effigies
are burned in these fires, or a pretence is made of burning a living
person in them; and there are grounds for believing that anciently human
beings were actually burned on these occasions. A general survey of the
customs in question will bring out the traces of human sacrifice, and will
serve at the same time to throw light on their meaning.(264)

(M89) The seasons of the year when these bonfires are most commonly lit
are spring and midsummer; but in some places they are kindled also at the
end of autumn or during the course of the winter, particularly on Hallow
E’en (the thirty-first of October), Christmas Day, and the Eve of Twelfth
Day. We shall consider them in the order in which they occur in the
calendar year. The earliest of them is the winter festival of the Eve of
Twelfth Day (the fifth of January); but as it has been already described
in an earlier part of this work(265) we shall pass it over here and begin
with the fire-festivals of spring, which usually fall on the first Sunday
of Lent (_Quadragesima_ or _Invocavit_),(266) Easter Eve, and May Day.

(M90) The custom of kindling bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent has
prevailed in Belgium, the north of France, and many parts of Germany. Thus
in the Belgian Ardennes for a week or a fortnight before the “day of the
great fire,” as it is called, children go about from farm to farm
collecting fuel. At Grand Halleux any one who refuses their request is
pursued next day by the children, who try to blacken his face with the
ashes of the extinct fire. When the day has come, they cut down bushes,
especially juniper and broom, and in the evening great bonfires blaze on
all the heights. It is a common saying that seven bonfires should be seen
if the village is to be safe from conflagrations. If the Meuse happens to
be frozen hard at the time, bonfires are lit also on the ice. At Grand
Halleux they set up a pole called _makral_, or “the witch,” in the midst
of the pile, and the fire is kindled by the man who was last married in
the village. In the neighbourhood of Morlanwelz a straw man is burnt in
the fire. Young people and children dance and sing round the bonfires, and
leap over the embers to secure good crops or a happy marriage within the
year, or as a means of guarding themselves against colic. In Brabant on
the same Sunday, down to the beginning of the nineteenth century, women
and men disguised in female attire used to go with burning torches to the
fields, where they danced and sang comic songs for the purpose, as they
alleged, of driving away “the wicked sower,” who is mentioned in the
Gospel for the day. At Maeseyck and in many villages of Limburg, on the
evening of the day children run through the streets carrying lighted
torches; then they kindle little fires of straw in the fields and dance
round them. At Ensival old folks tell young folks that they will have as
many Easter eggs as they see bonfires on this day.(267) At Pâturages, in
the province of Hainaut, down to about 1840 the custom was observed under
the name of _Escouvion_ or _Scouvion_. Every year on the first Sunday of
Lent, which was called the Day of the Little Scouvion, young folks and
children used to run with lighted torches through the gardens and
orchards. As they ran they cried at the pitch of their voices,

“_Bear apples, bear pears_
_And cherries all black_
_To Scouvion!_”

At these words the torch-bearer whirled his blazing brand and hurled it
among the branches of the apple-trees, the pear-trees, and the
cherry-trees. The next Sunday was called the Day of the Great Scouvion,
and the same race with lighted torches among the trees of the orchards was
repeated in the afternoon till darkness fell. The same custom was observed
on the same two days at Wasmes.(268) In the neighbourhood of Liège, where
the Lenten fires were put down by the police about the middle of the
nineteenth century, girls thought that by leaping over the fires without
being smirched they made sure of a happy marriage. Elsewhere in order to
get a good husband it was necessary to see seven of the bonfires from one
spot. In Famenne, a district of Namur, men and cattle who traversed the
Lenten fires were thought to be safe from sickness and witchcraft. Anybody
who saw seven such fires at once had nothing to fear from sorcerers. An
old saying ran, that if you do not light “the great fire,” God will light
it for you; which seems to imply that the kindling of the bonfires was
deemed a protection against conflagrations throughout the year.(269)

(M91) In the French department of the Ardennes the whole village used to
dance and sing round the bonfires which were lighted on the first Sunday
in Lent. Here, too, it was the person last married, sometimes a man and
sometimes a woman, who put the match to the fire. The custom is still kept
up very commonly in the district. Cats used to be burnt in the fire or
roasted to death by being held over it; and while they were burning the
shepherds drove their flocks through the smoke and flames as a sure means
of guarding them against sickness and witchcraft. In some communes it was
believed that the livelier the dance round the fire, the better would be
the crops that year.(270) In the Vosges Mountains it is still customary to
light great fires on the heights and around the villages on the first
Sunday in Lent; and at Rupt and elsewhere the right of kindling them
belongs to the person who was last married. Round the fires the people
dance and sing merrily till the flames have died out. Then the master of
the fire, as they call the man who kindled it, invites all who contributed
to the erection of the pile to follow him to the nearest tavern, where
they partake of good cheer. At Dommartin they say that, if you would have
the hemp tall, it is absolutely necessary that the women should be tipsy
on the evening of this day.(271) At Épinal in the Vosges, on the first
Sunday in Lent, bonfires used to be kindled at various places both in the
town and on the banks of the Moselle. They consisted of pyramids of sticks
and faggots, which had been collected some days earlier by young folks
going from door to door. When the flames blazed up, the names of various
couples, whether young or old, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, were called
out, and the persons thus linked in mock marriage were forced, whether
they liked it or not, to march arm in arm round the fire amid the laughter
and jests of the crowd. The festivity lasted till the fire died out, and
then the spectators dispersed through the streets, stopping under the
windows of the houses and proclaiming the names of the _féchenots_ and
_féchenottes_ or Valentines whom the popular voice had assigned to each
other. These couples had to exchange presents; the mock bridegroom gave
his mock bride something for her toilet, while she in turn presented him
with a cockade of coloured ribbon. Next Sunday, if the weather allowed it,
all the couples, arrayed in their best attire and attended by their
relations, repaired to the wood of Saint Antony, where they mounted a
famous stone called the _danserosse_ or _danseresse_. Here they found
cakes and refreshments of all sorts, and danced to the music of a couple
of fiddlers. The evening bell, ringing the Angelus, gave the signal to
depart. As soon as its solemn chime was heard, every one quitted the
forest and returned home. The exchange of presents between the Valentines
went by the name of ransom or redemption (_rachat_), because it was
supposed to redeem the couple from the flames of the bonfire. Any pair who
failed thus to ransom themselves were not suffered to share the
merrymaking at the great stone in the forest; and a pretence was made of
burning them in small fires kindled before their own doors.(272)

(M92) In the French province of Franche-Comté, to the west of the Jura
Mountains, the first Sunday of Lent is known as the Sunday of the
Firebrands (_Brandons_), on account of the fires which it is customary to
kindle on that day. On the Saturday or the Sunday the village lads harness
themselves to a cart and drag it about the streets, stopping at the doors
of the houses where there are girls and begging for a faggot. When they
have got enough, they cart the fuel to a spot at some little distance from
the village, pile it up, and set it on fire. All the people of the parish
come out to see the bonfire. In some villages, when the bells have rung
the Angelus, the signal for the observance is given by cries of, “To the
fire! to the fire!” Lads, lasses, and children dance round the blaze, and
when the flames have died down they vie with each other in leaping over
the red embers. He or she who does so without singeing his or her garments
will be married within the year. Young folk also carry lighted torches
about the streets or the fields, and when they pass an orchard they cry
out, “More fruit than leaves!” Down to recent years at Laviron, in the
department of Doubs, it was the young married couples of the year who had
charge of the bonfires. In the midst of the bonfire a pole was planted
with a wooden figure of a cock fastened to the top. Then there were races,
and the winner received the cock as a prize.(273)

(M93) In Auvergne fires are everywhere kindled on the evening of the first
Sunday in Lent. Every village, every hamlet, even every ward, every
isolated farm has its bonfire or _figo_, as it is called, which blazes up
as the shades of night are falling. The fires may be seen flaring on the
heights and in the plains; the people dance and sing round about them and
leap through the flames. Then they proceed to the ceremony of the
_Grannas-mias_. A _granno-mio_(274) is a torch of straw fastened to the
top of a pole. When the pyre is half consumed, the bystanders kindle the
torches at the expiring flames and carry them into the neighbouring
orchards, fields, and gardens, wherever there are fruit-trees. As they
march they sing at the top of their voices,

“_Granno, mo mio,_
_Granno, mon pouère,_
_Granno, mo mouère!_”

that is, “Grannus my friend, Grannus my father, Grannus my mother.” Then
they pass the burning torches under the branches of every tree, singing,

“_Brando, brandounci_
_Tsaque brantso, in plan panei!_”

that is, “Firebrand burn; every branch a basketful!” In some villages the
people also run across the sown fields and shake the ashes of the torches
on the ground; also they put some of the ashes in the fowls’ nests, in
order that the hens may lay plenty of eggs throughout the year. When all
these ceremonies have been performed, everybody goes home and feasts; the
special dishes of the evening are fritters and pancakes.(275) Here the
application of the fire to the fruit-trees, to the sown fields, and to the
nests of the poultry is clearly a charm intended to ensure fertility; and
the Granno to whom the invocations are addressed, and who gives his name
to the torches, may possibly be, as Dr. Pommerol suggests,(276) no other
than the ancient Celtic god Grannus, whom the Romans identified with
Apollo, and whose worship is attested by inscriptions found not only in
France but in Scotland and on the Danube.(277) If the name Grannus is
derived, as the learned tell us, from a root meaning “to glow, burn,
shine,”(278) the deity who bore the name and was identified with Apollo
may well have been a sun-god; and in that case the prayers addressed to
him by the peasants of the Auvergne, while they wave the blazing,
crackling torches about the fruit-trees, would be eminently appropriate.
For who could ripen the fruit so well as the sun-god? and what better
process could be devised to draw the blossoms from the bare boughs than
the application to them of that genial warmth which is ultimately derived
from the solar beams? Thus the fire-festival of the first Sunday in Lent,
as it is observed in Auvergne, may be interpreted very naturally and
simply as a religious or rather perhaps magical ceremony designed to
procure a due supply of the sun’s heat for plants and animals. At the same
time we should remember that the employment of fire in this and kindred
ceremonies may have been designed originally, not so much to stimulate
growth and reproduction, as to burn and destroy all agencies, whether in
the shape of vermin, witches, or what not, which threatened or were
supposed to threaten the growth of the crops and the multiplication of
animals. It is often difficult to decide between these two different
interpretations of the use of fire in agricultural rites. In any case the
fire-festival of Auvergne on the first Sunday in Lent may date from
Druidical times.

(M94) The custom of carrying lighted torches of straw (_brandons_) about
the orchards and fields to fertilize them on the first Sunday of Lent
seems to have been common in France, whether it was accompanied with the
practice of kindling bonfires or not. Thus in the province of Picardy “on
the first Sunday of Lent people carried torches through the fields,
exorcising the field-mice, the darnel, and the smut. They imagined that
they did much good to the gardens and caused the onions to grow large.
Children ran about the fields, torch in hand, to make the land more
fertile. All that was done habitually in Picardy, and the ceremony of the
torches is not entirely forgotten, especially in the villages on both
sides the Somme as far as Saint-Valery.”(279) “A very agreeable spectacle,
said the curate of l’Étoile, is to survey from the portal of the church,
situated almost on the top of the mountain, the vast plains of Vimeux all
illuminated by these wandering fires. The same pastime is observed at
Poix, at Conty, and in all the villages round about.”(280) Again, in the
district of Beauce a festival of torches (_brandons_ or _brandelons_) used
to be held both on the first and on the second Sunday in Lent; the first
was called “the Great Torches” and the second “the Little Torches.” The
torches were, as usual, bundles of straw wrapt round poles. In the evening
the village lads carried the burning brands through the country, running
about in disorder and singing,

“_Torches burn_
_At these vines, at this wheat;_
_Torches burn_
_For the maidens that shall wed!_”

From time to time the bearers would stand still and smite the earth all
together with the blazing straw of the torches, while they cried, “A sheaf
of a peck and a half!” (_Gearbe à boissiaux_). If two torchbearers
happened to meet each other on their rounds, they performed the same
ceremony and uttered the same words. When the straw was burnt out, the
poles were collected and a great bonfire made of them. Lads and lasses
danced round the flames, and the lads leaped over them. Afterwards it was
customary to eat a special sort of hasty-pudding made of wheaten flour.
These usages were still in vogue at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, but they have now almost disappeared. The peasants believed that
by carrying lighted torches through the fields they protected the crops
from field-mice, darnel, and smut.(281) “At Dijon, in Burgundy, it is the
custom upon the first Sunday in Lent to make large fires in the streets,
whence it is called Firebrand Sunday. This practice originated in the
processions formerly made on that day by the peasants with lighted torches
of straw, to drive away, as they called it, the bad air from the
earth.”(282) In some parts of France, while the people scoured the country
with burning brands on the first Sunday in Lent, they warned the
fruit-trees that if they did not take heed and bear fruit they would
surely be cut down and cast into the fire.(283) On the same day peasants
in the department of Loiret used to run about the sowed fields with
burning torches in their hands, while they adjured the field-mice to quit
the wheat on pain of having their whiskers burned.(284) In the department
of Ain the great fires of straw and faggots which are kindled in the
fields at this time are or were supposed to destroy the nests of the
caterpillars.(285) At Verges, a lonely village surrounded by forests
between the Jura and the Combe d’Ain, the torches used at this season were
kindled in a peculiar manner. The young people climbed to the top of a
mountain, where they placed three nests of straw in three trees. These
nests being then set on fire, torches made of dry lime-wood were lighted
at them, and the merry troop descended the mountain to their flickering
light, and went to every house in the village, demanding roasted peas and
obliging all couples who had been married within the year to dance.(286)
In Berry, a district of central France, it appears that bonfires are not
lighted on this day, but when the sun has set the whole population of the
villages, armed with blazing torches of straw, disperse over the country
and scour the fields, the vineyards, and the orchards. Seen from afar, the
multitude of moving lights, twinkling in the darkness, appear like
will-o’-the-wisps chasing each other across the plains, along the
hillsides, and down the valleys. While the men wave their flambeaus about
the branches of the fruit-trees, the women and children tie bands of
wheaten-straw round the tree-trunks. The effect of the ceremony is
supposed to be to avert the various plagues from which the fruits of the
earth are apt to suffer; and the bands of straw fastened round the stems
of the trees are believed to render them fruitful.(287) In the peninsula
of La Manche the Norman peasants used to spend almost the whole night of
the first Sunday in Lent rushing about the country with lighted torches
for the purpose, as they supposed, of driving away the moles and
field-mice; fires were also kindled on some of the dolmens.(288)

(M95) In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland at the same season similar
customs have prevailed. Thus in the Eifel Mountains, Rhenish Prussia, on
the first Sunday in Lent young people used to collect straw and brushwood
from house to house. These they carried to an eminence and piled up round
a tall, slim beech-tree, to which a piece of wood was fastened at right
angles to form a cross. The structure was known as the “hut” or “castle.”
Fire was set to it and the young people marched round the blazing “castle”
bareheaded, each carrying a lighted torch and praying aloud. Sometimes a
straw-man was burned in the “hut.” People observed the direction in which
the smoke blew from the fire. If it blew towards the corn-fields, it was a
sign that the harvest would be abundant. On the same day, in some parts of
the Eifel, a great wheel was made of straw and dragged by three horses to
the top of a hill. Thither the village boys marched at nightfall, set fire
to the wheel, and sent it rolling down the slope. Two lads followed it
with levers to set it in motion again, in case it should anywhere meet
with a check. At Oberstattfeld the wheel had to be provided by the young
man who was last married.(289) About Echternach in Luxemburg the same
ceremony is called “burning the witch”; while it is going on, the older
men ascend the heights and observe what wind is blowing, for that is the
wind which will prevail the whole year.(290) At Voralberg in the Tyrol, on
the first Sunday in Lent, a slender young fir-tree is surrounded with a
pile of straw and firewood. To the top of the tree is fastened a human
figure called the “witch,” made of old clothes and stuffed with gunpowder.
At night the whole is set on fire and boys and girls dance round it,
swinging torches and singing rhymes in which the words “corn in the
winnowing-basket, the plough in the earth” may be distinguished.(291) In
Swabia on the first Sunday in Lent a figure called the “witch” or the “old
wife” or “winter’s grandmother” is made up of clothes and fastened to a
pole. This is stuck in the middle of a pile of wood, to which fire is
applied. While the “witch” is burning, the young people throw blazing
discs into the air. The discs are thin round pieces of wood, a few inches
in diameter, with notched edges to imitate the rays of the sun or stars.
They have a hole in the middle, by which they are attached to the end of a
wand. Before the disc is thrown it is set on fire, the wand is swung to
and fro, and the impetus thus communicated to the disc is augmented by
dashing the rod sharply against a sloping board. The burning disc is thus
thrown off, and mounting high into the air, describes a long fiery curve
before it reaches the ground. A single lad may fling up forty or fifty of
these discs, one after the other. The object is to throw them as high as
possible. The wand by which they are hurled must, at least in some parts
of Swabia, be of hazel. Sometimes the lads also leap over the fire
brandishing lighted torches of pine-wood. The charred embers of the burned
“witch” and discs are taken home and planted in the flax-fields the same
night, in the belief that they will keep vermin from the fields.(292) At
Wangen, near Molsheim in Baden, a like custom is observed on the first
Sunday in Lent. The young people kindle a bonfire on the crest of the
mountain above the village; and the burning discs which they hurl into the
air are said to present in the darkness the aspect of a continual shower
of falling stars. When the supply of discs is exhausted and the bonfire
begins to burn low, the boys light torches and run with them at full speed
down one or other of the three steep and winding paths that descend the
mountain-side to the village. Bumps, bruises, and scratches are often the
result of their efforts to outstrip each other in the headlong race.(293)
In the Rhön Mountains, situated on the borders of Hesse and Bavaria, the
people used to march to the top of a hill or eminence on the first Sunday
in Lent. Children and lads carried torches, brooms daubed with tar, and
poles swathed in straw. A wheel, wrapt in combustibles, was kindled and
rolled down the hill; and the young people rushed about the fields with
their burning torches and brooms, till at last they flung them in a heap,
and standing round them, struck up a hymn or a popular song. The object of
running about the fields with the blazing torches was to “drive away the
wicked sower.” Or it was done in honour of the Virgin, that she might
preserve the fruits of the earth throughout the year and bless them.(294)
In neighbouring villages of Hesse, between the Rhön and the Vogel
Mountains, it is thought that wherever the burning wheels roll, the fields
will be safe from hail and storm.(295) At Konz on the Moselle, on the
Thursday before the first Sunday in Lent, the two guilds of the butchers
and the weavers used to repair to the Marxberg and there set up an
oak-tree with a wheel fastened to it. On the following Sunday the people
ascended the hill, cut down the oak, set fire to the wheel, and sent both
oak and wheel rolling down the hillside, while a guard of butchers,
mounted on horses, fired at the flaming wheel in its descent. If the wheel
rolled down into the Moselle, the butchers were rewarded with a
waggon-load of wine by the archbishop of Treves.(296)

(M96) In Switzerland, also, it is or used to be customary to kindle
bonfires on high places on the evening of the first Sunday in Lent, and
the day is therefore popularly known as Spark Sunday. The custom
prevailed, for example, throughout the canton of Lucerne. Boys went about
from house to house begging for wood and straw, then piled the fuel on a
conspicuous mountain or hill round about a pole, which bore a straw effigy
called “the witch.” At nightfall the pile was set on fire, and the young
folks danced wildly round it, some of them cracking whips or ringing
bells; and when the fire burned low enough, they leaped over it. This was
called “burning the witch.” In some parts of the canton also they used to
wrap old wheels in straw and thorns, put a light to them, and send them
rolling and blazing down hill. The same custom of rolling lighted wheels
down hill is attested by old authorities for the cantons of Aargau and
Bâle. The more bonfires could be seen sparkling and flaring in the
darkness, the more fruitful was the year expected to be; and the higher
the dancers leaped beside or over the fire, the higher, it was thought,
would grow the flax. In the district of Freiburg and at Birseck in the
district of Bâle it was the last married man or woman who must kindle the
bonfire. While the bonfires blazed up, it was customary in some parts of
Switzerland to propel burning discs of wood through the air by means of
the same simple machinery which is used for the purpose in Swabia. Each
lad tried to send his disc fizzing and flaring through the darkness as far
as possible, and in discharging it he mentioned the name of the person to
whose honour it was dedicated. But in Prättigau the words uttered in
launching the fiery discs referred to the abundance which was apparently
expected to follow the performance of the ceremony. Among them were,
“Grease in the pan, corn in the fan, and the plough in the earth!”(297)

(M97) It seems hardly possible to separate from these bonfires, kindled on
the first Sunday in Lent, the fires in which, about the same season, the
effigy called Death is burned as part of the ceremony of “carrying out
Death.” We have seen that at Spachendorf, in Austrian Silesia, on the
morning of Rupert’s Day (Shrove Tuesday?), a straw-man, dressed in a fur
coat and a fur cap, is laid in a hole outside the village and there
burned, and that while it is blazing every one seeks to snatch a fragment
of it, which he fastens to a branch of the highest tree in his garden or
buries in his field, believing that this will make the crops to grow
better. The ceremony is known as the “burying of Death.”(298) Even when
the straw-man is not designated as Death, the meaning of the observance is
probably the same; for the name Death, as I have tried to shew, does not
express the original intention of the ceremony. At Cobern in the Eifel
Mountains the lads make up a straw-man on Shrove Tuesday. The effigy is
formally tried and accused of having perpetrated all the thefts that have
been committed in the neighbourhood throughout the year. Being condemned
to death, the straw-man is led through the village, shot, and burned upon
a pyre. They dance round the blazing pile, and the last bride must leap
over it.(299) In Oldenburg on the evening of Shrove Tuesday people used to
make long bundles of straw, which they set on fire, and then ran about the
fields waving them, shrieking, and singing wild songs. Finally they burned
a straw-man on the field.(300) In the district of Düsseldorf the straw-man
burned on Shrove Tuesday was made of an unthreshed sheaf of corn.(301) On
the first Monday after the spring equinox the urchins of Zurich drag a
straw-man on a little cart through the streets, while at the same time the
girls carry about a May-tree. When vespers ring, the straw-man is
burned.(302) In the district of Aachen on Ash Wednesday a man used to be
encased in peas-straw and taken to an appointed place. Here he slipped
quietly out of his straw casing, which was then burned, the children
thinking that it was the man who was being burned.(303) In the Val di
Ledro (Tyrol) on the last day of the Carnival a figure is made up of straw
and brushwood and then burned. The figure is called the Old Woman, and the
ceremony “burning the Old Woman.”(304)

§ 2. The Easter Fires.

(M98) Another occasion on which these fire-festivals are held is Easter
Eve, the Saturday before Easter Sunday. On that day it has been customary
in Catholic countries to extinguish all the lights in the churches, and
then to make a new fire, sometimes with flint and steel, sometimes with a
burning-glass. At this fire is lit the great Paschal or Easter candle,
which is then used to rekindle all the extinguished lights in the church.
In many parts of Germany a bonfire is also kindled, by means of the new
fire, on some open space near the church. It is consecrated, and the
people bring sticks of oak, walnut, and beech, which they char in the
fire, and then take home with them. Some of these charred sticks are
thereupon burned at home in a newly-kindled fire, with a prayer that God
will preserve the homestead from fire, lightning, and hail. Thus every
house receives “new fire.” Some of the sticks are kept throughout the year
and laid on the hearth-fire during heavy thunder-storms to prevent the
house from being struck by lightning, or they are inserted in the roof
with the like intention. Others are placed in the fields, gardens, and
meadows, with a prayer that God will keep them from blight and hail. Such
fields and gardens are thought to thrive more than others; the corn and
the plants that grow in them are not beaten down by hail, nor devoured by
mice, vermin, and beetles; no witch harms them, and the ears of corn stand
close and full. The charred sticks are also applied to the plough. The
ashes of the Easter bonfire, together with the ashes of the consecrated
palm-branches, are mixed with the seed at sowing. A wooden figure called
Judas is sometimes burned in the consecrated bonfire, and even where this
custom has been abolished the bonfire itself in some places goes by the
name of “the burning of Judas.”(305)

(M99) In the Hollertau, Bavaria, the young men used to light their
lanterns at the newly-kindled Easter candle in the church and then race to
the bonfire; he who reached it first set fire to the pile, and next day,
Easter Sunday, was rewarded at the church-door by the housewives, who
presented him with red eggs. Great was the jubilation while the effigy of
the traitor was being consumed in the flames. The ashes were carefully
collected and thrown away at sunrise in running water.(306) In many parts
of the Abruzzi, also, pious people kindle their fires on Easter Saturday
with a brand brought from the sacred new fire in the church. When the
brand has thus served to bless the fire on the domestic hearth, it is
extinguished, and the remainder is preserved, partly in a cranny of the
outer wall of the house, partly on a tree to which it is tied. This is
done for the purpose of guarding the homestead against injury by storms.
At Campo di Giove the people say that if you can get a piece of one of the
three holy candles which the priest lights from the new fire, you should
allow a few drops of the wax to fall into the crown of your hat; for after
that, if it should thunder and lighten, you have nothing to do but to clap
the hat on your head, and no flash of lightning can possibly strike
you.(307)

(M100) Further, it deserves to be noted that in the Abruzzi water as well
as fire is, as it were, renewed and consecrated on Easter Saturday. Most
people fetch holy water on that day from the churches, and every member of
the family drinks a little of it, believing that it has power to protect
him or her against witchcraft, fever, and stomach-aches of all sorts. And
when the church bells ring again after their enforced silence, the water
is sprinkled about the house, and especially under the beds, with the help
of a palm-branch. Some of this blessed water is also kept in the house for
use in great emergencies, when there is no time to fetch a priest; thus it
may be employed to baptize a new-born infant gasping for life or to
sprinkle a sick man in the last agony; such a sprinkling is reckoned equal
to priestly absolution.(308) In Calabria the customs with regard to the
new water, as it is called, on Easter Saturday are similar; it is poured
into a new vessel, adorned with ribbons and flowers, is blessed by the
priest, and is tasted by every one of the household, beginning with the
parents. And when the air vibrates with the glad music of the church bells
announcing the resurrection, the people sprinkle the holy water about the
houses, bidding in a loud voice all evil things to go forth and all good
things to come in. At the same time, to emphasize the exorcism, they knock
on doors, window-shutters, chests, and other domestic articles of
furniture. At Cetraro people who suffer from diseases of the skin bathe in
the sea at this propitious moment; at Pietro in Guarano they plunge into
the river on the night of Easter Saturday before Easter Sunday dawns, and
while they bathe they utter never a word. Moreover, the Calabrians keep
the “new water” as a sacred thing. They believe that it serves as a
protection against witchcraft if it is sprinkled on a fire or a lamp, when
the wood crackles or the wick sputters; for they regard it as a bad omen
when the fire talks, as they say.(309) Among the Germans of Western
Bohemia, also, water as well as fire is consecrated by the priest in front
of the church on Easter Saturday. People bring jugs full of water to the
church and set them beside the holy fire; afterwards they use the water to
sprinkle on the palm-branches which are stuck in the fields. Charred
sticks of the Judas fire, as it is popularly called, are supposed to
possess a magical and healing virtue; hence the people take them home with
them, and even scuffle with each other for the still glowing embers in
order to carry them, still glimmering, to their houses and so obtain “the
light” or “the holy light.”(310) At Hildesheim, also, and the neighbouring
villages of central Germany rites both of fire and water are or were till
lately observed at Easter. Thus on Easter night many people fetch water
from the Innerste river and keep it carefully, believing it to be a remedy
for many sorts of ailments both of man and beast. In the villages on the
Leine river servant men and maids used to go silently on Easter night
between the hours of eleven and twelve and silently draw water in buckets
from the river; they mixed the water with the fodder and the drink of the
cattle to make the animals thrive, and they imagined that to wash in it
was good for human beings. Many were also of opinion that at the same
mystic hour the water turned to wine as far as the crowing of a cock could
be heard, and in this belief they laid themselves flat on their stomachs
and kept their tongues in the water till the miraculous change occurred,
when they took a great gulp of the transformed water. At Hildesheim, too,
and the neighbouring villages fires used to blaze on all the heights on
Easter Eve; and embers taken from the bonfires were dipped in the cattle
troughs to benefit the beasts and were kept in the houses to avert
lightning.(311)

(M101) In the Lesachthal, Carinthia, all the fires in the houses used to
be extinguished on Easter Saturday, and rekindled with a fresh fire
brought from the churchyard, where the priest had lit it by the friction
of flint and steel and had bestowed his blessing on it.(312) Such customs
were probably widespread. In a Latin poem of the sixteenth century,
written by a certain Thomas Kirchmeyer and translated into English by
Barnabe Googe, we read:—

“_On Easter Eve the fire all is quencht in every place,_
_And fresh againe from out the flint is fetcht with solemne
grace:_
_The priest doth halow this against great daungers many one,_
_A brande whereof doth every man with greedie mind take home,_
_That when the fearefull storme appeares, or tempest black arise,_
_By lighting this he safe may be from stroke of hurtful skies:_
_A taper great, the Paschall namde, with musicke then they
blesse,_
_And franckensence herein they pricke, for greater holynesse:_
_This burneth night and day as signe of Christ that conquerde
hell,_
_As if so be this foolish toye suffiseth this to tell._
_Then doth the Bishop or the Priest, the water halow straight,_
_That for their baptisme is reservde: for now no more of waight_
_Is that they usde the yeare before, nor can they any more,_
_Yong children christen with the same, as they have done before._
_With wondrous pompe and furniture, amid the Church they go,_
_With candles, crosses, banners, Chrisme, and oyle appoynted tho:_
_Nine times about the font they marche, and on the saintes doe
call,_
_Then still at length they stande, and straight the Priest begins
withall,_
_And thrise the water doth he touche, and crosses thereon make,_
_Here bigge and barbrous wordes he speakes, to make the devill
quake:_
_And holsome waters conjureth, and foolishly doth dresse,_
_Supposing holyar that to make, which God before did blesse:_
_And after this his candle than, he thrusteth in the floode,_
_And thrise he breathes thereon with breath, that stinkes of
former foode:_
_And making here an ende, his Chrisme he poureth thereupon,_
_The people staring hereat stande, amazed every one:_
_Beleeving that great powre is given to this water here,_
_By gaping of these learned men, and such like trifling gere._
_Therefore in vessels brought they draw, and home they carie
some,_
_Against the grieves that to themselves, or to their beastes may
come._
_Then Clappers ceasse, and belles are set againe at libertée,_
_And herewith all the hungrie times of fasting ended bée._” (313)

It is said that formerly all the fires in Rome were lighted afresh from
the holy fire kindled in St. Peter’s on Easter Saturday. (314)

(M102) In Florence the ceremony of kindling the new fire on Easter Eve is
peculiar. The holy flame is elicited from certain flints which are said to
have been brought by a member of the Pazzi family from the Holy Land. They
are kept in the church of the Holy Apostles on the Piazza del Limbo, and
on the morning of Easter Saturday the prior strikes fire from them and
lights a candle from the new flame. The burning candle is then carried in
solemn procession by the clergy and members of the municipality to the
high altar in the cathedral. A vast crowd has meanwhile assembled in the
cathedral and the neighbouring square to witness the ceremony; amongst the
spectators are many peasants drawn from the surrounding country, for it is
commonly believed that on the success or failure of the ceremony depends
the fate of the crops for the year. Outside the door of the cathedral
stands a festal car drawn by two fine white oxen with gilded horns. The
body of the car is loaded with a pyramid of squibs and crackers and is
connected by a wire with a pillar set up in front of the high altar. The
wire extends down the middle of the nave at a height of about six feet
from the ground. Beneath it a clear passage is left, the spectators being
ranged on either side and crowding the vast interior from wall to wall.
When all is ready, High Mass is celebrated, and precisely at noon, when
the first words of the _Gloria_ are being chanted, the sacred fire is
applied to the pillar, which like the car is wreathed with fireworks. A
moment more and a fiery dove comes flying down the nave, with a hissing
sound and a sputter of sparks, between the two hedges of eager spectators.
If all goes well, the bird pursues its course along the wire and out at
the door, and in another moment a prolonged series of fizzes, pops and
bangs announces to the excited crowd in the cathedral that the fireworks
on the car are going off. Great is the joy accordingly, especially among
the bumpkins, who are now sure of an abundant harvest. But if, as
sometimes happens, the dove stops short in its career and fizzles out,
revealing itself as a stuffed bird with a packet of squibs tied to its
tail, great is the consternation, and deep the curses that issue from
between the set teeth of the clodhoppers, who now give up the harvest for
lost. Formerly the unskilful mechanician who was responsible for the
failure would have been clapped into gaol; but nowadays he is thought
sufficiently punished by the storm of public indignation and the loss of
his pay. The disaster is announced by placards posted about the streets in
the evening; and next morning the newspapers are full of gloomy
prognostications.(315)

(M103) Some of these customs have been transported by the Catholic Church
to the New World. Thus in Mexico the new fire is struck from a flint early
in the morning of Easter Saturday, and a candle which has been lighted at
the sacred flame is carried through the church by a deacon shouting
“_Lumen Christi_.” Meantime the whole city, we are informed, has been
converted into a vast place of execution. Ropes stretch across the streets
from house to house, and from every house dangles an effigy of Judas, made
of paper pulp. Scores or hundreds of them may adorn a single street. They
are of all shapes and sizes, grotesque in form and garbed in strange
attire, stuffed with gunpowder, squibs and crackers, sometimes, too, with
meat, bread, soap, candy, and clothing, for which the crowd will scramble
and scuffle while the effigies are burning. There they hang grim, black,
and sullen in the strong sunshine, greeted with a roar of execration by
the pious mob. A peal of bells from the cathedral tower on the stroke of
noon gives the signal for the execution. At the sound a frenzy seizes the
crowd. They throw themselves furiously on the figures of the detested
traitor, cut them down, hurl them with curses into the fire, and fight and
struggle with each other in their efforts to tear the effigies to tatters
and appropriate their contents. Smoke, stink, sputter of crackers, oaths,
curses, yells are now the order of the day. But the traitor does not
perish unavenged. For the anatomy of his frame has been cunningly
contrived so as in burning to discharge volleys of squibs into his
assailants; and the wounds and burns with which their piety is rewarded
form a feature of the morning’s entertainment. The English Jockey Club in
Mexico used to improve on this popular pastime by suspending huge figures
of Judas, stuffed with copper coins, from ropes in front of their
clubhouse. These were ignited at the proper moment and lowered within
reach of the expectant rabble, and it was the privilege of members of the
club, seated in the balcony, to watch the grimaces and to hear the shrieks
of the victims, as they stamped and capered about with the hot coppers
sticking to their hands, divided in their minds between an acute sense of
pain and a thirst for filthy lucre.(316)

(M104) Scenes of the same sort, though on a less ambitious scale, are
witnessed among the Catholics of South America on the same day. In Brazil
the mourning for the death of Christ ceases at noon on Easter Saturday and
gives place to an extravagant burst of joy at his resurrection. Shots are
fired everywhere, and effigies of Judas are hung on trees or dragged about
the streets, to be finally burned or otherwise destroyed.(317) In the
Indian villages scattered among the wild valleys of the Peruvian Andes
figures of the traitor, made of pasteboard and stuffed with squibs and
crackers, are hanged on gibbets before the door of the church on Easter
Saturday. Fire is set to them, and while they crackle and explode, the
Indians dance and shout for joy at the destruction of their hated
enemy.(318) Similarly at Rio Hacha, in Colombia, Judas is represented
during Holy Week by life-sized effigies, and the people fire at them as if
they were discharging a sacred duty.(319)

(M105) But usages of this sort are not confined to the Latin Church; they
are common to the Greek Church also. Every year on the Saturday before
Easter Sunday a new fire is miraculously kindled at the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem. It descends from heaven and ignites the candles which the
patriarch holds in his hands, while with closed eyes he wrestles in prayer
all alone in the chapel of the Angel. The worshippers meanwhile wait
anxiously in the body of the church, and great are their transports of joy
when at one of the windows of the chapel, which had been all dark a minute
before, there suddenly appears the hand of an angel, or of the patriarch,
holding a lighted taper. This is the sacred new fire; it is passed out to
the expectant believers, and the desperate struggle which ensues among
them to get a share of its blessed influence is only terminated by the
intervention of the Turkish soldiery, who restore peace and order by
hustling the whole multitude impartially out of the church. In days gone
by many lives were often lost in these holy scrimmages. For example, in
the year 1834, the famous Ibrahim Pasha witnessed the frantic scene from
one of the galleries, and, being moved with compassion at the sight,
descended with a few guards into the arena in the chimerical hope of
restoring peace and order among the contending Christians. He contrived to
force his way into the midst of the dense crowd, but there the heat and
pressure were so great that he fainted away; a body of soldiers, seeing
his danger, charged straight into the throng and carried him out of it in
their arms, trampling under foot the dying and dead in their passage.
Nearly two hundred people were killed that day in the church. The
fortunate survivors on these occasions who succeeded in obtaining a
portion of the coveted fire applied it freely to their faces, their
beards, and their garments. The theory was that the fire, being
miraculous, could only bless and not burn them; but the practical results
of the experiment were often disappointing, for while the blessings were
more or less dubious, there could be no doubt whatever about the
burns.(320) The history of the miracle has been carefully investigated by
a Jesuit father. The conclusions at which he arrives are that the miracle
was a miracle indeed so long as the Catholics had the management of it;
but that since it fell into the hands of the heretics it has been nothing
but a barefaced trick and imposture.(321) Many people will be disposed to
agree with the latter conclusion who might hesitate to accept the former.

(M106) At Athens the new fire is kindled in the cathedral at midnight on
Holy Saturday. A dense crowd with unlit candles in their hands fills the
square in front of the cathedral; the king, the archbishop, and the
highest dignitaries of the church, arrayed in their gorgeous robes, occupy
a platform; and at the exact moment of the resurrection the bells ring
out, and the whole square bursts as by magic into a blaze of light.
Theoretically all the candles are lit from the sacred new fire in the
cathedral, but practically it may be suspected that the matches which bear
the name of Lucifer have some share in the sudden illumination.(322)
Effigies of Judas used to be burned at Athens on Easter Saturday, but the
custom has been forbidden by the Government. However, firing goes on more
or less continuously all over the city both on Easter Saturday and Easter
Sunday, and the cartridges used on this occasion are not always blank. The
shots are aimed at Judas, but sometimes they miss him and hit other
people. Outside of Athens the practice of burning Judas in effigy still
survives in some places. For example, in Cos a straw image of the traitor
is made on Easter Day, and after being hung up and shot at it is
burned.(323) A similar custom appears to prevail at Thebes;(324) it used
to be observed by the Macedonian peasantry, and it is still kept up at
Therapia, a fashionable summer resort of Constantinople.(325)

(M107) In the Armenian Church the sacred new fire is kindled not at Easter
but at Candlemas, that is, on the second of February, or on the eve of
that festival. The materials of the bonfire are piled in an open space
near a church, and they are generally ignited by young couples who have
been married within the year. However, it is the bishop or his vicar who
lights the candles with which fire is set to the pile. All young married
pairs are expected to range themselves about the fire and to dance round
it. Young men leap over the flames, but girls and women content themselves
with going round them, while they pray to be preserved from the itch and
other skin-diseases. When the ceremony is over, the people eagerly pick up
charred sticks or ashes of the fire and preserve them or scatter them on
the four corners of the roof, in the cattle-stall, in the garden, and on
the pastures; for these holy sticks and ashes protect men and cattle
against disease, and fruit-trees against worms and caterpillars. Omens,
too, are drawn from the direction in which the wind blows the flames and
the smoke: if it carries them eastward, there is hope of a good harvest;
but if it inclines them westward, the people fear that the crops will
fail.(326)

(M108) In spite of the thin cloak of Christianity thrown over these
customs by representing the new fire as an emblem of Christ and the figure
burned in it as an effigy of Judas, we can hardly doubt that both
practices are of pagan origin. Neither of them has the authority of Christ
or of his disciples; but both of them have abundant analogies in popular
custom and superstition. Some instances of the practice of annually
extinguishing fires and relighting them from a new and sacred flame have
already come before us;(327) but a few examples may here be cited for the
sake of illustrating the wide diffusion of a custom which has found its
way into the ritual both of the Eastern and of the Western Church.

(M109) The Incas of Peru celebrated a festival called Raymi, a word which
their native historian Garcilasso de la Vega tells us was equivalent to
our Easter. It was held in honour of the sun at the solstice in June. For
three days before the festival the people fasted, men did not sleep with
their wives, and no fires were lighted in Cuzco, the capital. The sacred
new fire was obtained direct from the sun by concentrating his beams on a
highly polished concave plate and reflecting them on a little cotton wool.
With this holy fire the sheep and lambs offered to the sun were consumed,
and the flesh of such as were to be eaten at the festival was roasted.
Portions of the new fire were also conveyed to the temple of the sun and
to the convent of the sacred virgins, where they were kept burning all the
year, and it was an ill omen if the holy flame went out.(328) At a
festival held in the last month of the old Mexican year all the fires both
in the temples and in the houses were extinguished, and the priest kindled
a new fire by rubbing two sticks against each other before the image of
the fire-god.(329) The Zuni Indians of New Mexico kindle a new fire by the
friction of wood both at the winter and the summer solstice. At the winter
solstice the chosen fire-maker collects a faggot of cedar-wood from every
house in the village, and each person, as he hands the wood to the
fire-maker, prays that the crops may be good in the coming year. For
several days before the new fire is kindled, no ashes or sweepings may be
removed from the houses and no artificial light may appear outside of
them, not even a burning cigarette or the flash of firearms. The Indians
believe that no rain will fall on the fields of the man outside whose
house a light has been seen at this season. The signal for kindling the
new fire is given by the rising of the Morning Star. The flame is produced
by twirling an upright stick between the hands on a horizontal stick laid
on the floor of a sacred chamber, the sparks being caught by a tinder of
cedar-dust. It is forbidden to blow up the smouldering tinder with the
breath, for that would offend the gods. After the fire has thus been
ceremonially kindled, the women and girls of all the families in the
village clean out their houses. They carry the sweepings and ashes in
baskets or bowls to the fields and leave them there. To the sweepings the
woman says: “I now deposit you as sweepings, but in one year you will
return to me as corn.” And to the ashes she says: “I now deposit you as
ashes, but in one year you will return to me as meal.” At the summer
solstice the sacred fire which has been procured by the friction of wood
is used to kindle the grass and trees, that there may be a great cloud of
smoke, while bull-roarers are swung and prayers offered that the
Rain-makers up aloft will water the earth.(330) From this account we see
how intimately the kindling of a new fire at the two turning-points of the
sun’s course is associated in the minds of these Indians with the
fertility of the land, particularly with the growth of the corn. The
rolling smoke is apparently an imitation of rain-clouds designed, on the
principle of homoeopathic magic, to draw showers from the blue sky. Once a
year the Iroquois priesthood supplied the people with a new fire. As a
preparation for the annual rite the fires in all the huts were
extinguished and the ashes scattered about. Then the priest, wearing the
insignia of his office, went from hut to hut relighting the fires by means
of a flint.(331) Among the Esquimaux with whom C. F. Hall resided, it was
the custom that at a certain time, which answered to our New Year’s Day,
two men went about from house to house blowing out every light in the
village. One of the men was dressed to represent a woman. Afterwards the
lights were rekindled from a fresh fire. An Esquimau woman being asked
what all this meant, replied, “New sun—new light.”(332) Among the
Esquimaux of Iglulik, when the sun first rises above the horizon after the
long night of the Arctic winter, the children who have watched for his
reappearance run into the houses and blow out the lamps. Then they receive
from their mothers presents of pieces of wick.(333)

(M110) In the Sudanese kingdom of Wadai all the fires in the villages are
put out and the ashes removed from the houses on the day which precedes
the New Year festival. At the beginning of the new year a new fire is lit
by the friction of wood in the great straw hut where the village elders
lounge away the sultry hours together; and every man takes thence a
burning brand with which he rekindles the fire on his domestic
hearth.(334) In the Bahr-el-Ghazal province of the Egyptian Sudan the
people extinguish their old fires at the Arab New Year and bring in new
fire. On the same occasion they beat the walls of their huts, the grass
thatches, and the walls of their enclosures in order to drive away the
devil or evil spirits. The beating of the walls and roofs is accompanied
by the firing of guns, the shouting of men, and the shriller cries of the
women.(335) Thus these people combine an annual expulsion of demons with
an annual lighting of a new fire. Among the Swahili of East Africa the
greatest festival is that of the New Year, which falls in the second half
of August. At a given moment all the fires are extinguished with water and
afterwards relit by the friction of two dry pieces of wood. The ashes of
the old fires are carried out and deposited at cross-roads. All the people
get up very early in the morning and bathe in the sea or some other water,
praying to be kept in good health and to live that they may bathe again
next year. Sham-fights form part of the amusements of the day; sometimes
they pass into grim reality. Indeed the day was formerly one of general
license; every man did that which was good in his own eyes. No awkward
questions were asked about any crimes committed on this occasion, so some
people improved the shining hour by knocking a few poor devils on the
head. Shooting still goes on during the whole day, and at night the
proceedings generally wind up with a great dance.(336) The King of
Benametapa, as the early Portuguese traders called him, in East Africa
used to send commissioners annually to every town in his dominions; on the
arrival of one of these officers the inhabitants of each town had to put
out all their fires and to receive a new fire from him. Failure to comply
with this custom was treated as rebellion.(337) Some tribes of British
Central Africa carefully extinguish the fires on the hearths at the
beginning of the hoeing season and at harvest; the fires are afterwards
rekindled by friction, and the people indulge in dances of various
kinds.(338)

(M111) The Todas of the Neilgherry Hills, in Southern India, annually
kindle a sacred new fire by the friction of wood in the month which begins
with the October moon. The ceremony is performed by two holy dairymen at
the foot of a high hill. When they have lighted the fire by rubbing two
dry sticks together, and it begins to burn well, they stand a little way
off and pray, saying, “May the young grass flower! May honey flourish! May
fruit ripen!” The purpose of the ceremony is to make the grass and honey
plentiful. In ancient times the Todas lived largely on wild fruits, and
then the rite of the new fire was very important. Now that they subsist
chiefly on the milk of their buffaloes, the ceremony has lost much of its
old significance.(339) When the Nagas of North-Eastern India have felled
the timber and cut down the scrub in those patches of jungle which they
propose to cultivate, they put out all the fires in the village and light
a new fire by rubbing two dry pieces of wood together. Then having kindled
torches at it they proceed with them to the jungle and ignite the felled
timber and brushwood. The flesh of a cow or buffalo is also roasted on the
new fire and furnishes a sacrificial meal.(340) Near the small town of
Kahma in Burma, between Prome and Thayetmyo, certain gases escape from a
hollow in the ground and burn with a steady flame during the dry season of
the year. The people regard the flame as the forge of a spectral smith who
here carried on his business after death had removed him from his old
smithy in the village. Once a year all the household fires in Kahma are
extinguished and then lighted afresh from the ghostly flame.(341)

(M112) In China every year, about the beginning of April, certain
officials, called _Sz’hüen_, used of old to go about the country armed
with wooden clappers. Their business was to summon the people and command
them to put out every fire. This was the beginning of a season called
_Han-shih-tsieh_, or “eating cold food.” For three days all household
fires remained extinct as a preparation for the solemn renewal of the
fire, which took place on the fifth or sixth day of April, being the
hundred and fifth day after the winter solstice. The ceremony was
performed with great pomp by the same officials, who procured the new fire
from heaven by reflecting the sun’s rays either from a metal mirror or
from a crystal on dry moss. Fire thus obtained is called by the Chinese
heavenly fire, and its use is enjoined in sacrifices; whereas fire
elicited by the friction of wood is termed by them earthly fire, and its
use is prescribed for cooking and other domestic purposes. When once the
new fire had thus been drawn from the sun, all the people were free to
rekindle their domestic hearths; and, as a Chinese distich has it—

“_At the festival of the cold food there are a thousand white
stalks among the flowers;_
_On the day Tsing-ming, at sunrise, you may see the smoke of ten
thousand houses._”

According to a Chinese philosopher, the reason for thus renewing fire
periodically is that the vital principle grows weaker and weaker in old
fire, whereas in new fire it is young and vigorous. This annual renewal of
fire was a ceremony of very great antiquity in China, since it is known to
have been observed in the time of the first dynasty, about two thousand
years before Christ. Under the Tcheou dynasty a change in the calendar led
to shifting the fire-festival from spring to the summer solstice, but
afterwards it was brought back to its original date. Although the custom
appears to have long fallen into disuse, the barbarous inhabitants of
Hainan, an island to the south of China, still call a year “a fire,” as if
in memory of the time when the years were reckoned by the annually
recurring ceremony of rekindling the sacred fire.(342) “A Japanese book
written two centuries ago informs us that sticks resembling the wands used
for offerings at the purification ceremony were part shaven and set up in
bundles at the four corners of the Gion shrine on the last day of the
year. The priests, after prayers were recited, broke up the bundles and
set fire to the sticks, which the people then carried home to light their
household fires with for the New Year. The object of this ceremony was to
avert pestilence.”(343)

(M113) In classical antiquity the Greek island of Lemnos was devoted to
the worship of the smith-god Hephaestus, who was said to have fallen on it
when Zeus hurled him from heaven.(344) Once a year every fire in the
island was extinguished and remained extinct for nine days, during which
sacrifices were offered to the dead and to the infernal powers. New fire
was brought in a ship from the sacred isle of Delos, and with it the fires
in the houses and the workshops were relit. The people said that with the
new fire they made a new beginning of life. If the ship that bore the
sacred flame arrived too soon, it might not put in to shore, but had to
cruise in the offing till the nine days were expired.(345) At Rome the
sacred fire in the temple of Vesta was kindled anew every year on the
first of March, which used to be the beginning of the Roman year;(346) the
task of lighting it was entrusted to the Vestal Virgins, and they
performed it by drilling a hole in a board of lucky wood till the flame
was elicited by friction. The new fire thus produced was carried into the
temple of Vesta by one of the virgins in a bronze sieve.(347)

(M114) Among the Celts of Ireland a new fire was annually kindled on
Hallowe’en or the Eve of Samhain, as they called it, the last day of
October, from which the Irish new year began; and all the hearths
throughout the country are said to have been relighted from the fresh
fire. The place where this holy flame was lit bore the name of Tlachtga or
Tlactga; it has been identified with a rath or native fort on the Hill of
Ward near Athboy in the county of Meath. “It was there,” says the old
Irish historian, Geoffrey Keating, “that the Festival of the Fire of
Tlactga was ordered to be held, and it was thither that the Druids of
Ireland were wont to repair and to assemble, in solemn meeting, on the eve
of Samhain, for the purpose of making a sacrifice to all the gods. It was
in that fire at Tlactga, that their sacrifice was burnt; and it was made
obligatory, under pain of punishment, to extinguish all the fires of
Ireland, on that eve; and the men of Ireland were allowed to kindle no
other fire but that one; and for each of the other fires, which were all
to be lighted from it, the king of Munster was to receive a tax of a
_sgreball_, that is, of three pence, because the land, upon which Tlactga
was built, belongs to the portion of Meath which had been taken from
Munster.”(348) In the villages near Moscow at the present time the
peasants put out all their fires on the eve of the first of September, and
next morning at sunrise a wise man or a wise woman rekindles them with the
help of muttered incantations and spells.(349)

(M115) Instances of such practices might doubtless be multiplied, but the
foregoing examples may suffice to render it probable that the
ecclesiastical ceremony of lighting a sacred new fire on Easter Saturday
had originally nothing to do with Christianity, but is merely one case of
a world-wide custom which the Church has seen fit to incorporate in its
ritual. It might be supposed that in the Western Church the custom was
merely a survival of the old Roman usage of renewing the fire on the first
of March, were it not that the observance by the Eastern Church of the
custom on the same day seems to point back to a still older period when
the ceremony of lighting a new fire in spring, perhaps at the vernal
equinox, was common to many peoples of the Mediterranean area. We may
conjecture that wherever such a ceremony has been observed, it originally
marked the beginning of a new year, as it did in ancient Rome and Ireland,
and as it still does in the Sudanese kingdom of Wadai and among the
Swahili of Eastern Africa.

(M116) The essentially pagan character of the Easter fire festival appears
plainly both from the mode in which it is celebrated by the peasants and
from the superstitious beliefs which they associate with it. All over
northern and central Germany, from Altmark and Anhalt on the east, through
Brunswick, Hanover, Oldenburg, the Harz district, and Hesse to Westphalia
the Easter bonfires still blaze simultaneously on the hill-tops. As many
as forty may sometimes be counted within sight at once. Long before Easter
the young people have been busy collecting firewood; every farmer
contributes, and tar-barrels, petroleum cases, and so forth go to swell
the pile. Neighbouring villages vie with each other as to which shall send
up the greatest blaze. The fires are always kindled, year after year, on
the same hill, which accordingly often takes the name of Easter Mountain.
It is a fine spectacle to watch from some eminence the bonfires flaring up
one after another on the neighbouring heights. As far as their light
reaches, so far, in the belief of the peasants, the fields will be
fruitful, and the houses on which they shine will be safe from
conflagration or sickness. At Volkmarsen and other places in Hesse the
people used to observe which way the wind blew the flames, and then they
sowed flax seed in that direction, confident that it would grow well.
Brands taken from the bonfires preserve houses from being struck by
lightning; and the ashes increase the fertility of the fields, protect
them from mice, and mixed with the drinking-water of cattle make the
animals thrive and ensure them against plague. As the flames die down,
young and old leap over them, and cattle are sometimes driven through the
smouldering embers. In some places tar-barrels or wheels wrapt in straw
used to be set on fire, and then sent rolling down the hillside. In others
the boys light torches and wisps of straw at the bonfires and rush about
brandishing them in their hands. Where the people are divided between
Protestantism and Catholicism, as in Hildesheim, it has been observed that
among Protestants the Easter bonfires are generally left to the boys,
while in Catholic districts they are cared for by grown-up persons, and
here the whole population will gather round the blazing pile and join in
singing choral hymns, which echo far and wide in the stillness of
night.(350)

(M117) In Münsterland these Easter fires are always kindled upon certain
definite hills, which are hence known as Easter or Paschal Mountains. The
whole community assembles about the fire. Fathers of families form an
inner circle round it. An outer circle is composed of the young men and
maidens, who, singing Easter hymns, march round and round the fire in the
direction of the sun, till the blaze dies down. Then the girls jump over
the fire in a line, one after the other, each supported by two young men
who hold her hands and run beside her. When the fire has burned out, the
whole assembly marches in solemn procession to the church, singing hymns.
They go thrice round the church, and then break up. In the twilight boys
with blazing bundles of straw run over the fields to make them
fruitful.(351) At Delmenhorst, in Oldenburg, it used to be the custom to
cut down two trees, plant them in the ground side by side, and pile twelve
tar-barrels, one above the other, against each of the trees. Brushwood was
then heaped about the trees, and on the evening of Easter Saturday the
boys, after rushing about with blazing bean-poles in their hands, set fire
to the whole. At the end of the ceremony the urchins tried to blacken each
other and the clothes of grown-up people.(352) In Schaumburg the Easter
bonfires may be seen blazing on all the mountains around for miles. They
are made with a tar-barrel fastened to a pine-tree, which is wrapt in
straw. The people dance singing round them.(353) In the Harz Mountains the
fire is commonly made by piling brushwood about a tree and setting it on
fire. At Osterode every one tries to snatch a brand from the bonfire and
runs about with it; the better it burns, the more lucky it is. In Grund
there are torch-races.(354) In the Altmark the Easter bonfires are
composed of tar-barrels, bee-hives, and so forth, piled round a pole. The
young folk dance round the fire; and when it has died out, the old folk
come and collect the ashes, which they preserve as a remedy for the
ailments of bees. It is also believed that as far as the blaze of the
bonfire is visible, the corn will grow well throughout the year, and no
conflagration will break out.(355) At Braunröde, in the Harz Mountains, it
was the custom to burn squirrels in the Easter bonfire.(356) In the
Altmark, bones were burned in it.(357)

(M118) Further south the Easter fires are, or used to be, lit in many
districts of Bavaria. Thus on Easter Monday in some parts of Middle
Franken the schoolboys collect all the old worn-out besoms they can lay
hands on, and march with them in a long procession to a neighbouring
height. When the first chime of the evening bell comes up from the dale
they set fire to the brooms, and run along the ridges waving them, so that
seen from below the hills appear to be crested with a twinkling and moving
chain of fire.(358) In some parts of Upper Bavaria at Easter burning
arrows or discs of wood were shot from hill-tops high into the air, as in
the Swabian and Swiss customs already described.(359) At Oberau, instead
of the discs, an old cart-wheel was sometimes wrapt in straw, ignited, and
sent rolling and blazing down the mountain. The lads who hurled the discs
received painted Easter eggs from the girls.(360) Near Forchheim, in Upper
Franken, a straw-man called the Judas used to be burned in the churchyards
on Easter Saturday. The whole village contributed wood to the pyre on
which he perished, and the charred sticks were afterwards kept and planted
in the fields on Walpurgis Day (the first of May) to preserve the wheat
from blight and mildew.(361) About a hundred years ago or more the custom
at Althenneberg, in Upper Bavaria, used to be as follows. On the afternoon
of Easter Saturday the lads collected wood, which they piled in a
cornfield, while in the middle of the pile they set up a tall wooden cross
all swathed in straw. After the evening service they lighted their
lanterns at the consecrated candle in the church, and ran with them at
full speed to the pyre, each striving to get there first. The first to
arrive set fire to the heap. No woman or girl might come near the bonfire,
but they were allowed to watch it from a distance. As the flames rose the
men and lads rejoiced and made merry, shouting, “We are burning the
Judas!” Two of them had to watch the glowing embers the whole night long,
lest people should come and steal them. Next morning at sunrise they
carefully collected the ashes, and threw them into the running water of
the Röten brook. The man who had been the first to reach the pyre and to
kindle it was rewarded on Easter Sunday by the women, who gave him
coloured eggs at the church door. Well-to-do women gave him two; poorer
women gave him only one. The object of the whole ceremony was to keep off
the hail. About a century ago the Judas fire, as it was called, was put
down by the police.(362) At Giggenhausen and Aufkirchen, two other
villages of Upper Bavaria, a similar custom prevailed, yet with some
interesting differences. Here the ceremony, which took place between nine
and ten at night on Easter Saturday, was called “burning the Easter Man.”
On a height about a mile from the village the young fellows set up a tall
cross enveloped in straw, so that it looked like a man with his arms
stretched out. This was the Easter Man. No lad under eighteen years of age
might take part in the ceremony. One of the young men stationed himself
beside the Easter Man, holding in his hand a consecrated taper which he
had brought from the church and lighted. The rest stood at equal intervals
in a great circle round the cross. At a given signal they raced thrice
round the circle, and then at a second signal ran straight at the cross
and at the lad with the lighted taper beside it; the one who reached the
goal first had the right of setting fire to the Easter Man. Great was the
jubilation while he was burning. When he had been consumed in the flames,
three lads were chosen from among the rest, and each of the three drew a
circle on the ground with a stick thrice round the ashes. Then they all
left the spot. On Easter Monday the villagers gathered the ashes and
strewed them on their fields; also they planted in the fields
palm-branches which had been consecrated on Palm Sunday, and sticks which
had been charred and hallowed on Good Friday, all for the purpose of
protecting their fields against showers of hail. The custom of burning an
Easter Man made of straw on Easter Saturday was observed also at
Abensberg, in Lower Bavaria.(363) In some parts of Swabia the Easter fires
might not be kindled with iron or steel or flint, but only by the friction
of wood.(364)

(M119) In Baden bonfires are still kindled in the churchyards on Easter
Saturday, and ecclesiastical refuse of various sorts, such as candle-ends,
old surplices, and the wool used by the priest in the application of
extreme unction, is consumed in the flames. At Zoznegg down to about 1850
the fire was lighted by the priest by means of a flint which had never
been used before. People bring sticks, especially oaken sticks, char them
in the fire, and then carry them home and keep them in the house as a
preservative against lightning. At Zoznegg these oaken sticks were
sword-shaped, each about an ell and a half long, and they went by the name
of “weather or thunder poles” (_Wetterpfähle_). When a thunder-storm
threatened to break out, one of the sticks was put into a small fire, in
order that the hallowed smoke, ascending to the clouds, might ward off the
lightning from the house and the hail from the fields and gardens. At
Schöllbronn the oaken sticks, which are thus charred in the Easter bonfire
and kept in the house as a protective against thunder and lightning, are
three in number, perhaps with an allusion to the Trinity; they are brought
every Easter to be consecrated afresh in the bonfire, till they are quite
burnt away. In the lake district of Baden it is also customary to burn one
of these holy sticks in the fire when a heavy thunderstorm is raging.(365)
Hence it seems that the ancient association of the oak with the
thunder(366) persists in the minds of German peasants to the present day.

(M120) Thus the custom of the Easter fires appears to have prevailed all
over central and western Germany from north to south. We find it also in
Holland, where the fires were kindled on the highest eminences, and the
people danced round them and leaped through the flames or over the glowing
embers. Here too, as so often in Germany, the materials for the bonfire
were collected by the young folk from door to door.(367) In many parts of
Sweden firearms are, as at Athens, discharged in all directions on Easter
eve, and huge bonfires are lighted on hills and eminences. Some people
think that the intention is to keep off the Troll and other evil spirits
who are especially active at this season.(368) When the afternoon service
on Good Friday is over, German children in Bohemia drive Judas out of the
church by running about the sacred edifice and even the streets shaking
rattles and clappers. Next day, on Easter Saturday, the remains of the
holy oil are burnt before the church door in a fire which must be kindled
with flint and steel. This fire is called “the burning of Judas,” but in
spite of its evil name a beneficent virtue is ascribed to it, for the
people scuffle for the cinders, which they put in the roofs of their
houses as a safeguard against fire and lightning.(369)

§ 3. The Beltane Fires.

(M121) In the central Highlands of Scotland bonfires, known as the Beltane
fires, were formerly kindled with great ceremony on the first of May, and
the traces of human sacrifices at them were particularly clear and
unequivocal. The custom of lighting the bonfires lasted in various places
far into the eighteenth century, and the descriptions of the ceremony by
writers of that period present such a curious and interesting picture of
ancient heathendom surviving in our own country that I will reproduce them
in the words of their authors. The fullest of the descriptions, so far as
I know, is the one bequeathed to us by John Ramsay, laird of Ochtertyre,
near Crieff, the patron of Burns and the friend of Sir Walter Scott. From
his voluminous manuscripts, written in the last quarter of the eighteenth
century, a selection was published in the latter part of the nineteenth
century. The following account of Beltane is extracted from a chapter
dealing with Highland superstitions. Ramsay says: “But the most
considerable of the Druidical festivals is that of Beltane, or May-day,
which was lately observed in some parts of the Highlands with
extraordinary ceremonies. Of later years it is chiefly attended to by
young people, persons advanced in years considering it as inconsistent
with their gravity to give it any countenance. Yet a number of
circumstances relative to it may be collected from tradition, or the
conversation of very old people, who witnessed this feast in their youth,
when the ancient rites were better observed.

(M122) “This festival is called in Gaelic _Beal-tene_—_i.e._, the fire of
Bel.... Like the other public worship of the Druids, the Beltane feast
seems to have been performed on hills or eminences. They thought it
degrading to him whose temple is the universe, to suppose that he would
dwell in any house made with hands. Their sacrifices were therefore
offered in the open air, frequently upon the tops of hills, where they
were presented with the grandest views of nature, and were nearest the
seat of warmth and order. And, according to tradition, such was the manner
of celebrating this festival in the Highlands within the last hundred
years. But since the decline of superstition, it has been celebrated by
the people of each hamlet on some hill or rising ground around which their
cattle were pasturing. Thither the young folks repaired in the morning,
and cut a trench, on the summit of which a seat of turf was formed for the
company. And in the middle a pile of wood or other fuel was placed, which
of old they kindled with _tein-eigin_—_i.e._, forced-fire or _need-fire_.
Although, for many years past, they have been contented with common fire,
yet we shall now describe the process, because it will hereafter appear
that recourse is still had to the _tein-eigin_ upon extraordinary
emergencies.

(M123) “The night before, all the fires in the country were carefully
extinguished, and next morning the materials for exciting this sacred fire
were prepared. The most primitive method seems to be that which was used
in the islands of Skye, Mull, and Tiree. A well-seasoned plank of oak was
procured, in the midst of which a hole was bored. A wimble of the same
timber was then applied, the end of which they fitted to the hole. But in
some parts of the mainland the machinery was different. They used a frame
of green wood, of a square form, in the centre of which was an axle-tree.
In some places three times three persons, in others three times nine, were
required for turning round by turns the axle-tree or wimble. If any of
them had been guilty of murder, adultery, theft, or other atrocious crime,
it was imagined either that the fire would not kindle, or that it would be
devoid of its usual virtue. So soon as any sparks were emitted by means of
the violent friction, they applied a species of agaric which grows on old
birch-trees, and is very combustible. This fire had the appearance of
being immediately derived from heaven, and manifold were the virtues
ascribed to it. They esteemed it a preservative against witchcraft, and a
sovereign remedy against malignant diseases, both in the human species and
in cattle; and by it the strongest poisons were supposed to have their
nature changed.

(M124) “After kindling the bonfire with the _tein-eigin_ the company
prepared their victuals. And as soon as they had finished their meal, they
amused themselves a while in singing and dancing round the fire. Towards
the close of the entertainment, the person who officiated as master of the
feast produced a large cake baked with eggs and scalloped round the edge,
called _am bonnach beal-tine_—_i.e._, the Beltane cake. It was divided
into a number of pieces, and distributed in great form to the company.
There was one particular piece which whoever got was called _cailleach
beal-tine_—_i.e._, the Beltane _carline_, a term of great reproach. Upon
his being known, part of the company laid hold of him and made a show of
putting him into the fire; but the majority interposing, he was rescued.
And in some places they laid him flat on the ground, making as if they
would quarter him. Afterwards, he was pelted with egg-shells, and retained
the odious appellation during the whole year. And while the feast was
fresh in people’s memory, they affected to speak of the _cailleach
beal-tine_ as dead.

(M125) “This festival was longest observed in the interior Highlands, for
towards the west coast the traces of it are faintest. In Glenorchy and
Lorne, a large cake is made on that day, which they consume in the house;
and in Mull it has a large hole in the middle, through which each of the
cows in the fold is milked. In Tiree it is of a triangular form. The more
elderly people remember when this festival was celebrated without-doors
with some solemnity in both these islands. There are at present no
vestiges of it in Skye or the Long Island, the inhabitants of which have
substituted the _connach Micheil_ or St. Michael’s cake. It is made at
Michaelmas with milk and oatmeal, and some eggs are sprinkled on its
surface. Part of it is sent to the neighbours.

(M126) “It is probable that at the original Beltane festival there were
two fires kindled near one another. When any person is in a critical
dilemma, pressed on each side by unsurmountable difficulties, the
Highlanders have a proverb, _The e’ eada anda theine bealtuin_—_i.e._, he
is between the two Beltane fires. There are in several parts small round
hills, which, it is like, owe their present names to such solemn uses. One
of the highest and most central in Icolmkil is called
_Cnoch-nan-ainneal_—_i.e._, the hill of the fires. There is another of the
same name near the kirk of Balquhidder; and at Killin there is a round
green eminence which seems to have been raised by art. It is called
_Tom-nan-ainneal_—_i.e._, the eminence of the fires. Around it there are
the remains of a circular wall about two feet high. On the top a stone
stands upon end. According to the tradition of the inhabitants, it was a
place of Druidical worship; and it was afterwards pitched on as the most
venerable spot for holding courts of justice for the country of
Breadalbane. The earth of this eminence is still thought to be possessed
of some healing virtue, for when cattle are observed to be diseased some
of it is sent for, which is rubbed on the part affected.”(370)

(M127) In the parish of Callander, a beautiful district of western
Perthshire, the Beltane custom was still in vogue towards the end of the
eighteenth century. It has been described as follows by the parish
minister of the time: “Upon the first day of May, which is called
_Beltan_, or _Bal-tein_ day, all the boys in a township or hamlet, meet in
the moors. They cut a table in the green sod, of a round figure, by
casting a trench in the ground, of such circumference as to hold the whole
company. They kindle a fire, and dress a repast of eggs and milk in the
consistence of a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted
at the embers against a stone. After the custard is eaten up, they divide
the cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in
size and shape, as there are persons in the company. They daub one of
these portions all over with charcoal, until it be perfectly black. They
put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet. Every one, blindfold, draws
out a portion. He who holds the bonnet, is entitled to the last bit.
Whoever draws the black bit, is the _devoted_ person who is to be
sacrificed to _Baal_,(371) whose favour they mean to implore, in rendering
the year productive of the sustenance of man and beast. There is little
doubt of these inhuman sacrifices having been once offered in this
country, as well as in the east, although they now pass from the act of
sacrificing, and only compel the _devoted_ person to leap three times
through the flames; with which the ceremonies of this festival are
closed.”(372)

(M128) Thomas Pennant, who travelled in Perthshire in the year 1769, tells
us that “on the first of May, the herdsmen of every village hold their
Bel-tien, a rural sacrifice. They cut a square trench on the ground,
leaving the turf in the middle; on that they make a fire of wood, on which
they dress a large caudle of eggs, butter, oatmeal and milk; and bring
besides the ingredients of the caudle, plenty of beer and whisky; for each
of the company must contribute something. The rites begin with spilling
some of the caudle on the ground, by way of libation: on that every one
takes a cake of oatmeal, upon which are raised nine square knobs, each
dedicated to some particular being, the supposed preserver of their flocks
and herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of them: each
person then turns his face to the fire, breaks off a knob, and flinging it
over his shoulders, says, ‘This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses;
this to thee, preserve thou my sheep; and so on.’ After that, they use the
same ceremony to the noxious animals: ‘This I give to thee, O fox! spare
thou my lambs; this to thee, O hooded crow! this to thee, O eagle!’ When
the ceremony is over, they dine on the caudle; and after the feast is
finished, what is left is hid by two persons deputed for that purpose; but
on the next Sunday they re-assemble, and finish the reliques of the first
entertainment.”(373)

(M129) Another writer of the eighteenth century has described the Beltane
festival as it was held in the parish of Logierait in Perthshire. He says:
“On the first of May, O.S., a festival called _Beltan_ is annually held
here. It is chiefly celebrated by the cow-herds, who assemble by scores in
the fields, to dress a dinner for themselves, of boiled milk and eggs.
These dishes they eat with a sort of cakes baked for the occasion, and
having small lumps in the form of _nipples_, raised all over the
surface.”(374) In this last account no mention is made of bonfires, but
they were probably lighted, for a contemporary writer informs us that in
the parish of Kirkmichael, which adjoins the parish of Logierait on the
east, the custom of lighting a fire in the fields and baking a consecrated
cake on the first of May was not quite obsolete in his time.(375) We may
conjecture that the cake with knobs was formerly used for the purpose of
determining who should be the “Beltane carline” or victim doomed to the
flames. A trace of this custom survived, perhaps, in the custom of baking
oatmeal cakes of a special kind and rolling them down hill about noon on
the first of May; for it was thought that the person whose cake broke as
it rolled would die or be unfortunate within the year. These cakes, or
bannocks as we call them in Scotland, were baked in the usual way, but
they were washed over with a thin batter composed of whipped egg, milk or
cream, and a little oatmeal. This custom appears to have prevailed at or
near Kingussie in Inverness-shire. At Achterneed, near Strathpeffer in
Ross-shire, the Beltane bannocks were called _tcharnican_ or hand-cakes,
because they were kneaded entirely in the hand, and not on a board or
table like common cakes; and after being baked they might not be placed
anywhere but in the hands of the children who were to eat them.(376)

(M130) In the north-east of Scotland the Beltane fires were still kindled
in the latter half of the eighteenth century; the herdsmen of several
farms used to gather dry wood, kindle it, and dance three times
“southways” about the burning pile.(377) But in this region, according to
a later authority, the Beltane fires were lit not on the first but on the
second of May, Old Style. They were called bone-fires. The people believed
that on that evening and night the witches were abroad and busy casting
spells on cattle and stealing cows’ milk. To counteract their
machinations, pieces of rowan-tree and woodbine, but especially of
rowan-tree, were placed over the doors of the cow-houses, and fires were
kindled by every farmer and cottar. Old thatch, straw, furze, or broom was
piled in a heap and set on fire a little after sunset. While some of the
bystanders kept tossing the blazing mass, others hoisted portions of it on
pitchforks or poles and ran hither and thither, holding them as high as
they could. Meantime the young people danced round the fire or ran through
the smoke shouting, “Fire! blaze and burn the witches; fire! fire! burn
the witches.” In some districts a large round cake of oat or barley meal
was rolled through the ashes. When all the fuel was consumed, the people
scattered the ashes far and wide, and till the night grew quite dark they
continued to run through them, crying, “Fire! burn the witches.”(378)

(M131) In the Hebrides “the Beltane bannock is smaller than that made at
St. Michael’s, but is made in the same way; it is no longer made in Uist,
but Father Allan remembers seeing his grandmother make one about
twenty-five years ago. There was also a cheese made, generally on the
first of May, which was kept to the next Beltane as a sort of charm
against the bewitching of milk-produce. The Beltane customs seem to have
been the same as elsewhere. Every fire was put out and a large one lit on
the top of the hill, and the cattle driven round it sunwards (_dessil_),
to keep off murrain all the year. Each man would take home fire wherewith
to kindle his own.”(379)

(M132) In Wales also the custom of lighting Beltane fires at the beginning
of May used to be observed, but the day on which they were kindled varied
from the Eve of May Day to the third of May. The flame was sometimes
elicited by the friction of two pieces of oak, as appears from the
following description. “The fire was done in this way. Nine men would turn
their pockets inside out, and see that every piece of money and all metals
were off their persons. Then the men went into the nearest woods, and
collected sticks of nine different kinds of trees. These were carried to
the spot where the fire had to be built. There a circle was cut in the
sod, and the sticks were set crosswise. All around the circle the people
stood and watched the proceedings. One of the men would then take two bits
of oak, and rub them together until a flame was kindled. This was applied
to the sticks, and soon a large fire was made. Sometimes two fires were
set up side by side. These fires, whether one or two, were called
_coelcerth_ or bonfire. Round cakes of oatmeal and brown meal were split
in four, and placed in a small flour-bag, and everybody present had to
pick out a portion. The last bit in the bag fell to the lot of the
bag-holder. Each person who chanced to pick up a piece of brown-meal cake
was compelled to leap three times over the flames, or to run thrice
between the two fires, by which means the people thought they were sure of
a plentiful harvest. Shouts and screams of those who had to face the
ordeal could be heard ever so far, and those who chanced to pick the
oatmeal portions sang and danced and clapped their hands in approval, as
the holders of the brown bits leaped three times over the flames, or ran
three times between the two fires. As a rule, no danger attended these
curious celebrations, but occasionally somebody’s clothes caught fire,
which was quickly put out. The greatest fire of the year was the eve of
May, or May first, second, or third. The Midsummer Eve fire was more for
the harvest. Very often a fire was built on the eve of November. The high
ground near the Castle Ditches at Llantwit Major, in the Vale of
Glamorgan, was a familiar spot for the Beltane on May third and on
Midsummer Eve.... Sometimes the Beltane fire was lighted by the flames
produced by stone instead of wood friction. Charred logs and faggots used
in the May Beltane were carefully preserved, and from them the next fire
was lighted. May fires were always started with old faggots of the
previous year, and midsummer from those of the last summer. It was unlucky
to build a midsummer fire from May faggots. People carried the ashes left
after these fires to their homes, and a charred brand was not only
effectual against pestilence, but magical in its use. A few of the ashes
placed in a person’s shoes protected the wearer from any great sorrow or
woe.”(380)

(M133) From the foregoing account we learn that bonfires were kindled in
Wales on Midsummer Eve and Hallowe’en (the thirty-first of October), as
well as at the beginning of May, but that the Beltane fires in May were
deemed the most important. To the Midsummer Eve and Hallowe’en fires we
shall return presently. The belief of the people that by leaping thrice
over the bonfires or running thrice between them they ensured a plentiful
harvest is worthy of note. The mode in which this result was supposed to
be brought about is indicated by another writer on Welsh folk-lore,
according to whom it used to be held that “the bonfires lighted in May or
Midsummer protected the lands from sorcery, so that good crops would
follow. The ashes were also considered valuable as charms.”(381) Hence it
appears that the heat of the fires was thought to fertilize the fields,
not directly by quickening the seeds in the ground, but indirectly by
counteracting the baleful influence of witchcraft or perhaps by burning up
the persons of the witches.

(M134) “The Druidical anniversary of Beil or Baal is still celebrated in
the Isle of Man. On the first of May, 1837, the Baal fires were, as usual
on that day, so numerous as to give the island the appearance of a general
conflagration.”(382) By May Day in Manx folk-lore is meant May Day Old
Style, or _Shenn Laa Boaldyn_, as it is called in Manx. The day was one on
which the power of elves and witches was particularly dreaded, and the
people resorted to many precautions in order to protect themselves against
these mischievous beings. Hence at daybreak they set fire to the ling or
gorse, for the purpose of burning out the witches, who are wont to lurk in
the form of hares.(383) On the Hemlock Stone, a natural pillar of
sandstone standing on Stapleford Hill in Nottinghamshire, a fire used to
be solemnly kindled every year on Beltane Eve. The custom seems to have
survived down to the beginning of the nineteenth century; old people could
remember and describe the ceremony long after it had fallen into
desuetude.(384)

(M135) The Beltane fires appear to have been kindled also in Ireland, for
Cormac, “or somebody in his name, says that _belltaine_, May-day, was so
called from the ‘lucky fire,’ or the ‘two fires,’ which the druids of Erin
used to make on that day with great incantations; and cattle, he adds,
used to be brought to those fires, or to be driven between them, as a
safeguard against the diseases of the year.”(385) Again, a very ancient
Irish poem, enumerating the May Day celebrations, mentions among them a
bonfire on a hill (_tendal ar cnuc_); and another old authority says that
these fires were kindled in the name of the idol-god Bel.(386) From an old
life of St. Patrick we learn that on a day in spring the heathen of
Ireland were wont to extinguish all their fires until a new fire was
kindled with solemn ceremony in the king’s house at Tara. In the year in
which St. Patrick landed in Ireland it chanced that the night of the
extinguished fires coincided with the Eve of Easter; and the saint,
ignorant of this pagan superstition, resolved to celebrate his first
Easter in Ireland after the true Christian fashion by lighting the holy
Paschal fire on the hill of Slane, which rises high above the left bank of
the Boyne, about twelve miles from the mouth of the river. So that night,
looking from his palace at Tara across the darkened landscape, the king of
Tara saw the solitary fire flaring on the top of the hill of Slane, and in
consternation he asked his wise men what that light meant. They warned him
of the danger that it betokened for the ancient faith of Erin.(387) In
spite of the difference of date between Easter and Beltane, we may suspect
that the new fire annually kindled with solemn ceremony about Easter in
the king of Ireland’s palace at Tara was no other than the Beltane fire.
We have seen that in the Highlands of Scotland down to modern times it was
customary to extinguish all fires in the neighbourhood before proceeding
to kindle the sacred flame.(388) The Irish historian Geoffrey Keating, who
wrote in the first part of the seventeenth century, tells us that the men
of Ireland held a great fair every year in the month of May at Uisnech
(_Ushnagh_) in the county of Meath, “and at it they were wont to exchange
their goods and their wares and their jewels. At it, they were, also, wont
to make a sacrifice to the Arch-God that they adored, whose name was Bèl
(_bayl_). It was, likewise, their usage to light two fires to Bèl, in
every district of Ireland, at this season, and to drive a pair of each
kind of cattle that the district contained, between those two fires, as a
preservative to guard them against all the diseases of that year. It is
from that fire, thus made in honour of Bèl, that the day [the first of
May] on which the noble feast of the apostles, Philip and James, is held,
has been called Bèltaini, or Bèaltaine (_Bayltinnie_); for Beltaini is the
same as Bèil-teinè, _i.e._ Teiné Bhèil (_Tinnie Vayl_) or Bèl’s
Fire.”(389) The custom of driving cattle through or between fires on May
Day or the eve of May Day persisted in Ireland down to a time within
living memory. Thus Sir John Rhys was informed by a Manxman that an Irish
cattle-dealer of his acquaintance used to drive his cattle through fire on
May Day so as to singe them a little, since he believed that it would
preserve them from harm. When the Manxman was asked where the dealer came
from, he answered, “From the mountains over there,” pointing to the Mourne
Mountains then looming faintly in the mists on the western horizon.(390)

(M136) The first of May is a great popular festival in the more midland
and southern parts of Sweden. On the eve of the festival, huge bonfires,
which should be lighted by striking two flints together, blaze on all the
hills and knolls. Every large hamlet has its own fire, round which the
young people dance in a ring. The old folk notice whether the flames
incline to the north or to the south. In the former case, the spring will
be cold and backward; in the latter, it will be mild and genial.(391)
Similarly, in Bohemia, on the eve of May Day, young people kindle fires on
hills and eminences, at crossways, and in pastures, and dance round them.
They leap over the glowing embers or even through the flames. The ceremony
is called “burning the witches.” In some places an effigy representing a
witch used to be burnt in the bonfire.(392) We have to remember that the
eve of May Day is the notorious Walpurgis Night, when the witches are
everywhere speeding unseen through the air on their hellish errands. On
this witching night children in Voigtland also light bonfires on the
heights and leap over them. Moreover, they wave burning brooms or toss
them into the air. So far as the light of the bonfire reaches, so far will
a blessing rest on the fields. The kindling of the fires on Walpurgis
Night is called “driving away the witches.”(393) The custom of kindling
fires on the eve of May Day (Walpurgis Night) for the purpose of burning
the witches is, or used to be, widespread in the Tyrol, Moravia, Saxony
and Silesia.(394)

§ 4. The Midsummer Fires.

(M137) But the season at which these fire-festivals have been mostly
generally held all over Europe is the summer solstice, that is Midsummer
Eve (the twenty-third of June) or Midsummer Day (the twenty-fourth of
June). A faint tinge of Christianity has been given to them by naming
Midsummer Day after St. John the Baptist, but we cannot doubt that the
celebration dates from a time long before the beginning of our era. The
summer solstice, or Midsummer Day, is the great turning-point in the sun’s
career, when, after climbing higher and higher day by day in the sky, the
luminary stops and thenceforth retraces his steps down the heavenly road.
Such a moment could not but be regarded with anxiety by primitive man so
soon as he began to observe and ponder the courses of the great lights
across the celestial vault; and having still to learn his own
powerlessness in face of the vast cyclic changes of nature, he may have
fancied that he could help the sun in his seeming decline—could prop his
failing steps and rekindle the sinking flame of the red lamp in his feeble
hand. In some such thoughts as these the midsummer festivals of our
European peasantry may perhaps have taken their rise. Whatever their
origin, they have prevailed all over this quarter of the globe, from
Ireland on the west to Russia on the east, and from Norway and Sweden on
the north to Spain and Greece on the south.(395) According to a mediæval
writer, the three great features of the midsummer celebration were the
bonfires, the procession with torches round the fields, and the custom of
rolling a wheel. He tells us that boys burned bones and filth of various
kinds to make a foul smoke, and that the smoke drove away certain noxious
dragons which at this time, excited by the summer heat, copulated in the
air and poisoned the wells and rivers by dropping their seed into them;
and he explains the custom of trundling a wheel to mean that the sun,
having now reached the highest point in the ecliptic, begins thenceforward
to descend.(396)

(M138) A good general account of the midsummer customs, together with some
of the reasons popularly alleged for observing them, is given by Thomas
Kirchmeyer, a writer of the sixteenth century, in his poem _The Popish
Kingdome_:—

“_Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne,_
_When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne;_
_And yong men round about with maides, doe daunce in every
streete,_
_With garlands wrought of Motherwort, or else with Vervain
sweete,_
_And many other flowres faire, with Violets in their handes,_
_Whereas they all do fondly thinke, that whosoever standes,_
_And thorow the flowres beholds the flame, his eyes shall feele no
paine._
_When thus till night they daunced have, they through the fire
amaine_
_With striving mindes doe runne, and all their hearbes they cast
therin,_
_And then with wordes devout and prayers, they solemnely begin,_
_Desiring God that all their illes may there consumed bee,_
_Whereby they thinke through all that yeare from Agues to be
free._
_Some others get a rotten wheele, all worne and cast aside,_
_Which covered round about with strawe, and tow, they closely
hide:_
_And caryed to some mountaines top, being all with fire light,_
_They hurle it downe with violence, when darke appeares the
night:_
_Resembling much the Sunne, that from the heavens downe should
fal,_
_A straunge and monstrous sight it seemes, and fearfull to them
all:_
_But they suppose their mischiefes all are likewise throwne to
hell,_
_And that from harmes and daungers now, in safetie here they
dwell._”(397)

From these general descriptions, which to some extent still hold good, or
did so till lately, we see that the main features of the midsummer
fire-festival resemble those which we have found to characterize the
vernal festivals of fire. The similarity of the two sets of ceremonies
will plainly appear from the following examples.

(M139) A writer of the first half of the sixteenth century informs us that
in almost every village and town of Germany public bonfires were kindled
on the Eve of St. John, and young and old, of both sexes, gathered about
them and passed the time in dancing and singing. People on this occasion
wore chaplets of mugwort and vervain, and they looked at the fire through
bunches of larkspur which they held in their hands, believing that this
would preserve their eyes in a healthy state throughout the year. As each
departed, he threw the mugwort and vervain into the fire, saying, “May all
my ill-luck depart and be burnt up with these.”(398) At Lower Konz, a
village prettily situated on a hillside overlooking the Moselle, in the
midst of a wood of walnut-trees and fruit-trees, the midsummer festival
used to be celebrated as follows. A quantity of straw was collected on the
top of the steep Stromberg Hill. Every inhabitant, or at least every
householder, had to contribute his share of straw to the pile; a recusant
was looked at askance, and if in the course of the year he happened to
break a leg or lose a child, there was not a gossip in the village but
knew the reason why. At nightfall the whole male population, men and boys,
mustered on the top of the hill; the women and girls were not allowed to
join them, but had to take up their position at a certain spring half-way
down the slope. On the summit stood a huge wheel completely encased in
some of the straw which had been jointly contributed by the villagers; the
rest of the straw was made into torches. From each side of the wheel the
axle-tree projected about three feet, thus furnishing handles to the lads
who were to guide it in its descent. The mayor of the neighbouring town of
Sierck, who always received a basket of cherries for his services, gave
the signal; a lighted torch was applied to the wheel, and as it burst into
flame, two young fellows, strong-limbed and swift of foot, seized the
handles and began running with it down the slope. A great shout went up.
Every man and boy waved a blazing torch in the air, and took care to keep
it alight so long as the wheel was trundling down the hill. Some of them
followed the fiery wheel, and watched with amusement the shifts to which
its guides were put in steering it round the hollows and over the broken
ground on the mountainside. The great object of the young men who guided
the wheel was to plunge it blazing into the water of the Moselle; but they
rarely succeeded in their efforts, for the vineyards which cover the
greater part of the declivity impeded their progress, and the wheel was
often burned out before it reached the river. As it rolled past the women
and girls at the spring, they raised cries of joy which were answered by
the men on the top of the mountain; and the shouts were echoed by the
inhabitants of neighbouring villages who watched the spectacle from their
hills on the opposite bank of the Moselle. If the fiery wheel was
successfully conveyed to the bank of the river and extinguished in the
water, the people looked for an abundant vintage that year, and the
inhabitants of Konz had the right to exact a waggon-load of white wine
from the surrounding vineyards. On the other hand, they believed that, if
they neglected to perform the ceremony, the cattle would be attacked by
giddiness and convulsions and would dance in their stalls.(399)

(M140) Down at least to the middle of the nineteenth century the midsummer
fires used to blaze all over Upper Bavaria. They were kindled especially
on the mountains, but also far and wide in the lowlands, and we are told
that in the darkness and stillness of night the moving groups, lit up by
the flickering glow of the flames, presented an impressive spectacle. In
some places the people shewed their sense of the sanctity of the fires by
using for fuel the trees past which the gay procession had defiled, with
fluttering banners, on Corpus Christi Day. In others the children
collected the firewood from door to door on the eve of the festival,
singing their request for fuel at every house in doggerel verse. Cattle
were driven through the fire to cure the sick animals and to guard such as
were sound against plague and harm of every kind throughout the year. Many
a householder on that day put out the fire on the domestic hearth and
rekindled it by means of a brand taken from the midsummer bonfire. The
people judged of the height to which the flax would grow in the year by
the height to which the flames of the bonfire rose; and whoever leaped
over the burning pile was sure not to suffer from backache in reaping the
corn at harvest. But it was especially the practice for lovers to spring
over the fire hand in hand, and the way in which each couple made the leap
was the subject of many a jest and many a superstition. In one district
the custom of kindling the bonfires was combined with that of lighting
wooden discs and hurling them in the air after the manner which prevails
at some of the spring festivals.(400) In many parts of Bavaria it was
believed that the flax would grow as high as the young people leaped over
the fire.(401) In others the old folk used to plant three charred sticks
from the bonfire in the fields, believing that this would make the flax
grow tall.(402) Elsewhere an extinguished brand was put in the roof of the
house to protect it against fire. In the towns about Würzburg the bonfires
used to be kindled in the market-places, and the young people who jumped
over them wore garlands of flowers, especially of mugwort and vervain, and
carried sprigs of larkspur in their hands. They thought that such as
looked at the fire holding a bit of larkspur before their face would be
troubled by no malady of the eyes throughout the year.(403) Further, it
was customary at Würzburg, in the sixteenth century, for the bishop’s
followers to throw burning discs of wood into the air from a mountain
which overhangs the town. The discs were discharged by means of flexible
rods, and in their flight through the darkness presented the appearance of
fiery dragons.(404)

(M141) In the valley of the Lech, which divides Upper Bavaria from Swabia,
the midsummer customs and beliefs are, or used to be, very similar.
Bonfires are kindled on the mountains on Midsummer Day; and besides the
bonfire a tall beam, thickly wrapt in straw and surmounted by a
cross-piece, is burned in many places. Round this cross as it burns the
lads dance with loud shouts; and when the flames have subsided, the young
people leap over the fire in pairs, a young man and a young woman
together. If they escape unsmirched, the man will not suffer from fever,
and the girl will not become a mother within the year. Further, it is
believed that the flax will grow that year as high as they leap over the
fire; and that if a charred billet be taken from the fire and stuck in a
flax-field it will promote the growth of the flax.(405) Similarly in
Swabia, lads and lasses, hand in hand, leap over the midsummer bonfire,
praying that the hemp may grow three ells high, and they set fire to
wheels of straw and send them rolling down the hill. Among the places
where burning wheels were thus bowled down hill at Midsummer were the
Hohenstaufen mountains in Wurtemberg and the Frauenberg near
Gerhausen.(406) At Deffingen, in Swabia, as the people sprang over the
midsummer bonfire they cried out, “Flax, flax! may the flax this year grow
seven ells high!”(407) At Rottenburg in Swabia, down to the year 1807 or
1808, the festival was marked by some special features. About mid-day
troops of boys went about the town begging for firewood at the houses. In
each troop there were three leaders, one of whom carried a dagger, a
second a paper banner, and a third a white plate covered with a white
cloth. These three entered each house and recited verses, in which they
expressed an intention of roasting Martin Luther and sending him to the
devil; and for this meritorious service they expected to be paid, the
contributions being received in the cloth-covered plate. In the evening
they counted up their money and proceeded to “behead the Angel-man.” For
this ceremony an open space was chosen, sometimes in the middle of the
town. Here a stake was thrust into the ground and straw wrapt about it, so
as to make a rude effigy of human form with arms, head, and face. Every
boy brought a handful of nosegays and fastened them to the straw-man, who
was thus enveloped in flowers. Fuel was heaped about the stake and set on
fire. When the Angel-man, as the straw-effigy was called, blazed up, all
the boys of the neighbourhood, who had gathered expectantly around, fell
upon him with their wooden swords and hewed him to pieces. As soon as he
had vanished in smoke and flame, the lads leaped backward and forward over
the glowing embers, and later in the evening they feasted on the proceeds
of their collection.(408) Here the Angel-man burnt in the fire appears to
be identified with Martin Luther, to whom, as we have seen, allusion was
made during the house-to-house visitation. The identification was probably
modern, for we may assume that the custom of burning an effigy in the
Midsummer bonfire is far older than the time of Luther.

(M142) In Baden the children used to collect fuel from house to house for
the Midsummer bonfire on St. John’s Day; and lads and lasses leaped over
the fire in couples. Here, as elsewhere, a close connexion was traced
between these bonfires and the harvest. In some places it was thought that
those who leaped over the fires would not suffer from backache at reaping.
Sometimes, as the young folk sprang over the flames, they cried, “Grow,
that the hemp may be three ells high!” This notion that the hemp or the
corn would grow as high as the flames blazed or as the people jumped over
them, seems to have been widespread in Baden. It was held that the parents
of the young people who bounded highest over the fire would have the most
abundant harvest; and on the other hand, if a man contributed nothing to
the bonfire, it was imagined that there would be no blessing on his crops,
and that his hemp in particular would never grow.(409) In the
neighbourhood of Bühl and Achern the St. John’s fires were kindled on the
tops of hills; only the unmarried lads of the village brought the fuel,
and only the unmarried young men and women sprang through the flames. But
most of the villagers, old and young, gathered round the bonfires, leaving
a clear space for the leapers to take their run. One of the bystanders
would call out the names of a pair of sweethearts; on which the two would
step out from the throng, take each other by the hand, and leap high and
lightly through the swirling smoke and flames, while the spectators
watched them critically and drew omens of their married life from the
height to which each of them bounded. Such an invitation to jump together
over the bonfire was regarded as tantamount to a public betrothal.(410)
Near Offenburg, in the Black Forest, on Midsummer Day the village boys
used to collect faggots and straw on some steep and conspicuous height,
and they spent some time in making circular wooden discs by slicing the
trunk of a pine-tree across. When darkness had fallen, they kindled the
bonfire, and then, as it blazed up, they lighted the discs at it, and,
after swinging them to and fro at the end of a stout and supple
hazel-wand, they hurled them one after the other, whizzing and flaming,
into the air, where they described great arcs of fire, to fall at length,
like shooting-stars, at the foot of the mountain.(411) In many parts of
Alsace and Lorraine the midsummer fires still blaze annually or did so not
very many years ago.(412) At Speicher in the Eifel, a district which lies
on the middle Rhine, to the west of Coblentz, a bonfire used to be kindled
in front of the village on St. John’s Day, and all the young people had to
jump over it. Those who failed to do so were not allowed to join the rest
in begging for eggs from house to house. Where no eggs were given, they
drove a wedge into the keyhole of the door. On this day children in the
Eifel used also to gather flowers in the fields, weave them into garlands,
and throw the garlands on the roofs or hang them on the doors of the
houses. So long as the flowers remained there, they were supposed to guard
the house from fire and lightning.(413) In the southern Harz district and
in Thuringia the Midsummer or St. John’s fires used to be commonly lighted
down to about the middle of the nineteenth century, and the custom has
probably not died out. At Edersleben, near Sangerhausen, a high pole was
planted in the ground and a tar-barrel was hung from it by a chain which
reached to the ground. The barrel was then set on fire and swung round the
pole amid shouts of joy.(414)

(M143) According to one account, German tradition required that the
midsummer fire should be lighted, not from a common hearth, but by the
friction of two sorts of wood, namely oak and fir.(415) In some old
farm-houses of the Surenthal and Winenthal, in Switzerland, a couple of
holes or a whole row of them may be seen facing each other in the
door-posts of the barn or stable. Sometimes the holes are smooth and
round; sometimes they are deeply burnt and blackened. The explanation of
them is this. About midsummer, but especially on Midsummer Day, two such
holes are bored opposite each other, into which the extremities of a
strong pole are fixed. The holes are then stuffed with tow steeped in
resin and oil; a rope is looped round the pole, and two young men, who
must be brothers or must have the same baptismal name, and must be of the
same age, pull the ends of the rope backwards and forwards so as to make
the pole revolve rapidly, till smoke and sparks issue from the two holes
in the door-posts. The sparks are caught and blown up with tinder, and
this is the new and pure fire, the appearance of which is greeted with
cries of joy. Heaps of combustible materials are now ignited with the new
fire, and blazing bundles are placed on boards and sent floating down the
brook. The boys light torches at the new fire and run to fumigate the
pastures. This is believed to drive away all the demons and witches that
molest the cattle. Finally the torches are thrown in a heap on the meadow
and allowed to burn out. On their way back the boys strew the ashes over
the fields, which is supposed to make them fertile. If a farmer has taken
possession of a new house, or if servants have changed masters, the boys
fumigate the new abode and are rewarded by the farmer with a supper.(416)

(M144) In Silesia, from the south-eastern part of the Sudeten range and
north-westward as far as Lausitz, the mountains are ablaze with bonfires
on Midsummer Eve; and from the valleys and the plains round about
Leobschütz, Neustadt, Zülz, Oels, and other places answering fires twinkle
through the deepening gloom. While they are smouldering and sending forth
volumes of smoke across the fields, young men kindle broom-stumps, soaked
in pitch, at the bonfires and then, brandishing the stumps, which emit
showers of sparks, they chase one another or dance with the girls round
the burning pile. Shots, too, are fired, and shouts raised. The fire, the
smoke, the shots, and the shouts are all intended to scare away the
witches, who are let loose on this witching day, and who would certainly
work harm to the crops and the cattle, if they were not deterred by these
salutary measures. Mere contact with the fire brings all sorts of
blessings. Hence when the bonfire is burning low, the lads leap over it,
and the higher they bound, the better is the luck in store for them. He
who surpasses his fellows is the hero of the day and is much admired by
the village girls. It is also thought to be very good for the eyes to
stare steadily at the bonfire without blinking; moreover he who does so
will not drowse and fall asleep betimes in the long winter evenings. On
Midsummer Eve the windows and doors of houses in Silesia are crowned with
flowers, especially with the blue corn-flowers and the bright
corn-cockles; in some villages long strings of garlands and nosegays are
stretched across the streets. The people believe that on that night St.
John comes down from heaven to bless the flowers and to keep all evil
things from house and home.(417)

(M145) In Denmark and Norway also Midsummer fires were kindled on St.
John’s Eve on roads, open spaces, and hills. People in Norway thought that
the fires banished sickness from among the cattle.(418) Even yet the fires
are said to be lighted all over Norway on the night of June the
twenty-third, Midsummer Eve, Old Style. As many as fifty or sixty bonfires
may often be counted burning on the hills round Bergen. Sometimes fuel is
piled on rafts, ignited, and allowed to drift blazing across the fiords in
the darkness of night. The fires are thought to be kindled in order to
keep off the witches, who are said to be flying from all parts that night
to the Blocksberg, where the big witch lives.(419) In Sweden the Eve of
St. John (St. Hans) is the most joyous night of the whole year. Throughout
some parts of the country, especially in the provinces of Bohus and Scania
and in districts bordering on Norway, it is celebrated by the frequent
discharge of firearms and by huge bonfires, formerly called Balder’s
Balefires (_Balder’s 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 shew themselves; and if an animal, for
example a he or she goat, happens to be seen near the blazing, crackling
pile, the peasants are firmly persuaded that it is no other than the Evil
One in person.(420) Further, it deserves to be remarked that in Sweden St.
John’s Eve is a festival of water as well as of fire; for certain holy
springs are then supposed to be endowed with wonderful medicinal virtues,
and many sick people resort to them for the healing of their
infirmities.(421)

(M146) In Switzerland on Midsummer Eve fires are, or used to be, kindled
on high places in the cantons of Bern, Neuchatel, Valais, and Geneva.(422)
In Austria the midsummer customs and superstitions resemble those of
Germany. Thus in some parts of the Tyrol bonfires are kindled and burning
discs hurled into the air.(423) In the lower valley of the Inn a
taterdemalian effigy is carted about the village on Midsummer Day and then
burned. He is called the _Lotter_, which has been corrupted into Luther.
At Ambras, one of the villages where Martin Luther is thus burned in
effigy, they say that if you go through the village between eleven and
twelve on St. John’s Night and wash yourself in three wells, you will see
all who are to die in the following year.(424) At Gratz on St. John’s Eve
(the twenty-third of June) the common people used to make a puppet called
the _Tatermann_, which they dragged to the bleaching ground, and pelted
with burning besoms till it took fire.(425) At Reutte, in the Tyrol,
people believed that the flax would grow as high as they leaped over the
midsummer bonfire, and they took pieces of charred wood from the fire and
stuck them in their flax-fields the same night, leaving them there till
the flax harvest had been got in.(426) In Lower Austria fires are lit in
the fields, commonly in front of a cross, and the people dance and sing
round them and throw flowers into the flames. Before each handful of
flowers is tossed into the fire, a set speech is made; then the dance is
resumed and the dancers sing in chorus the last words of the speech. At
evening bonfires are kindled on the heights, and the boys caper round
them, brandishing lighted torches drenched in pitch. Whoever jumps thrice
across the fire will not suffer from fever within the year. Cart-wheels
are often smeared with pitch, ignited, and sent rolling and blazing down
the hillsides.(427)

(M147) All over Bohemia bonfires still burn on Midsummer Eve. In the
afternoon boys go about with handcarts from house to house collecting
fuel, such as sticks, brushwood, old besoms, and so forth. They make their
request at each house in rhyming verses, threatening with evil
consequences the curmudgeons who refuse them a dole. Sometimes the young
men fell a tall straight fir in the woods and set it up on a height, where
the girls deck it with nosegays, wreaths of leaves, and red ribbons. Then
brushwood is piled about it, and at nightfall the whole is set on fire.
While the flames break out, the young men climb the tree and fetch down
the wreaths which the girls had placed on it. After that, lads and lasses
stand on opposite sides of the fire and look at one another through the
wreaths to see whether they will be true to each other and marry within
the year. Also the girls throw the wreaths across the flames to the men,
and woe to the awkward swain who fails to catch the wreath thrown him by
his sweetheart. When the blaze has died down, each couple takes hands, and
leaps thrice across the fire. He or she who does so will be free from ague
throughout the year, and the flax will grow as high as the young folks
leap. A girl who sees nine bonfires on Midsummer Eve will marry before the
year is out. The singed wreaths are carried home and carefully preserved
throughout the year. During thunderstorms a bit of the wreath is burned on
the hearth with a prayer; some of it is given to kine that are sick or
calving, and some of it serves to fumigate house and cattle-stall, that
man and beast may keep hale and well. Sometimes an old 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, only however to return to the bonfire on the summit
when the brooms have burnt out. The stumps of the brooms and embers from
the fire are preserved and stuck in cabbage gardens to protect the
cabbages from caterpillars and gnats. Some people insert charred sticks
and ashes from the bonfire in their sown fields and meadows, in their
gardens and the roofs of their houses, as a talisman against lightning and
foul weather; or they fancy that the ashes placed in the roof will prevent
any fire from breaking out in the house. In some districts they crown or
gird themselves with mugwort while the midsummer fire is burning, for this
is supposed to be a protection against ghosts, witches, and sickness; in
particular, a wreath of mugwort is a sure preventive of sore eyes.
Sometimes the girls look at the bonfires through garlands of wild flowers,
praying the fire to strengthen their eyes and eyelids. She who does this
thrice will have no sore eyes all that year. In some parts of Bohemia they
used to drive the cows through the midsummer fire to guard them against
witchcraft.(428)

(M148) The Germans of Moravia in like manner still light bonfires on open
grounds and high places on Midsummer Eve; and they kindle besoms in the
flames and then stick the charred stumps in the cabbage-fields as a
powerful protection against caterpillars. On the same mystic evening
Moravian girls gather flowers of nine sorts and lay them under their
pillow when they go to sleep; then they dream every one of him who is to
be her partner for life. For in Moravia maidens in their beds as well as
poets by haunted streams have their Midsummer Night’s dreams.(429) In
Austrian Silesia the custom also prevails of lighting great bonfires on
hilltops on Midsummer Eve, and here too the boys swing blazing besoms or
hurl them high in the air, while they shout and leap and dance wildly.
Next morning every door is decked with flowers and birchen saplings.(430)
In the district of Cracow, especially towards the Carpathian Mountains,
great fires are kindled by the peasants in the fields or on the heights at
nightfall on Midsummer Eve, which among them goes by the name of Kupalo’s
Night. The fire must be kindled by the friction of two sticks. The young
people dance round or leap over it; and a band of sturdy fellows run a
race with lighted torches, the winner being rewarded with a peacock’s
feather, which he keeps throughout the year as a distinction. Cattle also
are driven round the fire in the belief that this is a charm against
pestilence and disease of every sort.(431)

(M149) The name of Kupalo’s Night, applied in this part of Galicia to
Midsummer Eve, reminds us that we have now passed from German to Slavonic
ground; even in Bohemia the midsummer celebration is common to Slavs and
Germans. We have already seen that in Russia the summer solstice or Eve of
St. John is celebrated by young men and maidens, who jump over a bonfire
in couples carrying a straw effigy of Kupalo in their arms.(432) In some
parts of Russia an image of Kupalo is burnt or thrown into a stream on St.
John’s Night.(433) Again, in some districts of Russia the young folk wear
garlands of flowers and girdles of holy herbs when they spring through the
smoke or flames; and sometimes they drive the cattle also through the fire
in order to protect the animals against wizards and witches, who are then
ravenous after milk.(434) In Little Russia a stake is driven into the
ground on St. John’s Night, wrapt in straw, and set on fire. As the flames
rise the peasant women throw birchen boughs into them, saying, “May my
flax be as tall as this bough!”(435) In Ruthenia the bonfires are lighted
by a flame procured by the friction of wood. While the elders of the party
are engaged in thus “churning” the fire, the rest maintain a respectful
silence; but when the flame bursts from the wood, they break forth into
joyous songs. As soon as the bonfires are kindled, the young people take
hands and leap in pairs through the smoke, if not through the flames; and
after that the cattle in their turn are driven through the fire.(436)

(M150) In many parts of Prussia and Lithuania great fires are kindled on
Midsummer Eve. All the heights are ablaze with them, as far as the eye can
see. The fires are supposed to be a protection against witchcraft,
thunder, hail, and cattle disease, especially if next morning the cattle
are driven over the places where the fires burned. Above all, the bonfires
ensure the farmer against the arts of witches, who try to steal the milk
from his cows by charms and spells. That is why next morning you may see
the young fellows who lit the bonfire going from house to house and
receiving jugfuls of milk. And for the same reason they stick burs and
mugwort on the gate or the hedge through which the cows go to pasture,
because that is supposed to be a preservative against witchcraft.(437) In
Masuren, a district of Eastern Prussia inhabited by a branch of the Polish
family, it is the custom on the evening of Midsummer Day to put out all
the fires in the village. Then an oaken stake is driven into the ground
and a wheel is fixed on it as on an axle. This wheel the villagers,
working by relays, cause to revolve with great rapidity till fire is
produced by friction. Every one takes home a lighted brand from the new
fire and with it rekindles the fire on the domestic hearth.(438) In the
sixteenth century Martin of Urzedow, a Polish priest, denounced the
heathen practices of the women who on St. John’s Eve (Midsummer Eve)
kindled fires by the friction of wood, danced, and sang songs in honour of
the devil.(439)

(M151) Among the Letts who inhabit the Baltic provinces of Russia the most
joyful festival of the year is held on Midsummer Day. The people drink and
dance and sing and adorn themselves and their houses with flowers and
branches. Chopped boughs of fir are strewn about the rooms, and leaves are
stuck in the roofs. In every farm-yard a birch tree is set up, and every
person of the name of John who enters the farm that day must break off a
twig from the tree and hang up on its branches in return a small present
for the family. When the serene twilight of the summer night has veiled
the landscape, bonfires gleam on all the hills, and wild shouts of “Ligho!
Ligho!” echo from the woods and fields. In Riga the day is a festival of
flowers. From all the neighbourhood the peasants stream into the city
laden with flowers and garlands. A market of flowers is held in an open
square and on the chief bridge over the river; here wreaths of
immortelles, which grow wild in the meadows and woods, are sold in great
profusion and deck the houses of Riga for long afterwards. Roses, too, are
now at the prime of their beauty, and masses of them adorn the
flower-stalls. Till far into the night gay crowds parade the streets to
music or float on the river in gondolas decked with flowers.(440) So long
ago in ancient Rome barges crowned with flowers and crowded with revellers
used to float down the Tiber on Midsummer Day, the twenty-fourth of
June,(441) and no doubt the strains of music were wafted as sweetly across
the water to listeners on the banks as they still are to the throngs of
merrymakers at Riga.

(M152) Bonfires are commonly kindled by the South Slavonian peasantry on
Midsummer Eve, and lads and lasses dance and shout round them in the usual
way. The very names of St. John’s Day (_Ivanje_) and the St. John’s fires
(_kries_) are said to act like electric sparks on the hearts and minds of
these swains, kindling a thousand wild, merry, and happy fancies and ideas
in their rustic breasts. At Kamenagora in Croatia the herdsmen throw nine
three-year old vines into the bonfire, and when these burst into flames
the young men who are candidates for matrimony jump through the blaze. He
who succeeds in leaping over the fire without singeing himself will be
married within the year. At Vidovec in Croatia parties of two girls and
one lad unite to kindle a Midsummer bonfire and to leap through the
flames; he or she who leaps furthest will soonest wed. Afterwards lads and
lasses dance in separate rings, but the ring of lads bumps up against the
ring of girls and breaks it, and the girl who has to let go her
neighbour’s hand will forsake her true love hereafter.(442) In Servia on
Midsummer Eve herdsmen light torches of birch bark and march round the
sheepfolds and cattle-stalls; then they climb the hills and there allow
the torches to burn out.(443)

(M153) Among the Magyars in Hungary the midsummer fire-festival is marked
by the same features that meet us in so many parts of Europe. On Midsummer
Eve in many places it is customary to kindle bonfires on heights and to
leap over them, and from the manner in which the young people leap the
bystanders predict whether they will marry soon. At Nograd-Ludany the
young men and women, each carrying a truss of straw, repair to a meadow,
where they pile the straw in seven or twelve heaps and set it on fire.
Then they go round the fire singing, and hold a bunch of iron-wort in the
smoke, while they say, “No boil on my body, no sprain in my foot!” This
holding of the flowers over the flames is regarded, we are told, as
equally important with the practice of walking through the fire barefoot
and stamping it out. On this day also many Hungarian swineherds make fire
by rotating a wheel round a wooden axle wrapt in hemp, and through the
fire thus made they drive their pigs to preserve them from sickness.(444)
In villages on the Danube, where the population is a cross between Magyar
and German, the young men and maidens go to the high banks of the river on
Midsummer Eve; and while the girls post themselves low down the slope, the
lads on the height above set fire to little wooden wheels and, after
swinging them to and fro at the end of a wand, send them whirling through
the air to fall into the Danube. As he does so, each lad sings out the
name of his sweetheart, and she listens well pleased down below.(445)

(M154) The Esthonians of Russia, who, like the Magyars, belong to the
great Turanian family of mankind, also celebrate the summer solstice in
the usual way. On the Eve of St. John all the people of a farm, a village,
or an estate, walk solemnly in procession, the girls decked with flowers,
the men with leaves and carrying bundles of straw under their arms. The
lads carry lighted torches or flaming hoops steeped in tar at the top of
long poles. Thus they go singing to the cattle-sheds, the granaries, and
so forth, and afterwards march thrice round the dwelling-house. Finally,
preceded by the shrill music of the bagpipes and shawms, they repair to a
neighbouring hill, where the materials of a bonfire have been collected.
Tar-barrels filled with combustibles are hung on poles, or the trunk of a
felled tree has been set up with a great mass of juniper piled about it in
the form of a pyramid. When a light has been set to the pile, old and
young gather about it and pass the time merrily with song and music till
break of day. Every one who comes brings fresh fuel for the fire, and they
say, “Now we all gather together, where St. John’s fire burns. He who
comes not to St. John’s fire will have his barley full of thistles, and
his oats full of weeds.” Three logs are thrown into the fire with special
ceremony; in throwing the first they say, “Gold of pleasure (a plant with
yellow flowers) into the fire!” in throwing the second they say, “Weeds to
the unploughed land!” but in throwing the third they cry, “Flax on my
field!” The fire is said to keep the witches from the cattle.(446)
According to others, it ensures that for the whole year the milk shall be
“as pure as silver and as the stars in the sky, and the butter as yellow
as the sun and the fire and the gold.”(447) In the Esthonian island of
Oesel, while they throw fuel into the midsummer fire, they call out,
“Weeds to the fire, flax to the field,” or they fling three billets into
the flames, saying, “Flax grow long!” And they take charred sticks from
the bonfire home with them and keep them to make the cattle thrive. In
some parts of the island the bonfire is formed by piling brushwood and
other combustibles round a tree, at the top of which a flag flies. Whoever
succeeds in knocking down the flag with a pole before it begins to burn
will have good luck. Formerly the festivities lasted till daybreak, and
ended in scenes of debauchery which looked doubly hideous by the growing
light of a summer morning.(448)

(M155) Still farther north, among a people of the same Turanian stock, we
learn from an eye-witness that Midsummer Night used to witness a sort of
witches’ sabbath on the top of every hill in Finland. The bonfire was made
by setting up four tall birches in a square and piling the intermediate
space with fuel. Round the roaring flames the people sang and drank and
gambolled in the usual way.(449) Farther east, in the valley of the Volga,
the Cheremiss celebrate about midsummer a festival which Haxthausen
regarded as identical with the midsummer ceremonies of the rest of Europe.
A sacred tree in the forest, generally a tall and solitary oak, marks the
scene of the solemnity. All the males assemble there, but no woman may be
present. A heathen priest lights seven fires in a row from north-west to
south-east; cattle are sacrificed and their blood poured in the fires,
each of which is dedicated to a separate deity. Afterwards the holy tree
is illumined by lighted candles placed on its branches; the people fall on
their knees and with faces bowed to the earth pray that God would be
pleased to bless them, their children, their cattle, and their bees, grant
them success in trade, in travel, and in the chase, enable them to pay the
Czar’s taxes, and so forth.(450)

(M156) 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.(451)
Though the pagan origin of the custom may be regarded as certain, the
Catholic Church threw a Christian cloak over it by boldly declaring that
the bonfires were lit in token of the general rejoicing at the birth of
the Baptist, who opportunely came into the world at the solstice of
summer, just as his greater successor did at the solstice of winter; so
that the whole year might be said to revolve on the golden hinges of these
two great birthdays.(452) Writing in the seventeenth century Bishop
Bossuet expressly affirms this edifying theory of the Midsummer bonfires,
and he tells his catechumens that the Church herself participated in the
illumination, since in several dioceses, including his own diocese of
Meaux, a number of parishes kindled what were called ecclesiastical fires
for the purpose of banishing the superstitions practised at the purely
mundane bonfires. These superstitions, he goes on to say, consisted in
dancing round the fire, playing, feasting, singing ribald songs, throwing
herbs across the fire, gathering herbs at noon or while fasting, carrying
them on the person, preserving them throughout the year, keeping brands or
cinders of the fire, and other similar practices.(453) However excellent
the intentions of the ecclesiastical authorities may have been, they
failed of effecting their purpose; for the superstitions as well as the
bonfires survived in France far into the nineteenth century, if indeed
they are extinct even now at the beginning of the twentieth. Writing in
the latter part of the nineteenth century Mr. Ch. Cuissard tells us that
he himself witnessed in Touraine and Poitou the superstitious practices
which he describes as follows: “The most credulous examine the ways in
which the flame burns and draw good or bad omens accordingly. Others,
after leaping through the flames crosswise, pass their little children
through them thrice, fully persuaded that the little ones will then be
able to walk at once. In some places the shepherds make their sheep tread
the embers of the extinct fire in order to preserve them from the
foot-rot. Here you may see about midnight an old woman grubbing among the
cinders of the pyre to find the hair of the Holy Virgin or Saint John,
which she deems an infallible specific against fever. There, another woman
is busy plucking the roots of the herbs which have been burned on the
surface of the ground; she intends to eat them, imagining that they are an
infallible preservative against cancer. Elsewhere a girl wears on her neck
a flower which the touch of St. John’s fire has turned for her into a
talisman, and she is sure to marry within the year. Shots are fired at the
tree planted in the midst of the fire to drive away the demons who might
purpose to send sicknesses about the country. Seats are set round about
the bonfire, in order that the souls of dead relations may come and enjoy
themselves for a little with the living.”(454)

(M157) In Brittany, apparently, the custom of the Midsummer bonfires is
kept up to this day. Thus in Lower Brittany every town and every village
still lights its _tantad_ or bonfire on St. John’s Night. 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.(455) In Finistère the
bonfires of St. John’s Day are kindled by preference in an open space near
a chapel of St. John; but if there is no such chapel, they are lighted in
the square facing the parish church and in some districts at cross-roads.
Everybody brings fuel for the fire, it may be a faggot, a log, a branch,
or an armful of gorse. When the vespers are over, the parish priest sets a
light to the pile. All heads are bared, prayers recited, and hymns sung.
Then the dancing begins. The young folk skip round the blazing pile and
leap over it, when the flames have died down. If anybody makes a false
step and falls or rolls in the hot embers, he or she is greeted with hoots
and retires abashed from the circle of dancers. Brands are carried home
from the bonfire to protect the houses against lightning, conflagrations,
and certain maladies and spells. The precious talisman is carefully kept
in a cupboard till St. John’s Day of the following year.(456) At Quimper,
and in the district of Léon, chairs used to be placed round the midsummer
bonfire, that the souls of the dead might sit on them and warm themselves
at the blaze.(457) At Brest on this day thousands of people used to
assemble on the ramparts towards evening and brandish lighted torches,
which they swung in circles or flung by hundreds into the air. The closing
of the town gates put an end to the spectacle, and the lights might be
seen dispersing in all directions like wandering will-o’-the-wisps.(458)
In Upper Brittany the materials for the midsummer bonfires, which
generally consist of bundles of furze and heath, are furnished by
voluntary contributions, and piled on the tops of hills round poles, each
of which is surmounted by a nosegay or a crown. This nosegay or crown is
generally provided by a man named John or a woman named Jean, and it is
always a John or a Jean who puts a light to the bonfire. While the fire is
blazing the people dance and sing round it, and when the flames have
subsided they leap over the glowing embers. Charred sticks from the
bonfire are thrown into wells to improve the water, and they are also
taken home as a protection against thunder.(459) To make them thoroughly
effective, however, against thunder and lightning you should keep them
near your bed, between a bit of a Twelfth Night cake and a sprig of
boxwood which has been blessed on Palm Sunday.(460) Flowers from the
nosegay or crown which overhung the fire are accounted charms against
disease and pain, both bodily and spiritual; hence girls hang them at
their breast by a thread of scarlet wool. In many parishes of Brittany the
priest used to go in procession with the crucifix and kindle the bonfire
with his own hands; and farmers were wont to drive their flocks and herds
through the fire in order to preserve them from sickness till midsummer of
the following year. Also it was believed that every girl who danced round
nine of the bonfires would marry within the year.(461)

(M158) In Normandy the midsummer fires have now almost disappeared, at
least in the district known as the Bocage, but they used to shine on every
hill. They were commonly made by piling brushwood, broom, and ferns about
a tall tree, which was decorated with a crown of moss and sometimes with
flowers. While they burned, people danced and sang round them, and young
folk leaped over the flames or the glowing ashes. 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.(462) 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, such as is required by the church
on fast-days, was served up to them. Then they danced before the door till
it was time to light the bonfire. Night being come, the fire was kindled
to the sound of hand-bells by a young man and a young woman, both decked
with flowers. As the flames rose, the _Te Deum_ was sung, and a villager
thundered out a parody in the Norman dialect of the hymn _ut queant
laxis_. Meantime 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. No unbecoming word might fall from the lips
of any of the company, and a censor, armed with a hand-bell, was appointed
to mark and punish instantly any infraction of the rule. 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.(463)

(M159) In the canton of Breteuil in Picardy (department of Oise) the
priest used to kindle the midsummer bonfire, and the people marched thrice
round it in procession. Some of them took ashes of the fire home with them
to protect the houses against lightning.(464) The custom is, or was down
to recent years, similar at Vorges, near Laon. An enormous pyre, some
fifty or sixty feet high, supported in the middle by a tall pole, is
constructed every year on the twenty-third of June, the Eve of St. John.
It stands at one end of the village, and all the inhabitants contribute
fuel to it: a cart goes round the village in the morning, by order of the
mayor, collecting combustibles from house to house: no one would dream of
refusing to comply with the customary obligation. In the evening, after a
service in honour of St. John has been performed in the church, the
clergy, the mayor, the municipal authorities, the rural police, and the
fire-brigade march in procession to the bonfire, accompanied by the
inhabitants and a crowd of idlers drawn by curiosity from the neighbouring
villages. After addressing the throng in a sermon, to which they pay
little heed, the parish priest sprinkles the pyre with holy water, and
taking a lighted torch from the hand of an assistant sets fire to the
pile. The enormous blaze, flaring up against the dark sky of the summer
night, is seen for many miles around, particularly from the hill of Laon.
When it has died down into a huge heap of glowing embers and grey ashes,
every one carries home a charred stick or some cinders; and the
fire-brigade, playing their hose on what remains, extinguishes the
smouldering fire. The people preserve the charred sticks and cinders
throughout the year, believing that these relics of St. John’s bonfire
have power to guard them from lightning and from contagious diseases.(465)
At Château-Thierry, a town of the department of Aisne, between Paris and
Reims, 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.(466)

(M160) In Beauce and Perche, two neighbouring districts of France to the
south-west of Paris, the midsummer bonfires have nearly or wholly
disappeared, but formerly they were commonly kindled and went by the name
of the “fires of St. John.” The site of the bonfire was either the village
square or beside the cross in the cemetery. Here a great pile of faggots,
brushwood, and grass was accumulated about a huge branch, which bore at
the top a crown of fresh flowers. The priest blessed the bonfire and the
people danced round it. When it blazed and crackled, the bystanders thrust
their heads into the puffs of smoke, in the belief that it would preserve
them from a multitude of ills; and when the fire was burnt out, they
rushed upon the charred embers and ashes and carried them home, imagining
that they had a secret virtue to guard their houses from being struck by
lightning or consumed by fire. Some of the Perche farmers in the old days,
not content with the public bonfire, used to light little private bonfires
in their farmyards and make all their cattle pass through the smoke and
flames for the purpose of protecting them against witchcraft or
disease.(467)

(M161) In the department of the Ardennes every one was wont to contribute
his faggot to the midsummer bonfire, and the clergy marched at the head of
the procession to kindle it. Failure to light the fires would, in the
popular belief, have exposed the fields to the greatest danger. At Revin
the young folk, besides dancing round the fire to the strains of the
village fiddler, threw garlands of flowers across the flames to each
other.(468) 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.(469) In the Jura
Mountains the midsummer bonfires went by the name of _bâ_ or _beau_. They
were lit on the most conspicuous points of the landscape.(470) Near St.
Jean, in the Jura, it appears that at this season young people still
repair to the cross-roads and heights, and there wave burning torches so
as to present the appearance of fiery wheels in the darkness.(471) In
Franche-Comté, the province of France which lies immediately to the west
of the Jura mountains, the fires of St. John still shone on the saint’s
day in several villages down to recent years. They were generally lit on
high ground and the young folks of both sexes sang and danced round them,
and sprang over the dying flames.(472) In Bresse bonfires used to be
kindled on Midsummer Eve (the twenty-third of June) and the people danced
about them in a circle. Devout persons, particularly old women,
circumambulated the fires fourteen times, telling their beads and mumbling
seven _Paters_ and seven _Aves_ in the hope that thereby they would feel
no pains in their backs when they stooped over the sickle in the harvest
field.(473) In Berry, a district of Central France, the midsummer fire was
lit on the Eve of St. John and went by the name of the _jônée_, _joannée_,
or _jouannée_. Every family according to its means contributed faggots,
which were piled round a pole on the highest ground in the neighbourhood.
In the hamlets the office of kindling the fire devolved on the oldest man,
but in the towns it was the priest or the mayor who discharged the duty.
Here, as in Brittany, people supposed that a girl who had danced round
nine of the midsummer bonfires would marry within the year. To leap
several times over the fire was regarded as a sort of purification which
kept off sickness and brought good luck to the leaper. Hence the nimble
youth bounded through the smoke and flames, and when the fire had somewhat
abated parents jumped across it with their children in their arms in order
that the little ones might also partake of its beneficent influence.
Embers from the extinct bonfire were taken home, and after being dipped in
holy water were kept as a talisman against all kinds of misfortune, but
especially against lightning.(474) The same virtue was ascribed to the
ashes and charred sticks of the midsummer bonfire in Périgord, where
everybody contributed his share of fuel to the pile and the whole was
crowned with flowers, especially with roses and lilies.(475) On the
borders of the departments of Creuse and Corrèze, in Central France, the
fires of St. John used to be lit on the Eve of the saint’s day (the
twenty-third of June); the custom seems to have survived till towards the
end of the nineteenth century. Men, women, and children assembled round
the fires, and the young people jumped over them. Children were brought by
their parents or elder brothers into contact with the flames in the belief
that this would save them from fever. Older people girded themselves with
stalks of rye taken from a neighbouring field, because they fancied that
by so doing they would not grow weary in reaping the corn at harvest.(476)

(M162) 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. Stones were also placed round the fire, and it
was believed that the first to lift one of these stones next morning would
find under it the hair of St. John.(477) 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 fertilize them.(478) This last custom is said to be now
extinct,(479) but it is still usual, or was so down to recent years, in
Poitou to kindle fires on this day at cross-roads or on the heights. The
oldest or youngest person present sets a light to the pile, which consists
of broom, gorse, and heath. A bright and crackling blaze shoots up, but
soon dies down, and over it the young folk leap. They also throw stones
into it, picking the stone according to the size of the turnips that they
wish to have that year. It is said that “the good Virgin” comes and sits
on the prettiest of the stones, and next morning they see there her
beautiful golden tresses. At Lussac, in Poitou, the lighting of the
midsummer bonfire is still an affair of some ceremony. A pyramid of
faggots is piled round a tree or tall pole on the ground where the fair is
held; the priest goes in procession to the spot and kindles the pile. When
prayers have been said and the clergy have withdrawn, the people continue
to march round the fire, telling their beads, but it is not till the
flames have begun to die down that the youth jump over them. A brand from
the midsummer bonfire is supposed to be a preservative against
thunder.(480)

(M163) In the department of Vienne the bonfire was kindled by the oldest
man, and before the dance round the flames began it was the custom to pass
across them a great bunch of mullein (_bouillon blanc_) and a branch of
walnut, which next morning before sunrise were fastened over the door of
the chief cattle-shed.(481) A similar custom prevailed in the neighbouring
department of Deux-Sèvres; but here it was the priest who kindled the
bonfire, and old men used to put embers of the fire in their wooden shoes
as a preservative against many evils.(482) In some towns and villages of
Saintonge and Aunis, provinces of Western France now mostly comprised in
the department of Charente Inférieure, the fires of St. John are still
kindled on Midsummer Eve, but the custom is neither so common nor carried
out with so much pomp and ceremony as formerly. Great quantities of wood
used to be piled on an open space round about a huge post or a tree
stripped of its leaves and branches. Every one took care to contribute a
faggot to the pile, and the whole population marched to the spot in
procession with the crucifix at their head and the priest bringing up the
rear. The squire, or other person of high degree, put the torch to the
pyre, and the priest blessed it. In the southern and eastern parts of
Saintonge children and cattle were passed through the smoke of the
bonfires to preserve them from contagious diseases, and when the fire had
gone out the people scuffled for the charred fragments of the great post,
which they regarded as talismans against thunder. Next morning, on
Midsummer Day, every shepherdess in the neighbourhood was up very early,
for the first to drive her sheep over the blackened cinders and ashes of
the great bonfire was sure to have the best flock all that year. Where the
shepherds shrunk from driving their flocks through the smoke and flames of
the bonfire they contented themselves with marking the hinder-quarters of
the animals with a broom which had been blackened in the ashes.(483)

(M164) In the mountainous part of Comminges, a province of Southern
France, now comprised in the department of Haute Garonne, 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.(484) At the entrance of the valley of Aran
young people set up on the banks of the Garonne a tree covered with
ribbons and garlands; at the end of a year the withered tree and faded
flowers furnish excellent fuel. So on the Eve of St. John the villagers
assemble, and an old man or a child kindles the fire which is to consume
tree and garlands together. While the blaze lasts the people sing and
dance; and the burnt tree is then replaced by another which will suffer
the same fate after the lapse of a year.(485) In some districts of the
French Pyrenees it is deemed necessary to leap nine times over the
midsummer fire if you would be assured of prosperity.(486) A traveller in
Southern France at the beginning of the nineteenth century tells us that
“the Eve of St. John is also a day of joy for the Provençals. They light
great fires and the young folk leap over them. At Aix they shower squibs
and crackers on the passers-by, which has often had disagreeable
consequences. At Marseilles they drench each other with scented water,
which is poured from the windows or squirted from little syringes; the
roughest jest is to souse passers-by with clean water, which gives rise to
loud bursts of laughter.”(487) At Draguignan, in the department of Var,
fires used to be lit in every street on the Eve of St. John, and the
people roasted pods of garlic at them; the pods were afterwards
distributed to every family. Another diversion of the evening was to pour
cans of water from the houses on the heads of people in the streets.(488)
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, while the church bells pealed and rockets
fizzed and sputtered in the air. Dancing began later, and the bystanders
threw water on each other. At Ciotat, while the fire was blazing, the
young people plunged into the sea and splashed each other vigorously. At
Vitrolles they bathed in a pond in order that they might not suffer from
fever during the year, and at Saintes-Maries they watered the horses to
protect them from the itch.(489) At Aix a nominal king, chosen from among
the youth for his skill in shooting at a popinjay, presided over the
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.(490)

(M165) 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 of Brabant, Flanders, and Limburg. People leap
across the fires to protect themselves against fever, and in eastern
Flanders women perform similar leaps for the purpose of ensuring an easy
delivery. At Termonde young people go from door to door collecting fuel
for the fires and reciting verses, in which they beg the inmates to give
them “wood of St. John” and to keep some wood for St. Peter’s Day (the
twenty-ninth of June); for in Belgium the Eve of St. Peter’s Day is
celebrated by bonfires and dances exactly like those which commemorate St.
John’s Eve. The ashes of the St. John’s fires are deemed by Belgian
peasants an excellent remedy for consumption, if you take a spoonful or
two of them, moistened with water, day by day. People also burn vervain in
the fires, and they say that in the ashes of the plant you may find, if
you look for it, the “Fool’s Stone.”(491) In many parts of Brabant St.
Peter’s bonfire used to be much larger than that of his rival St. John.
When it had burned out, both sexes engaged in a game of ball, and the
winner became the King of Summer or of the Ball and had the right to
choose his Queen. Sometimes the winner was a woman, and it was then her
privilege to select her royal mate. This pastime was well known at Louvain
and it continued to be practised at Grammont and Mespelaer down to the
second half of the nineteenth century. At Mespelaer, which is a village
near Termonde, a huge pile of eglantine, reeds, and straw was collected in
a marshy meadow for the bonfire; and next evening after vespers the young
folk who had lit it assembled at the “Good Life” tavern to play the game.
The winner was crowned with a wreath of roses, and the rest danced and
sang in a ring about him. At Grammont, while the bonfire was lit and the
dances round it took place on St. Peter’s Eve, the festival of the “Crown
of Roses” was deferred till the following Sunday. The young folk arranged
among themselves beforehand who should be King and Queen of the Roses: the
rosy wreaths were hung on cords across the street: the dancers danced
below them, and at a given moment the wreaths fell on the heads of the
chosen King and Queen, who had to entertain their fellows at a feast.
According to some people the fires of St. Peter, like those of St. John,
were lighted in order to drive away dragons.(492) 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.(493) 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.(494)

(M166) The custom of lighting bonfires at midsummer has been observed in
many parts of our own country. “On the Vigil of Saint John the Baptist,
commonly called Midsummer Eve, it was usual in most country places, and
also in towns and cities, for the inhabitants, both old and young, and of
both sexes, to meet together, and make merry by the side of a large fire
made in the middle of the street, or in some open and convenient place,
over which the young men frequently leaped by way of frolic, and also
exercised themselves with various sports and pastimes, more especially
with running, wrestling, and dancing. These diversions they continued till
midnight, and sometimes till cock-crowing.”(495) In the streets of London
the midsummer fires were lighted in the time of Queen Elizabeth down to
the end of the sixteenth century, as we learn from Stow’s description,
which runs thus: “In the months of June and July, on the vigils of
festival days, and on the same festival days in the evenings after the sun
setting, there were usually made bonfires in the streets, every man
bestowing wood or labour towards them; the wealthier sort also, before
their doors near to the said bonfires, would set out tables on the vigils
furnished with sweet bread and good drink, and on the festival days with
meats and drinks plentifully, whereunto they would invite their neighbours
and passengers also to sit and be merry with them in great familiarity,
praising God for His benefits bestowed on them. These were called bonfires
as well of good amity amongst neighbours that being before at controversy,
were there, by the labour of others, reconciled, and made of bitter
enemies loving friends; and also for the virtue that a great fire hath to
purge the infection of the air. On the vigil of St. John the Baptist, and
on St. Peter and Paul the Apostles, every man’s door being shadowed with
green birch, long fennel, St. John’s wort, orpin, white lilies, and such
like, garnished upon with garlands of beautiful flowers, had also lamps of
glass, with oil burning in them all the night; some hung out branches of
iron curiously wrought, containing hundreds of lamps alight at once, which
made a goodly show, namely, in New Fish Street, Thames Street, etc.”(496)
In the sixteenth century the Eton boys used to kindle a bonfire on the
east side of the church both on St. John’s Day and on St. Peter’s
Day.(497) Writing in the second half of the seventeenth century, the
antiquary John Aubrey tells us that bonfires were still kindled in many
places on St. John’s Night, but that the civil wars had thrown many of
these old customs out of fashion. Wars, he adds, extinguish superstition
as well as religion and laws, and there is nothing like gunpowder for
putting phantoms to flight.(498)

(M167) In the north of England these fires used to be lit in the open
streets. Young and old gathered round them, and while the young leaped
over the fires and engaged in games, their elders looked on and probably
remembered with regret the days when they used to foot it as nimbly.
Sometimes the fires were kindled on the tops of high hills. The people
also carried firebrands about the fields.(499) The custom of kindling
bonfires on Midsummer Eve prevailed all over Cumberland down to the second
half of the eighteenth century.(500) In Northumberland the custom seems to
have lasted into the first quarter of the nineteenth century; the fires
were lit in the villages and on the tops of high hills, and the people
sported and danced round them.(501) Moreover, the villagers used to run
with burning brands round their fields and to snatch ashes from a
neighbour’s fire, saying as they did so, “We have the flower (or flour) of
the wake.”(502) At Sandhill bonfires were kindled on the Eve of St. Peter
as well as on Midsummer Eve; the custom is attested for the year 1575,
when it was described as ancient.(503) We are told that “on Midsummer’s
eve, reckoned according to the old style, it was formerly the custom of
the inhabitants, young and old, not only of Whalton, but of most of the
adjacent villages, to collect a large cartload of whins and other
combustible materials, which was dragged by them with great rejoicing (a
fiddler being seated on the top of the cart) into the village and erected
into a pile. The people from the surrounding country assembled towards
evening, when it was set on fire; and whilst the young danced around it,
the elders looked on smoking their pipes and drinking their beer, until it
was consumed. There can be little doubt that this curious old custom dates
from a very remote antiquity.” In a law-suit, which was tried in 1878, the
rector of Whalton gave evidence of the constant use of the village green
for the ceremony since 1843. “The bonfire,” he said, “was lighted a little
to the north-east of the well at Whalton, and partly on the footpath, and
people danced round it and jumped through it. That was never interrupted.”
The Rev. G. R. Hall, writing in 1879, says that “the fire festivals or
bonfires of the summer solstice at the Old Midsummer until recently were
commemorated on Christenburg Crags and elsewhere by leaping through and
dancing round the fires, as those who have been present have told
me.”(504) Down to the early part of the nineteenth century bonfires called
Beal-fires used to be lit on Midsummer Eve all over the wolds in the East
Riding of Yorkshire.(505)

(M168) In Herefordshire and Somersetshire the peasants used to make fires
in the fields on Midsummer Eve “to bless the apples.”(506) In Devonshire
the custom of leaping over the midsummer fires was also observed.(507) “In
Cornwall, the festival fires, called bonfires, are kindled on the Eves of
St. John Baptist and St. Peter’s day; and Midsummer is thence, in the
Cornish tongue, called _Goluan_, which signifies both light and rejoicing.
At these fires the Cornish attend with lighted torches, tarred and pitched
at the end, and make their perambulations round their fires, going from
village to village and carrying their torches before them; this is
certainly the remains of Druid superstition; for, _Faces praeferre_, to
carry lighted torches was reckoned a kind of gentilism, and as such
particularly prohibited by the Gallick Councils.”(508) At Penzance and
elsewhere in the county the people danced and sang about the bonfires on
Midsummer Eve. On Whiteborough, a large tumulus near Launceston, a huge
bonfire used to be kindled on Midsummer Eve; a tall summer pole with a
large bush at the top was fixed in the centre of the bonfire.(509) The
Cornish fires at this season appear to have been commonly lit on high and
conspicuous hills, such as Tregonan, Godolphin, Carnwarth, and Carn Brea.
When it grew dusk on Midsummer Eve, old men would hobble away to some
height whence they counted the fires and drew a presage from their
number.(510) “It is the immemorial usage in Penzance, and the neighbouring
towns and villages, to kindle bonfires and torches on Midsummer-eve; and
on Midsummer-day to hold a fair on Penzance quay, where the country folks
assemble from the adjoining parishes in great numbers to make excursions
on the water. St. Peter’s Eve [the twenty-eighth of June] is distinguished
by a similar display of bonfires and torches, although the ‘quay-fair’ on
St. Peter’s-day [the twenty-ninth of June], has been discontinued upwards
of forty years. On these eves a line of tar-barrels, relieved occasionally
by large bonfires, is seen in the centre of each of the principal streets
in Penzance. On either side of this line young men and women pass up and
down, swinging round their heads heavy torches made of large pieces of
folded canvas steeped in tar, and nailed to the ends of sticks between
three and four feet long; the flames of some of these almost equal those
of the tar-barrels. Rows of lighted candles, also, when the air is calm,
are fixed outside the windows or along the sides of the streets. In St.
Just, and other mining parishes, the young miners, mimicking their
fathers’ employments, bore rows of holes in the rocks, load them with
gunpowder, and explode them in rapid succession by trains of the same
substance. As the holes are not deep enough to split the rocks, the same
little batteries serve for many years. On these nights, Mount’s Bay has a
most animating appearance, although not equal to what was annually
witnessed at the beginning of the present century, when the whole coast,
from the Land’s End to the Lizard, wherever a town or a village existed,
was lighted up with these stationary or moving fires. In the early part of
the evening, children may be seen wearing wreaths of flowers—a custom in
all probability originating from the ancient use of these ornaments when
they danced around the fires. At the close of the fireworks in Penzance, a
great number of persons of both sexes, chiefly from the neighbourhood of
the quay, used always, until within the last few years, to join hand in
hand, forming a long string, and run through the streets, playing ‘thread
the needle,’ heedless of the fireworks showered upon them, and oftentimes
leaping over the yet glowing embers. I have on these occasions seen boys
following one another, jumping through flames higher than
themselves.”(511)

(M169) In Wales the midsummer fires were kindled on St. John’s Eve and on
St. John’s Day. 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. Various herbs were
thrown into the blaze; and girls with bunches of three or nine different
kinds of flowers would take the hands of boys, who wore flowers in their
buttonholes and hats, and together the young couples would leap over the
fires. On the same two midsummer days roses and wreaths of flowers were
hung over the doors and windows. “Describing a midsummer fire, an old
inhabitant, born in 1809, remembered being taken to different hills in the
Vale of Glamorgan to see festivities in which people from all parts of the
district participated. She was at that time about fourteen, and old enough
to retain a vivid recollection of the circumstances. People conveyed
trusses of straw to the top of the hill, where men and youths waited for
the contributions. Women and girls were stationed at the bottom of the
hill. Then a large cart-wheel was thickly swathed with straw, and not an
inch of wood was left in sight. A pole was inserted through the centre of
the wheel, so that long ends extended about a yard on each side. If any
straw remained, it was made up into torches at the top of tall sticks. At
a given signal the wheel was lighted, and sent rolling downhill. If this
fire-wheel went out before it reached the bottom of the hill, a very poor
harvest was promised. If it kept lighted all the way down, and continued
blazing for a long time, the harvest would be exceptionally abundant. Loud
cheers and shouts accompanied the progress of the wheel.”(512) At Darowen
in Wales small bonfires were kindled on Midsummer Eve.(513) On the same
day 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.(514)

(M170) A writer of the last quarter of the seventeenth century tells us
that in Ireland, “on the Eves of St. John Baptist and St. Peter, they
always have in every town a bonfire, late in the evenings, and carry about
bundles of reeds fast tied and fired; these being dry, will last long, and
flame better than a torch, and be a pleasing divertive prospect to the
distant beholder; a stranger would go near to imagine the whole country
was on fire.”(515) Another writer says of the South of Ireland: “On
Midsummer’s Eve, every eminence, near which is a habitation, blazes with
bonfires; and round these they carry numerous torches, shouting and
dancing, which affords a beautiful sight.”(516) An author who described
Ireland in the first quarter of the eighteenth century says: “On the vigil
of St. John the Baptist’s Nativity, they make bonfires, and run along the
streets and fields with wisps of straw blazing on long poles to purify the
air, which they think infectious, by believing all the devils, spirits,
ghosts, and hobgoblins fly abroad this night to hurt mankind.”(517)
Another writer states that he witnessed the festival in Ireland in 1782:
“At the house where I was entertained, it was told me, that we should see,
at midnight, the most singular sight in Ireland, which was the lighting of
fires in honour of the sun. Accordingly, exactly at midnight, the fires
began to appear; and taking the advantage of going up to the leads of the
house, which had a widely extended view, I saw on a radius of thirty
miles, all around, the fires burning on every eminence which the country
afforded. I had a farther satisfaction in learning, from undoubted
authority, that the people danced round the fires, and at the close went
through these fires, and made their sons and daughters, together with
their cattle, pass through the fire; and the whole was conducted with
religious solemnity.”(518) That the custom prevailed in full force as late
as 1867 appears from a notice in a newspaper of that date, which runs
thus: “The old pagan fire-worship still survives in Ireland, though
nominally in honour of St. John. On Sunday night bonfires were observed
throughout nearly every county in the province of Leinster. In Kilkenny,
fires blazed on every hillside at intervals of about a mile. There were
very many in the Queen’s County, also in Kildare and Wexford. The effect
in the rich sunset appeared to travellers very grand. The people assemble,
and dance round the fires, the children jump through the flames, and in
former times live coals were carried into the corn-fields to prevent
blight.”(519) In County Leitrim on St. John’s Eve, which is called Bonfire
Day, fires are still lighted after dusk on the hills and along the sides
of the roads.(520) All over Kerry the same thing continues to be done,
though not so commonly as of old. Small fires were made across the road,
and to drive through them brought luck for the year. Cattle were also
driven through the fires. On Lettermore Island, in South Connemara, some
of the ashes from the midsummer bonfire are thrown on the fields to
fertilize them.(521) One writer informs us that in Munster and Connaught a
bone must always be burned in the fire; for otherwise the people believe
that the fire will bring no luck. He adds that in many places sterile
beasts and human beings are passed through the fire, and that as a boy he
himself jumped through the fire “for luck.”(522) An eye-witness has
described as follows a remarkable ceremony observed in Ireland on
Midsummer Eve: “When the fire burned for some hours, and got low, an
indispensable part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the
peasantry passed through it, and several children were thrown across the
sparkling embers; while a wooden frame, of some eight feet long, with a
horse’s head fixed to one end, and a large white sheet thrown over it
concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried, made its
appearance. This was greeted with loud shouts of ‘The white horse!’ and
having been safely carried by the skill of its bearer several times
through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the people, who ran
screaming and laughing in every direction. I asked what the horse was
meant for, and was told that it represented ‘all cattle.’ ”(523)

(M171) Lady Wilde’s account of the midsummer festival in Ireland is
picturesque and probably correct in substance, although she does not cite
her authorities. As it contains some interesting features which are not
noticed by the other writers on Ireland whom I have consulted, I will
quote the greater part of it in full. “In ancient times,” she says, “the
sacred fire was lighted with great ceremony on Midsummer Eve; and on that
night all the people of the adjacent country kept fixed watch on the
western promontory of Howth, and the moment the first flash was seen from
that spot the fact of ignition was announced with wild cries and cheers
repeated from village to village, when all the local fires began to blaze,
and Ireland was circled by a cordon of flame rising up from every hill.
Then the dance and song began round every fire, and the wild hurrahs
filled the air with the most frantic revelry. Many of these ancient
customs are still continued, and the fires are still lighted on St. John’s
Eve on every hill in Ireland. When the fire has burned down to a red glow
the young men strip to the waist and leap over or through the flames; this
is done backwards and forwards several times, and he who braves the
greatest blaze is considered the victor over the powers of evil, and is
greeted with tremendous applause. When the fire burns still lower, the
young girls leap the flame, and those who leap clean over three times back
and forward will be certain of a speedy marriage and good luck in
after-life, with many children. The married women then walk through the
lines of the burning embers; and when the fire is nearly burnt and
trampled down, the yearling cattle are driven through the hot ashes, and
their back is singed with a lighted hazel twig. These rods are kept safely
afterwards, being considered of immense power to drive the cattle to and
from the watering places. As the fire diminishes the shouting grows
fainter, and the song and the dance commence; while professional
story-tellers narrate tales of fairy-land, or of the good old times long
ago, when the kings and princes of Ireland dwelt amongst their own people,
and there was food to eat and wine to drink for all comers to the feast at
the king’s house. When the crowd at length separate, every one carries
home a brand from the fire, and great virtue is attached to the lighted
_brone_ which is safely carried to the house without breaking or falling
to the ground. Many contests also arise amongst the young men; for whoever
enters his house first with the sacred fire brings the good luck of the
year with him.”(524)

(M172) In Ireland, as elsewhere, water was also apparently thought to
acquire a certain mystical virtue at midsummer. “At Stoole, near
Downpatrick, there is a ceremony commencing at twelve o’clock at night on
Midsummer Eve. Its sacred mount is consecrated to St. Patrick; the plain
contains three wells, to which the most extraordinary virtues are
attributed. Here and there are heaps of stones, around some of which
appear great numbers of people, running with as much speed as possible;
around others crowds of worshippers kneel with bare legs and feet as an
indispensable part of the penance. The men, without coats, with
handkerchiefs on their heads instead of hats, having gone seven times
round each heap, kiss the ground, cross themselves, and proceed to the
hill; here they ascend, on their bare knees, by a path so steep and rugged
that it would be difficult to walk up. Many hold their hands clasped at
the back of their necks, and several carry large stones on their heads.
Having repeated this ceremony seven times, they go to what is called St.
Patrick’s Chair, which are two great flat stones fixed upright in the
hill; here they cross and bless themselves as they step in between these
stones, and, while repeating prayers, an old man, seated for the purpose,
turns them round on their feet three times, for which he is paid; the
devotee then goes to conclude his penance at a pile of stones, named the
Altar. While this busy scene is continued by the multitude, the wells and
streams issuing from them are thronged by crowds of halt, maimed, and
blind, pressing to wash away their infirmities with water consecrated by
their patron saint, and so powerful is the impression of its efficacy on
their minds, that many of those who go to be healed, and who are not
totally blind, or altogether crippled, really believe for a time that they
are by means of its miraculous virtues perfectly restored.”(525)

(M173) In Scotland the traces of midsummer fires are few. We are told by a
writer of the eighteenth century that “the midsummer-even fire, a relict
of Druidism,” was kindled in some parts of the county of Perth.(526)
Another writer of the same period, describing what he calls the Druidical
festivals of the Highlanders, says that “the least considerable of them is
that of midsummer. In the Highlands of Perthshire there are some vestiges
of it. The cowherd goes three times round the fold, according to the
course of the sun, with a burning torch in his hand. They imagined this
rite had a tendency to purify their herds and flocks, and to prevent
diseases. At their return the landlady makes an entertainment for the
cowherd and his associates.”(527) In the north-east of Scotland, down to
the latter half of the eighteenth century, farmers used to go round their
lands with burning torches about the middle of June.(528) On the hill of
Cairnshee, in the parish of Durris, Kincardineshire, the herdsmen of the
country round about annually kindle a bonfire at sunset on Midsummer Day
(the twenty-fourth of June); the men or lads collect the fuel and push
each other through the smoke and flames. The custom is kept up through the
benefaction of a certain Alexander Hogg, a native of the parish, who died
about 1790 and left a small sum for the maintenance of a midsummer bonfire
on the spot, because as a boy he had herded cattle on the hill. We may
conjecture that in doing so he merely provided for the continuance of an
old custom which he himself had observed in the same place in his
youth.(529) At the village of Tarbolton in Ayrshire a bonfire has been
annually kindled from time immemorial on the evening of the first Monday
after the eleventh of June. A noted cattle-market was formerly held at the
fair on the following day. The bonfire is still lit at the gloaming by the
lads and lasses of the village on a high mound or hillock just outside of
the village. Fuel for it is collected by the lads from door to door. The
youth dance round the fire and leap over the fringes of it. The many
cattle-drovers who used to assemble for the fair were wont to gather round
the blazing pile, smoke their pipes, and listen to the young folk singing
in chorus on the hillock. Afterwards they wrapped themselves in their
plaids and slept round the bonfire, which was intended to last all
night.(530) Thomas Moresin of Aberdeen, a writer of the sixteenth century,
says that on St. Peter’s Day, which is the twenty-ninth of June, the
Scotch ran about at night with lighted torches on mountains and high
grounds, “as Ceres did when she roamed the whole earth in search of
Proserpine”;(531) and towards the end of the eighteenth century the parish
minister of Loudoun, a district of Ayrshire whose “bonny woods and braes”
have been sung by Burns, wrote that “the custom still remains amongst the
herds and young people to kindle fires in the high grounds in honour of
Beltan. _Beltan_, which in Gaelic signifies _Baal_, or _Bel’s-fire_, was
antiently the time of this solemnity. It is now kept on St. Peter’s
day.”(532)

(M174) All over Spain great bonfires called _lumes_ are still lit on
Midsummer Eve. They are kept up all night, and the children leap over them
in a certain rhythmical way which is said to resemble the ancient dances.
On the coast, people at this season plunge into the sea; in the inland
districts the villagers go and roll naked in the dew of the meadows, which
is supposed to be a sovereign preservative against diseases of the skin.
On this evening, too, girls who would pry into the future put a vessel of
water on the sill outside their window; and when the clocks strike twelve,
they break an egg in the water and see, or fancy they see, in the shapes
assumed by the pulp, as it blends with the liquid, the likeness of future
bridegrooms, castles, coffins, and so forth. But generally, as might
perhaps have been anticipated, the obliging egg exhibits the features of a
bridegroom.(533) In the Azores, also, bonfires are lit on Midsummer Eve
(St. John’s Eve), and boys jump over them for luck. On that night St. John
himself is supposed to appear in person and bless all the seas and waters,
driving out the devils and demons who had been disporting themselves in
them ever since the second day of November; that is why in the interval
between the second of November and the twenty-third of June nobody will
bathe in the sea or in a hot spring. On Midsummer Eve, too, you can always
see the devil, if you will go into a garden at midnight. He is invariably
found standing near a mustard-plant. His reason for adopting this posture
has not been ascertained; perhaps in the chilly air of the upper world he
is attracted by the genial warmth of the mustard. Various forms of
divination are practised by people in the Azores on Midsummer Eve. Thus a
new-laid egg is broken into a glass of water, and the shapes which it
assumes foreshadow the fate of the person concerned. Again, seven saucers
are placed in a row, filled respectively with water, earth, ashes, keys, a
thimble, money, and grass, which things signify travel, death, widowhood,
housekeeping, spinsterhood, riches, and farming. A blindfolded person
touches one or other of the saucers with a wand and so discovers his or
her fate. Again, three broad beans are taken; one is left in its skin, one
is half peeled, and the third is peeled outright. The three denote
respectively riches, competence, and poverty. They are hidden and searched
for; and he who finds one of them knows accordingly whether he will be
rich, moderately well-off, or poor. Again, girls take slips of paper and
write the names of young men twice over on them. These they fold up and
crumple and place one set under their pillows and the other set in a
saucer full of water. In the morning they draw one slip of paper from
under their pillow, and see whether one in the water has opened out. If
the names on the two slips are the same, it is the name of her future
husband. Young men do the same with girls’ names. Once more, if a girl
rises at sunrise, goes out into the street, and asks the first passer-by
his Christian name, that will be her husband’s name.(534) Some of these
modes of divination resemble those which are or used to be practised in
Scotland at Hallowe’en.(535) In Corsica on the Eve of St. John the people
set fire to the trunk of a tree or to a whole tree, and the young men and
maidens dance round the blaze, which is called _fucaraia_.(536) We have
seen that at Ozieri, in Sardinia, a great bonfire is kindled on St. John’s
Eve, and that the young people dance round it.(537)

(M175) Passing to Italy, we find that the midsummer fires are still
lighted on St. John’s Eve in many parts of the Abruzzi. They are commonest
in the territory which was inhabited in antiquity by the Vestini; they are
rarer in the land of the ancient Marsi, and they disappear entirely in the
lower valley of the Sangro. For the most part, the fires are fed with
straw and dry grass, and are kindled in the fields near the villages or on
high ground. As they blaze up, the people dance round or over them. In
leaping across the flames the boys cry out, “St. John, preserve my thighs
and legs!” Formerly it used to be common to light the bonfires also in the
towns in front of churches of St. John, and the remains of the sacred fire
were carried home by the people; but this custom has mostly fallen into
disuse. However, at Celano the practice is still kept up of taking brands
and ashes from the bonfires to the houses, although the fires are no
longer kindled in front of the churches, but merely in the streets.(538)
In the Abruzzi water also is supposed to acquire certain marvellous and
beneficent properties on St. John’s Night. Hence many people bathe or at
least wash their faces and hands in the sea or a river at that season,
especially at the moment of sunrise. Such a bath is said to be an
excellent cure for diseases of the skin. At Castiglione a Casauria the
people, after washing in the river or in springs, gird their waists and
wreath their brows with sprigs of briony in order to keep them from aches
and pains.(539) In various parts of Sicily, also, fires are kindled on
Midsummer Eve (St. John’s Eve), the twenty-third of June. On the Madonie
mountains, in the north of the island, the herdsmen kindle them at
intervals, so that the crests of the mountains are seen ablaze in the
darkness for many miles. About Acireale, on the east coast of the island,
the bonfires are lit by boys, who jump over them. At Chiaromonte the
witches that night acquire extraordinary powers; hence everybody then puts
a broom outside of his house, because a broom is an excellent protective
against witchcraft.(540) At Orvieto the midsummer fires were specially
excepted from the prohibition directed against bonfires in general.(541)

(M176) In Malta also the people celebrate Midsummer Eve (St. John’s Eve)
“by kindling great fires in the public streets, and giving their children
dolls to carry in their arms on this day, in order to make good the
prophecy respecting the Baptist, _Multi in nativitate ejus gaudebunt_.
Days and even weeks before this festival, groups of children are seen
going out into the country fields to gather straw, twigs, and all sorts of
other combustibles, which they store up for St. John’s Eve. On the night
of the twenty-third of June, the day before the festival of the Saint,
great fires are kindled in the streets, squares, and market places of the
towns and villages of the Island, and as fire after fire blazes out of the
darkness of that summer night, the effect is singularly striking. These
fires are sometimes kept up for hours, being continually fed by the scores
of bystanders, who take great delight in throwing amidst the flames some
old rickety piece of furniture which they consider as lumber in their
houses. Lots of happy and reckless children, and very often men, are seen
merrily leaping in succession over and through the crackling flames. At
the time of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, the Grand Master himself,
soon after the _Angelus_, used to leave his palace, accompanied by the
Grand Prior, the Bishop, and two bailiffs, to set fire to some pitch
barrels which were placed for the occasion in the square facing the sacred
Hospital. Great crowds used to assemble here in order to assist at this
ceremony. The setting ablaze of the five casks, and later on of the eight
casks, by the Grand Master, was a signal for the others to kindle their
fires in the different parts of the town.”(542)

(M177) In Greece, 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.(543) According to another account,
the women cry out, as they leap over the fire, “I leave my sins behind
me.”(544) 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!” On the morning of
St. John’s Day those who dwell near the coast go to bathe in the sea. As
they go they gird themselves with osiers, and when they are in the water
they let the osiers float away, saying, “Let my maladies go away!” Then
they look for what is called “the hairy stone,” which possesses the
remarkable property not only of keeping moths from clothes but even of
multiplying the clothes in the chest where it is laid up, and the more
hairs on the stone the more will the clothes multiply in the chest.(545)
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.(546) In Cos the lads and lasses
dance round the bonfires on St. John’s Eve. Each of the lads binds a black
stone on his head, signifying that he wishes to become as strong as the
stone. Also they make the sign of the cross on their feet and legs and
jump over the fire.(547) On Midsummer Eve the Greeks of Macedonia light
fires after supper in front of their gates. The garlands, now faded, which
were hung over the doors on May Day, are taken down and cast into the
flames, after which the young folk leap over the blaze, fully persuaded
that St. John’s fire will not burn them.(548) In Albania fires of dry
herbage are, or used to be, lit everywhere on St. John’s Eve; young and
old leap over them, for such a leap is thought to be good for the
health.(549)

(M178) From the Old World the midsummer fires have been carried across the
Atlantic to America. In Brazil people jump over the fires of St. John, and
at this season they can take hot coals in their mouths without burning
themselves.(550) In Bolivia on the Eve of St. John it is usual to see
bonfires lighted on the hills and even in the streets of the capital La
Paz. As the city stands at the bottom of an immense ravine, and the
Indians of the neighbourhood take a pride in kindling bonfires on heights
which might seem inaccessible, the scene is very striking when the
darkness of night is suddenly and simultaneously lit up by hundreds of
fires, which cast a glare on surrounding objects, producing an effect at
once weird and picturesque.(551)

(M179) 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’ánṣăra_.
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.(552) For example, the Andjra mountaineers of Morocco kindle
large fires in open places of their villages on Midsummer Day. Men, women,
and children jump over the flames or the glowing embers, believing that by
so doing they rid themselves of all misfortune which may be clinging to
them; they imagine, also, that such leaps cure the sick and procure
offspring for childless couples. Moreover, they burn straw, together with
some marjoram and alum, in the fold where the cattle, sheep, and goats are
penned for the night; the smoke, in their opinion, will make the animals
thrive. On Midsummer Day the Arabs of the Mnasara tribe make fires outside
their tents, near their animals, on their fields, and in their gardens.
Large quantities of penny-royal are burned in these fires, and over some
of them the people leap thrice to and fro. Sometimes small fires are also
kindled inside the tents. They say that the smoke confers blessings on
everything with which it comes into contact. At Salee, on the Atlantic
coast of Morocco, persons who suffer from diseased eyes rub them with the
ashes of the midsummer fire; and in Casablanca and Azemmur the people hold
their faces over the fire, because the smoke is thought to be good for the
eyes. The Arab tribe Ulad Bu Aziz, in the Dukkala province of Morocco,
kindle midsummer bonfires, not for themselves and their cattle, but only
for crops and fruit; nobody likes to reap his crops before Midsummer Day,
because if he did they would lose the benefit of the blessed influence
which flows from the smoke of the bonfires. Again, the Beni Mgild, a
Berber tribe of Morocco, light fires of straw on Midsummer Eve and leap
thrice over them to and fro. They let some of the smoke pass underneath
their clothes, and married women hold their breasts over the fire, in
order that their children may be strong. Moreover, they paint their eyes
and lips with some black powder, in which ashes of the bonfire are mixed.
And in order that their horses may also benefit by the fires, they dip the
right forelegs of the animals in the smoke and flames or in the hot
embers, and they rub ashes on the foreheads and between the nostrils of
the horses. Berbers of the Rif province, in northern Morocco, similarly
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.(553)

(M180) 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. But in some parts of Morocco people at midsummer kindle fires
of a different sort, not for the sake of fumigation, but in order to burn
up misfortune in the flames. Thus on Midsummer Eve the Berber tribe of the
Beni Mgild burn three sheaves of unthreshed wheat or barley, “one for the
children, one for the crops, and one for the animals.” On the same
occasion they burn the tent of a widow who has never given birth to a
child; by so doing they think to rid the village of ill luck. It is said
that at midsummer the Zemmur burn a tent, which belongs to somebody who
was killed in war during a feast; or if there is no such person in the
village, the schoolmaster’s tent is burned instead. Among the
Arabic-speaking Beni Ahsen it is customary for those who live near the
river Sbu to make a little hut of straw at midsummer, set it on fire, and
let it float down the river. Similarly the inhabitants of Salee burn a
straw hut on the river which flows past their town.(554)

(M181) Further it deserves to be noticed that in Northern Africa, as in
Southern Europe, the midsummer festival comprises rites concerned with
water as well as with fire. For example, among the Beni-Snous the women
light a fire in an oven, throw perfumes into it, and circumambulate a
tank, which they also incense after a fashion. In many places on the
coast, as in the province of Oran and particularly in the north of
Morocco, everybody goes and bathes in the sea at midsummer; and in many
towns of the interior, such as Fez, Mequinez, and especially Merrakech,
people throw water over each other on this day; and where water is scarce,
earth is used instead, according to the Mohammedan principle which permits
ablutions to be performed with earth or sand when water cannot be spared
for the purpose.(555) People of the Andjra district in Morocco not only
bathe themselves in the sea or in rivers at midsummer, they also bathe
their animals, their horses, mules, donkeys, cattle, sheep, and goats; for
they think that on that day water possesses a blessed virtue (_baraka_),
which removes sickness and misfortune. In Aglu, again, men, women, and
children bathe in the sea or springs or rivers at midsummer, alleging that
by so doing they protect themselves against disease for the whole year.
Among the Berbers of the Rif district the custom of bathing on this day is
commonly observed, and animals share the ablutions.(556)

(M182) 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. There are, indeed,
independent grounds for thinking that the Arabs enjoyed the advantage of a
comparatively well-regulated solar year before the prophet of God saddled
them with the absurdity and inconvenience of a purely lunar calendar.(557)
Be that as it may, it is notable that some Mohammedan people of North
Africa kindle fires and bathe in water at the movable New Year of their
lunar calendar instead of at the fixed Midsummer of the solar year; while
others again practise these observances at both seasons. New Year’s Day,
on which the rites are celebrated, is called _Ashur_; it is the tenth day
of Moharram, the first month of the Mohammedan calendar. On that day
bonfires are kindled in Tunis and also at Merrakech and among some tribes
of the neighbourhood.(558) At Demnat, in the Great Atlas mountains, people
kindle a large bonfire on New Year’s Eve and leap to and fro over the
flames, uttering words which imply that by these leaps they think to
purify themselves from all kinds of evil. At Aglu, in the province of Sus,
the fire is lighted at three different points by an unmarried girl, and
when it has died down the young men leap over the glowing embers, saying,
“We shook on you, O Lady Ashur, fleas, and lice, and the illnesses of the
heart, as also those of the bones; we shall pass through you again next
year and the following years with safety and health.” Both at Aglu and
Glawi, in the Great Atlas, smaller fires are also kindled, over which the
animals are driven. At Demnat girls who wish to marry wash themselves in
water which has been boiled over the New Year fire; and in Dukkala people
use the ashes of that fire to rub sore eyes with. New Year fires appear to
be commonly kindled among the Berbers who inhabit the western portion of
the Great Atlas, and also among the Arabic-speaking tribes of the plains;
but Dr. Westermarck found no traces of such fires among the
Arabic-speaking mountaineers of Northern Morocco and the Berbers of the
Rif province. Further, it should be observed that water ceremonies like
those which are practised at Midsummer are very commonly observed in
Morocco at the New Year, that is, on the tenth day of the first month. On
the morning of that day (_Ashur_) all water or, according to some people,
only spring water is endowed with a magical virtue (_baraka_), especially
before sunrise. Hence at that time the people bathe and pour water over
each other; in some places they also sprinkle their animals, tents, or
rooms. In Dukkala some of the New Year water is preserved at home till New
Year’s Day (_Ashur_) of next year; some of it is kept to be used as
medicine, some of it is poured on the place where the corn is threshed,
and some is used to water the money which is to be buried in the ground;
for the people think that the earth-spirits will not be able to steal the
buried treasures which have thus been sanctified with the holy water.(559)

(M183) Thus the rites of fire and water which are observed in Morocco at
Midsummer and New Year appear to be identical in character and intention,
and it seems certain that the duplication of the rites is due to a
conflict between two calendars, namely the old Julian calendar of the
Romans, which was based on the sun, and the newer Mohammedan calendar of
the Arabs, which is based on the moon. For not only was the Julian
calendar in use throughout the whole of Northern Africa under the Roman
Empire; to this day it is everywhere employed among Mohammedans for the
regulation of agriculture and all the affairs of daily life; its practical
convenience has made it indispensable, and the lunar calendar of orthodox
Mohammedanism is scarcely used except for purposes of chronology. Even the
old Latin names of the months are known and employed, in slightly
disguised forms, throughout the whole Moslem world; and little calendars
of the Julian year circulate in manuscript among Mohammedans, permitting
them to combine the practical advantages of pagan science with a nominal
adherence to orthodox absurdity.(560) Thus the heathen origin of the
midsummer festival is too palpable to escape the attention of good
Mohammedans, who accordingly frown upon the midsummer bonfires as pagan
superstitions, precisely as similar observances in Europe have often been
denounced by orthodox Christianity. Indeed, many religious people in
Morocco entirely disapprove of the whole of the midsummer ceremonies,
maintaining that they are all bad; and a conscientious schoolmaster will
even refuse his pupils a holiday at midsummer, though the boys sometimes
offer him a bribe if he will sacrifice his scruples to his avarice.(561)
As the midsummer customs appear to flourish among all the Berbers of
Morocco but to be unknown among the pure Arabs who have not been affected
by Berber influence, it seems reasonable to infer with Dr. Westermarck
that the midsummer festival has belonged from time immemorial to the
Berber race, and that so far as it is now observed by the Arabs of
Morocco, it has been learned by them from the Berbers, the old indigenous
inhabitants of the country. Dr. Westermarck may also be right in holding
that, in spite of the close similarity which obtains between the midsummer
festival of Europe and the midsummer festival of North Africa, the latter
is not a copy of the former, but that both have been handed down
independently from a time beyond the purview of history, when such
ceremonies were common to the Mediterranean race.(562)

§ 5. The Autumn Fires.

(M184) In the months which elapse between midsummer and the setting in of
winter the European festivals of fire appear to be few and unimportant. On
the evening of the first day of August, which is the Festival of the
Cross, bonfires are commonly lit in Macedonia and boys jump over them,
shouting, “Dig up! bury!” but whom or what they wish to dig up or bury
they do not know.(563) The Russians hold the feast of two martyrs, Florus
and Laurus, on the eighteenth day of August, Old Style. “On this day the
Russians lead their horses round the church of their village, beside which
on the foregoing evening they dig a hole with two mouths. Each horse has a
bridle made of the bark of the linden-tree. The horses go through this
hole one after the other, opposite to one of the mouths of which the
priest stands with a sprinkler in his hand, with which he sprinkles them.
As soon as the horses have passed by their bridles are taken off, and they
are made to go between two fires that they kindle, called by the Russians
_Givoy Agon_, that is to say, living fires, of which I shall give an
account. I shall before remark, that the Russian peasantry throw the
bridles of their horses into one of these fires to be consumed. This is
the manner of their lighting these _givoy agon_, or living fires. Some men
hold the ends of a stick made of the plane-tree, very dry, and about a
fathom long. This stick they hold firmly over one of birch, perfectly dry,
and rub with violence and quickly against the former; the birch, which is
somewhat softer than the plane, in a short time inflames, and serves them
to light both the fires I have described.”(564)

(M185) The Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin on the eighth day of
September is celebrated at Naples and Capri with fireworks, bonfires, and
assassinations. On this subject my friend Professor A. E. Housman, who
witnessed the celebration in different years at both places, has kindly
furnished me with the following particulars: “In 1906 I was in the island
of Capri on September the eighth, the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin.
The anniversary was duly solemnised by fire-works at nine or ten in the
evening, which I suppose were municipal; but just after sundown the boys
outside the villages were making small fires of brushwood on waste bits of
ground by the wayside. Very pretty it looked, with the flames blowing
about in the twilight; but what took my attention was the listlessness of
the boys and their lack of interest in the proceeding. A single lad, the
youngest, would be raking the fire together and keeping it alight, but the
rest stood lounging about and looking in every other direction, with the
air of discharging mechanically a traditional office from which all zest
had evaporated.” “The pious orgy at Naples on September the eighth went
through the following phases when I witnessed it in 1897. It began at
eight in the evening with an illumination of the façade of Santa Maria
Piedigrotta and with the whole population walking about blowing penny
trumpets. After four hours of this I went to bed at midnight, and was
lulled to sleep by barrel-organs, which supersede the trumpets about that
hour. At four in the morning I was waked by detonations as if the British
fleet were bombarding the city, caused, I was afterwards told, by dynamite
rockets. The only step possible beyond this is assassination, which
accordingly takes place about peep of day: I forget now the number of the
slain, but I think the average is eight or ten, and I know that in honour
of my presence they murdered a few more than usual.”

(M186) It is no doubt possible that these illuminations and fire-works,
like the assassinations, are merely the natural and spontaneous
expressions of that overflowing joy with which the thought of the birth of
the Virgin must fill every pious heart; but when we remember how often the
Church has skilfully decanted the new wine of Christianity into the old
bottles of heathendom, we may be allowed to conjecture that the
ecclesiastical authorities adroitly timed the Nativity of the Virgin so as
to coincide with an old pagan festival of that day, in which fire, noise,
and uproar, if not broken heads and bloodshed, were conspicuous features.
The penny trumpets blown on this occasion recall the like melodious
instruments which figure so largely in the celebration of Befana (the Eve
of Epiphany) at Rome.(565)

§ 6. The Hallowe’en Fires.

(M187) 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.

(M188) 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,(566) 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.(567) 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.(568) 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.

(M189) 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;(569) it remains to give some account of the
corresponding festival of Hallowe’en, which announced the arrival of
winter.

(M190) 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_!”(570) One of
Sir John Rhys’s Manx informants, an old man of sixty-seven, “had been a
farm servant from the age of sixteen till he was twenty-six to the same
man, near Regaby, in the parish of Andreas, and he remembers his master
and a near neighbour of his discussing the term New Year’s Day as applied
to the first of November, and explaining to the younger men that it had
always been so in old times. In fact, it seemed to him natural enough, as
all tenure of land ends at that time, and as all servant men begin their
service then.”(571) In ancient Ireland, as we saw, 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.(572) 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, as we shall see presently, 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.(573) 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.(574) 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?

(M191) 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.(575) The fairies, too, are
all let loose, and hobgoblins of every sort roam freely about. In South
Uist and Eriskay there is a saying:—

“_Hallowe’en will come, will come,_
_Witchcraft [or divination] will be set agoing,_
_Fairies will be at full speed,_
_Running in every pass._
_Avoid the road, children, children._”(576)

In Cardiganshire on November Eve a bogie sits on every stile.(577) On that
night in Ireland all the fairy hills are thrown wide open and the fairies
swarm forth; any man who is bold enough may then peep into the open green
hills and see the treasures hidden in them. Worse than that, the cave of
Cruachan in Connaught, known as “the Hell-gate of Ireland,” is unbarred on
Samhain Eve or Hallowe’en, and a host of horrible fiends and goblins used
to rush forth, particularly a flock of copper-red birds, which blighted
crops and killed animals by their poisonous breath.(578) The Scotch
Highlanders have a special name _Samhanach_ (derived from _Samhain_,
“All-hallows”) for the dreadful bogies that go about that night stealing
babies and committing other atrocities.(579) And though the fairies are a
kindlier folk, it is dangerous to see even them at their revels on
Hallowe’en. A melancholy case of this sort is reported from the Ferintosh
district of the Highlands, though others say that it happened at the Slope
of Big Stones in Harris. Two young men were coming home after nightfall on
Hallowe’en, each with a jar of whisky on his back, when they saw, as they
thought, a house all lit up by the roadside, from which proceeded the
sounds of music and dancing. In reality it was not a house at all but a
fairy knoll, and it was the fairies who were jigging it about there so
merrily. But one of the young men was deceived and stepping into the house
joined in the dance, without even stopping to put down the jar of whisky.
His companion was wiser; he had a shrewd suspicion that the place was not
what it seemed, and on entering he took the precaution of sticking a
needle in the door. That disarmed the power of the fairies, and he got
away safely. Well, that day twelve months he came back to the spot and
what should he see but his poor friend still dancing away with the jar of
whisky on his back? A weary man was he, as you may well believe, but he
begged to be allowed to finish the reel which he was in the act of
executing, and when they took him out into the open air, there was nothing
of him left but skin and bones.(580) Again, the wicked fairies are apt to
carry off men’s wives with them to fairyland; but the lost spouses can be
recovered within a year and a day when the procession of the fairies is
defiling past on Hallowe’en, always provided that the mortals did not
partake of elfin food while they were in elfinland.(581)

(M192) Sometimes valuable information may be obtained from the fairies on
Hallowe’en. There was a young man named Guleesh in the County of Mayo.
Near his house was a _rath_ or old fort with a fine grass bank running
round it. One Hallowe’en, when the darkness was falling, Guleesh went to
the rath and stood on a gray old flag. The night was calm and still; there
was not a breath of wind stirring, nor a sound to be heard except the hum
of the insects flitting past, or the whistle of the plovers, or the hoarse
scream of the wild geese as they winged their way far overhead. Above the
white fog the moon rose like a knob of fire in the east, and a thousand
thousand stars were twinkling in the sky. There was a little frost in the
air, the grass was white and crisp and crackled under foot. Guleesh
expected to see the fairies, but they did not come. Hour after hour wore
away, and he was just bethinking him of going home to bed, when his ear
caught a sound far off coming towards him, and he knew what it was in a
moment. The sound grew louder and louder; at first it was like the beating
of waves on a stony shore, then it was like the roar of a waterfall, at
last it was like a mighty rushing wind in the tops of the trees, then the
storm burst upon the rath, and sure enough the fairies were in it. The
rout went by so suddenly that Guleesh lost his breath; but he came to
himself and listened. The fairies were now gathered within the grassy bank
of the rath, and a fine uproar they made. But Guleesh listened with all
his ears, and he heard one fairy saying to another that a magic herb grew
by Guleesh’s own door, and that Guleesh had nothing to do but pluck it and
boil it and give it to his sweetheart, the daughter of the King of France,
and she would be well, for just then she was lying very ill. Guleesh took
the hint, and everything went as the fairy had said. And he married the
daughter of the King of France; and they had never a cark nor a care, a
sickness nor a sorrow, a mishap nor a misfortune to the day of their
death.(582)

(M193) In all Celtic countries Hallowe’en seems to have been the great
season of the year for prying into the future; all kinds of divination
were put in practice that night. We read that Dathi, a king of Ireland in
the fifth century, happening to be at the Druids’ Hill (_Cnoc-nan-druad_)
in the county of Sligo one Hallowe’en, ordered his druid to forecast for
him the future from that day till the next Hallowe’en should come round.
The druid passed the night on the top of the hill, and next morning made a
prediction to the king which came true.(583) In Wales Hallowe’en was the
weirdest of all the _Teir Nos Ysbrydion_, or Three Spirit Nights, when the
wind, “blowing over the feet of the corpses,” bore sighs to the houses of
those who were to die within the year. People thought that if on that
night they went out to a cross-road and listened to the wind, they would
learn all the most important things that would befall them during the next
twelve months.(584) In Wales, too, not so long ago women used to
congregate in the parish churches on the night of Hallowe’en and read
their fate from the flame of the candle which each of them held in her
hand; also they heard the names or saw the coffins of the parishioners who
would die within the year, and many were the sad scenes to which these
gloomy visions gave rise.(585) And in the Highlands of Scotland anybody
who pleased could hear proclaimed aloud the names of parishioners doomed
to perish within the next twelve months, if he would only take a
three-legged stool and go and sit on it at three cross-roads, while the
church clock was striking twelve at midnight on Hallowe’en. It was even in
his power to save the destined victims from their doom by taking with him
articles of wearing apparel and throwing them away, one by one, as each
name was called out by the mysterious voice.(586)

(M194) But 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
prevailingly 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.”(587) Like the Beltane fires on the first of May, the Hallowe’en
bonfires seem to have been kindled most commonly in the Perthshire
Highlands. Travelling in the parish of Moulin, near Pitlochrie, in the
year 1772, the Englishman Thomas Pennant writes that “Hallow Eve is also
kept sacred: as soon as it is dark, a person sets fire to a bush of broom
fastened round a pole, and, attended with a crowd, runs about the village.
He then flings it down, heaps great quantity of combustible matters on it,
and makes a great bonfire. A whole tract is thus illuminated at the same
time, and makes a fine appearance.”(588) The custom has been described
more fully by a Scotchman of the eighteenth century, John Ramsay of
Ochtertyre. On the evening of Hallowe’en “the young people of every hamlet
assembled upon some eminence near the houses. There they made a bonfire of
ferns or other fuel, cut the same day, which from the feast was called
_Samh-nag_ or _Savnag_, a fire of rest and pleasure. Around it was placed
a circle of stones, one for each person of the families to whom they
belonged. And when it grew dark the bonfire was kindled, at which a loud
shout was set up. Then each person taking a torch of ferns or sticks in
his hand, ran round the fire exulting; and sometimes times they went into
the adjacent fields, where, if there was another company, they visited the
bonfire, taunting the others if inferior in any respect to themselves.
After the fire was burned out they returned home, where a feast was
prepared, and the remainder of the evening was spent in mirth and
diversions of various kinds. Next morning they repaired betimes to the
bonfire, where the situation of the stones was examined with much
attention. If any of them were misplaced, or if the print of a foot could
be discerned near any particular stone, it was imagined that the person
for whom it was set would not live out the year. Of late years this is
less attended to, but about the beginning of the present century it was
regarded as a sure prediction. The Hallowe’en fire is still kept up in
some parts of the Low country; but on the western coast and in the Isles
it is never kindled, though the night is spent in merriment and
entertainments.”(589) In the Perthshire parish of Callander, which
includes the now famous pass of the Trossachs opening out on the winding
and wooded shores of the lovely Loch Katrine, the Hallowe’en bonfires were
still kindled 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.(590) In the parish of Logierait,
which covers the beautiful valley of the Tummel, one of the fairest
regions of all Scotland, the Hallowe’en fire was somewhat different.
Faggots of heath, broom, and the dressings of flax were kindled and
carried on poles by men, who ran with them round the villages, attended by
a crowd. As soon as one faggot was burnt out, a fresh one was lighted and
fastened to the pole. Numbers of these blazing faggots were often carried
about together, and when the night happened to be dark, they formed a
splendid illumination.(591)

(M195) Nor did the Hallowe’en fires die out in Perthshire with the end of
the eighteenth century. Journeying from Dunkeld to Aberfeldy on Hallowe’en
in the first half of the nineteenth century, Sheriff Barclay counted
thirty fires blazing on the hill tops, and saw the figures of the people
dancing like phantoms round the flames.(592) Again, “in 1860, I was
residing near the head of Loch Tay during the season of the Hallowe’en
feast. For several days before Hallowe’en, boys and youths collected wood
and conveyed it to the most prominent places on the hill sides in their
neighbourhood. Some of the heaps were as large as a corn-stack or
hay-rick. After dark on Hallowe’en, these heaps were kindled, and for
several hours both sides of Loch Tay were illuminated as far as the eye
could see. I was told by old men that at the beginning of this century men
as well as boys took part in getting up the bonfires, and that, when the
fire was ablaze, all joined hands and danced round the fire, and made a
great noise; but that, as these gatherings generally ended in drunkenness
and rough and dangerous fun, the ministers set their faces against the
observance, and were seconded in their efforts by the more intelligent and
well-behaved in the community; and so the practice was discontinued by
adults and relegated to school boys.”(593) 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.(594)

(M196) 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.” In some villages the lads collected the peats in a
cart, some of them drawing it along and the others receiving the peats and
loading them on the cart. Along with the peats they accumulated straw,
furze, potato haulm, everything that would burn quickly, and when they had
got enough they piled it all in a heap and set it 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. Each one took a share in this part of the ceremony, giving a kick
first with the right foot and then with the left; and each vied with the
other who should scatter the most. After that some of them still continued
to run through the scattered ashes and to pelt each other with the
half-burned peats. At each farm a spot as high as possible, not too near
the steading, was chosen for the fire, and the proceedings were much the
same as at the village bonfire. The lads of one farm, when their own fire
was burned down and the ashes scattered, sometimes went to a neighbouring
fire and helped to kick the ashes about.(595) Referring to this part of
Scotland, a writer at the end of the eighteenth century observes that “the
Hallow-even fire, another relict of druidism, was kindled in Buchan.
Various magic ceremonies were then celebrated to counteract the influence
of witches and demons, and to prognosticate to the young their success or
disappointment in the matrimonial lottery. These being devoutly finished,
the hallow fire was kindled, and guarded by the male part of the family.
Societies were formed, either by pique or humour, to scatter certain
fires, and the attack and defence were often conducted with art and with
fury.”(596) Down to about the middle of the nineteenth century “the
Braemar Highlanders made the circuit of their fields with lighted torches
at Hallowe’en to ensure their fertility in the coming year. At that date
the custom was as follows: Every member of the family (in those days
households were larger than they are now) was provided with a bundle of
fir ‘can’les’ with which to go the round. The father and mother stood at
the hearth and lit the splints in the peat fire, which they passed to the
children and servants, who trooped out one after the other, and proceeded
to tread the bounds of their little property, going slowly round at equal
distances apart, and invariably with the sun. To go ‘withershins’ seems to
have been reserved for cursing and excommunication. When the fields had
thus been circumambulated the remaining spills were thrown together in a
heap and allowed to burn out.”(597)

(M197) In the Highlands of Scotland, as the evening of Hallowe’en wore on,
young people gathered in one of the houses and resorted to an almost
endless variety of games, or rather forms of divination, for the purpose
of ascertaining the future fate of each member of the company. Were they
to marry or remain single, was the marriage to take place that year or
never, who was to be married first, what sort of husband or wife she or he
was to get, the name, the trade, the colour of the hair, the amount of
property of the future spouse—these were questions that were eagerly
canvassed and the answers to them furnished never-failing
entertainment.(598) Nor were these modes of divination at Hallowe’en
confined to the Highlands, where the bonfires were kindled; they were
practised with equal faith and in practically the same forms in the
Lowlands, as we learn, for example, from Burns’s poem _Hallowe’en_, which
describes the auguries drawn from a variety of omens by the Ayrshire
peasantry. These Lowlanders of Saxon descent may well have inherited the
rites from the Celts who preceded them in the possession of the south
country. A common practice at Hallowe’en was to go out stealthily to a
neighbour’s kailyard and there, with shut eyes, to pull up the first kail
stock that came to hand. It was necessary that the plants should be stolen
without the knowledge or consent of their owner; otherwise they were quite
useless for the purpose of divination. Strictly speaking, too, the
neighbour upon whose garden the raid was made should be unmarried, whether
a bachelor or a spinster. The stolen kail was taken home and examined, and
according to its height, shape, and features would be the height, shape,
and features of the future husband or wife. The taste of the _custock_,
that is, the heart of the stem, was an infallible indication of his or her
temper; and a clod of earth adhering to the root signified, in proportion
to its size, the amount of property which he or she would bring to the
common stock. Then the kail-stock or _runt_, as it was called in Ayrshire,
was placed over the lintel of the door; and the baptismal name of the
young man or woman who first entered the door after the kail was in
position would be the baptismal name of the husband or wife.(599) Again,
young women sowed hemp seed over nine ridges of ploughed land, saying, “I
sow hemp seed, and he who is to be my husband, let him come and harrow
it.” On looking back over her left shoulder the girl would see the figure
of her future mate behind her in the darkness. In the north-east of
Scotland lint seed was used instead of hemp seed and answered the purpose
quite as well.(600) Again, a mode of ascertaining your future husband or
wife was this. Take a clue of blue yarn and go to a lime-kiln. Throw the
clue into the kiln, but keep one end of the thread in your hand and wind
it on to another clue. As you come near the end somebody or something will
hold the other end tight in the kiln. Then you call out, “Who holds?”
giving the thread at the same time a gentle pull. Some one or something
will thereupon pull the other end of the thread, and a voice will mention
the name of your future husband or wife.(601) Another way is this. Go to
the barn alone and secretly. Be sure to open both doors and if possible
take them off their hinges; for if the being who is about to appear should
catch you in the barn and clap the doors to on you, he or she might do you
a mischief. Having done this, take the sieve or winnowing-basket, which in
Lowland Scotch is called a _wecht_ or _waicht_, and go through the action
of winnowing corn. Repeat it thrice, and at the third time the apparition
of your future husband or wife will pass through the barn, entering at the
windy door and passing out at the other.(602) Or this. Go to a southward
running stream, where the lands of three lairds meet, or to a ford where
the dead and living have crossed. Dip the left sleeve of your shirt in the
water. Then go home, take off the shirt, hang it up before a fire to dry,
and go to bed, taking care that the bed stands so that you can see your
shirt hanging before the fire. Keep awake, and at midnight you will see
the form of your future spouse come into the room and turn the other side
of the sleeve to the fire to dry it.(603) A Highland form of divination at
Hallowe’en is to take a shoe by the tip and throw it over the house, then
observe the direction in which the toe points as it lies on the ground on
the other side; for in that direction you are destined to go before long.
If the shoe should fall sole uppermost, it is very unlucky for you.(604)

(M198) These ways of prying into the future are practised outside of the
house; others are observed in the kitchen or the parlour before the
cheerful blaze of the fire. Thus the white of eggs, dropped in a glass of
pure water, indicates by certain marks how many children a person will
have. The impatience and clamour of the children, eager to ascertain the
exact number of their future progeny, often induced the housewife to
perform this ceremony for them by daylight; and the kindly mother,
standing with her face to the window, dropping the white of an egg into a
crystal glass of clean water, and surrounded by a group of children
intently watching her proceedings, made up a pretty picture.(605) When the
fun of the evening had fairly commenced, the names of eligible or likely
matches were written on the chimney-piece, and the young man who wished to
try his fortune was led up blindfolded to the list. Whatever name he put
his finger on would prove that of his future wife.(606) Again, two nuts,
representing a lad and a lass whose names were announced to the company,
were put side by side in the fire. If they burned quietly together, the
pair would be man and wife, and from the length of time they burned and
the brightness of the flame the length and happiness of the married life
of the two were augured. But if instead of burning together one of the
nuts leaped away from the other, then there would be no marriage, and the
blame would rest with the person whose nut had thus started away by
itself.(607) Again, a dish of milk and meal (in Gaelic _fuarag_, in
Lowland Scotch _crowdie_) or of beat potatoes was made and a ring was
hidden in it. Spoons were served out to the company, who supped the
contents of the dish hastily with them, and the one who got the ring would
be the first to be married.(608) Again, apples and a silver sixpence were
put in a tub of water; the apples naturally floated on the top and the
sixpence sank to the bottom. Whoever could lift an apple or the sixpence
from the water with his mouth, without using his teeth, was counted very
lucky and got the prize to himself.(609) Again, three plates or basins
were placed on the hearth. One was filled with clean water, another with
dirty water, and the third was empty. The enquirer was blindfolded, knelt
in front of the hearth, and groped about till he put his finger in one of
them. If he lighted on the plate with the clean water, he would wed a
maid; if on the plate with the dirty water, he would marry a widow; and if
on the empty plate, he would remain a bachelor. For a girl the answer of
the oracle was analogous; she would marry a bachelor, a widower, or nobody
according to the plate into which she chanced to dip her finger. But to
make sure, the operation had to be repeated thrice, the position of the
plates being changed each time. If the enquirer put his or her finger into
the same plate thrice or even twice, it was quite conclusive.(610)

(M199) These forms of divination in the house were practised by the
company in a body; but the following had to be performed by the person
alone. You took an apple and stood with it in your hand in front of a
looking-glass. Then you sliced the apple, stuck each slice on the point of
the knife, and held it over your left shoulder, while you looked into the
glass and combed your hair. The spectre of your future husband would then
appear in the mirror stretching forth his hand to take the slices of the
apple over your shoulder. Some say that the number of slices should be
nine, that you should eat the first eight yourself, and only throw the
ninth over your left shoulder for your husband; also that at each slice
you should say, “In the name of the Father and the Son.”(611) Again, take
an egg, prick it with a pin, and let the white drop into a wine-glass
nearly full of water. Take some of this in your mouth and go out for a
walk. The first name you hear called out aloud will be that of your future
husband or wife. An old woman told a lady that she had tried this mode of
divination in her youth, that the name of Archibald “came up as it were
from the very ground,” and that Archibald sure enough was the name of her
husband.(612) In South Uist and Eriskay, two of the outer Hebrides, a salt
cake called _Bonnach Salainn_ is eaten at Hallowe’en to induce dreams that
will reveal the future. It is baked of common meal with a great deal of
salt. After eating it you may not drink water nor utter a word, not even
to say your prayers. A salt herring, eaten bones and all in three bites,
is equally efficacious, always provided that you drink no water and hold
your tongue.(613)

(M200) 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 everyone 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.(614) A writer on Wales at the beginning of the nineteenth
century says that “the autumnal fire is still kindled in North Wales,
being on the eve of the first day of November, and is attended by many
ceremonies; such as running through the fire and smoke, each casting a
stone into the fire, and all running off at the conclusion to escape from
the black short-tailed sow; then supping upon parsnips, nuts, and apples;
catching up an apple suspended by a string with the mouth alone, and the
same by an apple in a tub of water: each throwing a nut into the fire; and
those that burn bright, betoken prosperity to the owners through the
following year, but those that burn black and crackle, denote misfortune.
On the following morning the stones are searched for in the fire, and if
any be missing, they betide ill to those who threw them in.”(615)
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.(616) We can now understand why in Lower Brittany every person
throws a pebble into the midsummer bonfire.(617) Doubtless there, as in
Wales and the Highlands of Scotland,(618) 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.

(M201) In Wales, as in Scotland, Hallowe’en was also the great season for
forecasting the future in respect of love and marriage, and some of the
forms of divination employed for this purpose resembled those which were
in use among the Scotch peasantry. Two girls, for example, would make a
little ladder of yarn, without breaking it from the ball, and having done
so they would throw it out of the window. Then one of the girls, holding
the ball in her hand, would wind the yarn back, repeating a rhyme in
Welsh. This she did thrice, and as she wound the yarn she would see her
future husband climbing up the little ladder. Again, three bowls or basins
were placed on a table. One of them contained clean water, one dirty
water, and one was empty. The girls of the household, and sometimes the
boys too, then eagerly tried their fortunes. They were blindfolded, led up
to the table, and dipped their hands into a bowl. If they happened to dip
into the clean water, they would marry maidens or bachelors; if into the
dirty water, they would be widowers or widows; if into the empty bowl,
they would live unmarried. Again, if a girl, walking backwards, would
place a knife among the leeks on Hallowe’en, she would see her future
husband come and pick up the knife and throw it into the middle of the
garden.(619)

(M202) In Ireland the Hallowe’en bonfires would seem to have died out, but
the Hallowe’en divination has survived. Writing towards the end of the
eighteenth century, General Vallancey tells us that on Hallowe’en or the
vigil of Saman, as he calls it, “the peasants in Ireland assemble with
sticks and clubs (the emblems of laceration) going from house to house,
collecting money, bread-cake, butter, cheese, eggs, etc., etc., for the
feast, repeating verses in honour of the solemnity, demanding preparations
for the festival, in the name of St. Columb Kill, desiring them to lay
aside the fatted calf, and to bring forth the black sheep. The good women
are employed in making the griddle cake and candles; these last are sent
from house to house in the vicinity, and are lighted up on the (Saman)
next day, before which they pray, or are supposed to pray, for the
departed souls of the donor. Every house abounds in the best viands they
can afford: apples and nuts are devoured in abundance: the nut-shells are
burnt, and from the ashes many strange things are foretold: cabbages are
torn up by the root: hemp seed is sown by the maidens, and they believe,
that if they look back, they will see the apparition of the man intended
for their future spouse: they hang a smock before the fire, on the close
of the feast, and sit up all night, concealed in a corner of the room,
convinced that his apparition will come down the chimney and turn the
smock: they throw a ball of yarn out of the window, and wind it on the
reel within, convinced, that if they repeat the _Pater Noster_ backwards,
and look at the ball of yarn without, they will then also see his _sith_
or apparition: they dip for apples in a tub of water, and endeavour to
bring one up in the mouth: they suspend a cord with a cross-stick, with
apples at one point, and candles lighted at the other, and endeavour to
catch the apple, while it is in a circular motion, in the mouth. These,
and many other superstitious ceremonies, the remains of Druidism, are
observed on this holiday, which will never be eradicated, while the name
of _Saman_ is permitted to remain.”(620)

(M203) In Queen’s County, Ireland, down to the latter part of the
nineteenth century children practised various of these rites of divination
on Hallowe’en. Girls went out into the garden blindfold and pulled up
cabbages: if the cabbage was well grown, the girl would have a handsome
husband, but if it had a crooked stalk, the future spouse would be a
stingy old man. Nuts, again, were placed in pairs on the bar of the fire,
and from their behaviour omens were drawn of the fate in love and marriage
of the couple whom they represented. Lead, also, was melted and allowed to
drop into a tub of cold water, and from the shapes which it assumed in the
water predictions were made to the children of their future destiny.
Again, apples were bobbed for in a tub of water and brought up with the
teeth; or a stick was hung from a hook with an apple at one end and a
candle at the other, and the stick being made to revolve you made a bite
at the apple and sometimes got a mouthful of candle instead.(621) In
County Leitrim, also, down to near the end of the nineteenth century
various forms of divination were practised at Hallowe’en. Girls
ascertained the character of their future husbands by the help of cabbages
just as in Queen’s County. Again, if a girl found a branch of a
briar-thorn which had bent over and grown into the ground so as to form a
loop, she would creep through the loop thrice late in the evening in the
devil’s name, then cut the briar and put it under her pillow, all without
speaking a word. Then she would lay her head on the pillow and dream of
the man she was to marry. Boys, also, would dream in like manner of love
and marriage at Hallowe’en, if only they would gather ten leaves of ivy
without speaking, throw away one, and put the other nine under their
pillow. Again, divination was practised by means of a cake called
_barm-breac_, in which a nut and a ring were baked. Whoever got the ring
would be married first; whoever got the nut would marry a widow or a
widower; but if the nut were an empty shell, he or she would remain unwed.
Again, a girl would take a clue of worsted, go to a lime kiln in the
gloaming, and throw the clew into the kiln in the devil’s name, while she
held fast the other end of the thread. Then she would rewind the thread
and ask, “Who holds my clue?” and the name of her future husband would
come up from the depth of the kiln. Another way was to take a rake, go to
a rick and walk round it nine times, saying, “I rake this rick in the
devil’s name.” At the ninth time the wraith of your destined partner for
life would come and take the rake out of your hand. Once more, before the
company separated for the night, they would rake the ashes smooth on the
hearth, and search them next morning for tracks, from which they judged
whether anybody should come to the house, or leave it, or die in it before
another year was out.(622) In County Roscommon, which borders on County
Leitrim, a cake is made in nearly every house on Hallowe’en, and a ring, a
coin, a sloe, and a chip of wood are put into it. Whoever gets the coin
will be rich; whoever gets the ring will be married first; whoever gets
the chip of wood, which stands for a coffin, will die first; and whoever
gets the sloe will live longest, because the fairies blight the sloes in
the hedges on Hallowe’en, so that the sloe in the cake will be the last of
the year. Again, on the same mystic evening girls take nine grains of oats
in their mouths, and going out without speaking walk about till they hear
a man’s name pronounced; it will be the name of their future husband. In
County Roscommon, too, on Hallowe’en there is the usual dipping in water
for apples or sixpences, and the usual bites at a revolving apple and
tallow candle.(623)

(M204) 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. Bands of young men perambulated the island by night,
and at the door of every dwelling-house they struck up a Manx rhyme,
beginning

“_Noght oie howney hop-dy-naw,_”

that is to say, “This is Hollantide Eve.” For Hollantide is the Manx way
of expressing the old English _All hallowen tide_, that is, All Saints’
Day, the first of November. But as the people reckon this festival
according to the Old Style, Hollantide in the Isle of Man is our twelfth
of November. The native Manx name for the day is _Sauin_ or _Laa Houney_.
Potatoes, parsnips and fish, pounded up together and mixed with butter,
formed the proper evening meal (_mrastyr_) on Hallowe’en in the Isle of
Man.(624) Here, too, as in Scotland forms of divination are practised by
some people on this important evening. For example, the housewife fills a
thimble full of salt for each member of the family and each guest; the
contents of the thimblefuls are emptied out in as many neat little piles
on a plate, and left there over night. Next morning the piles are
examined, and if any of them has fallen down, he or she whom it represents
will die within the year. Again, the women carefully sweep out the ashes
from under the fireplace and flatten them down neatly on the open hearth.
If they find next morning a footprint turned towards the door, it
signifies a death in the family within the year; but if the footprint is
turned in the opposite direction, it bodes a marriage. Again, divination
by eavesdropping is practised in the Isle of Man in much the same way as
in Scotland. You go out with your mouth full of water and your hands full
of salt and listen at a neighbour’s door, and the first name you hear will
be the name of your husband. Again, Manx maids bandage their eyes and
grope about the room till they dip their hands in vessels full of clean or
dirty water, and so on; and from the thing they touch they draw
corresponding omens. But some people in the Isle of Man observe these
auguries, not on Hallowe’en or Hollantide Eve, as they call it, which was
the old Manx New Year’s Eve, but on the modern New Year’s Eve, that is, on
the thirty-first of December. The change no doubt marks a transition from
the ancient to the modern mode of dating the beginning of the year.(625)

(M205) In Lancashire, also, some traces of the old Celtic celebration of
Hallowe’en have been reported in modern times. It is said that “fires are
still lighted in Lancashire, on Hallowe’en, under the name of Beltains or
Teanlas; and even such cakes as the Jews are said to have made in honour
of the Queen of Heaven, are yet to be found at this season amongst the
inhabitants of the banks of the Ribble.... Both the fires and the cakes,
however, are now connected with superstitious notions respecting
Purgatory, etc.”(626) On Hallowe’en, too, the Lancashire maiden “strews
the ashes which are to take the form of one or more letters of her lover’s
name; she throws hemp-seed over her shoulder and timidly glances to see
who follows her.”(627) Again, witches in Lancashire used to gather on
Hallowe’en at the Malkin Tower, a ruined and desolate farm-house in the
forest of Pendle. They assembled for no good purpose; but you could keep
the infernal rout at bay by carrying a lighted candle about the fells from
eleven to twelve o’clock at night. The witches tried to blow out the
candle, and if they succeeded, so much the worse for you; but if the flame
burned steadily till the clocks had struck midnight, you were safe. Some
people performed the ceremony by deputy; and parties went about from house
to house in the evening collecting candles, one for each inmate, and
offering their services to _late_ or _leet_ the witches, as the phrase
ran. This custom was practised at Longridge Fell in the early part of the
nineteenth century.(628) In Northumberland on Hallowe’en omens of marriage
were drawn from nuts thrown into the fire; and the sports of ducking for
apples and biting at a revolving apple and lighted candle were also
practised on that evening.(629) The equivalent of the Hallowe’en bonfires
is reported also from France. We are told that in the department of
Deux-Sèvres, which forms part of the old province of Poitou, young people
used to assemble in the fields on All Saints’ Day (the first of November)
and kindle great fires of ferns, thorns, leaves, and stubble, at which
they roasted chestnuts. They also danced round the fires and indulged in
noisy pastimes.(630)

§ 7. The Midwinter Fires.

(M206) 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 turning-points 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. In this
way the savage philosopher, to whose meditations on the nature of things
we owe many ancient customs and ceremonies, might easily imagine that he
helped the labouring sun to relight his dying lamp, or at all events to
blow up the flame into a brighter blaze. Certain it is that the winter
solstice, which the ancients erroneously assigned to the twenty-fifth of
December, was celebrated in antiquity as the Birthday of the Sun, and that
festal lights or fires were kindled on this joyful occasion. Our Christmas
festival is nothing but a continuation under a Christian name of this old
solar festivity; for the ecclesiastical authorities saw fit, about the end
of the third or the beginning of the fourth century, arbitrarily to
transfer the nativity of Christ from the sixth of January to the
twenty-fifth of December, for the purpose of diverting to their Lord the
worship which the heathen had hitherto paid on that day to the sun.(631)

(M207) 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.(632) 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;(633) 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.

(M208) Among the Germans the custom of the Yule log is known to have been
observed in the eleventh century; for in the year 1184 the parish priest
of Ahlen, in Münsterland, spoke of “bringing a tree to kindle the festal
fire at the Lord’s Nativity.”(634) Down to about the middle of the
nineteenth century the old rite was kept up in some parts of central
Germany, as we learn from an account of it given by a contemporary writer.
After mentioning the custom of feeding the cattle and shaking the
fruit-trees on Christmas night, to make them bear fruit, he goes on as
follows: “Other customs pointing back to the far-off times of heathendom
may still be met with among the old-fashioned peasants of the mountain
regions. Such is in the valleys of the Sieg and Lahn the practice of
laying a new log as a foundation of the hearth. A heavy block of oak-wood,
generally a stump grubbed up from the ground, is fitted either into the
floor of the hearth, or into a niche made for the purpose in the wall
under the hook on which the kettle hangs. When the fire on the hearth
glows, this block of wood glows too, but it is so placed that it is hardly
reduced to ashes within a year. When the new foundation is laid, the
remains of the old block are carefully taken out, ground to powder, and
strewed over the fields during the Twelve Nights. This, so people fancied,
promotes the fruitfulness of the year’s crops.”(635) In some parts of the
Eifel Mountains, to the west of Coblentz, a log of wood called the
_Christbrand_ used to be placed on the hearth on Christmas Eve; and the
charred remains of it on Twelfth Night were put in the corn-bin to keep
the mice from devouring the corn.(636) At Weidenhausen and Girkshausen, in
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 thunder-storm broke, because the people
believed that lightning would not strike a house in which the Yule log was
smouldering.(637) In some villages near Berleburg in Westphalia the old
custom was to tie up the Yule log in the last sheaf cut at harvest.(638)
On Christmas Eve the peasantry of the Oberland, in Meiningen, a province
of Central Germany, used to put a great block of wood called the
_Christklotz_ on the fire before they went to bed; it should burn all
night, and the charred remains were believed to guard the house for the
whole year against the risk of fire, burglary, and other misfortunes.(639)
The Yule log seems to be known only in the French-speaking parts of
Switzerland, where it goes by the usual French name of _Bûche de Noël_. In
the Jura mountains of the canton of Bern, while the log is burning on the
hearth the people sing a blessing over it as follows:—

“_May the log burn!_
_May all good come in!_
_May the women have children_
_And the sheep lambs!_
_White bread for every one_
_And the vat full of wine!_”

The embers of the Yule log were kept carefully, for they were believed to
be a protection against lightning.(640)

(M209) “The Christmas fires, which were formerly lit everywhere in the Low
Countries, have fallen into disuse. But in Flanders a great log of wood,
called the _kersavondblok_ and usually cut from the roots of a fir or a
beech, is still put on the fire; all the lights in the house are
extinguished, and the whole family gathers round the log to spend part of
the night in singing, in telling stories, especially about ghosts,
were-wolves, and so on, and also in drinking gin. At Grammont and in the
neighbourhood of that town, where the Yule log is called _Kersmismot_, it
is customary to set fire to the remainder of the gin at the moment when
the log is reduced to ashes. Elsewhere a piece of the log is kept and put
under the bed to protect the house against thunder and lightning. The
charcoal of the log which burned during Christmas Night, if pounded up and
mixed with water, is a cure for consumption. In the country of Limburg the
log burns several nights, and the pounded charcoal is kept as a preventive
(so they say), of toothache.”(641)

(M210) 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 tells us that on
Christmas Eve the log was prepared, and when the whole family had
assembled in the kitchen or parlour of the house, they went and brought it
in, walking in procession and singing Provençal verses to the following
effect:—

“_Let the log rejoice,_
_To-morrow is the day of bread;_
_Let all good enter here;_
_Let the women bear children;_
_Let the she-goats bring forth kids;_
_Let the ewes drop lambs;_
_Let there be much wheat and flour,_
_And the vat full of wine._”

Then the log was blessed by the smallest and youngest child of the house,
who poured a glass of wine over it saying, _In nomine patris_, etc.; after
which the log was set on the fire. The charcoal of the burnt wood was kept
the whole year, and used as an ingredient in several remedies.(642)

(M211) Amongst the superstitions denounced by the same writer is “the
belief that a log called the _trefoir_ 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.”(643)

(M212) In Marseilles the Yule log used to be a great block of oak, which
went by the name of _calendeau_ or _calignau_; it was sprinkled with wine
and oil, and the head of the house kindled it himself.(644) “The Yule log
plays a great part at the festival of the winter solstice in Perigord. The
countryman thinks that it is best made of plum-tree, cherry, or oak, and
that the larger it is the better. If it burns well, it is a good omen, the
blessing of heaven rests upon it. The charcoal and ashes, which are
collected very carefully, are excellent 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 (_técoin ou cale_) 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.
Nevertheless if you sit down on the log, you become subject to boils, and
to cure yourself of them you must pass nine times under a bramble branch
which happens to be rooted in the ground at both ends. The charcoal heals
sheep of a disease called the _goumon_; and the ashes, carefully wrapt up
in white linen, preserve the whole household from accidents. Some people
think 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 Vienne, on Christmas
Eve, when supper is over, the master of the house has a great log—the
Christmas brand—brought in, and then, surrounded by all the spectators
gathered in profound silence, he sprinkles salt and water on the log. It
is then put on the fire to burn during the three festivals; but they
carefully preserve a piece to be kindled every time that it
thunders.”(645) In Berry, a district of Central France, the Yule log was
called the _cosse de Nau_, the last word being an abbreviation of the
usual French word for Christmas (Noël). It consisted of an enormous
tree-trunk, so heavy that the united strength of several men was needed to
carry it in and place it on the hearth, where it served to feed the fire
during the three days of the Christmas festivity. Strictly speaking, it
should be the trunk of an old oak-tree which had never been lopped and had
been felled at midnight. It was placed on the hearth at the moment when
the tinkle of the bell announced the elevation of the host at the midnight
mass; and the head of the family, after sprinkling it with holy water, set
it on fire. The remains of the log were preserved till the same day next
year. They were kept under the bed of the master of the house; and
whenever thunder was heard, one of the family would take a piece of the
log and throw it on the fire, which was believed to guard the family
against lightning. In the Middle Ages, we are told, several fiefs were
granted on condition that the vassal should bring in person a Yule log
every year for the hearth of his liege lord.(646)

(M213) Similar customs and beliefs survived till recent years in some of
the remote country villages of the picturesque district known as the
Bocage of Normandy. There it was the grandfather or other oldest man of
the family who chose the Yule log in good time and had it ready for
Christmas Eve. Then he placed it on the hearth at the moment when the
church bell began to ring for the evening service. Kneeling reverently at
the hearth with the members of his family in a like attitude of devotion,
the old man recited three _Pater Nosters_ and three _Aves_, and invoked
the blessing of heaven on the log and on the cottage. Then at the sound of
the bell which proclaimed the sacrament of the mass, or, if the church was
too far off to allow the tinkle of the bell to be heard, at the moment
when they judged that the priest was elevating the host before the high
altar, the patriarch sprinkled the burning log with holy water, blessed it
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and drew
it out of the fire. The charred log was then carefully kept till the
following Christmas as a precious relic which would guard the house
against the levin bolt, evil spirits, sorcerers, and every misfortune that
might befall in the course of the year.(647) In the department of Orne
“the Yule-log is called _trefouet_; holy water is poured on it; it should
last the three days of the festival, and the remains of it are kept to be
put on the fire when it thunders. This brand is a protection both against
thunder and against sorcerers.”(648) In Upper Brittany, also, the Yule log
is thought to be a safeguard against thunder and lightning. It is
sprinkled with holy water on Christmas morning and allowed to burn till
evening. If a piece of it is thrown into the well, it will ensure a supply
of good water.(649)

(M214)

“In almost all the families of the Ardennes,” we are told, “at the present
day they never fail to put the Yule log on the fireplace, but formerly it
was the object of a superstitious worship which is now obsolete. The
charred remains of it, placed under the pillow or under the house,
preserved the house from storms, and before it was burned the Virgin used
to come and sit on it, invisible, swaddling the infant Jesus. At Nouzon,
twenty years ago, the traditional log was brought into the kitchen on
Christmas Eve, and the grandmother, with a sprig of box in her hand,
sprinkled the log with holy water as soon as the clock struck the first
stroke of midnight. As she did so she chanted,

‘_When Christmas comes,_
_Every one should rejoice,_
_For it is a New Covenant._’

Following the grandmother and joining in the song, the children and the
rest of the family marched thrice round the log, which was as fine a log
as could be got.”(650) We can now, perhaps, understand why in Perigord
people who sat on the Yule log suffered from boils,(651) and why in
Lorraine young folks used to be warned that if they sat on it they would
have the scab.(652) The reason probably was that the Virgin and child were
supposed to be seated, invisible, upon the log and to resent the indignity
of contact with mortal children.

(M215) On Christmas Eve the mountaineers of Rupt, in the Vosges, also
never fail to put on the hearth the largest log which the hearth can hold;
they call it _la galeuche de Noë_, that is, the Yule log. Next morning
they rake the ashes for any charred fragments and keep them as valuable
talismans to guard them against the stroke of lightning. At Vagney and
other places near it in the Vosges it used to be customary on the same
evening to grease the hinges and the latches of the doors, that no harsh
grating sound should break the slumbers of the infant Christ. In the
Vosges Mountains, too, as indeed in many other places, cattle acquired the
gift of speech on Christmas Eve and conversed with each other in the
language of Christians. Their conversation was, indeed, most instructive;
for the future, it seems, had no secret worth mentioning for them. Yet few
people cared to be caught eavesdropping at the byre; wise folk contented
themselves with setting a good store of fodder in the manger, then shut
the door, and left the animals to their ruminations. A farmer of Vecoux
once hid in a corner of the byre to overhear the edifying talk of the
beasts. But it did him little good; for one ox said to another ox, “What
shall we do to-morrow?” and the other replied, “We shall carry our master
to the churchyard.” Sure enough the farmer died that very night and was
buried next morning.(653) In Franche-Comté, the province of France to the
west of the Jura mountains, if the Yule log is really to protect a house
against thunder and lightning, it is essential that it should burn during
the midnight mass, and that the flame should not go out before the divine
service is concluded. Otherwise the log is quite useless for the
purpose.(654) In Burgundy the log which is placed on the fire on Christmas
Eve is called the _suche_. While it is burning, the father of the family,
assisted by his wife and children, sings Christmas carols; and when he has
finished, he tells the smallest children to go into a corner of the room
and pray God that the log may give them sweeties. The prayer is invariably
answered.(655)

(M216) In England the customs and beliefs concerning the Yule log, clog,
or block, as it was variously called, 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. This custom
is, in some measure, still kept up in the North of England. In the buttery
of St. John’s College, Oxford, an ancient candle-socket of stone still
remains ornamented with the figure of the Holy Lamb. It was formerly used
to burn the Christmas Candle in, on the high table at supper, during the
twelve nights of that festival.”(656) “A tall mould candle, called a Yule
candle, is lighted and set on the table; these candles are presented by
the chandlers and grocers to their customers. The Yule-log is bought of
the carpenters’ lads. It would be unlucky to light either of them before
the time, or to stir the fire or candle during the supper; the candle must
not be snuffed, neither must any one stir from the table till supper is
ended. In these suppers it is considered unlucky to have an odd number at
table. A fragment of the log is occasionally saved, and put under a bed,
to remain till next Christmas: it secures the house from fire; a small
piece of it thrown into a fire occurring at the house of a neighbour, will
quell the raging flame. A piece of the candle should likewise be kept to
ensure good luck.”(657) In the seventeenth century, as we learn from some
verses of Herrick, the English 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.(658)
Indeed the practice of preserving a piece of the Yule-log of one year to
light that of the next was observed by at least one family at Cheadle in
Staffordshire down to the latter part of the nineteenth century.(659)

(M217) In the North of England farm-servants used to lay by a large knotty
block of wood for the Christmas fire, and so long as the block lasted they
were entitled by custom to ale at their meals. The log was as large as the
hearth could hold.(660) At Belford, in Northumberland, “the lord of the
manor sends round to every house, on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, the
Yule Logs—four or five large logs—to be burnt on Christmas Eve and Day.
This old custom has always, I am told, been kept up here.”(661) The custom
of burning the Yule log at Christmas used to be observed in Wensleydale
and other parts of Yorkshire, and prudent housewives carefully preserved
pieces of the log throughout the year. At Whitby the portions so kept were
stowed away under the bed till next Christmas, when they were burnt with
the new log; in the interval they were believed to protect the house from
conflagration, and if one of them were thrown into the fire, it would
quell a raging storm.(662) The practice and the belief were similar at
Filey on the coast of Yorkshire, where besides the Yule log a tall Yule
candle was lit on the same evening.(663) In the West Riding, while the log
blazed cheerfully, the people quaffed their ale and sang, “Yule! Yule! a
pack of new cards and a Christmas stool!”(664) At Clee, in Lincolnshire,
“when Christmas Eve has come the Yule cake is duly cut and the Yule log
lit, and I know of some even middle-class houses where the new log must
always rest upon and be lighted by the old one, a small portion of which
has been carefully stored away to preserve a continuity of light and
heat.”(665) At the village of Wootton Wawen in Warwickshire, down to 1759
at least, the Yule-block, as it was called, was drawn into the house by a
horse on Christmas Eve “as a foundation for the fire on Christmas Day, and
according to the superstition of those times for the twelve days
following, as the said block was not to be entirely reduc’d to ashes till
that time had passed by.”(666) As late as 1830, or thereabout, the scene
of lighting the hearth-fire on Christmas Eve, to continue burning
throughout the Christmas season, might have been witnessed in the secluded
and beautiful hill-country of West Shropshire, from Chirbury and Worthen
to Pulverbatch and Pontesbury. The Christmas brand or brund, as they
called it, was a great trunk of seasoned oak, holly, yew, or crab-tree,
drawn by horses to the farm-house door and thence rolled by means of
rollers and levers to the back of the wide open hearth, where the fire was
made up in front of it. The embers were raked up to it every night, and it
was carefully tended, that it might not go out during the whole Christmas
season. All those days no light might be struck, given, or borrowed. Such
was the custom at Worthen in the early part of the nineteenth
century.(667) In Herefordshire the Christmas feast “lasted for twelve
days, and no work was done. All houses were, and are now, decorated with
sprigs of holly and ivy, which must not be brought in until Christmas Eve.
A Yule log, as large as the open hearth could accommodate, was brought
into the kitchen of each farmhouse, and smaller ones were used in the
cottages. W—— P—— said he had seen a tree drawn into the kitchen at
Kingstone Grange years ago by two cart horses; when it had been consumed a
small portion was carefully kept to be used for lighting next year’s log.
‘Mother always kept it very carefully; she said it was lucky, and kept the
house from fire and from lightning.’ It seems to have been the general
practice to light it on Christmas Eve.”(668) “In many parts of Wales it is
still customary to keep part of the Yule-log until the following Christmas
Eve ‘for luck.’ It is then put into the fireplace and burnt, but before it
is consumed the new log is put on, and thus ‘the old fire and the new’
burn together. In some families this is done from force of habit, and they
cannot now tell why they do it; but in the past the observance of this
custom was to keep witches away, and doubtless was a survival of
fire-worship.”(669)

(M218) But nowhere, apparently, in Europe is the old heathen ritual of the
Yule log preserved to the present day more perfectly than in Servia. At
early dawn on Christmas Eve (_Badnyi Dan_) every peasant house sends two
of its strongest young men to the nearest forest to cut down a young oak
tree and bring it home. There, after offering up a short prayer or
crossing themselves thrice, they throw a handful of wheat on the chosen
oak and greet it with the words, “Happy _Badnyi_ day to you!” Then they
cut it down, taking care that it shall fall towards the east at the moment
when the sun’s orb appears over the rim of the eastern horizon. Should the
tree fall towards the west, it would be the worst possible omen for the
house and its inmates in the ensuing year; and it is also an evil omen if
the tree should be caught and stopped in its fall by another tree. It is
important to keep and carry home the first chip from the fallen oak. The
trunk is sawn into two or three logs, one of them rather longer than the
others. A flat, unleavened cake of the purest wheaten flour is brought out
of the house and broken on the larger of the logs by a woman. The logs are
left for the present to stand outside, leaning on one of the walls of the
house. Each of them is called a Yule log (_badnyak_).

(M219) Meanwhile the children and young people go from house to house
singing special songs called _Colleda_ because of an old pagan divinity
Colleda, who is invoked in every line. In one of them she is spoken of as
“a beautiful little maid”; in another she is implored to make the cows
yield milk abundantly. The day is spent in busy preparations. The women
bake little cakes of a special sort in the shape of lambs, pigs, and
chickens; the men make ready a pig for roasting, for in every Servian
house roast pig is the principal dish at Christmas. A bundle of straw,
tied with a rope, is brought into the courtyard and left to stand there
near the Yule logs.

(M220) At the moment when the sun is setting all the members of the family
assemble in the central hall (the great family kitchen) of the principal
house. The mother of the family (or the wife of the chief of the
Zadrooga)(670) gives a pair of woollen gloves to one of the young men, who
goes out and presently returns carrying in his gloved hands the largest of
the logs. The mother receives him at the threshold, throwing at him a
handful of wheat, in which the first chip of the oak tree cut in the early
morning for the Yule log has been kept all day. Entering the central hall
with the Yule log the young man greets all present with the words: “Good
evening, and may you have a happy Christmas!” and they all answer in
chorus, “May God and the happy and holy Christmas help thee!” In some
parts of Servia the chief of the family, holding a glass of red wine in
his hand, greets the Yule log as if it were a living person, and drinks to
its health. After that, another glass of red wine is poured on the log.
Then the oldest male member of the family, assisted by the young man who
brought in the log, places it on the burning fire so that the thicker end
of the log protrudes for about a foot from the hearth. In some places this
end is smeared with honey.

(M221) Next the mother of the family brings in the bundle of straw which
was left standing outside. All the young children arrange themselves
behind her in a row. She then walks slowly round the hall and the
adjoining rooms, throwing handfuls of straw on the floor and imitating the
cackling of a hen, while all the children follow her peeping with their
lips as if they were chickens cheeping and waddling after the mother bird.
When the floor is well strewn with straw, the father or the eldest member
of the family throws a few walnuts in every corner of the hall,
pronouncing the words: “In the name of God the Father, and the Son, and
the Holy Ghost, Amen!” A large pot, or a small wooden box, filled with
wheat is placed high in the east corner of the hall, and a tall candle of
yellow wax is stuck in the middle of the wheat. Then the father of the
family reverently lights the candle and prays God to bless the family with
health and happiness, the fields with a good harvest, the beehives with
plenty of honey, the cattle and sheep with young, and the cows with
abundant milk and rich cream. After that they all sit down to supper,
squatting on the floor, for the use of chairs and tables is forbidden on
this occasion.

(M222) By four o’clock next morning (Christmas Day) the whole village is
astir; indeed most people do not sleep at all that night. It is deemed
most important to keep the Yule log burning brightly all night long. Very
early, too, the pig is laid on the fire to roast, and at the same moment
one of the family goes out into the yard and fires a pistol or gun; and
when the roast pig is removed from the fire the shot is repeated. Hence
for several hours in the early morning of Christmas Day such a popping and
banging of firearms goes on that a stranger might think a stubborn
skirmish was in progress. Just before the sun rises a girl goes and draws
water at the village spring or at the brook. Before she fills her vessels,
she wishes the water a happy Christmas and throws a handful of wheat into
it. The first cupfuls of water she brings home are used to bake a special
Christmas cake (_chesnitsa_), of which all the members partake at dinner,
and portions are kept for absent relatives. A small silver coin is baked
in the cake, and he or she who gets it will be lucky during the year.

(M223) All the family gathered round the blazing Yule log now anxiously
expect the arrival of the special Christmas visiter, who bears the title
of _polaznik_. He is usually a young boy of a friendly family. No other
person, not even the priest or the mayor of the village, would be allowed
to set foot in the house before the arrival of this important personage.
Therefore he ought to come, and generally does come, very early in the
morning. He carries a woollen glove full of wheat, and when the door is
opened at his knock he throws handfuls of wheat on the family gathered
round the hearth, greeting them with the words, “Christ is born!” They all
answer, “He is born indeed,” and the hostess flings a handful of wheat
over the Christmas visiter, who moreover casts some of his wheat into the
corners of the hall as well as upon the people. Then he walks straight to
the hearth, takes a shovel and strikes the burning log so that a cloud of
sparks flies up the chimney, while he says, “May you have this year so
many oxen, so many horses, so many sheep, so many pigs, so many beehives
full of honey, so much good luck, prosperity, progress, and happiness!”
Having uttered these good wishes, he embraces and kisses his host. Then he
turns again to the hearth, and after crossing himself falls on his knees
and kisses the projecting part of the Yule log. On rising to his feet he
places a coin on the log as his gift. Meanwhile a low wooden chair has
been brought in by a woman, and the visiter is led to it to take his seat.
But just as he is about to do so, the chair is jerked away from under him
by a male member of the family and he measures his length on the floor. By
this fall he is supposed to fix into the ground all the good wishes which
he has uttered that morning. The hostess thereupon wraps him in a thick
blanket, and he sits quietly muffled in it for a few minutes; the thick
blanket in which he is swathed is believed, on the principles of
homoeopathic magic, to ensure that the cows will give thick cream the next
year. While he sits thus enriching the milk of the dairy, the lads who are
to herd the sheep in the coming year go to the hearth and kneeling down
before it kiss each other across the projecting end of the Yule log. By
this demonstration of affection they are thought to seal the love of the
ewes for their lambs.(671)

(M224) The ritual of the Yule log is observed in a similar form by the
Servians who inhabit the southern provinces of Austria. Thus in Syrmia, a
district of Slavonia which borders on Servia, the head of the house sends
out one or two young men on Christmas Eve to cut the Yule log in the
nearest forest. On being brought in, the log is not mixed with the
ordinary fuel but placed by itself, generally leaning against a fruit-tree
till the evening shadows begin to fall. When a man carries it into the
kitchen and lays it on the fire, the master of the house throws corn over
him, and the two greet each other solemnly, the one saying, “Christ is
born,” and the other answering, “He is born indeed.” Later in the evening
the master of the house pours a glass of wine on the charred end of the
log, whereupon one of the younger men takes the burnt piece of wood,
carries it to the orchard, and sets it up against one of the fruit-trees.
For this service he is rewarded by the master of the house with a piece of
money. On Christmas Day, when the family is assembled at table, they
expect the arrival of the special Christmas visiter (called _polazenik_),
the only person who is allowed to enter the house that day. When he comes,
he goes to the hearth, stirs the fire with the poker and says, “Christ is
born. May the family enjoy all good luck and happiness in this year! May
the cattle increase in number like the sparks I have struck!” As he says
these words, the mistress of the house pours corn over him and leads him
to the parlour, where he takes the place of honour beside the master of
the house. He is treated with marked attention and respect. The family are
at pains to entertain him; they sing their best songs for his amusement,
and after midnight a numerous band of men and maidens escorts him by
torchlight, with songs and jubilation, to his own house.(672)

(M225) Among the Servians of Dalmatia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro it is
customary on Christmas Eve (_Badnyi Dan_) to fetch a great Yule log
(_badnyak_), which serves as a symbol of family luck. It is generally cut
from an evergreen oak, but sometimes from an olive-tree or a beech. At
nightfall the master of the house himself brings in the log and lays it on
the fire. Then he and all present bare their heads, sprinkle the log with
wine, and make a cross on it. After that the master of the house says,
“Welcome, O log! May God keep you from mishap!” So saying he strews peas,
maize, raisins, and wheat on the log, praying for God’s blessing on all
members of the family living and dead, for heaven’s blessing on their
undertakings, and for domestic prosperity. In Montenegro they meet the log
with a loaf of bread and a jug of wine, drink to it, and pour wine on it,
whereupon the whole family drinks out of the same beaker. In Dalmatia and
other places, for example in Rizano, the Yule logs are decked by young
women with red silk, flowers, laurel leaves, ribbons, and even gold wire;
and the lights near the doorposts are kindled when the log is brought into
the house. Among the Morlaks, as soon as the master of the house crosses
the threshold with the Yule log, one of the family must sprinkle corn on
him and say, “God bless you,” to which he answers, “The same to you.” A
piece of the log is kept till New Year’s Day to kindle a light with or it
is carried out to the fields to protect them from hail. It is customary to
invite before hand a Christmas visiter (_polažaynik_) and to admit no one
else into the house on that day. He comes early, carrying in his sleeves a
quantity of corn which he throws into the house, saying, “Christ is born.”
One of the household replies, “He is born indeed,” and throws corn on the
visiter. Then the newcomer goes up to the hearth, pokes the fire and
strikes the burning log with the poker so hard that sparks fly off in all
directions. At each blow he says, “I wish the family as many cows, calves,
sucking pigs, goats, and sheep, and as many strokes of good luck, as the
sparks that now fly from the log.” With these words he throws some small
coins into the ashes.(673) In Albania down to recent years it was a common
custom to burn a Yule log at Christmas, and with it corn, maize, and
beans; moreover, wine and _rakia_ were poured on the flames, and the ashes
of the fire were scattered on the fields to make them fertile.(674) 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.(675)

(M226) 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.(676) As
the Yule log was frequently of oak,(677) 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.(678) Whether the curative and fertilizing 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,(679) may not be derived from the same ancient source, is a
question which deserves to be considered.

(M227) Thus far we have regarded only the private or domestic celebration
of the fire-festival at midwinter. The public celebration of such rites at
that season of the year appears to have been rare and exceptional in
Central and Northern Europe. However, some instances are on record. Thus
at Schweina, in Thuringia, down to the second half of the nineteenth
century, the young people used to kindle a great bonfire on the Antonius
Mountain every year on Christmas Eve. Neither the civil nor the
ecclesiastical authorities were able to suppress the celebration; nor
could the cold, rain, and snow of the season damp or chill the enthusiasm
of the celebrants. For some time before Christmas the young men and boys
were busy building a foundation for the bonfire on the top of the
mountain, where the oldest church of the village used to stand. The
foundation consisted of a pyramidal structure composed of stones, turf,
and moss. When Christmas Eve came round, a strong pole, with bundles of
brushwood tied to it, was erected on the pyramid. The young folk also
provided themselves with poles to which old brooms or faggots of shavings
were attached. These were to serve as torches. When the evening grew dark
and the church bells rang to service, the troop of lads ascended the
mountain; and soon from the top the glare of the bonfire lit up the
darkness, and the sound of a hymn broke the stillness of night. In a
circle round the great fire lesser fires were kindled; and last of all the
lads ran about swinging their lighted torches, till these twinkling points
of fire, moving down the mountain-side, went out one by one in the
darkness. At midnight the bells rang out from the church tower, mingled
with the blast of horns and the sound of singing. Feasting and revelry
were kept up throughout the night, and in the morning young and old went
to early mass to be edified by hearing of the light eternal.(680)

(M228) In the Bocage of Normandy the peasants used to repair, often from a
distance of miles, to the churches to hear the midnight mass on Christmas
Eve. They marched in procession by torchlight, chanting Christmas carols,
and the fitful illumination of the woods, the hedges, and the fields as
they moved through the darkness, presented a succession of picturesque
scenes. Mention is also made of bonfires kindled on the heights; the
custom is said to have been observed at Athis near Condé down to recent
years.(681)

(M229) In the Isle of Man, “on the twenty-first of December, a day
dedicated to Saint Thomas, the people went to the mountains to catch deer
and sheep for Christmas, and in the evenings always kindled a large fire
on the top of every _fingan_ or cliff. Hence, at the time of casting
peats, every one laid aside a large one, saying, ‘_Faaid mooar moayney son
oie’l fingan_’; that is, ‘a large turf for Fingan Eve.’ ”(682) At
Burghead, an ancient village on the southern shore of the Moray Firth,
about nine miles from the town of Elgin, a festival of fire called “the
Burning of the Clavie” has been celebrated from time immemorial on
Hogmanay, the last day of December. A tar-barrel is sawn in two, one half
of it is set on the top of a stout pole, and filled with tar and other
combustibles. The half-barrel is fastened to the pole by means of a long
nail, which is made for the purpose and furnished gratuitously by the
village blacksmith. The nail must be knocked in with a stone; the use of a
hammer is forbidden. When the shades of evening have begun to fall, the
Clavie, as it is called, is set on fire by means of a burning peat, which
is always fetched from the same house; it may not be kindled with a match.
As soon as it is in a blaze, it is shouldered by a man, who proceeds to
carry it at a run, flaring and dripping melted tar, round the old
boundaries of the village; the modern part of the town is not included in
the circuit. Close at his heels follows a motley crowd, cheering and
shouting. One bearer relieves another as each wearies of his burden. The
first to shoulder the Clavie, which is esteemed an honour, is usually a
man who has been lately married. Should the bearer stumble or fall, it is
deemed a very ill omen for him and for the village. In bygone times it was
thought necessary that one man should carry it all round the village;
hence the strongest man was chosen for the purpose. Moreover it was
customary to carry the burning Clavie round every fishing-boat and vessel
in the harbour; but this part of the ceremony was afterwards discontinued.
Finally, the blazing tar-barrel is borne to a small hill called the
Doorie, which rises near the northern end of the promontory. Here the pole
is fixed into a socket in a pillar of freestone, and fresh fuel is heaped
upon the flames, which flare up higher and brighter than ever. Formerly
the Clavie was allowed to burn here the whole night, but now, after
blazing for about half an hour, it is lifted from the socket and thrown
down the western slope of the hill. Then the crowd rushes upon it,
demolishes it, and scrambles for the burning, smoking embers, which they
carry home and carefully preserve as charms to protect them against
witchcraft and misfortune.(683) The great antiquity of Burghead, where
this curious and no doubt ancient festival is still annually observed,
appears from the remains of a very remarkable rampart which formerly
encircled the place. It consists of a mound of earth faced on both sides
with a solid wall of stone and strengthened internally by oak beams and
planks, the whole being laid on a foundation of boulders. The style of the
rampart agrees in general with Caesar’s description of the mode in which
the Gauls constructed their walls of earth, stone, and logs,(684) and it
resembles the ruins of Gallic fortifications which have been discovered in
France, though it is said to surpass them in the strength and solidity of
its structure. No similar walls appear to be known in Britain. A great
part of this interesting prehistoric fortress was barbarously destroyed in
the early part of the nineteenth century, much of it being tumbled into
the sea and many of the stones used to build the harbour piers.(685)

(M230) In Lerwick, the capital of the Shetland Islands, “on Christmas Eve,
the fourth of January,—for the old style is still observed—the children go
_a guizing_, that is to say, they disguising themselves in the most
fantastic and gaudy costumes, parade the streets, and infest the houses
and shops, begging for the wherewithal to carry on their Christmas
amusements. One o’clock on Yule morning having struck, the young men turn
out in large numbers, dressed in the coarsest of garments, and, at the
double-quick march, drag huge tar barrels through the town, shouting and
cheering as they go, or blowing loud blasts with their ‘louder horns.’ The
tar barrel simply consists of several—say from four to eight—tubs filled
with tar and chips, placed on a platform of wood. It is dragged by means
of a chain, to which scores of jubilant youths readily yoke themselves.
They have recently been described by the worthy burgh officer of Lerwick
as ‘fiery chariots, the effect of which is truly grand and terrific.’ In a
Christmas morning the dark streets of Lerwick are generally lighted up by
the bright glare, and its atmosphere blackened by the dense smoke of six
or eight tar barrels in succession. On the appearance of daybreak, at six
A.M., the morning revellers put off their coarse garments—well begrimed by
this time—and in their turn become guizards. They assume every imaginable
form of costume—those of soldiers, sailors, highlanders, Spanish
chevaliers, etc. Thus disguised, they either go in pairs, as man and wife,
or in larger groups, and proceed to call on their friends, to wish them
the compliments of the season. Formerly, these adolescent guizards used to
seat themselves in crates, and accompanied by fiddlers, were dragged
through the town.”(686)

(M231) The Persians used to celebrate a festival of fire called _Sada_ or
_Saza_ at the winter solstice. On the longest night of the year they
kindled bonfires everywhere, and kings and princes tied dry grass to the
feet of birds and animals, set fire to the grass, and then let the birds
and beasts fly or run blazing through the air or over the fields and
mountains, so that the whole air and earth appeared to be on fire.(687)

§ 8. The Need-fire.

(M232) 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.(688)

(M233) The history of the need-fire can be traced back to the early Middle
Ages; for in the reign of Pippin, King of the Franks, the practice of
kindling need-fires was denounced as a heathen superstition by a synod of
prelates and nobles held under the presidency of Boniface, Archbishop of
Mainz.(689) Not long afterwards the custom was again forbidden, along with
many more relics of expiring paganism, in an “Index of Superstitions and
Heathenish Observances,” which has been usually referred to the year 743
A.D., though some scholars assign it a later date under the reign of
Charlemagne.(690) In Germany the need-fires would seem to have been
popular down to the second half of the nineteenth century. Thus in the
year 1598, when a fatal cattle-plague was raging at Neustadt, near
Marburg, a wise man of the name of Joh. Köhler induced the authorities of
the town to adopt the following remedy. A new waggon-wheel was taken and
twirled round an axle, which had never been used before, until the
friction elicited fire. With this fire a bonfire was next kindled between
the gates of the town, and all the cattle were driven through the smoke
and flames. Moreover, every householder had to rekindle the fire on his
hearth by means of a light taken from the bonfire. Strange to say, this
salutary measure had no effect whatever in staying the cattle-plague, and
seven years later the sapient Joh. Köhler himself was burnt as a witch.
The farmers, whose pigs and cows had derived no benefit from the
need-fire, perhaps assisted as spectators at the burning, and, while they
shook their heads, agreed among themselves that it served Joh. Köhler
perfectly right.(691) According to a writer who published his book about
nine years afterwards, some of the Germans, especially in the Wassgaw
mountains, confidently believed that a cattle-plague could be stayed by
driving the animals through a need-fire which had been kindled by the
violent friction of a pole on a quantity of dry oak wood; but it was a
necessary condition of success that all fires in the village should
previously be extinguished with water, and any householder who failed to
put out his fire was heavily fined.(692)

(M234) The method of kindling the need-fire is described as follows by a
writer towards the end of the seventeenth century: “When an evil plague
has broken out among the cattle, large and small, and the herds have
thereby suffered great ravages, the peasants resolve to light a need-fire.
On a day appointed there must be no single flame in any house nor on any
hearth. From every house a quantity of straw and water and underwood must
be brought forth; then a strong oaken pole is fixed firmly in the earth, a
hole is bored in it, and a wooden winch, well smeared with pitch and tar,
is inserted in the hole and turned round forcibly till great heat and then
fire is generated. The fire so produced is caught in fuel and fed with
straw, heath, and underwood till it bursts out into a regular need-fire,
which must then be somewhat spread out between walls or fences, and the
cattle and horses driven through it twice or thrice with sticks and whips.
Others set up two posts, each with a hole in it, and insert a winch, along
with old greasy rags, in the holes. Others use a thick rope, collect nine
kinds of wood, and keep them in violent motion till fire leaps forth.
Perhaps there may be other ways of generating or kindling this fire, but
they are all directed simply at the cure of the cattle. After passing
twice or thrice through the fire the cattle are driven to their stalls or
to pasture, and the heap of wood that had been collected is destroyed, but
in some places every householder must take with him a brand, extinguish it
in a washing-tub or trough, and put it in the manger where the cattle are
fed, where it must lie for some time. The poles that were used to make the
need-fire, together with the wood that was employed as a winch, are
sometimes burned with the rest of the fuel, sometimes carefully preserved
after the cattle have been thrice driven through the flames.”(693)

(M235) Sometimes the need-fire was known as the “wild fire,” to
distinguish it no doubt from the tame fire produced by more ordinary
methods. The following is Grimm’s account of the mode of kindling it which
prevailed in some parts of Central Germany, particularly about Hildesheim,
down apparently to the first half of the nineteenth century: “In many
places of Lower Saxony, especially among the mountains, the custom
prevails of preparing the so-called ‘wild fire’ for the purpose of
preventing cattle-plague; and through it first the pigs, then the cows,
and last of all the geese are driven. The proceedings on the occasion are
as follows. The principal farmers and parishioners assemble, and notice is
served to every inhabitant to extinguish entirely all fire in his house,
so that not even a spark remains alight in the whole village. Then young
and old repair to a road in a hollow, usually towards evening, the women
carrying linen, and the men wood and tow. Two oaken poles are driven into
the ground about a foot and a half from each other. Each pole has in the
side facing the other a socket into which a cross-piece as thick as a
man’s arm is fitted. The sockets are stuffed with linen, and the
cross-piece is rammed in as tight as possible, while the poles are bound
together at the top by ropes. A rope is wound about the round, smooth
cross-piece, and the free ends of the rope at both sides are gripped by
several persons, who pull the cross-piece to and fro with the utmost
rapidity, till through the friction the linen in the sockets takes fire.
The sparks of the linen are immediately caught in tow or oakum and waved
about in a circle until they burst into a bright glow, when straw is
applied to it, and the flaming straw used to kindle the brushwood which
has been stacked in piles in the hollow way. When this wood has blazed up
and the fire has nearly died out again, the people hasten to the herds,
which have been waiting in the background, and drive them forcibly, one
after the other, through the glow. As soon as all the beasts are through,
the young folk rush wildly at the ashes and cinders, sprinkling and
blackening each other with them; those who have been most sprinkled and
blackened march in triumph behind the cattle into the village and do not
wash themselves for a long time. If after long rubbing the linen should
not catch fire, they guess that there is still fire somewhere in the
village; then a strict search is made from house to house, any fire that
may be found is put out, and the householder is punished or upbraided. The
‘wild fire’ must be made by prolonged friction; it may not be struck with
flint and steel. Some villages do not prepare it yearly as a preventive of
cattle-plague, but only kindle it when the disease has actually broken
out.”(694) In the Halberstadt district the ends of the rope which was used
to make the cross-piece revolve in the sockets had to be pulled by two
chaste young men.(695)

(M236) In the Mark down to the first half of the nineteenth century the
practice was similar. We read that “in many parts of the Mark there still
prevails on certain occasions the custom of kindling a need-fire, it
happens particularly when a farmer has sick pigs. Two posts of dry wood
are planted in the earth amid solemn silence before the sun rises, and
round these posts hempen ropes are pulled to and fro till the wood
kindles; whereupon the fire is fed with dry leaves and twigs and the sick
beasts are driven through it. In some places the fire is produced by the
friction of an old cart-wheel.”(696)

(M237) In Mecklenburg the need-fire used to be lighted by the friction of
a rope wound about an oaken pole or by rubbing two boards against each
other. Having been thus elicited, the flame was fed with wood of seven
kinds. The practice was forbidden by Gustavus Adolphus, Duke of
Mecklenburg, in 1682; but the prohibition apparently had little effect,
for down to the end of the eighteenth century the custom was so common
that the inhabitants even of large towns made no scruple of resorting to
it. For example, in the month of July 1792 sickness broke out among the
cattle belonging to the town of Sternberg; some of the beasts died
suddenly, and so the people resolved to drive all the survivors through a
need-fire. On the tenth day of July the magistrates issued a proclamation
announcing that next morning before sunrise a need-fire would be kindled
for the behoof of all the cattle of the town, and warning all the
inhabitants against lighting fires in their kitchens that evening. So next
morning very early, about two o’clock, nearly the whole population was
astir, and having assembled outside one of the gates of the town they
helped to drive the timid cattle, not without much ado, through three
separate need-fires; after which they dispersed to their homes in the
unalterable conviction that they had rescued the cattle from destruction.
But to make assurance doubly sure they deemed it advisable to administer
the rest of the ashes as a bolus to the animals. However, some people in
Mecklenburg used to strew the ashes of the need-fire on fields for the
purpose of protecting the crops against vermin. As late as June 1868 a
traveller in Mecklenburg saw a couple of peasants sweating away at a rope,
which they were pulling backwards and forwards so as to make a tarry
roller revolve with great speed in the socket of an upright post. Asked
what they were about, they vouchsafed no reply; but an old woman who
appeared on the scene from a neighbouring cottage was more communicative.
In the fulness of her heart she confided to the stranger that her pigs
were sick, that the two taciturn bumpkins were her sons, who were busy
extracting a need-fire from the roller, and that, when they succeeded, the
flame would be used to ignite a heap of rags and brushwood, through which
the ailing swine would be driven. She further explained that the persons
who kindle a need-fire should always be two brothers or at least bear the
same Christian name.(697)

(M238) In the summer of 1828 there was much sickness among the pigs and
the cows of Eddesse, a village near Meinersen, in the south of Hanover.
When all ordinary measures to arrest the malady failed, the farmers met in
solemn conclave on the village green and determined that next morning
there should be a need-fire. Thereupon the head man of the village sent
word from house to house that on the following day nobody should kindle a
fire before sunrise, and that everybody should stand by ready to drive out
the cattle. The same afternoon all the necessary preparations were made
for giving effect to the decision of the collective wisdom. A narrow
street was enclosed with planks, and the village carpenter set to work at
the machinery for kindling the fire. He took two posts of oak wood, bored
a hole about three inches deep and broad in each, and set the two poles up
facing each other at a distance of about two feet. Then he fitted a roller
of oak wood into the two holes of the posts, so that it formed a
cross-piece between them. About two o’clock next morning every householder
brought a bundle of straw and brushwood and laid it down across the street
in a prescribed order. The sturdiest swains who could be found were chosen
to make the need-fire. For this purpose a long hempen rope was wound twice
round the oaken roller in the oaken posts: the pivots were well smeared
with pitch and tar: a bundle of tow and other tinder was laid close at
hand, and all was ready. The stalwart clodhoppers now seized the two ends
of the rope and went to work with a will. Puffs of smoke soon issued from
the sockets, but to the consternation of the bystanders not a spark of
fire could be elicited. Some people openly declared their suspicion that
some rascal had not put out the fire in his house, when suddenly the
tinder burst into flame. The cloud passed away from all faces; the fire
was applied to the heaps of fuel, and when the flames had somewhat died
down, the herds were forcibly driven through the fire, first the pigs,
next the cows, and last of all the horses. The herdsmen then drove the
beasts to pasture, and persons whose faith in the efficacy of the
need-fire was particularly robust carried home brands.(698)

(M239) Again, at a village near Quedlinburg, in the Harz Mountains, it was
resolved to put a herd of sick swine through the need-fire. Hearing of
this intention the Superintendent of Quedlinburg hurried to the spot and
has described for us what he saw. The beadles went from house to house to
see that there was no fire in any house; for it is well known that should
there be common fire burning in a house the need-fire will not kindle. The
men made their rounds very early in the morning to make quite sure that
all lights were out. At two o’clock a night-light was still burning in the
parsonage, and this was of course a hindrance to the need-fire. The
peasants knocked at the window and earnestly entreated that the
night-light might be extinguished. But the parson’s wife refused to put
the light out; it still glimmered at the window; and in the darkness
outside the angry rustics vowed that the parson’s pigs should get no
benefit of the need-fire. However, as good luck would have it, just as the
morning broke, the night-light went out of itself, and the hopes of the
people revived. From every house bundles of straw, tow, faggots and so
forth were now carried to feed the bonfire. The noise and the cheerful
bustle were such that you might have thought they were all hurrying to
witness a public execution. Outside the village, between two garden walls,
an oaken post had been driven into the ground and a hole bored through it.
In the hole a wooden winch, smeared with tar, was inserted and made to
revolve with such force and rapidity that fire and smoke in time issued
from the socket. The collected fuel was then thrown upon the fire and soon
a great blaze shot up. The pigs were now driven into the upper end of the
street. As soon as they saw the fire, they turned tail, but the peasants
drove them through with shrieks and shouts and lashes of whips. At the
other end of the street there was another crowd waiting, who chased the
swine back through the fire a second time. Then the other crowd repeated
the manœuvre, and the herd of swine was driven for the third time through
the smoke and flames. That was the end of the performance. Many pigs were
scorched so severely that they gave up the ghost. The bonfire was broken
up, and every householder took home with him a brand, which he washed in
the water-barrel and laid for some time, as a treasure of great price, in
the manger from which the cattle were fed. But the parson’s wife had
reason bitterly to repent her folly in refusing to put out that
night-light; for not one of her pigs was driven through the need-fire, so
they died.(699)

(M240) In Brunswick, also, the need-fire is known to have been repeatedly
kindled during the nineteenth century. After driving the pigs through the
fire, which was kindled by the friction of wood, some people took brands
home, dipped them in water, and then gave the water to the pigs to drink,
no doubt for the purpose of inoculating them still more effectually with
the precious virtue of the need-fire. In the villages of the Drömling
district everybody who bore a hand in kindling the “wild fire” must have
the same Christian name; otherwise they laboured in vain. The fire was
produced by the friction of a rope round the beams of a door; and bread,
corn, and old boots contributed their mites to swell the blaze through
which the pigs as usual were driven. In one place, apparently not far from
Wolfenbüttel, the need-fire is said to have been kindled, contrary to
custom, by the smith striking a spark from the cold anvil.(700) At
Gandersheim down to about the beginning of the nineteenth century the
need-fire was lit in the common way by causing a cross-bar to revolve
rapidly on its axis between two upright posts. The rope which produced the
revolution of the bar had to be new, but it was if possible woven from
threads taken from a gallows-rope, with which people had been hanged.
While the need-fire was being kindled in this fashion, every other fire in
the town had to be put out; search was made through the houses, and any
fire discovered to be burning was extinguished. If in spite of every
precaution no flame could be elicited by the friction of the rope, the
failure was set down to witchcraft; but if the efforts were successful, a
bonfire was lit with the new fire, and when the flames had died down, the
sick swine were driven thrice through the glowing embers.(701) On the
lower Rhine the need-fire is said to have been kindled by the friction of
oak-wood on fir-wood, all fires in the village having been previously
extinguished. The bonfires so kindled were composed of wood of nine
different sorts; there were three such bonfires, and the cattle were
driven round them with great gravity and devotion.(702)

(M241) In Silesia, also, need-fires were often employed for the purpose of
curing a murrain or preventing its spread. While all other lights within
the boundaries were extinguished, the new fire was produced by the
friction of nine kinds of wood, and the flame so obtained was used to
kindle heaps of brushwood or straw to which every inhabitant had
contributed. Through these fires the cattle, both sick and sound, were
driven in the confident expectation that thereby the sick would be healed
and the sound saved from sickness.(703) When plague breaks out among the
herds at Dobischwald, in Austrian Silesia, a splinter of wood is chipped
from the threshold of every house, the cattle are driven to a cross-road,
and there a tree, growing at the boundary, is felled by a pair of twin
brothers. The wood of the tree and the splinters from the thresholds
furnish the fuel of a bonfire, which is kindled by the rubbing of two
pieces of wood together. When the bonfire is ablaze, the horns of the
cattle are pared and the parings thrown into the flames, after which the
animals are driven through the fire. This is believed to guard the herd
against the plague.(704) The Germans of Western Bohemia resort to similar
measures for staying a murrain. You set up a post, bore a hole in it, and
insert in the hole a stick, which you have first of all smeared with pitch
and wrapt in inflammable stuffs. Then you wind a rope round the stick and
give the two ends of the rope to two persons who must either be brothers
or have the same baptismal name. They haul the rope backwards and forwards
so as to make the tarred stick revolve rapidly till the rope first smokes
and then emits sparks. The sparks are used to kindle a bonfire, through
which the cattle are driven in the usual way. And as usual no other fire
may burn in the village while the need-fire is being kindled; for
otherwise the rope could not possibly be ignited.(705) In Upper Austria
sick pigs are reported to have been driven through a need-fire about the
beginning of the nineteenth century.(706)

(M242) The need-fire is still in use in some parts of Switzerland, but it
seems to have degenerated into a children’s game and to be employed rather
for the dispersal of a mist than for the prevention or cure of
cattle-plague. In some cantons it goes by the name of “mist-healing,”
while in others it is called “butter-churning.” On a misty or rainy day a
number of children will shut themselves up in a stable or byre and proceed
to make fire for the purpose of improving the weather. The way in which
they make it is this. A boy places a board against his breast, takes a peg
pointed at both ends, and, setting one end of the peg against the board on
his breast, presses the other end firmly against a second board, the
surface of which has been flaked into a nap. A string is tied round the
peg, and two other boys pull it to and fro, till through the rapid motion
of the point of the peg a hole is burnt in the flaked board, to which tow
or dry moss is then applied as a tinder. In this way fire and smoke are
elicited, and with their appearance the children fancy that the mist will
vanish.(707) We may conjecture that this method of dispersing a mist,
which is now left to children, was formerly practised in all seriousness
by grown men in Switzerland. It is thus that religious or magical rites
dwindle away into the sports of children. In the canton of the Grisons
there is still in common use an imprecation, “Mist, go away, or I’ll heal
you,” which points to an old custom of burning up the fog with fire. A
longer form of the curse lingers in the Vallée des Bagnes of the canton
Valais. It runs thus: “Mist, mist, fly, fly, or St. Martin will come with
a sheaf of straw to burn your guts, a great log of wood to smash your
brow, and an iron chain to drag you to hell.”(708)

(M243) In Sweden the need-fire is called, from the mode of its production,
either _vrid-eld_, “turned fire,” or _gnid-eld_, “rubbed fire.” Down to
near the end of the eighteenth century the need-fire was kindled, as in
Germany, by the violent rubbing of two pieces of wood against each other;
sometimes nine different kinds of wood were used for the purpose. The
smoke of the fire was deemed salutary; fruit-trees and nets were fumigated
with it, in order that the trees might bear fruit and the nets catch fish.
Cattle were also driven through the smoke.(709) In Sundal, a narrow
Norwegian valley, shut in on both sides by precipitous mountains, there
lived down to the second half of the nineteenth century an old man who was
very superstitious. He set salmon-traps in the river Driva, which
traverses the valley, and he caught many fish both in spring and autumn.
When his fishing went wrong, he kindled _naueld_ (“need-fire”) or
_gnideild_ (“rubbed fire,” “friction fire”) to counteract the witchcraft,
which he believed to be the cause of his bad luck. He set up two planks
near each other, bored a hole in each, inserted a pointed rod in the
holes, and twisted a long cord round the rod. Then he pulled the cord so
as to make the rod revolve rapidly. Thus by reason of the friction he at
last drew fire from the wood. That contented him, for “he believed that
the witchery was thus rendered powerless, and that good luck in his
fishing was now ensured.”(710)

(M244) Slavonic peoples hold the need-fire in high esteem. They call it
“living fire,” and attribute to it a healing virtue. The ascription of
medicinal power to fire kindled by the friction of wood is said to be
especially characteristic of the Slavs who inhabit the Carpathian
Mountains and the Balkan peninsula. The mode in which they produce the
need-fire differs somewhat in different places. Thus in the Schar
mountains of Servia the task is entrusted to a boy and girl between eleven
and fourteen years of age. They are led into a perfectly dark room, and
having stripped themselves naked kindle the fire by rubbing two rollers of
lime wood against each other, till the friction produces sparks, which are
caught in tinder. The Serbs of Western Macedonia drive two oaken posts
into the ground, bore a round hole in the upper end of each, insert a
roller of lime wood in the holes, and set it revolving rapidly by means of
a cord, which is looped round the roller and worked by a bow. Elsewhere
the roller is put in motion by two men, who hold each one end of the cord
and pull it backwards and forwards forcibly between them. Bulgarian
shepherds sometimes kindle the need-fire by drawing a prism-shaped piece
of lime wood to and fro across the flat surface of a tree-stump in the
forest.(711) But in the neighbourhood of Küstendil, in Bulgaria, the
need-fire is kindled by the friction of two pieces of oak wood and the
cattle are driven through it.(712)

(M245) In many districts of Russia, also, “living fire” is made by the
friction of wood on St. John’s Day, and the herds are driven through it,
and the people leap over it in the conviction that their health is thereby
assured; when a cattle-plague is raging, the fire is produced by rubbing
two pieces of oak wood against each other, and it is used to kindle the
lamps before the holy pictures and the censers in the churches.(713) Thus
it appears that in Russia the need-fire is kindled for the sake of the
cattle periodically as well as on special emergencies. Similarly in Poland
the peasants are said to kindle fires in the village streets on St.
Rochus’s day and to drive the cattle thrice through them in order to
protect the animals against the murrain. The fire is produced by rubbing a
pole of poplar wood on a plank of poplar or fir wood and catching the
sparks in tow. The embers are carried home to be used as remedies in
sickness.(714) As practised in Slavonia, the custom of the need-fire used
to present some interesting features, which are best described in the
words of an eye-witness:—“In the year 1833 I came for the first time as a
young merchant to Slavonia; it was to Gaj that I went, in the Požega
district. The time was autumn, and it chanced that a cattle-plague was
raging in the neighbourhood, which inflicted much loss on the people. The
peasants believed that the plague was a woman, an evil spirit (_Kuga_),
who was destroying the cattle; so they sought to banish her. I had then
occasion to observe the proceedings in the villages of Gaj, Kukunjevac,
Brezina, and Brekinjska. Towards evening the whole population of the
village was busy laying a ring of brushwood round the boundaries of the
village. All fires were extinguished throughout the village. Then pairs of
men in several places took pieces of wood, which had been specially
prepared for the purpose, and rubbed them together till they emitted
sparks. The sparks were allowed to fall on tinder and fanned into a flame,
with which the dry brushwood was kindled. Thus the fire burned all round
the village. The peasants persuaded themselves that thereupon _Kuga_ must
take her departure.”(715)

(M246) This last account leaves no doubt as to the significance of the
need-fire in the minds of Slavonian peasantry. They regard it simply as a
barrier interposed between their cattle and the evil spirit, which prowls,
like a hungry wolf, round the fold and can, like a wolf, be kept at bay by
fire. The same interpretation of the need-fire comes out, hardly less
clearly, in the account which another writer gives of a ceremony witnessed
by him at the village of Setonje, at the foot of the Homolje mountains in
the great forest of Servia. An epidemic was raging among the children, and
the need-fire was resorted to as a means of staying the plague. It was
produced by an old man and an old woman in the first of the ways described
above; that is, they made it in the dark by rubbing two sticks of lime
wood against each other. Before the healing virtue of the fire was applied
to the inhabitants of the village, two old women performed the following
ceremony. Both bore the name of Stana, from the verb _stati_, “to remain
standing”; for the ceremony could not be successfully performed by persons
of any other name. One of them carried a copper kettle full of water, the
other an old house-lock with the key. Thus equipped they repaired to a
spot outside of the village, and there the old dame with the kettle asked
the old dame with the lock, “Whither away?” and the other answered her, “I
came to shut the village against ill-luck.” With that she locked the lock
and threw it with the key into the kettle of water. Then they marched
thrice round the village, repeating the ceremony of the lock and key at
each round. Meantime all the villagers, arrayed in their best clothes,
were assembled in an open place. All the fires in the houses had been
previously extinguished. Two sturdy yokels now dug a tunnel through a
mound beside an oak tree; the tunnel was just high enough to let a man
creep through it on all fours. Two fires, lit by the need-fire, were now
laid, one at each end of the tunnel; and the old woman with the kettle
took her stand at the entrance of the tunnel, while the one with the lock
posted herself at the exit. Facing the latter stood another woman with a
great pot of milk before her, and on the other side was set a pot full of
melted swine’s fat. All was now ready. The villagers thereupon crawled
through the tunnel on hands and knees, one behind the other. Each, as he
emerged from the tunnel, received a spoonful of milk from the woman and
looked at his face reflected in the pot of melted swine’s fat. Then
another woman made a cross with a piece of charcoal on his back. When all
the inhabitants had thus crept through the tunnel and been doctored at the
other end, each took some glowing embers home with him in a pot wherewith
to rekindle the fire on the domestic hearth. Lastly they put some of the
charcoal in a vessel of water and drank the mixture in order to be thereby
magically protected against the epidemic.(716)

It would be superfluous to point out in detail how admirably these
measures are calculated to arrest the ravages of disease; but for the sake
of those, if there are any, to whom the medicinal effect of crawling
through a hole on hands and knees is not at once apparent, I shall merely
say that the procedure in question is one of the most powerful specifics
which the wit of man has devised for maladies of all sorts. Ample evidence
of its application will be adduced in a later part of this work.(717)

(M247) In Bulgaria the herds suffer much from the raids of certain
blood-sucking vampyres called _Ustrels_. An _Ustrel_ is the spirit of a
Christian child who was born on a Saturday and died unfortunately before
he could be baptized. On the ninth day after burial he grubs his way out
of the grave and attacks the cattle at once, sucking their blood all night
and returning at peep of dawn to the grave to rest from his labours. In
ten days or so the copious draughts of blood which he has swallowed have
so fortified his constitution that he can undertake longer journeys; so
when he falls in with great herds of cattle or flocks of sheep he returns
no more to the grave for rest and refreshment at night, but takes up his
quarters during the day either between the horns of a sturdy calf or ram
or between the hind legs of a milch-cow. Beasts whose blood he has sucked
die the same night. In any herd that he may fasten on he begins with the
fattest animal and works his way down steadily through the leaner kine
till not one single beast is left alive. The carcases of the victims swell
up, and when the hide is stripped off you can always perceive the livid
patch of flesh where the monster sucked the blood of the poor creature. In
a single night he may, by working hard, kill five cows; but he seldom
exceeds that number. He can change his shape and weight very easily; for
example, when he is sitting by day between the horns of a ram, the animal
scarcely feels his weight, but at night he will sometimes throw himself on
an ox or a cow so heavily that the animal cannot stir, and lows so
pitifully that it would make your heart bleed to hear. People who were
born on a Saturday can see these monsters, and they have described them
accurately, so that there can be no doubt whatever about their existence.
It is, therefore, a matter of great importance to the peasant to protect
his flocks and herds against the ravages of such dangerous vampyres. The
way in which he does so is this. On a Saturday morning before sunrise the
village drummer gives the signal to put out every fire in the village;
even smoking is forbidden. Next all the domestic animals, with the
exception of fowls, geese, and ducks, are driven out into the open. In
front of the flocks and herds march two men, whose names during the
ceremony may not be mentioned in the village. They go into the wood, pick
two dry branches, and having stript themselves of their clothes they rub
the two branches together very hard till they catch fire; then with the
fire so obtained they kindle two bonfires, one on each side of a
cross-road which is known to be frequented by wolves. After that the herd
is driven between the two fires. Coals from the bonfires are then taken
back to the village and used to rekindle the fires on the domestic
hearths. For several days no one may go near the charred and blackened
remains of the bonfires at the cross-road. The reason is that the vampyre
is lying there, having dropped from his seat between the cow’s horns when
the animals were driven between the two fires. So if any one were to pass
by the spot during these days, the monster would be sure to call him by
name and to follow him to the village; whereas if he is left alone, a wolf
will come at midnight and strangle him, and in a few days the herdsmen can
see the ground soaked with his slimy blood. So that is the end of the
vampyre.(718) In this Bulgarian custom, as in the Slavonian custom
described above, the conception of the need-fire as a barrier set up
between the cattle and a dangerous spirit is clearly worked out. The
spirit rides the cow till he comes to the narrow pass between the two
fires, but the heat there is too much for him; he drops in a faint from
the saddle, or rather from the horns, and the now riderless animal escapes
safe and sound beyond the smoke and flame, leaving her persecutor
prostrate on the ground on the further side of the blessed barrier.

(M248) In Bosnia and Herzegovina there are some local differences in the
mode of kindling the need-fire, or “living fire,” as it is called. Thus at
Jablanica both the uprights and the roller or cross-piece, which by its
revolution kindles the fire, are made of cornel-tree wood; whereas at
Dolac, near Sarajevo, the uprights and the cross-piece or roller are all
made of lime wood. In Gacko, contrary to the usual custom, the fire is
made by striking a piece of iron on an anvil, till sparks are given out,
which are caught in tinder. The “living fire” thus produced is employed
for purposes of healing. In particular, if any one suffers from wounds or
sores, ashes of the need-fire are sprinkled on the ailing part. In Gacko
it is also believed that if a pregnant woman witnesses a conflagration,
her child will either be born with a red eruption on its skin or will
contract the malady sooner or later afterwards. The only remedy consists
in ashes of the need-fire, which are mixed with water and given to the
child to drink.(719)

(M249) In England the earliest notice of the need-fire seems to be
contained in the Chronicle of Lanercost for the year 1268. The annalist
tells with pious horror how, when an epidemic was raging in that year
among the cattle, “certain beastly men, monks in garb but not in mind,
taught the idiots of their country to make fire by the friction of wood
and to set up an image of Priapus, whereby they thought to succour the
animals.”(720) The use of the need-fire is particularly attested for the
counties of Yorkshire and Northumberland. Thus in Yorkshire down to the
middle of the eighteenth century “the favourite remedy of the country
people, not only in the way of cure, but of prevention, was an odd one; it
was to smoke the cattle almost to suffocation, by kindling straw, litter,
and other combustible matter about them. The effects of this mode of cure
are not stated, but the most singular part of it was that by which it was
reported to have been discovered. An angel (says the legend), descended
into Yorkshire, and there set a large tree on fire; the strange appearance
of which or else the savour of the smoke, incited the cattle around (some
of which were infected) to draw near the miracle, when they all either
received an immediate cure or an absolute prevention of the disorder. It
is not affirmed that the angel staid to speak to anybody, but only that he
left a _written_ direction for the neighbouring people to catch this
supernatural fire, and to communicate it from one to another with all
possible speed throughout the country; and in case it should be
extinguished and utterly lost, that then new fire, of equal virtue, might
be obtained, not by any common method, but by rubbing two pieces of wood
together till they ignited. Upon what foundation this story stood, is not
exactly known, but it put the farmers actually into a hurry of
communicating flame and smoke from one house to another with wonderful
speed, making it run like wildfire over the country.”(721) Again, we read
that “the father of the writer, who died in 1843, in his seventy-ninth
year, had a perfect remembrance of a great number of persons, belonging to
the upper and middle classes of his native parish of Bowes, assembling on
the banks of the river Greta to work for need-fire. A disease among
cattle, called the murrain, then prevailed to a very great extent through
that district of Yorkshire. The cattle were made to pass through the smoke
raised by this miraculous fire, and their cure was looked upon as certain,
and to neglect doing so was looked upon as wicked. This fire was produced
by the violent and continued friction of two dry pieces of wood until such
time as it was thereby obtained. ‘To work as though one was working for
need-fire’ is a common proverb in the North of England.”(722) At Ingleton,
a small town nestling picturesquely at the foot of the high hill of
Ingleborough in western Yorkshire, “within the last thirty years or so it
was a common practice to kindle the so-called ‘Need-fire’ by rubbing two
pieces of wood briskly together, and setting ablaze a large heap of sticks
and brushwood, which were dispersed, and cattle then driven through the
smoking brands. This was thought to act as a charm against the spread or
developement of the various ailments to which cattle are liable, and the
farmers seem to have had great faith in it.”(723) Writing about the middle
of the nineteenth century, Kemble tells us that the will-fire or need-fire
had been used in Devonshire for the purpose of staying a murrain within
the memory of man.(724)

(M250) So in Northumberland, down to the first half of the nineteenth
century, “when a contagious disease enters among cattle, the fires are
extinguished in the adjacent villages. Two pieces of dried wood are then
rubbed together until fire be produced; with this a quantity of straw is
kindled, juniper is thrown into the flame, and the cattle are repeatedly
driven through the smoke. Part of the forced fire is sent to the
neighbours, who again forward it to others, and, as great expedition is
used, the fires may be seen blazing over a great extent of country in a
very short space of time.”(725) “It is strange,” says the antiquary
William Henderson, writing about 1866, “to find the custom of lighting
‘need-fires’ on the occasion of epidemics among cattle still lingering
among us, but so it is. The vicar of Stamfordham writes thus respecting
it: ‘When the murrain broke out among the cattle about eighteen years ago,
this fire was produced by rubbing two pieces of dry wood together, and was
carried from place to place all through this district, as a charm against
cattle taking the disease. Bonfires were kindled with it, and the cattle
driven into the smoke, where they were left for some time. Many farmers
hereabouts, I am informed, had the need-fire.’ ”(726)

(M251) In the earliest systematic account of the western islands of
Scotland we read that “the inhabitants here did also make use of a fire
called _Tin-egin_, _i.e._ a forced fire, or fire of necessity, which they
used as an antidote against the plague or murrain in cattle; and it was
performed thus: all the fires in the parish were extinguished, and then
eighty-one married men, being thought the necessary number for effecting
this design, took two great planks of wood, and nine of them were employed
by turns, who by their repeated efforts rubbed one of the planks against
the other until the heat thereof produced fire; and from this forced fire
each family is supplied with new fire, which is no sooner kindled than a
pot full of water is quickly set on it, and afterwards sprinkled upon the
people infected with the plague, or upon the cattle that have the murrain.
And this they all say they find successful by experience: it was practised
in the main land, opposite to the south of Skie, within these thirty
years.”(727)

(M252) In the island of Mull, one of the largest of the Hebrides, the
need-fire was kindled as late as 1767. “In consequence of a disease among
the black cattle the people agreed to perform an incantation, though they
esteemed it a wicked thing. They carried to the top of Cammoor a wheel and
nine spindles of oakwood. They extinguished every fire in every house
within sight of the hill; the wheel was then turned from east to west over
the nine spindles long enough to produce fire by friction. If the fire
were not produced before noon, the incantation lost its effect. They
failed for several days running. They attributed this failure to the
obstinacy of one householder, who would not let his fires be put out for
what he considered so wrong a purpose. However, by bribing his servants
they contrived to have them extinguished and on that morning raised their
fire. They then sacrificed a heifer, cutting in pieces and burning, while
yet alive, the diseased part. They then lighted their own hearths from the
pile and ended by feasting on the remains. Words of incantation were
repeated by an old man from Morven, who came over as master of the
ceremonies, and who continued speaking all the time the fire was being
raised. This man was living a beggar at Bellochroy. Asked to repeat the
spell, he said, the sin of repeating it once had brought him to beggary,
and that he dared not say those words again. The whole country believed
him accursed.”(728) From this account we see that in Mull the kindling of
the need-fire as a remedy for cattle disease was accompanied by the
sacrifice of one of the diseased animals; and though the two customs are
for the most part mentioned separately by our authorities, we may surmise
that they were often, perhaps usually, practised together for the purpose
of checking the ravages of sickness in the herds.(729)

(M253) In the county of Caithness, forming the extreme north-east corner
of the mainland of Scotland, the practice of the need-fire survived down
at least to about 1788. We read that “in those days, when the stock of any
considerable farmer was seized with the murrain, he would send for one of
the charm-doctors to superintend the raising of a _need-fire_. It was done
by friction, thus; upon any small island, where the stream of a river or
burn ran on each side, a circular booth was erected, of stone and turf, as
it could be had, in which a semicircular or highland couple of birch, or
other hard wood, was set; and, in short, a roof closed on it. A straight
pole was set up in the centre of this building, the upper end fixed by a
wooden pin to the top of the couple, and the lower end in an oblong
_trink_ in the earth or floor; and lastly, another pole was set across
horizontally, having both ends tapered, one end of which was supported in
a hole in the side of the perpendicular pole, and the other in a similar
hole in the couple leg. The horizontal stick was called the auger, having
four short arms or levers fixed in its centre, to work it by; the building
having been thus finished, as many men as could be collected in the
vicinity, (being divested of all kinds of metal in their clothes, etc.),
would set to work with the said auger, two after two, constantly turning
it round by the arms or levers, and others occasionally driving wedges of
wood or stone behind the lower end of the upright pole, so as to press it
the more on the end of the auger: by this constant friction and pressure,
the ends of the auger would take fire, from which a fire would be
instantly kindled, and thus the _need-fire_ would be accomplished. The
fire in the farmer’s house, etc., was immediately quenched with water, a
fire kindled from this need-fire, both in the farm-houses and offices, and
the cattle brought to feel the smoke of this new and sacred fire, which
preserved them from the murrain.”(730)

(M254) The last recorded case of the need-fire in Caithness happened in
1809 or 1810. At Houstry, Dunbeath, a crofter named David Gunn had made
for himself a kail-yard and in doing so had wilfully encroached on one of
those prehistoric ruins called _brochs_, which the people of the
neighbourhood believed to be a fairy habitation. Soon afterwards a murrain
broke out among the cattle of the district and carried off many beasts. So
the wise men put their heads together and resolved to light a
_teine-eigin_ or need-fire as the best way of stopping the plague. They
cut a branch from a tree in a neighbouring wood, stripped it of bark, and
carried it to a small island in the Houstry Burn. Every fire in the
district having been quenched, new fire was made by the friction of wood
in the island, and from this sacred flame all the hearths of the houses
were lit afresh. One of the sticks used in making the fire was preserved
down to about the end of the nineteenth century; apparently the mode of
operation was the one known as the fire-drill: a pointed stick was twirled
in a hole made in another stick till fire was elicited by the
friction.(731)

(M255) Another account of the use of need-fire in the Highlands of
Scotland runs as follows: “When, by the neglect of the prescribed
safeguards [against witchcraft], the seeds of iniquity have taken root,
and a person’s means are decaying in consequence, the only alternative, in
this case, is to resort to that grand remedy, the _Tein Econuch_, or
‘Forlorn Fire,’ which seldom fails of being productive of the best
effects. The cure for witchcraft, called _Tein Econuch_, is wrought in the
following manner:—A consultation being held by the unhappy sufferer and
his friends as to the most advisable measures of effecting a cure, if this
process is adopted, notice is privately communicated to all those
householders who reside within the nearest of two running streams, to
extinguish their lights and fires on some appointed morning. On its being
ascertained that this notice has been duly observed, a spinning-wheel, or
some other convenient instrument, calculated to produce fire by friction,
is set to work with the most furious earnestness by the unfortunate
sufferer, and all who wish well to his cause. Relieving each other by
turns, they drive on with such persevering diligence, that at length the
spindle of the wheel, ignited by excessive friction, emits ‘forlorn fire’
in abundance, which, by the application of tow, or some other combustible
material, is widely extended over the whole neighbourhood. Communicating
the fire to the tow, the tow communicates it to a candle, the candle to a
fir-torch, the torch to a cartful of peats, which the master of the
ceremonies, with pious ejaculations for the success of the experiment,
distributes to messengers, who will proceed with portions of it to the
different houses within the said two running streams, to kindle the
different fires. By the influence of this operation, the machinations and
spells of witchcraft are rendered null and void.”(732)

(M256) In various parts of the Highlands of Scotland the need-fire was
still kindled during the first half of the nineteenth century, as we learn
from the following account:—

“_Tein-eigin_, neid-fire, need-fire, forced fire, fire produced by the
friction of wood or iron against wood.

“The fire of purification was kindled from the neid-fire, while the
domestic fire on the hearth was re-kindled from the purification fire on
the knoll. Among other names, the purification fire was called _Teine
Bheuil_, fire of Beul, and _Teine mor Bheuil_, great fire of Beul. The
fire of Beul was divided into two fires between which people and cattle
rushed australly for purposes of purification. The ordeal was trying, as
may be inferred from phrases still current. _Is teodha so na teine teodha
Bheuil_, ‘Hotter is this than the hot fire of Beul.’ Replying to his
grandchild, an old man in Lewis said ... ‘Mary! sonnie, it were worse for
me to do that for thee than to go between the two great fires of Beul.’

“The neid-fire was resorted to in imminent or actual calamity upon the
first day of the quarter, and to ensure success in great or important
events.

(M257) “The writer conversed with several persons who saw the neid-fire
made, and who joined in the ceremony. As mentioned elsewhere, a woman in
Arran said that her father, and the other men of the townland, made the
neid-fire on the knoll on _La buidhe Bealltain_—Yellow Day of Beltane.
They fed the fire from _cuaile mor conaidh caoin_—great bundles of sacred
faggots brought to the knoll on Beltane Eve. When the sacred fire became
kindled, the people rushed home and brought their herds and drove them
through and round the fire of purification, to sain them from the _bana
bhuitseach mhor Nic Creafain Mac Creafain_—the great arch witch Mac
Crauford, now Crawford. That was in the second decade of this century.

(M258) “John Macphail, Middlequarter, North Uist, said that the last
occasion on which the neid-fire was made in North Uist was _bliadhna an
t-sneachda bhuidhe_—the year of the yellow snow—1829 (?). The snow lay so
deep and remained so long on the ground, that it became yellow. Some
suggest that the snow was originally yellow, as snow is occasionally red.
This extraordinary continuance of snow caused much want and suffering
throughout the Isles. The people of North Uist extinguished their own
fires and generated a purification fire at Sail Dharaich, Sollas. The fire
was produced from an oak log by rapidly boring with an auger. This was
accomplished by the exertions of _naoi naoinear ciad ginealach mac_—the
nine nines of first-begotten sons. From the neid-fire produced on the
knoll the people of the parish obtained fire for their dwellings. Many
cults and ceremonies were observed on the occasion, cults and ceremonies
in which Pagan and Christian beliefs intermingled. _Sail Dharaich_, Oak
Log, obtained its name from the log of oak for the neid-fire being there.
A fragment of this log riddled with auger holes marks a grave in _Cladh
Sgealoir_, the burying-ground of _Sgealoir_, in the neighbourhood.

(M259) “Mr. Alexander Mackay, Edinburgh, a native of Reay, Sutherland,
says:—‘My father was the skipper of a fishing crew. Before beginning
operations for the season, the crew of the boat met at night in our house
to settle accounts for the past, and to plan operations for the new
season. My mother and the rest of us were sent to bed. I lay in the
kitchen, and was listening and watching, though they thought I was asleep.
After the men had settled their past affairs and future plans, they put
out the fire on the hearth, not a spark being allowed to live. They then
rubbed two pieces of wood one against another so rapidly as to produce
fire, the men joining in one after the other, and working with the utmost
energy and never allowing the friction to relax. From this friction-fire
they rekindled the fire on the hearth, from which all the men present
carried away a kindling to their own homes. Whether their success was due
to their skill, their industry, their perseverance, or to the neid-fire, I
do not know, but I know that they were much the most successful crew in
the place. They met on Saturday, and went to church on Sunday like the
good men and the good Christians they were—a little of their Pagan faith
mingling with their Christian belief. I have reason to believe that other
crews in the place as well as my father’s crew practised the neid-fire.’

“A man at Helmsdale, Sutherland, saw the _tein-eigin_ made in his boyhood.

“The neid-fire was made in North Uist about the year 1829, in Arran about
1820, in Helmsdale about 1818, in Reay about 1830.”(733)

(M260) From the foregoing account we learn that in Arran the annual
Beltane fire was regularly made by the friction of wood, and that it was
used to protect men and cattle against a great witch. When we remember
that Beltane Eve or the Eve of May Day (Walpurgis Night) is the great
witching time of the year throughout Europe, we may surmise that wherever
bonfires have been ceremonially kindled on that day it has been done
simply as a precaution against witchcraft; indeed this motive is expressly
alleged not only in Scotland, but in Wales, the Isle of Man, and many
parts of Central Europe.(734) It deserves, further, to be noticed that in
North Uist the wood used to kindle the need-fire was oak, and that the
nine times nine men by whose exertions the flame was elicited were all
first-born sons. Apparently the first-born son of a family was thought to
be endowed with more magical virtue than his younger brothers. Similarly
in the Punjaub “the supernatural power ascribed to the first born is not
due to his being unlucky, but the idea underlying the belief seems to be
that being the first product of the parents, he inherits the spiritual
powers (or magnetism) in a high degree. The success of such persons in
stopping rain and hail and in stupefying snakes is proverbial. It is
believed that a first child born with feet forward can cure backache by
kicking the patient in the back, on a crossing.”(735)

(M261) In the north-east of Aberdeenshire and the neighbourhood, when the
cattle-disease known as the “quarter-ill” broke out, “the ‘muckle wheel’
was set in motion and turned till fire was produced. From this virgin
flame fires were kindled in the byres. At the same time, if neighbours
requested the favour, live coals were given them to kindle fires for the
purification of their homesteads and turning off the disease. Fumigating
the byres with juniper was a method adopted to ward off disease. Such a
fire was called ‘needfyre.’ The kindling of it came under the censure of
the Presbytery at times.”(736)

(M262) In Perthshire the need-fire was kindled as a remedy for
cattle-disease as late as 1826. “A wealthy old farmer, having lost several
of his cattle by some disease very prevalent at present, and being able to
account for it in no way so rationally as by witchcraft, had recourse to
the following remedy, recommended to him by a weird sister in his
neighbourhood, as an effectual protection from the attacks of the foul
fiend. A few stones were piled together in the barnyard, and woodcoals
having been laid thereon, the fuel was ignited by _will-fire_, that is
fire obtained by friction; the neighbours having been called in to witness
the solemnity, the cattle were made to pass through the flames, in the
order of their dignity and age, commencing with the horses and ending with
the swine. The ceremony having been duly and decorously gone through, a
neighbouring farmer observed to the enlightened owner of the herd, that
he, along with his family, ought to have followed the example of the
cattle, and the sacrifice to Baal would have been complete.”(737)

(M263) In County Leitrim, Ireland, in order to prevent fever from
spreading, “all the fires on the townland, and the two adjoining (one on
each side), would be put out. Then the men of the three townlands would
come to one house, and get two large blocks of wood. One would be set in
the ground, and the other one, fitted with two handles, placed on the top
of it. The men would then draw the upper block backwards and forwards over
the lower until fire was produced by friction, and from this the fires
would be lighted again. This would prevent the fever from spreading.”(738)

(M264) Thus it appears that in many parts of Europe it has been customary
to kindle fire by the friction of wood for the purpose of curing or
preventing the spread of disease, particularly among cattle. The mode of
striking a light by rubbing two dry sticks against each other is the one
to which all over the world savages have most commonly resorted for the
sake of providing themselves with fire;(739) and we can scarcely doubt
that the practice of kindling the need-fire in this primitive fashion is
merely a survival from the time when our savage forefathers lit all their
fires in that way. Nothing is so conservative of old customs as religious
or magical ritual, which invests these relics of the past with an
atmosphere of mysterious virtue and sanctity. To the educated mind it
seems obvious that a fire which a man kindles with the sweat of his brow
by laboriously rubbing one stick against each other can possess neither
more nor less virtue than one which he has struck in a moment by the
friction of a lucifer match; but to the ignorant and superstitious this
truth is far from apparent, and accordingly they take infinite pains to do
in a roundabout way what they might have done directly with the greatest
ease, and what, even when it is done, is of no use whatever for the
purpose in hand. A vast proportion of the labour which mankind has
expended throughout the ages has been no better spent; it has been like
the stone of Sisyphus eternally rolled up hill only to revolve eternally
down again, or like the water poured for ever by the Danaids into broken
pitchers which it could never fill.

(M265) The curious notion that the need-fire cannot kindle if any other
fire remains alight in the neighbourhood seems to imply that fire is
conceived as a unity which is broken up into fractions and consequently
weakened in exact proportion to the number of places where it burns; hence
in order to obtain it at full strength you must light it only at a single
point, for then the flame will burst out with a concentrated energy
derived from the tributary fires which burned on all the extinguished
hearths of the country. So in a modern city if all the gas were turned off
simultaneously at all the burners but one, the flame would no doubt blaze
at that one burner with a fierceness such as no single burner could shew
when all are burning at the same time. The analogy may help us to
understand the process of reasoning which leads the peasantry to insist on
the extinction of all common fires when the need-fire is about to be
kindled. Perhaps, too, it may partly explain that ceremonial extinction of
all old fires on other occasions which is often required by custom as a
preliminary to the lighting of a new and sacred fire.(740) We have seen
that in the Highlands of Scotland all common fires were extinguished on
the Eve of May-day as a preparation for kindling the Beltane bonfire by
friction next morning;(741) and no doubt the reason for the extinction was
the same as in the case of the need-fire. Indeed we may assume with a fair
degree of probability that the need-fire was the parent of the periodic
fire-festivals; at first invoked only at irregular intervals to cure
certain evils as they occurred, the powerful virtue of fire was afterwards
employed at regular intervals to prevent the occurrence of the same evils
as well as to remedy such as had actually arisen.

(M266) The need-fire of Europe has its parallel in a ceremony which used
to be observed by the Iroquois Indians of North America. “Formerly when an
epidemic prevailed among the Iroquois despite the efforts to stay it, it
was customary for the principal shaman to order the fires in every cabin
to be extinguished and the ashes and cinders to be carefully removed; for
it was believed that the pestilence was sent as a punishment for
neglecting to rekindle ‘new fire’ or because of the manner in which the
fire then in use had been kindled. So, after all the fires were out, two
suitable logs of slippery elm (_Ulmus fulva_) were provided for the new
fire. One of the logs was from six to eight inches in diameter and from
eight to ten feet long; the other was from ten to twelve inches in
diameter and about ten feet long. About midway across the larger log a
cuneiform notch or cut about six inches deep was made, and in the
wedge-shaped notch punk was placed. The other log was drawn rapidly to and
fro in the cut by four strong men chosen for the purpose until the punk
was ignited by the friction thus produced. Before and during the progress
of the work of igniting the fire the shaman votively sprinkled
_tcar-hŭ’-ĕñ-wĕ_, ‘real tobacco,’ three several times into the cuneiform
notch and offered earnest prayers to the Fire-god, beseeching him ‘to aid,
to bless, and to redeem the people from their calamities.’ The ignited
punk was used to light a large bonfire, and then the head of every family
was required to take home ‘new fire’ to rekindle a fire in his or her
fire-place.”(742)

§ 9. The Sacrifice of an Animal to stay a Cattle-Plague.

(M267) Sometimes apparently in England as well as in Scotland the kindling
of a need-fire was accompanied by the sacrifice of a calf. Thus in
Northamptonshire, at some time during the first half of the nineteenth
century, “Miss C—— and her cousin walking saw a fire in a field and a
crowd round it. They said, ‘What is the matter?’ ‘Killing a calf.’ ‘What
for?’ ‘To stop the murrain.’ They went away as quickly as possible. On
speaking to the clergyman he made enquiries. The people did not like to
talk of the affair, but it appeared that when there is a disease among the
cows or the calves are born sickly, they sacrifice (_i.e._ kill and burn)
one ‘for good luck.’ ”(743) It is not here said that the fire was a
need-fire, of which indeed the two horrified ladies had probably never
heard; but the analogy of the parallel custom in Mull(744) renders it
probable that in Northamptonshire also the fire was kindled by the
friction of wood, and that the calf or some part of it was burnt in the
fire. Certainly the practice of burning a single animal alive in order to
save all the others would seem to have been not uncommon in England down
to the nineteenth century. Thus a farmer in Cornwall about the year 1800,
having lost many cattle by disease, and tried many remedies in vain,
consulted with some of his neighbours and laying their heads together
“they recalled to their recollections a tale, which tradition had handed
down from remote antiquity, that the calamity would not cease until he had
actually burned alive the finest calf which he had upon his farm; but
that, when this sacrifice was made, the murrain would afflict his cattle
no more.” Accordingly, on a day appointed they met, lighted a large fire,
placed the best calf in it, and standing round the blazing pile drove the
animal with pitchforks back into the flames whenever it attempted to
escape. Thus the victim was burned alive to save the rest of the
cattle.(745) “There can be no doubt but that a belief prevailed until a
very recent period, amongst the small farmers in the districts remote from
towns in Cornwall, that a living sacrifice appeased the wrath of God. This
sacrifice must be by fire; and I have heard it argued that the Bible gave
them warranty for this belief.... While correcting these sheets I am
informed of two recent instances of this superstition. One of them was the
sacrifice of a calf by a farmer near Portreath, for the purpose of
removing a disease which had long followed his horses and his cows. The
other was the burning of a living lamb, to save, as the farmer said, ‘his
flocks from spells which had been cast on ’em.’ ”(746) In a recent account
of the fire-festivals of Wales we read that “I have also heard my
grandfather and father say that in times gone by the people would throw a
calf in the fire when there was any disease among the herds. The same
would be done with a sheep if there was anything the matter with a flock.
I can remember myself seeing cattle being driven between two fires to
‘stop the disease spreading.’ When in later times it was not considered
humane to drive the cattle between the fires, the herdsmen were accustomed
to force the animals over the wood ashes to protect them against various
ailments.”(747) Writing about 1866, the antiquary W. Henderson says that a
live ox was burned near Haltwhistle in Northumberland “only twenty years
ago” to stop a murrain.(748) “About the year 1850 disease broke out among
the cattle of a small farm in the parish of Resoliss, Black Isle,
Ross-shire. The farmer prevailed on his wife to undertake a journey to a
wise woman of renown in Banffshire to ask a charm against the effects of
the ‘ill ee.’ The long journey of upwards of fifty miles was performed by
the good wife, and the charm was got. One chief thing ordered was to burn
to death a pig, and sprinkle the ashes over the byre and other farm
buildings. This order was carried out, except that the pig was killed
before it was burned. A more terrible sacrifice was made at times. One of
the diseased animals was rubbed over with tar, driven forth, set on fire,
and allowed to run till it fell down and died.”(749) “Living animals have
been burnt alive in sacrifice within memory to avert the loss of other
stock. The burial of three puppies ‘brandise-wise’ in a field is supposed
to rid it of weeds. Throughout the rural districts of Devon witchcraft is
an article of current faith, and the toad is thrown into the flames as an
emissary of the evil one.”(750)

(M268) But why, we may ask, should the burning alive of a calf or a sheep
be supposed to save the rest of the herd or the flock from the murrain?
According to one writer, as we have seen, the burnt sacrifice was thought
to appease the wrath of God.(751) The idea of appeasing the wrath of a
ferocious deity by burning an animal alive is probably no more than a
theological gloss put on an old heathen rite; it would hardly occur to the
simple mind of an English bumpkin, who, though he may be stupid, is not
naturally cruel and does not conceive of a divinity who takes delight in
the contemplation of suffering. To his thinking God has little or nothing
to do with the murrain, but witches, ill-wishers, and fairies have a great
deal to do with it. The English farmer who burned one of his lambs alive
said that he did it “to save his flocks from spells which had been cast on
them”; and the Scotch farmer who was bidden to burn a pig alive for a
similar purpose, but who had the humanity to kill the animal first,
believed that this was a remedy for the “evil eye” which had been cast
upon his beasts. Again, we read that “a farmer, who possessed broad acres,
and who was in many respects a sensible man, was greatly annoyed to find
that his cattle became diseased in the spring. Nothing could satisfy him
but that they were bewitched, and he was resolved to find out the person
who had cast the evil eye on his oxen. According to an
anciently-prescribed rule, the farmer took one of his bullocks and bled it
to death, catching all the blood on bundles of straw. The bloody straw was
then piled into a heap, and set on fire. Burning with a vast quantity of
smoke, the farmer expected to see the witch, either in reality or in
shadow, amidst the smoke.”(752) Such reasons express the real beliefs of
the peasants. “Cattle, like human beings, were exposed to the influences
of the evil eye, of forespeaking, and of the casting of evil. Witches and
warlocks did the work of evil among their neighbours’ cattle if their
anger had been aroused in any way. The fairies often wrought injury
amongst cattle. Every animal that died suddenly was killed by the dart of
the fairies, or, in the language of the people, was ‘shot-a-dead.’ Flint
arrows and spear-heads went by the name of ‘faery dairts.’ ... When an
animal died suddenly the canny woman of the district was sent for to
search for the ‘faery dairt,’ and in due course she found one, to the
great satisfaction of the owner of the dead animal.”(753)

(M269) But how, we must still ask, can burning an animal alive break the
spell that has been cast upon its fellows by a witch or a warlock? Some
light is thrown on the question by the following account of measures which
rustic wiseacres in Suffolk are said to have adopted as a remedy for
witchcraft. “A woman I knew forty-three years had been employed by my
predecessor to take care of his poultry. At the time I came to make her
acquaintance she was a bedridden toothless crone, with chin and nose all
but meeting. She did not discourage in her neighbours the idea that she
knew more than people ought to know, and had more power than others had.
Many years before I knew her it happened one spring that the ducks, which
were a part of her charge, failed to lay eggs.... She at once took it for
granted that the ducks had been bewitched. This misbelief involved very
shocking consequences, for it necessitated the idea that so diabolical an
act could only be combated by diabolical cruelty. And the most diabolical
act of cruelty she could imagine was that of baking alive in a hot oven
one of the ducks. And that was what she did. The sequence of thought in
her mind was that the spell that had been laid on the ducks was that of
preternaturally wicked wilfulness; that this spell could only be broken
through intensity of suffering, in this case death by burning; that the
intensity of suffering would break the spell in the one roasted to death;
and that the spell broken in one would be altogether broken, that is, in
all the ducks.... Shocking, however, as was this method of exorcising the
ducks, there was nothing in it original. Just about a hundred years
before, everyone in the town and neighbourhood of Ipswich had heard, and
many had believed, that a witch had been burnt to death in her own house
at Ipswich by the process of burning alive one of the sheep she had
bewitched. It was curious, but it was as convincing as curious, that the
hands and feet of this witch were the only parts of her that had not been
incinerated. This, however, was satisfactorily explained by the fact that
the four feet of the sheep, by which it had been suspended over the fire,
had not been destroyed in the flames that had consumed its body.”(754)
According to a slightly different account of the same tragic incident, the
last of the “Ipswitch witches,” one Grace Pett, “laid her hand heavily on
a farmer’s sheep, who, in order to punish her, fastened one of the sheep
in the ground and burnt it, except the feet, which were under the earth.
The next morning Grace Pett was found burnt to a cinder, except her feet.
Her fate is recorded in the _Philosophical Transactions_ as a case of
spontaneous combustion.”(755)

(M270) This last anecdote is instructive, if perhaps not strictly
authentic. It shews that in burning alive one of a bewitched flock or herd
what you really do is to burn the witch, who is either actually incarnate
in the animal or perhaps more probably stands in a relation of sympathy
with it so close as almost to amount to identity. Hence if you burn the
creature to ashes, you utterly destroy the witch and thereby save the
whole of the rest of the flock or herd from her abominable machinations;
whereas if you only partially burn the animal, allowing some parts of it
to escape the flames, the witch is only half-baked, and her power for
mischief may be hardly, if at all, impaired by the grilling. We can now
see that in such matters half-measures are useless. To kill the animal
first and burn it afterwards is a weak compromise, dictated no doubt by a
well-meant but utterly mistaken kindness; it is like shutting the
stable-door when the steed is stolen, for obviously by leaving the
animal’s, and therefore the witch’s, body nearly intact at the moment of
death, it allows her soul to escape and return safe and sound to her own
human body, which all the time is probably lying quietly at home in bed.
And the same train of reasoning that justifies the burning alive of
bewitched animals justifies and indeed requires the burning alive of the
witches themselves; it is really the only way of destroying them, body and
soul, and therefore of thoroughly extirpating the whole infernal crew.

(M271) In the Isle of Man the practice of burning cattle alive in order to
stop a murrain seems to have persisted down to a time within living
memory. On this subject I will quote the evidence collected by Sir John
Rhys: “A respectable farmer from Andreas told me that he was driving with
his wife to the neighbouring parish of Jurby some years ago, and that on
the way they beheld the carcase of a cow or an ox burning in a field, with
a woman engaged in stirring the fire. On reaching the village to which
they were going, they found that the burning beast belonged to a farmer
whom they knew. They were further told it was no wonder that the said
farmer had one of his cattle burnt, as several of them had recently died.
Whether this was a case of sacrifice or not I cannot say. But let me give
you another instance: a man whom I have already mentioned, saw at a farm
nearer the centre of the island a live calf being burnt. The owner bears
an English name, but his family has long been settled in Man. The farmer’s
explanation to my informant was that the calf was burnt to secure luck for
the rest of the herd, some of which were threatening to die. My informant
thought there was absolutely nothing the matter with them, except that
they had too little to eat. Be that as it may, the one calf was sacrificed
as a burnt-offering to secure luck for the rest of the cattle. Let me here
also quote Mr. Moore’s note in his _Manx Surnames_, p. 184, on the place
name _Cabbal yn Oural Losht_, or the Chapel of the Burnt Sacrifice. ‘This
name,’ he says, ‘records a circumstance which took place in the nineteenth
century, but which, it is to be hoped, was never customary in the Isle of
Man. A farmer, who had lost a number of his sheep and cattle by murrain,
burned a calf as a propitiatory offering to the Deity on this spot, where
a chapel was afterwards built. Hence the name.’ Particulars, I may say, of
time, place, and person could be easily added to Mr. Moore’s statement,
excepting, perhaps as to the deity in question; on that point I have never
been informed, but Mr. Moore is probably right in the use of the capital
_d_, as the sacrificer is, according to all accounts, a highly devout
Christian. One more instance: an octogenarian woman, born in the parish of
Bride, and now living at Kirk Andreas, saw, when she was a ‘lump of a
girl’ of ten or fifteen years of age, a live sheep being burnt in a field
in the parish of Andreas, on May-day, whereby she meant the first of May
reckoned according to the Old Style. She asserts very decidedly that it
was _son oural_, ‘as a sacrifice,’ as she put it, and ‘for an object to
the public’: those were her words when she expressed herself in English.
Further, she made the statement that it was a custom to burn a sheep on
old May-day for a sacrifice. I was fully alive to the interest of this
evidence, and cross-examined her so far as her age allows of it, and I
find that she adheres to her statement with all firmness.”(756)

(M272) But Manxmen burn beasts when they are dead as well as when they are
alive; and their reasons for burning the dead animals may help us to
understand their reasons for burning the living animals. On this subject I
will again quote Sir John Rhys: “When a beast dies on a farm, of course it
dies, according to the old-fashioned view of things, as I understand it,
from the influence of the evil eye or the interposition of a witch. So if
you want to know to whom you are indebted for the loss of the beast, you
have simply to burn its carcase in the open air and watch who comes first
to the spot or who first passes by; that is the criminal to be charged
with the death of the animal, and he cannot help coming there—such is the
effect of the fire. A Michael woman, who is now about thirty, related to
me how she watched while the carcase of a bewitched colt was burning, how
she saw the witch coming, and how she remembers her shrivelled face, with
nose and chin in close proximity. According to another native of Michael,
a well-informed middle-aged man, the animal in question was oftenest a
calf, and it was wont to be burnt whole, skin and all. The object,
according to him, is invariably to bring the bewitcher on the spot, and he
always comes; but I am not clear what happens to him when he appears. My
informant added, however, that it was believed that, unless the bewitcher
got possession of the heart of the burning beast, he lost all his power of
bewitching.”(757)

(M273) These statements shew that in the Isle of Man the sympathetic
relation between the witch and his or her animal victim is believed to be
so close that by burning the animal you compel the witch to appear. The
original idea may have been that, by virtue of a magic sympathy which
binds the two together, whatever harm you do to the animal is felt by the
witch as if it were done to herself. That notion would fully explain why
Manx people used also to burn bewitched animals alive; in doing so they
probably imagined that they were simultaneously burning the witch who had
cast the spell on their cattle.

(M274) This explanation of the reason for burning a bewitched animal, dead
or alive, is confirmed by the parallel belief concerning were-wolves. It
is commonly supposed that certain men and women can transform themselves
by magic art into wolves or other animals, but that any wound inflicted on
such a transformed beast (a were-wolf or other were-animal) is
simultaneously inflicted on the human body of the witch or warlock who had
transformed herself or himself into the creature. This belief is widely
diffused; it meets us in Europe, Asia, and Africa. For example, Olaus
Magnus tells us that in Livonia, not many years before he wrote, a noble
lady had a dispute with her slave on the subject of were-wolves, she
doubting whether there were any such things, and he maintaining that there
were. To convince her he retired to a room, from which he soon appeared in
the form of a wolf. Being chased by the dogs into the forest and brought
to bay, the wolf defended himself fiercely, but lost an eye in the
struggle. Next day the slave returned to his mistress in human form but
with only one eye.(758) Again, it happened in the year 1588 that a
gentleman in a village among the mountains of Auvergne, looking out of the
window one evening, saw a friend of his going out to hunt. He begged him
to bring him back some of his bag, and his friend said that he would.
Well, he had not gone very far before he met a huge wolf. He fired and
missed it, and the animal attacked him furiously, but he stood on his
guard and with an adroit stroke of his hunting knife he cut off the right
fore-paw of the brute, which thereupon fled away and he saw it no more. He
returned to his friend, and drawing from his pouch the severed paw of the
wolf he found to his horror that it was turned into a woman’s hand with a
golden ring on one of the fingers. His friend recognized the ring as that
of his own wife and went to find her. She was sitting by the fire with her
right arm under her apron. As she refused to draw it out, her husband
confronted her with the hand and the ring on it. She at once confessed the
truth, that it was she in the form of a were-wolf whom the hunter had
wounded. Her confession was confirmed by applying the severed hand to the
stump of her arm, for the two fitted exactly. The angry husband delivered
up his wicked wife to justice; she was tried and burnt as a witch.(759) It
is said that a were-wolf, scouring the streets of Padua, was caught, and
when they cut off his four paws he at once turned into a man, but with
both his hands and feet amputated.(760) Again, in a farm of the French
district of Beauce, there was once a herdsman who never slept at home.
These nocturnal absences naturally attracted attention and set people
talking. At the same time, by a curious coincidence, a wolf used to prowl
round the farm every night and to excite the dogs in the farmyard to fury
by thrusting his snout derisively through the cat’s hole in the great
gate. The farmer had his suspicions and he determined to watch. One night,
when the herdsman went out as usual, his master followed him quietly till
he came to a hut, where with his own eyes he saw the man put on a broad
belt and at once turn into a wolf, which scoured away over the fields. The
farmer smiled a sickly sort of smile and went back to the farm. There he
took a stout stick and sat down at the cat’s hole to wait. He had not long
to wait. The dogs barked like mad, a wolf’s snout shewed through the hole,
down came the stick, out gushed the blood, and a voice was heard to say
without the gate, “A good job too. I had still three years to run.” Next
day the herdsman appeared as usual, but he had a scar on his brow, and he
never went out again at night.(761)

(M275) In China also the faith in similar transformations is reflected in
the following tale. A certain man in Sungyang went into the mountains to
gather fuel. Night fell and he was pursued by two tigers, but scrambled up
a tree out of their reach. Then said the one tiger to the other tiger, “If
we can find Chu-Tu-shi, we are sure to catch this man up the tree.” So off
went one of them to find Chu-Tu-shi, while the other kept watch at the
foot of the tree. Soon after that another tiger, leaner and longer than
the other two, appeared on the scene and made a grab at the man’s coat.
But fortunately the moon was shining, the man saw the paw, and with a
stroke of his axe cut off one of its claws. The tigers roared and fled,
one after the other, so the man climbed down the tree and went home. When
he told his tale in the village, suspicion naturally fell on the said
Chu-Tu-shi; and next day some men went to see him in his house. They were
told that they could not see him; for he had been out the night before and
had hurt his hand, and he was now ill in bed. So they put two and two
together and reported him to the police. The police arrived, surrounded
the house, and set fire to it; but Chu-Tu-shi rose from his bed, turned
into a tiger, charged right through the police, and escaped, and to this
day nobody ever knew where he went to.(762)

(M276) The Toradjas of Central Celebes stand in very great fear of
were-wolves, that is of men and women, who have the power of transforming
their spirits into animals such as cats, crocodiles, wild pigs, apes,
deer, and buffaloes, which roam about battening on human flesh, and
especially on human livers, while the men and women in their own proper
human form are sleeping quietly in their beds at home. Among them a man is
either born a were-wolf or becomes one by infection; for mere contact with
a were-wolf, or even with anything that has been touched by his spittle,
is quite enough to turn the most innocent person into a were-wolf; nay
even to lean your head against anything against which a were-wolf has
leaned his head suffices to do it. The penalty for being a were-wolf is
death; but the sentence is never passed until the accused has had a fair
trial and his guilt has been clearly demonstrated by an ordeal, which
consists in dipping the middle finger into boiling resin. If the finger is
not burnt, the man is no were-wolf; but if it is burnt, a were-wolf he
most assuredly is, so they take him away to a quiet spot and hack him to
bits. In cutting him up the executioners are naturally very careful not to
be bespattered with his blood, for if that were to happen they would of
course be turned into were-wolves themselves. Further, they place his
severed head beside his hinder-quarters to prevent his soul from coming to
life again and pursuing his depredations. So great is the horror of
were-wolves among the Toradjas, and so great is their fear of contracting
the deadly taint by infection, that many persons have assured a missionary
that they would not spare their own child if they knew him to be a
were-wolf.(763) Now these people, whose faith in were-wolves is not a mere
dying or dead superstition but a living, dreadful conviction, tell stories
of were-wolves which conform to the type which we are examining. They say
that once upon a time a were-wolf came in human shape under the house of a
neighbour, while his real body lay asleep as usual at home, and calling
out softly to the man’s wife made an assignation with her to meet him in
the tobacco-field next day. But the husband was lying awake and he heard
it all, but he said nothing to anybody. Next day chanced to be a busy one
in the village, for a roof had to be put on a new house and all the men
were lending a hand with the work, and among them to be sure was the
were-wolf himself, I mean to say his own human self; there he was up on
the roof working away as hard as anybody. But the woman went out to the
tobacco-field, and behind went unseen her husband, slinking through the
underwood. When they were come to the field, he saw the were-wolf make up
to his wife, so out he rushed and struck at him with a stick. Quick as
thought, the were-wolf turned himself into a leaf, but the man was as
nimble, for he caught up the leaf, thrust it into the joint of bamboo, in
which he kept his tobacco, and bunged it up tight. Then he walked back
with his wife to the village, carrying the bamboo with the were-wolf in
it. When they came to the village, the human body of the were-wolf was
still on the roof, working away with the rest. The man put the bamboo in a
fire. At that the human were-wolf looked down from the roof and said,
“Don’t do that.” The man drew the bamboo from the fire, but a moment
afterwards he put it in the fire again, and again the human were-wolf on
the roof looked down and cried, “Don’t do that.” But this time the man
kept the bamboo in the fire, and when it blazed up, down fell the human
were-wolf from the roof as dead as a stone.(764) Again, the following
story went round among the Toradjas not so very many years ago. The thing
happened at Soemara, on the Gulf of Tomori. It was evening and some men
sat chatting with a certain Hadji Mohammad. When it had grown dark, one of
the men went out of the house for something or other. A little while
afterwards one of the company thought he saw a stag’s antlers standing out
sharp and clear against the bright evening sky. So Hadji Mohammad raised
his gun and fired. A minute or two afterwards back comes the man who had
gone out, and says he to Hadji Mohammad, “You shot at me and hit me. You
must pay me a fine.” They searched him but found no wound on him anywhere.
Then they knew that he was a were-wolf who had turned himself into a stag
and had healed the bullet-wound by licking it. However, the bullet had
found its billet, for two days afterwards he was a dead man.(765)

(M277) In Sennar, a province of the Egyptian Sudan, the Hammeg and Fungi
enjoy the reputation of being powerful magicians who can turn themselves
into hyaenas and in that guise scour the country at night, howling and
gorging themselves. But by day they are men again. It is very dangerous to
shoot at such human hyaenas by night. On the Jebel Bela mountain a soldier
once shot at a hyaena and hit it, but it dragged itself off, bleeding, in
the darkness and escaped. Next morning he followed up the trail of blood
and it led him straight to the hut of a man who was everywhere known for a
wizard. Nothing of the hyaena was to be seen, but the man himself was laid
up in the house with a fresh wound and died soon afterwards. And the
soldier did not long survive him.(766)

(M278) But the classical example of these stories is an old Roman tale
told by Petronius. It is put in the mouth of one Niceros. Late at night he
left the town to visit a friend of his, a widow, who lived at a farm five
miles down the road. He was accompanied by a soldier, who lodged in the
same house, a man of Herculean build. When they set out it was near dawn,
but the moon shone as bright as day. Passing through the outskirts of the
town, they came amongst the tombs, which lined the highroad for some
distance. There the soldier made an excuse for retiring behind a monument,
and Niceros sat down to wait for him, humming a tune and counting the
tombstones to pass the time. In a little he looked round for his
companion, and saw a sight which froze him with horror. The soldier had
stripped off his clothes to the last rag and laid them at the side of the
highway. Then he performed a certain ceremony over them, and immediately
was changed into a wolf, and ran howling into the forest. When Niceros had
recovered himself a little, he went to pick up the clothes, but found that
they were turned to stone. More dead than alive, he drew his sword, and,
striking at every shadow cast by the tombstones on the moonlit road, he
tottered to his friend’s house. He entered it like a ghost, to the
surprise of the widow, who wondered to see him abroad so late. “If you had
only been here a little ago,” said she, “you might have been of some use.
For a wolf came tearing into the yard, scaring the cattle and bleeding
them like a butcher. But he did not get off so easily, for the servant
speared him in the neck.” After hearing these words, Niceros felt that he
could not close an eye, so he hurried away home again. It was now broad
daylight, but when he came to the place where the clothes had been turned
to stone, he found only a pool of blood. He reached home, and there lay
the soldier in bed like an ox in the shambles, and the doctor was
bandaging his neck. “Then I knew,” said Niceros, “that the man was a
were-wolf, and never again could I break bread with him, no, not if you
had killed me for it.”(767)

(M279) These stories may help us to understand the custom of burning a
bewitched animal, which has been observed in our own country down to
recent times, if indeed it is even now extinct. For a close parallel may
be traced in some respects between witches and were-wolves. Like
were-wolves, witches are commonly supposed to be able to transform
themselves temporarily into animals for the purpose of playing their
mischievous pranks;(768) and like were-wolves they can in their animal
disguise be compelled to unmask themselves to any one who succeeds in
drawing their blood. In either case the animal-skin is conceived as a
cloak thrown round the wicked enchanter; and if you can only pierce the
skin, whether by the stab of a knife or the shot of a gun, you so rend the
disguise that the man or woman inside of it stands revealed in his or her
true colours. Strictly speaking, the stab should be given on the brow or
between the eyes in the case both of a witch and of a were-wolf;(769) and
it is vain to shoot at a were-wolf unless you have had the bullet blessed
in a chapel of St. Hubert or happen to be carrying about you, without
knowing it, a four-leaved clover; otherwise the bullet will merely rebound
from the were-wolf like water from a duck’s back.(770) However, in Armenia
they say that the were-wolf, who in that country is usually a woman, can
be killed neither by shot nor by steel; the only way of delivering the
unhappy woman from her bondage is to get hold of her wolf’s skin and burn
it; for that naturally prevents her from turning into a wolf again. But it
is not easy to find the skin, for she is cunning enough to hide it by
day.(771) So with witches, it is not only useless but even dangerous to
shoot at one of them when she has turned herself into a hare; if you do,
the gun may burst in your hand or the shot come back and kill you. The
only way to make quite sure of hitting a witch-animal is to put a silver
sixpence or a silver button in your gun.(772) For example, it happened one
evening that a native of the island of Tiree was going home with a new
gun, when he saw a black sheep running towards him across the plain of
Reef. Something about the creature excited his suspicion, so he put a
silver sixpence in his gun and fired at it. Instantly the black sheep
became a woman with a drugget coat wrapt round her head. The man knew her
quite well, for she was a witch who had often persecuted him before in the
shape of a cat.(773)

(M280) Again, the wounds inflicted on a witch-hare or a witch-cat are to
be seen on the witch herself, just as the wounds inflicted on a were-wolf
are to be seen on the man himself when he has doffed the wolf’s skin. To
take a few instances out of a multitude, a young man in the island of
Lismore was out shooting. When he was near Balnagown loch, he started a
hare and fired at it. The animal gave an unearthly scream, and then for
the first time it occurred to him that there were no real hares in
Lismore. He threw away his gun in terror and fled home; and next day he
heard that a notorious witch was laid up with a broken leg. A man need be
no conjuror to guess how she came by that broken leg.(774) Again, at
Thurso certain witches used to turn themselves into cats and in that shape
to torment an honest man. One night he lost patience, whipped out his
broadsword, and put them to flight. As they were scurrying away he struck
at them and cut off a leg of one of the cats. To his astonishment it was a
woman’s leg, and next morning he found one of the witches short of the
corresponding limb.(775) Glanvil tells a story of “an old woman in
Cambridge-shire, whose astral spirit, coming into a man’s house (as he was
sitting alone at the fire) in the shape of an huge cat, and setting her
self before the fire, not far from him, he stole a stroke at the back of
it with a fire-fork, and seemed to break the back of it, but it scambled
from him, and vanisht he knew not how. But such an old woman, a reputed
witch, was found dead in her bed that very night, with her back broken, as
I have heard some years ago credibly reported.”(776) In Yorkshire during
the latter half of the nineteenth century a parish clergyman was told a
circumstantial story of an old witch named Nanny, who was hunted in the
form of a hare for several miles over the Westerdale moors and kept well
away from the dogs, till a black one joined the pack and succeeded in
taking a bit out of one of the hare’s legs. That was the end of the chase,
and immediately afterwards the sportsmen found old Nanny laid up in bed
with a sore leg. On examining the wounded limb they discovered that the
hurt was precisely in that part of it which in the hare had been bitten by
the black dog and, what was still more significant, the wound had all the
appearance of having been inflicted by a dog’s teeth. So they put two and
two together.(777) The same sort of thing is often reported in
Lincolnshire. “One night,” said a servant from Kirton Lindsey, “my father
and brother saw a cat in front of them. Father knew it was a witch, and
took a stone and hammered it. Next day the witch had her face all tied up,
and shortly afterwards died.” Again, a Bardney bumpkin told how a witch in
his neighbourhood could take all sorts of shapes. One night a man shot a
hare, and when he went to the witch’s house he found her plastering a
wound just where he had shot the hare.(778) So in County Leitrim, in
Ireland, they say that a hare pursued by dogs fled to a house near at
hand, but just as it was bolting in at the door one of the dogs came up
with it and nipped a piece out of its leg. The hunters entered the house
and found no hare there but only an old woman, and her side was bleeding;
so they knew what to think of her.(779)

(M281) Again, in the Vosges Mountains a great big hare used to come out
every evening to take the air at the foot of the Mont des Fourches. All
the sportsmen of the neighbourhood tried their hands on that hare for a
month, but not one of them could hit it. At last one marksman, more
knowing than the rest, loaded his gun with some pellets of a consecrated
wafer in addition to the usual pellets of lead. That did the trick. If
puss was not killed outright, she was badly hurt, and limped away uttering
shrieks and curses in a human voice. Later it transpired that she was no
other than the witch of a neighbouring village who had the power of
putting on the shape of any animal she pleased.(780) Again, a hunter of
Travexin, in the Vosges, fired at a hare and almost shot away one of its
hind legs. Nevertheless the creature contrived to escape into a cottage
through the open door. Immediately a child’s cries were heard to proceed
from the cottage, and the hunter could distinguish these words, “Daddy,
daddy, come quick! Poor mammy has her leg broken.”(781)

(M282) In Swabia the witches are liable to accidents of the same sort when
they go about their business in the form of animals. For example, there
was a soldier who was betrothed to a young woman and used to visit her
every evening when he was off duty. But one evening the girl told him that
he must not come to the house on Friday nights, because it was never
convenient to her to see him then. This roused his suspicion, and the very
next Friday night he set out to go to his sweetheart’s house. On the way a
white cat ran up to him in the street and dogged his steps, and when the
animal would not make off he drew his sword and slashed off one of its
paws. On that the cat bolted. The soldier walked on, but when he came to
his sweetheart’s house he found her in bed, and when he asked her what was
the matter, she gave a very confused reply. Noticing stains of blood on
the bed, he drew down the coverlet and saw that the girl was weltering in
her gore, for one of her feet was lopped off. “So that’s what’s the matter
with you, you witch!” said he, and turned on his heel and left her, and
within three days she was dead.(782) Again, a farmer in the neighbourhood
of Wiesensteig frequently found in his stable a horse over and above the
four horses he actually owned. He did not know what to make of it and
mentioned the matter to the smith. The smith said quietly, “The next time
you see a fifth horse in the stable, just you send for me.” Well, it was
not long before the strange horse was there again, and the farmer at once
sent for the smith. He came bringing four horse-shoes with him, and said,
“I’m sure the nag has no shoes; I’ll shoe her for you.” No sooner said
than done. However, the smith overreached himself; for next day when his
friend the farmer paid him a visit he found the smith’s own wife prancing
about with horse-shoes nailed on her hands and feet. But it was the last
time she ever appeared in the shape of a horse.(783)

(M283) Once more, in Silesia they tell of a miller’s apprentice, a sturdy
and industrious young fellow, who set out on his travels. One day he came
to a mill, and the miller told him that he wanted an apprentice but did
not care to engage one, because hitherto all his apprentices had run away
in the night, and when he came down in the morning the mill was at a
stand. However, he liked the looks of the young chap and took him into his
pay. But what the new apprentice heard about the mill and his predecessors
was not encouraging; so the first night when it was his duty to watch in
the mill he took care to provide himself with an axe and a prayer-book,
and while he kept one eye on the whirring, humming wheels he kept the
other on the good book, which he read by the flickering light of a candle
set on a table. So the hours at first passed quietly with nothing to
disturb him but the monotonous drone and click of the machinery. But on
the stroke of twelve, as he was still reading with the axe lying on the
table within reach, the door opened and in came two grey cats mewing, an
old one and a young one. They sat down opposite him, but it was easy to
see that they did not like his wakefulness and the prayer-book and the
axe. Suddenly the old cat reached out a paw and made a grab at the axe,
but the young chap was too quick for her and held it fast. Then the young
cat tried to do the same for the prayer-book, but the apprentice gripped
it tight. Thus balked, the two cats set up such a squalling that the young
fellow could hardly say his prayers. Just before one o’clock the younger
cat sprang on the table and fetched a blow with her right paw at the
candle to put it out. But the apprentice struck at her with his axe and
sliced the paw off, whereupon the two cats vanished with a frightful
screech. The apprentice wrapped the paw up in paper to shew it to his
master. Very glad the miller was next morning when he came down and found
the mill going and the young chap at his post. The apprentice told him
what had happened in the night and gave him the parcel containing the
cat’s paw. But when the miller opened it, what was the astonishment of the
two to find in it no cat’s paw but a woman’s hand! At breakfast the
miller’s young wife did not as usual take her place at the table. She was
ill in bed, and the doctor had to be called in to bind up her right arm,
because in hewing wood, so they said, she had made a slip and cut off her
own right hand. But the apprentice packed up his traps and turned his back
on that mill before the sun had set.(784)

(M284) It would no doubt be easy to multiply instances, all equally well
attested and authentic, of the transformation of witches into animals and
of the damage which the women themselves have sustained through injuries
inflicted on the animals.(785) But the foregoing evidence may suffice to
establish the complete parallelism between witches and were-wolves in
these respects. The analogy appears to confirm the view that the reason
for burning a bewitched animal alive is a belief that the witch herself is
in the animal, and that by burning it you either destroy the witch
completely or at least unmask her and compel her to reassume her proper
human shape, in which she is naturally far less potent for mischief than
when she is careering about the country in the likeness of a cat, a hare,
a horse, or what not. This principle is still indeed clearly recognized by
people in Oldenburg, though, as might be expected, they do not now carry
out the principle to its logical conclusion by burning the bewitched
animal or person alive; instead they resort to a feeble and, it must be
added, perfectly futile subterfuge dictated by a mistaken humanity or a
fear of the police. “When anything living is bewitched in a house, for
example, children or animals, they burn or boil the nobler inwards of
animals, especially the hearts, but also the lungs or the liver. If
animals have died, they take the inwards of one of them or of an animal of
the same kind slaughtered for the purpose; but if that is not possible
they take the inwards of a cock, by preference a black one. The heart,
lung, or liver is stuck all over with needles, or marked with a cross cut,
or placed on the fire in a tightly closed vessel, strict silence being
observed and doors and windows well shut. When the heart boils or is
reduced to ashes, the witch must appear, for during the boiling she feels
the burning pain. She either begs to be released or seeks to borrow
something, for example, salt or a coal of fire, or she takes the lid off
the pot, or tries to induce the person whose spell is on her to speak.
They say, too, that a woman comes with a spinning-wheel. If it is a sheep
that has died, you proceed in the same way with a tripe from its stomach
and prick it with needles while it is on the boil. Instead of boiling it,
some people nail the heart to the highest rafter of the house, or lay it
on the edge of the hearth, in order that it may dry up, no doubt because
the same thing happens to the witch. We may conjecture that other
sympathetic means of destruction are employed against witchcraft. The
following is expressly reported: the heart of a calf that has died is
stuck all over with needles, enclosed in a bag, and thrown into flowing
water before sunset.”(786)

(M285) And the same thing holds good also of inanimate objects on which a
witch has cast her spell. In Wales they say that “if a thing is bewitched,
burn it, and immediately afterwards the witch will come to borrow
something of you. If you give what she asks, she will go free; if you
refuse it, she will burn, and a mark will be on her body the next
day.”(787) So, too, in Oldenburg, “the burning of things that are
bewitched or that have been received from witches is another way of
breaking the spell. It is often said that the burning should take place at
a cross-road, and in several places cross-roads are shewn where the
burning used to be performed.... As a rule, while the things are burning,
the guilty witches appear, though not always in their own shape. At the
burning of bewitched butter they often appear as cockchafers and can be
killed with impunity. Victuals received from witches may be safely
consumed if only you first burn a portion of them.”(788) For example, a
young man in Oldenburg was wooing a girl, and she gave him two fine apples
as a gift. Not feeling any appetite at the time, he put the apples in his
pocket, and when he came home he laid them by in a chest. Two or three
days afterwards he remembered the apples and went to the chest to fetch
them. But when he would have put his hand on them, what was his horror to
find in their stead two fat ugly toads in the chest! He hastened to a wise
man and asked him what he should do with the toads. The man told him to
boil the toads alive, but while he was doing so he must be sure on no
account to lend anything out of the house. Well, just as he had the toads
in a pot on the fire and the water began to grow nicely warm, who should
come to the door but the girl who had given him the apples, and she wished
to borrow something; but he refused to give her anything, rated her as a
witch, and drove her out of the house. A little afterwards in came the
girl’s mother and begged with tears in her eyes for something or other;
but he turned her out also. The last word she said to him was that he
should at least spare her daughter’s life; but he paid no heed to her and
let the toads boil till they fell to bits. Next day word came that the
girl was dead.(789) Can any reasonable man doubt that the witch herself
was boiled alive in the person of the toads?

(M286) Moreover, just as a witch can assume the form of an animal, so she
can assume the form of some other human being, and the likeness is
sometimes so good that it is difficult to detect the fraud. However, by
burning alive the person whose shape the witch has put on, you force the
witch to disclose herself, just as by burning alive the bewitched animal
you in like manner oblige the witch to appear. This principle may perhaps
be unknown to science, falsely so called, but it is well understood in
Ireland and has been acted on within recent years. In March 1895 a peasant
named Michael Cleary, residing at Ballyvadlea, a remote and lonely
district in the county of Tipperary, burned his wife Bridget Cleary alive
over a slow fire on the kitchen hearth in the presence of and with the
active assistance of some neighbours, including the woman’s own father and
several of her cousins. They thought that she was not Bridget Cleary at
all, but a witch, and that when they held her down on the fire she would
vanish up the chimney; so they cried, while she was burning, “Away she
goes! Away she goes!” Even when she lay quite dead on the kitchen floor
(for contrary to the general expectation she did not disappear up the
chimney), her husband still believed that the woman lying there was a
witch, and that his own dear wife had gone with the fairies to the old
_rath_ or fort on the hill of Kylenagranagh, where he would see her at
night riding a grey horse and roped to the saddle, and that he would cut
the ropes, and that she would stay with him ever afterwards. So he went
with some friends to the fort night after night, taking a big table-knife
with him to cut the ropes. But he never saw his wife again. He and the men
who had held the woman on the fire were arrested and tried at Clonmel for
wilful murder in July 1895; they were all found guilty of manslaughter and
sentenced to various terms of penal servitude and imprisonment; the
sentence passed on Michael Cleary was twenty years’ penal servitude.(790)

(M287) However, our British peasants, it must be confessed, have not
always acted up to the strict logical theory which seems to call for death
by fire as the proper treatment both of bewitched animals and of witches.
Sometimes, perhaps in moments of weakness, they have merely buried the
bewitched animals alive instead of burning them. For example, in the year
1643, “many cattle having died, John Brughe and Neane Nikclerith, also one
of the initiated, conjoined their mutual skill for the safety of the herd.
The surviving animals were drove past a tub of water containing two
enchanted stones: and each was sprinkled from the liquid contents in its
course. One, however, being unable to walk, ‘was by force drawin out at
the byre dure; and the said Johnne with Nikclerith smelling the nois
thereof said it wald not leive, caused ane hoill to be maid in Maw Greane,
quhilk was put quick in the hole and maid all the rest of the cattell
theireftir to go over that place: and in that devillische maner, be
charmeing,’ they were cured.”(791) Again, during the prevalence of a
murrain about the year 1629, certain persons proposed to stay the plague
with the help of a celebrated “cureing stane” of which the laird of Lee
was the fortunate owner. But from this they were dissuaded by one who “had
sene bestiall curet be taking ane quik seik ox, and making ane deip pitt,
and bureing him therin, and be calling the oxin and bestiall over that
place.” Indeed Issobell Young, the mother of these persons, had herself
endeavoured to check the progress of the distemper by taking “ane quik ox
with ane catt, and ane grit quantitie of salt,” and proceeding “to burie
the ox and catt quik with the salt, in ane deip hoill in the grund, as ane
sacrifice to the devill, that the rest of the guidis might be fred of the
seiknes or diseases.”(792) Writing towards the end of the eighteenth
century, John Ramsay of Ochtertyre tells us that “the violent death even
of a brute is in some cases held to be of great avail. There is a disease
called the _black spauld_, which sometimes rages like a pestilence among
black cattle, the symptoms of which are a mortification in the legs and a
corruption of the mass of blood. Among the other engines of superstition
that are directed against this fatal malady, the first cow seized with it
is commonly buried alive, and the other cattle are forced to pass
backwards and forwards over the pit. At other times the heart is taken out
of the beast alive, and then the carcass is buried. It is remarkable that
the leg affected is cut off, and hung up in some part of the house or
byre, where it remains suspended, notwithstanding the seeming danger of
infection. There is hardly a house in Mull where these may not be seen.
This practice seems to have taken its rise antecedent to Christianity, as
it reminds us of the pagan custom of hanging up offerings in their
temples. In Breadalbane, when a cow is observed to have symptoms of
madness, there is recourse had to a peculiar process. They tie the legs of
the mad creature, and throw her into a pit dug at the door of the fold.
After covering the hole with earth, a large fire is kindled upon it; and
the rest of the cattle are driven out, and forced to pass through the fire
one by one.”(793) In this latter custom we may suspect that the fire
kindled on the grave of the buried cow was originally made by the friction
of wood, in other words, that it was a need-fire. Again, writing in the
year 1862, Sir Arthur Mitchell tells us that “for the cure of the murrain
in cattle, one of the herd is still sacrificed for the good of the whole.
This is done by burying it alive. I am assured that within the last ten
years such a barbarism occurred in the county of Moray.”(794)

(M288) Sometimes, however, the animal has not even been buried alive, it
has been merely killed and then buried. In this emasculated form the
sacrifice, we may say with confidence, is absolutely useless for the
purpose of stopping a murrain. Nevertheless, it has been tried. Thus in
Lincolnshire, “when the cattle plague was so prevalent in 1866, there was,
I believe, not a single cowshed in Marshland but had its wicken cross over
the door; and other charms more powerful than this were in some cases
resorted to. I never heard of the use of the needfire in the Marsh, though
it was, I believe, used on the wolds not many miles off. But I knew of at
least one case in which a calf was killed and solemnly buried feet
pointing upwards at the threshold of the cowshed. When our garthman told
me of this, I pointed out to him that the charm had failed, for the
disease had not spared that shed. But he promptly replied, ‘Yis, but owd
Edwards were a soight too cliver; he were that mean he slew nobbutt a
wankling cauf as were bound to deny anny road; if he had nobbutt tekken
his best cauf it wud hev worked reight enuff; ’tain’t in reason that owd
skrat ’ud be hanselled wi’ wankling draffle.’ ”(795)

CHAPTER V. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRE-FESTIVALS.

§ 1. On the Fire-festivals in general.

(M289) The foregoing survey of the popular fire-festivals of Europe
suggests some general observations. In the first place we can hardly help
being struck by the resemblance which the ceremonies bear to each other,
at whatever time of the year and in whatever part of Europe they are
celebrated. The custom of kindling great bonfires, leaping over them, and
driving cattle through or round them would seem to have been practically
universal throughout Europe, and the same may be said of the processions
or races with blazing torches round fields, orchards, pastures, or
cattle-stalls. Less widespread are the customs of hurling lighted discs
into the air(796) and trundling a burning wheel down hill;(797) for to
judge by the evidence which I have collected these modes of distributing
the beneficial influence of the fire have been confined in the main to
Central Europe. The ceremonial of the Yule log is distinguished from that
of the other fire-festivals by the privacy and domesticity which
characterize it; but, as we have already seen, this distinction may well
be due simply to the rough weather of midwinter, which is apt not only to
render a public assembly in the open air disagreeable, but also at any
moment to defeat the object of the assembly by extinguishing the
all-important fire under a downpour of rain or a fall of snow. Apart from
these local or seasonal differences, the general resemblance between the
fire-festivals at all times of the year and in all places is tolerably
close. And as the ceremonies themselves resemble each other, so do the
benefits which the people expect to reap from them. Whether applied in the
form of bonfires blazing at fixed points, or of torches carried about from
place to place, or of embers and ashes taken from the smouldering heap of
fuel, the fire is believed to promote the growth of the crops and the
welfare of man and beast, either positively by stimulating them, or
negatively by averting the dangers and calamities which threaten them from
such causes as thunder and lightning, conflagration, blight, mildew,
vermin, sterility, disease, and not least of all witchcraft.

(M290) But we naturally ask, How did it come about that benefits so great
and manifold were supposed to be attained by means so simple? In what way
did people imagine that they could procure so many goods or avoid so many
ills by the application of fire and smoke, of embers and ashes? In short,
what theory underlay and prompted the practice of these customs? For that
the institution of the festivals was the outcome of a definite train of
reasoning may be taken for granted; the view that primitive man acted
first and invented his reasons to suit his actions afterwards, is not
borne out by what we know of his nearest living representatives, the
savage and the peasant. Two different explanations of the fire-festivals
have been given by modern enquirers. On the one hand it has been held that
they are sun-charms or magical ceremonies intended, on the principle of
imitative magic, to ensure a needful supply of sunshine for men, animals,
and plants by kindling fires which mimic on earth the great source of
light and heat in the sky. This was the view of Wilhelm Mannhardt.(798) It
may be called the solar theory. On the other hand it has been maintained
that the ceremonial fires have no necessary reference to the sun but are
simply purificatory in intention, being designed to burn up and destroy
all harmful influences, whether these are conceived in a personal form as
witches, demons, and monsters, or in an impersonal form as a sort of
pervading taint or corruption of the air. This is the view of Dr. Edward
Westermarck(799) and apparently of Professor Eugen Mogk.(800) It may be
called the purificatory theory. Obviously the two theories postulate two
very different conceptions of the fire which plays the principal part in
the rites. On the one view, the fire, like sunshine in our latitude, is a
genial creative power which fosters the growth of plants and the
development of all that makes for health and happiness; on the other view,
the fire is a fierce destructive power which blasts and consumes all the
noxious elements, whether spiritual or material, that menace the life of
men, of animals, and of plants. According to the one theory the fire is a
stimulant, according to the other it is a disinfectant; on the one view
its virtue is positive, on the other it is negative.

(M291) Yet the two explanations, different as they are in the character
which they attribute to the fire, are perhaps not wholly irreconcilable.
If we assume that the fires kindled at these festivals were primarily
intended to imitate the sun’s light and heat, may we not regard the
purificatory and disinfecting qualities, which popular opinion certainly
appears to have ascribed to them, as attributes derived directly from the
purificatory and disinfecting qualities of sunshine? In this way we might
conclude that, while the imitation of sunshine in these ceremonies was
primary and original, the purification attributed to them was secondary
and derivative. Such a conclusion, occupying an intermediate position
between the two opposing theories and recognizing an element of truth in
both of them, was adopted by me in earlier editions of this work;(801) but
in the meantime Dr. Westermarck has argued powerfully in favour of the
purificatory theory alone, and I am bound to say that his arguments carry
great weight, and that on a fuller review of the facts the balance of
evidence seems to me to incline decidedly in his favour. However, the case
is not so clear as to justify us in dismissing the solar theory without
discussion, and accordingly I propose to adduce the considerations which
tell for it before proceeding to notice those which tell against it. A
theory which had the support of so learned and sagacious an investigator
as W. Mannhardt is entitled to a respectful hearing.

§ 2. The Solar Theory of the Fire-festivals.

(M292) In an earlier part of this work we saw that savages resort to
charms for making sunshine,(802) and it would be no wonder if primitive
man in Europe did the same. Indeed, when we consider the cold and cloudy
climate of Europe during a great part of the year, we shall find it
natural that sun-charms should have played a much more prominent part
among the superstitious practices of European peoples than among those of
savages who live nearer the equator and who consequently are apt to get in
the course of nature more sunshine than they want. This view of the
festivals may be supported by various arguments drawn partly from their
dates, partly from the nature of the rites, and partly from the influence
which they are believed to exert upon the weather and on vegetation.

(M293) First, in regard to the dates of the festivals it can be no mere
accident that two of the most important and widely spread of the festivals
are timed to coincide more or less exactly with the summer and winter
solstices, that is, with the two turning-points in the sun’s apparent
course in the sky when he reaches respectively his highest and his lowest
elevation at noon. Indeed with respect to the midwinter celebration of
Christmas we are not left to conjecture; we know from the express
testimony of the ancients that it was instituted by the church to
supersede an old heathen festival of the birth of the sun,(803) which was
apparently conceived to be born again on the shortest day of the year,
after which his light and heat were seen to grow till they attained their
full maturity at midsummer. Therefore it is no very far-fetched conjecture
to suppose that the Yule log, which figures so prominently in the popular
celebration of Christmas, was originally designed to help the labouring
sun of midwinter to rekindle his seemingly expiring light.

(M294) The idea that by lighting a log on earth you can rekindle a fire in
heaven or fan it into a brighter blaze, naturally seems to us absurd; but
to the savage mind it wears a different aspect, and the institution of the
great fire-festivals which we are considering probably dates from a time
when Europe was still sunk in savagery or at most in barbarism. Now it can
be shewn that in order to increase the celestial source of heat at
midwinter savages resort to a practice analogous to that of our Yule log,
if the kindling of the Yule log was originally a magical rite intended to
rekindle the sun. In the southern hemisphere, where the order of the
seasons is the reverse of ours, the rising of Sirius or the Dog Star in
July marks the season of the greatest cold instead of, as with us, the
greatest heat; and just as the civilized ancients ascribed the torrid heat
of midsummer to that brilliant star,(804) so the modern savage of South
Africa attributes to it the piercing cold of midwinter and seeks to
mitigate its rigour by warming up the chilly star with the genial heat of
the sun. How he does so may be best described in his own words as
follows:—(805)

“The Bushmen perceive Canopus, they say to a child: ‘Give me yonder piece
of wood, that I may put the end of it in the fire, that I may point it
burning towards grandmother, for grandmother carries Bushman rice;
grandmother shall make a little warmth for us; for she coldly comes out;
the sun(806) shall warm grandmother’s eye for us.’ Sirius comes out; the
people call out to one another: ‘Sirius comes yonder;’ they say to one
another: ‘Ye must burn a stick for us towards Sirius.’ They say to one
another: ‘Who was it who saw Sirius?’ One man says to the other: ‘Our
brother saw Sirius.’ The other man says to him: ‘I saw Sirius.’ The other
man says to him: ‘I wish thee to burn a stick for us towards Sirius; that
the sun may shining come out for us; that Sirius may not coldly come out.’
The other man (the one who saw Sirius) says to his son: ‘Bring me the
small piece of wood yonder, that I may put the end of it in the fire, that
I may burn it towards grandmother; that grandmother may ascend the sky,
like the other one, Canopus.’ The child brings him the piece of wood, he
(the father) holds the end of it in the fire. He points it burning towards
Sirius; he says that Sirius shall twinkle like Canopus. He sings; he sings
about Canopus, he sings about Sirius; he points to them with fire,(807)
that they may twinkle like each other. He throws fire at them. He covers
himself up entirely (including his head) in his kaross and lies down. He
arises, he sits down; while he does not again lie down; because he feels
that he has worked, putting Sirius into the sun’s warmth; so that Sirius
may warmly come out. The women go out early to seek for Bushman rice; they
walk, sunning their shoulder blades.”(808) What the Bushmen thus do to
temper the cold of midwinter in the southern hemisphere by blowing up the
celestial fires may have been done by our rude forefathers at the
corresponding season in the northern hemisphere.

(M295) Not only the date of some of the festivals but the manner of their
celebration suggests a conscious imitation of the sun. The custom of
rolling a burning wheel down a hill, which is often observed at these
ceremonies, might well pass for an imitation of the sun’s course in the
sky, and the imitation would be especially appropriate on Midsummer Day
when the sun’s annual declension begins. Indeed the custom has been thus
interpreted by some of those who have recorded it.(809) Not less graphic,
it may be said, is the mimicry of his apparent revolution by swinging a
burning tar-barrel round a pole.(810) Again, the common practice of
throwing fiery discs, sometimes expressly said to be shaped like suns,
into the air at the festivals may well be a piece of imitative magic. In
these, as in so many cases, the magic force may be supposed to take effect
through mimicry or sympathy: by imitating the desired result you actually
produce it: by counterfeiting the sun’s progress through the heavens you
really help the luminary to pursue his celestial journey with punctuality
and despatch. The name “fire of heaven,” by which the midsummer fire is
sometimes popularly known,(811) clearly implies a consciousness of a
connexion between the earthly and the heavenly flame.

(M296) Again, the manner in which the fire appears to have been originally
kindled on these occasions has been alleged in support of the view that it
was intended to be a mock-sun. As some scholars have perceived, it is
highly probable that at the periodic festivals in former times fire was
universally obtained by the friction of two pieces of wood.(812) We have
seen that it is still so procured in some places both at the Easter and
the midsummer festivals, and that it is expressly said to have been
formerly so procured at the Beltane celebration both in Scotland and
Wales.(813) But what makes it nearly certain that this was once the
invariable mode of kindling the fire at these periodic festivals is the
analogy of the need-fire, which has almost always been produced by the
friction of wood, and sometimes by the revolution of a wheel. It is a
plausible conjecture that the wheel employed for this purpose represents
the sun,(814) and if the fires at the regularly recurring celebrations
were formerly produced in the same way, it might be regarded as a
confirmation of the view that they were originally sun-charms. In point of
fact there is, as Kuhn has indicated,(815) some evidence to shew that the
midsummer fire was originally thus produced. We have seen that many
Hungarian swine-herds make fire on Midsummer Eve by rotating a wheel round
a wooden axle wrapt in hemp, and that they drive their pigs through the
fire thus made.(816) At Obermedlingen, in Swabia, the “fire of heaven,” as
it was called, was made on St. Vitus’s Day (the fifteenth of June) by
igniting a cart-wheel, which, smeared with pitch and plaited with straw,
was fastened on a pole twelve feet high, the top of the pole being
inserted in the nave of the wheel. This fire was made on the summit of a
mountain, and as the flame ascended, the people uttered a set form of
words, with eyes and arms directed heavenward.(817) Here the fixing of a
wheel on a pole and igniting it suggests that originally the fire was
produced, as in the case of the need-fire, by the revolution of a wheel.
The day on which the ceremony takes place (the fifteenth of June) is near
midsummer; and we have seen that in Masuren fire is, or used to be,
actually made on Midsummer Day by turning a wheel rapidly about an oaken
pole,(818) though it is not said that the new fire so obtained is used to
light a bonfire. However, we must bear in mind that in all such cases the
use of a wheel may be merely a mechanical device to facilitate the
operation of fire-making by increasing the friction; it need not have any
symbolical significance.

(M297) Further, the influence which these fires, whether periodic or
occasional, are supposed to exert on the weather and vegetation may be
cited in support of the view that they are sun-charms, since the effects
ascribed to them resemble those of sunshine. Thus, the French belief that
in a rainy June the lighting of the midsummer bonfires will cause the rain
to cease(819) appears to assume that they can disperse the dark clouds and
make the sun to break out in radiant glory, drying the wet earth and
dripping trees. Similarly the use of the need-fire by Swiss children on
foggy days for the purpose of clearing away the mist(820) may very
naturally be interpreted as a sun-charm. Again, we have seen that in the
Vosges Mountains the people believe that the midsummer fires help to
preserve the fruits of the earth and ensure good crops.(821) In Sweden the
warmth or cold of the coming season is inferred from the direction in
which the flames of the May Day bonfire are blown; if they blow to the
south, it will be warm, if to the north, cold.(822) No doubt at present
the direction of the flames is regarded merely as an augury of the
weather, not as a mode of influencing it. But we may be pretty sure that
this is one of the cases in which magic has dwindled into divination. So
in the Eifel Mountains, when the smoke blows towards the corn-fields, this
is an omen that the harvest will be abundant.(823) But the older view may
have been not merely that the smoke and flames prognosticated, but that
they actually produced an abundant harvest, the heat of the flames acting
like sunshine on the corn. Perhaps it was with this view that people in
the Isle of Man lit fires to windward of their fields in order that the
smoke might blow over them.(824) So in South Africa, about the month of
April, the Matabeles light huge fires to the windward of their gardens,
“their idea being that the smoke, by passing over the crops, will assist
the ripening of them.”(825) Among the Zulus also “medicine is burned on a
fire placed to windward of the garden, the fumigation which the plants in
consequence receive being held to improve the crop.”(826) Again, the idea
of our European peasants that the corn will grow well as far as the blaze
of the bonfire is visible,(827) may be interpreted as a remnant of the
belief in the quickening and fertilizing power of the bonfires. The same
belief, it may be argued, reappears in the notion that embers taken from
the bonfires and inserted in the fields will promote the growth of the
crops,(828) and it may be thought to underlie the customs of sowing
flax-seed in the direction in which the flames blow,(829) of mixing the
ashes of the bonfire with the seed-corn at sowing,(830) of scattering the
ashes by themselves over the field to fertilize it,(831) and of
incorporating a piece of the Yule log in the plough to make the seeds
thrive.(832) The opinion that the flax or hemp will grow as high as the
flames rise or the people leap over them(833) belongs clearly to the same
class of ideas. Again, at Konz, on the banks of the Moselle, if the
blazing wheel which was trundled down the hillside reached the river
without being extinguished, this was hailed as a proof that the vintage
would be abundant. So firmly was this belief held that the successful
performance of the ceremony entitled the villagers to levy a tax upon the
owners of the neighbouring vineyards.(834) Here the unextinguished wheel
might be taken to represent an unclouded sun, which in turn would portend
an abundant vintage. So the waggon-load of white wine which the villagers
received from the vineyards round about might pass for a payment for the
sunshine which they had procured for the grapes. Similarly we saw that in
the Vale of Glamorgan a blazing wheel used to be trundled down hill on
Midsummer Day, and that if the fire were extinguished before the wheel
reached the foot of the hill, the people expected a bad harvest; whereas
if the wheel kept alight all the way down and continued to blaze for a
long time, the farmers looked forward to heavy crops that summer.(835)
Here, again, it is natural to suppose that the rustic mind traced a direct
connexion between the fire of the wheel and the fire of the sun, on which
the crops are dependent.

(M298) But in popular belief the quickening and fertilizing influence of
the bonfires is not limited to the vegetable world; it extends also to
animals. This plainly appears from the Irish custom of driving barren
cattle through the mid-summer fires,(836) from the French belief that the
Yule-log steeped in water helps cows to calve,(837) from the French and
Servian notion that there will be as many chickens, calves, lambs, and
kids as there are sparks struck out of the Yule log,(838) from the French
custom of putting the ashes of the bonfires in the fowls’ nests to make
the hens lay eggs,(839) and from the German practice of mixing the ashes
of the bonfires with the drink of cattle in order to make the animals
thrive.(840) Further, there are clear indications that even human
fecundity is supposed to be promoted by the genial heat of the fires. In
Morocco the people think that childless couples can obtain offspring by
leaping over the midsummer bonfire.(841) It is an Irish belief that a girl
who jumps thrice over the midsummer bonfire will soon marry and become the
mother of many children;(842) in Flanders women leap over the Midsummer
fires to ensure an easy delivery;(843) and in various parts of France they
think that if a girl dances round nine fires she will be sure to marry
within the year.(844) On the other hand, in Lechrain people say that if a
young man and woman, leaping over the midsummer fire together, escape
unsmirched, the young woman will not become a mother within twelve
months:(845) the flames have not touched and fertilized her. In parts of
Switzerland and France the lighting of the Yule log is accompanied by a
prayer that the women may bear children, the she-goats bring forth kids,
and the ewes drop lambs.(846) The rule observed in some places that the
bonfires should be kindled by the person who was last married(847) seems
to belong to the same class of ideas, whether it be that such a person is
supposed to receive from, or to impart to, the fire a generative and
fertilizing influence. The common practice of lovers leaping over the
fires hand in hand may very well have originated in a notion that thereby
their marriage would be blessed with offspring; and the like motive would
explain the custom which obliges couples married within the year to dance
to the light of torches.(848) And the scenes of profligacy which appear to
have marked the midsummer celebration among the Esthonians,(849) as they
once marked the celebration of May Day among ourselves, may have sprung,
not from the mere license of holiday-makers, but from a crude notion that
such orgies were justified, if not required, by some mysterious bond which
linked the life of man to the courses of the heavens at this turning-point
of the year.

(M299) At the festivals which we are considering the custom of kindling
bonfires is commonly associated with a custom of carrying lighted torches
about the fields, the orchards, the pastures, the flocks and the herds;
and we can hardly doubt that the two customs are only two different ways
of attaining the same object, namely, the benefits which are believed to
flow from the fire, whether it be stationary or portable. Accordingly if
we accept the solar theory of the bonfires, we seem bound to apply it also
to the torches; we must suppose that the practice of marching or running
with blazing torches about the country is simply a means of diffusing far
and wide the genial influence of the sunshine, of which these flickering
flames are a feeble imitation. In favour of this view it may be said that
sometimes the torches are carried about the fields for the express purpose
of fertilizing them,(850) and for the same purpose live coals from the
bonfires are sometimes placed in the fields “to prevent blight.”(851) On
the Eve of Twelfth Day in Normandy men, women, and children run wildly
through the fields and orchards with lighted torches, which they wave
about the branches and dash against the trunks of the fruit-trees for the
sake of burning the moss and driving away the moles and field mice. “They
believe that the ceremony fulfils the double object of exorcizing the
vermin whose multiplication would be a real calamity, and of imparting
fecundity to the trees, the fields, and even the cattle”; and they imagine
that the more the ceremony is prolonged, the greater will be the crop of
fruit next autumn.(852) In Bohemia they say that the corn will grow as
high as they fling the blazing besoms into the air.(853) Nor are such
notions confined to Europe. In Corea, a few days before the New Year
festival, the eunuchs of the palace swing burning torches, chanting
invocations the while, and this is supposed to ensure bountiful crops for
the next season.(854) The custom of trundling a burning wheel over the
fields, which used to be observed in Poitou for the express purpose of
fertilizing them,(855) may be thought to embody the same idea in a still
more graphic form; since in this way the mock-sun itself, not merely its
light and heat represented by torches, is made actually to pass over the
ground which is to receive its quickening and kindly influence. Once more,
the custom of carrying lighted brands round cattle(856) is plainly
equivalent to driving the animals through the bonfire; and if the bonfire
is a sun-charm, the torches must be so also.

§ 3. The Purificatory Theory of the Fire-festivals.

(M300) Thus far we have considered what may be said for the theory that at
the European fire-festivals the fire is kindled as a charm to ensure an
abundant supply of sunshine for man and beast, for corn and fruits. It
remains to consider what may be said against this theory and in favour of
the view that in these rites fire is employed not as a creative but as a
cleansing agent, which purifies men, animals, and plants by burning up and
consuming the noxious elements, whether material or spiritual, which
menace all living things with disease and death.

(M301) First, then, it is to be observed that the people who practise the
fire-customs appear never to allege the solar theory in explanation of
them, while on the contrary they do frequently and emphatically put
forward the purificatory theory. This is a strong argument in favour of
the purificatory and against the solar theory; for the popular explanation
of a popular custom is never to be rejected except for grave cause. And in
the present case there seems to be no adequate reason for rejecting it.
The conception of fire as a destructive agent, which can be turned to
account for the consumption of evil things, is so simple and obvious that
it could hardly escape the minds even of the rude peasantry with whom
these festivals originated. On the other hand the conception of fire as an
emanation of the sun, or at all events as linked to it by a bond of
physical sympathy, is far less simple and obvious; and though the use of
fire as a charm to produce sunshine appears to be undeniable,(857)
nevertheless in attempting to explain popular customs we should never have
recourse to a more recondite idea when a simpler one lies to hand and is
supported by the explicit testimony of the people themselves. Now in the
case of the fire-festivals the destructive aspect of fire is one upon
which the people dwell again and again; and it is highly significant that
the great evil against which the fire is directed appears to be
witchcraft. Again and again we are told that the fires are intended to
burn or repel the witches;(858) and the intention is sometimes graphically
expressed by burning an effigy of a witch in the fire.(859) Hence, when we
remember the great hold which the dread of witchcraft has had on the
popular European mind in all ages, we may suspect that the primary
intention of all these fire-festivals was simply to destroy or at all
events get rid of the witches, who were regarded as the causes of nearly
all the misfortunes and calamities that befall men, their cattle, and
their crops.(860)

(M302) This suspicion is confirmed when we examine the evils for which the
bonfires and torches were supposed to provide a remedy. Foremost, perhaps,
among these evils we may reckon the diseases of cattle; and of all the
ills that witches are believed to work there is probably none which is so
constantly insisted on as the harm they do to the herds, particularly by
stealing the milk from the cows.(861) Now it is significant that the
need-fire, which may perhaps be regarded as the parent of the periodic
fire-festivals, is kindled above all as a remedy for a murrain or other
disease of cattle; and the circumstance suggests, what on general grounds
seems probable, that the custom of kindling the need-fire goes back to a
time when the ancestors of the European peoples subsisted chiefly on the
products of their herds, and when agriculture as yet played a subordinate
part in their lives. Witches and wolves are the two great foes still
dreaded by the herdsman in many parts of Europe;(862) and we need not
wonder that he should resort to fire as a powerful means of banning them
both. Among Slavonic peoples it appears that the foes whom the need-fire
is designed to combat are not so much living witches as vampyres and other
evil spirits,(863) and the ceremony, as we saw, aims rather at repelling
these baleful beings than at actually consuming them in the flames. But
for our present purpose these distinctions are immaterial. The important
thing to observe is that among the Slavs the need-fire, which is probably
the original of all the ceremonial fires now under consideration, is not a
sun-charm, but clearly and unmistakably nothing but a means of protecting
man and beast against the attacks of maleficent creatures, whom the
peasant thinks to burn or scare by the heat of the fire, just as he might
burn or scare wild animals.

(M303) Again, the bonfires are often supposed to protect the fields
against hail(864) and the homestead against thunder and lightning.(865)
But both hail and thunderstorms are frequently thought to be caused by
witches;(866) hence the fire which bans the witches necessarily serves at
the same time as a talisman against hail, thunder, and lightning. Further,
brands taken from the bonfires are commonly kept in the houses to guard
them against conflagration;(867) and though this may perhaps be done on
the principle of homoeopathic magic, one fire being thought to act as a
preventive of another, it is also possible that the intention may be to
keep witch-incendiaries at bay. Again, people leap over the bonfires as a
preventive of colic,(868) and look at the flames steadily in order to
preserve their eyes in good health;(869) and both colic and sore eyes are
in Germany, and probably elsewhere, set down to the machinations of
witches.(870) Once more, to leap over the Midsummer fires or to
circumambulate them is thought to prevent a person from feeling pains in
his back at reaping;(871) and in Germany such pains are called
“witch-shots” and ascribed to witchcraft.(872)

(M304) But if the bonfires and torches of the fire-festivals are to be
regarded primarily as weapons directed against witches and wizards, it
becomes probable that the same explanation applies not only to the flaming
discs which are hurled into the air, but also to the burning wheels which
are rolled down hill on these occasions; discs and wheels, we may suppose,
are alike intended to burn the witches who hover invisible in the air or
haunt unseen the fields, the orchards, and the vineyards on the
hillside.(873) Certainly witches are constantly thought to ride through
the air on broomsticks or other equally convenient vehicles; and if they
do so, how can you get at them so effectually as by hurling lighted
missiles, whether discs, torches, or besoms, after them as they flit past
overhead in the gloom? The South Slavonian peasant believes that witches
ride in the dark hail-clouds; so he shoots at the clouds to bring down the
hags, while he curses them, saying, “Curse, curse Herodias, thy mother is
a heathen, damned of God and fettered through the Redeemer’s blood.” Also
he brings out a pot of glowing charcoal on which he has thrown holy oil,
laurel leaves, and wormwood to make a smoke. The fumes are supposed to
ascend to the clouds and stupefy the witches, so that they tumble down to
earth. And in order that they may not fall soft, but may hurt themselves
very much, the yokel hastily brings out a chair and tilts it bottom up so
that the witch in falling may break her legs on the legs of the chair.
Worse than that, he cruelly lays scythes, bill-hooks and other formidable
weapons edge upwards so as to cut and mangle the poor wretches when they
drop plump upon them from the clouds.(874)

(M305) On this view the fertility supposed to follow the application of
fire in the form of bonfires, torches, discs, rolling wheels, and so
forth, is not conceived as resulting directly from an increase of solar
heat which the fire has magically generated; it is merely an indirect
result obtained by freeing the reproductive powers of plants and animals
from the fatal obstruction of witchcraft. And what is true of the
reproduction of plants and animals may hold good also of the fertility of
the human sexes. We have seen that the bonfires are supposed to promote
marriage and to procure offspring for childless couples. This happy effect
need not flow directly from any quickening or fertilizing energy in the
fire; it may follow indirectly from the power of the fire to remove those
obstacles which the spells of witches and wizards notoriously present to
the union of man and wife.(875)

(M306) On the whole, then, the theory of the purificatory virtue of the
ceremonial fires appears more probable and more in accordance with the
evidence than the opposing theory of their connexion with the sun. But
Europe is not the only part of the world where ceremonies of this sort
have been performed; elsewhere the passage through the flames or smoke or
over the glowing embers of a bonfire, which is the central feature of most
of the rites, has been employed as a cure or a preventive of various ills.
We have seen that the midsummer ritual of fire in Morocco is practically
identical with that of our European peasantry; and customs more or less
similar have been observed by many races in various parts of the world. A
consideration of some of them may help us to decide between the
conflicting claims of the two rival theories, which explain the ceremonies
as sun-charms or purifications respectively.

FOOTNOTES

M1 The priest of Aricia and the Golden Bough.

_ 1 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 44.

M2 What was the Golden Bough?
M3 Sacred kings and priests forbidden to touch the ground with their
feet.

2 H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_ (London,
1875-1876), ii. 142; Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Histoire des Nations
civilisées du Mexique et de l’Amérique-Centrale_ (Paris, 1857-1859),
iii. 29.

_ 3 Manuscrit Ramirez, Histoire de l’origine des Indiens_, publié par
D. Charnay (Paris, 1903), p. 108; J. de Acosta, _The Natural and
Moral History of the Indies_, bk. vii. chap. 22, vol. ii. p. 505 of
E. Grimston’s translation, edited by (Sir) Clements R. Markham
(Hakluyt Society, London, 1880).

_ 4 Memorials of the Empire of Japon in the XVI. and XVII. Centuries_,
edited by T. Rundall (Hakluyt Society, London, 1850), pp. 14, 141;
B. Varenius, _Descriptio regni Japoniae et Siam_ (Cambridge, 1673),
p. 11; Caron, “Account of Japan,” in John Pinkerton’s _Voyages and
Travels_ (London, 1808-1814), vii. 613; Kaempfer, “History of
Japan,” in _id._ vii. 716.

5 W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, Second Edition (London,
1832-1836), iii. 102 _sq._; Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage
to the Southern Pacific Ocean_ (London, 1799), p. 329.

6 A. Bastian, _Der Mensch in der Geschichte_ (Leipsic, 1860), iii. 81.

7 Athenaeus, xii. 8, p. 514 c.

_ 8 The Voiages and Travels of John Struys_ (London, 1684), p. 30.

9 Rev. J. Roscoe, “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the
Baganda,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902)
pp. 62, 67; _id._, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 154 _sq._
Compare L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_ (London, 1898), p.
445 note: “Before horses had been introduced into Uganda the king
and his mother never walked, but always went about perched astride
the shoulders of a slave—a most ludicrous sight. In this way they
often travelled hundreds of miles.” The use both of horses and of
chariots by royal personages may often have been intended to prevent
their sacred feet from touching the ground.

10 E. Torday et T. A. Joyce, _Les Bushongo_ (Brussels, 1910), p. 61.

11 Northcote W. Thomas, _Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking
Peoples of Nigeria_ (London, 1913), i. 57 _sq._

_ 12 Satapatha Brâhmana_, translated by Julius Eggeling, Part iii.
(Oxford, 1894) pp. 81, 91, 92, 102, 128 _sq._ (_Sacred Books of the
East_, vol. xli.).

M4 Certain persons on certain occasions forbidden to touch the ground
with their feet.

13 A. W. Nieuwenhuis, _Quer durch Borneo_ (Leyden, 1904-1907), i. 172.

14 Letter of Missionary Krick, in _Annales de la Propagation de la
Foi_, xxvi. (1854) pp. 86-88.

15 Pechuel-Loesche, “Indiscretes aus Loango,” _Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie_, x. (1878) pp. 29 _sq._

16 Edgar Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_ (Madras,
1906), p. 70.

17 M. C. Schadee, “Het familieleven en familierecht der Dajaks van
Landak en Tajan,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, lxiii. (1910) p. 433.

18 James Adair, _History of the American Indians_ (London, 1775), p.
382; _Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner_
(London, 1830), p. 123. As to the taboos to which warriors are
subject see _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 157 _sqq._

19 Etienne Aymonier, _Notes sur le Laos_ (Saigon, 1885), p. 26.

_ 20 Die gestriegelte Rockenphilosophie_5 (Chemnitz, 1759), pp. 586
_sqq._

M5 Sacred or tabooed persons apparently thought to be charged with a
mysterious virtue like a fluid, which will run to waste or explode
if it touches the ground.
M6 Things as well as persons can be charged with the mysterious quality
of holiness or taboo; and when so charged they must be kept from
contact with the ground.

21 Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
Australia_ (London, 1899), pp. 364, 370 _sqq._, 629; _id._, _Across
Australia_ (London, 1912), ii. 280, 285 _sq._

M7 Festival of the wild mango tree in British New Guinea.
M8 The wild mango tree not allowed to touch the ground.
M9 Final disposition of the wild mango tree.

22 C. G. Seligmann, M.D., _The Melanesians of British New Guinea_
(Cambridge, 1910), pp. 589-599.

M10 The ceremony apparently intended to fertilize the mango trees.
M11 Sacred objects of various sorts not allowed to touch the ground.

23 George Brown, D.D., _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910),
pp. 60 _sq._, 64. As to the Duk-duk society, see below, vol. ii. pp.
246 _sq._

24 John Keast Lord, _The Naturalist in Vancouver Island and British
Columbia_ (London, 1866), ii. 237.

25 Edwin James, _Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky
Mountains_ (London, 1823), ii. 47; Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, “Omaha
Sociology,” _Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_
(Washington, 1884), p. 226.

26 James Adair, _History of the American Indians_ (London, 1775), pp.
161-163.

27 (Sir) Henry Babington Smith, in _Folk-lore_, v. (1894) p. 340.

28 Miss C. F. Gordon Cumming, _In the Hebrides_ (London, 1883), p. 211.

29 W. Gregor, “Quelques coutumes du Nord-est du Comté d’Aberdeen,”
_Revue des Traditions populaires_, iii. (1888) p. 485 B. Compare
_Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, i. 158 _sq._

M12 Sacred food not allowed to touch the earth.

30 R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_ (Melbourne and London,
1878), i. 450.

31 E. Gerard, _The Land beyond the Forest_ (Edinburgh and London,
1888), ii. 7.

32 F. Grabowsky, “Der Distrikt Dusson Timor in Südost-Borneo und seine
Bewohner,” _Das Ausland_, 1884, No. 24, p. 470.

_ 33 Narrative of the Second Arctic Expedition made by Charles F. Hall_,
edited by Prof. J. E. Nourse (Washington, 1879), pp. 110 _sq._

34 See _Taboo and Perils of the Soul_, pp. 207 _sqq._

M13 Magical implements and remedies thought to lose their virtue by
contact with the ground.

35 Walter E. Roth, _Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central
Queensland Aborigines_ (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 156, § 265.
The custom of killing a man by pointing a bone or stick at him,
while the sorcerer utters appropriate curses, is common among the
tribes of Central Australia; but amongst them there seems to be no
objection to place the bone or stick on the ground; on the contrary,
an Arunta wizard inserts the bone or stick in the ground while he
invokes death and destruction on his enemy. See Baldwin Spencer and
F. J. Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_ (London, 1899),
pp. 534 _sqq._; _id._, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_
(London, 1904), pp. 455 _sqq._

36 Hugh Low, _Sarawak_ (London, 1848), pp. 145 _sq._

37 Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_, xxviii. 33 _sq._

38 Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
Scotland_ (London, 1881), p. 184. As to the superstitions attaching
to stone arrow-heads and axeheads (celts), commonly known as
“thunderbolts,” in the British Islands, see W. W. Skeat,
“Snake-stones and Stone Thunderbolts,” _Folk-lore_, xxiii. (1912)
pp. 60 _sqq._; and as to such superstitions in general, see Chr.
Blinkenberg, _The Thunderweapon in Religion and Folklore_
(Cambridge, 1911).

M14 Serpents’ eggs or Snake Stones.

39 Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_, xxix. 52-54.

40 W. Borlase, _Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County
of Cornwall_ (London, 1769), pp. 142 _sq._; J. Brand, _Popular
Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London, 1882-1883), i. 322; J. G.
Dalyell, _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1834), pp.
140 _sq._; Daniel Wilson, _The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of
Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1851), pp. 303 _sqq._; Lieut.-Col. Forbes
Leslie, _The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments_
(Edinburgh, 1866), i. 75 _sqq._; J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and
Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow,
1902), pp. 84-88; Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of
Wales_ (London, 1909), pp. 170 _sq._; J. C. Davies, _Folk-lore of
West and Mid-Wales_ (Aberystwyth, 1911), p. 76. Compare W. W. Skeat,
“Snakestones and Stone Thunderbolts,” _Folk-lore_, xxiii. (1912) pp.
45 _sqq._ The superstition is described as follows by Edward Lhwyd
in a letter quoted by W. Borlase (_op. cit._ p. 142): “In most parts
of Wales, and throughout all Scotland, and in Cornwall, we find it a
common opinion of the vulgar, that about Midsummer-Eve (though in
the time they do not all agree) it is usual for snakes to meet in
companies; and that, by joining heads together, and hissing, a kind
of bubble is formed, which the rest, by continual hissing, blow on
till it passes quite through the body, and then it immediately
hardens, and resembles a glass-ring, which whoever finds (as some
old women and children are persuaded) shall prosper in all his
undertakings. The rings thus generated, are called _Gleineu
Nadroeth_; in English, Snake-stones. They are small glass amulets,
commonly about half as wide as our finger-rings, but much thicker,
of a green colour usually, though sometimes blue, and waved with red
and white.”

M15 Medicinal plants, water, etc., not allowed to touch the earth.

41 Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_, xxiv. 12 and 68, xxv. 171.

42 Marcellus, _De medicamentis_, ed. G. Helmreich (Leipsic, 1889),
preface, p. i.: “_Nec solum veteres medicinae artis auctores Latino
dumtaxat sermone perscriptos ... lectione scrutatus sum, sed etiam
ab agrestibus et plebeis remedia fortuita atque simplicia, quae
experimentis probaverant didici._” As to Marcellus and his work, see
Jacob Grimm, “Ueber Marcellus Burdigalensis,” _Abhandlungen der
königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaft zu Berlin_, 1847, pp. 429-460;
_id._, “Ueber die Marcellischen Formeln,” _ibid._, 1855, pp. 50-68.

43 Marcellus, _De medicamentis_, i. 68.

44 Marcellus, _op. cit._ i. 76.

45 Marcellus, _op. cit._ xxviii. 28 and 71, xxix. 35.

46 Marcellus, _op. cit._ xxix. 51.

47 Edward Westermarck, “Midsummer Customs in Morocco,” _Folk-lore_,
xvi. (1905) pp. 32 _sq._; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs connected
with Agriculture, certain Dates of the Solar Year, and the Weather
in Morocco_ (Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 75 _sq._

48 E. Westermarck, “Midsummer Customs in Morocco,” _Folk-lore_, xvi.
(1905) p. 35; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with
Agriculture, certain Dates of the Solar Year, and the Weather in
Morocco_ (Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 88 _sq._

49 Matthäus Prätorius, _Deliciae Prussicae_, herausgegeben von Dr. W.
Pierson (Berlin, 1871), p. 54.

M16 Sacred persons not allowed to see the sun.

50 H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_ (London,
1875-1876), ii. 142; Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Histoire des Nations
civilisées du Mexique et de l’Amérique Centrale_ (Paris, 1857-1859),
iii. 29.

51 Kaempfer, “History of Japan,” in J. Pinkerton’s _Voyages and
Travels_, vii. 717; Caron, “Account of Japan,” _ibid._ vii. 613; B.
Varenius, _Descriptio regni Japoniae et Siam_ (Cambridge, 1673), p.
11: “_Radiis solis caput nunquam illustrabatur: in apertum aërem non
procedebat._”

52 A. de Herrera, _General History of the vast Continent and Islands of
America_, trans. by Capt. John Stevens (London, 1725-1726), v. 88.

53 H. Ternaux-Compans, _Essai sur l’ancien Cundinamarca_ (Paris, N.D.),
p. 56; Theodor Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, iv. (Leipsic,
1864) p. 359.

54 Alonzo de Zurita, “Rapport sur les differentes classes de chefs de
la Nouvelle-Espagne,” p. 30, in H. Ternaux-Compans’s _Voyages,
Relations et Mémoires originaux, pour servir à l’Histoire de la
Découverte de l’Amérique_ (Paris, 1840); Th. Waitz, _l.c._; A.
Bastian, _Die Culturländer des alten Amerika_ (Berlin, 1878), ii.
204.

55 Cieza de Leon, _Second Part of the Chronicle of Peru_ (Hakluyt
Society, London, 1883), p. 18.

_ 56 The Grihya Sûtras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, Part ii. (Oxford,
1892) pp. 165, 275 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxx.).
Umbrellas appear to have been sometimes used in ritual for the
purpose of preventing the sunlight from falling on sacred persons or
things. See W. Caland, _Altindisches Zauberritual_ (Amsterdam,
1900), p. 110 note 12. At an Athenian festival called Scira the
priestess of Athena, the priest of Poseidon, and the priest of the
Sun walked from the Acropolis under the shade of a huge white
umbrella which was borne over their heads by the Eteobutads. See
Harpocration and Suidas, _s.v._ Σκίρον; Scholiast on Aristophanes,
_Eccles._ 18.

M17 Tabooed persons not allowed to see the sun. Certain persons
forbidden to see fire.

57 Mrs. Bishop, _Korea and her Neighbours_ (London, 1898), ii. 248.

58 J. L. van Hasselt, “Eenige aanteekeningen aangaande de bewoners der
N. Westkust van Nieuw Guinea,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-
Land- en Volkenkunde_, xxxi. (1886) p. 587.

59 A. Bastian, _Die Völker des östlichen Asien_, v. (Jena, 1869) p.
366.

60 W. M. Gabb, “On the Indian Tribes and Languages of Costa Rica,”
_Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society held at
Philadelphia_, xiv. (Philadelphia, 1876), p. 510.

61 L. Lloyd, _Peasant Life in Sweden_ (London, 1870), p. 194.

62 H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, i. 553. See
_Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, p. 182.

M18 The story of Prince Sunless.

63 L. Heuzey, _Le Mont Olympe et l’Acarnanie_ (Paris, 1860), pp. 458
_sq._

M19 Girls at puberty forbidden to touch the ground and to see the sun.
Seclusion of girls at puberty among the A-Kamba. Seclusion of girls
at puberty among the Baganda.

64 Pechuel-Loesche, “Indiscretes aus Loango,” _Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie_, x. (1878) p. 23.

65 Rev. J. Macdonald, “Manners, Customs, Superstitions, and Religions
of South African Tribes,” _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xx. (1891) p. 118.

66 Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_ (London, 1904), p. 209. The
prohibition to drink milk under such circumstances is also
mentioned, though without the reason for it, by L. Alberti (_De
Kaffers aan de Zuidkust van Afrika_, Amsterdam, 1810, p. 79), George
Thompson (_Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa_, London, 1827,
ii. 354 _sq._), and Mr. Warner (in Col. Maclean’s _Compendium of
Kafir Laws and Customs_, Cape Town, 1866, p. 98). As to the reason
for the prohibition, see below, p. 80.

67 C. W. Hobley, _Ethnology of A-Kamba and other East African Tribes_
(Cambridge, 1910), p. 65.

68 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), p. 80. As to the
interpretation which the Baganda put on the act of jumping or
stepping over a woman, see _id._, pp. 48, 357 note 1. Apparently
some of the Lower Congo people interpret the act similarly. See J.
H. Weeks, “Notes on some Customs of the Lower Congo People,”
_Folk-lore_, xix. (1908) p. 431. Among the Baganda the separation of
children from their parents took place after weaning; girls usually
went to live either with an elder married brother or (if there was
none such) with one of their father’s brothers; boys in like manner
went to live with one of their father’s brothers. See J. Roscoe,
_op. cit._ p. 74. As to the prohibition to touch food with the
hands, see _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 138 _sqq._, 146
_sqq._, etc.

69 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, p. 80.

70 De la Loubère, _Du royaume de Siam_ (Amsterdam, 1691), i. 203. In
Travancore it is believed that women at puberty and after childbirth
are peculiarly liable to be attacked by demons. See S. Mateer, _The
Land of Charity_ (London, 1871), p. 208.

71 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, p. 80.

M20 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the tribes of the Tanganyika
plateau.

72 C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _The Great Plateau of Northern Nigeria_
(London, 1911), pp. 158-160.

M21 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the tribes of British Central
Africa.

73 R. Sutherland Rattray, _Some Folk-lore Stories and Songs in
Chinyanja_ (London, 1907), pp. 102-105.

M22 Abstinence from salt associated with a rule of chastity in many
tribes.

74 Rev. H. Cole, “Notes on the Wagogo of German East Africa,” _Journal
of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) pp. 309 _sq._

75 R. Sutherland Rattray, _op. cit._ pp. 191 _sq._

_ 76 The Grihya Sûtras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, Part i. p. 357,
Part ii. p. 267 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vols. xxix., xxx.).

77 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 393 sq., compare
pp. 396, 398.

78 See _Totemism and Exogamy_, iv. 224 _sqq._

M23 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the tribes about Lake Nyassa and
on the Zambesi.

79 Sir Harry H. Johnston, _British Central Africa_ (London, 1897), p.
411.

80 Oscar Baumann, _Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle_ (Berlin, 1894), p.
178.

81 Lionel Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_ (London, 1898), p. 78.
Compare E. Jacottet, _Études sur les Langues du Haut-Zambèze_,
Troisième Partie (Paris, 1901), pp. 174 _sq._ (as to the A-Louyi).

82 E. Béguin, _Les Ma-rotsé_ (Lausanne and Fontaines, 1903), p. 113.

M24 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Thonga of Delagoa Bay.

83 Henri A. Junod, _The Life of a South African Tribe_ (Neuchatel,
1912-1913), i. 178 _sq._

M25 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Caffre tribes of South
Africa.

84 G. McCall Theal, _Kaffir Folk-lore_ (London, 1886), p. 218.

85 L. Alberti, _De Kaffers aan de Zuidkust van Afrika_ (Amsterdam,
1810), pp. 79 _sq._; H. Lichtenstein, _Reisen im südlichen Africa_
(Berlin, 1811-1812), i. 428.

86 Gustav Fritsch, _Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika’s_ (Breslau, 1872), p.
112. This statement applies especially to the Ama-Xosa.

87 G. McCall Theal, _Kaffir Folk-lore_, p. 218.

88 Rev. Canon Henry Callaway, _Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories
of the Zulus_ (Natal and London, 1868), p. 182, note 20. From one of
the Zulu texts which the author edits and translates (p. 189) we may
infer that during the period of her seclusion a Zulu girl may not
light a fire. Compare above, p. 28.

89 E. Casalis, _The Basutos_ (London, 1861), p. 268.

M26 Seclusion of girls at puberty on the Lower Congo.

90 J. Merolla, “Voyage to Congo,” in J. Pinkerton’s _Voyages and
Travels_ (London, 1808-1814), xvi. 238; Father Campana, “Congo;
Mission Catholique de Landana,” _Les Missions Catholiques_, xxvii.
(1895) p. 161; R. E. Dennett, _At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind_
(London, 1906), pp. 69 _sq._ According to Merolla, it is thought
that if girls did not go through these ceremonies, they would “never
be fit for procreation.” The other consequences supposed to flow
from the omission of the rites are mentioned by Father Campana. From
Mr. Dennett’s account (_op. cit._ pp. 53, 67-71) we gather that
drought and famine are thought to result from the intercourse of a
man with a girl who has not yet passed through the “paint-house,” as
the hut is called where the young women live in seclusion. According
to O. Dapper, the women of Loango paint themselves red on every
recurrence of their monthly sickness; also they tie a cord tightly
round their heads and take care neither to touch their husband’s
food nor to appear before him (_Description de l’Afrique_,
Amsterdam, 1686, p. 326).

M27 Seclusion of girls at puberty in New Ireland.

91 The Rev. G. Brown, quoted by the Rev. B. Danks, “Marriage Customs of
the New Britain Group,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
xviii. (1889) pp. 284 _sq._; _id._, _Melanesians and Polynesians_
(London, 1910), pp. 105-107. Compare _id._, “Notes on the Duke of
York Group, New Britain, and New Ireland,” _Journal of the Royal
Geographical Society_, xlvii. (1877) pp. 142 _sq._; A. Hahl, “Das
mittlere Neumecklenburg,” _Globus_, xci. (1907) p. 313. Wilfred
Powell’s description of the New Ireland custom is similar
(_Wanderings in a Wild Country_, London, 1883, p. 249). According to
him, the girls wear wreaths of scented herbs round the waist and
neck; an old woman or a little child occupies the lower floor of the
cage; and the confinement lasts only a month. Probably the long
period mentioned by Dr. Brown is that prescribed for chiefs’
daughters. Poor people could not afford to keep their children so
long idle. This distinction is sometimes expressly stated. See
above, p. 30. Among the Goajiras of Colombia rich people keep their
daughters shut up in separate huts at puberty for periods varying
from one to four years, but poor people cannot afford to do so for
more than a fortnight or a month. See F. A. Simons, “An Exploration
of the Goajira Peninsula,” _Proceedings of the Royal Geographical
Society_, N.S., vii. (1885) p. 791. In Fiji, brides who were being
tattooed were kept from the sun (Thomas Williams, _Fiji and the
Fijians_, Second Edition, London, 1860, i. 170). This was perhaps a
modification of the Melanesian custom of secluding girls at puberty.
The reason mentioned by Mr. Williams, “to improve her complexion,”
can hardly have been the original one.

92 Rev. R. H. Rickard, quoted by Dr. George Brown, _Melanesians and
Polynesians_, pp. 107 _sq._ His observations were made in 1892.

93 R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee_ (Stuttgart, 1907), p.
272. The natives told Mr. Parkinson that the confinement of the
girls lasts from twelve to twenty months. The length of it may have
been reduced since Dr. George Brown described the custom in 1876.

M28 Seclusion of girls at puberty in New Guinea, Borneo, Ceram, and Yap.

94 J. Chalmers and W. Wyatt Gill, _Work and Adventure in New Guinea_
(London, 1885), p. 159.

95 H. Zahn and S. Lehner, in R. Neuhauss’s _Deutsch Neu-Guinea_
(Berlin, 1911), iii. 298, 418-420. The customs of the two tribes
seem to be in substantial agreement, and the accounts of them
supplement each other. The description of the Bukaua practice is the
fuller.

96 C. A. L. M. Schwaner, _Borneo, Beschrijving van het stroomgebied van
den Barito_ (Amsterdam, 1853-1854), ii. 77 _sq._; W. F. A.
Zimmermann, _Die Inseln des Indischen und Stillen Meeres_ (Berlin,
1864-1865), ii. 632 _sq._; Otto Finsch, _Neu Guinea und seine
Bewohner_ (Bremen, 1865), pp. 116 _sq._

97 J. G. F. Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes
en Papua_ (The Hague, 1886), p. 138.

98 A. Senfft, “Ethnographische Beiträge über die Karolineninsel Yap,”
_Petermanns Mitteilungen_, xlix. (1903) p. 53; _id._, “Die
Rechtssitten der Jap-Eingeborenen,” _Globus_, xci. (1907) pp. 142
_sq._

M29 Seclusion of girls at puberty in Mabuiag, Torres Straits.

99 Dr. C. G. Seligmann, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
xxix. (1899) pp. 212 _sq._; _id._, in _Reports of the Cambridge
Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. (Cambridge, 1904)
pp. 203 _sq._

M30 Seclusion of girls at puberty in Northern Australia.

100 Dr. C. G. Seligmann, in _Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to
Torres Straits_, v. (Cambridge, 1904) p. 205.

101 L. Crauford, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxiv.
(1895) p. 181.

102 Dr. C. G. Seligmann, _op. cit._ v. 206.

103 Walter E. Roth, _North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 5,
Superstition, Magic, and Medicine_ (Brisbane, 1903), pp. 24 _sq._

104 Walter E. Roth, _op. cit._ p. 25.

M31 Seclusion of girls at puberty in the islands of Torres Straits.

105 Dr. C. G. Seligmann, in _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological
Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. (Cambridge, 1904), p. 205.

106 From notes kindly sent me by Dr. C. G. Seligmann. The practice of
burying a girl at puberty was observed also by some Indian tribes of
California, but apparently rather for the purpose of producing a
sweat than for the sake of concealment. The treatment lasted only
twenty-four hours, during which the patient was removed from the
ground and washed three or four times, to be afterwards reimbedded.
Dancing was kept up the whole time by the women. See H. R.
Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes of the United States_ (Philadelphia,
1853-1856), v. 215.

107 Dr. C. G. Seligmann, in _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological
Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 201 _sq._

M32 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Indians of California.

108 A. L. Kroeber, “The Religion of the Indians of California,”
_University of California Publications in American Archaeology and
Ethnology_, vol. iv. No. 6 (September, 1907), p. 324.

109 Roland B. Dixon, “The Northern Maidu,” _Bulletin of the American
Museum of Natural History_, vol. xvii. Part iii. (May, 1905) pp. 232
_sq._, compare pp. 233-238.

110 Stephen Powers, _Tribes of California_ (Washington, 1877), p. 85
(_Contributions to North American Ethnology_, vol. iii.).

111 Stephen Powers, _op. cit._ p. 235.

M33 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Indians of Washington State.

112 Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring
Expedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iv. 456.

113 Franz Boas, _Chinook Texts_ (Washington, 1894), pp. 246 _sq._ The
account, taken down from the lips of a Chinook Indian, is not
perfectly clear; some of the restrictions were prolonged after the
girl’s second monthly period.

M34 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Nootka Indians of Vancouver
Island.

114 G. M. Sproat, _Scenes and Studies of Savage Life_ (London, 1868),
pp. 93 _sq._

115 Franz Boas, in _Sixth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada_,
pp. 40-42 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science_, Leeds meeting, 1890).
The rule not to lie down is observed also during their seclusion at
puberty by Tsimshian girls, who always sit propped up between boxes
and mats; their heads are covered with small mats, and they may not
look at men nor at fresh salmon and olachen. See Franz Boas, in
_Fifth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada_, p. 41
(separate reprint from the _Report of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science_, Newcastle-upon-Tyne meeting, 1889); G.
M. Dawson, _Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands, 1878_ (Montreal,
1880), pp. 130 B _sq._ Some divine kings are not allowed to lie
down. See _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, p. 5.

M35 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Haida Indians of the Queen
Charlotte Islands.

116 George M. Dawson, _Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands, 1878_
(Montreal, 1880), p. 130 B; J. R. Swanton, _Contributions to the
Ethnology of the Haida_ (Leyden and New York, 1905), pp. 48-50 (_The
Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of
Natural History_, New York). Speaking of the customs observed at
Kloo, where the girls had to abstain from salmon for five years, Mr.
Swanton says (p. 49): “When five years had passed, the girl came
out, and could do as she pleased.” This seems to imply that the girl
was secluded in the house for five years. We have seen (above, p.
32) that in New Ireland the girls used sometimes to be secluded for
the same period.

M36 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Tlingit Indians of Alaska.

117 G. H. von Langsdorff, _Reise um die Welt_ (Frankfort, 1812), ii. 114
_sq._; H. J. Holmberg, “Ethnographische Skizzen über die Völker des
Russischen Amerika,” _Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae_, iv.
(Helsingfors, 1856) pp. 319 _sq._; T. de Pauly, _Description
Ethnographique des Peuples de la Russie_ (St. Petersburg, 1862),
_Peuples de l’Amérique Russe_, p. 13; A. Erman, “Ethnographische
Wahrnehmungen und Erfahrungen an den Küsten des Berings-Meeres,”
_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, ii. (1870) pp. 318 _sq._; H. H.
Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_ (London, 1875-1876),
i. 110 _sq._; Rev. Sheldon Jackson, “Alaska and its Inhabitants,”
_The American Antiquarian_, ii. (Chicago, 1879-1880) pp. 111 _sq._;
A. Woldt, _Captain Jacobsen’s Reise an der Nordwestküste Americas,
1881-1883_ (Leipsic, 1884), p. 393; Aurel Krause, _Die
Tlinkit-Indianer_ (Jena, 1885), pp. 217 _sq._; W. M. Grant, in
_Journal of American Folk-lore_, i. (1888) p. 169; John R. Swanton,
“Social Conditions, Beliefs, and Linguistic Relationship of the
Tlingit Indians,” _Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of
American Ethnology_ (Washington, 1908), p. 428.

M37 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Tsetsaut and Bella Coola
Indians of British Columbia.

118 Franz Boas, in _Tenth Report of the Committee on the North-Western
Tribes of Canada_, p. 45 (separate reprint from the _Report of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science_, Ipswich
meeting, 1895).

119 Franz Boas, in _Fifth Report of the Committee on the North-Western
Tribes of Canada_, p. 42 (separate reprint from the _Report of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science_,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne meeting, 1889); _id._, in _Seventh Report_,
etc., p. 12 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science_, Cardiff meeting, 1891).

M38 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Tinneh Indians of British
Columbia.

120 “Customs of the New Caledonian women belonging to the Nancaushy
Tine, or Stuart’s Lake Indians, Natotin Tine, or Babine’s and
Nantley Tine, or Fraser Lake Tribes,” from information supplied by
Gavin Hamilton, chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s service,
who has been for many years among these Indians, both he and his
wife speaking their languages fluently (communicated by Dr. John
Rae), _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vii. (1878) pp.
206 _sq._

M39 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Tinneh Indians of Alaska.

121 Émile Petitot, _Traditions Indiennes du Canada Nord-ouest_ (Paris,
1886), pp. 257 _sq._

122 Fr. Julius Jetté, S.J., “On the Superstitions of the Ten’a Indians,”
_Anthropos_, vi. (1911) pp. 700-702.

123 Compare _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 70 _sqq._

M40 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Thompson Indians of British
Columbia.

124 James Teit, _The Thompson Indians of British Columbia_, pp. 311-317
(_The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum
of Natural History_, New York, April, 1900). As to the customs
observed among these Indians by the father of a girl at such times
in order not to lose his luck in hunting, see _Spirits of the Corn
and of the Wild_, ii. 268.

M41 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Lillooet Indians of British
Columbia.

125 James Teit, _The Lillooet Indians_ (Leyden and New York, 1906), pp.
263-265 (_The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American
Museum of Natural History_, New York). Compare C. Hill Tout, “Report
on the Ethnology of the Stlatlumh of British Columbia,” _Journal of
the Anthropological Institute_, xxxv. (1905) p. 136.

M42 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Shuswap Indians of British
Columbia.

126 Franz Boas, in _Sixth Report of the Committee on the North-Western
Tribes of Canada_, pp. 89 _sq._ (separate reprint from the _Report
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science_, Leeds
meeting, 1890).

127 James Teit, _The Shuswap_ (Leyden and New York, 1909), pp. 587 _sq._
(_The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum
of Natural History_, New York).

M43 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Delaware and Cheyenne
Indians.

128 G. H. Loskiel, _History of the Mission of the United Brethren among
the Indians of North America_ (London, 1794), Part i. pp. 56 _sq._

129 G. B. Grinnell, “Cheyenne Woman Customs,” _American Anthropologist_,
New Series, iv. (New York, 1902) pp. 13 _sq._ The Cheyennes appear
to have been at first settled on the Mississippi, from which they
were driven westward to the Missouri. See _Handbook of American
Indians north of Mexico_, edited by F. W. Hodge (Washington,
1907-1910), i. 250 _sqq._

M44 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Esquimaux.

130 H. J. Holmberg, “Ueber die Völker des Russischen Amerika,” _Acta
Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae_, iv. (Helsingfors, 1856) pp. 401
_sq._; Ivan Petroff, _Report on the Population, Industries and
Resources of Alaska_, p. 143.

131 E. W. Nelson, “The Eskimo about Bering Strait,” _Eighteenth Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, Part i. (Washington,
1899) p. 291.

M45 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Guaranis, Chiriguanos, and
Lengua Indians of South America.

132 Jose Guevara, “Historia del Paraguay, Rio de la Plata, y Tucuman,”
pp. 16 _sq._, in Pedro de Angelis, _Coleccion de Obras y Documentos
relativos a la Historia antigua y moderna de las Provincias del Rio
de la Plata_, vol. ii. (Buenos-Ayres, 1836); J. F. Lafitau, _Mœurs
des Sauvages Ameriquains_ (Paris, 1724), i. 262 _sq._

133 Father Ignace Chomé, in _Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses_, Nouvelle
Édition (Paris, 1780-1783), viii. 333. As to the Chiriguanos, see C.
F. Phil. von Martius, _Zur Ethnographie Amerika’s, zumal Brasiliens_
(Leipsic, 1867), pp. 212 _sqq._; Colonel G. E. Church, _Aborigines
of South America_ (London, 1912), pp. 207-227.

134 A. Thouar, _Explorations dans l’Amérique du Sud_ (Paris, 1891), pp.
48 _sq._; G. Kurze, “Sitten und Gebräuche der Lengua-Indianer,”
_Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_, xxiii.
(1905) pp. 26 _sq._ The two accounts appear to be identical; but the
former attributes the custom to the Chiriguanos, the latter to the
Lenguas. As the latter account is based on the reports of the Rev.
W. B. Grubb, a missionary who has been settled among the Indians of
the Chaco for many years and is our principal authority on them, I
assume that the ascription of the custom to the Lenguas is correct.
However, in the volume on the Lengua Indians, which has been edited
from Mr. Grubb’s papers (_An Unknown People in an Unknown Land_,
London, 1911), these details as to the seclusion of girls at puberty
are not mentioned, though what seems to be the final ceremony is
described (_op. cit._ pp. 177 _sq._). From the description we learn
that boys dressed in ostrich feathers and wearing masks circle round
the girl with shrill cries, but are repelled by the women.

M46 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Yuracares of Bolivia.

135 Alcide d’Orbigny, _Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale_, vol. iii.
1re Partie (Paris and Strasburg, 1844), pp. 205 _sq._

M47 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Indians of the Gran Chaco,
and Brazil.

136 A. Thouar, _Explorations dans l’Amérique du Sud_ (Paris, 1891) pp.
56 _sq._; Father Cardus, quoted in J. Pelleschi’s _Los Indios
Matacos_ (Buenos Ayres, 1897), pp. 47 _sq._

137 A. Thouar, _op. cit._ p. 63.

138 Francis de Castelnau, _Expédition dans les parties centrales de
l’Amérique du Sud_ (Paris, 1850-1851), v. 25.

139 D. Luis de la Cruz, “Descripcion de la Naturaleza de los Terrenos
que se comprenden en los Andes, poseidos por los Peguenches y los
demas espacios hasta el rio de Chadileuba,” p. 62, in Pedro de
Angelis, _Coleccion de Obras y Documentos relativos a la Historia
antigua y moderna de las Provincias del Rio de la Plata_, vol. i.
(Buenos-Ayres, 1836). Apparently the Peguenches are an Indian tribe
of Chili.

140 J. B. von Spix und C. F. Ph. von Martius, _Reise in Brasilien_
(Munich, 1823-1831), iii. 1186, 1187, 1318.

141 André Thevet, _Cosmographie Universelle_ (Paris, 1575), ii. 946 B
[980] _sq._; _id._, _Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique,
autrement nommée Amerique_ (Antwerp, 1558), p. 76; J. F. Lafitau,
_Mœurs des Sauvages Ameriquains_ (Paris, 1724), i. 290 _sqq._,

M48 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Indians of Guiana. Custom of
beating the girls and of causing them to be stung by ants.

142 R. Schomburgk, _Reisen in Britisch Guiana_ (Leipsic, 1847-1848), ii.
315 _sq._; C. F. Ph. von Martius, _Zur Ethnographie Amerika’s, zumal
Brasiliens_ (Leipsic, 1867), p. 644.

143 Labat, _Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinée, Isles voisines,
et à Cayenne_, iv. 365 _sq._ (Paris, 1730), pp. 17 _sq._ (Amsterdam,
1731).

144 A. Caulin, _Historia Coro-graphica natural y evangelica dela Nueva
Andalucia_ (1779), p. 93. A similar custom, with the omission of the
stinging, is reported of the Tamanaks in the region of the Orinoco.
See F. S. Gilij, _Saggio di Storia Americana_, ii. (Rome, 1781), p.
133.

145 A. R. Wallace, _Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro_,
p. 496 (p. 345 of the Minerva Library edition, London, 1889).

M49 Custom in South America of causing young men to be stung with ants
as an initiatory rite.

_ 146 Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 105 _sqq._; _The Scapegoat_,
pp. 259 _sqq._

147 J. B. von Spix and C. F. Ph. von Martius, _Reise in Brasilien_
(Munich, 1823-1831), iii. 1320.

148 W. Lewis Herndon, _Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon_
(Washington, 1854), pp. 319 _sq._ The scene was described to Mr.
Herndon by a French engineer and architect, M. de Lincourt, who
witnessed it at Manduassu, a village on the Tapajos river. Mr.
Herndon adds: “The _Tocandeira_ ants not only bite, but are also
armed with a sting like the wasp; but the pain felt from it is more
violent. I think it equal to that occasioned by the sting of the
black scorpion.” He gives the name of the Indians as Mahues, but I
assume that they are the same as the Mauhes described by Spix and
Martius.

149 Francis de Castelnau, _Expédition dans les parties centrales de
l’Amérique du Sud_ (Paris, 1850-1851), v. 46.

150 L’Abbé Durand, “Le Rio Negro du Nord et son bassin,” _Bulletin de la
Société de Géographie_ (Paris), vi. Série, iii. (1872) pp. 21 _sq._
The writer says that the candidate has to keep his arms plunged up
to the shoulders in vessels full of ants, “as in a bath of vitriol,”
for hours. He gives the native name of the ant as _issauba_.

151 J. Crevaux, _Voyages dans l’Amérique du Sud_ (Paris, 1883), pp.
245-250.

M50 Custom of causing men and women to be stung with ants to improve
their character and health or to render them invulnerable.

152 H. Coudreau, _Chez nos Indiens: quatre années dans la Guyane
Française_ (Paris, 1895), p. 228. For details as to the different
modes of administering the _maraké_, see _ibid._ pp. 228-235.

153 Father Geronimo Boscana, “Chinigchinich,” in _Life in California by
an American_ [A. Robinson] (New York, 1846), pp. 273 _sq._

154 F. Stuhlmann, _Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika_ (Berlin, 1894),
p. 506.

M51 In such cases the beating or stinging was originally a purification;
at a later time it is interpreted as a test of courage and
endurance.

155 As a confirmation of this view it may be pointed out that beating or
scourging is inflicted on inanimate objects expressly for the
purpose indicated in the text. Thus the Indians of Costa Rica hold
that there are two kinds of ceremonial uncleanness, _nya_ and
_bu-ku-rú_. Anything that has been connected with a death is _nya_.
But _bu-ku-rú_ is much more virulent. It can not only make one sick
but kill. “_Bu-ku-rú_ emanates in a variety of ways; arms, utensils,
even houses become affected by it after long disuse, and before they
can be used again must be purified. In the case of portable objects
left undisturbed for a long time, the custom is to beat them with a
stick before touching them. I have seen a woman take a long
walking-stick and beat a basket hanging from the roof of a house by
a cord. On asking what that was for, I was told that the basket
contained her treasures, that she would probably want to take
something out the next day, and that she was driving off the
_bu-ku-rú_. A house long unused must be swept, and then the person
who is purifying it must take a stick and beat not only the movable
objects, but the beds, posts, and in short every accessible part of
the interior. The next day it is fit for occupation. A place not
visited for a long time or reached for the first time is _bu-ku-rú_.
On our return from the ascent of Pico Blanco, nearly all the party
suffered from little calenturas, the result of extraordinary
exposure to wet and cold and of want of food. The Indians said that
the peak was especially _bu-ku-rú_, since nobody had ever been on it
before.” One day Mr. Gabb took down some dusty blow-guns amid cries
of _bu-ku-rú_ from the Indians. Some weeks afterwards a boy died,
and the Indians firmly believed that the _bu-ku-rú_ of the blow-guns
had killed him. “From all the foregoing, it would seem that
_bu-ku-rú_ is a sort of evil spirit that takes possession of the
object, and resents being disturbed; but I have never been able to
learn from the Indians that they consider it so. They seem to think
of it as a property the object acquires. But the worst _bu-ku-rú_ of
all, is that of a young woman in her first pregnancy. She infects
the whole neighbourhood. Persons going from the house where she
lives, carry the infection with them to a distance, and all the
deaths or other serious misfortunes in the vicinity are laid to her
charge. In the old times, when the savage laws and customs were in
full force, it was not an uncommon thing for the husband of such a
woman to pay damages for casualties thus caused by his unfortunate
wife.” See Wm. M. Gabb, “On the Indian Tribes and Languages of Costa
Rica,” _Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society held at
Philadelphia_, xiv. (Philadelphia, 1876) pp. 504 _sq._

M52 This explanation confirmed with reference to the beating of girls at
puberty among the South American Indians. Treatment of a girl at
puberty among the Banivas of the Orinoco. Symptoms of puberty in a
girl regarded as wounds inflicted by a demon.

156 J. Chaffanjon, _L’Orénoque et le Caura_ (Paris, 1889), pp. 213-215.

M53 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Hindoos, in Southern India.

157 Shib Chunder Bose, _The Hindoos as they are_ (London and Calcutta,
1881), p. 86. Similarly, after a Brahman boy has been invested with
the sacred thread, he is for three days strictly forbidden to see
the sun. He may not eat salt, and he is enjoined to sleep either on
a carpet or a deer’s skin, without a mattress or mosquito curtain
(_ibid._ p. 186). In Bali, boys who have had their teeth filed, as a
preliminary to marriage, are kept shut up in a dark room for three
days (R. Van Eck, “Schetsen van het eiland Bali,” _Tijdschrift voor
Nederlandsch Indië_, N.S., ix. (1880) pp. 428 _sq._).

158 (Sir) H. H. Risley, _Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Ethnographic
Glossary_ (Calcutta, 1891-1892), i. 152.

159 Edgar Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_ (Madras,
1909), vii. 63 _sq._

160 Edgar Thurston, _op. cit._ iii. 218.

161 Edgar Thurston, _op. cit._ vi. 157.

162 S. Mateer, _Native Life in Travancore_ (London, 1883), p. 45.

163 Arthur A. Perera, “Glimpses of Singhalese Social Life,” _Indian
Antiquary_, xxxi. (1902) p. 380.

M54 Seclusion of girls at puberty in Cambodia.

164 J. Moura, _Le Royaume du Cambodge_ (Paris, 1883), i. 377.

165 Étienne Aymonier, “Notes sur les coutumes et croyances
superstitieuses des Cambodgiens,” _Cochinchine Française: Excursions
et Reconnaissances_, No. 16 (Saigon, 1883), pp. 193 _sq._ Compare
_id._,_ Notice sur le Cambodge_ (Paris, 1875), p. 50; _id._, _Notes
sur le Laos_ (Saigon, 1885), p. 177.

M55 Traces of the seclusion of girls at puberty in folk-tales. Danish
story of the girl who might not see the sun.

166 Svend Grundtvig, _Dänische Volksmärchen_, übersetzt von A.
Strodtmann, Zweite Sammlung (Leipsic, 1879), pp. 199 _sqq._

M56 Tyrolese story of the girl who might not see the sun.

167 Christian Schneller, _Märchen und Sagen aus Wälschtirol_ (Innsbruck,
1867), No. 22, pp. 51 _sqq._

M57 Modern Greek stories of the maid who might not see the sun.

168 Bernhard Schmidt, _Griechische Märchen, Sagen und Volkslieder_
(Leipsic, 1877), p. 98.

169 J. G. von Hahn, _Griechische und albanesische Märchen_ (Leipsic,
1864), No. 41, vol. i. pp. 245 _sqq._

170 Laura Gonzenbach, _Sicilianische Märchen_ (Leipsic, 1870), No. 28,
vol. i. pp. 177 _sqq._ The incident of the bone occurs in other
folk-tales. A prince or princess is shut up for safety in a tower
and makes his or her escape by scraping a hole in the wall with a
bone which has been accidentally conveyed into the tower; sometimes
it is expressly said that care was taken to let the princess have no
bones with her meat (J. G. von Hahn, _op. cit._ No. 15; L.
Gonzenbach, _op. cit._ Nos. 26, 27; _Der Pentamerone, aus dem
Neapolitanischen übertragen_ von Felix Liebrecht (Breslau, 1846),
No. 23, vol. i. pp. 294 _sqq._). From this we should infer that it
is a rule with savages not to let women handle the bones of animals
during their monthly seclusions. We have already seen the great
respect with which the savage treats the bones of game (_Spirits of
the Corn and of the Wild_, ii. 238 _sqq._, 256 _sqq._); and women in
their courses are specially forbidden to meddle with the hunter or
fisher, as their contact or neighbourhood would spoil his sport (see
below, pp. 77, 78 _sq._, 87, 89 _sqq._). In folk-tales the hero who
uses the bone is sometimes a boy; but the incident might easily be
transferred from a girl to a boy after its real meaning had been
forgotten. Amongst the Tinneh Indians a girl at puberty is forbidden
to break the bones of hares (above, p. 48). On the other hand, she
drinks out of a tube made of a swan’s bone (above, pp. 48, 49), and
the same instrument is used for the same purpose by girls of the
Carrier tribe of Indians (see below, p. 92). We have seen that a
Tlingit (Thlinkeet) girl in the same circumstances used to drink out
of the wing-bone of a white-headed eagle (above, p. 45), and that
among the Nootka and Shuswap tribes girls at puberty are provided
with bones or combs with which to scratch themselves, because they
may not use their fingers for this purpose (above, pp. 44, 53).

M58 The story of Danae and its parallel in a Kirghiz legend.

171 Sophocles, Antigone, 944 _sqq._; Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, ii. 4.
1; Horace, _Odes_, iii. 16. 1. _sqq._; Pausanias, ii. 23. 7.

172 W. Radloff, _Proben der Volkslitteratur der türkischen Stämme
Süd-Sibiriens_, iii. (St. Petersburg, 1870) pp. 82 _sq._

M59 Impregnation of women by the sun in legends.

173 H. Ternaux-Compans, _Essai sur l’ancien Cundinamarca_ (Paris, N.D.),
p. 18.

174 George Turner, LL.D., _Samoa, a Hundred Years ago and long before_
(London, 1884), p. 200. For other examples of such tales, see Adolph
Bastian, _Die Voelker des Oestlichen Asien_, i. 416, vi. 25; _Panjab
Notes and Queries_, ii. p. 148, § 797 (June, 1885); A. Pfizmaier,
“Nachrichten von den alten Bewohnern des heutigen Corea,”
_Sitzungsberichte der philosoph. histor. Classe der kaiser. Akademie
der Wissenschaften_ (Vienna), lvii. (1868) pp. 495 _sq._

M60 Traces in marriage customs of the belief that women can be
impregnated by the sun. Belief in the impregnation of women by the
moon.

175 Thomas J. Hutchinson, “On the Chaco and other Indians of South
America,” _Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London_, N.S.
iii. (1865) p. 327. Amongst the Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan
Chaco the marriage feast is now apparently extinct. See W. Barbrooke
Grubb, _An Unknown People in an Unknown Land_ (London, 1911), p.
179.

176 Monier Williams, _Religious Thought and Life in India_ (London,
1883), p. 354.

177 H. Vambery, _Das Türkenvolk_ (Leipsic, 1885), p. 112.

178 Hans Egede, _A Description of Greenland_ (London, 1818), p. 209.

_ 179 Revue des Traditions Populaires_, xv. (1900) p. 471.

M61 The reason for the seclusion of women at puberty is the dread of
menstruous blood.

_ 180 Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 145 _sqq._

M62 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the aborigines of
Australia.

181 H. E. A. Meyer, “Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the
Encounter Bay Tribe, South Australia,” _The Native Tribes of South
Australia_ (Adelaide, 1879), p. 186.

182 E. J. Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central
Australia_ (London, 1845), ii. 304.

183 E. J. Eyre, _op. cit._ ii. 295.

184 R. Brough Smyth, _The Aborigines of Victoria_ (Melbourne and London,
1878), i. 236.

185 Samuel Gason, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxiv.
(1895) p. 171.

186 Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
Australia_ (London, 1899), p. 473; _idem_, _Northern Tribes of
Central Australia_ (London, 1904), p. 615.

187 James Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_ (Melbourne, Sydney, and
Adelaide, 1881), pp. ci. _sq._

M63 Severe penalties inflicted for breaches of the custom of seclusion.

188 Rev. William Ridley, “Report on Australian Languages and
Traditions,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, ii. (1873)
p. 268. Compare _id._, _Kamilaroi and other Australian Languages_
(Sydney, 1875), p. 157.

189 A. W. Howitt, _The Native Tribes of South-East Australia_ (London,
1904), pp. 776 _sq._, on the authority of Mr. J. C. Muirhead. The
Wakelbura are in Central Queensland. Compare Captain W. E. Armit,
quoted in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, ix. (1880) pp.
459 _sq._

M64 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women in the Torres Straits
Islands, New Guinea, Galela, and Sumatra.

_ 190 Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres
Straits_, v. (Cambridge, 1904) pp. 196, 207.

191 Ch. Keysser, “Aus dem Leben der Kaileute,” in R. Neuhauss’s _Deutsch
Neu-Guinea_ (Berlin, 1911), iii. 91.

192 M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der
Galelareezen,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlv. (1895) p. 489.

193 J. L. van der Toorn, “Het animisme bij den Minangkabauer der
Padangsche Bovenlanden,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en
Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, xxxix. (1890) p. 66.

M65 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the tribes of South
Africa, Central and East Africa.

194 W. H. I. Bleek, _A Brief Account of Bushman Folk-lore_ (London,
1875), p. 14; compare _ibid._, p. 10.

195 Rev. James Macdonald, “Manners, Customs, Superstitions and Religions
of South African Tribes,” _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xx. (1891) p. 138; _id._, _Light in Africa_, Second
Edition (London, 1890), p. 221.

196 Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_ (London, 1904), p. 238; Mr.
Warren’s Notes, in Col. Maclean’s _Compendium of Kafir Laws and
Customs_ (Cape Town, 1866), p. 93; Rev. J. Macdonald, _Light in
Africa_, p. 221; _id._, _Religion and Myth_ (London, 1893), p. 198.
Compare Henri A. Junod, “Les conceptions physiologiques des Bantou
Sud-Africains et leurs tabous,” _Revue d’Ethnographie et de
Sociologie_, i. (1910) p. 139. The danger of death to the cattle
from the blood of women is mentioned only by Mr. Kidd. The part of
the village which is frequented by the cattle, and which accordingly
must be shunned by women, has a special name, _inkundhla_ (Mr.
Warner’s Notes, _l.c._).

197 Rev. J. Roscoe, “The Bahima, a Cow Tribe of Enkole,” _Journal of the
Royal Anthropological Institute_, xxxvii. (1907) p. 106.

198 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), p. 419.

199 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, p. 96.

200 Rev. J. Roscoe, “Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxi. (1901) p. 121;
_id._, “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,”
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p. 39;
_id._, _The Baganda_, p. 352.

201 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, p. 459.

202 C. W. Hobley, “Further Researches into Kikuyu and Kamba Religious
Beliefs and Customs,” _Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute_, xli. (1911) p. 409.

203 Mervyn W. H. Beech, _The Suk, their Language and Folklore_ (Oxford,
1911), p. 11.

204 H. S. Stannus, “Notes on some Tribes of British Central Africa,”
_Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_, xl. (1910) p. 305;
R. Sutherland Rattray, _Some Folk-lore Stories and Songs in
Chinyanja_ (London, 1907), p. 191. See above, p. 27.

M66 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the tribes of West
Africa.

205 Jakob Spieth, _Die Ewe-Stämme_ (Berlin, 1906), p. 192.

206 Anton Witte, “Menstruation und Pubertätsfeier der Mädchen in
Kpandugebiet Togo,” _Baessler-Archiv_, i. (1911) p. 279.

M67 Powerful influence ascribed to menstruous blood in Arab legend.

207 Th. Nöldeke, _Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der
Sassaniden, aus der arabischen Chronik des Tabari übersetzt_
(Leyden, 1879), pp. 33-38. I have to thank my friend Professor A. A.
Bevan for pointing out to me this passage. Many ancient cities had
talismans on the preservation of which their safety was believed to
depend. The Palladium of Troy is the most familiar instance. See
Chr. A. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_ (Königsberg, 1829), pp. 278 _sqq._,
and my note on Pausanias, viii. 47. 5 (vol. iv. pp. 433 _sq._).

M68 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Jews, in Syria,
India, and Annam.

208 J. Mergel, _Die Medezin der Talmudisten_ (Leipsic and Berlin, 1885),
pp. 15 _sq._

209 Maimonides, quoted by D. Chwolsohn, _Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus_
(St. Petersburg, 1856), ii. 483. According to the editor (p. 735) by
the East Maimonides means India and eastern countries generally.

210 L’abbé Béchara Chémali, “Naissance et premier âge au Liban,”
_Anthropos_, v. (1910) p. 735.

211 Eijūb Abēla, “Beiträge zur Kenntniss abergläubischer Gebräuche in
Syrien,” _Zeitschrift des deutschen Palaestina-Vereins_, vii. (1884)
p. 111.

212 J. Chalmers, “Toaripi,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
xxvii. (1898) p. 328.

213 W. Crooke, _Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and
Oudh_ (Calcutta, 1896), ii. 87.

214 W. Crooke, _in North Indian Notes and Queries_, i. p. 67, § 467
(July, 1891).

215 L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer, _The Cochin Tribes and Castes_, i.
(Madras, 1909) pp. 201-203. As to the seclusion of menstruous women
among the Hindoos, see also Sonnerat, _Voyage aux Indes Orientales
et à la Chine_ (Paris, 1782), i. 31; J. A. Dubois, _Mœurs,
Institutions et Cérémonies des Peuples de l’Inde_ (Paris, 1825), i.
245 _sq._ Nair women in Malabar seclude themselves for three days at
menstruation and prepare their food in separate pots and pans. See
Duarte Barbosa, _Description of the Coasts of East Africa and
Malabar in the beginning of the Sixteenth Century_ (Hakluyt Society,
London, 1866), pp. 132 _sq._

216 G. Hoffman, _Auszüge aus Syrischen Akten persisischer Martyrer
übersetzt_ (Leipsic, 1880), p. 99. This passage was pointed out to
me by my friend Professor A. A. Bevan.

217 J. B. Tavernier, _Voyages en Turquie, en Perse, et aux Indes_ (The
Hague, 1718), i. 488.

218 Paul Giran, _Magie et Religion Annamites_ (Paris, 1912), pp. 107
_sq._, 112.

M69 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians of South
and Central America.

219 Joseph Gumilla, _Histoire Naturelle, Civile, et Géographique de
l’Orenoque_ (Avignon, 1758), i. 249.

220 Dr. Louis Plassard, “Les Guaraunos et le delta de l’Orénoque,”
_Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_ (Paris), v. Série, xv. (1868)
p. 584.

221 J. Crevaux, _Voyages dans l’Amérique du Sud_ (Paris, 1883), p. 526.
As to the customs observed at menstruation by Indian women in South
America, see further A. d’Orbigny, _L’Homme Americain_ (Paris,
1839), i. 237.

222 Chas. N. Bell, “The Mosquito Territory,” _Journal of the Royal
Geographical Society_, xxxii. (1862) p. 254.

223 H. Pittier de Fabrega, “Die Sprache der Bribri-Indianer in Costa
Rica,” _Sitzungsberichte der philosophischen-historischen Classe der
Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften_ (Vienna), cxxxviii. (1898)
pp. 19 _sq._

M70 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians of North
America.

224 Gabriel Sagard, _Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons_, Nouvelle
Édition (Paris, 1865), p. 54 (original edition, Paris, 1632); J. F.
Lafitau, _Mœurs des Sauvages Ameriquains_ (Paris, 1724), i. 262;
Charlevoix, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_ (Paris, 1744), v. 423
sq.; Captain Jonathan Carver, _Travels through the Interior Parts of
North America_, Third Edition (London, 1781), pp. 236 _sq._;
Captains Lewis and Clark, _Expedition to the Sources of the
Missouri_, etc. (London, 1905), iii. 90 (original edition, 1814);
Rev. Jedidiah Morse, _Report to the Secretary of War of the United
States on Indian Affairs_ (New Haven, 1822), pp. 136 _sq._; _Annales
de l’Association de la Propagation de la Foi_, iv. (Paris and Lyons,
1830) pp. 483, 494 _sq._; George Catlin, _Letters and Notes on the
Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians_,
Fourth Edition (London, 1844), ii. 233; H. R. Schoolcraft, _Indian
Tribes of the United States_ (Philadelphia, 1853-1856), v. 70; A. L.
Kroeber, “The Religion of the Indians of California,” _University of
California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology_, vol.
iv. No. 6 (Berkeley, September, 1907), pp. 323 _sq._; Frank G.
Speck, _Ethnology of the Yuchi Indians_ (Philadelphia, 1909), p. 96.
Among the Hurons of Canada women at their periods did not retire
from the house or village, but they ate from small dishes apart from
the rest of the family at these times (Gabriel Sagard, _l.c._).

M71 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Creek, Choctaw,
Omaha, and Cheyenne Indians.

225 James Adair, _History of the American Indians_ (London, 1775), pp.
123 _sq._

226 Bossu, _Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes occidentales_ (Paris, 1768), ii.
105.

227 Edwin James, _Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky
Mountains_ (London, 1823), i. 214.

228 William H. Keating, _Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St.
Peter’s River_ (London, 1825), i. 132.

229 G. B. Grinnell, “Cheyenne Woman Customs,” _American Anthropologist_,
New Series, iv. (New York, 1902) p. 14.

M72 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians of British
Columbia.

230 C. Hill Tout, “Ethnological Report on the Stseelis and Skaulits
Tribes of the Halokmelem Division of the Salish of British
Columbia,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxiv. (1904)
p. 320.

231 James Teit, _The Thompson Indians of British Columbia_, pp. 326
_sq._ (_The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American
Museum of Natural History_, New York, April, 1900).

M73 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Chippeway Indians.

232 Samuel Hearne, _Journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort in Hudson’s Bay
to the Northern Ocean_ (London, 1795), pp. 314 _sq._; Alex.
Mackenzie, _Voyages through the Continent of North America_ (London,
1801), p. cxxiii.; E. Petitot, _Monographie des Dènè-Dindjié_
(Paris, 1876), pp. 75 _sq._

233 C. Leemius, _De Lapponibus Finmarchiae eorumque lingua vita et
religione pristina_ (Copenhagen, 1767), p. 494.

234 E. W. Nelson, “The Eskimo about Bering Strait,” _Eighteenth Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, Part i. (Washington,
1899) p. 440.

M74 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Tinneh or Déné
Indians. Customs and beliefs of the Carrier Indians in regard to
menstruous women.

235 The Carriers are a tribe of Déné or Tinneh Indians who get their
name from a custom observed among them by widows, who carry, or
rather used to carry, the charred bones of their dead husbands about
with them in bundles.

M75 Seclusion of Carrier girls at puberty.

236 Hence we may conjecture that the similar ornaments worn by Mabuiag
girls in similar circumstances are also amulets. See above, p. 36.
Among the aborigines of the Upper Yarra river in Victoria, a girl at
puberty used to have cords tied very tightly round several parts of
her body. The cords were worn for several days, causing the whole
body to swell very much and inflicting great pain. The girl might
not remove them till she was clean. See R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines
of Victoria_ (Melbourne and London, 1878), i. 65. Perhaps the cords
were intended to arrest the flow of blood.

M76 Seclusion of Carrier women at their monthly periods. Reasons for the
seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians.

237 Rev. Father A.G. Morice, “The Western Dénés, their Manners and
Customs,” _Proceedings of the Canadian Institute_, Toronto, Third
Series, vii. (1888-89) pp. 162-164. The writer has repeated the
substance of this account in a later work, _Au pays de l’Ours Noir:
chez les sauvages de la Colombie Britannique_ (Paris and Lyons,
1897), pp. 72 _sq._

238 A. G. Morice, “Notes, Archaeological, Industrial, and Sociological,
on the Western Dénés,” _Transactions of the Canadian Institute_, iv.
(1892-93) pp. 106 _sq._ Compare Rev. Father Julius Jetté, “On the
Superstitions of the Ten’a Indians,” _Anthropos_, vi. (1911) pp. 703
_sq._, who tells us that Tinneh women at these times may not lift
their own nets, may not step over other people’s nets, and may not
pass in a boat or canoe near a place where nets are being set.

239 A. G. Morice, in _Transactions of the Canadian Institute_, iv.
(1892-93) pp. 107, 110.

240 James Teit, _The Thompson Indians of British Columbia_, p. 327 (_The
Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of
Natural History_, New York, April 1900).

241 See above, p. 53.

M77 Similar rules of seclusion enjoined on menstruous women in ancient
Hindoo, Persian, and Hebrew codes.

_ 242 Laws of Manu_, translated by G. Bühler (Oxford, 1886), ch. iv. 41
sq., p. 135 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxv.).

_ 243 The Zend-Avesta_, translated by J. Darmesteter, i. (Oxford, 1880)
p. xcii. (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. iv.). See _id._, pp. 9,
181-185, _Fargard_, i. 18 and 19, xvi. 1-18.

M78 Superstitions as to menstruous women in ancient and modern Europe.

244 Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ vii. 64 _sq._, xxviii. 77 _sqq._ Compare
_Geoponica_, xii. 20. 5 and 25. 2; Columella, _De re rustica_, xi.
357 _sqq._

245 August Schleicher, _Volkstümliches ans Sonnenberg_ (Weimar, 1858),
p. 134; B. Souché, _Croyances, Présages et Traditions diverses_
(Niort, 1880), p. 11; A. Meyrac, _Traditions, Coutumes, Légendes et
Contes des Ardennes_ (Charleville, 1890), p. 171; V. Fossel,
_Volksmedicin und medicinischer Aberglaube in Steiermark_2 (Graz,
1886), p. 124. A correspondent, who withholds her name, writes to me
that in a Suffolk village, where she used to live some twenty or
thirty years ago, “every one pickled their own beef, and it was held
that if the pickling were performed by a woman during her menstrual
period the meat would not keep. If the cook were incapacitated at
the time when the pickling was due, another woman was sent for out
of the village rather than risk what was considered a certainty.”
Another correspondent informs me that in some of the dales in the
north of Yorkshire a similar belief prevailed down to recent years
with regard to the salting of pork. Another correspondent writes to
me: “The prohibition that a menstruating woman must not touch meat
that is intended for keeping appears to be common all over the
country; at least I have met with it as a confirmed and active
custom in widely separated parts of England.... It is in regard to
the salting of meat for bacon that the prohibition is most usual,
because that is the commonest process; but it exists in regard to
any meat food that is required to be kept.”

246 R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), p. 291.

247 W. R. Paton, in _Folk-lore_, i. (1890) p. 524.

M79 The intention of secluding menstruous women is to neutralize the
dangerous influences which are thought to emanate from them in that
condition. Suspension between heaven and earth.
M80 The same explanation applies to the similar rules of seclusion
observed by divine kings and priests. Suspension between heaven and
earth.

248 The Greeks and Romans thought that a field was completely protected
against insects if a menstruous woman walked round it with bare feet
and streaming hair (Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvii. 266, xxviii. 78;
Columella, _De re rustica_, x. 358 sq., xi. 3. 64; Palladius, _De re
rustica_, i. 35. 3; _Geoponica_, xii. 8. 5 _sq._; Aelian, _Nat.
Anim._ vi. 36). A similar preventive is employed for the same
purpose by North American Indians and European peasants. See H. R.
Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes of the United States_ (Philadelphia,
1853-1856), v. 70; F. J. Wiedemann, _Aus dem inneren und äussern
Leben der Ehsten_ (St. Petersburg, 1876), p. 484. Compare J.
Haltrich, _Zur Volkskunde der Siebenbürger Sachsen_ (Vienna, 1885),
p. 280; Adolph Heinrich, _Agrarische Sitten und Gebräuche unter den
Sachsen Siebenbürgens_ (Hermannstadt, 1880), p. 14; J. Grimm,
_Deutsche Mythologie_,4 iii. 468; G. Lammert, _Volksmedizin und
medizinischer Aberglaube aus Bayern_ (Würzburg, 1869), p. 147. Among
the Western Dénés it is believed that one or two transverse lines
tattooed on the arms or legs of a young man by a pubescent girl are
a specific against premature weakness of these limbs. See A. G.
Morice, “Notes, Archaeological, Industrial, and Sociological, on the
Western Dénés,” _Transactions of the Canadian Institute_, iv.
(1892-93) p. 182. The Thompson Indians of British Columbia thought
that the Dawn of Day could and would cure hernia if only an
adolescent girl prayed to it to do so. Just before daybreak the girl
would put some charcoal in her mouth, chew it fine, and spit it out
four times on the diseased place. Then she prayed: “O Day-dawn! thy
child relies on me to obtain healing from thee, who art mystery.
Remove thou the swelling of thy child. Pity thou him, Day-Dawn!” See
James Teit, _The Thompson Indians of British Columbia_, pp. 345
_sq._ (_The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American
Museum of Natural History_, New York, April, 1900). To cure the
painful and dangerous wound inflicted by a ray-fish, the Indians of
the Gran Chaco smoke the wounded limb and then cause a woman in her
courses to sit astride of it. See G. Pelleschi, _Eight Months on the
Gran Chaco of the Argentine Republic_ (London, 1886), p. 106. An
ancient Hindoo method of securing prosperity was to swallow a
portion of the menstruous fluid. See W. Caland, _Altindisches
Zauberritual_ (Amsterdam, 1900), pp. 57 _sq._ To preserve a new cow
from the evil eye Scottish Highlanders used to sprinkle menstruous
blood on the animal; and at certain seasons of the year, especially
at Beltane (the first of May) and Lammas (the first of August) it
was their custom to sprinkle the same potent liquid on the doorposts
and houses all round to guard them from harm. The fluid was applied
by means of a wisp of straw, and the person who discharged this
salutary office went round the house in the direction of the sun.
See J. G. Campbell, _Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of
Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1900), p. 248. These are examples of the
beneficent application of the menstruous energy.

_ 249 Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 1 _sqq._

250 For a similar reason, perhaps, ancient Hindoo ritual prescribed that
when the hair of a child’s head was shorn in the third year, the
clippings should be buried in a cow-stable, or near an _udumbara_
tree, or in a clump of _darbha_ grass, with the words, “Where
Pushan, Brihaspati, Savitri, Soma, Agni dwell, they have in many
ways searched where they should deposit it, between heaven and
earth, the waters and heaven.” See _The Grihya-Sûtras_, translated
by H. Oldenberg, Part ii. (Oxford, 1892) p. 218 (_Sacred Books of
the East_, vol. xxx.).

M81 Stories of immortality attained by suspension between heaven and
earth.

251 Petronius, _Sat._ 48; Pausanias, x. 12. 8; Justin Martyr, _Cohort ad
Graecos_, 37, p. 34 c (ed. 1742). According to another account, the
remains of the Sibyl were enclosed in an iron cage which hung from a
pillar in an ancient temple of Hercules at Argyrus (Ampelius, _Liber
Memorialis_, viii. 16).

252 A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche_
(Leipsic, 1848), p. 70, No. 72. 1. This and the following German
parallels to the story of the Sibyl’s wish were first indicated by
Dr. M. R. James (_Classical Review_, vi. (1892) p. 74). I have
already given the stories at length in a note on Pausanias, x. 12. 8
(vol. v. pp. 292 _sq._).

253 A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _op. cit._ pp. 70 _sq._, No. 72. 2.

254 A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _op. cit._ p. 71, No. 72. 3.

255 Karl Müllenhoff, _Sagen, Märchen und Lieder der Herzogthümer
Holstein und Lauenburg_ (Kiel, 1845), pp. 158 _sq._, No. 217.

M82 How Balder, the good and beautiful god, was done to death by a
stroke of the mistletoe.

_ 256 Die Edda_, übersetzt von K. Simrock8 (Stuttgart, 1882), pp.
286-288. Compare pp. 8, 34, 264. Balder’s story is told in a
professedly historical form by the old Danish historian Saxo
Grammaticus in his third book. See below, p. 103. In English the
story is told at length by Professor (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic
Heathendom_ (London and Edinburgh, 1888), pp. 529 _sqq._ It is
elaborately discussed by Professor F. Kauffmann in a learned
monograph, _Balder, Mythus und Sage_ (Strasburg, 1902).

M83 Tale of Balder in the older _Edda_.

257 Gudbrand Vigfusson and F. York Powell, _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, i.
(Oxford, 1883) p. 197. Compare _Edda Rhythmica seu Antiquior, vulgo
Saemundina dicta_, Pars iii. (Copenhagen, 1828) pp. 39 _sq._; _Die
Edda_, übersetzt von K. Simrock8 (Stuttgart, 1882), p. 8; K.
Müllenhoff, _Deutsche Altertumskunde_, v. Zweite Abteilung (Berlin,
1891), pp. 78 _sq._; Fr. Kauffmann, _Balder, Mythus und Sage_, pp.
20 _sq._ In this passage the words translated “bloody victim”
(_blauþom tivor_) and “fate looming” (_ørlog fólgen_) are somewhat
uncertain and have been variously interpreted. The word _tivor_,
usually understood to mean “god,” seems to be found nowhere else.
Professor H. M. Chadwick has kindly furnished me with the following
literal translation of the passage: “I saw (or ‘have seen’) held in
safe keeping the life of Balder, the bloody god, Othin’s son. High
above the fields (_i.e._ the surface of the earth) grew a mistletoe,
slender and very beautiful. From a shaft (or ‘stem’) which appeared
slender, came a dangerous sorrow-bringing missile (_i.e._ the shaft
became a ... missile); Hodr proceeded to shoot. Soon was a brother
of Balder born. He, Othin’s son, proceeded to do battle when one day
old. He did not wash his hands or comb his head before he brought
Balder’s antagonist on to the pyre. But Frigg in Fen-salir (_i.e._
the Fen-abode) lamented the trouble of Valholl.” In translating the
words _ørlog fólgen_ “held in safe keeping the life” Professor
Chadwick follows Professor F. Kauffmann’s rendering (“_das Leben
verwahrt_”); but he writes to me that he is not quite confident
about it, as the word _ørlog_ usually means “fate” rather than
“life.” Several sentences translated by Professor Chadwick (“Soon
was a brother of Balder born ... he brought Balder’s antagonist on
the pyre”) are omitted by some editors and translators of the
_Edda_.

258 G. Vigfusson and F. York Powell, _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, i. 200
_sq._; _Edda Rhythmica seu Antiquior, vulgo Saemundina dicta_, Pars
iii. pp. 51-54; _Die Edda_, übersetzt von K. Simrock8 pp. 10 _sq._;
K. Müllenhoff, _Deutsche Altertumskunde_, v. Zweite Abteilung, pp.
84 _sq._

M84 The story of Balder as related by Saxo Grammaticus.

259 Saxo Grammaticus, _Historia Danica_, ed. P. E. Müller (Copenhagen,
1839-1858), _lib._ iii. vol. i. pp. 110 _sqq._; _The First Nine
Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus_, translated by
Oliver Elton (London, 1894), pp. 83-93.

M85 Balder worshipped in Norway.

_ 260 Fridthjofs Saga, aus dem Altisländischen_, von J. C. Poestion
(Vienna, 1879), pp. 3 _sq._, 14-17, 45-52.

M86 The legendary death of Balder resembles the legendary death of the
Persian hero Isfendiyar in the epic of Firdusi.

_ 261 The Epic of Kings, Stories retold from Firdusi_, by Helen Zimmern
(London, 1883), pp. 325-331. The parallel between Balder and
Isfendiyar was pointed out in the “Lexicon Mythologicum” appended to
the _Edda Rhythmica seu Antiquior, vulgo Saemundina dicta_, Pars
iii. (Copenhagen, 1828) p. 513 note, with a reference to _Schah
Nameh, verdeutscht von Görres_, ii. 324, 327 _sq._ It is briefly
mentioned by Dr. P. Wagler, _Die Eiche in alter und neuer Zeit_, ii.
Teil (Berlin, 1891), p. 40.

M87 The myth of Balder was perhaps acted as a magical ceremony. The two
chief incidents of the myth, namely the pulling of the mistletoe and
the death and burning of the god, have perhaps their counterparts in
popular ritual.
M88 European custom of kindling bonfires on certain days of the year,
dancing round them and leaping over them. Effigies are sometimes
burnt in the fires.

262 See Jacob Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_4 (Berlin, 1875-1878), i. 502,
510, 516.

263 W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstämme_
(Berlin, 1875), pp. 518 _sq._

264 In the following survey of these fire-customs I follow chiefly W.
Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, kap. vi. pp. 497 _sqq._ Compare also J.
Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 500 _sqq._; Walter K. Kelly,
_Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore_ (London,
1863), pp. 46 _sqq._; F. Vogt, “Scheibentreiben und Frühlingsfeuer,”
_Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde_, iii. (1893) pp. 349-369;
_ibid._ iv. (1894) pp. 195-197.

M89 Seasons of the year at which the bonfires are lit.

_ 265 The Scapegoat_, pp. 316 _sqq._

266 The first Sunday in Lent is known as _Invocavit_ from the first word
of the mass for the day (O. Frh. von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld,
_Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_, p. 67).

M90 Custom of kindling bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent in the
Belgian Ardennes.

267 Le Baron de Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Calendrier Belge_ (Brussels,
1861-1862), i. 141-143; E. Monseur, _Le Folklore Wallon_ (Brussels,
N.D.), pp. 124 _sq._

268 Emile Hublard, _Fêtes du Temps Jadis, les Feux du Carême_ (Mons,
1899), pp. 25. For the loan of this work I am indebted to Mrs.
Wherry of St. Peter’s Terrace, Cambridge.

269 É. Hublard, _op. cit._ pp. 27 _sq._

M91 Bonfires on the first Sunday of Lent in the French department of the
Ardennes.

270 A. Meyrac, _Traditions, coutumes, légendes et contes des Ardennes_
(Charleville, 1890), p. 68.

271 L. F. Sauvé, _Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), p. 56.
The popular name for the bonfires in the Upper Vosges
(_Hautes-Vosges_) is _chavandes_.

272 E. Cortet, _Essai sur les fêtes religieuses_ (Paris, 1867), pp. 101
_sq._ The local name for these bonfires is _bures_.

M92 Bonfires on the First Sunday of Lent in Franche-Comté.

273 Charles Beauquier, _Les mois en Franche-Comté_ (Paris, 1900), pp. 33
sq. In Bresse the custom was similar. See _La Bresse Louhannaise,
Bulletin Mensuel, Organe de la Société d’Agriculture et
d’Horticulture de l’Arrondissement de Louhans_, Mars, 1906, pp. 111
_sq._; E. Cortet, _op. cit._ p. 100. The usual name for the bonfires
is _chevannes_ or _schvannes_; but in some places they are called
_foulères_, _foualères_, _failles_, or _bourdifailles_ (Ch.
Beauquier, _op. cit._ p. 34). But the Sunday is called the Sunday of
the _brandons_, _bures_, _bordes_, or _boidès_, according to the
place. The _brandons_ are the torches which are carried about the
streets and the fields; the bonfires, as we have seen, bear another
name. A curious custom, observed on the same Sunday in
Franche-Comté, requires that couples married within the year should
distribute boiled peas to all the young folks of both sexes who
demand them at the door. The lads and lasses go about from house to
house, making the customary request; in some places they wear masks
or are otherwise disguised. See Ch. Beauquier, _op. cit._ pp. 31-33.

M93 Bonfires on the first Sunday of Lent in Auvergne. The Granno invoked
at these bonfires may be the old Celtic god Grannus, who was
identified with Apollo.

274 Curiously enough, while the singular is _granno-mio_, the plural is
_grannas-mias_.

275 Dr. Pommerol, “La fête des Brandons et le dieu Gaulois Grannus,”
_Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris_, v.
Série, ii. (1901) pp. 427-429.

_ 276 Op. cit._ pp. 428 _sq._

277 H. Dessau, _Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae_, vol. ii. Pars i.
(Berlin, 1902) pp. 216 _sq._, Nos. 4646-4652.

278 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_ (London, 1888), pp. 22-25.

M94 French custom of carrying lighted torches (_brandons_) about the
orchards and fields to fertilize them on the first Sunday of Lent.

279 Émile Hublard, _Fêtes du Temps Jadis, les Feux du Carême_ (Mons,
1899), p. 38, quoting Dom Grenier, _Histoire de la Province de
Picardie_.

280 É. Hublard, _op. cit._ p. 39, quoting Dom Grenier.

281 M. Desgranges, “Usages du Canton de Bonneval,” _Mémoires de la
Société Royale des Antiquaires de France_, i. (Paris, 1817) pp.
236-238; Felix Chapiseau, _Le folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_
(Paris, 1902), i. 315 _sq._

282 John Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
1882-1883), i. 100.

283 E. Cortet, _Essai sur les fêtes religieuses_ (Paris, 1867), pp. 99
_sq._; _La Bresse Louhannaise_, Mars, 1906, p. 111.

284 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, mythes et traditions des provinces de France_
(Paris and Lyons, 1846), pp. 283 sq. A similar, though not
identical, custom prevailed at Valenciennes (_ibid._ p. 338).

285 A. de Nore, _op. cit._ p. 302.

286 Désiré Monnier, _Traditions populaires comparées_ (Paris, 1854), pp.
191 _sq._

287 Laisnel de la Salle, _Croyances et légendes du centre de la France_
(Paris, 1875), i. 35 _sqq._

288 Jules Lecœur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_ (Condé-sur-Noireau,
1887), ii. 131 _sq._ For more evidence of customs of this sort
observed in various parts of France on the first Sunday in Lent, see
Madame Clément, _Histoire des Fêtes civiles et religieuses, etc., du
Département du Nord_2 (Cambrai, 1836), pp. 351 _sqq._; Émile
Hublard, _Fêtes du Temps Jadis, les Feux du Carême_ (Mons, 1899),
pp. 33 _sqq._

M95 Bonfires on the first Sunday of Lent in Germany and Austria.
“Burning the witch.” Burning discs thrown into the air. Burning
wheels rolled down hill.

289 J. H. Schmitz, _Sitten und Sagen, Lieder, Sprüchwörter und Räthsel
des Eifler Volkes_ (Trèves, 1856-1858), i. 21-25; N. Hocker, in
_Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, i. (1853) p.
90; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer
Nachbarstämme_ (Berlin, 1875), p. 501.

290 N. Hocker, _op. cit._ pp. 89 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _l.c._

291 F. J. Vonbun, _Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Chur, 1862), p.
20; W. Mannhardt, _l.c._

292 Ernst Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_
(Stuttgart, 1852), pp. 380 _sqq._; Anton Birlinger, _Volksthümliches
aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861-1862), ii. 56 _sqq._, 66
_sqq._; _Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_
(Munich, 1860-1867), ii. 2, pp. 838 _sq._; F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur
deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855), i. 211, § 232; W.
Mannhardt, _l.c._ One of the popular German names for the first
Sunday in Lent is White Sunday, which is not to be confused with the
first Sunday after Easter, which also goes by the name of White
Sunday (E. Meier, _op. cit._ p. 380; A. Birlinger, _op. cit._ ii.
56).

293 H. Gaidoz, “Le dieu gaulois du soleil et le symbolisme de la roue,”
_Revue Archéologique_, iii. série, iv. (1884) pp. 139 _sq._

294 August Witzschel, _Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen_
(Vienna, 1878), p. 189; F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen
Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855), ii. 207; W. Mannhardt, _Der
Baumkultus_, pp. 500 _sq_.

295 W. Kolbe, _Hessiche Volks-Sitten und Gebräuche_2 (Marburg, 1888), p.
36.

296 Adalbert Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks_2
(Gütersloh, 1886), p. 86, quoting Hocker, _Des Mosellandes
Geschichten, Sagen und Legenden_ (Trier, 1852), pp. 415 _sqq._
Compare W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 501; and below, pp. 163
_sq._ Thus it appears that the ceremony of rolling the fiery wheel
down hill was observed twice a year at Konz, once on the first
Sunday in Lent, and once at Midsummer.

M96 Bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent in Switzerland. Burning discs
thrown into the air.

297 H. Herzog, _Schweizerische Volksfeste, Sitten und Gebräuche_ (Aarau,
1884), pp. 214-216; E. Hoffmann-Krayer, “Fruchtbarkeitsriten im
schweizerischen Volksbrauch,” _Schweizerisches Archiv für
Volkskunde_, xi. (1907) pp. 247-249; _id._, _Feste und Bräuche des
Schweizervolkes_ (Zurich, 1913), pp. 135 _sq._

M97 Connexion of these bonfires with the custom of “carrying out Death.”
Effigies burnt on Shrove Tuesday.

298 Theodor Vernaleken, _Mythen und Bräuche des Volkes in Oesterreich_
(Vienna, 1859), pp. 293 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p.
498. See _The Dying God_, p. 250.

299 J. H. Schmitz, _Sitten und Sagen, Lieder, Sprüchwörter und Räthsel
des Eifler Volkes_ (Treves, 1856-1858), i. 20; W. Mannhardt, _Der
Baumkultus_, p. 499.

300 L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_
(Oldenburg, 1867), ii. 39, § 306; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p.
498.

301 W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 499.

302 W. Mannhardt, _op. cit._ pp. 498 _sq._

303 W. Mannhardt, _op. cit._ p. 499.

304 Christian Schneller, _Märchen und Sagen aus Wälschtirol_ (Innsbruck,
1867), pp. 234 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _op. cit._ pp. 499 _sq._

M98 Fire-festivals on Easter Eve. Custom in Catholic countries of
kindling a holy new fire at the church on Easter Saturday;
marvellous properties ascribed to the embers of the fire. The
burning of Judas.

305 John Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
1882-1883), i. 157 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, pp.
502-505; Karl Freiherr von Leoprechting, _Aus dem Lechrain_ (Munich,
1855), pp. 172 _sq._; Anton Birlinger, _Volksthümliches aus
Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861-1862), i. 472 _sq._; Montanus,
_Die deutschen Volksfeste, Volksbräuche und deutscher Volksglaube_
(Iserlohn, N.D.), p. 26; F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen
Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855), ii. 241 _sq._; Ernst Meier,
_Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_ (Stuttgart,
1852), pp. 139 _sq._; _Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des
Königreichs Bayern_ (Munich, 1860-1867), i. 371; A. Wuttke, _Der
deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), pp. 68 _sq._, § 81; Ignaz
V. Zingerle, _Sitten, Bräuche und Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes_2
(Innsbruck, 1871), p. 149, §§ 1286-1289; W. Kolbe, _Hessische
Volks-Sitten und Gebräuche_2 (Marburg, 1888), pp. 44 _sqq._; _County
Folk-lore, Printed Extracts, Leicestershire and Rutland_, collected
by C. J. Billson (London, 1895), pp. 75 _sq._; A. Tiraboschi, “Usi
pasquali nel Bergamasco,” _Archivio per lo Studio delle Tradizione
Popolari_, i. (1892) pp. 442 _sq._ The ecclesiastical custom of
lighting the Paschal or Easter candle is very fully described by Mr.
H. J. Feasey, _Ancient English Holy Week Ceremonial_ (London, 1897),
pp. 179 _sqq._ These candles were sometimes of prodigious size; in
the cathedrals of Norwich and Durham, for example, they reached
almost to the roof, from which they had to be lighted. Often they
went by the name of the Judas Light or the Judas Candle; and
sometimes small waxen figures of Judas were hung on them. See H. J.
Feasey, _op. cit._ pp. 193, 213 _sqq._ As to the ritual of the new
fire at St. Peter’s in Rome, see R. Chambers, _The Book of Days_
(London and Edinburgh, 1886), i. 421; and as to the early history of
the rite in the Catholic church, see Mgr. L. Duchesne, _Origines du
Culte Chrétien_3 (Paris, 1903), pp. 250-257.

M99 Easter fires in Bavaria and the Abruzzi.

_ 306 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_ (Munich,
1860-1867), i. 1002 _sq._

307 Gennaro Finamore, _Credenze, Usi e Costumi Abruzzesi_ (Palermo,
1890), pp. 122 _sq._

M100 Water as well as fire consecrated in the Abruzzi on Easter Saturday.
Water consecrated in Calabria on Easter Saturday. Water and fire
consecrated on Easter Saturday among the Germans of Bohemia. Easter
rites of fire and water at Hildesheim.

308 G. Finamore, _op. cit._ pp. 123 _sq._

309 Vincenzo Dorsa, _La Tradizione Greco-Latina negli Usi e nelle
Credenze Popolari della Calabria Citeriore_ (Cosenza, 1884), pp. 48
_sq._

310 Alois John, _Sitte, Brauch, und Volksglaube im deutschen Westböhmen_
(Prague, 1905), pp. 62 _sq._

311 K. Seifart, _Sagen, Märchen, Schwänke und Gebräuche aus Stadt und
Stift Hildesheim_2 (Hildesheim, 1889), pp. 177 sq., 179 _sq._

M101 New fire at Easter in Carinthia. Consecration of fire and water by
the Catholic Church at Easter.

312 M. Lexer, “Volksüberlieferungen aus dem Lesachthal in Kärnten,”
_Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, iii. (1855)
p. 31.

_ 313 The Popish Kingdome or reigne of Antichrist, written in Latin verse
by Thomas Naogeorgus and Englyshed by Barnabe Googe, 1570_, edited
by R. C. Hope (London, 1880), p. 52, _recto_. The title of the
original poem was _Regnum Papisticum_. The author, Thomas Kirchmeyer
(Naogeorgus, as he called himself), died in 1577. The book is a
satire on the abuses and superstitions of the Catholic Church. Only
one perfect copy of Googe’s translation is known to exist: it is in
the University Library at Cambridge. See Mr. R. C. Hope’s
introduction to his reprint of this rare work, pp. xv. _sq._ The
words, “Then Clappers ceasse, and belles are set againe at
libertée,” refer to the custom in Catholic countries of silencing
the church bells for two days from noon on Maundy Thursday to noon
on Easter Saturday and substituting for their music the harsh
clatter of wooden rattles. See R. Chambers, _The Book of Days_
(London and Edinburgh, 1886), i. 412 _sq._ According to another
account the church bells are silent from midnight on the Wednesday
preceding Maundy Thursday till matins on Easter Day. See W. Smith
and S. Cheetham, _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_ (London,
1875-1880), ii. 1161, referring to _Ordo Roman_. i. _u.s._

314 R. Chambers, _The Book of Days_ (London and Edinburgh, 1886), i.
421.

M102 The new fire on Easter Saturday at Florence.

315 Miss Jessie L. Weston, “The _Scoppio del Carro_ at Florence,”
_Folk-lore_, xvi. (1905) pp. 182-184; “Lo Scoppio del Carro,”
_Resurrezione, Numero Unico del Sabato Santo_ (Florence, April,
1906), p. 1 (giving a picture of the car with its pyramid of
fire-works). The latter paper was kindly sent to me from Florence by
my friend Professor W. J. Lewis. I have also received a letter on
the subject from Signor Carlo Placci, dated 4 (or 7) September,
1905, 1 Via Alfieri, Firenze.

M103 The new fire and the burning of Judas on Easter Saturday in Mexico.

316 Frederick Starr, “Holy Week in Mexico,” _The Journal of American
Folk-lore_, xii. (1899) pp. 164 _sq._; C. Boyson Taylor, “Easter in
Many Lands,” _Everybody’s Magazine_, New York, 1903, p. 293. I have
to thank Mr. S. S. Cohen, of 1525 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, for
sending me a cutting from the latter magazine.

M104 The burning of Judas at Easter in South America.

317 K. von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens_
(Berlin, 1894), pp. 458 _sq._; E. Montet, “Religion et Superstition
dans l’Amérique du Sud,” _Revue de l’Histoire des Religions_, xxxii.
(1895) p. 145.

318 J. J. von Tschudi, _Peru, Reiseskizzen aus den Jahren 1838-1842_
(St. Gallen, 1846), ii. 189 _sq._

319 H. Candelier, _Rio-Hacha et les Indiens Goajires_ (Paris, 1893), p.
85.

M105 The new fire on Easter Saturday in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
at Jerusalem.

320 Henry Maundrell, “A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter, A.D.
1697,” in Bohn’s _Early Travellers in Palestine_ (London, 1848), pp.
462-465; Mgr. Auvergne, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, x.
(1837) pp. 23 _sq._; A. P. Stanley, _Sinai and Palestine_, Second
Edition (London, 1856), pp. 460-465; E. Cortet, _Essai sur les Fêtes
Religieuses_ (Paris, 1867), pp. 137-139; A. W. Kinglake, _Eothen_,
chapter xvi. pp. 158-163 (Temple Classics edition); Father X.
Abougit, S.J., “Le feu du Saint-Sépulcre,” _Les Missions
Catholiques_, viii. (1876) pp. 518 _sq._; Rev. C. T. Wilson,
_Peasant Life in the Holy Land_ (London, 1906), pp. 45 _sq._; P.
Saint-yves, “Le Renouvellement du Feu Sacré,” _Revue des Traditions
Populaires_, xxvii. (1912) pp. 449 _sqq._ The distribution of the
new fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the subject of a
picture by Holman Hunt. From some printed notes on the picture, with
which Mrs. Holman Hunt was so kind as to furnish me, it appears that
the new fire is carried by horsemen to Bethlehem and Jaffa, and that
a Russian ship conveys it from Jaffa to Odessa, whence it is
distributed all over the country.

321 Father X. Abougit, S.J., “Le feu du Saint-Sépulcre,” _Les Missions
Catholiques_, viii. (1876) pp. 165-168.

M106 The new fire and the burning of Judas on Easter Saturday in Greece.

322 I have described the ceremony as I witnessed it at Athens, on April
13th, 1890. Compare _Folk-lore_, i. (1890) p. 275. Having been
honoured, like other strangers, with a place on the platform, I did
not myself detect Lucifer at work among the multitude below; I
merely suspected his insidious presence.

323 W. H. D. Rouse, “Folk-lore from the Southern Sporades,” _Folk-lore_,
x. (1899) p. 178.

324 Mrs. A. E. Gardner was so kind as to send me a photograph of a
Theban Judas dangling from a gallows and partially enveloped in
smoke. The photograph was taken at Thebes during the Easter
celebration of 1891.

325 G. F. Abbott, _Macedonian Folk-lore_ (Cambridge, 1903) p. 37.

M107 The new fire at Candlemas in Armenia.

326 Cirbied, “Mémoire sur le gouvernment et sur la religion des anciens
Arméniens,” _Mémoires publiées par la Société Royaledes Antiquaires
de France_, ii. (1820) pp. 285-287; Manuk Abeghian, _Der armenische
Volksglaube_ (Leipsic, 1899), pp. 72-74. The ceremony is said to be
merely a continuation of an old heathen festival which was held at
the beginning of spring in honour of the fire-god Mihr. A bonfire
was made in a public place, and lamps kindled at it were kept
burning throughout the year in each of the fire-god’s temples.

M108 The new fire and the burning of Judas at Easter are probably relics
of paganism.

_ 327 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 32, ii. 243; _Spirits
of the Corn and of the Wild_, ii. 65, 74, 75, 78, 136.

M109 The new fire at the summer solstice among the Incas of Peru. The new
fire among the Indians of Mexico and New Mexico. The new fire among
the Esquimaux.

328 Garcilasso de la Vega, _Royal Commentaries of the Yncas_, translated
by (Sir) Clements R. Markham (Hakluyt Society, London, 1869-1871),
vol. ii. pp. 155-163. Compare Juan de Velasco, “Histoire du Royaume
de Quito,” in H. Ternaux-Compans’s _Voyages, Relations et Mémoires
originaux pour servir à l’Histoire de la Découverte de l’Amérique_,
xviii. (Paris, 1840) p. 140.

329 B. de Sahagun, _Histoire Générale des Choses de la Nouvelle
Espagne_, traduite par D. Jourdanet et R. Simeon (Paris, 1880), bk.
ii. chapters 18 and 37, pp. 76, 161; Brasseur de Bourbourg,
_Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique et de
l’Amérique-Centrale_ (Paris, 1857-1859), iii. 136.

330 Mrs. Matilda Coxe Stevenson, “The Zuñi Indians,” _Twenty-third
Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_ (Washington,
1904), pp. 108-141, 148-162, especially pp. 108, 109, 114 _sq._, 120
_sq._, 130 _sq._, 132, 148 _sq._, 157 _sq._ I have already described
these ceremonies in _Totemism and Exogamy_, iii. 237 _sq._ Among the
Hopi (Moqui) Indians of Walpi, another pueblo village of this
region, new fire is ceremonially kindled by friction in November.
See Jesse Walter Fewkes, “The Tusayan New Fire Ceremony,”
_Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History_, xxvi.
422-458; _id._, “The Group of Tusayan Ceremonials called
_Katcinas_,” _Fifteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_
(Washington, 1897), p. 263; _id._, “Hopi _Katcinas_,” _Twenty-first
Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_ (Washington,
1903), p. 24.

331 Henry R. Schoolcraft, _Notes on the Iroquois_ (Albany, 1847), p.
137. Schoolcraft did not know the date of the ceremony, but he
conjectured that it fell at the end of the Iroquois year, which was
a lunar year of twelve or thirteen months. He says: “That the close
of the lunar series should have been the period of putting out the
fire, and the beginning of the next, the time of relumination, from
new fire, is so consonant to analogy in the tropical tribes, as to
be probable” (_op. cit._ p. 138).

332 C. F. Hall, _Life with the Esquimaux_ (London, 1864), ii. 323.

333 Franz Boas, “The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay,” _Bulletin of
the American Museum of Natural History_, xv. Part i. (New York,
1901) p. 151.

M110 The new fire in Wadai, among the Swahili, and in other parts of
Africa.

334 G. Nachtigal, _Sahărâ und Sûdân_, iii. (Leipsic, 1889) p. 251.

335 Major C. Percival, “Tropical Africa, on the Border Line of Mohamedan
Civilization,” _The Geographical Journal_, xlii. (1913) pp. 253
_sq._

336 Adrien Germain, “Note sur Zanzibar et la côte orientale de
l’Afrique,” _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_ (Paris), v. Série
xvi. (1868) p. 557; _Les Missions Catholiques_, iii. (1870) p. 270;
Charles New, _Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa_
(London, 1873), p. 65; Jerome Becker, _La Vie en Afrique_ (Paris and
Brussels, 1887), ii. 36; O. Baumann, _Usambara und seine
Nachbargebiete_ (Berlin, 1891), pp. 55 _sq._; C. Velten, _Sitten und
Gebräuche der Suaheli_ (Göttingen, 1903), pp. 342-344.

337 Duarte Barbosa, _Description of the Coasts of East Africa and
Malabar_ (Hakluyt Society, London, 1866), p. 8; _id._, in _Records
of South-Eastern Africa_, collected by G. McCall Theal, vol. i.
(1898) p. 96; Damião de Goes, “Chronicle of the Most Fortunate King
Dom Emanuel,” in _Records of South-Eastern Africa_, collected by G.
McCall Theal, vol. iii. (1899) pp. 130 _sq._ The name Benametapa
(more correctly _monomotapa_) appears to have been the regular title
of the paramount chief, which the Portuguese took to be the name of
the country. The people over whom he ruled seem to have been the
Bantu tribe of the Makalanga in the neighbourhood of Sofala. See G.
McCall Theal, _Records of South-Eastern Africa_, vii. (1901) pp.
481-484. It is to their custom of annually extinguishing and
relighting the fire that Montaigne refers in his essay (i. 22, vol.
i. p. 140 of Charpentier’s edition), though he mentions no names.

338 Sir H. H. Johnson, _British Central Africa_ (London, 1897), pp. 426,
439.

M111 The new fire among the Todas of Southern India and among the Nagas
of North-Eastern India.

339 W. H. R. Rivers, _The Todas_ (London, 1906), pp. 290-292.

340 Lieut. R. Stewart, “Notes on Northern Cachar,” _Journal of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal_, xxiv. (1855) p. 612.

341 A. Bastian, _Die Völker des östlichen Asien_, ii. (Leipsic, 1866)
pp. 49 _sq._; Shway Yoe, _The Burman_ (London, 1882), ii. 325 _sq._

M112 The new fire in China and Japan.

342 G. Schlegel, _Uranographie Chinoise_ (The Hague and Leyden, 1875),
pp. 139-143; C. Puini, “Il fuoco nella tradizione degli antichi
Cinesi,” _Giornale della Società Asiatica Italiana_, i. (1887) pp.
20-23; J. J. M. de Groot, _Les Fêtes annuellement célébrées à Émoui
(Amoy)_ (Paris, 1886), i. 208 _sqq._ The notion that fire can be
worn out with age meets us also in Brahman ritual. See the
_Satapatha Brahmana_, translated by Julius Eggeling, Part i.
(Oxford, 1882) p. 230 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xii.).

343 W. G. Aston, _Shinto, The Way of the Gods_ (London, 1905), pp. 258
_sq._, compare p. 193. The wands in question are sticks whittled
near the top into a mass of adherent shavings; they go by the name
of _kedzurikake_ (“part-shaved”), and resemble the sacred _inao_ of
the Aino. See W. G. Aston, _op. cit._ p. 191; and as to the _inao_,
see _Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, ii. 185, with note 2.

M113 The new fire in ancient Greece and Rome.

344 Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 82; Homer, _Iliad_, i. 590, _sqq._

345 Philostratus, _Heroica_, xx. 24.

346 Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 143 _sq._; Macrobius, _Saturn._ i. 12. 6.

347 Festus, ed. C. O. Müller (Leipsic, 1839), p. 106, _s.v._ “Ignis.”
Plutarch describes a method of rekindling the sacred fire by means
of the sun’s rays reflected from a hollow mirror (_Numa_, 9); but he
seems to be referring to a Greek rather than to the Roman custom.
The rule of celibacy imposed on the Vestals, whose duty it was to
relight the sacred fire as well as to preserve it when it was once
made, is perhaps explained by a superstition current among French
peasants that if a girl can blow up a smouldering candle into a
flame she is a virgin, but that if she fails to do so, she is not.
See Jules Lecœur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_ (Condé-sur-Noireau,
1883-1887), ii. 27; B. Souché, _Croyances, Présages et Traditions
diverses_ (Niort, 1880), p. 12. At least it seems more likely that
the rule sprang from a superstition of this sort than from a simple
calculation of expediency, as I formerly suggested (_Journal of
Philology_, xiv. (1885) p. 158). Compare _The Magic Art and the
Evolution of Kings_, ii. 234 _sqq._

M114 The new fire at Hallow E’en among the old Celts of Ireland. The new
fire on September 1st among the Russian peasants.

348 Geoffrey Keating, D.D., _The History of Ireland, translated from the
original Gaelic, and copiously annotated_, by John O’Mahony (New
York, 1857), p. 300, with the translator’s note. Compare (Sir) John
Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_ (London, 1888), pp. 514 _sq._

349 W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, Second Edition
(London, 1872), pp. 254 _sq._

M115 Thus the ceremony of the new fire in the Eastern and Western Church
is probably a relic of an old heathen rite.
M116 The pagan character of the Easter fire appears from the
superstitions associated with it, such as the belief that the fire
fertilizes the fields and protects houses from conflagration and
sickness.

350 A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche_
(Leipsic, 1848), p. 373; A. Kuhn, _Sagen, Gebräuche und Märchen aus
Westfalen_ (Leipsic, 1859), ii. 134 _sqq._; _id._, _Märkische Sagen
und Märchen_ (Berlin, 1843), pp. 312 _sq._; J. D. H. Temme, _Die
Volkssagen der Altmark_ (Berlin, 1839), pp. 75 _sq._; K. Lynker,
_Deutsche Sagen und Sitten in hessischen Gauen_2 (Cassel and
Göttingen, 1860), p. 240; H. Pröhle, _Harzbilder_ (Leipsic, 1855),
p. 63; R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), pp.
240-242; W. Kolbe, _Hessische Volks-Sitten und Gebräuche_ (Marburg,
1888), pp. 44-47; F. A. Reimann, _Deutsche Volksfeste_ (Weimar,
1839), p. 37; “Sitten und Gebräuche in Duderstadt,” _Zeitschrift für
deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, ii. (1855) p. 107; K. Seifart,
_Sagen, Märchen, Schwänke und Gebräuche aus Stadt und Stift
Hildesheim_2 (Hildesheim, 1889), pp. 177, 180; O. Hartung, “Zur
Volkskunde aus Anhalt,” _Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde_,
vii. (1897) p. 76.

M117 The Easter fires in Münsterland, Oldenburg, the Harz Mountains, and
the Altmark.

351 L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_
(Oldenburg, 1867), ii. pp. 43 _sq._, § 313; W. Mannhardt, _Der
Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstämme_ (Berlin, 1875), pp.
505 _sq._

352 L. Strackerjan, _op. cit._ ii. p. 43, § 313.

353 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 (Berlin, 1875-1878), i. 512; W.
Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstämme_,
pp. 506 _sq._

354 H. Pröhle, _Harzbilder_ (Leipsic, 1855), p. 63; _id._, in
_Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, i. (1853) p.
79; A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und
Gebräuche_ (Leipsic, 1848), p. 373; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_,
p. 507.

355 A. Kuhn, _Märkische Sagen und Märchen_ (Berlin, 1843), pp. 312
_sq._; W. Mannhardt, _l.c._

356 W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 508. Compare J. W. Wolf,
_Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Göttingen, 1852-1857), i. 74;
J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 512. The two latter writers
only state that before the fires were kindled it was customary to
hunt squirrels in the woods.

357 A. Kuhn, _l.c._; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 508.

M118 The Easter fires in Bavaria. The burning of Judas. Burning the
Easter Man.

_ 358 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_ (Munich,
1860-1867), iii. 956.

359 See above, pp. 116 _sq._, 119.

360 F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855),
i. pp. 211 _sq._, § 233; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, pp. 507
_sq._

_ 361 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, iii. 357.

362 F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855),
i. pp. 212 _sq._, § 236.

363 F. Panzer, _op. cit._ ii. pp. 78 _sq._, §§ 114, 115. The customs
observed at these places and at Althenneberg are described together
by W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 505.

364 A. Birlinger, _Volksthümliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau,
1861-1862), ii. p. 82, § 106; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p.
508.

M119 The Easter fires in Baden. “Thunder poles.”

365 Elard Hugo Meyer, _Badisches Volksleben_ (Strasburg, 1900), pp. 97
_sq._

_ 366 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 349 _sqq._ See
further below, vol. ii. pp. 298 _sqq._

M120 Easter fires in Holland and Sweden. The burning of Judas in Bohemia.

367 J. W. Wolf, _Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie_, i. 75 _sq._; W.
Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 506.

368 L. Lloyd, _Peasant Life in Sweden_ (London, 1870), p. 228.

369 W. Müller, _Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Mähren_ (Vienna
and Olmütz, 1893), pp. 321, 397 _sq._ In Wagstadt, a town of
Austrian Silesia, a boy in a red waistcoat used to play the part of
Judas on the Wednesday before Good Friday. He was chased from before
the church door by the other school children, who pursued him
through the streets with shouts and the noise of rattles and
clappers till they reached a certain suburb, where they always
caught and beat him because he had betrayed the Redeemer. See Anton
Peter, _Volksthümliches aus österreichisch-Schlesien_ (Troppau,
1865-1867), ii. 282 _sq._; Paul Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch und
Volksglaube in Schlesien_ (Leipsic, 1903-1906), i. 77 _sq._

M121 The Beltane fires on the first of May in the Highlands of Scotland.
Description of the Beltane fires by John Ramsay of Ochtertyre in the
eighteenth century.
M122 Need-fire.
M123 Need-fire kindled by the friction of oak wood.
M124 The Beltane cake and the Beltane carline (_cailleach_).
M125 Local differences in the Beltane cakes.
M126 Evidence of two fires at Beltane.

_ 370 Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century_, from the MSS. of
John Ramsay, Esq., of Ochtertyre, edited by Alexander Allardyce
(Edinburgh and London, 1888), ii. 439-445. As to the _tein-eigin_ or
need-fire, see below, pp. 269 _sqq._ The etymology of the word
Beltane is uncertain; the popular derivation of the first part from
the Phoenician Baal is absurd. See, for example, John Graham
Dalyell, _The Darker Superstitions of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1834),
pp. 176 _sq._: “The recognition of the pagan divinity Baal, or Bel,
the Sun, is discovered through innumerable etymological sources. In
the records of Scottish history, down to the sixteenth or
seventeenth centuries, multiplied prohibitions were issued from the
fountains of ecclesiastical ordinances, against kindling
_Bailfires_, of which the origin cannot be mistaken. The festival of
this divinity was commemorated in Scotland until the latest date.”
Modern scholars are not agreed as to the derivation of the name
Beltane. See Rev. John Gregorson Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second
Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), pp.
268 _sq._; J. A. MacCulloch, _The Religion of the Ancient Celts_
(Edinburgh, 1911), p. 264.

M127 Beltane fires and cakes in the parish of Callander.

371 “_Bal-tein_ signifies the _fire of Baal_. _Baal_ or _Ball_ is the
only word in Gaelic for _a globe_. This festival was probably in
honour of the sun, whose return, in his apparent annual course, they
celebrated, on account of his having such a visible influence, by
his genial warmth, on the productions of the earth. That the
Caledonians paid a superstitious respect to the sun, as was the
practice among many other nations, is evident, not only by the
sacrifice at Baltein, but upon many other occasions. When a
Highlander goes to bathe, or to drink waters out of a consecrated
fountain, he must always approach by going round the place, _from
east to west on the south side_, in imitation of the apparent
diurnal motion of the sun. When the dead are laid in the earth, the
grave is approached by going round in the same manner. The bride is
conducted to her future spouse, in the presence of the minister, and
the glass goes round a company, in the course of the sun. This is
called, in Gaelic, going round the right, or the _lucky way_. The
opposite course is the wrong, or the _unlucky_ way. And if a
person’s meat or drink were to affect the wind-pipe, or come against
his breath, they instantly cry out _deisheal!_ which is an
ejaculation praying that it may go by the right way” (Rev. J.
Robertson, in Sir John Sinclair’s _Statistical Account of Scotland_,
xi. 621 note). Compare J. G. Campbell, _Superstitions of the
Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1900), pp. 229 _sq._:
“_The Right-hand Turn_ (_Deiseal_).—This was the most important of
all the observances. The rule is ‘_Deiseal_ (_i.e._ the right-hand
turn) for everything,’ and consists in doing all things with a
motion corresponding to the course of the sun, or from left to
right. This is the manner in which screw-nails are driven, and is
common with many for no reason but its convenience. Old men in the
Highlands were very particular about it. The coffin was taken
_deiseal_ about the grave, when about to be lowered; boats were
turned to sea according to it, and drams are given to the present
day to a company. When putting a straw rope on a house or
corn-stack, if the assistant went _tuaitheal_ (_i.e._ against the
course of the sun), the old man was ready to come down and thrash
him. On coming to a house the visitor should go round it _deiseal_
to secure luck in the object of his visit. After milking a cow the
dairy-maid should strike it _deiseal_ with the shackle, saying ‘out
and home’ (_mach ’us dachaigh_). This secures its safe return. The
word is from _deas_, right-hand, and _iul_, direction, and of itself
contains no allusion to the sun.” Compare M. Martin, “Description of
the Western Islands of Scotland,” in J. Pinkerton’s _Voyages and
Travels_, iii. 612 _sq._: “There was an ancient custom in the island
of Lewis, to make a fiery circle about the houses, corn, cattle,
etc., belonging to each particular family: a man carried fire in his
right hand, and went round, and it was called _dessil_, from the
right hand, which in the ancient language is called _dess_.... There
is another way of the _dessil_, or carrying fire round about women
before they are churched, after child-bearing; and it is used
likewise about children until they are christened; both which are
performed in the morning and at night. This is only practised now by
some of the ancient midwives: I enquired their reason for this
custom, which I told them was altogether unlawful; this disobliged
them mightily, insomuch that they would give me no satisfaction. But
others, that were of a more agreeable temper, told me that
fire-round was an effectual means to preserve both the mother and
the infant from the power of evil spirits, who are ready at such
times to do mischief, and sometimes carry away the infant; and when
they get them once in their possession, return them poor meagre
skeletons; and these infants are said to have voracious appetites,
constantly craving for meat. In this case it was usual with those
who believed that their children were thus taken away, to dig a
grave in the fields upon quarter-day, and there to lay the fairy
skeleton till next morning; at which time the parents went to the
place, where they doubted not to find their own child instead of
this skeleton. Some of the poorer sort of people in these islands
retain the custom of performing these rounds sun-ways about the
persons of their benefactors three times, when they bless them, and
wish good success to all their enterprizes. Some are very careful
when they set out to sea that the boat be first rowed about
sun-ways; and if this be neglected, they are afraid their voyage may
prove unfortunate.” Probably the superstition was based entirely on
the supposed luckiness of the right hand, which accordingly, in
making a circuit round an object, is kept towards the centre. As to
a supposed worship of the sun among the Scottish Highlanders,
compare J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the
Highlands and Islands of Scotland_, p. 304: “Both the sun (_a
Ghrian_) and moon (_a Ghealach_) are feminine in Gaelic, and the
names are simply descriptive of their appearance. There is no trace
of a Sun-God or Moon-Goddess.” As to the etymology of Beltane, see
above, p. 149 note.

372 Rev. James Robertson (Parish Minister of Callander), in Sir John
Sinclair’s _Statistical Account of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1791-1799),
xi. 620 _sq._

M128 Pennant’s description of the Beltane fires and cakes in Perthshire.

373 Pennant’s “Tour in Scotland,” in John Pinkerton’s _Voyages and
Travels_ (London, 1808-1814), iii. 49.

M129 Beltane cakes and fires in the parishes of Logierait and
Kirkmichael. Omens drawn from the cakes.

374 Rev. Dr. Thomas Bisset, in Sir John Sinclair’s _Statistical Account
of Scotland_, v. 84.

375 Rev. Allan Stewart, in Sir John Sinclair’s _Statistical Account of
Scotland_, xv. 517 note.

376 Rev. Walter Gregor, “Notes on Beltane Cakes,” _Folk-lore_, vi.
(1895) pp. 2 _sq._ The Beltane cakes with the nine knobs on them
remind us of the cakes with twelve knobs which the Athenians offered
to Cronus and other deities (see _The Scapegoat_, p. 351). The King
of the Bean on Twelfth Night was chosen by means of a cake, which
was broken in as many pieces as there were persons present, and the
person who received the piece containing a bean or a coin became
king. See J. Boemus, _Mores, leges et ritus omnium gentium_ (Lyons,
1541), p. 222; John Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_
(London, 1882-1883), i. 22 _sq._; _The Scapegoat_, pp. 313 _sqq._

M130 Beltane fires in the north-east of Scotland to burn the witches.
Burning the witches. The Beltane cake.

377 Shaw, in Pennant’s “Tour in Scotland,” printed in J. Pinkerton’s
_Voyages and Travels_, iii. 136. The part of Scotland to which
Shaw’s description applies is what he calls the province or country
of Murray, extending from the river Spey on the east to the river
Beauly on the west, and south-west to Loch Lochy.

378 Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
Scotland_ (London, 1881), p. 167.

M131 Beltane cakes and fires in the Hebrides.

379 A. Goodrich-Freer, “More Folk-lore from the Hebrides,” _Folk-lore_,
xiii. (1902) p. 41. The St. Michael’s cake (_Strùthan na h’eill
Micheil_), referred to in the text, is described as “the size of a
quern” in circumference. “It is kneaded simply with water, and
marked across like a scone, dividing it into four equal parts, and
then placed in front of the fire resting on a quern. It is not
polished with dry meal as is usual in making a cake, but when it is
cooked a thin coating of eggs (four in number), mixed with
buttermilk, is spread first on one side, then on the other, and it
is put before the fire again. An earlier shape, still in use, which
tradition associates with the female sex, is that of a triangle with
the corners cut off. A _strùthan_ or _strùdhan_ (the word seems to
be used for no other kind of cake) is made for each member of the
household, including servants and herds. When harvest is late, an
early patch of corn is mown on purpose for the _strùthan_” (A.
Goodrich-Freer, _op. cit._ pp. 44 _sq._).

M132 Beltane fires and cakes in Wales.

380 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
1909), pp. 22-24.

M133 Welsh belief that passage over or between the fires ensured good
crops.

381 Jonathan Ceredig Davies, _Folk-lore of West and Mid-Wales_
(Aberystwyth, 1911), p. 76.

M134 Beltane fires in the Isle of Man to burn the witches. Beltane fires
in Nottinghamshire.

382 Joseph Train, _An Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of
Man_ (Douglas, Isle of Man, 1845), i. 314 _sq._

383 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford, 1901),
i. 309; _id._, “The Coligny Calendar,” _Proceedings of the British
Academy, 1909-1910_, pp. 261 _sq._ See further _The Magic Art and
the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 53 _sq._

384 Professor Frank Granger, “Early Man,” in _The Victoria History of
the County of Nottingham_, edited by William Page, i. (London, 1906)
pp. 186 _sq._

M135 Beltane fires in Ireland.

385 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford, 1901),
i. 310; _id._, “Manx Folk-lore and Superstitions,” _Folk-lore_, ii.
(1891) pp. 303 _sq._

386 P. W. Joyce, _A Social History of Ancient Ireland_ (London, 1903),
i. 290 _sq._, referring to Kuno Meyer, _Hibernia Minora_, p. 49 and
_Glossary_, 23.

387 J. B. Bury, _The Life of St. Patrick_ (London, 1905), pp. 104 _sqq._

388 Above, p. 147.

389 Geoffrey Keating, D.D., _The History of Ireland_, translated by John
O’Mahony (New York, 1857), pp. 300 _sq._

390 (Sir) John Rhys, “Manx Folk-lore and Superstition,” _Folk-lore_, ii.
(1891) p. 303; _id._, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford,
1901), i. 309. Compare P. W. Joyce, _A Social History of Ancient
Ireland_ (London, 1903), i. 291: “The custom of driving cattle
through fires against disease on the eve of the 1st of May, and on
the eve of the 24th June (St. John’s Day), continued in Ireland, as
well as in the Scottish Highlands, to a period within living
memory.” In a footnote Mr. Joyce refers to Carmichael, _Carmina
Gadelica_, ii. 340, for Scotland, and adds, “I saw it done in
Ireland.”

M136 Fires on the Eve of May Day in Sweden. Fires on the Eve of May Day
in Austria and Saxony for the purpose of burning the witches.

391 L. Lloyd, _Peasant Life in Sweden_ (London, 1870), pp. 233 _sq._

392 Reinsberg - Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_ (Prague, N.D.),
pp. 211 _sq._; Br. Jelínek, “Materialien zur Vorgeschichte und
Volkskunde Böhmens,” _Mittheilungen der anthropologischen
Gesellschaft in Wien_, xxi. (1891) p. 13; Alois John, _Sitte,
Brauch, und Volksglaube im deutschen Westböhmen_ (Prague, 1905), p.
71.

393 J. A. E. Köhler, _Volksbrauch, Aberglauben, Sagen und andre alte
Ueberlieferungen im Voigtlande_ (Leipsic, 1867), p. 373. The
superstitions relating to witches at this season are legion. For
instance, in Saxony and Thuringia any one who labours under a
physical blemish can easily rid himself of it by transferring it to
the witches on Walpurgis Night. He has only to go out to a
cross-road, make three crosses on the blemish, and say, “In the name
of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” Thus the blemish,
whatever it may be, is left behind him at the cross-road, and when
the witches sweep by on their way to the Brocken, they must take it
with them, and it sticks to them henceforth. Moreover, three crosses
chalked up on the doors of houses and cattle-stalls on Walpurgis
Night will effectually prevent any of the infernal crew from
entering and doing harm to man or beast. See E. Sommer, _Sagen,
Märchen und Gebräuche aus Sachsen und Thüringen_ (Halle, 1846), pp.
148 _sq._; _Die gestriegelte Rockenphilosophie_ (Chemnitz, 1759), p.
116.

394 See _The Scapegoat_, pp. 158 _sqq._

M137 The great season for fire-festivals in Europe is the summer
solstice, Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day, which the church has
dedicated to St. John the Baptist. The bonfires, the torches, and
the burning wheels of the festival.

395 As to the Midsummer Festival of Europe in general see the evidence
collected in the “Specimen Calendarii Gentilis,” appended to the
_Edda Rhythmica seu Antiquior, vulgo Saemundina dicta_, Pars iii.
(Copenhagen, 1828) pp. 1086-1097.

396 John Mitchell Kemble, _The Saxons in England_, New Edition (London,
1876), i. 361 _sq._, quoting “an ancient MS. written in England, and
now in the Harleian Collection, No. 2345, fol. 50.” The passage is
quoted in part by J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_
(London, 1882-1883), i. 298 _sq._, by R. T. Hampson, _Medii Aevi
Kalendarium_ (London, 1841), i. 300, and by W. Mannhardt, _Der
Baumkultus_, p. 509. The same explanations of the Midsummer fires
and of the custom of trundling a burning wheel on Midsummer Eve are
given also by John Beleth, a writer of the twelfth century. See his
_Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_ (appended to the _Rationale
Divinorum Officiorum_ of G. [W.] Durandus, Lyons, 1584), p. 556
_recto_: “_Solent porro hoc tempore_ [the Eve of St. John the
Baptist] _ex veteri consuetudine mortuorum animalium ossa comburi,
quod hujusmodi habet originem. Sunt enim animalia, quae dracones
appellamus.... Haec inquam animalia in aere volant, in aquis natant,
in terra ambulant. Sed quando in aere ad libidinem concitantur (quod
fere fit) saepe ipsum sperma vel in puteos, vel in aquas fluviales
ejiciunt ex quo lethalis sequitur annus. Adversus haec ergo
hujusmodi inventum est remedium, ut videlicet rogus ex ossibus
construeretur, et ita fumus hujusmodi animalia fugaret. Et quia
istud maxime hoc tempore fiebat, idemetiam modo ab omnibus
observatur.... Consuetum item est hac vigilia ardentes deferri
faculas quod Johannes fuerit ardens lucerna, et qui vias Domini
praeparaverit. Sed quod etiam rota vertatur hinc esse putant quia in
eum circulum tunc Sol descenderit ultra quem progredi nequit, a quo
cogitur paulatim descendere._” The substance of the passage is
repeated in other words by G. Durandus (Wilh. Durantis), a writer of
the thirteenth century, in his _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_,
lib. vii. cap. 14 (p. 442 _verso_, ed. Lyons, 1584). Compare J.
Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 516.

With the notion that the air is poisoned at midsummer we may compare
the popular belief that it is similarly infected at an eclipse. Thus
among the Esquimaux on the Lower Yukon river in Alaska “it is
believed that a subtle essence or unclean influence descends to the
earth during an eclipse, and if any of it is caught in utensils of
any kind it will produce sickness. As a result, immediately on the
commencement of an eclipse, every woman turns bottom side up all her
pots, wooden buckets, and dishes” (E. W. Nelson, “The Eskimo about
Bering Strait,” _Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American
Ethnology_, Part i. (Washington, 1899) p. 431). Similar notions and
practices prevail among the peasantry of southern Germany. Thus the
Swabian peasants think that during an eclipse of the sun poison
falls on the earth; hence at such a time they will not sow, mow,
gather fruit or eat it, they bring the cattle into the stalls, and
refrain from business of every kind. If the eclipse lasts long, the
people get very anxious, set a burning candle on the mantel-shelf of
the stove, and pray to be delivered from the danger. See Anton
Birlinger, _Volksthümliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau,
1861-1862), i. 189. Similarly Bavarian peasants imagine that water
is poisoned during a solar eclipse (F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur
deutschen Mythologie_, ii. 297); and Thuringian bumpkins cover up
the wells and bring the cattle home from pasture during an eclipse
either of the sun or of the moon; an eclipse is particularly
poisonous when it happens to fall on a Wednesday. See August
Witzschel, _Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen_ (Vienna,
1878), p. 287. As eclipses are commonly supposed by the ignorant to
be caused by a monster attacking the sun or moon (E. B. Tylor,
_Primitive Culture_,2 London, 1873, i. 328 _sqq._), we may surmise,
on the analogy of the explanation given of the Midsummer fires, that
the unclean influence which is thought to descend on the earth at
such times is popularly attributed to seed discharged by the monster
or possibly by the sun or moon then in conjunction with each other.

M138 Th. Kirchmeyer’s description of the Midsummer festival.

_ 397 The Popish Kingdome or reigne of Antichrist, written in Latin verse
by Thomas Naogeorgus and Englyshed by Barnabe Googe, 1570_, edited
by R. C. Hope (London, 1880), p. 54 _verso_. As to this work see
above, p. 125 note 1.

M139 The Midsummer fires in Germany. The celebration at Konz on the
Moselle: the rolling of a burning wheel down hill.

398 J. Boemus, _Mores, leges et ritus omnium gentium_ (Lyons, 1541), pp.
225 _sq._

399 Tessier, “Sur la fête annuelle de la roue flamboyante de la
Saint-Jean, à Basse-Kontz, arrondissement de Thionville,” _Mémoires
et dissertations publiés par la Société Royale des Antiquaires de
France_, v. (1823) pp. 379-393. Tessier witnessed the ceremony, 23rd
June 1822 (not 1823, as is sometimes stated). His account has been
reproduced more or less fully by J. Grimm (_Deutsche Mythologie_,4
i. 515 _sq._), W. Mannhardt (_Der Baumkultus_, pp. 510 _sq._), and
H. Gaidoz (“Le dieu gaulois du Soleil et le symbolisme de la Roue,”
_Revue Archéologique_, iii. Série, iv. (1884) pp. 24 _sq._).

M140 The Midsummer fires in Bavaria. Cattle driven through the fire. The
new fire. Omens of the harvest drawn from the fires. Burning discs
thrown into the air.

_ 400 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_ (Munich,
1860-1867), i. 373 _sq._; compare _id._, iii. 327 _sq._ As to the
burning discs at the spring festivals, see above, pp. 116 _sq._,
119, 143.

_ 401 Op. cit._ ii. 260 _sq._, iii. 936, 956, iv. 2. p. 360.

_ 402 Op. cit._ ii. 260.

_ 403 Op. cit._ iv. 1. p. 242. We have seen (p. 163) that in the
sixteenth century these customs and beliefs were common in Germany.
It is also a German superstition that a house which contains a brand
from the midsummer bonfire will not be struck by lightning (J. W.
Wolf, _Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie_, i. p. 217, § 185).

404 J. Boemus, _Mores, leges et ritus omnium gentium_ (Lyons, 1541), p.
226.

M141 The Midsummer fires in Swabia. Omens drawn from the leaps over the
fires. Burning wheels rolled down hill. Burning the Angel-Man at
Rottenburg.

405 Karl Freiherr von Leoprechting, _Aus dem Lechrain_ (Munich, 1855),
pp. 181 _sqq._; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 510.

406 A. Birlinger, _Volksthümliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau,
1861-1862), ii. pp. 96 _sqq._, § 128, pp. 103 _sq._, § 129; _id._,
_Aus Schwaben_ (Wiesbaden, 1874), ii. 116-120; E. Meier, _Deutsche
Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_ (Stuttgart, 1852), pp. 423
_sqq._; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 510.

407 F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855),
i. pp. 215 _sq._, § 242; _id._, ii. 549.

408 A. Birlinger, _Volksthümliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau,
1861-1862), ii. 99-101.

M142 The Midsummer fires in Baden. Omens drawn from leaps over the fires.
Burning discs thrown into the air. Midsummer fires in Alsace,
Lorraine, the Eifel, the Harz districts and Thuringia. Burning
barrel swung round a pole.

409 Elard Hugo Mayer, _Badisches Volksleben_ (Strasburg, 1900), pp. 103
_sq._, 225 _sq._

410 W. von Schulenberg, in _Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für
Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, Jahrgang 1897_, pp. 494
_sq._ (bound up with _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, xxix. 1897).

411 H. Gaidoz, “Le dieu Gaulois du Soleil et le symbolisme de la Roue,”
_Revue Archéologique_, iii. Série, iv. (1884) pp. 29 _sq._

412 Bruno Stehle, “Volksglauben, Sitten und Gebräuche in Lothringen,”
_Globus_, lix. (1891) pp. 378 _sq._; “Die Sommerwendfeier im St.
Amarinthale,” _Der Urquell_, N.F., i. (1897) pp. 181 _sqq._

413 J. H. Schmitz, _Sitten und Sagen, Lieder, Sprüchwörter und Räthsel
des Eifler Volkes_ (Treves, 1856-1858), i. 40 _sq._ According to one
writer, the garlands are composed of St. John’s wort (Montanus, _Die
deutschen Volksfeste, Volksbräuche und deutscher Volksglaube_,
Iserlohn, N.D., p. 33). As to the use of St. John’s wort at
Midsummer, see below, vol. ii. pp. 54 _sqq._

414 A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche_
(Leipsic, 1848), p. 390.

M143 Midsummer fires kindled by the friction of wood in Germany and
Switzerland. Driving away demons and witches.

415 Montanus, _Die deutschen Volksfeste, Volksbräuche und deutscher
Volksglaube_ (Iserlohn, N.D.), pp. 33 _sq._

416 C. L. Rochholz, _Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_ (Berlin, 1867), ii.
144 _sqq._

M144 Midsummer fires in Silesia. Scaring away the witches.

417 Philo vom Walde, _Schlesien in Sage und Brauch_ (Berlin, N.D.), p.
124; Paul Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch, und Volksglaube in Schlesien_
(Leipsic, 1903-1906), i. 136 _sq._

M145 The Midsummer fires in Denmark and Norway. Keeping off the witches.
The Midsummer fires in Sweden.

418 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 517 _sq._

419 From information supplied by Mr. Sigurd K. Heiberg, engineer, of
Bergen, Norway, who in his boyhood regularly collected fuel for the
fires. I have to thank Miss Anderson, of Barskimming, Mauchline,
Ayrshire, for kindly procuring the information for me from Mr.
Heiberg.

The Blocksberg, where German as well as Norwegian witches gather for
their great Sabbaths on the Eve of May Day (Walpurgis Night) and
Midsummer Eve, is commonly identified with the Brocken, the highest
peak of the Harz mountains. But in Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and
probably elsewhere, villages have their own local Blocksberg, which
is generally a hill or open place in the neighbourhood; a number of
places in Pomerania go by the name of the Blocksberg. See J. Grimm,
_Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 878 _sq._; Ulrich Jahn, _Hexenwesen und
Zauberei in Pommern_ (Breslau, 1886), pp. 4 _sq._; _id._,
_Volkssagen aus Pommern und Rügen_ (Stettin, 1886), p. 329.

420 L. Lloyd, _Peasant Life in Sweden_ (London, 1870), pp. 259, 265.

421 L. Lloyd, _op. cit._ pp. 261 _sq._ These springs are called
“sacrificial fonts” (_Offer källor_) and are “so named because in
heathen times the limbs of the slaughtered victim, whether man or
beast, were here washed prior to immolation” (L. Lloyd, _op. cit._
p. 261).

M146 The Midsummer fires in Switzerland and Austria. Effigies burnt in
the fires. Burning wheels rolled down hill.

422 E. Hoffmann-Krayer, _Feste und Bräuche des Schweizervolkes_ (Zurich,
1913), p. 164.

423 Ignaz V. Zingerle, _Sitten, Bräuche und Meinungen des Tiroler
Volkes_2 (Innsbruck, 1871), ii. p. 159, § 1354.

424 I. V. Zingerle, _op. cit._ p. 159, §§ 1353, 1355, 1356; W.
Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 513.

425 W. Mannhardt, _l.c._

426 F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855),
i. p. 210, § 231.

427 Theodor Vernaleken, _Mythen und Bräuche des Volkes in Oesterreich_
(Vienna, 1859), pp. 307 _sq._

M147 Midsummer fires in Bohemia. Wreaths thrown across the fire. Uses
made of the singed wreaths. Burning wheels rolled down hill. Embers
of the fire stuck in fields, gardens, and houses as a talisman
against lightning and conflagration. Use of mugwort. Cattle
protected against witchcraft.

428 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 519; Theodor Vernaleken,
_Mythen und Bräuche des Volkes in Oesterreich_ (Vienna, 1859), p.
308; Joseph Virgil Grohmann, _Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen
und Mähren_ (Prague and Leipsic, 1864), p. 80, § 636;
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_ (Prague, N.D.),
pp. 306-311; Br. Jelínek, “Materialien zur Vorgeschichte und
Volkskunde Böhmens,” _Mittheilungen der anthropologischen
Gesellschaft in Wien_, xxi. (1891) p. 13; Alois John, _Sitte, Brauch
und Volksglaube im deutschen Westböhmen_ (Prague, 1905), pp. 84-86.

M148 The Midsummer fires in Moravia, Austrian Silesia, and the district
of Cracow. Fire kindled by the friction of wood.

429 Willibald Müller, _Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Mähren_
(Vienna and Olmutz, 1893), pp. 263-265.

430 Anton Peter, _Volksthümliches aus Österreichisch-Schlesien_
(Troppau, 1865-1867), ii. 287.

431 Th. Vernaleken, _Mythen und Bräuche des Volkes in Oesterreich_
(Vienna, 1859), pp. 308 _sq._

M149 The Midsummer fires among the Slavs of Russia. Cattle protected
against witchcraft. The fires lighted by the friction of wood.

_ 432 The Dying God_, p. 262. Compare M. Kowalewsky, in _Folk-lore_, i.
(1890) p. 467.

433 W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, Second Edition
(London, 1872), p. 240.

434 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 519; W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs
of the Russian People_ (London, 1872), pp. 240, 391.

435 W. R. S. Ralston, _op. cit._ p. 240.

436 W. R. S. Ralston, _l.c._

M150 The Midsummer fires in Prussia and Lithuania thought to protect
against witchcraft, thunder, hail, and cattle disease. The fire
kindled by the friction of wood.

437 W. J. A. von Tettau und J. D. H. Temme, _Die Volkssagen
Ostpreussens, Litthauens und Westpreussens_ (Berlin, 1837), p. 277.

438 M. Töppen, _Aberglauben aus Masuren_2 (Danzig, 1867), p. 71.

439 F. S. Krauss, “Altslavische Feuergewinnung,” _Globus_, lix. (1891)
p. 318.

M151 The Midsummer fires among the Letts of Russia. Midsummer Day in
ancient Rome.

440 J. G. Kohl, Die _deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen_ (Dresden and
Leipsic, 1841), i. 178-180, ii. 24 _sq._ Ligho was an old heathen
deity, whose joyous festival used to fall in spring.

441 Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 775 _sqq._

M152 The Midsummer fires among the South Slavs.

442 Friederich S. Krauss, _Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven_ (Vienna,
1885), pp. 176 _sq._

443 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 519.

M153 The Midsummer fires among the Magyars of Hungary.

444 H. von Wlislocki, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Magyar_
(Münster i. W., 1893), pp. 40-44.

445 A. von Ipolyi, “Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie aus Ungarn,”
_Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, i. (1853) pp.
270 _sq._

M154 The Midsummer fires among the Esthonians. The Midsummer fires in
Oesel.

446 J.G. Kohl, _Die deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen_, ii. 268 sq.; F.
J. Wiedemann, _Aus dem inneren und äusseren Leben der Ehsten_ (St.
Petersburg, 1876), p. 362. The word which I have translated “weeds”
is in Esthonian _kaste-heinad_, in German _Thaugras_. Apparently it
is the name of a special kind of weed.

447 Fr. Kreutzwald und H. Neus, _Mythische und Magische Lieder der
Ehsten_ (St. Petersburg, 1854), p. 62.

448 J. B. Holzmayer, “Osiliana,” _Verhandlungen der gelehrten Estnischen
Gesellschaft zu Dorpat_, vii. (1872) pp. 62 _sq._ Wiedemann also
observes that the sports in which young couples engage in the woods
on this evening are not always decorous (_Aus dem inneren und
äusseren Leben der Ehsten_, p. 362).

M155 The Midsummer fires among the Finns and Cheremiss of Russia.

449 J. G. Kohl, _Die deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen_, ii. 447 _sq._

450 J. G. Georgi, _Beschreibung aller Nationen des russischen Reichs_
(St. Petersburg, 1776), p. 36; August Freiherr von Haxthausen,
_Studien über die innere Zustände das Volksleben und insbesondere
die ländlichen Einrichtungen Russlands_ (Hanover, 1847), i. 446
_sqq._

M156 The Midsummer fires in France. Bossuet on the Midsummer festival.

451 Alfred de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de
France_ (Paris and Lyons, 1846), p. 19.

452 It is notable that St. John is the only saint whose birthday the
Church celebrates with honours like those which she accords to the
nativity of Christ. Compare Edmond Doutté, _Magie et Religion dans
l’Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers, 1908), p. 571 note 1.

453 Bossuet, _Œuvres_ (Versailles, 1815-1819), vi. 276 (“Catéchisme du
diocèse de Meaux”). His description of the superstitions is, in his
own words, as follows: “_Danser à l’entour du feu, jouer, faire des
festins, chanter des chansons deshonnêtes, jeter des herbes
par-dessus le feu, en cueillir avant midi ou à jeun, en porter sur
soi, les conserver le long de l’année, garder des tisons ou des
charbons du feu, et autres semblables._” This and other evidence of
the custom of kindling Midsummer bonfires in France is cited by Ch.
Cuissard in his tract _Les Feux de la Saint-Jean_ (Orleans, 1884).

454 Ch. Cuissard, _Les Feux de la Saint-Jean_ (Orleans, 1884), pp. 40
_sq._

M157 The Midsummer fires in Brittany. Uses made of the charred sticks and
flowers.

455 A. Le Braz, _La Légende de la Mort en Basse-Bretagne_ (Paris, 1893),
p. 279. For an explanation of the custom of throwing a pebble into
the fire, see below, p. 240.

456 M. Quellien, quoted by Alexandre Bertrand, _La Religion des Gaulois_
(Paris, 1897), pp. 116 _sq._

457 Collin de Plancy, _Dictionnaire Infernal_ (Paris, 1825-1826), iii.
40; J. W. Wolf, _Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Göttingen,
1852-1857), i. p. 217, § 185; A. Breuil, “Du Culte de St. Jean
Baptiste,” _Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Picardie_,
viii. (Amiens, 1845) pp. 189 _sq._

458 Eugène Cortet, _Essai sur les Fêtes Religieuses_ (Paris, 1867), p.
216; Ch. Cuissard, _Les Feux de la Saint-Jean_ (Orleans, 1884), p.
24.

459 Paul Sébillot, _Coutumes populaires de la Haute-Bretagne_ (Paris,
1886), pp. 192-195. In Upper Brittany these bonfires are called
_rieux_ or _raviers_.

460 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de France_
(Paris and Lyons, 1846), p. 219; E. Cortet, _Essai sur les Fêtes
Religieuses_, p. 216.

461 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de
France_, pp. 219, 228, 231; E. Cortet, _op. cit._ pp. 215 _sq._

M158 The Midsummer fires in Normandy. The fires as a protection against
witchcraft. The Brotherhood of the Green Wolf at Jumièges. Pretence
of throwing the Green Wolf into the fire.

462 J. Lecœur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_ (Condé-sur-Noireau,
1883-1887), ii. 219-224.

463 This description is quoted by Madame Clément (_Histoire des fêtes
civiles et religieuses_, etc., _de la Belgique Méridionale_,
Avesnes, 1846, pp. 394-396); F. Liebrecht (_Des Gervasius von
Tilbury Otia Imperialia_, Hanover, 1856, pp. 209 _sq._); and W.
Mannhardt (_Antike Wald und Feldkulte_, Berlin, 1877, pp. 323
_sqq._) from the _Magazin pittoresque_, Paris, viii. (1840) pp. 287
_sqq._ A slightly condensed account is given, from the same source,
by E. Cortet (_Essai sur les Fêtes Religieuses_, pp. 221 _sq._).

M159 The Midsummer fires in Picardy.

464 Bazin, quoted by Breuil, in _Mémoires de la Société d’Antiquaires de
Picardie_, viii. (1845) p. 191 note.

465 Correspondents quoted by A. Bertrand, _La Religion des Gaulois_
(Paris, 1897), pp. 118, 406.

466 Correspondent quoted by A. Bertrand, _op. cit._ p. 407.

M160 The Midsummer fires in Beauce and Perche. The fires as a protection
against witchcraft.

467 Felix Chapiseau, _Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_ (Paris,
1902), i. 318-320. In Perche the midsummer bonfires were called
_marolles_. As to the custom formerly observed at Bullou, near
Chateaudun, see a correspondent quoted by A. Bertrand, _La Religion
des Gaulois_ (Paris, 1897), p. 117.

M161 The Midsummer fires in the Ardennes, the Vosges, and the Jura. The
Midsummer fires in Franche-Comté. The Midsummer fires in Berry and
other parts of Central France.

468 Albert Meyrac, _Traditions, Coutumes, Légendes, et Contes des
Ardennes_ (Charleville, 1890), pp. 88 _sq._

469 L. F. Sauvé, _Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), p. 186.

470 Désiré Monnier, _Traditions populaires comparées_ (Paris, 1854), pp.
207 sqq.; E. Cortet, _Essai sur les Fêtes Religieuses_, pp. 217
_sq._

471 Bérenger-Féraud, _Réminiscences populaires de la Provence_ (Paris,
1885), p. 142.

472 Charles Beauquier, _Les Mois en Franche-Comté_ (Paris, 1900), p. 89.
The names of the bonfires vary with the place; among them are
_failles_, _bourdifailles_, _bâs_ or _baux_, _feulères_ or
_folières_, and _chavannes_.

_ 473 La Bresse Louhannaise_, Juin, 1906, p. 207.

474 Laisnel de la Salle, _Croyances et Légendes du Centre de la France_
(Paris, 1875), i. 78 _sqq._ The writer adopts the absurd derivation
of _jônée_ from Janus. Needless to say that our old friend Baal,
Bel, or Belus figures prominently in this and many other accounts of
the European fire-festivals.

475 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de France_
(Paris and Lyons, 1846), p. 150.

476 Correspondent, quoted by A. Bertrand, _La Religion des Gaulois_
(Paris, 1897), p. 408.

M162 The Midsummer fires in Poitou.

477 Guerry, “Sur les usages et traditions du Poitou,” _Mémoires et
dissertations publiés par la Société Royale des Antiquaires de
France_, viii. (1829) pp. 451 _sq._

478 Breuil, in _Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Picardie_,
viii. (1845) p. 206; E. Cortet, _Essai sur les Fêtes Religieuses_,
p. 216; Laisnel de la Salle, _Croyances et Légendes du Centre de la
France_, i. 83; J. Lecœur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_, ii. 225.

479 H. Gaidoz, “Le dieu gaulois du soleil et le symbolisme de la roue,”
_Revue Archéologique_, iii. Série, iv. (1884) p. 26, note 3.

480 L. Pineau, _Le Folk-lore du Poitou_ (Paris, 1892), pp. 499 _sq._ In
Périgord the ashes of the midsummer bonfire are searched for the
hair of the Virgin (E. Cortet, _Essai sur les Fêtes Religieuses_, p.
219).

M163 The Midsummer fires in the departments of Vienne and Deux-Sèvres and
in the provinces of Saintonge and Aunis.

481 A. de Nore, _Coutumes Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de France_,
pp. 149 _sq._; E. Cortet, _op. cit._ pp. 218 _sq._

482 Dupin, “Notice sur quelques fêtes et divertissemens populaires du
département des Deux-Sèvres,” _Mémoires et Dissertations publiés par
la Société Royale des Antiquaires de France_, iv. (1823) p. 110.

483 J. L. M. Noguès, _Les mœurs d’autrefois en Saintonge et en Aunis_
(Saintes, 1891), pp. 72, 178 _sq._

M164 The Midsummer fires in Southern France. Midsummer festival of fire
and water in Provence. Bathing in the sea at Midsummer. Temporary
Midsummer kings at Aix and Marseilles.

484 H. Gaidoz, “Le dieu soleil et le symbolisme de la roue,” _Revue
Archéologique_, iii. Série, iv. (1884) p. 30.

485 Ch. Cuissard, _Les Feux de la Saint-Jean_ (Orleans, 1884), pp. 22
_sq._

486 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de
France_, p. 127.

487 Aubin-Louis Millin, _Voyage dans les Départemens du Midi de la
France_ (Paris, 1807-1811), iii. 341 _sq._

488 Aubin-Louis Millin, _op. cit._ iii. 28.

489 A. de Nore, _op. cit._ pp. 19 _sq._; Bérenger-Féraud, _Reminiscences
populaires de la Provence_ (Paris, 1885), pp. 135-141. As to the
custom at Toulon, see Poncy, quoted by Breuil, _Mémoires de la
Société des Antiquaires de Picardie_, viii. (1845) p. 190 note. The
custom of drenching people on this occasion with water used to
prevail in Toulon, as well as in Marseilles and other towns in the
south of France. The water was squirted from syringes, poured on the
heads of passers-by from windows, and so on. See Breuil, _op. cit._
pp. 237 _sq._

490 A. de Nore, _op. cit._ pp. 20 _sq._; E. Cortet, _op. cit._ pp. 218,
219 _sq._

M165 The Midsummer fires in Belgium. Bonfires on St. Peter’s Day in
Brabant. The King and Queen of the Roses. Effigies burnt in the
Midsummer fires.

491 Le Baron de Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Calendrier Belge_ (Brussels,
1861-1862), i. 416 _sq._, 439.

492 Le Baron de Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _op. cit._ i. 439-442.

493 Madame Clément, _Histoire des fêtes civiles et religieuses_, etc.,
_du Département du Nord_ (Cambrai, 1836), p. 364; J. W. Wolf,
_Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Göttingen, 1852-1857), ii. 392;
W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 513.

494 E. Monseur, _Folklore Wallon_ (Brussels, N.D.), p. 130, §§ 1783,
1786, 1787.

M166 The Midsummer fires in England. Stow’s description of the Midsummer
fires in London. The Midsummer fires at Eton.

495 Joseph Strutt, _The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England_,
New Edition, by W. Hone (London, 1834), p. 359.

496 John Stow, _A Survay of London_, edited by Henry Morley (London,
N.D.), pp. 126 _sq._ Stow’s _Survay_ was written in 1598.

497 John Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
1882-1883), i. 338; T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_
(London, 1876), p. 331. Both writers refer to _Status Scholae
Etonensis_ (A.D. 1560).

498 John Aubrey, _Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme_ (London, 1881),
p. 26.

M167 The Midsummer fires in the north of England. The Midsummer fires in
Northumberland. The Midsummer fires at Whalton in Northumberland.

499 J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
1882-1883), i. 300 _sq._, 318, compare pp. 305, 306, 308 _sq._; W.
Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 512. Compare W. Hutchinson, _View of
Northumberland_, vol. ii. (Newcastle, 1778), Appendix, p. (15),
under the head “Midsummer”:—“It is usual to raise fires on the tops
of high hills and in the villages, and sport and danse around them;
this is of very remote antiquity, and the first cause lost in the
distance of time.”

500 Dr. Lyttelton, Bishop of Carlisle, quoted by William Borlase,
_Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall_
(London, 1769), p. 135 note.

_ 501 County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
Balfour (London, 1904), p. 76, quoting E. Mackenzie, _An Historical,
Topographical, and Descriptive View of the County of
Northumberland_, Second Edition (Newcastle, 1825), i. 217.

_ 502 County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
Balfour, p. 75.

_ 503 County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
Balfour, p. 75.

_ 504 The Denham Tracts_, edited by J. Hardy (London, 1892-1895), ii. 342
_sq._, quoting _Archæologia Aeliana_, N.S., viii. 73, and the
_Proceedings_ of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club, vi. 242 _sq._;
_County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
Balfour (London, 1904), pp. 75 _sq._ Whalton is a village of
Northumberland, not far from Morpeth.

_ 505 County Folk-lore_, vol. vi. _East Riding of Yorkshire_, collected
and edited by Mrs. Gutch (London, 1912), p. 102.

M168 The Midsummer fires in Herefordshire, Somersetshire, Devonshire, and
Cornwall. The Cornish fires on Midsummer Eve and St. Peter’s Eve.

506 John Aubrey, _Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme_ (London, 1881),
p. 96, compare _id._, p. 26.

507 J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
1882-1883), i. 311.

508 William Borlase, LL.D., _Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of
the County of Cornwall_ (London, 1769), pp. 135 _sq._ The Eve of St.
Peter is June 28th. Bonfires have been lit elsewhere on the Eve or
the day of St. Peter. See above, pp. 194 _sq._, 196 _sq._, and
below, pp. 199 _sq._, 202, 207.

509 J. Brand, _op. cit._ i. 318, 319; T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British
Popular Customs_ (London, 1876), p. 315.

510 William Bottrell, _Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West
Cornwall_ (Penzance, 1870), pp. 8 _sq._, 55 _sq._; James Napier,
_Folk-lore, or Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland_
(Paisley, 1879), p. 173.

511 Richard Edmonds, _The Land’s End District_ (London, 1862), pp. 66
_sq._; Robert Hunt, _Popular Romances of the West of England_, Third
Edition (London, 1881), pp. 207 _sq._

M169 The Midsummer fires in Wales and the Isle of Man. Burning wheel
rolled down hill.

512 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
1909), pp. 27 _sq._ Compare Jonathan Ceredig Davies, _Folk-lore of
West and Mid-Wales_ (Aberystwyth, 1911), p. 76.

513 J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
1882-1883), i. 318.

514 Joseph Train, _Account of the Isle of Man_ (Douglas, Isle of Man,
1845), ii. 120.

M170 The Midsummer fires in Ireland. Passage of people and cattle through
the fires. Cattle driven through the fire; ashes used to fertilize
the fields. The White Horse at the Midsummer fire.

515 Sir Henry Piers, _Description of the County of Westmeath_, written
in 1682, published by (General) Charles Vallancey, _Collectanea de
Rebus Hibernicis_, i. (Dublin, 1786) pp. 123 _sq._

516 J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
1882-1883), i. 303, quoting the author of the _Survey of the South
of Ireland_, p. 232.

517 J. Brand, _op. cit._ i. 305, quoting the author of the _Comical
Pilgrim’s Pilgrimage into Ireland_ (1723), p. 92.

_ 518 The Gentleman’s Magazine_, vol. lxv. (London, 1795) pp. 124 _sq._
The writer dates the festival on June 21st, which is probably a
mistake.

519 T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_ (London, 1876), pp.
321 _sq._, quoting the _Liverpool Mercury_ of June 29th, 1867.

520 L. L. Duncan, “Further Notes from County Leitrim,” _Folk-lore_, v.
(1894) p. 193.

521 A. C. Haddon, “A Batch of Irish Folk-lore,” _Folk-lore_, iv. (1893)
pp. 351, 359.

522 G. H. Kinahan, “Notes on Irish Folk-lore,” _Folk-lore Record_, iv.
(1881) p. 97.

523 Charlotte Elizabeth, _Personal Recollections_, quoted by Rev.
Alexander Hislop, _The Two Babylons_ (Edinburgh, 1853), p. 53.

M171 Lady Wilde’s account of the Midsummer fires in Ireland.

524 Lady Wilde, _Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of
Ireland_, (London, 1887), i. 214 _sq._

M172 Holy wells resorted to on Midsummer Eve in Ireland.

525 T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_ (London, 1876), pp.
322 _sq._, quoting the _Hibernian Magazine_, July 1817. As to the
worship of wells in ancient Ireland, see P. W. Joyce, _A Social
History of Ancient Ireland_ (London, 1903), i. 288 _sq._, 366 _sqq._

M173 The Midsummer fires in Scotland. Fires on St. Peter’s Day (the
twenty-ninth of June).

526 Rev. A. Johnstone, describing the parish of Monquhitter in
Perthshire, in Sir John Sinclair’s _Statistical Account of Scotland_
(Edinburgh, 1791-1799), xxi. 145. Mr. W. Warde Fowler writes that in
Scotland “before the bonfires were kindled on midsummer eve, the
houses were decorated with foliage brought from the woods” (_Roman
Festivals of the Period of the Republic_, London, 1899, pp. 80
_sq._). For his authority he refers to _Chambers’ Journal_, July,
1842.

527 John Ramsay, of Ochtertyre, _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth
Century_, edited by A. Allardyce (Edinburgh, 1888), ii. 436.

528 Rev. Mr. Shaw, Minister of Elgin, in Pennant’s “Tour in Scotland,”
printed in John Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_ (London,
1808-1814), iii. 136.

529 A. Macdonald, “Midsummer Bonfires,” _Folk-lore_, xv. (1904) pp. 105
_sq._

530 From notes kindly furnished to me by the Rev. J. C. Higgins, parish
minister of Tarbolton. Mr. Higgins adds that he knows of no
superstition connected with the fire, and no tradition of its
origin. I visited the scene of the bonfire in 1898, but, as
Pausanias says (viii. 41. 6) in similar circumstances, “I did not
happen to arrive at the season of the festival.” Indeed the snow was
falling thick as I trudged to the village through the beautiful
woods of “the Castle o’ Montgomery” immortalized by Burns. From a
notice in _The Scotsman_ of 26th June, 1906 (p. 8) it appears that
the old custom was observed as usual that year.

531 Thomas Moresinus, _Papatus seu Depravatae Religionis Origo et
Incrementum_ (Edinburgh, 1594), p. 56.

532 Rev. Dr. George Lawrie, in Sir John Sinclair’s _Statistical Account
of Scotland_, iii. (Edinburgh, 1792) p. 105.

M174 The Midsummer fires in Spain and the Azores. Divination on Midsummer
Eve in the Azores. The Midsummer fires in Corsica and Sardinia.

533 Letter from Dr. Otero Acevado of Madrid, published in _Le Temps_,
September 1898. An extract from the newspaper was sent me, but
without mention of the day of the month when it appeared. The fires
on St. John’s Eve in Spain are mentioned also by J. Brand, _Popular
Antiquities of Great Britain_, i. 317. Jacob Grimm inferred the
custom from a passage in a romance (_Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 518).
The custom of washing or bathing on the morning of St. John’s Day is
mentioned by the Spanish historian Diego Duran, _Historia de las
Indias de Nueva España_, edited by J. F. Ramirez (Mexico,
1867-1880), vol. ii. p. 293. To roll in the dew on the morning of
St. John’s Day is a cure for diseases of the skin in Normandy,
Périgord, and the Abruzzi, as well as in Spain. See J. Lecœur,
_Esquisses du Bocage Normand_, ii. 8; A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes
et Traditions des Provinces de France_, p. 150; Gennaro Finamore,
_Credenze, Usi e Costumi Abruzzesi_ (Palermo, 1890), p. 157.

534 M. Longworth Dames and Mrs. E. Seemann, “Folklore of the Azores,”
_Folk-lore_, xiv. (1903) pp. 142 _sq._; Theophilo Braga, _O Povo
Portuguez nos seus Costumes, Crenças e Tradiçoes_ (Lisbon, 1885),
ii. 304 _sq._, 307 _sq._

535 See below, pp. 234 _sqq._

536 Angelo de Gubernatis, _Mythologie des Plantes_ (Paris, 1878-1882),
i. 185 note 1.

_ 537 Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 202 _sq._

M175 The Midsummer fires in the Abruzzi. Bathing on Midsummer Eve in the
Abruzzi. The Midsummer fires in Sicily. The witches at Midsummer.

538 G. Finamore, _Credenze, Usi e Costumi Abruzzesi_ (Palermo, 1890),
pp. 154 _sq._

539 G. Finamore, _Credenze, Usi e Costumi Abruzzesi_, pp. 158-160. We
may compare the Provençal and Spanish customs of bathing and
splashing water at midsummer. See above, pp. 193 _sq._, 208.

540 Giuseppe Pitrè, _Spettacoli e Feste Popolari Siciliane_ (Palermo,
1881), pp. 246, 308 _sq._; _id._, _Usi e Costumi, Credenze e
Pregiudizi del Popolo Siciliano_ (Palermo, 1889), pp. 146 _sq._

541 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 518.

M176 The Midsummer fires in Malta.

542 V. Busuttil, _Holiday Customs in Malta, and Sports, Usages,
Ceremonies, Omens, and Superstitions of the Maltese People_ (Malta,
1894), pp. 56 _sqq._ The extract was kindly sent to me by Mr. H. W.
Underwood (letter dated 14th November, 1902, Birbeck Bank Chambers,
Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, W.C.). See _Folk-lore_, xiv.
(1903) pp. 77 _sq._

M177 The Midsummer fires in Greece. The Midsummer fires in Macedonia and
Albania.

543 W. R. Paton, in _Folk-lore_, ii. (1891) p. 128. The custom was
reported to me when I was in Greece in 1890 (_Folk-lore_, i. (1890)
p. 520).

544 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 519.

545 G. Georgeakis et L. Pineau, _Le Folk-lore de Lesbos_ (Paris, 1894),
pp. 308 _sq._

546 W. R. Paton, in _Folk-lore_, vi. (1895) p. 94. From the stones cast
into the fire omens may perhaps be drawn, as in Scotland, Wales, and
probably Brittany. See above, p. 183, and below, pp. 230 _sq._, 239,
240.

547 W. H. D. Rouse, “Folklore from the Southern Sporades,” _Folk-lore_,
x. (1899) p. 179.

548 Lucy M. J. Garnett, _The Women of Turkey and their Folk-lore, the
Christian Women_ (London, 1890), p. 122; G. F. Abbott, _Macedonian
Folk-lore_ (Cambridge, 1903), p. 57.

549 J. G. von Hahn, _Albanesische Studien_ (Jena, 1854), i. 156.

M178 The Midsummer fires in America.

550 K. von den Steinen, _Unter den Natur-Völkern Zentral-Brasiliens_
(Berlin, 1894), p. 561.

551 Alcide d’Orbigny, _Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale_, ii. (Paris
and Strasbourg, 1839-1843), p. 420; D. Forbes, “On the Aymara
Indians of Bolivia and Peru,” _Journal of the Ethnological Society
of London_, ii. (1870) p. 235.

M179 The Midsummer fires among the Mohammedans of Morocco and Algeria.

552 Edmond Doutté, _Magie et Religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers,
1908), pp. 566 _sq._ For an older but briefer notice of the
Midsummer fires in North Africa, see Giuseppe Ferraro,
_Superstizioni, Usi e Proverbi Monferrini_ (Palermo, 1886), pp. 34
_sq._: “Also in Algeria, among the Mussalmans, and in Morocco, as
Alvise da Cadamosto reports in his _Relazione dei viaggi d’Africa_,
which may be read in Ramusio, people used to hold great festivities
on St. John’s Night; they kindled everywhere huge fires of straw
(the _Palilia_ of the Romans), in which they threw incense and
perfumes the whole night long in order to invoke the divine blessing
on the fruit-trees.” See also Budgett Meakin, _The Moors_ (London,
1902), p. 394: “The Berber festivals are mainly those of Islam,
though a few traces of their predecessors are observable. Of these
the most noteworthy is Midsummer or St. John’s Day, still celebrated
in a special manner, and styled _El ’Anṣarah_. In the Rîf it is
celebrated by the lighting of bonfires only, but in other parts
there is a special dish prepared of wheat, raisins, etc., resembling
the frumenty consumed at the New Year. It is worthy of remark that
the Old Style Gregorian calendar is maintained among them, with
corruptions of Latin names.”

553 Edward Westermarck, “Midsummer Customs in Morocco,” _Folk-lore_,
xvi. (1905) pp. 28-30; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with
Agriculture, Certain Dates of the Solar Year, and the Weather_
(Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 79-83.

M180 Beneficial effect ascribed to the smoke of the fires. Ill luck
supposed to be burnt in the Midsummer fires.

554 E. Westermarck, “Midsummer Customs in Morocco,” _Folk-lore_, xvi.
(1905) pp. 30 _sq._; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with
Agriculture_, etc., pp. 83 _sq._

M181 The Midsummer festival in North Africa comprises rites concerned
with water as well as with fire.

555 Edmond Doutté, _Magie et Religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers,
1908), pp. 567 _sq._

556 E. Westermarck, “Midsummer Customs in Morocco,” _Folk-lore_, xvi.
(1905) pp. 31 _sq._; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with
Agriculture_, etc., pp. 84-86.

M182 The Midsummer festival in North Africa is probably older than
Mohammedanism. Some Mohammedans of North Africa kindle fires and
observe water ceremonies at their movable New Year. Water ceremonies
at New Year in Morocco.

557 See K. Vollers, in Dr. James Hastings’s _Encyclopaedia of Religion
and Ethics_, iii. (Edinburgh, 1910) _s.v._ “Calendar (Muslim),” pp.
126 _sq._ However, L. Ideler held that even before the time of
Mohammed the Arab year was lunar and vague, and that intercalation
was only employed in order to fix the pilgrimage month in autumn,
which, on account of the milder weather and the abundance of food,
is the best time for pilgrims to go to Mecca. See L. Ideler,
_Handbuch der mathematischen und techischen Chronologie_ (Berlin,
1825-1826), ii. 495 _sqq._

558 E. Doutté, _Magie et Religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_, pp. 496, 509,
532, 543, 569. It is somewhat remarkable that the tenth, not the
first, day of the first month should be reckoned New Year’s Day.

559 E. Westermarck, “Midsummer Customs in Morocco,” _Folk-lore_, xvi.
(1905) pp. 40-42.

M183 The rites of fire and water at Midsummer and New Year in Morocco
seem to be identical in character; the duplication of the festival
is probably due to a conflict between the solar calendar of the
Romans and the lunar calendar of the Arabs. The Midsummer festival
in Morocco seems to be of Berber origin.

560 E. Doutté, _Magie et Religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers,
1908), pp. 541 _sq._

561 E. Westermarck, “Midsummer Customs in Morocco,” _Folk-lore_, xvi.
(1905) p. 42; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with
Agriculture, Certain Dates of the Solar Year, and the Weather in
Morocco_ (Helsingfors, 1913), p. 101.

562 E. Westermarck, “Midsummer Customs in Morocco,” _Folk-lore_, xvi.
(1905), pp. 42 _sq._, 46 _sq._; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs
connected with Agriculture, etc., in Morocco_, pp. 99 _sqq._

M184 Festivals of fire in August. Russian feast of Florus and Laurus on
August 18th. “Living fire” made by the friction of wood.

563 G. F. Abbott, _Macedonian Folk-lore_ (Cambridge, 1903), pp. 60 _sq._

564 “Narrative of the Adventures of four Russian Sailors, who were cast
in a storm upon the uncultivated island of East Spitzbergen,”
translated from the German of P. L. Le Roy, in John Pinkerton’s
_Voyages and Travels_ (London, 1808-1814), i. 603. This passage is
quoted from the original by (Sir) Edward B. Tylor, _Researches into
the Early History of Mankind_, Third Edition (London, 1878), pp. 259
_sq._

M185 Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin on the eighth of September at
Capri and Naples.
M186 The Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin may have replaced a pagan
festival.

565 See _The Scapegoat_, pp. 166 _sq._

M187 The coincidence of the Midsummer festival with the summer solstice
implies that the founders of the festival regulated their calendar
by observation of the sun.
M188 On the other hand the Celts divided their year, not by the
solstices, but by the beginning of summer (the first of May) and the
beginning of winter (the first of November). The division seems to
have been neither astronomical nor agricultural but pastoral, being
determined by the times when cattle are driven to and from their
summer pasture.

566 E. K. Chambers, _The Mediaeval Stage_ (Oxford, 1903), i. 110 _sqq._

567 In Eastern Europe to this day the great season for driving out the
cattle to pasture for the first time in spring is St. George’s Day,
the twenty-third of April, which is not far removed from May Day.
See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 324 _sqq._ As to
the bisection of the Celtic year, see the old authority quoted by P.
W. Joyce, _The Social History of Ancient Ireland_ (London, 1903),
ii. 390: “The whole year was [originally] divided into two
parts—Summer from 1st May to 1st November, and Winter from 1st
November to 1st May.” On this subject compare (Sir) John Rhys,
_Celtic Heathendom_ (London and Edinburgh, 1888), pp. 460, 514
_sqq._; _id._, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford, 1901), i.
315 _sqq._; J. A. MacCulloch, in Dr. James Hastings’s _Encyclopaedia
of Religion and Ethics_, iii. (Edinburgh, 1910) p. 80.

568 See below, p. 225.

M189 The two great Celtic festivals, Beltane and Hallowe’en.

569 Above, pp. 146 _sqq._; _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_,
ii. 59 _sqq._

M190 Hallowe’en (the evening of October 31st) seems to have marked the
beginning of the Celtic year. The many forms of divination resorted
to at Hallowe’en are appropriate to the beginning of a New Year.
Hallowe’en also a festival of the dead.

570 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Folk-lore, Manx and Welsh_ (Oxford, 1901),
i. 316, 317 _sq._; J. A. MacCulloch, in Dr. James Hastings’s
_Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_, iii. (Edinburgh, 1910)
_s.v._ “Calendar,” p. 80, referring to Kelly, _English and Manx
Dictionary_ (Douglas, 1866), _s.v._ “Blein.” Hogmanay is the popular
Scotch name for the last day of the year. See Dr. J. Jamieson,
_Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language_, New Edition
(Paisley, 1879-1882), ii. 602 _sq._

571 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_, i. 316 _sq._

572 Above, p. 139.

573 See _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 309-318. As I have
there pointed out, the Catholic Church succeeded in altering the
date of the festival by one day, but not in changing the character
of the festival. All Souls’ Day is now the second instead of the
first of November. But we can hardly doubt that the Saints, who have
taken possession of the first of November, wrested it from the Souls
of the Dead, the original proprietors. After all, the Saints are
only one particular class of the Souls of the Dead; so that the
change which the Church effected, no doubt for the purpose of
disguising the heathen character of the festival, is less great than
appears at first sight.

574 In Wales “it was firmly believed in former times that on All
Hallows’ Eve the spirit of a departed person was to be seen at
midnight on every cross-road and on every stile” (Marie Trevelyan,
_Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_, London, 1909, p. 254).

M191 Fairies and hobgoblins let loose at Hallowe’en. Dancing with the
fairies at Hallowe’en.

575 E. J. Guthrie, _Old Scottish Customs_ (London and Glasgow, 1885), p.
68.

576 A. Goodrich-Freer, “More Folk-lore from the Hebrides,” _Folk-lore_,
xiii. (1902) p. 53.

577 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_ (London and Edinburgh, 1888),
p. 516.

578 P. W. Joyce, _A Social History of Ancient Ireland_ (London, 1903),
i. 264 _sq._, ii. 556.

579 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_, p. 516.

580 Rev. John Gregorson Campbell, _Superstitions of the Highlands and
Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1900), pp. 61 _sq._

581 Ch. Rogers, _Social Life in Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1884-1886), iii.
258-260.

M192 Guleesh and the revels of the fairies at Hallowe’en.

582 Douglas Hyde, _Beside the Fire, a Collection of Irish Gaelic Folk
Stories_ (London, 1890), pp. 104, 105, 121-128.

M193 Divination resorted to in Celtic countries at Hallowe’en.

583 P. W. Joyce, _Social History of Ancient Ireland_, i. 229.

584 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
1909), p. 254.

585 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_, pp. 514 _sq._ In order to see
the apparitions all you had to do was to run thrice round the parish
church and then peep through the key-hole of the door. See Marie
Trevelyan, _op. cit._ p. 254; J. C. Davies, _Folk-lore of West and
Mid-Wales_ (Aberystwyth, 1911), p. 77.

586 Miss E. J. Guthrie, _Old Scottish Customs_ (London and Glasgow,
1885), p. 75.

M194 Hallowe’en bonfires in the Highlands of Scotland. John Ramsay’s
account of the Hallowe’en bonfires. Divination from stones at the
fire. Hallowe’en fires in the parishes of Callander and Logierait.
Divination from stones.

587 Rev. John Gregorson Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the
Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), p. 282.

588 Thomas Pennant, “Tour in Scotland, and Voyage to the Hebrides in
1772,” in John Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, iii. (London,
1809) pp. 383 _sq._ In quoting the passage I have corrected what
seem to be two misprints.

589 John Ramsay, of Ochtertyre, _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth
Century_, edited by Alexander Allardyce (Edinburgh and London,
1888), ii. 437 _sq._ This account was written in the eighteenth
century.

590 Rev. James Robertson, Parish minister of Callander, in Sir John
Sinclair’s _Statistical Account of Scotland_, xi. (Edinburgh, 1794),
pp. 621 _sq._

591 Rev. Dr. Thomas Bisset, in Sir John Sinclair’s _Statistical Account
of Scotland_, v. (Edinburgh, 1793) pp. 84 _sq._

M195 Hallowe’en fires on Loch Tay. Hallowe’en fires at Balquhidder.

592 Miss E. J. Guthrie, _Old Scottish Customs_ (London and Glasgow,
1885), p. 67.

593 James Napier, _Folk Lore, or Superstitious Beliefs in the West of
Scotland within this Century_ (Paisley, 1879), p. 179.

594 J. G. Frazer, “Folk-lore at Balquhidder,” _The Folk-lore Journal_,
vi. (1888) p. 270.

M196 Hallowe’en fires in Buchan to burn the witches. Processions with
torches at Hallowe’en in the Braemar Highlands.

595 Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
Scotland_ (London, 1881), pp. 167 _sq._

596 Rev. A. Johnstone, as to the parish of Monquhitter, in Sir John
Sinclair’s _Statistical Account of Scotland_, xxi. (Edinburgh, 1799)
pp. 145 _sq._

597 A. Macdonald, “Some former Customs of the Royal Parish of Crathie,
Scotland,” _Folk-lore_, xviii. (1907) p. 85. The writer adds: “In
this way the ‘faulds’ were purged of evil spirits.” But it does not
appear whether this expresses the belief of the people or only the
interpretation of the writer.

M197 Divination at Hallowe’en in the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland.
The stolen kail. Sowing hemp seed. The clue of blue yarn. The
winnowing basket. The wet shirt. The thrown shoe.

598 Rev. John Gregorson Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the
Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 282 _sq._

599 Robert Burns, _Hallowe’en_, with the poet’s note; Rev. Walter
Gregor, _op. cit._ p. 84; Miss E. J. Guthrie, _op. cit._ p. 69; Rev.
J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 287.

600 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. Walter Gregor, _l.c._; Miss E. J. Guthrie,
_op. cit._ pp. 70 _sq._; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 286.

601 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. W. Gregor, _l.c._; Miss E. J. Guthrie, _op.
cit._ p. 73; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 285; A.
Goodrich-Freer, “More Folklore from the Hebrides,” _Folk-lore_,
xiii. (1902) pp. 54 _sq._

602 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. W. Gregor, _op. cit._ p. 85; Miss E. J.
Guthrie, _op. cit._ p. 71; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 285.
According to the last of these writers, the winnowing had to be done
in the devil’s name.

603 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. W. Gregor, _l.c._; Miss E. J. Guthrie, _op.
cit._ p. 72; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 286; A.
Goodrich-Freer, “More Folklore from the Hebrides,” _Folk-lore_,
xiii. (1902) p. 54.

604 Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 283.

M198 The white of eggs in water. The names on the chimney-piece. The nuts
in the fire. The milk and meal. The apples in the water. The three
plates.

605 Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ pp. 283 _sq._; A. Goodrich-Freer,
_l.c._

606 Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 284.

607 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. W. Gregor, _op. cit._ p. 85; Miss E. J.
Guthrie, _op. cit._ p. 70; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 284.
Where nuts were not to be had, peas were substituted.

608 Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 284.

609 Rev. J. G. Campbell, _l.c._ According to my recollection of
Hallowe’en customs observed in my boyhood at Helensburgh, in
Dumbartonshire, another way was to stir the floating apples and then
drop a fork on them as they bobbed about in the water. Success
consisted in pinning one of the apples with the fork.

610 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. W. Gregor, _op. cit._ pp. 85 _sq._; Miss E. J
Guthrie, _op. cit._ pp. 72 _sq._; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p.
287.

M199 The sliced apple. The white of egg in water. The salt cake or salt
herring.

611 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. W. Gregor, _op. cit._ p. 85; Miss E. J.
Guthrie, _op. cit._ pp. 69 _sq._; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p.
285. It is the last of these writers who gives what may be called
the Trinitarian form of the divination.

612 Miss E. J. Guthrie, _Old Scottish Customs_ (London and Glasgow,
1885), pp. 74 _sq._

613 A. Goodrich-Freer, “More Folk-lore from the Hebrides,” _Folk-lore_,
xiii. (1902) p. 55.

M200 Hallowe’en fires in Wales. Omens drawn from stones thrown into the
fire. Divination by stones in the ashes.

614 Pennant’s manuscript, quoted by J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of
Great Britain_ (London, 1882-1883), i. 389 _sq._

615 Sir Richard Colt Hoare, _The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through
Wales __A.D.__ MCLXXXVIII. by Giraldus de Barri_ (London, 1806), ii.
315; J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities_, i. 390. The passage quoted in
the text occurs in one of Hoare’s notes on the Itinerary. The
dipping for apples, burning of nuts, and so forth, are mentioned
also by Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_
(London, 1909), pp. 253, 255.

616 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_ (London and Edinburgh, 1888),
pp. 515 _sq._ As to the Hallowe’en bonfires in Wales compare J. C.
Davies, _Folk-lore of West and Mid-Wales_ (Aberystwyth, 1911), p.
77.

617 See above, p. 183.

618 See above, p. 231.

M201 Divination as to love and marriage at Hallowe’en in Wales.

619 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
1909), pp. 254 _sq._

M202 Divination at Hallowe’en in Ireland.

620 (General) Charles Vallancey, _Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis_, iii.
(Dublin, 1786), pp. 459-461.

M203 Divination at Hallowe’en in Queen’s County. Divination at Hallowe’en
in County Leitrim. Divination at Hallowe’en in County Roscommon.

621 Miss A. Watson, quoted by A. C. Haddon, “A Batch of Irish
Folk-lore,” _Folk-lore_, iv. (1893) pp. 361 _sq._

622 Leland L. Duncan, “Further Notes from County Leitrim,” _Folk-lore_,
v. (1894) pp. 195-197.

623 H. J. Byrne, “All Hallows Eve and other Festivals in Connaught,”
_Folk-lore_, xviii. (1907) pp. 437 _sq._

M204 Hallowe’en fires in the Isle of Man. Divination at Hallowe’en in the
Isle of Man.

624 Joseph Train, _Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of
Man_ (Douglas, Isle of Man, 1845), ii. 123; (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic
Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford, 1901), i. 315 _sqq._

625 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford, 1901),
i. 318-321.

M205 Hallowe’en fires and divination in Lancashire. Candles lighted to
keep off the witches. Divination at Hallowe’en in Northumberland.
Hallowe’en fires in France.

626 John Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, _Lancashire Folk-lore_ (Manchester
and London, 1882), pp. 3 _sq._

627 J. Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, _op. cit._ p. 140.

628 Annie Milner, in William Hone’s _Year Book_ (London, preface dated
January, 1832), coll. 1276-1279 (letter dated June, 1831); R. T.
Hampson, _Medii Acvi Kalendarium_ (London, 1841), i. 365; T. F.
Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_ (London, 1876), p. 395.

_ 629 County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
Balfour (London, 1904), p. 78. Compare W. Henderson, _Notes on the
Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England_ (London, 1879), pp.
96 _sq._

630 Baron Dupin, in _Mémoires publiées par la Société Royale des
Antiquaires de France_, iv. (1823) p. 108.

M206 A Midwinter festival of fire. Christmas the continuation of an old
heathen festival of the sun.

631 The evidence for the solar origin of Christmas is given in _Adonis,
Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp 254-256.

M207 The Yule log is the Midwinter counterpart of the Midsummer bonfire.

632 For the various names (Yu-batch, Yu-block, Yule-log, etc.) see
Francis Grose, _Provincial Glossary_, New Edition (London, 1811), p.
141; Joseph Wright, _The English Dialect Dictionary_ (London,
1898-1905), vi. 593, _s.v._ “Yule.”

633 “I am pretty confident that the Yule block will be found, in its
first use, to have been only a counterpart of the Midsummer fires,
made within doors because of the cold weather at this winter
solstice, as those in the hot season, at the summer one, are kindled
in the open air” (John Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great
Britain_, London, 1882-1883, i. 471). His opinion is approved by W.
Mannhardt (_Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstämme_, p.
236).

M208 The Yule log in Germany and Switzerland.

634 “_Et arborem in nativitate domini ad festivum ignem suum adducendam
esse dicebat_” (quoted by Jacob Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i.
522).

635 Montanus, _Die deutschen Volksfeste, Volksbräuche und deutscher
Volksglaube_ (Iserlohn, N.D.), p. 12. The Sieg and Lahn are two
rivers of Central Germany, between Siegen and Marburg.

636 J. H. Schmitz, _Sitten und Sagen, Lieder, Sprüchwörter und Räthsel
des Eifler Volkes_ (Treves, 1856-1858), i. 4.

637 Adalbert Kuhn, _Sagen, Gebräuche und Märchen aus Westfalen_
(Leipsic, 1859), ii. § 319, pp. 103 sq.

638 A. Kuhn, _op. cit._ ii. § 523, p. 187.

639 August Witzschel, _Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen_
(Vienna, 1878), p. 172.

640 E. Hoffmann-Krayer, _Feste und Bräuche des Schweizervolkes_ (Zurich,
1913), pp. 108 _sq._

M209 The Yule log in Belgium.

641 Le Baron de Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Calendrier Belge_ (Brussels,
1861-1862), ii. 326 _sq._ Compare J. W. Wolf, _Beiträge zur
deutschen Mythologie_ (Göttingen, 1852-1858), i. 117.

M210 The Yule log in France.

642 J. B. Thiers, _Traité des Superstitions_5 (Paris, 1741), i. 302
_sq._; Eugène Cortet, _Essai sur les Fêtes Religieuses_ (Paris,
1867), pp. 266 _sq._

M211 French superstitions as to the Yule log.

643 J. B. Thiers, _Traité des Superstitions_ (Paris, 1679), p 323.

M212 The Yule log at Marseilles and in Perigord. Virtues ascribed to the
charcoal and ashes of the burnt log. The Yule log in Berry.

644 Aubin-Louis Millin, _Voyage dans les Départements du Midi de la
France_ (Paris, 1807-1811), iii. 336 _sq._ The fire so kindled was
called _caco fuech_.

645 Alfred de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de
France_ (Paris and Lyons, 1846), pp. 151 _sq._ The three festivals
during which the Yule log is expected to burn are probably Christmas
Day (December 25th), St. Stephen’s Day (December 26th), and St. John
the Evangelist’s Day (December 27th). Compare J. L. M. Noguès, _Les
Mœurs d’autrefois en Saintonge et en Aunis_ (Saintes, 1891), pp.
45-47. According to the latter writer, in Saintonge it was the
mistress of the house who blessed the Yule log, sprinkling salt and
holy water on it; in Poitou it was the eldest male who officiated.
The log was called the _cosse de Nô_.

646 Laisnel de Salle, _Croyances et Légendes du Centre de la France_
(Paris, 1875), i. 1-3.

M213 The Yule log in Normandy and Brittany.

647 Jules Lecœur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_ (Condé-sur-Noireau,
1883-1887), ii. 291. The author speaks of the custom as still
practised in out-of-the-way villages at the time when he wrote. The
usage of preserving the remains of the Yule-log (called _tréfouet_)
in Normandy is mentioned also by Melle Amélie Bosquet, _La
Nortnandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse_ (Paris and Rouen, 1845), p.
294.

648 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes, et Traditions des Provinces de
France_ (Paris and Lyons, 1846), p. 256.

649 Paul Sébillot, _Coutumes populaires de la Haute-Bretagne_ (Paris,
1886), pp. 217 sq.

M214 The Yule log in the Ardennes.

650 Albert Meyrac, _Traditions, Coutumes, Légendes et Contes des
Ardennes_ (Charleville, 1890), pp. 96 _sq._

651 See above, p. 251.

652 Lerouze, in _Mémoires de l’Academie Celtique_, iii. (1809) p. 441,
quoted by J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
1882-1883), i. 469 note.

M215 The Yule log in the Vosges. The Yule log in Franche-Comté and
Burgundy.

653 L. F. Sauvé, _Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), pp. 370
_sq._

654 Charles Beauquier, _Les Mois en Franche-Comté_ (Paris, 1900), p.
183.

655 A. de Nore, Coutumes, _Mythes, et Traditions des Provinces de
France_ (Paris and Lyons, 1846), pp. 302 _sq._

M216 The Yule log and the Yule candle in England.

656 John Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
1882-1883), i. 467.

657 J. Brand, _op. cit._ i. 455; _The Denham Tracts_, edited by Dr.
James Hardy (London, 1892-1895), ii. 25 _sq._

658 Herrick, _Hesperides_, “Ceremonies for Christmasse”:

“_Come, bring with a noise,_
_ My merrie merrie boyes,_
_ The Christmas log to the firing; ..._
_ With the last yeeres brand_
_ Light the new block._”

And, again, in his verses, “Ceremonies for Candlemasse Day”:

“_Kindle the Christmas brand, and then_
_ Till sunne-set let it burne;_
_ Which quencht, then lay it up agen,_
_ Till Christmas next returne._
_ Part must be kept, wherewith to teend_
_ The Christmas log next yeare;_
_ And where ’tis safely kept, the fiend_
_ Can do no mischiefe there._”

See _The Works of Robert Herrick_ (Edinburgh, 1823), vol. ii. pp.
91, 124. From these latter verses it seems that the Yule log was
replaced on the fire on Candlemas (the second of February).

659 Miss C. S. Burne and Miss G. F. Jackson, _Shropshire Folk-lore_
(London, 1883), p. 398 note 2. See also below, pp. 257, 258, as to
the Lincolnshire, Herefordshire, and Welsh practice.

M217 The Yule log in the North of England, in Lincolnshire, Warwickshire,
Shropshire, Herefordshire. The Yule log in Wales.

660 Francis Grose, _Provincial Glossary_, Second Edition (London, 1811),
pp. 141 _sq._; T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_
(London, 1876), p. 466.

_ 661 County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
Balfour and edited by Northcote W. Thomas (London, 1904), p. 79.

_ 662 County Folk-lore_, vol. ii. _North Riding of Yorkshire, York and
the Ainsty_, collected and edited by Mrs. Gutch (London, 1901), pp.
273, 274, 275 _sq._

_ 663 County Folk-lore_, vol. vi. _East Riding of Yorkshire_, collected
and edited by Mrs. Gutch (London, 1912), pp. 23, 118, compare p.
114.

664 John Aubrey, _Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme_ (London, 1881),
p. 5.

_ 665 County Folk-lore_, vol. v. _Lincolnshire_, collected by Mrs. Gutch
and Mabel Peacock (London, 1908), p. 219. Elsewhere in Lincolnshire
the Yule-log seems to have been called the Yule-clog (_op. cit._ pp.
215, 216).

666 Mrs. Samuel Chandler (Sarah Whateley), quoted in _The Folk-lore
Journal_, i. (1883), pp. 351 _sq._

667 Miss C. S. Burne and Miss G. F. Jackson, _Shropshire Folk-lore_
(London, 1883), pp. 397 _sq._ One of the informants of these writers
says (_op. cit._ p. 399): “In 1845 I was at the Vessons farmhouse,
near the Eastbridge Coppice (at the northern end of the
Stiperstones). The floor was of flags, an unusual thing in this
part. Observing a sort of roadway through the kitchen, and the flags
much broken, I enquired what caused it, and was told it was from the
horses’ hoofs drawing in the ‘Christmas Brund.’ ”

668 Mrs. Ella Mary Leather, _The Folk-lore of Herefordshire_ (Hereford
and London, 1912), p. 109. Compare Miss C. S. Burne, “Herefordshire
Notes,” _The Folk-lore Journal_, iv. (1886) p. 167.

669 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
1909), p. 28.

M218 The Yule log in Servia. The cutting of the oak tree to form the Yule
log.
M219 Prayers to Colleda.
M220 The bringing in of the Yule log.

670 “In earlier ages, and even so late as towards the middle of the
nineteenth century, the Servian village organisation and the Servian
agriculture had yet another distinguishing feature. The dangers from
wild beasts in old time, the want of security for life and property
during the Turkish rule, or rather misrule, the natural difficulties
of the agriculture, more especially the lack in agricultural
labourers, induced the Servian peasants not to leave the parental
house but to remain together on the family’s property. In the same
yard, within the same fence, one could see around the ancestral
house a number of wooden huts which contained one or two rooms, and
were used as sleeping places for the sons, nephews and grandsons and
their wives. Men and women of three generations could be often seen
living in that way together, and working together the land which was
considered as common property of the whole family. This expanded
family, remaining with all its branches together, and, so to say,
under the same roof, working together, dividing the fruits of their
joint labours together, this family and an agricultural association
in one, was called _Zadrooga_ (The Association). This combination of
family and agricultural association has morally, economically,
socially, and politically rendered very important services to the
Servians. The headman or chief (called _Stareshina_) of such family
association is generally the oldest male member of the family. He is
the administrator of the common property and director of work. He is
the executive chairman of the association. Generally he does not
give any order without having consulted all the grown-up male
members of the _Zadrooga_” (Chedo Mijatovich, _Servia and the
Servians_, London, 1908, pp. 237 _sq._). As to the house-communities
of the South Slavs see further Og. M. Utiešenovič, _Die
Hauskommunionen der Südslaven_ (Vienna, 1859); F. Demelié, _Le Droit
Coutumier des Slaves Méridionaux_ (Paris, 1876), pp. 23 _sqq._; F.
S. Krauss, _Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven_ (Vienna, 1885), pp. 64
_sqq._ Since Servia, freed from Turkish oppression, has become a
well-regulated European state, with laws borrowed from the codes of
France and Germany, the old house-communities have been rapidly
disappearing (Chedo Mijatovich, _op. cit._ p. 240).

M221 The ceremony with the straw. The Yule candle.
M222 The roast pig. The drawing of the water.
M223 The Christmas visiter (_polaznik_).

671 Chedo Mijatovich, _Servia and the Servians_ (London, 1908), pp.
98-105.

M224 The Yule log among the Servians of Slavonia. The Christmas visiter
(_polazenik_).

672 Baron Rajacsich, _Das Leben, die Sitten und Gebräuche der im
Kaiserthume Oesterreich lebenden Südslaven_ (Vienna, 1873), pp.
122-128.

M225 The Yule log among the Servians of Dalmatia, Herzegovina, and
Montenegro. The Yule log in Albania.

673 Baron Rajacsich, _Das Leben, die Sitten und Gebräuche der im
Kaiserthume Oesterreich lebenden Südslaven_ (Vienna, 1873), pp.
129-131. The Yule log (_badnyak_) is also known in Bulgaria, where
the women place it on the hearth on Christmas Eve. See A. Strausz,
_Die Bulgaren_ (Leipsic, 1898), p. 361.

674 M. Edith Durham, _High Albania_ (London, 1909), p. 129.

675 R. F. Kaindl, _Die Huzulen_ (Vienna, 1894) p. 71.

M226 Belief that the Yule log protects against fire and lightning.

676 See above, pp. 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 258.
Similarly at Candlemas people lighted candles in the churches, then
took them home and kept them, and thought that by lighting them at
any time they could keep off thunder, storm, and tempest. See
Barnabe Googe, _The Popish Kingdom_ (reprinted London, 1880), p. 48
_verso_.

677 See above, pp. 248, 250, 251, 257, 258, 263.

678 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 356 _sqq._

679 See above, pp. 248, 249, 250, 251, 264.

M227 Public celebrations of the fire-festival at Midwinter. The bonfire
on Christmas Eve at Schweina in Thuringia.

680 August Witzschel, _Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen_
(Vienna, 1878), pp. 171 _sq._

M228 Bonfires on Christmas Eve in Normandy.

681 Jules Lecœur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_ (Condé-sur-Noireau,
1883-1887), ii. 289 _sq._

M229 Bonfires on St. Thomas’s Day in the Isle of Man. The “Burning of the
Clavie” at Burghead on the last day of December. The old rampart at
Burghead.

682 Joseph Train, _Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of
Man_ (Douglas, Isle of Man, 1845), ii. 124, referring to Cregeen’s
_Manx Dictionary_, p. 67.

683 R. Chambers, _The Book of Days_ (London and Edinburgh, 1886), ii.
789-791, quoting _The Banffshire Journal_; Miss C. F. Gordon
Cumming, _In the Hebrides_ (London, 1883), p. 226; Miss E. J.
Guthrie, _Old Scottish Customs_ (London and Glasgow, 1885), pp.
223-225; Ch. Rogers, _Social Life in Scotland_ (Edinburgh,
1884-1886), iii. 244 _sq._; _The Folk-lore Journal_, vii. (1889) pp.
11-14, 46. Miss Gordon Cumming and Miss Guthrie say that the burning
of the Clavie took place upon Yule Night; but this seems to be a
mistake.

684 Caesar, _De bello Gallico_, vii. 23.

685 Hugh W. Young, F.S.A. Scot., _Notes on the Ramparts of Burghead as
revealed by recent Excavations_ (Edinburgh, 1892), pp. 3 _sqq._;
_Notes on further Excavations at Burghead_ (Edinburgh, 1893), pp. 7
_sqq._ These papers are reprinted from the _Proceedings of the
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, vols. xxv., xxvii. Mr. Young
concludes as follows: “It is proved that the fort at Burghead was
raised by a people skilled in engineering; who used square-headed
nails, axes and chisels of iron; who shot balista stones over 20
lbs. in weight; and whose daily food was the _bos longifrons_. A
people who made paved roads, and sunk artesian wells, and used Roman
beads and pins. The riddle of Burghead should not now be very
difficult to read” (_Notes on further Excavations at Burghead_, pp.
14 _sq._). For a loan of Mr. Young’s pamphlets I am indebted to the
kindness of Sheriff-Substitute David J. Mackenzie of Kilmarnock.

M230 Procession with burning tar-barrels on Christmas Eve (Old Style) at
Lerwick.

686 Robert Cowie, M.A., M.D., _Shetland, Descriptive and Historical_
(Aberdeen, 1871), pp. 127 _sq._; _County Folk-lore_, vol. iii.
_Orkney and Shetland Islands_, collected by G. F. Black and edited
by Northcote W. Thomas (London, 1903), pp. 203 _sq._ A similar
celebration, known as Up-helly-a’, takes place at Lerwick on the
29th of January, twenty-four days after Old Christmas. See _The
Scapegoat_, pp. 167-169. Perhaps the popular festival of Up-helly-a’
has absorbed some of the features of the Christmas Eve celebration.

M231 Persian festival of fire at the winter solstice.

687 Thomas Hyde, _Historia Religionis veterum Persarum_ (Oxford, 1700),
pp. 255-257.

M232 European festivals of fire in seasons of distress and calamity. The
need-fire.

688 On the need-fire see Jacob Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 501
_sqq._; J. W. Wolf, _Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Göttingen
and Leipsic, 1852-1857), i. 116 _sq._, ii. 378 _sqq._; Adalbert
Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks_2 (Gütersloh,
1886), pp. 41 _sqq._; Walter K. Kelly, _Curiosities of Indo-European
Tradition and Folk-lore_ (London, 1863), pp. 48 _sqq._; W.
Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstämme_
(Berlin, 1875), pp. 518 _sqq._; Charles Elton, _Origins of English
History_ (London, 1882), pp. 293 _sqq._; Ulrich Jahn, _Die deutschen
Opfergebräuche bei Ackerbau und Viehzucht_ (Breslau, 1884), pp. 26
_sqq._ Grimm would derive the name _need_-fire (German, _niedfyr_,
_nodfyr_, _nodfeur_, _nothfeur_) from _need_ (German, _noth_),
“necessity,” so that the phrase need-fire would mean “a forced
fire.” This is the sense attached to it in Lindenbrog’s glossary on
the capitularies, quoted by Grimm, _op. cit._ i. p. 502: “_Eum ergo
ignem_ nodfeur _et nodfyr, quasi necessarium ignem vocant._” C. L.
Rochholz would connect _need_ with a verb _nieten_ “to churn,” so
that need-fire would mean “churned fire.” See C. L. Rochholz,
_Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_ (Berlin, 1867), ii. 149 _sq._ This
interpretation is confirmed by the name _ankenmilch bohren_, which
is given to the need-fire in some parts of Switzerland. See E.
Hoffmann-Krayer, “Fruchtbarkeitsriten im schweizerischen
Volksbrauch,” _Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde_, xi. (1907) p.
245.

M233 The need-fire in the Middle Ages. The need-fire at Neustadt in 1598.

689 “_Illos sacrilegos ignes, quos_ niedfyr _vocant_,” quoted by J.
Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 502; R. Andree, _Braunschweiger
Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), p. 312.

_ 690 Indiculus Superstitionum et Paganiarum_, No. XV., “De _igne fricato
de ligno_ _i.e._ nodfyr.” A convenient edition of the _Indiculus_
has been published with a commentary by H. A. Saupe (Leipsic, 1891).
As to the date of the work, see the editor’s introduction, pp. 4
_sq._

691 Karl Lynker, _Deutsche Sagen und Sitten in hessischen Gauen_2
(Cassel and Göttingen, 1860), pp. 252 _sq._, quoting a letter of the
mayor (_Schultheiss_) of Neustadt to the mayor of Marburg dated 12th
December 1605.

692 Bartholomäus Carrichter, _Der Teutschen Speisskammer_ (Strasburg,
1614), Fol. pag. 17 and 18, quoted by C. L. Rochholz, _Deutscher
Glaube und Brauch_ (Berlin, 1867), ii. 148 _sq._

M234 Method of kindling the need-fire.

693 Joh. Reiskius, _Untersuchung des Notfeuers_ (Frankfort and Leipsic,
1696), p. 51, quoted by J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 502
sq.; R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), p.
313.

M235 The mode of kindling the need-fire about Hildesheim.

694 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 503 _sq._

695 J. Grimm, _op. cit._ i. 504.

M236 The mode of kindling the need-fire in the Mark.

696 Adalbert Kuhn, _Märkische Sagen und Märchen_ (Berlin, 1843), p. 369.

M237 The mode of kindling the need-fire in Mecklenburg.

697 Karl Bartsch, _Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Mecklenburg_
(Vienna, 1879-1880), ii. 149-151.

M238 The mode of kindling the need-fire in Hanover.

698 Carl und Theodor Colshorn, _Märchen und Sagen_ (Hanover, 1854), pp.
234-236, from the description of an eye-witness.

M239 The mode of kindling the need-fire in the Harz Mountains.

699 Heinrich Pröhle, _Harzbilder, Sitten und Gebräuche aus dem
Harzgebirge_ (Leipsic, 1855), pp. 74 _sq._ The date of this
need-fire is not given; probably it was about the middle of the
nineteenth century.

M240 The mode of kindling the need-fire in Brunswick.

700 R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), pp. 313
_sq._

701 R. Andree, _op. cit._ pp. 314 _sq._

702 Montanus, _Die deutschen Volksfeste, Volksbräuche und deutscher
Volksglaube_ (Iserlohn, N.D.), p. 127.

M241 The mode of kindling the need-fire in Silesia and Bohemia.

703 Paul Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube in Schlesien_
(Leipsic, 1903-1906), ii. 204.

704 Anton Peter, _Volksthümliches aus Österreichisch - Schlesien_
(Troppau, 1865-1867), ii. 250.

705 Alois John, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube im deutschen Westböhmen_
(Prague, 1905), p. 209.

706 C. L. Rochholz, _Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_ (Berlin, 1867), ii.
149.

M242 The use of the need-fire in Switzerland.

707 E. Hoffmann-Krayer, “Fruchtbarkeitsriten im schweizerischen
Volksbrauch,” _Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde_, xi. (1907)
pp. 244-246.

708 E. Hoffmann-Krayer, _op. cit._ p. 246.

M243 The mode of kindling the need-fire in Sweden and Norway. The
need-fire as a protection against witchcraft.

709 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 505.

710 “Old-time Survivals in remote Norwegian Dales,” _Folk-lore_, xx.
(1909) pp. 314, 322 _sq._ This record of Norwegian folk-lore is
translated from a little work _Sundalen og Öksendalens Beskrivelse_
written by Pastor Chr. Glükstad and published at Christiania “about
twenty years ago.”

M244 The need-fire among the Slavonic peoples.

711 Prof. Vl. Titelbach, “Das heilige Feuer bei den Balkanslaven,”
_Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie_, xiii. (1900) pp. 2 _sq._
We have seen (above, p. 220) that in Russia the need-fire is, or
used to be, annually kindled on the eighteenth of August. As to the
need fire in Bulgaria see also below, pp. 284 _sq._

712 F. S. Krauss, “Altslavische Feuergewinnung,” _Globus_, lix. (1891)
p. 318, quoting P. Ljiebenov, _Baba Ega_ (Trnovo, 1887), p. 44.

M245 The need-fire in Russia, Poland, and Slavonia..

713 F. S. Krauss, _op. cit._ p. 319, quoting _Wisla_, vol. iv. pp. 1,
244 _sqq._

714 F. S. Krauss, _op. cit._ p. 318, quoting Oskar Kolberg, in
_Mazowsze_, vol. iv. p. 138.

715 F. S. Krauss, “Slavische Feuerbohrer,” _Globus_, lix. (1891) p. 140.
The evidence quoted by Dr. Krauss is that of his father, who often
told of his experience to his son.

M246 The need-fire in Servia.

716 Prof. Vl. Titelbach, “Das heilige Feuer bei den Balkanslaven,”
_Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie_, xiii. (1900) p. 3.

717 See below, vol. ii. pp. 168 _sqq._

M247 The need-fire in Bulgaria.

718 Adolf Strausz, _Die Bulgaren_ (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 194-199.

M248 The need-fire in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

_ 719 Wissenschaftliche Mittheilungen aus Bosnien und der Hercegovina_,
redigirt von Moriz Hoernes, iii. (Vienna, 1895) pp. 574 _sq._

M249 The need-fire in England, in Yorkshire.

720 “_Pro fidei divinae integritate servanda recolat lector quod, cum
hoc anno in Laodonia pestis grassaretur in pecudes armenti, quam
vocant usitate Lungessouth, quidam bestiales, habitu claustrales non
animo, docebant idiotas patriae ignem confrictione de lignis educere
et simulachrum Priapi statuere, et per haec bestiis succurrere_,”
quoted by J. M. Kemble, _The Saxons in England_ (London, 1849), i.
358 _sq._; A. Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des
Güttertranks_2 (Gütersloh, 1886), p. 43; Ulrich Jahn, _Die deutschen
Opfergebräuche bei Ackerbau und Viehzucht_ (Breslau, 1884) p. 31.

721 W. G. M. Jones Barker, _The Three Days of Wensleydale_ (London,
1854), pp. 90 _sq._; _County Folk-lore_, vol. ii., _North Riding of
Yorkshire, York and the Ainsty_, collected and edited by Mrs. Gutch
(London, 1901), p. 181.

_ 722 The Denham Tracts, a Collection of Folklore by Michael Aislabie
Denham_, edited by Dr. James Hardy (London, 1892-1895), ii. 50.

723 Harry Speight, _Tramps and Drives in the Craven Highlands_ (London,
1895), p. 162. Compare, _id._, _The Craven and North-West Yorkshire
Highlands_ (London, 1892), pp. 206 _sq._

724 J. M. Kemble, _The Saxons in England_ (London, 1849), i. 361 note.

M250 The need-fire in Northumberland.

725 E. Mackenzie, _An Historical, Topographical and Descriptive View of
the County of Northumberland_, Second Edition (Newcastle, 1825), i.
218, quoted in _County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_,
collected by M. C. Balfour (London, 1904), p. 45. Compare J. T.
Brockett, _Glossary of North Country Words_, p. 147, quoted by Mrs.
M. C. Balfour, _l.c._: “_Need-fire_ ... an ignition produced by the
friction of two pieces of dried wood. The vulgar opinion is, that an
angel strikes a tree, and that the fire is thereby obtained.
Need-fire, I am told, is still employed in the case of cattle
infected with the murrain. They were formerly driven through the
smoke of a fire made of straw, etc.” The first edition of Brockett’s
_Glossary_ was published in 1825.

726 W. Henderson, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of
England and the Borders_ (London, 1879), pp. 167 _sq._ Compare
_County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
Balfour (London, 1904), p. 45. Stamfordham is in Northumberland. The
vicar’s testimony seems to have referred to the first half of the
nineteenth century.

M251 Martin’s account of the need-fire in the Highlands of Scotland.

727 M. Martin, “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,” in J.
Pinkerton’s _General Collection of Voyages and Travels_, iii.
(London, 1809), p. 611. The second edition of Martin’s book, which
Pinkerton reprints, was published at London in 1716. For John
Ramsay’s account of the need-fire, see above, pp. 147 _sq._

M252 The need-fire in the island of Mull. Sacrifice of a heifer.

728 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 506, referring to Miss Austin
as his authority.

729 As to the custom of sacrificing one of a plague-stricken herd or
flock for the purpose of saving the rest, see below, pp. 300 _sqq._

M253 The need-fire in Caithness.

730 John Jamieson, _Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language_,
New Edition, revised by J. Longmuir and D. Donaldson, iii. (Paisley,
1880) pp. 349 _sq._, referring to “Agr. Surv. Caithn., pp. 200,
201.”

M254 The need-fire in Caithness.

731 R. C. Maclagan, “Sacred Fire,” _Folk-lore_, ix. (1898) pp. 280 _sq._
As to the fire-drill see _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_,
ii. 207 _sqq._

M255 Another account of the need-fire in the Highlands.

732 W. Grant Stewart, _The Popular Superstitions and Festive Amusements
of the Highlanders of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1823), pp. 214-216;
Walter K. Kelly, _Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and
Folk-lore_ (London, 1863), pp. 53 _sq._

M256 Alexander Carmichael’s account of the need-fire in the Highlands of
Scotland during the nineteenth century.
M257 The need-fire in Arran.
M258 The need-fire in North Uist.
M259 The need-fire in Reay, Sutherland.

733 Alexander Carmichael, _Carmina Gadelica_ (Edinburgh, 1900), ii. 340
_sq._

M260 The Beltane fires a precaution against witchcraft.

734 See above, pp. 154, 156, 157, 159 _sq._

_ 735 Census of India, 1911_, vol. xiv. _Punjab_, Part i. _Report_, by
Pandit Harikishan Kaul (Lahore, 1912), p. 302. So in the north-east
of Scotland “those who were born with their feet first possessed
great power to heal all kinds of sprains, lumbago, and rheumatism,
either by rubbing the affected part, or by trampling on it. The
chief virtue lay in the feet. Those who came into the world in this
fashion often exercised their power to their own profit.” See Rev.
Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
Scotland_ (London, 1881), pp. 45 _sq._

M261 The need-fire in Aberdeenshire.

736 Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
Scotland_ (London, 1881), p. 186. The fumigation of the byres with
juniper is a charm against witchcraft. See J. G. Campbell,
_Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of
Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), p. 11. The “quarter-ill” is a disease of
cattle, which affects the animals only in one limb or quarter. “A
very gross superstition is observed by some people in Angus, as an
antidote against this ill. A piece is cut out of the thigh of one of
the cattle that has died of it. This they hang up within the
chimney, in order to preserve the rest of the cattle from being
infected. It is believed that as long as it hangs there, it will
prevent the disease from approaching the place. It is therefore
carefully preserved; and in case of the family removing, transported
to the new farm, as one of their valuable effects. It is handed down
from one generation to another” (J. Jamieson, _Etymological
Dictionary of the Scottish Language_, revised by J. Longmuir and D.
Donaldson, iii. 575, _s.v._ “Quarter-ill”). See further Rev. W.
Gregor, _op. cit._ pp. 186 _sq._: “The fore-legs of one of the
animals that had died were cut off a little above the knee, and hung
over the fire-place in the kitchen. It was thought sufficient by
some if they were placed over the door of the byre, in the ‘crap o’
the wa’.’ Sometimes the heart and part of the liver and lungs were
cut out, and hung over the fireplace instead of the fore-feet.
Boiling them was at times substituted for hanging them over the
hearth.” Compare W. Henderson, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the
Northern Counties of England and the Borders_ (London, 1879), p.
167: “A curious aid to the rearing of cattle came lately to the
knowledge of Mr. George Walker, a gentleman of the city of Durham.
During an excursion of a few miles into the country, he observed a
sort of rigging attached to the chimney of a farmhouse well known to
him, and asked what it meant. The good wife told him that they had
experienced great difficulty that year in rearing their calves; the
poor little creatures all died off, so they had taken the leg and
thigh of one of the dead calves, and hung it in a chimney by a rope,
since which they had not lost another calf.” In the light of facts
cited below (pp. 315 _sqq._) we may conjecture that the intention of
cutting off the legs or cutting out the heart, liver, and lungs of
the animals and hanging them up or boiling them, is by means of
homoeopathic magic to inflict corresponding injuries on the witch
who cast the fatal spell on the cattle.

M262 The need-fire in Perthshire.

_ 737 The Mirror_, 24th June, 1826, quoted by J. M. Kemble, _The Saxons
in England_ (London, 1849), i. 360 note 2.

M263 The need-fire in Ireland.

738 Leland L. Duncan, “Fairy Beliefs and other Folklore Notes from
County Leitrim,” _Folk-lore_, vii. (1896) pp. 181 _sq._

M264 The use of the need-fire a relic of a time when all fires were
kindled by the friction of wood.

739 (Sir) Edward B. Tylor, _Researches into the Early History of
Mankind_, Third Edition (London, 1878), pp. 237 _sqq._; _The Magic
Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 207 _sqq._

M265 The belief that the need-fire cannot kindle if any other fire
remains alight in the neighbourhood.

740 For some examples of such extinctions, see _The Magic Art and the
Evolution of Kings_, ii. 261 _sqq._, 267 _sq._; _Spirits of the Corn
and of the Wild_, i. 311, ii. 73 _sq._; and above, pp. 124 _sq._,
132-139. The reasons for extinguishing fires ceremonially appear to
vary with the occasion. Sometimes the motive seems to be a fear of
burning or at least singeing a ghost, who is hovering invisible in
the air; sometimes it is apparently an idea that a fire is old and
tired with burning so long, and that it must be relieved of the
fatiguing duty by a young and vigorous flame.

741 Above, pp. 147, 154. The same custom appears to have been observed
in Ireland. See above, p. 158.

M266 The need-fire among the Iroquois of North America.

742 J. N. B. Hewitt, “New Fire among the Iroquois,” _The American
Anthropologist_, ii. (1889) p. 319.

M267 The burnt sacrifice of a calf in England and Wales. Burnt sacrifice
of a pig in Scotland.

743 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 507.

744 See above, p. 290.

745 William Hone, _Every-day Book_ (London, preface dated 1827), i.
coll. 853 _sq._ (June 24th), quoting Hitchin’s _History of
Cornwall_.

746 Hunt, _Romances and Drolls of the West of England_, 1st series, p.
237, quoted by W. Henderson, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern
Counties of England and the Borders_ (London, 1879), p. 149. Compare
J. G. Dalyell, _The Darker Superstitions of Scotland_ (Edinburgh,
1834), p. 184: “Here also may be found a solution of that recent
expedient so ignorantly practised in the neighbouring kingdom, where
one having lost many of his herd by witchcraft, as he concluded,
burnt a living calf to break the spell and preserve the remainder.”

747 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
1909), p. 23.

748 W. Henderson, _op. cit._ pp. 148 _sq._

749 Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
Scotland_ (London, 1881), p. 186.

750 R. N. Worth, _History of Devonshire_, Second Edition (London, 1886),
p. 339. The diabolical nature of the toad probably explains why
people in Herefordshire think that if you wear a toad’s heart
concealed about your person you can steal to your heart’s content
without being found out. A suspected thief was overheard boasting,
“They never catches _me_: and they never ooll neither. I allus wears
a toad’s heart round my neck, _I_ does.” See Mrs. Ella M. Leather,
in _Folk-lore_, xxiv. (1913) p. 238.

M268 The calf is burnt in order to break a spell which has been cast on
the herd.

751 Above, p. 301.

752 Robert Hunt, _Popular Romances of the West of England_, Third
Edition (London, 1881), p. 320. The writer does not say where this
took place; probably it was in Cornwall or Devonshire.

753 Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
Scotland_ (London, 1881), p. 184.

M269 Mode in which the burning of a bewitched animal is supposed to break
the spell.

_ 754 County Folk-lore, Printed Extracts, No. 2, Suffolk_, collected and
edited by the Lady Eveline Camilla Gurdon (London, 1893), pp. 190
_sq._, quoting _Some Materials for the History of Wherstead_ by F.
Barham Zincke (Ipswich, 1887), p. 168.

_ 755 County Folk-lore, Printed Extracts, No. 2, Suffolk_, p. 191,
referring to Murray’s _Handbook for Essex, Suffolk_, etc., p. 109.

M270 In burning the bewitched animal you burn the witch herself.
M271 Practice of burning cattle and sheep as sacrifices in the Isle of
Man.

756 (Sir) John Rhys, “Manx Folk-lore and Superstitions,” _Folk-lore_,
ii. (1891) pp. 300-302; repeated in his _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and
Manx_ (Oxford, 1901), i. 306 _sq._ Sir John Rhys does not doubt that
the old woman saw, as she said, a live sheep being burnt on old
May-day; but he doubts whether it was done as a sacrifice. He adds:
“I have failed to find anybody else in Andreas or Bride, or indeed
in the whole island, who will now confess to having ever heard of
the sheep sacrifice on old May-day.” However, the evidence I have
adduced of a custom of burnt sacrifice among English rustics tends
to confirm the old woman’s statement, that the burning of the live
sheep which she witnessed was not an act of wanton cruelty but a
sacrifice performed for the public good.

M272 By burning a bewitched animal you compel the witch to appear.

757 (Sir) John Rhys, “Manx Folk-lore and Superstitions,” _Folk-lore_,
ii. (1891) pp. 299 _sq._; _id._, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_
(Oxford, 1901), i. 304 _sq._ We have seen that by burning the blood
of a bewitched bullock a farmer expected to compel the witch to
appear. See above, p. 303.

M273 Magic sympathy between the witch and the bewitched animal.
M274 Parallel belief in magic sympathy between the animal shape of a
were-wolf and his or her ordinary human shape: by wounding the wolf
you simultaneously wound the man or woman.

758 Olaus Magnus, _Historia de Gentium Septentrionalium Conditionibus_,
lib xviii. cap. 47, p. 713 (ed. Bâle, 1567).

759 Collin de Plancy, _Dictionnaire Infernal_ (Paris, 1825-1826), iii.
473 _sq._, referring to Boguet.

760 Collin de Plancy, _op. cit._ iii. 473.

761 Felix Chapiseau, _Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_ (Paris,
1902), i. 239 _sq._ The same story is told in Upper Brittany. See
Paul Sébillot, _Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_
(Paris, 1882), i. 292. It is a common belief that a man who has once
been transformed into a were-wolf must remain a were-wolf for seven
years unless blood is drawn from him in his animal shape, upon which
he at once recovers his human form and is delivered from the bondage
and misery of being a were-wolf. See F. Chapiseau, _op. cit._ i.
218-220; Amélie Bosquet, _La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse_
(Paris and Rouen, 1845), p. 233. On belief in were-wolves in
general, see W. Hertz, _Der Werwolf_ (Stuttgart, 1862); J. Grimm,
_Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 915 _sqq._; (Sir) Edward B. Tylor,
_Primitive Culture_2 (London, 1873), i. 308 _sqq._; R. Andree,
_Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche_ (Stuttgart, 1878), pp.
62-80. In North Germany it is believed that a man can turn himself
into a wolf by girding himself with a strap made out of a wolf’s
hide. Some say that the strap must have nine, others say twelve,
holes and a buckle; and that according to the number of the hole
through which the man inserts the tongue of the buckle will be the
length of time of his transformation. For example, if he puts the
tongue of the buckle through the first hole, he will be a wolf for
one hour; if he puts it through the second, he will be a wolf for
two days; and so on, up to the last hole, which entails a
transformation for a full year. But by putting off the girdle the
man can resume his human form. The time when were-wolves are most
about is the period of the Twelve Nights between Christmas and
Epiphany; hence cautious German farmers will not remove the dung
from the cattle-stalls at that season for fear of attracting the
were-wolves to the cattle. See Adalbert Kuhn, _Märkische Sagen und
Märchen_ (Berlin, 1843), p. 375; Ulrich Jahn, _Volkssagen aus
Pommern und Rügen_ (Stettin, 1886), pp. 384, 386, Nos. 491, 495.
Down to the time of Elizabeth it was reported that in the county of
Tipperary certain men were annually turned into wolves. See W.
Camden, _Britain_, translated into English by Philemon Holland
(London, 1610), “Ireland,” p. 83.

M275 Were-wolves in China.

762 J. J. M. de Groot, _The Religious System of China_, v. (Leyden,
1907) P. 548.

M276 Were-wolves among the Toradjas of Central Celebes. The were-wolf in
human shape.

763 A. C. Kruijt, “De weerwolf bij de Toradja’s van Midden-Celebes,”
_Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xli. (1899)
pp. 548-551, 557-560.

764 A. C. Kruijt, _op. cit._ pp. 552 _sq._

765 A. C. Kruijt, _op. cit._ pp. 553. For more evidence of the belief in
were-wolves, or rather in were-animals of various sorts,
particularly were-tigers, in the East Indies, see J. J. M. de Groot,
“De Weertijger in onze Kolonien en op het oostaziatische Vasteland,”
_Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlix. (1898) pp. 549-585; G. P. Rouffaer,
“Matjan Gadoengan,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch-Indië_, l. (1899) pp. 67-75; J. Knebel, “De Weertijger
op Midden-Java, den Javaan naverteld,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische
Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xli. (1899) pp. 568-587; L. M. F.
Plate, “Bijdrage tot de kennis van de lykanthropie bij de Sasaksche
bevolking in Oost-Lombok,” _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en
Volkenkunde_, liv. (1912) pp. 458-469; G. A. Wilken, “Het animisme
bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel,” _Verspreide Geschriften_
(The Hague, 1912), iii. 25-30.

M277 Were-wolves in the Egyptian Sudan.

766 Ernst Marno, _Reisen im Gebiete des blauen und weissen Nil_ (Vienna,
1874), pp. 239 _sq._

M278 The were-wolf story in Petronius.

767 Petronius, _Sat._ 61 _sq._ (pp. 40 _sq._, ed. Fr. Buecheler,3
Berlin, 1882). The Latin word for a were-wolf (_versipellis_) is
expressive: it means literally “skin-shifter,” and is equally
appropriate whatever the particular animal may be into which the
wizard transforms himself. It is to be regretted that we have no
such general term in English.

The bright moonlight which figures in some of these were-wolf
stories is perhaps not a mere embellishment of the tale but has its
own significance; for in some places it is believed that the
transformation of were-wolves into their bestial shape takes place
particularly at full moon. See A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et
Traditions des Provinces de France_ (Paris and Lyons, 1846), pp. 99,
157; J. L. M. Noguès, _Les Mœurs d’autrefois en Saintonge et en
Aunis_ (Saintes, 1891), p. 141.

M279 Witches like were-wolves can temporarily transform themselves into
animals.

768 J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and
Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), p. 6: “In carrying out their
unhallowed cantrips, witches assumed various shapes. They became
gulls, cormorants, ravens, rats, mice, black sheep, swelling waves,
whales, and very frequently cats and hares.” To this list of animals
into which witches can turn themselves may be added horses, dogs,
wolves, foxes, pigs, owls, magpies, wild geese, ducks, serpents,
toads, lizards, flies, wasps, and butterflies. See A. Wuttke, _Der
deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 150 § 217; L.
Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_
(Oldenburg, 1867), i. 327 § 220; Ulrich Jahn, _Hexenwesen und
Zauberei in Pommern_ (Breslau, 1886), p. 7. In his _Topography of
Ireland_ (chap. 19), a work completed in 1187 A.D., Giraldus
Cambrensis records that “it has also been a frequent complaint, from
old times as well as in the present, that certain hags in Wales, as
well as in Ireland and Scotland, changed themselves into the shape
of hares, that, sucking teats under this counterfeit form, they
might stealthily rob other people’s milk.” See _The Historical Works
of Giraldus Cambrensis_, revised and edited by Thomas Wright
(London, 1887), p. 83.

_ 769 The Folk-lore Journal_, iv. (1886) p. 266; Collin de Plancy,
_Dictionnaire Infernal_ (Paris, 1825-1826), iii. 475; J. L. M.
Noguès, _Les Mœurs d’autrefois en Saintonge et en Aunis_ (Saintes,
1891), p. 141. In Scotland the cut was known as “scoring above the
breath.” It consisted of two incisions made crosswise on the witch’s
forehead, and was “confided in all throughout Scotland as the most
powerful counter-charm.” See Sir Walter Scott, _Letters on
Demonology and Witchcraft_ (London, 1884), p. 272; J. G. Dalyell,
_The Darker Superstitions of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1834), pp. 531
_sq._; M. M. Banks, “Scoring a Witch above the Breath,” _Folk-lore_,
xxiii. (1912) p. 490.

770 J. L. M. Noguès, _l.c._; L. F. Sauvé, _Le Folk-lore des
Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), p. 187.

771 M. Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_ (Leipsic, 1899), p. 117.
The wolf-skin is supposed to fall down from heaven and to return to
heaven after seven years, if the were-wolf has not been delivered
from her unhappy state in the meantime by the burning of the skin.

772 J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and
Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), p. 8; compare A. Wuttke, _Der
deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 150 § 217. Some think
that the sixpence should be crooked. See Rev. W. Gregor, _Notes on
the Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland_ (London, 1881), pp. 71
_sq._, 128; _County Folk-lore_, vol. v. _Lincolnshire_, collected by
Mrs. Gutch and Mabel Peacock (London, 1908), p. 75.

773 J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 30.

M280 Wounds inflicted on an animal into which a witch has transformed
herself are inflicted on the witch herself.

774 J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 33.

775 (Sir) Edward B. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_2 (London, 1873), i. 314.

776 Joseph Glanvil, _Saducismus Triumphatus or Full and Plain Evidence
concerning Witches and Apparitions_ (London, 1681), Part ii. p. 205.

777 Rev. J. C. Atkinson, _Forty Years in a Moorland Parish_ (London,
1891), pp. 82-84.

_ 778 County Folk-lore_, vol. v. _Lincolnshire_, collected by Mrs. Gutch
and Mabel Peacock (London, 1908), pp. 79, 80.

779 Leland L. Duncan, “Folk-lore Gleanings from County Leitrim,”
_Folk-lore_, iv. (1893) pp. 183 _sq._

M281 Wounded witches in the Vosges.

780 L. F. Sauvé, _Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), p. 176.

781 L. F. Sauvé, _op. cit._ pp. 176 _sq._

M282 Wounded witches in Swabia.

782 Ernst Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_
(Stuttgart, 1852), pp. 184 _sq._, No. 203.

783 E. Meier, _op. cit._ pp. 191 _sq._, No. 215. A similar story of the
shoeing of a woman in the shape of a horse is reported from Silesia.
See R. Kühnau, _Schlesische Sagen_ (Berlin, 1910-1913), iii. pp. 27
_sq._, No. 1380.

M283 The miller’s wife and the two grey cats.

784 R. Kühnau, _Schlesische Sagen_ (Berlin, 1910-1913), iii. pp. 23
_sq._, No. 1375. Compare _id._, iii. pp. 28 _sq._, No. 1381.

M284 The analogy of were-wolves confirms the view that the reason for
burning bewitched animals is either to burn the witch or to compel
her to appear.

785 See for example L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem
Herzogthum Oldenburg_ (Oldenburg, 1867), i. pp. 328, 329, 334, 339;
W. von Schulenburg, _Wendische Volkssagen und Gebräuche aus dem
Spreewald_ (Leipsic, 1880), pp. 164, 165 _sq._; H. Pröhle,
_Harzsagen_ (Leipsic, 1859), i. 100 _sq._ The belief in such things
is said to be universal among the ignorant and superstitious in
Germany. See A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin,
1869), p. 150, § 217. In Wales, also, “the possibility of injuring
or marking the witch in her assumed shape so deeply that the bruise
remained a mark on her in her natural form was a common belief” (J.
Ceredig Davies, _Folk-lore of West and Mid-Wales_, Aberystwyth,
1911, p. 243). For Welsh stories of this sort, see J. Ceredig
Davies, _l.c._; Rev. Elias Owen, _Welsh Folk-lore_ (Oswestry and
Wrexham, N.D., preface dated 1896), pp. 228 _sq._; M. Trevelyan,
_Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London, 1909), p. 214.

786 L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_
(Oldenburg, 1867), i. p. 361, § 239.

M285 There is the same reason for burning bewitched things.

787 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
1909), p. 210.

788 L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_
(Oldenburg, 1867), i. p. 358, § 238.

789 L. Strackerjan, _op. cit._ i. p. 360, § 238e.

M286 Similarly by burning alive a person whose form a witch has assumed,
you compel the witch to disclose herself. The burning alive of a
supposed witch in Ireland in 1895.

790 “The ‘Witch-burning’ at Clonmell,” _Folk-lore_, vi. (1895) pp.
373-384. The account there printed is based on the reports of the
judicial proceedings before the magistrates and the judge, which
were published in _The Irish Times_ for March 26th, 27th, and 28th,
April 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 8th, and July 6th, 1895.

M287 Sometimes bewitched animals are buried alive instead of being
burned.

791 John Graham Dalyell, _The Darker Superstitions of Scotland_
(Edinburgh, 1834), p. 185. In this passage “quick” is used in the
old sense of “living,” as in the phrase “the quick and the dead.”
_Nois_ is “nose,” _hoill_ is “hole,” _quhilk_ (_whilk_) is “which,”
and _be_ is “by.”

792 J. G. Dalyell, _op. cit._ p. 186. _Bestiall_ = animals; _seik_ =
sick; _calling_ = driving; _guidis_ = cattle.

793 John Ramsay, of Ochtertyre, _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth
Century_, edited by Alexander Allardyce (Edinburgh and London,
1888), ii. 446 _sq._ As to the custom of cutting off the leg of a
diseased animal and hanging it up in the house, see above, p. 296,
note 1.

794 (Sir) Arthur Mitchell, A.M., M.D., _On Various Superstitions in the
North-West Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1862), p.
12 (reprinted from the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland_, vol. iv.).

M288 Calves killed and buried to save the rest of the herd.

_ 795 County Folk-lore_, vol. v. _Lincolnshire_, collected by Mrs. Gutch
and Mabel Peacock (London, 1908), p. 75, quoting Rev. R. M. Heanley,
“The Vikings: traces of their Folklore in Marshland,” a paper read
before the Viking Club, London, and printed in its _Saga-Book_, vol.
iii. Part i. Jan. 1902. The wicken-tree is the mountain-ash or rowan
tree, which is a very efficient, or at all events a very popular
protective against witchcraft. See _County Folk-lore_, vol. v.
_Lincolnshire_, pp. 26 _sq._, 98 _sq._; Mabel Peacock, “The Folklore
of Lincolnshire,” _Folk-lore_, xii. (1901) p. 175; J. G. Campbell,
_Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of
Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 11 _sq._; Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes
on the Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland_ (London, 1881), p.
188. See further _The Scapegoat_, pp. 266 _sq._

M289 General resemblance of the European fire-festivals to each other.

796 Above, pp. 116 _sq._, 119, 143, 165, 166, 168 _sq._, 172.

797 Above, pp. 116, 117 _sq._, 119, 141, 143, 161, 162 _sq._, 163 _sq._,
166, 173, 191, 201.

M290 Two explanations suggested of the fire-festivals. According to W.
Mannhardt, they are charms to secure a supply of sunshine; according
to Dr. E. Westermarck they are purificatory, being intended to burn
and destroy all harmful influences.

798 W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstämme_
(Berlin, 1875), pp. 521 _sqq._

799 E. Westermarck, “Midsummer Customs in Morocco,” _Folk-lore_, xvi.
(1905) pp. 44 _sqq._; _id._, _The Origin and Development of the
Moral Ideas_ (London, 1906-1908), i. 56; _id._, _Ceremonies and
Beliefs connected with Agriculture, certain Dates of the Solar Year,
and the Weather in Morocco_ (Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 93-102.

800 E. Mogk, “Sitten und Gebräuche im Kreislauf des Jahres,” in R.
Wuttke’s _Sächsische Volkskunde_2 (Dresden, 1901), pp. 310 _sq._

M291 The two explanations are perhaps not mutually exclusive.

_ 801 The Golden Bough_, Second Edition (London, 1900), iii. 312: “The
custom of leaping over the fire and driving cattle through it may be
intended, on the one hand, to secure for man and beast a share of
the vital energy of the sun, and, on the other hand, to purge them
of all evil influences; for to the primitive mind fire is the most
powerful of all purificatory agents”; and again, _id._ iii. 314: “It
is quite possible that in these customs the idea of the quickening
power of fire may be combined with the conception of it as a
purgative agent for the expulsion or destruction of evil beings,
such as witches and the vermin that destroy the fruits of the earth.
Certainly the fires are often interpreted in the latter way by the
persons who light them; and this purgative use of the element comes
out very prominently, as we have seen, in the general expulsion of
demons from towns and villages. But in the present class of cases
this aspect of fire may be secondary, if indeed it is more than a
later misinterpretation of the custom.”

M292 Theory that the fire-festivals are charms to ensure a supply of
sunshine.

_ 802 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 311 _sqq._

M293 Coincidence of two of the festivals with the solstices.

803 See _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 254 _sqq._

M294 Attempt of the Bushmen to warm up the fire of Sirius in midwinter by
kindling sticks.

804 Manilius, _Astronom._ v. 206 _sqq._:

“_Cum vero in vastos surget Nemeaeus hiatus,_
_ Exoriturque Canis, latratque Canicula flammas_
_ Et rabit igne suo geminatque incendia solis,_
_ Qua subdente facem terris radiosque movente_,” etc.

Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_, xviii. 269 _sq._: “_Exoritur dein post
triduum fere ubique confessum inter omnes sidus ingens quod canis
ortum vocamus, sole partem primam leonis ingresso. Hoc fit post
solstitium XXIII. die. Sentiunt id maria et terrae, multae vero et
ferae, ut suis locis diximus. Neque est minor ei veneratio quam
descriptis in deos stellis, accenditque solem et magnam aestus
obtinet causam._”

_ 805 Specimens of Bushman Folklore_, collected by the late W. H. I.
Bleek, Ph.D., and L. C. Lloyd (London, 1911), pp. 339, 341. In
quoting the passage I have omitted the brackets which the editors
print for the purpose of indicating the words which are implied, but
not expressed, in the original Bushman text.

806 “The sun is a little warm, when this star appears in winter”
(Editors of _Specimens of Bushman Folklore_).

807 “With the stick that he had held in the fire, moving it up and down
quickly” (Editors).

808 “They take one arm out of the kaross, thereby exposing one shoulder
blade to the sun” (Editors).

M295 The burning wheels and discs of the fire-festivals may be direct
imitations of the sun.

809 See above, pp. 161, 162 _sq._ On the wheel as an emblem of the sun,
see J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 585; A. Kuhn, _Die
Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks_2 (Gütersloh, 1886), pp.
45 _sqq._; H. Gaidoz, “Le dieu gaulois du soleil et le symbolisme de
la roue,” _Revue Archéologique_, iii. Série, iv. (1884) pp. 14
_sqq._; William Simpson, _The Buddhist Praying Wheel_ (London,
1896), pp. 87 _sqq._ It is a popular Armenian idea that “the body of
the sun has the shape of the wheel of a water-mill; it revolves and
moves forward. As drops of water sputter from the mill-wheel, so
sunbeams shoot out from the spokes of the sun-wheel” (M. Abeghian,
_Der armenische Volksglaube_, Leipsic, 1899, p. 41). In the old
Mexican picture-books the usual representation of the sun is “a
wheel, often brilliant with many colours, the rays of which are so
many blood-stained tongues, by means of which the Sun receives his
nourishment” (E. J. Payne, _History of the New World called
America_, Oxford, 1892, i. 521).

810 Above, p. 169.

811 Ernst Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_
(Stuttgart, 1852), p. 225; F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen
Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855), ii. 240; Anton Birlinger,
_Volksthümliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861-1862),
ii. 57, 97; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 510.

M296 The wheel sometimes used to kindle the fire by friction may also be
an imitation of the sun.

812 Compare J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 521; J. W. Wolf,
_Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Göttingen und Leipsic,
1852-1857), ii. 389; Adalbert Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und
des Göttertranks_2 (Gütersloh, 1886), pp. 41 _sq._, 47; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 521. Lindenbrog in his Glossary on the
Capitularies (quoted by J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 502)
expressly says: “The rustics in many parts of Germany, particularly
on the festival of St. John the Baptist, wrench a stake from a
fence, wind a rope round it, and pull it to and fro till it catches
fire. This fire they carefully feed with straw and dry sticks and
scatter the ashes over the vegetable gardens, foolishly and
superstitiously imagining that in this way the caterpillar can be
kept off. They call such a fire _nodfeur_ or _nodfyr_, that is to
say need-fire.”

813 Above, pp. 144 _sq._, 147 _sq._, 155, 169 _sq._, 175, 177, 179.

814 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 509; J. W. Wolf, _Beiträge zur
deutschen Mythologie_, i. 117; A. Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des
Feuers_,2 pp. 47 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 521; W. E.
Kelly, _Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore_
(London, 1863), p. 49.

815 A. Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks_2
(Gütersloh, 1886), p. 47.

816 Above, p. 179.

817 F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855),
ii. 240, § 443.

818 Above, p. 177.

M297 The influence which the fires are supposed to exert on the weather
and vegetation may be thought to be due to an increase of solar heat
produced by the fires.

819 Above, pp. 187 _sq._

820 Above, pp. 279 _sq._

821 Above, p. 188.

822 Above, p. 159.

823 Above, p. 116.

824 Above, p. 201.

825 L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_ (London, 1898), pp. 160
_sq._

826 Rev. J. Shooter, _The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu Country_ (London,
1857), p. 18.

827 Above, pp. 140, 142.

828 Above, pp. 119, 165, 166, 173, 203.

829 Above, p. 140.

830 Above, p. 121.

831 Above, pp. 141, 170, 190, 203, 248, 250, 264.

832 Above, p. 251.

833 Above, pp. 119, 165, 166, 168, 173, 174.

834 Above, pp. 118, 163 _sq._

835 Above, p. 201.

M298 The effect which the bonfires are supposed to have in fertilizing
cattle and women may also be attributed to an increase of solar heat
produced by the fires.

836 Above, p. 203.

837 Above, p. 250.

838 Above, pp. 251, 262, 263, 264.

839 Above, p. 112.

840 Above, p. 141.

841 Above, p. 214.

842 Above, p. 204.

843 Above, p. 194.

844 Above, pp. 185, 189; compare p. 174.

845 Above, p. 166.

846 Above, pp. 249, 250.

847 Above, pp. 107, 109, 111, 119; compare pp. 116, 192, 193.

848 Above, p. 115.

849 Above, p. 180.

M299 The custom of carrying lighted torches about the country at the
festivals may be explained as an attempt to diffuse the sun’s heat.

850 Above, pp. 113, 142, 170, 233. The torches of Demeter, which figure
so largely in her myth and on her monuments, are perhaps to be
explained by this custom. See _Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_,
i. 57. W. Mannhardt thought (_Baumkultus_, p. 536) that the torches
in the modern European customs are imitations of lightning. At some
of their ceremonies the Indians of North-West America imitate
lightning by means of pitch-wood torches which are flashed through
the roof of the house. See J. G. Swan, quoted by Franz Boas, “The
Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl
Indians,” _Report of the United States National Museum for 1895_
(Washington, 1897), p. 639.

851 Above, p. 203.

852 Amélie Bosquet, _La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse_ (Paris and
Rouen, 1845), pp. 295 _sq._; Jules Lecœur, _Esquisses du Bocage
Normand_ (Condé-sur-Noireau, 1883-1887), ii. 126-129. See _The
Scapegoat_, pp. 316 _sq._

853 Br. Jelínek, “Materialen zur Vorgeschichte und Volkskunde Böhmens,”
_Mittheilungen der anthropolog. Gesellschaft in Wien_, xxi. (1891)
p. 13 note.

854 Mrs. Bishop, _Korea and her Neighbours_ (London, 1898), ii. 56 _sq._

855 Above, pp. 190 _sq._

856 Above, pp. 178, 205, 206.

M300 Theory that the fires at the festivals are purificatory, being
intended to burn up all harmful things.
M301 The purificatory or destructive effect of the fires is often alleged
by the people who light them. The great evil against which the fire
at the festivals is directed appears to be witchcraft.

857 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 311 _sqq._

858 Above, pp. 108, 109, 116, 118 _sq._, 121, 148, 154, 156, 157, 159,
160, 170, 171, 174, 175, 176, 180, 183, 185, 188, 232 _sq._, 245,
252, 253, 280, 292, 293, 295, 297. For more evidence of the use of
fire to burn or expel witches on certain days of the year, see _The
Scapegoat_, pp. 158 _sqq._ Less often the fires are thought to burn
or repel evil spirits and vampyres. See above, pp. 146, 170, 172,
202, 252, 282, 285. Sometimes the purpose of the fires is to drive
away dragons (above, pp. 161, 195).

859 Above, pp. 107, 116, 118 _sq._, 159.

860 “In short, of all the ills incident to the life of man, none are so
formidable as witchcraft, before the combined influence of which, to
use the language of an honest man who had himself severely suffered
from its effects, the great laird of Grant himself could not stand
them if they should fairly yoke upon him” (W. Grant Stewart, _The
Popular Superstitions and Festive Amusements of the Highlanders of
Scotland_, Edinburgh, 1823, pp. 202 _sq._). “Every misfortune and
calamity that took place in the parish, such as ill-health, the
death of friends, the loss of stock, and the failure of crops; yea
to such a length did they carry their superstition, that even the
inclemency of the seasons, were attributed to the influence of
certain old women who were supposed to be in league, and had
dealings with the Devil. These the common people thought had the
power and too often the inclination to injure their property, and
torment their persons” (_County Folk-lore_, vol. v. _Lincolnshire_,
collected by Mrs. Gutch and Mabel Peacock, London, 1908, p. 76).
“The county of Salop is no exception to the rule of superstition.
The late vicar of a parish on the Clee Hills, startled to find that
his parishioners still believed in witchcraft, once proposed to
preach a sermon against it, but he was dissuaded from doing so by
the parish schoolmaster, who assured him that the belief was so
deeply rooted in the people’s minds that he would be more likely to
alienate them from the Church than to weaken their faith in
witchcraft” (Miss C. F. Burne and Miss G. F. Jackson, _Shropshire
Folk-lore_, London, 1883, p. 145). “Wherever a man or any living
creature falls sick, or a misfortune of any kind happens, without
any natural cause being discoverable or rather lying on the surface,
there in all probability witchcraft is at work. The sudden stiffness
in the small of the back, which few people can account for at the
time, is therefore called a ‘witch-shot’ and is really ascribed to
witchcraft” (L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem
Herzogthum Oldenburg_, Oldenburg, 1867, i. p. 298, § 209). What Sir
Walter Scott said less than a hundred years ago is probably still
true: “The remains of the superstition sometimes occur; there can be
no doubt that the vulgar are still addicted to the custom of scoring
above the breath (as it is termed), and other counter-spells,
evincing that the belief in witchcraft is only asleep, and might in
remote corners be again awakened to deeds of blood” (_Letters on
Demonology and Witchcraft_, London, 1884, p. 272). Compare L.
Strackerjan, _op. cit._ i. p. 340, § 221: “The great power, the
malicious wickedness of the witches, cause them to be feared and
hated by everybody. The hatred goes so far that still at the present
day you may hear it said right out that it is a pity burning has
gone out of fashion, for the evil crew deserve nothing else. Perhaps
the hatred might find vent yet more openly, if the fear were not so
great.”

M302 Amongst the evils for which the fire-festivals are deemed remedies
the fore-most is cattle-disease, and cattle-disease is often
supposed to be an effect of witchcraft.

861 For some evidence, see _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_,
ii. 52-55, 330 _sqq._ It is a popular belief, universally diffused
in Germany, that cattle-plagues are caused by witches (A. Wuttke,
_Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_,2 Berlin, 1869, p. 149 § 216). The
Scotch Highlanders thought that a witch could destroy the whole of a
farmer’s live stock by hiding a small bag, stuffed with charms, in a
cleft of the stable or byre (W. Grant Stewart, _The Popular
Superstitions and Festive Amusements of the Highlanders of
Scotland_, Edinburgh, 1823, pp. 201 _sq._).

_ 862 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 330 _sqq._

863 Above, pp. 282, 284 _sq._

M303 Again, the bonfires are thought to avert hail, thunder, lightning,
and other maladies, all of which are attributed to the maleficent
arts of witches.

864 Above, pp. 118, 121, 144, 145, 176.

865 Above, pp. 121, 122, 124, 140 _sq._, 145, 146, 174, 176, 183, 184,
187, 188, 190, 191, 192, 249, 250, 252, 253, 254, 258.

866 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 908 _sqq._; J. V. Grohmann,
_Aberglauben und. Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren_ (Prague and
Leipsic, 1864), p. 32 § 182; A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche
Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), pp. 149 _sq._, § 216; J. Ceredig
Davies, _Folk-lore of West and Mid-Wales_ (Aberystwyth, 1911), p.
230; Alois John, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube im deutschen
Westböhmen_ (Prague, 1905), p. 202.

867 Above, pp. 108, 121, 140, 146, 165, 183, 188, 196, 250, 255, 256,
258.

868 Above, pp. 107, 195 _sq._

869 Above, pp. 162, 163, 166, 171, 174.

870 A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 351, §
395.

871 Above, pp. 165, 168, 189, compare 190.

872 A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 351, §
395; L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum
Oldenburg_ (Oldenburg, 1867), i. p. 298, § 209. See above, p. 343
note.

M304 The burning wheels rolled down hills and the burning discs and
brooms thrown into the air may be intended to burn the invisible
witches.

873 In the Ammerland, a district of Oldenburg, you may sometimes see an
old cart-wheel fixed over the principal door or on the gable of a
house; it serves as a charm against witchcraft and is especially
intended to protect the cattle as they are driven out and in. See L.
Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_
(Oldenburg, 1867), i. p. 357, § 236. Can this use of a wheel as a
talisman against witchcraft be derived from the practice of rolling
fiery wheels down hill for a similar purpose?

874 F. S. Krauss, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven_
(Münster i. W., 1890), pp. 118 _sq._

M305 On this view the fertility supposed to follow the use of fire
results indirectly from breaking the spells of witches.

875 In German such spells are called _Nestelknüpfen_; in French, _nouer
l’aiguilette_. See J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 897, 983;
A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 252 §
396; E. Doutté, _Magie et Religion dans l’Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers,
1908), pp. 87 _sq._, 294 _sqq._; J.L.M. Noguès, _Les Mœurs
d’autrefois en Saintonge et en Aunis_ (Saintes, 1891), pp. 171 _sq._

M306 On the whole the theory of the purificatory or destructive intention
of the fire-festivals seems the more probable.

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