Part 15 (2/2)

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]

[The Midsummer fires among the Esthonians; the Midsummer fires in Oesel.]

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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 b.u.t.ter 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]

[The Midsummer fires among the Finns and Cheremiss of Russia.]

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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.semble 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 G.o.d 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]

[The Midsummer fires in France; Bossuet on the Midsummer festival.]

When we pa.s.s 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 partic.i.p.ated 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 banis.h.i.+ng the superst.i.tions practised at the purely mundane bonfires. These superst.i.tions, 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 superst.i.tions 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 superst.i.tious 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, pa.s.s 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]

[The Midsummer fires in Brittany; uses made of the charred sticks and flowers.]

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 a.s.sembly 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 Finistere the bonfires of St. John's Day are kindled by preference in an open s.p.a.ce 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 f.a.ggot, 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 Leon, 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 a.s.semble 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]

[The Midsummer fires in Normandy; the fires as a protection against witchcraft; the Brotherhood of the Green Wolf at Jumieges; pretence of throwing the Green Wolf into the fire.]

In Normandy the midsummer fires have now almost disappeared, at least in the district known as the Bocage, but they used to s.h.i.+ne 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 b.u.t.ter.[462] At Jumieges 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 a.s.sumed the t.i.tle 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 ma.s.s 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 Baccha.n.a.lian 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 handbells, 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]

[The Midsummer fires in Picardy.]

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 munic.i.p.al 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 a.s.sistant 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 Chateau-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]

[The Midsummer fires in Beauce and Perche; the fires as a protection against witchcraft.]

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 f.a.ggots, brushwood, and gra.s.s was acc.u.mulated 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 mult.i.tude 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 pa.s.s through the smoke and flames for the purpose of protecting them against witchcraft or disease.[467]

[The Midsummer fires in the Ardennes, the Vosges, and the Jura; the Midsummer fires in Franche-Comte; the Midsummer fires in Berry and other parts of Central France.]

In the department of the Ardennes every one was wont to contribute his f.a.ggot 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 _ba_ 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-Comte, 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 s.e.xes 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, circ.u.mambulated 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 _jonee, joannee_, or _jouannee_. Every family according to its means contributed f.a.ggots, 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 Perigord, 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 Correze, 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 a.s.sembled 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]

[The Midsummer fires in Poitou.]

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 pa.s.sed sprigs of mullein (_verbasc.u.m_) 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-c.o.c.kles 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 f.a.ggots 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]

[The Midsummer fires in the departments of Vienne and Deux-Sevres and in the provinces of Saintonge and Aunis.]

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